Nobody’s talked about these issues for awhile as we’ve focused on efforts to make the REM fit for passengers, but Michel C. Auger has an excellent piece this weekend on the future of the REM, reminding us that if it isn’t profitable after five years, the Caisse can sell it, or make its debts public ones.
Updates from May, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
When Quebecor reports on urban issues like graffiti and homelessness I read them and think: yes, these are actually a problem, but is Quebecor more interested in simply telling the story, or is its motive to emphasize Montreal’s grimmer and sleazier aspects because that’s a standing editorial policy?
Chris
Indeed. And you should have the same thoughts for everything you read in media generally.
Kate
Why how kind of you to school me, Chris.
shawn
I agree that graffiti is a scourge and more needs to be done to stop it but when the article cited $500 k a year as the “fortune” being spent on removal, it didn’t seem that high a figure given what the city must spend in other areas.
shawn
… and c’mon Kate, it’s the only way you’re going to learn.
Chris
Kate, I’m not trying to ‘school you’, I was agreeing with you! The comment wasn’t even addressed to you specifically, just a general conversation piece that it’s typical of media to all have their agendas to watch out for. They are easy to see when we disagree with their agenda, harder to see when we agree.
Chris
>$500 k a year as the “fortune” being spent …
Why do you put “fortune” in quotes? The article does not use that word. In fact their sentence is a pretty bland to-the-point statement of fact: “Dans l’arrondissement de Ville-Marie seulement, ce sont 500 000 dollars qui sont investis chaque année pour effacer les graffitis.” That wording doesn’t strike me as them trying to make it seem huge; does it?
>…didn’t seem that high a figure given what the city must spend in other areas
It’s also not what “the city” spends, that figure is for one borough. If we multiply by 19 (for a rough approximation) it’s almost $10 million. For comparison, the City budget is spending only $1.5 million per year to expand bixi. So you’re right it’s not the City’s biggest spending item, but it’s significant I think.
shawn
“Fortune” is in the headline.
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Kate
The SPCA holds an open adoption day Monday, standard fees not being charged. Unusually, the item says they’re not overwhelmed with cats, but they have a lot of smaller pets to adopt out.
On the animal theme, Global looks at the Ecomuseum Zoo and its recovery after the ice storm. I’ve never been out there, any opinions? I find it odd we have a privately owned zoo here.
dwgs
The Ecomuseum is a great place. It’s a nonprofit, they have excellent educational programming and all the animals are native to Quebec and afaik orphaned or rehabilitated from injury etc (i.e. not viable to live in the wild).
Kate
That’s nice to know, dwgs. Thanks.
jeather
Give it until July 2 for the cats, sadly.
EmilyG
I’ve lived near the Ecomuseum for most of my life, and have been going there for most of my life. It’s wonderful. I love it! It’s great seeing the animals, local Quebec animals that are so well cared for.
It’s always been a part of my life, and somewhere I’ve enjoyed going to.Kate
jeather, I’m afraid you may be right on that.
My cat told me to go over and adopt a few mice for her, but I said no.
Orr
Ecomuseum is great. I really enjoy visiting it.
I especially appreciate that they only have species that are native to Quebec. They have lynxes!
Additionally, the Morgan Arboretum is nearby.Margaret
I used to take my kids there and the true test is that I still like to go now that they have flown the coop. The staff are incredible and the habitats for the animals so well considered.
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Kate
A Finnish company that offers self-service pleasure boats is thinking about expanding past Toronto to offer the service in Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal.
It’ll make news when somebody gets tangled up in the rapids, that’s for sure.
Blork
I must be tired because I read that as self-pleasure service boats and I immediately had questions.
JaneyB
@Blork – Lol. That would be another kind of finish company.
MarcG
Ha, nice alley-oop! There was a dude tripping his face off at Verdun beach yesterday, playing harmonica in the water and opening his arms to the sun going “awwww” like he was being touched by god. Dad with little kids was laughing at him, a couple were filming him with their phones… but I imagined it turning very un-PG if he had a certain sudden impulse – picture the beach clearing out like a scene from Jaws.
Orr
An expensive form of recreation, but much less expensive than owning a boat.
Montreal is a maritime city and we do not appreciate that fact nearly enough.
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Kate
Possibly useful open and closed list for Monday.
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Kate
If this city were hit by a repeat of the 1732 earthquake, what would that be like? Engineering researchers have extrapolated from contemporary reports and presented a study on what we might expect, given the changes in construction technique since that time.
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Kate
The Montreal Children’s Library is being evicted by the CSSDM and may have to close for lack of premises.
We had a good comment about this library a couple of years ago. I hadn’t even been aware of it before the CBC chose it that year as its charity.
There’s a certain irony in a supposedly educational “service centre” choosing to eradicate a library, though…
dhomas
It’s going to be tough finding a location for a library on a 500$/month budget, though…
Kate
It should be subsidized, but the articles mention that the library offers services in English too, so I doubt it can be saved.
Marc R
Lasalle borough is about to open their new Octagone library in the coming months, wonder if that could be a potential home?
dhomas
Lasalle is very far from the MCL. They are trying to stay in the same area. The next closest library is 3km, per the articles.
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Kate
A woman pedestrian is in critical condition after a ricochet from a collision by two speeding cars at Jean‑Talon and St‑Laurent, early Sunday.
It’s a walking person’s nightmare. There’s no date on this other CTV story from a few years ago, which happened a block north of this morning’s incident. In that case, a ricocheting vehicle plowed into the entrance of de Castelnau metro, obliterating a man who happened to be in the way. (A brief report from Radio‑Canada places that incident as ten years ago.)
You can be a careful pedestrian, walking peacefully and lawfully along, then two speeders collide and a vehicle surges onto the sidewalk and either kills you or mangles you, and nothing you could have done to avoid it.
carswell
La Presse is now reporting that the woman has died.
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justice-et-faits-divers/2023-05-21/montreal/une-pietonne-meurt-apres-une-collision-a-haute-vitesse.phpKate
Damn. Thanks, carswell.
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Kate
A large empty lot on Louvain in Ahuntsic will be sown with 10,000 sunflowers this summer. This is the same space that was turned into an outdoor coworking and socializing spot in the summer before the pandemic, and called Green haüs at the time.
A briefer event of interest this summer is a Vietnamese night market planned for the Peel Basin next month, on one weekend only.
DeWolf
The former Green Haüs space is still active, it’s just called Esplanade Louvain now.
Blork
That Vietnamese night market sounds like it could be great, although it only being there for one weekend doesn’t bode all that well. I envision a variation on the food trucks thing, which is largely an exercise in spending your time in ridiculously long lineups in order to pay through the nose for whatever you’re ordering (not to mention the anguish of deciding which of the many things to zoom in on because the lineups and prices basically prohibit you from trying multiple things). I hope I’m wrong.
Blork
By comparison, Hintonburg (in Ottawa) has a night market every Thursday night during the fine-weather season. Sounds like a better model for an actual good time, vs. the FOMO-like event of a one-off and the resulting lineups for everything.
GC
I stopped reading when I got to the part about admission. I’m guessing, like Blork, that the food might not be all that cheap…so why do I have to pay admission just to get inside and pay more? I could go to Comiccon for that :P.
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Kate
Now that assisted dying has become part of regular Quebec life, undertakers have found a way to monetize it. Whether this should be allowed is up for debate.
mare
In some cases the only medical part of MAID is the doctor providing the medication. If the person doesn’t need to be in a hospital (which is often the case) a funeral director seems like a logical person to help as a ‘death planner’. Not unlike a wedding planner, but for a different life event. Why could they not charge for that service?
I personally would prefer not to undergo a MAID in a funeral home, but it would be 100% better than in a Quebec hospital room. Funeral homes do have the (stately) facilities and the staff is used to deal with people who are emotional.
JaneyB
Agreeing with @mare here. Better than a hospital room by far.
This makes me wonder if churches might be good for this. They are certainly stately and the site of many emotional events. There should be a handful that provide a space for this service. It’s a neighbouring step given that hospitals were originally/are still run by religious communities.
dhomas
I doubt churches would allow this. Though I think they now allow for Christian funerals and burials for suicides, I’m pretty sure they’re still very much against euthanasia.
Kate
A decommissioned church could be turned into a sort of peaceful nonsectarian setting, but it wouldn’t be offered for free.
JaneyB
Yeah, it would have to be decommissioned, for the reasons dhomas says. I’m still convinced we could use a few churches for ‘wedding palaces’, so maybe a few for ‘MAID voyages’ too. They can’t all become condos (I hope).
Kate
Wedding palaces are a great idea. Marriage ceremony in the church itself, reception in a refurbished church basement. Even bells to ring if the belfry isn’t threatened with collapse.
Orr
I just learned that for certain religions, if the church is decommissioned, then the steeple has to come down.
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Kate
Both dogs and bicycles have more generous access to the metro, barred only around major events, till August 20. The item points to the STM website which goes into specifics on no‑bike events and dogs.
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Kate
Daniel Renaud analyzes the state of organized crime after the killing of Claudia Iacono and the recent attempt on the life of Leonardo Rizzuto. He talks to a couple of experts, but besides laying out some surmises, the final cop can only say “L’avenir nous le dira.” With a sidebar on some of the major players in that world.
In what might be a related story, police tried to withdraw the alcohol permit from the Metro Metro festival on Friday, because it’s organized by Olivier Primeau, whose businesses have been the target of arson attacks lately. CTV says threats were made against the festival and police wanted to shut it down out of caution.
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Kate
Metro looks at an abandoned residential building, a handsome gray stone row in the Plateau, and asks what should be done about it. Neighbours would like to see it renovated and inhabited, the owner wanted to demolish but was refused because the borough says it’s too nice to destroy, so it’s being allowed to deteriorate till it’s too far gone to fix – a phenomenon we’ve seen repeatedly here before.
This is a good piece on the standoff that can happen when a landlord is stubborn and the city has run out of options.
shawn
What a lovely little building. So depressing. Ok, here’s a bit of better housing news, a “mega” deal on social housing, from the east end: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1980957/mega-transaction-logement-abordable-montreal
Ephraim
You know, it’s a put up or shut up situation. If the city wants to declare it “interesting” and keep them from demolishing it, it should buy it and make it into social housing.
Michael
I blame the city.
Instead of being progressive and allowing for new architecture, new building materials that are more environmentally friendly…
It forces the owner to keep a 100 year old structure that is falling apart.
Kate
I’d have to know more about the state of that building before deciding. It’s unified in style and scale with the surrounding buildings on Bienville and St‑André – see the setting – and nobody would pay to put up a new building in that form factor these days. It would only be profitable to put up something with more floors in the same space, which would be out of sync with the neighbourhood. That bit of the Plateau around Bienville is a quiet backwater with a certain low‑key charm.
Ephraim
It’s built without a basement, and you are allowed 40% of a phantom level above. Plus a new building would be much more energy efficient. You might even be able to put in geothermal, which would make that worth a lot more money
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Kate
TVA briefly visits a tent encampment in St‑Henri. Earlier this week, they reported on a fire in a tent pitched downtown behind Guy‑Favreau.
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Kate
Quebec has a plan to reduce greenhouse gases but it still only means hitting 60% of the original target intended for 2030.
Spi 09:46 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
Honestly even though Michel C. Auger is a respected and respectable political analyst he is not someone that should be listened to or in the least bit considered objective when it comes to anything REM related. He’s had a bone to pick with the project/governance model since day one.
Frankly it’s shocking, I’ve never seen a political journalist/commentator be so biased on a specific PPP (or anything really), he almost never writes on topics outside of politics except to bash the REM. He wilfully omits parts of the “contract” that he liberally criticizes in his pieces. For example not once has he ever brought up the profit sharing structure of the contract when mentioning the “generous/guaranteed” profits from the what he characterizes as generous. In this piece he speculates that CDPQi can sell the REM to anyone, including evil Americans or Chinese, without once stating that the provincial government has a right first of refusal.
It’s sad that the quality of an article is based on how much it aligns with ones belief rather than how thoughtful, factual or accurate it is.
Kate 10:19 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
If the Quebec government buys it, is it not going to become liable for a huge debt?
Spi 10:57 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
What debt? In the case of a sale Projetco would be the entity up for sale and with no insight into how it’s structured I can’t say whether it has debt on its balance sheet. The Caisse has access to a mountain of some of the cheapest/lowest cost money in the form of the retirement deposit of Quebecers.
For these types of funds, accessing capital generally isn’t a problem it’s generating sufficient return and risk management, so I don’t see what debt component would be at play here. Unless you’re talking about the recurring operating expense associated with an unprofitable transit system, how is that any different than all the other public transit offerings in this province?
anton 11:22 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
If the government of Quebec purchases the REM, _the government of Quebec_ will be liable for a huge debt. Since the REM is ownership structure was set up explicitly set up to avoid debt “on the books”, even if the rent the government pays is much larger than the debt service would’ve been, there is at least a concern that the government may not use its right of first refusal. I think the concern is perhaps exaggerated, and I agree Mr Auger should mention the right of first refusal, but it cannot be completely dismissed.
As for the profit sharing, that’s really political marketing bullshit. Yes theres a profit sharing agreement between CDPQInfra and the governments. But CDPQInfra will receive a much bigger share of the profits, because they claim they have more risks somehow. Basically CDPQInfra gets most if not all of the profits up to some amount, then there’s a sliding scale and when the REM makes more money than would rasonably be expected, the marginal dividends are more equally divided.
But even then, the question is where does this profit come from? Back in the day when I analysed the project a lot (for all good that it did…), I found the fares would cover about 20c per passenger-km, but the total income per passenger-km will be about 80-90c per km. Most of the difference is direct subsidies to the REM from the Quebec government, indirect subsidies via ARTM payments, and those special taxes the CDPQ somehow gets to charge. One the cost side, The operating cost of the REM should also be around 20c per km (so the REM could be nominally operationally profitable as far as fares are concerned). The other 60-70c will go towards debt service (non-existent because the CDPQ has its own pile of cash) and dividends (profits).
So basically its money flowing from the government as transit subsidies through the REM project towards the pension fund, most of it goes to the CDPQ, and then most of that goes towards private pensions of public sector employees (60%?), some amount to the public pension plan (25%?)… I had once set up an infographic to show the flow of money through the REM, but I don´t think anybody cares about such kind of transparency in Quebec.
qatzelok 11:28 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
” He’s had a bone to pick with the project/governance model since day one. ”
This may be because of the times in which we are living. Our current late-stage era of capitalism has many financial predators buying off public infrastructure at fire-sale prices, and this has lead to many national bankruptcies of which Greece is the most obvious.
Also, our current governing parties – both provincial and federal – are dominated by yes-men for oligarchs.So caution and critical analysis are advisable.
shawn 12:00 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
Even with my lack of knowledge on the area, and my respect for the journalist in general, yes, the assertion that this could be sold to an American (or Chinese!) hedge fund or something without the Quebec government being able to stop it seemed far-fetched.
Ephraim 13:56 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
The only good thing is that had this been built under the Quebec government, the costs would have been even higher, with the build Quebec clause. It’s the silver lining on the fleecing
Orr 23:01 on 2023-05-22 Permalink
I thought I read when REM was announced that Quebec government was guaranteeing a specified profit rate for the Caisse operating the REM. That fact stuck with me, but I wonder if it is a fact.
In any case, there is never in the history of PPPs that the private-business partner didn’t come out on top.
DisgruntledGoat 01:04 on 2023-05-23 Permalink
Giving a performance incentive is a part of all contracts`
Spi 09:11 on 2023-05-23 Permalink
@Orr this is why opinion pieces like this are irresponsible they spread half-truths if not straight up lies when authors don’t fully grasps the topic at hand. There is no guaranteed profit component. There is a high payment per passenger km traveled and there is a tiered profit structure, I think CDPQi keeps all the profits up to 8% and then the profit sharing structure with the governments kicks in (there’s also a third tier I forget the details). Someone who doesn’t grasp the concept decided the latter meant guaranteed profits and it’s been repeated erroneously for years because no one bothers to check.