An Urbania writer took to a Bixi and biked all over town with a thermometer to judge whether some neighbourhoods have been suffering worse from the heat than others. Not surprisingly, the tl;dr is that places close to a lot of traffic had the highest temps.
Updates from June, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Lots of media Thursday about the death of Donald Sutherland who, while not a Montreal boy, was a big fan of the Expos. CTV looks at Sutherland’s Quebec connections and reminds us that Sutherland’s wife since 1972 was an actress from Joliette.
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Kate
The observance of Eid al-Adha in a park in Ahuntsic last week has ruffled some feathers. Le Devoir has a piece about how the borough ought not to have allowed Muslims to monopolize the park.
Would the same people have been so upset if it had been, say, a t’ai chi or yoga class? A meditation group? What about that Marche du pardon that happens in Montreal and other Quebec towns on Good Friday, taking up road space?
jeather
“But David Rand, a spokesperson for a collective representing pro-secularism organizations in Quebec, says religious celebrations should not be allowed on public space because they exclude people who aren’t members of the faith.”
Conveniently, all Christian celebrations are cultural and therefore universally inclusive! Honestly tempted to find the letters and send them with minor edits for Christmas trees in public places and — the horrors — the Santa parade.
Kate
Good terse snapnack from FNoMTL: “If this extends to holidays named after Catholic saints, June 24th about to get wild.”
Chris
Although St Jean is of course named after a Catholic saint, it’s no longer a religious celebration. Things change. What it was is less important than what it is now. 99% of people celebrating St Jean are not thinking of religion at all. 100% of people observing Eid in that park are thinking of religion. So although a pithy snapback, it’s not a proper comparison at all.
jeather
True, it’s even been renamed, though people still call it by the old name. But it’s fine because we have lots of examples of Christianity in the public sphere (public schools named after Jesus or various saints; Christmas decorations everywhere; etc etc), so we can use any of those about the hypocrisy and not have to deal with the history of the June 24 holiday.
Ian
If it’s systemic, how could it be racism? /s
Joey
OK, how about the annual parade down St-Urbain led by the Portuguese community based out of the Mission Santa Cruz church? We cancelling that?
Kate
Joey, you’re right, the Senhor Santo Cristo march took place last month. I saw no complaints in the media.
When does the St‑Viateur march for that Italian martyr boy saint happen? It’s around this time of year, iirc.
Ian
There’s also San Marziale in Mile End, closing down Saint Viateur for a block party.
Joey
Exactly, just so we’re clear – the objection to this isn’t principled or high-minded, it’s rooted in xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia.
Ian
Well that’s it. Secularism is applied unequally and catholaïque tropes of exemption make it seem like anyone that calls out these clear examples of xenophobia and racism is Quebec-bashing.
steph
Why can’t it be both? Xenophobia is an integral part of nationalist Quebec culture. Bash away, deservingly.
Uatu
The Good Friday procession shouldn’t be allowed if we’re all secular, right? Hahaha. Sure lol
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Kate
The STM is going to add 11 more km of bus lanes this summer, trying to keep its passengers happy.
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Kate
La Presse gives advice on coping with the heat, while TVA tells us about the thunderstorm warning for later on Thursday; more on that from CTV.
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Kate
The housing crisis in Quebec isn’t just a supply‑and‑demand problem, it’s a greed problem. Moving Day promises to be rough for tenants.
Nicholas
“Despite Quebec having the fewest housing starts in Canada last year, the number of residential units built in the last decade still surpassed growth of households. But empty units are still out of reach for many due to skyrocketing rents.”
The number of residential units must, by definition, be larger than the number of households, because each household has a separate residential unit. If you have a 2% vacancy rate, to maintain that while adding 1,000 households you need to build 1,020 residential units. So building more units than households being formed could still be so little that things are worse. There could be lots of people who want to form new households (kids want to move out of their parents’, roommates want their own place, refugees staying with people, etc) and they can’t. We’ve grown more in the last five years population-wise than we have for any or almost any period in the last half century.
While landlords are obviously going to set rent as high as they can, they’re not more greedy than they were 5 years ago, they just have more opportunity because the vacancy rate is so low. It’s not just supply and demand, but in high quality studies in Finland, Austin, Twin Cities and elsewhere, if we can build enough supply for the demand that’s hiding in plain sight, the vacancy rate will go up and rents will go down. And then people who still need help, we can give them money.
Ramsay
I wonder how much rents are driven be perception rather than actually vacancy rates. Right now everyone is talking about rental increases, so are landlords more likely to propose higher rates than they normally would? Similarly will renters look at those higher rents as being in line with expectations?
Ramsay
To the greed article, I’m certainly not surprised.
I wonder what the difference is in labour’s costs between a low cost and up market construction. It probably doesn’t take much more time to do a kitchen with granite and high end cupboards than their cheaper versions, but the builder will make more because of their margin on the materials.
In a context where labour’s a big limiting factor it only makes sense for businesses to serve the segment where they have the highest margins. They will only build cheaper units when the higher price market is saturated.Tim S.
One thing I heard about construction costs is that, between the units being sold and delivered, high-end buyers have more thoughts and changing-of-mind about what they want their unit to look like which both drives up costs and delays completion. Delivering a cookie-cutter rental is probably much simpler even if the structural basics are the same.
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Kate
More and more patients are leaving emergency rooms without being seen. The dear old CAQ, which once promised to fix all our health care issues, are warning of a difficult summer in the hospitals.
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Kate
Falafel Yoni on St-Viateur was a shooting target Wednesday, and the owner suspects this is because he’s on a list of Israeli‑owned establishments to boycott. CityTV phrases it as because of his Jewish heritage but I think that’s misleading. I don’t think it’s heritage, I think it’s a beef with modern Israel – not that this excuses taking potshots at peacefully operating businesses halfway around the world.
Ian
You left comments on? Feel free to delete mine if that wsn’t intentional. Conflating “Israeli” with “Jewish” puts other local businesses at risk, Housefather and Plante should be more careful. Nobody is shooting up Lipa or Cheskie’s or Mehadrin.
Kate
You were too quick for me, Ian. When I post, I go back in and turn off commenting. And in that moment, you commented!
But you make a legitimate point so I’m leaving it, before shutting down commenting again.
Tim S. 23:10 on 2024-06-20 Permalink
I’d be curious to know the effect of elevation as well. I live near Villa Maria and usually walk through Westmount to downtown for work. Often I can feel it warm up as I descend, and in very early or late winter it’s obvious that the distance between say, Sherbrooke and The Boulevard makes a significant difference when it comes to snow sticking around.
CE 23:26 on 2024-06-20 Permalink
Old Montreal is definitely cooler than other parts of the city, especially at the old port.
I used to live in Parc Ex on a block that had a grand total of three trees. On hot days, we’d go over to TMR to sit in their parks and cool down. It was about a 5 degree difference in a 5 minute walk. I sent a well-researched email to Mary Deros begging for more trees in the neighbourhood and never received a reply. She never got a vote from me.
Ian 13:53 on 2024-06-21 Permalink
Almost anywhere near water is cooler. Wind direction also matters, it is typically 5 degrees warmer leeward of the mountain where I live compared to Sainte Anne de Bellevue where I work.
Air quality is a big one though, it’s not as noticeable as stepping into Central Park in NYC but the difference in air quality below Sherbrooke downtown is pretty intense. Any greenery makes a big difference, on a hot day downtown it’s like breathing mud.