The city is putting up another Blue Bonnets lot for sale, with the proviso that 60% of the resulting residential spaces will be affordable. That 40% of them will be unaffordable is an inevitable corollary.
Updates from October, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Women in hijab have reported several hateful incidents in Montreal North.
carswell
Wonder why the Journal didn’t allow comments on the story. /s
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Kate
There’s been lots of talk but there’s been no resolution to the humanitarian crisis happening right in the heart of Montreal, at the corner of Milton and Park Avenue. A spokesman says the city wants to help but that funding is not forthcoming from the Quebec government to create a permanent place to live, plus necessary support, for the indigenous people who gather around that intersection.
Chris
I think the article itself is right to put “humanitarian crisis” in quotes. As tragic as it is, we’re talking about tens of people here. Every definition of “humanitarian crisis” I can find refers to a *very large* group of people. If we use terms like this for small tragedies, what do you then call large ones to distinguish them by their largeness? (None of this is to say these people shouldn’t be helped, I’m just feeling linguistically pedantic I guess.)
Kate
They’re not scare-quoting it to say it’s fake, they’re putting quotes around an expression that the city ombudsman used in a report.
There’s no statutory size for a humanitarian crisis. The awful thing about this one is it’s not over there somewhere. It’s right in the heart of the city and yet we can’t find the resources or the right strategy to resolve it.
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Kate
One of Denis Coderre’s projects for the city’s 375th anniversary, a thing called the Maison des régions – which I don’t recall ever hearing about at the time, since the granite stumps were evoking such general merriment – was quietly closed down at the start of 2021 by the Plante administration, but not till it had swallowed up $2 million in public funds.
Reliably, we get a soundbite from Ensemble’s Aref Salem saying obviously this city doesn’t care about the regions, and Luc Rabouin giving a brief defense of the closure. Nobody mentions that with the CAQ firmly implanted in the regions, they need no help from Montreal.
I guess a few people had well paid meaningless paper‑pushing jobs in that office for a few years. So it goes.
Coderre has been on Facebook bragging about his indigenous girlfriend, by the way. He used to be married to Chantale Renaud, last year it was announced he was seeing Mélanie Savard, and lately he’s all over Facebook with Wina Sioui.
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Kate
The city is working on replacing old lead water pipes, but the project, once expected to end in 2030, has been extended to 2032. That’s going to mean a lot of digging.
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Kate
A CNESST report says that incidents of violence toward metro workers have risen in sync with the fall in ridership from the pandemic. (I was a little puzzled at first by the use of “personnes vulnérables” in this piece till I realized it means the homeless and other marginal people as instigators of violence, not as its victims.)
Philippe Teisceira-Lessard also uncovers the fact that an STM committee created to work on community issues hasn’t sat once this year and has lost its chairman. The chairman, a UdeM criminologist, says he gave up because STM management never responded to his emails.
This item, like the one below on parking, is inevitably followed by a series of vox pops which don’t illuminate the story. I suppose reporters are told to collect these, but I’m noticing today in particular how they add wordage but little value to a news story.
steph
When upper management conceive of kafkaesk systems to resolve customer issues, the blowback is always on the front line worker. I’m sorry “calling the helpline does nothing. I have your face in front of me now and you’re going to eat my ****”. It’s the equivalent of the “we’re experienceing a higher than normal call volume” phrase we all hear EVERY time you call, for years. Doesn’t anyone in upper management have a head to stop with the bullshit?
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Kate
Free parking spots are on the decline downtown as the city reorganizes streets in various ways, but it is not directly trying to reduce parking spots as is being done in Paris. This is a wide survey by Suzanne Colpron, with some stats and some vox pops.
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Kate
A daycare in Pierrefonds was set on fire early Monday. CTV says it’s the third time this establishment has been the target of arsonists.
CTV also reports a probably criminally set fire on Fairmount near Park Avenue, Sunday evening. Nobody got hurt.
JP
I know it was over night but something about it being a daycare really disgusts me. Also, what if someone was in there for whatever reason. I remember a manager sleeping over night at a Jean Coutu once….could happen.
carswell
Can anyone be more specific about which building on Fairmount?
walkerp
Yeah was weird the vagueness.
It’s insane how this kind of extortion still exists in Montreal. What are all these cops we’ve hired actually doing? (Don’t answer, they are probably complicit and getting their kickbacks).
Kate
I’ve commented before how our media are always vague and coy about locations. They will say “a commercial building at the corner of X and Y” but not tell you what business is in the building or its specific address – in this case, we don’t even get “northeast corner” or the like.
I can only assume this is a chilling effect by lawyers, because newspapers used to be very specific about this kind of thing all the time.
carswell, if I see anything more specific I will add a note.
Joey
I saw a clip on twitter that implied the Fairmount fire was in an alley – looked like someone set a dumpster on fire…
Ian
The fire appears to have been at the back of Faros
carswell
Thanks for the update, @Ian. Back of a resto is indeed suspicious. Now wondering whether the owners have received any “nice place you got here; be a shame if anything happened to it” messages.
Ian
Maybe but thinking back on all the places that got burned down by the protection racket in the area were firebombs through the front. Damas, Prime Time, the old grocery by Fruiterie Mile End… they seem to prefer an obvious message. It could just have been a careless smoker.
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Kate
These photos of a Montreal Halloween scene are making the rounds.
steph
Now that’s a horror, a pain, pure hell, a nightmares, and capharnaüm. who will think about the children? 🙂
JP
This one is obviously nothing like the ultra realistic looking suicide-appearing hanging man.
Ephraim 09:55 on 2022-10-18 Permalink
Anyone want to make bets that the affordable housing will be in the spots closest to the rail lines and the furthest away from transit?