Ghost shoes were placed Saturday at St‑Denis and Rigaud in memory of Zachary Laferté-Landry, who was killed on that corner earlier this month in an accident with an STM bus.
Updates from October, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The restoration of Notre-Dame’s east tower has begun, part of a $50‑million project to redo first the exterior then the interior of the iconic church, which should be completed by 2035.
Ephraim
To quote “The organization’s Executive Director, Michel Issa, says they largely rely on donations in order to restore the 200-year-old building.”
So are they calling the $16 they charge to visit and the $35 for their quick little show a “donation”?
Oddly, independent numbers estimate about 11M visitors per year but ND themselves claim just 1M per year. Still at 1M visitors, just the fees to visit is a LOT of money toward the total.
Nicholas
They charge sales taxes, so definitely not a donation, as you’re aware. And I believe this is their charity, which claimed $1.15 million in other revenues, which are probably ticket sales and private events. So either the independent estimates are wrong, or the Basilica is committing perjury on their tax forms (even though they wouldn’t owe any income tax on higher revenues anyway, just sales tax, so there’s little incentive to lie). (Or I have the wrong charity, or it’s coded some other way.)
H. John
@Nicholas. You picked the wrong Notre-Dame church (as Leonard Cohen could have pointed out).
The charity listing for the fabrique or parish for Notre-Dame Basilica is more likely this one:
Ephraim
I will assume that the $17,639,691.00 in revenue is from ticket sales. The $4,239,942.00 is frankly money they should not be getting… the government should NOT be funding churches, synagogues or mosques.
They will have to give a little less to charitable programs to pay to maintain their building, which is obviously… their money maker.
Kate
Ephraim, I think the government does have an argument for funding Notre-Dame (maybe also Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours, the church H. John is referencing (“Our lady of the Harbour”)) as tourist attractions.
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Kate
The city opened a call for tenders for the southern half of Îlot Voyageur earlier this year, but has cancelled the offer after the two bids it received didn’t meet its requirements. Now it’s got to find a partner who will.
thomas
I don’t understand why the city doesn’t offer part of this property to Hydro Quebec to build the new electrical substation.
DeWolf
From what I understand, this means the city will now be negotiating directly with the two groups that made bids, rather than putting out a new call for tenders in the future. It wants everything wrapped up before the end of the year.
In the article, the head of UTILE, which planned to build 500 non-profit units in partnership with Mondev (who would build another 500 market units) sounds pretty happy to be able to develop a project directly with the city. The other company that bit was Prével, which has a good track record of nice neighbourhood-scale projects (they’re currently building the Esplanade Cartier) but as the article notes, nothing public was revealed about their bid.
Over on Agora, one member who is an architect says this whole case is an example of how the city’s tendering process (as mandated by Quebec) is needlessly complicated and opaque.
carswell
On the surface (because in this case that’s as deep as I can go), that’s a brilliant idea, thomas.
Kate
I remember some passing mention of the HQ idea in the media, but it seemed the city was dead set on using the Îlot space for social/affordable housing.
Also, the library and its land are Quebec’s, which can decide what to do with it, without regard to the city, including putting a big block of Quebec brutalist concrete at Berri and Ontario if they want to.
There’s probably a lot of unseen political stuff going on around the area that the public never knows about.
Incidentally, deals for the Îlot land have been announced before, and Groupe Aquilini was supposed to build something like this (the link was added here by DeWolf in a discussion from August last year).
DeWolf
I’m not sure how moving the HQ substation to this location would solve any problems. You’d be ruining an even more prominent site while sacrificing a large amount of housing.
If the idea is to have an underground substation with the residential development on top, that would be great, except the Voyageur site is right over the metro station so I don’t think that would be feasible. No idea if an underground substation would work for the site currently slated for HQ but it seems much more likely to be possible.
Orr
I was in the Ilot Voyageur for the first time last week to get my 65 Opus card at the STM photo shop for my free STM Montreal island public transport because I have just reached official geezerhood.
It raised the question of why the bus station isn’t connected to the Berri-UQAM metro station? Because that defies any logical explanation. But then, I am not a bureaucracy.
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Kate
Some hotel labour issues have reached agreements although members haven’t voted yet.
Quebec’s biggest nurses’ union has adopted a new collective agreement although there are also stories saying that not everyone is thrilled with the deal.
steph
Why would they agree to ” 17.4 per cent covering the period of April 2023 to April 2027.” when they need 17.4 percent catchup from the 2020-2023 inflation?
MtlWeb
What the CAQ, its health ministry, and much of the public fail to understand is that the days of health care professionals (RNs, RTs, Physio, OTs, SLPs, Radiology) eager to cling to a position, any position (nights, evenings, float), allows them to have a 35 year career in their field, within the public system (such as yours truly) are OVER.
The past 5-10 yrs has seen the new generation unwilling to work every second Sat/Sun, every second stat holiday, as well as accepting to take their vacation outside of June-September, due to seniority…..thus they leave the public system, which has helped train them and allowed them to develop their skills and competencies, and take a position in a GMF clinic (Mon-Fri, some Sat, no nights, no holidays) or in a private surgical clinic for a flexible schedule (no evenings/nights, no weekends, no holidays) and more money.
The arrival of Covid (2020-xxxx) exacerbated this reality as many felt disrespected and unappreciated for working in an unknown, even unsafe environment (reusing N95s, tons of guilty OT due to being short-staffed). That led to an exodus of staff due to early retirement, change of job location (public/private), or leaving the city/province to do travel agency.
Nowadays, when the staff working in an ICU, ER, CCU, feel as if they’ve had enough, they just quit; they don’t even bother asking for a leave since they know it would never be granted, so they quit, go try something else, someplace else, as there are available positions everywhere.
How am I aware of these harsh facts? I’ve been doing this since Polytechnique and I now realize that perhaps the system needs to hit rock bottom before the suits in the ministry realize that you cannot recruit the youth of today to enter these medical fields and remain in them for decades when you make an already demanding and stressful job even more unpredictable regarding where, when, with whom, that professional will work, which is what this new collective agreement is all about.
I could go on and on but am tired after a 12h shift today, and need to get ready for tomorrow. Take care of yourselves, and do accompany a loved one that is hospitalized, as they will need an advocate at the bedside as part of their recovery.Kate
MtlWeb, thank you for your thoughts on this.
CBC radio said that one of the positives for the nurses in the FIQ deal was that they wouldn’t be moved around from place to place as has been happening. Is that not true? (Also, it occurred to me that if you’re constantly sent from place to place, you’d have to drive, so who pays costs for your vehicle?)
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