Toula Drimonis writes a love letter to this city under the heading Stop trash-talking Montreal, directed at the endless stream of anti‑Montreal sentiment emanating from Quebecor.
Updates from May, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A man accused of insulting and assaulting 3 Muslim women on Ste‑Catherine is being sought by police, who provide some good pictures and a clear description.
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Kate
The city was going to extend paid parking hours downtown but is now holding off after much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The changes won’t happen till the end of the summer.
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Kate
Two young men who carried out a daylight assassination in Villeray in 2020 were convicted of murder in the first degree last week, and are facing 25 years in prison – as discussed here recently. But their lawyer wants to challenge the constitutionality of the rule saying they must serve the full 25 years before eligibility for parole.
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Kate
CTV has a brief piece summarizing the fines and penalties issued to three delinquent drivers.
Tim S.
How is driving without a licence not a criminal offence?
Nicholas
Europe is requiring speed governors in all vehicles. We have them here in Quebec (set at 105 km/h). There’s no reason we shouldn’t require them in cars set at, say, 120 km/h. Vehicles without them are tampered goods and should be forfeited. That won’t solve all dangerous speeding, but it will solve some.
Chris
Tim, I wonder if they mean he didn’t have the license (the plastic artifact) on him?
Kevin
Tim,
Driving while prohibited can result in a 10 year sentence, but the immediate action police can take on the spot is seizing a vehicle for 30 days.Ephraim
There are speed governors in some trucks. But it’s more of an optional thing. Considering that the speed limit in some other provinces is higher than 105km/h, that doesn’t sound like a smart move (110km/h is the highest limit at the moment). Some cars have them, and you can set it. I think 130km/h is a safe bet. But I do wonder if there is a safety issue, that you may need to speed to get out of a bad position, like in someone’s blind spot or between two trucks. I’m just not sure how safe it is to limit it to so close to the limit.
steph
@ Nicholas. Speed governors with GPS are intelligent enough to change the max speed limit as needed. Google Maps tells me the speed limit as I’m driving (and my speed).
@ Ephraim, according to proper defensive driving – you should never be near the speed limit. Maybe allowing a ‘disabling’ system, where you have to justify (ie provide a doctors note) or eat the fine…Soon we’ll all have self driving cars and accidents will be an oddity of the past.
jeather
Yes, self-driving Teslas are doing great, no notes.
Tim S.
Thanks Kevin. Do you happen to know if he might face charges later on?
The speed governor thing is interesting, I agree with Ephraim that every so often I do have to hit the gas momentarily to get out of a jam. I really don’t like being in the blind spot of a big truck, for instance, in which case I will happily defend going over 105 as the lesser of two evils. Speeding, per se, is not the thing that bothers me most about other drivers – it’s tailgating, passing on the right, cutting through 3 lanes to exit.
Ephraim
Let’s not mention that the SQ won’t really get out of their vehicles unless you are over 117 km/h anyway. They don’t think it’s worth their time to write the ticket
Now, there was the day that it was raining so hard that the SQ had to slow down on the highway and I passed them at 100 km/h… with Rain-X on the windshield, so I saw perfectly
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Kate
More than 275,000 trees will be planted in and around Montreal via the largesse of federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault.
Chris
0.01375% of the 2 billion trees Trudeau promised! Talk about largesse!
Kate
Better than none.
Chris
Yup. But only by the tiniest of fractions.
dhomas
https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/2-billion-trees.html
2 billion trees over 10 years. Not only in Montreal, but Canada-wide. Before stating that it’s only less than 1% of the promised trees, we should probably get numbers from the whole of the project, ya?
saintjacques
The Globe and Mail actually had a very recent podcast episode on this very topic of the two billion trees. TL;DR: like so many promises made by political parties, it’s easy to promise, harder to implement. But there’s nuance, it’s not black-and-white, because the world is messy.
Jonathan
There’s definitely more to come about this program 😉
Chris
>Before stating that it’s only less than 1% of the promised trees…
It’s 100 times less that 1%!
>…we should probably get numbers from the whole of the project, ya?
Yes, let’s. 2 years after making their promise, they’ve planted 0.4% of what they promised. In all of Canada. If they continue that linearly, they’ll reach 2% at the 10 year mark. If they do 10x better, they’ll reach 20%.
You know canada.ca is the government, right? Maybe read from someplace else? National Post, CBC, Globe and Mail: they all agree, the project is lightyears behind.
Anyway, it was Kate’s use of the word “largesse” that made me almost fall of my chair laughing. Paying for 0.01375% of an already-made, years old, election promise doesn’t reach the bar in my books.
Kate
Chris, do you honestly think I’d use the word “largesse” non-ironically?
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Kate
CF Montreal will close the opposing fans section at Saputo stadium this Saturday when Toronto FC comes to town, following a brawl on Tuesday in Toronto when Montreal defeated Toronto 2‑1 in the Canadian championship.
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Kate
Following our recent discussions about smoked meat, CultMTL has a best‑of list at which the Main Deli landed at #2.
Guy on CBC radio says Quebec Smoked Meat will be closing on June 30.
Blork
Amid all the crying over this closure is a number of comments about how they had changed to commercially processed smoked meat around 2013 after the owner died. Supposedly that was a stop-gap as they re-imagined the restaurant (and that apparently went nowhere). But I have not been able to determine whether or not the smoked meat improved after that low point. Does anyone here know?
Side note: the last smoked meat I had was at Dunns on Mansfield about a month ago. That was the first smoked meat sandwich I’d had in well over a year, and I gotta say I really enjoyed it. Before that it’s only been Smoked Meat Pete for several years (which means basically once per year). I used to enjoy stopping in there on a summer weekend afternoon for a smoky on their terrace after a morning at Finnegan’s Market in Hudson (which has sadly since closed).
Ephraim
@Blork – I walked by several times over the years to see the commercial packed smoked meat in the window. We were just at Snowdon Deli on the weekend. Smoked Meat Pete is great, but far and more expensive than everyone else. But usually if someone is coming in from Toronto, we can ask them to buy some on the way.
Ian Rogers
Lester’s needs to work on their social media game, they are way better than Dunn’s and still do their own meat – but that photo is as appealing as a jello cookbook from the 1950s.
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Kate
The federal government has not yet passed a resolution to boost Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100, it’s just an idea, but François Legault already sees this notion as a threat to Quebec.
He’s trapped, though. If Canada accepts so many immigrants but Quebec refuses them, its weight in the government of Canada will be reduced as it loses seats in the Commons according to the rules about distributing ridings according to population. But if Quebec admits its share, some of them won’t be able to speak French, and Legault only wants to admit people who can already speak French. Legault would like to import only those people who are already fully Québécois in language, culture and attitudes, but he’s learning that the only place to find these people is in Quebec.
Incidentally, I still don’t quite understand how Quebec can control immigration when there are no border checks with Ontario or New Brunswick. I don’t understand what would stop someone from immigrating to the rest of Canada, then hopping a bus to Montreal, if this is where they have prospects of a life.
Nicholas
You’re right, Kate, permanent residents have the right to move anywhere in the country (it’s even in the charter, s.6). When you immigrate you promise to live in the province you select, but it’s not really enforceable because intentions can change and people have mobility rights.
A few years ago it was easier to get PR in Quebec so many people would apply there, stay for 3-6 months (the minimum suggested to not get in trouble for breaking your promise by saying you changed your mind), then move to Ontario. Now it’s evened out, if not reversed.
Quebec had 290,000 non-permanent workers in July and has 346,000 now, and invited just 14,000 skilled workers (both in Quebec and overseas) to apply for PR from January 2022 through today. The patronat is not going to be happy with the worker shortage the government is producing, and you’ll just get more people applying in other provinces and then moving here.
Meezly
Everyone is always so gentle and euphemistic when it comes to Legault’s anti-immigration stance. Why can’t we call it for what it is, that immigration is a threat to Legault’s ethno-nationalism and latent xenophobia? He’s being a complete dick. Let’s not forget how the CAQ f**ked up the student immigration PEQ program.
A political leader with moderate views would be going, that’s great Feds, we need immigration to maintain our economy, but we better make sure our French integration infrastructure is robust enough to support the influx – we want to welcome them, but we also want to make sure they’re properly integrated into Quebec society.
steph
The PQ has a solution to propose us!
SMD
At least the patronat can enjoy the temporary foreign workers whose numbers have ballooned, from under 12,000 in 2016 to almost 350,000 now. Precarious and cheap labour to exploit as they see fit. Numbers from this thoughtful La Presse column today: https://lp.ca/Ai4Q4t.
Kevin
Quebec’s intelligentsia is forever trapped in their own broken paradigm that produces consequences that everyone but them sees as mind-boggingly obvious.
It will never change until they realize you get more flies with honey than with vinegar or clowns.
Kate
SMD, in the future, people will look back on this temporary worker racket and feel deeply ashamed we did that. At least, I hope they will.
Daniel
“Legault would like to import only those people who are already fully Québécois in language, culture and attitudes, but he’s learning that the only place to find these people is in Quebec.”
So well said.
Spi
No one dares debate or call out the underlying narrative or factual misrepresentations. For example QC brings up (and journalist repeat verbatim) time and time again the province’s lack of ressources to integrate/francizer the 50 000 immigrants (or more depending on the year). The problem is that by its own admission only a fraction of them don’t speak any French upon arrival (25-30%?) So the honest statement would be that the provinces isn’t able to provide French classes to 12-15k people a year (add on a few thousand people that move here from the ROC) that’s seems more like lack of willingness rather than a lack of ressources.
The more cynical side of me would point out the parallels to a well known conservative strategy; defund or setup public services to be so poor and fail that you can justify the more drastic measures you really want to pursue but aren’t palatable until the situation has gotten worse (from your own doing).
Meezly
@Spi, absolutely. The CAQ has proven time and again that they’re great at pushing legislation (latest being Bill 25) but generally unwilling to improve existing infrastructures. Their latest moves have been primarily to consolidate power (esp. re: education), keeping their caucus happy (21% salary hikes for MNAs) and performative gestures to “protect” French to keep their base happy.
But no one seems to be able to explain whyno one dares call them out? Have they really succeeded in convincing everyone that critiquing their government is automatically seen as QC bashing?
shawn
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Kate
TVA reports on the question of Ye Olde Orchard and whether it should change its name or at least respond to the OQLF’s demand for a corrective addition to the sign.
In none of these stories has it been noted that the Olde Orchard – at least, the original one on Monkland, since there are now several other branches – takes its name from the adjoining street called Old Orchard, so renaming the pub(s) Le Vieux Verger would be extra silly, unless the street is renamed as well.
(Why have streets like City Councillors and Old Orchard not had their names changed to French ones by now? I have no idea.)
Ephraim
They could just add “Le” and become Le Ye Olde Orchard. Though of course they could also add Pub Ye Old Orchard, which would be French, because in English the Pub would be at the end, not the start.
Kate
The “Ye” in “Ye Olde” type names is just “The”. There used to be a letter called thorn which stood for the “th” sound, and for some reason it was kept on some signs after it fell out of general orthography.
However, “Le Olde Orchard” is kind of a monstrosity.
DeWolf
We’re talking about a chain pub here, not some mom and pop operation struggling to get by. They can afford to print two vinyl words (“Restaurant-Bar”? “Pub Irlandais”?) and slap them above the existing sign to be in compliance with the law.
Even the OQLF is clear in the Gazette article: at no point will Ye Olde Orchard need to translate its trademarked name into French.
Ian
“Pub Ye Olde Orchard” is a tempest in a teapot but I can’t help but wonder why Couche-Tard, Renaud-Bray, Réno-Dépot or DeSerres don’t need additional descriptors …
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Kate
Don’t mow your lawn in May and help the bees.
Better, don’t have a lawn at all.
Mark
I went down a rabbit hole of botany discussions the other night and it was fascinating to read the diverging opinions. Some were saying that if don’t mow your lawn, then mow it, you might be damaging species that thought they could set up shop in your lawn. June comes and bam! …house destroyed. Others said that it might encourage invasive species to take hold. Others said no, it’s still beneficial. Others pointed out that no mow may started in England, and that it needs to be adapted to local growing schedules, which is what this group (Défi pissenlits) seems to be trying to do by encouraging each town to have its own timeline dependant on its climate.
Ideally, no mow may raises awareness about the importance of preserving native habitats for pollinators. Most of the grass that we have on our lawns isn’t native. So yes, let’s remove as much lawn as possible and replace it with local flowers and plants.
Chris
Be careful what you wish for: a neighbour of mine has just decided to “don’t have a lawn at all” and now it’s replaced with astroturf. Pretty sure that’s worse. 🙂 And there are lots of places around that have asphalt, stones, or patio blocks where a lawn could be. Lawns aren’t the best, but they aren’t the worst either.
Blork
Yeah, there’s this view that a lawn is necessarily a toxic swamp of pesticides and other poisons that requires thundering gas-powered mowers to maintain them four times a week and oceans of fresh water or whatnot. While that is true in some cases, it’s not necessarily true.
Many (most?) suburban lawns are just patches of grass, which is preferable to patches of concrete.
Speaking for my lawn, it’s mostly clover, and barely requires watering beyond what nature provides. It gets an occasional trim from a silent electric mower (unless my friendly and bored neighbour with her 900 horsepower gas motor gets to it first). It also looks like crap for most of the year, while being rather nice and filled with bees and whatnot for a few weeks in late spring and early summer. But regardless of its looks, it provides cooling and habitat for tiny critters, unlike the gravel and concrete “lawns” that some of my neighbours have.
qatzelok
Like many city dwellers, the original owners of my apartment gave up the idea of having a lawn (in the 1800s) so that all the potential lawns could be pooled together to create large parks like Mount Royal, the Expo Islands and the waterfront bike paths in Lachine and Lasalle.
Beats hostas, blue spruce and smoke trees any day!
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Kate
Quebec has introduced a bill to fine operators of illegal short‑term rentals as much as $100,000.
Ephraim
And a requirement to display a sign in the lobby of mutli-dwelling houses. So if one condo does it, the whole building gets to know
Mozai
Legislation is nice, but it’s toothless without enforcement. We already have short-term rentals ignore the rules we already have.
SMD
Agreed, @Mozai. On the radio this morning, the tourism minister blithely waved away enforcement concerns, saying “We will keep working closely with Revenu Québec”.
Ephraim
@Mozai – It requires companies to have a responsible person in Quebec that is listed with all their details at the ministry. At let’s face it, at $100K per offence, AirBnB isn’t going to want to screw this up. The cost of an error will hit their profits… quickly.
Tim S.
I love the fact that Quebec is basically demanding a hostage.
Ian 20:56 on 2023-05-11 Permalink
She’s not wrong 🙂
Montreal is a proper city, the only one in the province. People who don’t like cities are going to hate it, they can go get bent.
Uatu 10:40 on 2023-05-12 Permalink
I think it’s hilarious. They make Montreal seem like NYC in Shaft. All that’s missing is Richard Roundtree walking to the music of waka cha guitars giving the side eye to whitey