Transport minister Geneviève Guilbault says Quebecers shouldn’t have to pay for transit deficits in Montreal.
We’re on our own, folks.
Updates from October, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Latest numbers show that 872,000 people in Quebec are using a food bank every month – that’s 10% of the population.
I stopped by the little Marché Richelieu near here today and found the prices on ordinary baseline groceries disturbing. But it made me feel better about getting a weekly delivery from Lufa. Their stuff is so much better – and in some cases it’s less expensive now.
Ian
Agreed, I’ve been doing Lufa for a while – their stuff seemed pricey when I started but now it’s pretty much the same, better quality, and local.
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Kate
Michael Sabia, Quebec’s neoliberal bulldog, warns us that we’ll be paying more for hydroelectricity soon.
dhomas
Insert “shocked Pikachu” meme. They’ve been setting the stage for this for years.
Su
Sophie Brochu the former HQ head was having concerns about Fitzgibbon navigating toward making Quebec the ‘Dollarama’ of electricity for large companies (ie,massive battery manufacturers) with the result that citizens would pay the bill.
Kate
It’s always about making sure money flows into the right pockets.
DeWolf
Remember why Hydro-Québec was started in the first place?
The longer the CAQ government lasts, the more it seems we’re plunging into another Grande Noirceur.
Ian
Cheap power went out the window pretty much the day Bourassa realized electricity could be sold outside Quebec.
Kevin
My winter project is figuring out if I want to get solar panels and a big battery or a natural gas generator to deal with the frequent power failures in my neighbourhood.
Kate
I took April’s ice storm as a warning and bought a small panel this summer, really just a means of recharging my phone and ipad – the sort of thing people bring when backwoods camping. Without a landline and with no way to charge my phone, suddenly I was really out of touch and I didn’t like it.
Kevin, I suspect it’s going to be hard to get your hands on natural gas soon. Better to go solar if you have the room.
Kevin
Kate
Yeah, my emergency kit has a solar panel and crank suitable for phones, but that isn’t enough to keep a home warm or a freezer cold.
I already have gas (furnaces, hot water tanks, stove) and a secondary electrical panel where a previous owner started but never completed emergency planning.
So unless Energir is going to be shut down entirely I have that option.
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Kate
Quebec public sector unions plan a one‑day strike on November 6.
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Kate
A Chinatown group is urging the city to convert the old Guy-Favreau YMCA back into a sports facility, now that its function as a temporary homeless shelter is over.
Also in Chinatown, going by the photo, the Journal has a piece about how a Chinese propaganda site is operating here, but there’s a firewall I can’t get past.
bob
Kate
Thanks, bob.
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Kate
Mayor Plante and her urban security chief Martin Prud’homme are happy with the decline in armed violence they say is a result of police raids and arrests against criminal forces.
The numbers reveal that homicides and attempted homicides, as well as victimless gunfire, are all down appreciably compared to last year.
Ian
Lol, of course they did.
The violent crime numbers were already going down, this is just the cops looking around saying ” uh… it’s safer because we said we would be here”.They need to justify the excessive cop budget, literally nothing from that has reduced crime. Even the gun thing. It’s such transparently performative justification for the cop budget; it’s insulting to anyone paying attention, which is typical of both the cops and PM.
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Kate
Hema-Quebec is trying to use virtual reality to get new people to donate, but the premise cracks me up: “…all the stages of a donor’s journey: from the welcome to filling in a questionnaire, the appointment with the nurse…”
Nobody’s afraid of filling in a questionnaire. They’re afraid of having a hole poked in their arm, and you can’t simulate that with VR.
Kevin
The hardest part about donating blood is making an appointment and getting to their centres.
Kate
The website lists drives near you, although its interpretation of “near” can be a bit loose.
I’m giving blood this Friday over on Park Avenue. Not too hard to get to. I’ve never been out to the Place Versailles centre, although at my last donation I was all but dogpiled on by volunteers trying to get me to go there and donate plasma or platelets.
Blork
I think Kevin is on the right track really, The biggest hurdle is getting people to commit to the idea and to the bit of time and bother it takes to go through with it.
Even if it’s the easiest thing in the world, people are busy (or they think they are busy) so it’s hard to get them to commit to something that is a “good idea” but there is nothing in it for them but the feels.
CE
I’d be happy to donate if I didn’t pass out every time I’ve ever had blood drawn.
Paul
The worst part about donating is the inefficiency of their process. For those who don’t know:
1) check in and give your ID, answer a series of basic questions
…wait
2) complete their digital questionnaire that asks you the same questions as the front desk
…wait
3) meet with a nurse who takes a brief blood sample and asks you the same questions as the questionnaire
…wait
4) meet with another nurse who scans your donor card, and asks you the same questions as the questionnaire
5) give blood
6) wait 15mn and leaveA process engineer would halve the check-in process, increase their efficiency and reduce their staff
Kate
Might the redundancy be planned, to catch people in inconsistencies?
Orr
If you think donating blood takes a long time, you should try donating a kidney.
Seriously though, more people should consider donating a kidney.
It’s been a very interesting experience.Kate
I spoke to someone once who’d donated a kidney to his brother. He said the incision took a lot longer to heal up than he’d been told.
I don’t think I could be talked into donating an organ, but I’m happy to give blood. Even plasma takes a few hours and I’m too impatient.
Orr
The time I was referring to was between when I first applied to be a donor and the day of surgery. Many tests occur before you get accepted as a donor.
Anyone can donate a kidney. The procedure is very safe for the donor. If anyone reading this is at all interested, Google “canada blood services kidney donation” & watch their videos. If you know someone who needs a kidney, you do not have to be compatible, there is the kidney paired exchange program which matches incompatible donors and recipients and has recently done its 1000th donor-recipient match.Orr
just to add, At the time I did it I did not know anyone who needed a kidney, I was a “non-directed anonymous donor.”
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Kate
Six former premiers have lined themselves up against Bill 15, the CAQ’s plan to create a new bureaucracy called Santé Québec, supposedly to provide better access to healthcare but likely actually intended to further its privatization.
Le Devoir shows an early example: the government site Rendez-vous santé Québec is already directing patients to private clinics. A young man who wanted to see a doctor found out only when he got to the clinic that he’d have to pay $225 up front, not covered by RAMQ.
Local note: in my neighbourhood, there was a clinic upstairs of a Pharmaprix. (This was where I was told “Vous ne pouvez pas venir à la clinique sans rendez‑vous sans un rendez‑vous, madame!”) Recent a big sign went up in the window saying a new CLINIQUE PRIVÉE was opening there. Are there people who’ve come to believe that private health care is necessarily better?
Update: Christian Dubé is very happy with the place of private medicine in Quebec.
JP
I’m not an expert but I feel like this would also just further clog up the ER. People would be concerned about the cost of a private clinic, not be able to differentiate between public or private ones and end up just going to the ER for “free” or RAMQ-covered care for an ailment that’s not truly an emergency.
bob
People who have access to the money for a private clinic already go to private clinics. This is just more erosion of an eroding system where garbage people seek to profit from misery. We already saw one result when 10% of CHSLD residents died of COVID within a few months because of privatizations of facilities and staffing (that was five times the rate for the RoC). The hospitals already intentionally make working conditions impossible for nurses specifically to drive them over to private staffing firms. And the feds do nothing about it because the Liberals are, like the CAQ, and the provincial Liberals, and the PQ, and virtually the entire political and business classes of Quebec and the RoC, neo-liberals – i.e., heartless, greed-driven, and corrupt to the bone. Are they willing to kill their own grandmothers to make money by undermining universal healthcare to severly underpay precarious workers? Maybe not – but they are certainly willing to kill yours.
mare
It’s funny that those private clinics often send their patients to the public system for imaging and for seeing other specialists, and the waiting lists for those are as long for their patients as for everyone else. (At least I hope they are, and that there are no shortcuts between doctors that know each other from playing golf or tennis together.)
Are people with private health insurance through their employer’s group plan reimbursed for visits to private doctors/clinics? I know I got a fast track MRI once that was at least partially paid for, when I still had coverage through my spouse’s insurance, but I never been to an ‘out of network’ doctor or clinic.
Joey
@mare I think most employer-sponsored health benefits plans would cover tests/imaging/etc., but not the doctor’s fee. That said, a lot of employers provide no-cost telemedicine visits (not sure how that works, I assume the health plan pays the overhead fee and the telemedicine doctor bills the province). Other employers provide senior employees with an annual checkup at a private clinic, effectively covering the doctor’s fee, though I wouldn’t be shocked if some of these doctors’ fees were actually billed to the province.
H. John
Bill 15 is a giant proposed law of over 1100 articles.
The former premiers didn’t come out against the whole Bill. They came out against one of its parts.
Specifically, the elimination of the individual, unique, corporative entities – all of the hospitals’ and research foundations’ Boards of Directors. The six are genuinely concerned about the effect on fundraising.
“Il explique qu’ils ne sont pas hostiles envers le projet de loi, mais qu’il est important pour eux que l’avenir des hôpitaux universitaires et des instituts de recherche comme le CUSM, le CHUM, l’Institut de cardiologie de Montréal et l’hôpital Sainte-Justine soit protégé en matière d’autonomie des conseils d’administration et ils réclament des exceptions dans la gestion de la nouvelle agence créée par le ministre Dubé.”
In the first 5 minutes of his commentary, Jonathan Trudeau who comments on politics each morning on Paul Arcand, explained their concerns:
Then Lucien Bouchard personally explained those concerns, and did a good job of explaining why they don’t believe Dubé.
https://www.985fm.ca/audio/586350/loi-15-on-veut-qu-il-la-reussisse-sa-reforme-mais-lucien-bouchard
The letter signed by the six:
Kate
Thank you for the clarity, as always, H. John.
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Kate
The individual suspected of starting the fatal fire on Place Youville in March is already behind bars for another crime, and in the past has been on Quebec’s ten most wanted list. He had been posing as a homeless man whose identity he’d stolen – and that man has vanished. His motive for setting the Youville fire is unknown.
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Kate
The Journal presents the funicular on Mount Royal as a “jewel of public transit.” There are some interesting photos, including views of the stations at the bottom and the top which I’d never seen. The service operated from 1884 to 1918.
mare
I think if they would rebuild it now it might actually be a success. People, mostly tourists, already take (very) expensive mechanized transport to enjoy other views eg ‘La Grande Roue’ and the Olympic stadium tower. The view from the top of Mont Royal is actually much better, but for many people actually hiking up there is not something they’d ever do. Taking a funicular or an aerial tram would be an ‘event’ and IMHO a major tourist attraction.
Someone from the US recently asked on Reddit if 8 days would be long enough for a touristic visit to Montreal. Most answers were that it was either too long or too short. You really need to live in Montreal for a longer time to truly enjoy it, but we have relative few ‘must do / must see’ tourist attractions, apart from seasonal events like the F1, Osheaga, and the Jazz Fest and other festivals.
A funicular (or an arial tram) might be a good addition to our tourist attractions and would also be attractive to local sledders, downhill skiers in training (kids), and lazy cross country skiers.
Especially if they sold reasonably priced day passes in the slow winter season, maybe linked to the Access Montreal card.(The top pylon is already there, finally a useful function for the cross.)
carswell
Am always astounded when I see the enthusiasm on boards like Agora or here for proposals to revive the old funicular or build a new one from Peel to the Kondiaronk Belvedere. Such an installation would further disrupt an already disrupted ecosystem, be a visual scar on the face of the mountain at least as ugly as Molson Stadium and introduce lots of machinery, mechanical noise and crowds into what is supposed to be a natural enclave, a quiet retreat from the city’s din.
I appreciate the desire to find a quick and physically undemanding route to the top once Camillien-Houde is closed, but this ain’t it. Am hoping the funicular proposals meet the same fate as the proposal to revive the Mount Murray (Outremont summit) ski lift.
Ian 22:09 on 2023-10-25 Permalink
Any Montrealers voting CAQ are as immune to cognitive dissonance as working folk that vote Conservative federally.
Michael 09:46 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
Considering where we are now in terms of affordability in rent and inflation, we were better under Harper.
Trudeau’s policies have exploded rental prices and there is no end in sight.
Ian 10:16 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
That’s a pretty wacky way of looking at things – rents were super cheap back when John Turner was in power. Was it because of John Turner? Lol, no.
Kate 10:26 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
Didn’t you know Justin Trudeau created Covid to destabilize the world economy, Ian? Get with the program!
It always amazes me when people blame a single politician for a trend seen around the world, and well out of the control of any one party leader in one country. But the tendency is always to blame the politician whose overall views (and personality) you dislike, while cutting slack for the ones whose views align with your own.
The real trick is to catch yourself doing it.
Kevin 10:35 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
Municipalities, construction codes, single-room condos, mom and pop investors, Airbnb, WFH, house flipping, generations of Canadians spending more than 30% of pre-tax household income on housing, and Boomers aging in place have more to do with rental affordability than any federal politician
Nicholas 12:54 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
If you look across provinces and countries, usually the biggest factor is localities, and I think that holds in the Montreal area (not just the main city, but also the suburbs). We were just talking about Pointe Claire, and I’ve seen lots of similar stories around the region. It’s not as big a thing in Montreal, but it’s amazing how a handful of residents can block even a tiny rezoning with a low-turnout referendum.
Michael 18:36 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
Trudeau grew Canada’s population by 1M in 1 year by immigration and that has nothing to do with rental affordability?
Cognitive dissonance is working very hard here.
Ian 21:05 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
Ah, you’re anti-immigrant.
That explains it.
walkerp 21:25 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
A giveaway is the “Trudeau did x” parrot-like talking point. Targeting Trudeau personally because of his father’s bad reputation in the west and his smarmy personality that can be irritating to the anti-wokers is the only succesful tactic the Cons have had since the Liberals got into power.
Michael, I assume you know how parliamentary politics actually work.
Ian 21:29 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
Considering immigration was actually just over 400k last year and that was a record I don’t think it’s safe to assume what Michael knows or not.
если Мichael – его настоящее имя
Kate 22:20 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
我也不认为迈克尔是他的真名。
Nicholas 22:55 on 2023-10-26 Permalink
The population of the Island of Montreal only just surpassed the 1971 high point in between the 2016 and 2021 censuses. It’s growing by about 12,000 per year, just over half a percent, which is the fastest rate since the 60s by a fair bit, but it’s still only half the growth rate of the province overall. It’s not the growth of people, it’s the slow growth of housing, for decades, and a mild sneeze is enough to blow us over.
Kevin 07:59 on 2023-10-27 Permalink
Michael
The simple solution that makes you angry was offered to you by a person who profits from you not thinking.
Life is complex. Learn to deal with it.
Alwin 08:56 on 2023-10-27 Permalink
The simple answer to all our problems is greed. Too many people making exorbitant profits on the backs of the little people because they can. That includes all our wars.
Kevin 09:10 on 2023-10-27 Permalink
@Michael
And don’t forget the biggest leap in housing prices in the past five years took place during the year when immigration was throttled due to a pandemic…