The heraldic motif on the archway entrance to the old St‑Sulpice seminary next to Notre‑Dame has been repainted, and people who care about these things are not happy. The background red is fluorescently vivid, the lions are golden rather than silvery, and the overall effect is garish; the official line of the Sulpicians is that nothing but a little maintenance work has been done. Article includes before and after photos.
Updates from September, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A man was beaten to death in Rivière‑des‑Prairies prison on September 10, a few hours after being told he was soon going to be released. Why Mahdi Hijazi was placed in maximum security that night has not been explained.
The death has not been counted as a homicide number (I don’t think jail deaths are) and the circumstances evoke both the beating death of André Lapierre at the same jail in 2021, and the death of Nicous D’Andre Spring when he was illegally locked up in Bordeaux Jail over Christmas 2022.
walkerp
Prisons in Quebec are f’ing scary. I mean they are scary everywhere, but Quebec has a long tradition of particularly brutal prisons compared to the rest of Canada and it feels like that hasn’t changed much. I feel bad for this guy’s family. Sounds like the guards (whom he had pissed off by constant complaints) and some inmates (to whom he owed money) got together to take him out. Quite nasty.
dwgs
@walkerp, I would have said the same but this excerpt from the CBC coverage gave me pause.
“According to data provided by the Ministry of Public Security, there was one murder in Quebec jails in 2020-2021 and another in 2021-2022. Between 2011 and 2020, no murders were recorded, states a report by Observatoire des profilages, a Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), a group focused on racial profiling.”
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Kate
The murder trial has begun of Francieli Ortiz-Vivanco, accused of stabbing to death the owner of a dépanneur in Ahuntsic in November 2020.
I remember this incident because the victim had been well liked in the neighbourhood and left a wife and three kids.
Another murder trial also just began, of three men accused of shooting three victims dead and wounding two others at a birthday party in Rivière‑des‑Prairies in summer 2021.
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Kate
We may be facing an era in which Donald Trump is president of the U.S. and Pierre Poilievre is PM of Canada – with the environmental and human damage that will follow.
We can hope not, but we may have to deal with it.
Given this, what would be the best place to put personal and, if we have them, financial efforts?
Maxim Baru
My take is that roughly a version of this is true in Canada, despite a general perception that financial constraints on election spending exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_theory_of_party_competition
In a nutshell, elections are expensive and individual ordinary people can’t afford to meaningfully engage the cost of time and money.
But “the Investment Theory of Party Competition does not deny the possibility that masses of voters can become major investors in an electoral system, and accepts that in cases where this does happen the effect may resemble classical voter competition models. For this to happen, however, generally requires channels that facilitate mass deliberation and expression, typically ‘secondary’ organizations capable of spreading the cost of acquiring information and concentrating contributions from many individuals to act politically.”
My two cents: create a union at your job or get involved in your existing union. Confront apolitical approaches to unions. Make them function again.
walkerp
Go hard on the stock market as these guys will be doing everything they can to move money from public to private and the Dow Jones/TSX are the biggest indicators of success with that strategy. At least until the real repression starts…
Jaye
Maybe if there’s a riding that has a candidate who you feel has a chance, and who you like, you can help go door-to-door?
That’s the trick. It has to be a seat in danger of flipping, where it’ll likely be a close race, and where you feel comfortable supporting a candidate.
walkerp
lol my bad, I thought you meant for your own personal finances, not how you could help fight against these fascists once they are in power.
Tim S.
Maintaining and participating in an online space that isn’t a toxic cesspit is already a good start.
DisgruntledGoat
The biggest impact any of us can make as an individual or household is:
1. Cast a vote in all elections
2. Volunteer at a homeless shelter and help prepare meals for the unhousedThere are giant political trends that we as individuals cannot nudge in the right direction a lot of the time, but making a direct impact on our communities and caring for the less fortunate is direct action and direct results
Kate
No, I didn’t mean by my post “where do I invest my money?”, I meant “where do we all invest our time and efforts – and where do we donate money if we have it – supposing we end up in a regressive regime for four to eight years (or more)?”
MarcG
Kinda in love with this misunderstanding
Ricardo
“Human Damage” ? “Fascists”? Have a missed something? Oh yeah, it’s another over reaction from a fearful left leaning person. I feel bad you guys/gals in that you live with such fear 24/7.
Kate
A lot of human damage. Consider the damage recently done to the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio after Trump’s claims that they eat other people’s pets. That man can do, and has done, vast damage by permitting his followers to feel and act in certain ways.
MarcG
Accusing people of being fearful of legitimate threats is peak masculine idiocy.
walkerp
Just remembering one of the first things that Harper did when he came to power was to cut science budgets and censor government scientists from saying anything was related to climate change. The majority of centrist Canadians who vote for the Conservatives who think they will somehow get lower inflation and housing costs and a good health care system will be in for a big surprise if they actually get in power. (Though to be fair, a similar phenomenon happened with the Liberals for people on the progressive side.)
Joey
@walkerp they’ll get lower inflation because inflation is down, regardless of what the federal government does. In hindsight, it might have been to JT’s advantage to lose the last election to PP and try and snap it back four years later. Risky move, though…
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Kate
CBC puts a hint of editorial disapproval in the headline Quebec slashes assistance for part-time French courses, launches ad campaign to promote French. Yes, it’s another attempt to quash “Bonjour‑Hi”.
jeather
Perhaps we should go back to the recommended “Bonjour ho”
Ian
‘allo-âllo is still on the table
Annette
The stick is always nearer to hand than the nutritious carrot.
Ian
Beatings will continue until morale improves
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Kate
The OSM took delivery of the first four of a carillon soon to number ten bells. They will be featured in a symphony performance this week.
In tangential news, attendance at cultural venues in Quebec has never bounced back from the pandemic.
MarcG
Didn’t read the article but a few ideas spring to mind: lots of older cultural consumers are now dead or sick, lots of group activities were stopped and never restarted, increasingly easy to be entertained at home, inflation made everyone poor.
EmilyG
I used to go to more cultural events than I do now.
I guess there are a lot of reasons. I don’t currently live near the city centre. My health isn’t as good as it used to be. And of course, even if many people want to ignore it, Covid is still around.
I feel bad about it, as I’m a musician myself, and I’d like to support the arts more.Though I recently tried to see if there were any tickets to the OSM’s performance of Gurrelieder, but it was all sold out. So I guess that’s one good thing.
JP
I echo Marc and Emily’s thoughts on this. I used to go to more events before Covid but my social and financial bandwidth just isn’t the same anymore.
My colleagues are going to see Hans Zimmer tonight and those tickets were quite pricey….
CE
I feel like I go to more cultural events than I did before Covid simply because I realized how much I’d miss them if they went away again like they did during the pandemic. The events I go to now are different than before but a big part of that is that I’m older now and my interests have changed (and my stamina has gone down).
Orr
The OSM ticket price is only about 10% of the cost of show (Ticket revenue is 10% of annual revenue of the OSM, so I’ve heard).
With subsidies like that, how can you afford not to go?
It is a very good orchestra.Kate
I’ve not yet set foot in the Maison symphonique. I’m sure it’s great, it’s just there’s always something I need to spend $50 to $75 on more than I want to sit and listen to an orchestra.
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Kate
The Bloc’s Louis-Philippe Sauvé has won the LaSalle‑Émard‑Verdun byelection.
MarcG
Genuinely shocked but it was a really tight race. 8884 votes BQ. 8636 Liberal. 8262 NDP.
Kate
Yes, I didn’t expect the Bloc to have such traction in that part of town. Till now, their only Montreal riding has been Pointe de l’Île at the far eastern tip of the island.
walkerp
I am honestly starting to feel like the CBC is in the bag for the Conservatives. Locally, they had an interview with Katy O’Malley who was nuanced in her analysis, recognizing that fatigue with the Liberals was only part of the many factors that led to the outcome of this race. Then the national news comes on calling it a sickening gut punch for Trudeau or something like that. And then check the language in the CBC article “stunning blow”, “devastating”. They just make up a narrative and then reinforce it themselves. For these elections, people vote very locally and David Lametti stepping down opened up the race right from the beginning. There is nothing surprising let alone stunning that this was a close race, nor is it some damning indictment of the Liberals. It was a local byelection with mutliple factors at play.
Liikewise for the NDP victoria, CBC reporter said something like “The NDP are happy with the result but worried for the seat in a general election against the surging national tide of the conservatives.”
There are poll numbers, that’s it. There is no surging conservative tide. People are tired of the Liberals, Trudeau has been effectively and erroneously maligned by Conservative (and external propaganda) but this is not some conservative victory wave.
Kate
Sage words, walkerp.
MarcG
Just saw the winner doing a one-man victory parade down Wellington street in his blue suit. I wonder if he’s just walking back and forth hoping somebody congratulates him?
nau
This result isn’t that surprising. The Bloq won the old Verdun riding after the sponsorship scandal tanked the LIberals, splitting the federalist vote. They were then replaced by the NDP when the progressive vote coalesced around Layton. The progressive soft sovereigntist vote could have put the NDP over the top but with Singh as the leader, those people seem to stick with the Bloq as their identity issues trump their progressivism. Which is bad for the NDP in Quebec in the next general election but not exactly new news.
Whatever other nuance one wishes to put on it, the new riding with the Lasalle portion should be a stronger Liberal riding than the old Verdun one, so this result mostly has to be attributed to the Liberal vote not being willing to show up in a byelection. It’s hard to explain them being this unmotivated unless they’re themselves somewhat tired of Trudeau, probably not helped by his team parachuting in a candidate. In a general election, I think enough Liberal voters would probably show up for them to take this riding back, but if they’re that weak here where the Conservatives aren’t a factor, the results elsewhere could be ugly.
Sure, there’s no surging conservative tide, but the polling is showing that the people who swing between voting Liberal and Conservative are in a voting Conservative mood and if that holds until election day, the Conservatives will top the Liberals.
Chris
It’s not complicated. Everyone is sick of Trudeau.
We were sick of Harper after a decade and now we’re sick of the current guy after a decade. Barely matters who he is.
I would also wager that the Palestinian flag could have easily cost Sauve a few hundred votes. The pro-Palestinian side would likely vote NDG anyway, but those not passionate about the cause could be put off by him visibly taking sides like that. Hamas runs Palestine, and, rightly or wrongly, some see that flag as representing that crowd.
Tim S.
There’s probably not too many national conclusions that can be drawn from a by-election where it seemed like everyone had their door knocked on multiple times and three parties ran full-scale get-out-the-vote efforts, and there were still only 600 votes separating the three top candidates. Hold the same vote next week and you might get a completely reversed set of results. A few points though:
I wouldn’t underestimate the Conservatives in the western part of that riding. It won’t be enough to win, but they could pull significant votes from the Liberals.
It’s a shame for the NDP that Craig Sauvé didn’t get in, because he would have been very hard to dislodge once he’d been able to work with the population on a daily basis as the incumbent.
The Bloc had a high-floor, low-ceiling opportunity that they made the most of. Like nau said, they aren’t able to win when one of the other parties gets some momentum, but in this case they knew exactly who their voters were and found just enough of them.
Finally, both in the media and in people I spoke to, there was a real sense among Francophones that it’s harder to live life in French. It’s not just a media/nationalist politician thing.
walkerp
Tim S., that final paragraph is very interesting! Could you elaborate on it a bit? Are they feeling like services/commerce/other stuff are becoming more anglicized and they are feeling excluded? Are they seeing it locally or is this across Quebec?
Tim S.
PS: from what I understand, there were no all-candidate events in this by-election. I think that’s a big problem, because voters should have the chance to see candidates interact with each other and answer possibly unfriendly questions. It’s also worrying that we’re seeing a complete erosion of the kinds of community groups who would usually organize these events. Who knows, maybe it’s up to the Weblog to become the new Lions Club or something!
Tim S.
Walkerp: I can’t give you large sample sizes, and probably there are actual readers here who could comment better than I. But something that came up was French at work – it only takes one English-speaker for a whole meeting to take switch to English. Which, yep, I’ve observed that many times.
Ramsay
I strongly second Tim’s comment about debates. There should be an easy way to see the candidates interact outside their party bubble.
Joey
It’s obviously unknowable, but I wonder if combination of a ballot with dozens of candidate options + two of three contenders having the same last name cause any kind of meaningful confusion. I know the ballot identifies the party but it’s conceivable that some people got mixed up.
Mark Côté
The NDG Community Council organized a debate for the by-election here last year after Garneau stepped down. It was a lively discussion…but the Liberals and Conservatives didn’t even bother showing. :/
rob
I’m hoping the Liberals are leaving Trudeau in place as a punching bag and as the federal elections near (and as the conservatives lose steam in their attacks), they`ll swap Trudeay out for a new, more appealing leader. It`s not only the conservativs that can copy the playbook from south of the border.
Ian
@Chris
“Hamas runs Palestine” uh, no. Hamas runs Gaza. The West Bank has an entirely different government. Hamas has only controlled Gaza since 2007. It’s kind of a big deal.Even Israel justifies its illegal settlements and recent incursions in the West Bank on Hezbollah (who are not the government anywhere, and based in Lebanon & Iran, but I digress).
Then again you only have to look as far as the Golan Heights to know Israel’s position on colonial occupation.
@nau sadly, as long as Singh is in charge of the NDP there’s very little chance of them making any real incursions in Quebec. Let’s not forget that under current QC law a man with a turban wouldn’t be allowed to be a teacher let alone sit at the “National” Assembly.
Chris
Ian, yes, slip of the tongue. Hamas runs Gaza. But I think my point stands despite this slip. For many people *today*, that flag is symbol of, shall we say, some not so nice organizations (Hamas, Fatah, PLO, etc.)
Your points about Israel would be relevant if Sauve had put himself in front of that flag. Many people *today* also associate that flag with, shall we say, some not so nice organizations (Mosad, IDF, extremist settlers, etc.)
Sauve would have been wiser to leave far away wars far away from his by-election.
Tim S.
And yet, foreign affairs is one of the few things that is unambiguously federal jurisdiction and therefore an appropriate topic for a federal campaign.
MarcG
“Far away” is meaningless. Gaza may be physically at a distance but if the bombs being dropped say Made in Canada on them…? Or Canada abstains from a UN resolution to include Palestine as a member?
Ian
… or even today, abstaining from from a UN motion calling on Israel to end occupation of Gaza & the West Bank. For that matter the Golan Heights occupatiuon has only been recognized as lawful by a small handful (even the US only since Trump) but hey.
Far away IS irrelevant.
Canada is a nation of coloniial settlers, refugees, and more recently, international immigrants. People from all over the world live here. I have conservative Jews and Palestinians in my immediate social circle. Regardless of what the CAQ would prefer, ths is not an assimilationist melting pot; what goes on in the rest of the world is of immediate relevance to many of us, especially in the ethnically and culturally diverse setting of cities like Montreal.
jeather 21:41 on 2024-09-17 Permalink
They’re not incorrect about the silver lion being repainted gold and the weird movement of the scrollwork now under the lions, but it does seem like the old one is mostly a dirty version of the new colours, and people dislike it in the mistaken theory that the past was colourless and when it had colours they were all sepia toned. They’re just eroded and dirty!
Kate 09:15 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
True, but they could have chosen a less intense red (going by the photo – I haven’t been down to look at it yet.)
Chris 09:20 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
The intense red is nice. And anyway, it’ll be less intense in a couple of years.
Kate 11:45 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
Older red paints have always faded because the pigments were iron compounds prone to break down over time from sunlight. The colour shown on the archway now is probably cadmium red, which won’t be so graceful.
I looked up the logo of the Sulpician order. While the monogram on the arch is basically the same as shown on the website, the official logo doesn’t have any rampant lions. Religious orders rarely sport heraldic supporters, so I wonder how the lions came to be added to the seminary portal.
jeather 12:18 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
Good news is that smog and various particulates will mute the red anyhow.
CE 14:13 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
I was just at Place d’armes and if I hadn’t read about the new paint job, I would never have noticed (and I spend a lot of time in the area).
CE 15:10 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
Just passed by again and took a closer look. I had never noticed that the two lions are pretty, um, well endowed.
Ian 17:45 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
It’s a metaphor for how they screwed over the natives on the land deal they worked out.
carswell 18:05 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
“I wonder how the lions came to be added to the seminary portal.”
Doesn’t this paragraph from the article answer your question, Kate: “Le fronton original, rappelle-t-il, avait été trafiqué au XIXe siècle afin de plaire au régime britannique. Cet élément architectural du Vieux-Montréal, il le considère comme aussi important « que la colonne Nelson financée majoritairement par les Sulpiciens, dans le même but ».”?
The lions look almost lifted from the coat of arms or the royal standard of the United Kingdom.
Have always found the fronton to be garish and slapped-on. This redo makes it worse.
Kate 18:39 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
You’re right, carswell. Plaire au régime britannique!
It’s bizarre that the Sulpicians financed the Nelson column to schmooze the British. Those invaders, those Protestants, those blokes!
Ian 21:50 on 2024-09-18 Permalink
The Sulpicians weren’t as silly as that, they knew that at its core their strength was in their holdings, which meant sucking up to power and taking advantage of the weak. Since the Sulpicians start granting land in the seigneurie to white colonists in 1787 (betraying the Mohawks) it was pretty clear that they were on the side of power first and foremost.