A man’s body was found on Monday in a makeshift shelter beside the Air Transat building. Police are investigating the cause of death.
Updates from July, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The city employs one plumber for whom it supplies a cargo bike with electric assist. Éric Dion works in installing and maintaining water meters in nonresidential buildings.
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Kate
Randy Tshilumba, who entered a Maxi store in 2016 and stabbed to death 20‑year‑old employee Clémence Beaulieu‑Patry, has been found guilty again at a second trial ordered on the basis that the judge had given confusing instructions to the jury in the first trial. Neither jury was swayed by a claim that he was not criminally responsible.
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Kate
Not the first time this has been reported, but complaints about metro safety have been rising since the pandemic, and although it’s mostly homeless people who are blamed here, interestingly one worker observes that nerves are on edge and scenes sometimes break out between “regular persons” too.
EmilyG
I wonder if it ever happens that someone will lash out at a fellow passenger who’s playing music or videos on their phone without headphones. I seem to have seen a rise in people playing videos without headphones and disturbing others with it.
It is against the transit rules to not use headphones for that, but a lot of people seem to not know that rule, or not care.
I don’t know what can be done about that.Ian
Kate
Classic clip, Ian!
Blork
Yeah, so many people are oblivious to how their noise affects others (or simply don’t care). Like that time I was in a quiet hospital waiting room (waiting for news of someone in surgery) and this dufus was sitting there playing a shoot-em-up video game on his phone at full volume, adding stress to the other people who were already stressed with worry. Or the million times I’ve been in some other supposedly quiet place (e.g., hospital outpatient clinic treatment room) and some idiot is madly texting someone and every time he gets a text (twice a minute) his phone goes DING! so loud you can hear it three rooms away. After 40 DINGS you’d think he might realize it’s annoying to other people BUT NO!
Don’t get me started! (Too late!)
Major Annoyance
@EmilyG: Half the problem is that our oh-so-Canadian niceness makes us confrontation avoidant.
I take the Vaudreuil commuter trains on occasion. The upper floors of the double-decker cars are clearly marked “Etage Tranquille”. When some no-headphone douche decides to make a phone call or crank his ticktocks or whatever, I get up, walk over to their seat, and give them a loud “DO YOU MIND?” while pointing at one of the six or eight signs. Works every time.
As a society, we really need to work on calling out the assholes among us (circumstances permitting of course). Each time we don’t, we’re giving our implicit consent for this kind of behaviour.
Robert H
Kudos, Ian. That was immensely satisfying. And Blork, I can empathize with your frustration. I have ridden trains and busses in many cities and I can attest that the situations described in the article reflect the state of public transport in too many places across the continent. I suppose it’s inevitable that so many of society’s well known problems and conflicts would manifest among the crowds passing through the stations and on the vehicles. But beyond the more obvious examples of anti-social behaviour, I see a general decline in civility as well.
People have forgotten or perhaps were never taught the golden rule much less basic consideration for one’s fellow human being. I’m encouraged to see that complaints are getting through, but I wish more people would speak up immediately when they spot rudeness or worse. Easy for me as a six foot male in good enough shape to advise, but I do admit before asking someone to put out his cigarette or joint, speak more softly, or turn down his music, the question of whether I could best this person in a physical confrontation could influence how I proceed. Sometimes, it’s more prudent to simply change cars and complain later.
I’m disappointed these sorts of problems are occurring at a time when I’d like to see more people leaving their cars and choosing public transportation instead. But don’t be discouraged. these annoyances are still more the exception than the rule, and, as in so many aspects of urban life, Montreal is in better shape than many other places. If you think my glasses are too rose-coloured, try riding the subway in New York, or the “El” in Chicago.
Robert H
Bravo, EmilyG! That’s the spirit!
EmilyG
Blork – I really hate that DINGing noise as well. I think it’s a Facebook Messenger noise. I don’t know why too many people think it’s okay to leave it audible on their phones. I guess it gives their brain dopamine hits or something to hear that sound and realize they’ve gotten another message. Ugh. get your dopamine hits some other, non-intrusive way.
dhomas
I’m currently working from my company’s offices in Valencia, Spain. I can say that it’s not only an issue in North America. On a recent 15 minute bus ride, I saw:
– a woman standing at the absolute front of the bus, where it bottlenecks, so no passengers could get to the back of the bus without shoving past her and other passengers
– No one giving up their seat for a blind passenger (I got my son to get up for him)
– The person in the “priority” seat (the same bottlenecking woman as above, who had since sat down) not giving up their seat for a frail old woman who got on the bus. Luckily, someone further down the bus gave up their seat for her.There is a lack of civility in some passengers, as if they were simply never taught “savoir-vivre”. But as said above, I think it’s a noticeable minority causing these issues. The problem is that, though they are still a minority, there are more of them then in the past.
Uatu
Cell phones have taught us to be so self absorbed that we forget what’s going on around us. Try walking around rush hour and it’s a constant blur of pedestrians with screens in front of their faces. And all of them expect for you to get out of their way. Has walking become so boring that you have to be distracted by a screen?
Tim S.
As long as this thread is here:
I was on the metro just now. Everyone acting normally until a guy suddenly jumps up and starts screaming, hard. Turns out the man sitting behind him, back to back, had a pet rat that crawled onto the guy’s back. Rat owner retrieves his pet, then starts lecturing the victim for over reacting, wagging his finger at him and repeating: “he’s not a monster.”
Guy eventually changes seats, though I’m surprised it took him as long as it did.
Kate
The rat owner was lucky to get his pet back in one piece. How could he be sure that a startled stranger wouldn’t take a hard swat at it?
jeather
I like (domesticated) rats, and they’re good pets, but I definitely don’t want anyone’s pet rat (or dog) on me in the metro. (Because I am a cliche, I would be fine with someone’s cat on me.)
CE
Re: the cell phone users walking on the street, if they’re walking (or biking) towards me while looking at their phones, I just let them run into me. It’s startled some people pretty bad but everyone has seemed to understand that they were at fault.
Chris
CE I do that too! Sometimes I’ll even pull out my own phone, pretend to be just as oblivious, and walk toward them.
GC
I’ve definitely walked into a few people who try to get inside a metro car before I can get off of it. That etiquette should be a no-brainer.
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Kate
La Presse says that a list of Montreal restaurants it suggests should be boycotted because of their links with Israel has been circulating for months on social networks. I’d be curious to see this list because I have not been able to find it on any social media platform.
After posting this, I received an Instagram link from someone who follows the blog feed on X.
Chris
Strange that we’ve not seen any talk of boycotting Russian, Syrian, Yemeni, Lebanese, Burmese, Sudanese, Iranian, etc. -linked restaurants. I wonder why that is.
Such lists can backfire too, as it also provides a list for the other side to support.
Kate
There aren’t exactly a lot of restaurants or other businesses that can be linked to Iran, Sudan, Yemen etc. around Montreal. That’s why that is.
Ian
I’ve seen that list (in screencap) and it was being derided even in the circles it is meant to appeal to as obviously unresearched, including for instance businesses where one owner is Palestinian and the other Israeli, or businesses well-known to openly sympathetic to ceasefire. AFAIK it was mostly circulating on Xitter and Reddit.
The other thing about most of those other places is that the people from those countries mostly came here as refugees, except maybe the Russians, and I can only think of a handful of Russian places mostly in Hampstead and on Queen Mary and they don’t try to hide it. I like Polish food better anyhow. That said, Burmese, Yemeni, Sudanese? What do you think this is, Toronto? And really, Lebanese? It’s not like Israel where everyone has to be in the IDF.
This is exactly the same problem as I have with Plante & Housefather calling attacks on Netanyahu-sympathetic establishments anti-semitism – it endangers all the Jews who are not Netanyahu fans, of which there are many even in Israel.
DeWolf
Screenshots of the list have appeared on Reddit, I’m not sure if you can still find them there. One of them included justifications for the inclusion of each restaurant and the reasoning was pretty tenuous in many cases. Falafel Yoni/Pizza Toni was included because the restaurant’s social media account “follows an Israeli influencer.” Lots of dogwhistling like that.
jeather
If you want to boycott Israeli brands, sure, that’s a reasonable decision. But this is boycotting small local places — a good example would be Chinese restaurants owned by Chinese immigrants.
Chris
>There aren’t exactly a lot of restaurants or other businesses that can be linked to Iran, Sudan, Yemen etc. around Montreal
Then it could be a short list. But there is no such list. Not even a pathetic under-researched tenuous list.
I haven’t noticed a lot of protests, marches, encampments or divestments against all those other wars either, where even more people have died.
>It’s not like Israel where everyone has to be in the IDF.
Except the Hasidic of course.
jeather
Actually, also probably fair to boycott Indian restaurants under this schema, of which we have a lot.
Ian
>Then it could be a short list. But there is no such list. Not even a pathetic under-researched tenuous list.
Have you been looking?
>I haven’t noticed a lot of protests, marches, encampments or divestments against all those other wars either, where even more people have died.
There were marches for Syria, Ukraine, and Myanmar. There are active groups in Montreal supporting Sudan, Yemen, etc. You can’t be looking very hard.
>Except the Hasidic of course.
jeather
Chris, there’s been a recent court decision that the Haredi also have to serve, and won’t be subsidized for study instead. The government is fighting the first half, and I’ve not seen much detail about the second.
Also, Arab citizens aren’t conscripted, though they can sign up.
(Please take this as informational only.)
Ephraim
@Ian – It’s the majority who are not Netanyahu fans. If they had an election today, he would lose. Of course, he never had a majority. But went with the extreme right, often rejected by everyone because no one on the left will sit with him and view him as a criminal. I mean he was indicted for breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud. And the trial is still ongoing.
Ephraim
@jeather To correct that, Muslims Arabs are not conscripted. Druze, who are Arabs and citizens are conscripted. Circassians, who are Muslims, but not Arabs are also conscripted. Both were exempted and requested to NOT be exempted, but only men serve. The Druze used to have their own battalion, but asked to be integrated into the general army quite a while ago. There is a very interesting Druze Israeli on Instagram… and his mother (Medina) is so damn cute! She shows how to roll and cook vine leaves. She speaks Arabic and Hebrew and is a respected elder in her village, which is mixed Jewish, Muslim, Druze and Christian. Most people don’t realize how mixed many villages are in the Galilee (northern Israel).
Israel Arab Muslims and Christians need to volunteer to go to the army. And there are a growing number who do.
Tim S.
It was just two years ago the SAQ pulled the few Russian vodkas it has off the shelves.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8646802/quebec-boycott-russia-invasion-ukraine/
Kate
I just checked, Tim S., and there are zero Russian products at the SAQ now.
There’s one product from Israel, a rosé.
Blork
A sign of the times. Where once justice and forgiveness were virtuous, now it’s judgment and cancellation that everyone goes for, right out of the gate and without any thinking or due process. Great world we have here!
Tim S.
Usually repentance has to come before forgiveness.
dwgs
Falafel St. Jacques FTW!!
Ian
I haven’t been, but I’ve heard good things – I see two locations on the map, VSP & Lachine. Are they both the same or is there one in particular that merits a first-time visit?
dwgs
I’ve only been to the VSP one and it for sure merits a visit. The falafel pita is obviously a must, their latkes are great, and they always have several good salads. From what I’ve seen it’s all veg if that matters to some. And the people who run it are very nice.
Ian 18:00 on 2024-07-08 Permalink
There’s an encampment in Parc Léo-Pariseau, too. There’s a couple in Parc Mont-Royal and one in Parc Jeanne-Mance, too, and a few up in the woods of the Mountain. Are the police tacitly allowing homeless camping for now?
Kate 18:40 on 2024-07-08 Permalink
I suppose they are, unless there are too many complaints.
I know of one on a triangle of greenery in the midst of heavy traffic near the Met in Villeray – there’s a little thicket of pine trees, and people are living inside it. You wouldn’t see it from vehicles, you’d have to be walking around the area to notice. And police don’t walk.
DeWolf 19:11 on 2024-07-08 Permalink
I think it’s based on complaints. The encampment on Duluth was there for awhile, but apparently somebody complained, and when the police came to check they found weapons inside the tents.