Alexandre Pratt looks back at how Montreal saw the chance of holding a few matches in the FIFA World Cup in 2026 slip through its fingers. I have to say I agree with his conclusion.
Updates from March, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The federal government has plans for a dental care system but Quebec wants to opt out, get Ottawa’s money and do things its own way.
Kevin
My eyes are still rolling that the province went begging Ottawa for cash for healthcare and turned around and implemented tax cuts.
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Kate
Mayor Plante says Quebec’s contribution to social housing will build only 264 units spread over five projects, and that’s a drop in the bucket.
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Kate
The city announced its plans for what it calls Bridge-Bonaventure – the area including Habitat, Silo no 5, the Farine Five Roses sign and the Black Rock, often referred to as the Peel Basin. The city is demanding a REM station for the area. Devimco will be doing all the building of what’s expected to be as many as 7600 residential units.
MarcG
For anyone interested in getting involved, the shit disturbers of PSC are holding public meetings on April 2nd and 4th.
Tim S.
So based on the artist’s sketch, they will keep the Costco but without a parking lot? Interesting experiment.
JaneyB
@MarcG – Thanks for the PSC meeting heads-up. I will be there and writing Mayor Plante as well at: mairesse@montreal.ca I can’t believe she would allow Divimco to do this again. PSC is a tight, fierce little community. It shouldn’t be mowed down to become another tech dormitory.
Faiz imam
This development is for the industrial areas and vacant land right? How will existing residential communities in PSC be impacted?
MarcG
Looks like the link I posted has changed, here’s a working one https://www.actiongardien.org/blog/2023/03/30/bridge-bonaventure-portes-ouvertes
DeWolf
@Faiz @JaneyB Yes, this is for vacant and industrial land. If you look at MarcG’s link, the PSC community group is proposing an alternative vision for the area, but nobody is suggesting that it shouldn’t be developed into housing.
@Tim I’ve heard Costco has plans to redevelop its own site by adding a parking garage and a second floor to the warehouse. Downtown Vancouver has a Costco with no surface parking, and so does Harlem in NYC. It’s rare but not unprecedented.
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Kate
A raid is in progress at the locations and homes of various Hells and mob bigwigs. Daniel Renaud says 70 cops are seeking evidence, not planning to make arrests.
Renaud has another piece on Francesco Del Balso, stopped at the airport Wednesday morning on his way to Italy. Del Balso is apparently under suspicion in the recent attempt on Leonardo Rizzuto’s life.
Update: TVA says there’s a price on Del Balso’s head which is why he was trying to leave the country.
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Kate
Quebec’s about to rejig the health system – do we think this will work, or will it end up making it harder to access help, and possibly put more services on a commercial basis?
I thought we already had a thing called Santé Québec…
jeather
Harder to access help? Is that possible now?
Just seems like another layer of bureaucracy to pay instead of more doctors.
Blork
I wish I wasn’t so cynical about government attempts to “improve” things. It’s almost always done by adding (as jeather says) another layer of bureaucracy, instead of simply hiring more people and (somehow) empowering them to be flexible in how they work so they can adapt to local and temporal situations and blah blah blah now I’m babbling because I have no idea how to get this babbling problem looked at.
MarcG
No doubt this will include some slippery-sloping towards privatization.
Maxim Baru
One thing is certain: there haven’t been any substantive efforts to consult with people who work in healthcare, or people who represent patients. Not even in some anemic form like focus groups or something.
I think the promise that this won’t mean “going to war with the unions” means exactly the opposite…
Uatu
So another layer of bullshit jobs. Ok
Tux
I just wanted to provide a link to the text of Bill 15 for anyone that wanted to read through it as I’m in the process of doing.
Kate
Thank you, Tux.
Joey
I think the intention is to replace the already excessively bloated health bureaucracy with a smaller, less-powerful layer of bureaucracy that more completely implements whatever the minister wants. YMMV on whether that’s a good thing or not (the first half, probably, the secodn, maybe less so). The minister’s MMV on whether creating a new agency does anything other than add another layer complexity to the system.
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Kate
Seventeen stolen cars were found at the Port of Montreal, luxury vehicles worth $800,000 all told.
jeather
I’m unconvinced that a car that costs 45-50k is generally classed as a luxury SUV. Not that those are cheap cars, but luxury?
mare
A (legit) car exporter told me recently —when I sold him my 24 year old Subaru that he only wanted for the engine— that really luxury cars aren’t easy to maintain without fancy diagnostic equipment, only available to registered dealers of which there aren’t that many in poorer countries in Africa and the Middle East. He volunteered that the Honda CR-V is the most stolen car here because it can still be repaired all over the world. I take his word for it, I don’t know much about cars.
thomas
$45-50K is the going price for a 3 year old Mercedes or BMW (for example) SUV. I suspect they are destined for eastern Europe, I saw plenty of such SUVs on the streets of Riga/Tallinn/etc. (many clearly from North America often with a US dealership logo still on the car).
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Kate
The tiny Bagg Street Shul was defaced with spray‑painted swastikas recently. Brief story doesn’t mention whether the building has security cameras, but I don’t think it’s in regular use as a synagogue these days, so maybe not. The Gazette mentions the mayor’s reaction but gives as much space to Ensemble.
shawn
It seems to be in regular use as a synagogue: https://baggstreetshul.com
Kate
Nice! I had a look around inside, a long time ago, when I made a sign for their front door, which you can still see posted in 2009. A man named Joe Brick used to be the caretaker and he let me step inside for a bit. (He was a friend of S.W. Welch’s, who suggested I could do it.) There are little paintings all around the walls.
I didn’t realize there was a tradition where the men wear top hats.
Ephraim
From those pictures… it’s not a tradition, it’s a costume… it was Purim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim
Kate
Thanks, Shawn and Ephraim!
Blork 18:26 on 2023-03-29 Permalink
As do I. No city anywhere should touch anything that is even remotely connected to FIFA.
Faiz imam 10:40 on 2023-03-30 Permalink
That’s an excellent article. I wish freedom of information requests actually got un censored results more often so we would see the sausage being made more often.
DeWolf 11:16 on 2023-03-30 Permalink
“La FIFA exigeait un « vacuum événementiel » autour de la Coupe du monde, en pleine saison des festivals.”
Lol. Imagine having to cancel the Francos, Mural Fest, Jazz Fest and who knows what else just to appease FIFA…
jeather 13:58 on 2023-03-30 Permalink
I guess that is the only good thing Legault has ever done for Montreal.