There was an arrest this week in connection with attacks on a bar in Verdun in June and July this year. The suspect is 14 years old, and two other 14‑year‑olds had previously been arrested over the same incidents.
People who shot at a restaurant on de la Montagne several times in August were also arrested. At least these two are not described as minors.
Montreal, which already devotes 11% of its budget to policing, is being asked by the police brotherhood to increase funding to the SPVM in the 2025 budget. The amount already being paid for police here has been criticized.
Don’t worry, Plante promised a big, big conversation about it. I’m sure the city won’t just increase the police budget again. /s
Make it conditional on bodycams
11% of the budget is absolute madness. I could maybe understand that figure if we were Detroit or Baltimore, but Montreal is a relatively civilized place. I love my city to bits but the stranglehold the SPVM has over the administration is downright repulsive. And I really doubt anything will be done about it in my lifetime. It’s not normal for average law-abiding citizens to absolutely despise the police, yet here we are. And it stinks.
I see way too many spvm operating the traffic lights
$100 – $200 / hr, with benefits galore, paid out to random white male douchebags with guns and bad societal attitudes, to manually operate our fucking traffic lights. Makes total sense to me.
We really need to put an end to this stupid shit. Like, yesterday.
After a man died of exposure on Tuesday, lying on a sidewalk in Hochelaga‑Maisonneuve, La Presse has a dossier on the rising numbers of deaths here among the homeless, including an inquiry into how the homeless die and a short list of individuals and how they met their ends.
Access to French classes has been reduced all over Quebec, and is now happening here in Montreal, all while the Quebec government insists newcomers must learn French quickly.
The Rover published a first-person account.
Surely, some journalists have seen through the CAQ by now? Their show of “strengthening French” is only for their base. Continuing to subsidize French classes for new immigrants wouldn’t suit their agenda – keeping non-French speaking newcomers marginalized and less educated would.
This was reported on reddit Wednesday: a man was walking along Ste‑Catherine, punching random women in the face. A suspect has been arrested.
Countdown till someone denounces the BBC’s headline description of the Véloroute Gourmande as Canada’s delectable 235km food trail because the Véloroute is only in Quebec.
also, boo to the BBC for “Montréal”
And Québec! And Café! And Véloroute!
The horror! 🙂
We’ve been through this before.
I read “Montréal” as pronounced in French. Perfectly fine in names like Journal de Montréal or Université de Montréal, but I don’t know anyone who, while speaking English, determinedly pronounces “Montreal” as in French. (Does anyone?) So my eye always snags on that, and I detect people trying to be politically correct by indicating that it is a French, and only French, place.
It tells me the writer is either paid by Quebec tourism people, who insist on it, or is trying to show they’re excessively correct. Both of those options make me doubt them as writers.
It’s Montreal for the same reason you don’t say “Paree” or Barthelona– the names are different in different languages.
That was a fun read and it makes me want to follow the Véloroute myself. Sold! All you need is time and a full platinum card.
Yes, I realize you have a well founded objection to that accent aigu in references to Montreal in English text. If it was done as you speculated in collaboration with Tourisme Québec, it’s certainly on brand. I just see it as a benign nod to local flavor for a foreign readership. But I guess that’s the difference between a drop-in like me and a born and raised citizen who detects a bit of anti English Fact cultural cleansing.
There are no accents in English. Look in Merriam-Webster’s or the Canadian Oxford, both of which have entries for Montreal and Quebec and neither of which even list Montréal or Québec as alternative spellings, though I see the MW website has recently made Montréal (but pronounced à la française) as one (letter to the editor coming up, though the canned reply will almost surely be “we’re descriptive, not prescriptive”).
@Kevin Exactly. In fact, a city’s name having a different form in foreign languages can be seen as a sign of respect, an acknowledgement of its status as an important place, a sign that it’s a major population, business and/or cultural centre. Wonder what the reaction would be if francophones were suddenly told they could refer to European cities only by their official names. Don’t expect we’d be seeing franco Quebecers making a sudden switch to Roma, Köln, London or Athínai anytime soon.
J’ai passé deux semaines en Florida l’hiver passé.
Les grandes villes de la California sont énormes.
Victoria est la capitale de la British Columbia.
Go for it, OQLF!
I used to work as a copy editor for a small publication and helped write their style guide. Place names had their own section in the guide and were sometimes contentious. I think my having lived in Montreal made me more conscious of this than the rest of the (mostly British) staff. It’s generally agreed as to which places maintain their accents in English (Bogotá, São Paulo, Türkiye) but most lose it or have completely different names (Mexico rather than México, Brazil rather than Brasil, Germany rather than Deutschland). This can be different from one publication to another though.
It’s likely that Montreal just isn’t important enough to have a spot in the BBC style guide, so the writer and editors erred on the side of caution in using the accent (and/or wanted to make the city look a little more exotic to their English readership). Most newsrooms have been gutted over the last couple decades and it’s unlikely many eyes had been assigned to what is more or less a fluff piece.
carswell, soyez pas méchant! Je vais les appeler en 10…9…8…7…
I always put the accent in Montréal, in either language. It’s cool. It’s a little symbol that we aren’t like the other big cities in Canada and a nod to the official language of the province.
Yes, but Montréal does not have one, much less two exclamation points in its name!
@walkerp
… what the CAQ considers to be the official language of the province, denying hundreds of years of multicultural history 🙂
Two people were found dead in a car in St‑Léonard early Thursday; deaths are being called suspicious but not yet given homicide numbers.
Wednesday, a mother and son were reported missing in that part of town, but whether these stories are linked hasn’t been revealed yet as of midmorning Thursday.
Thursday afternoon, CTV is hinting that it was indeed the man and his mother that were found.
A tanker truck burst into flame Wednesday night on Autoroute 20 near Angrignon.
The car belonging to landlord Emile B*namor was torched outside his house early Thursday. Radio‑Canada has the scoop; TVA only reported yet another vehicle arson.
(TVA caught up later with the public broadcaster.)
What a delightful development.
May that SOB forfeit his life for all the grief, pain and suffering he foisted on innocent people with his unvarnished greed.
bob 07:11 on 2024-10-18 Permalink
It is impressive that these youths have shown the initiative and resourcefulness to start a business at such a young age.
MarcG 07:13 on 2024-10-18 Permalink
Are these kids enterprising young people or goons-for-hire? Seems like your average 14 y/o would crack and spill the beans pretty quick.
Ian 08:40 on 2024-10-18 Permalink
Back in my day 14 year olds were mostly used as drug runners or prostitutes, it’s nice to see them getting a leg up into something with a future, like racketeering.
MarcG 16:30 on 2024-10-18 Permalink
It’s fun to joke but I need to say that people live nearby and could have been hurt.
Ian 18:08 on 2024-10-18 Permalink
Do you, though? Nobody likes a scold, and as you point out, it was joking. After all, if even clowns aren’t funny we need whatever we can scrape together in these troubled times.
MarcG 19:04 on 2024-10-18 Permalink
My bleeding heart compelled me. I walk by the place often and saw the soot on the bricks.
Kate 19:34 on 2024-10-18 Permalink
I have a shoe-drop question about the Verdun bar story. These kids are being paid by somebody to break into and firebomb a bar. They’re 14 years old, so either they’re being driven, they’re driving illegally, or they’re walking around carrying combustibles and housebreaking tools… or even taking public transit with them?
GC 08:50 on 2024-10-19 Permalink
An interesting logistical question. If you’re planning to firebomb a place, I don’t think you’d blink twice at driving illegally. But, maybe there’s some sort of carpooling here? Or they ride up on Bixis?
MarcG 12:40 on 2024-10-19 Permalink
Perhaps evidence of the underworld’s carbon-zero efforts.
carswell 12:58 on 2024-10-19 Permalink
The person wearing a hoodie, gloves and a mask who left pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican party headquarters in DC on the night before the January 6th insurrection (some hypothesize it was Margorie Taylor Greene) was on foot. The bombs were in his or her backpack.