Although a majority of its residents would like to have a mayor and fully elected council like every other borough, Ville‑Marie is not going to get it, although there’s some handwavy stuff here about improving governance.
Updates from April, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A woman was gruesomely attacked and stabbed Friday afternoon at a lower NDG motel, and her attacker fled. Grim description here of the circumstances.
Ian
I knew it was a sex worker even before clicking the link. Those motels are notorious.
Lousy way to go, RIP.Kate
According to media, she’s expected to survive.
Ian
Small mercies.
MarcG
I just took a streetview stroll down St-Jacques and never realized how many of those creepy motels there were. Off topic but does anyone remember the name of the classic hot dog joint that used to be around there (memory from around 1995)? Mr. Hot Dog or something?
Kate
As I recall, Mr Hot Dog was on Sherbrooke near Loyola, although maybe there was another one on St‑Jacques? (There used to be one on St‑Hubert in Villeray too.)
dwgs
Mr. Hot Dog was indeed on Sherbrooke, right where Monkland merges with it. It has been a Dagwood’s for a number of years now.
MarcG
I think that’s it, I definitely remember it being on a triangle corner like that, thanks to you both. Kids used to walk from Royal West Academy to different places on lunch or after school – sometimes, VSP, sometimes St-Jacques, sometimes Sherbrooke – I guess I got them all mixed up in this old brain.
Kate
In fact, Monsieur Hot Dog still exists on St‑Hubert, corner du Rosaire. But this one has a bar section and signs out for VLTs, which I don’t think the NDG one ever did.
Mark Côté
There was a burger/hot dog joint around there for a while, where the Centre Mobile Plus is now (aside: how those places stay in business I don’t know). Can’t remember the name now, but they had spruce beer that you had to pay a bottle deposit on.
Ian
I still miss Maison du Egg Roll in St Henri.
MarcG
@Ian: Alive and well in Verdun! He must own the building, one of the last of the old school restos on the strip. https://maps.app.goo.gl/7EifyHTg9Li91ZcE7
Ian
OMG! The one in St Hank was a big buffet place, this one looks smaller – but I will definitely swing by to check it out. Thank you so much!
MarcG
It’s a real dive but the food’s not bad and the owner is eccentric. If you’re lucky his 90+ y/o Mom will be hanging out at the table covered in newspapers.
Ian
I do enjoy divey old Canadian Chinese food restaurants, they remind me of when I was a kid and most small towns only had a diner and a chop suey place. It wasn’t until the late 70s that pizza joints started popping up.
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Kate
The peregrine falcons at the Université de Montréal have produced four eggs this season. Article includes a Youtube link to a live cam focused on the nest.
(Wow, they can make a hell of a noise, sounds like a power tool! I left the video on and went to the kitchen and then got a jolt when it sounded like someone was drilling in my office.)
Ian
Oh neat! It’s pretty cool how many nesting falcons we have around town.
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Kate
The city is proposing a tram to provide transit for the Hippodrome site.
jeather
They said it’s to the east of Namur, though it’s to the west.
MarcG
And by ‘west’ we mean south.
Blork
It looks like an interesting plan (the whole thing I mean, not just the tram). Those purpose-built “city within a city” projects that were built in various places over the 20th century have not always been successful, sometimes turning into grim ghettos or whatever. But some have worked (I can’t think of any examples offhand).
It’s good that they are also planning community centers, recreation, schools, etc., which makes it much more of a “community” than for example Griffintown, which was just a real estate bonanza.
I’d like to know more about the tram. On CBC Radio it sounded like it was just to deliver people to the Namur Metro, which seems limiting. These articles imply it might run quite a ways on Jean-Talon.
On the one hand, a small tram with limited scope (just around the ‘hood and to the Metro) would be less expensive and more likely to run frequently, which is critical. But also more likely to fall into disrepair and be abandoned in a few decades. A larger system integrated into the city’s transit system (imagine a tram line from Cavendish all the way to the Jean-Talon market!) would be wonderful, but expensive and would probably only pass every 20 minutes, which makes it practically useless for the people in this new community who really just need a fast and frequent ride out of their enclave and to the Metro.
I wonder if I will live long enough to see this thing fully built and up and running.
MarcG
Free idea: High-speed covered moving walkway running straight down the middle to the metro
Blork
@MarcG I would literally move to that neighbourhood if they had that!
Anton
Train on CP tracks between Namur and Lucien l’Allier running every 10-15 minutes, with intermediate stops at hippodrome, Cavendish, Westminster, Montreal West, Cavendish, Melrose, Vendome.
James
Kate
Thanks, James
qatzelok
I’ve reported the cover page of that Plan Directeur to the Font Police.
Ian
Yikes, +1 qatzi
I wonder if they designed it in Word?Kate
Yikes +2 on that.
Word or Canva, Ian
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Kate
La Presse has found that Airbnbs continue to proliferate despite Quebec’s feeble attempt to rein them in. Dossier of 3 articles also looks at loopholes and party houses.
Adding: CTV examines an Airbnb party house in Verdun.
DeWolf
Oh hey, there’s a familiar name in the article about the party houses. What a sleazebag. Why Revenu Québec isn’t gleefully going after him is a mystery to me.
Robert H
«On va resserrer encore plus nos contrôles parce que les stratégies utilisées sont de plus en plus pernicieuses.»
What’s the point? Is there something the city or boroughs have not yet tried? As long as the extant regulation does not allow municipal authorities to access information from Revenu Québec that could verify the principal residence of a homeowner, the law remains toothless. Montreal’s inability to enforce its own codes means, as it does too often, that the ultimate solution lies up river with an administration that isn’t known to have the city’s best interest at heart.
@ DeWolf: Disconcerting as well that the two complainants did not want their names in the article. Makes me wonder…
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Kate
Weekend notes from CityCrunch, La Presse, CultMTL. A best things to do from Time Out.
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Kate
A demonstration was held Thursday to push for government support for the arts.
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Kate
Fourteen Montrealers were arrested Thursday in what’s described as an organized crime syndicate of grandparent fraudsters. This ruse involves phoning older people, posing as a younger relative, and asking for money to get out of trouble in a remote place. They can count on enough seniors being unfamiliar with their young relatives’ voices and travels that some will send quite large amounts.
In other news of Montreal-based fraudsters, a man was sentenced to ten years in a U.S. prison in a psychic fraud that netted millions.
Meezly
My friend’s retired dad was a victim of this scheme in B.C. and was bilked about 40K! Sure, he probably wasn’t as sharp as he once was, but quite cognizant for his age. The criminals were fairly sophisticated and had someone pose as his 13 yo grandson and someone else as a cop. The grandson lives in the same city, so they see each other semi-regularly, so the voices must sounded similar enough. The criminals also knew enough about his personal details to make the act convincing, so some identity theft must’ve been involved. They also played on his psychological weaknesses. My friend’s dad honestly thought he was the one who could help his grandson by doing this. When he withdrew money at the bank, the bankers even asked him “this sounds really sketchy, are you sure you want to do this?” (and my friend’s dad was even a former bank manager!). It was pretty devastating as it was a big chunk of my friend’s parents retirement nest egg.
Kate
Wow. An ex bank manager and in the same town. Those crooks must have some intense grasp of applied psychology.
Meezly
I think many elder folk feel irrelevant, forgotten and/or useless, and the criminals play on those insecurities. Maybe it’s a ploy that works better with men? So when an urgent situation arises and they’re given an opportunity to be “the one” who can save their relative, they’ll take it.
Ian 20:19 on 2024-04-19 Permalink
It’s a hard choice for governments to give up these kinds of powers once they are allowed.
Give ’em an inch … Sure it’s not democratic but PM can poiint to the fact that they inherited it. It’s going to be a long time until VM gets representatives like the other boroughs again, if ever.
Kate 09:16 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
I was thinking about this and wondering:
a) what proportion of VM’s residents are able to vote and
b) what proportion actually do get out to vote in municipal elections
I suspect there may be more non-voting expats in the downtown core compared to the eastern side of the borough, towards Hochelaga – but I’m just guessing here.
Also, would more people take an interest in voting in VM if they felt they had more democratic choice?
DeWolf 11:19 on 2024-04-20 Permalink
Disappointing. There’s something seriously wrong with the way Ville-Marie is governed and if it isn’t the model of governance, than what is it? All this nonsense about downtown being a special place that needs to be directly overseen by the mayor is belied by the fact that the mayor isn’t doing a very good job at getting things done downtown.
bob 12:04 on 2024-04-21 Permalink
I don’t think the problem is choice, but effectiveness. Voter turnout is directly related to how confident voters are that the election will have an effect on how the government operates. In the case of municipalities, turnout is low because the effect of the voting is low. It’s like ordering pizza. You have a choice of toppings, but no matter what you choose you’re still getting pizza.
The turnout for Ville Marie in 2021 was:
Peter McGill: 27%
Saint-Jacques: 36%
Sainte-Marie: 40%
Trunout for mayor was 38%.
James 13:51 on 2024-04-22 Permalink
The current governance of Ville-Marie essentially ensures that the Mayor will have majority control of the borough since 2 of the 5 councillors are appointed by the Mayor of the city. The Ville-Marie Borough mayor position was abolished in 2009 following a dispute between Benoit Labonté (Borough mayor of Ville-Marie who joined the opposition party) and Gérald Tremblay (mayor of the post-merger city). Since then, the city mayor is also the borough mayor.
Don’t see why Ville-Marie can’t have directly elected borough councillors like several other boroughs have.