Is Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s theory that immigration would reduce the birthrate of locals a polite way to advance the great replacement theory?
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Kate
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Kate
An illustration at city hall portraying three Montrealers – two men, including one in hood and cap – and a woman in hijab will be removed, Valérie Plante promised on Tout le monde en parle, Sunday evening. There’s even talk here about also removing the image of the little girl in a headscarf at a library.
But does portraying Montrealers as we are equate to approval of religion?
Blork
Well, it does seem a bit odd that a sign welcoming people to city hall has only one woman on it, and that woman is in a hijab. It’s not like most women here wear that, and it’s not as if the image included several women and one just happened to have a hijab. So — to me at least — it comes off as pandering to some hypersensitive need for representation or whatever. I’m not “offended” by it, but it does seem silly.
You could argue that it’s some sort of randomized representation, but imagine if the “Welcome to City Hall” sign showed a man in a cowboy hat. We’d all be like… huh? Sure, some people here wear cowboy hats, but is THAT the image you want to put forward on the welcome sign? Makes it look like we’re mostly cowboys.
Joey
The decision to remove it is much more loaded than the decision to put it up in the first place. Shame on the city.
jeather
It was false advertising since women in hijab are not in fact welcome.
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Kate
Not surprising to read that Montrealers don’t hang out downtown as much as we did, pre‑pandemic, according to a new survey from La Presse. Of course, one pub owner gets in a comment about parking. But I think this city is growing to a size where it has more than one focal point – people gather on Wellington, on Masson, on Mont‑Royal, not only on Bishop and Crescent, or the Quartier Latin.
Blork
The point about the multiple focal points has been true for some time; decades, really.
In this case I think a significant factor is the WFH effect. When downtown was a focal point for day jobs, it was very easy for people from all over to go for drinks or dinner after work and to stay downtown since they’d be departing in various directions afterwards. With so many people doing WFH it’s more complicated now. Instead, people just go out in their own neighbourhoods.
I’m just a sample of one, but this is very true for me. I used to go out (downtown) a couple of times a month pre-pando, but now it’s like a few times a year at best. Even my so-called book club (of which there are only four members) has suffered, as pre-pando three of us worked downtown and one had to come in from NDG. So it was dead simple. But now one’s downtown, one’s in Longueuil, one’s in the west island, and one’s still in NDG. It makes getting together after work a much more complicated proposition.
Kate
And then, of course, inflation. You can’t pressure people to go out and eat in restaurants when they’re having trouble buying groceries.
A bottle of Huy Fong sriracha now costs upward of $15 in some places. Nuts.
walkerp
Every time I went downtown this summer, it was always packed, sidewalks and establishments.
Derek
The maze of construction corridors on Ste-Catherine don’t help either. Necessary but certainly does not foster an environment where people want to spend time.
That being said, downtown still seems to have lots of foot traffic even if the numbers suggest otherwise.
DeWolf
The office districts around Central Station and President-Kennedy have suffered a lot, as has anything in the underground city. But as walkerp said, the rest of downtown is packed. Certainly just as busy as I remember it being before the pandemic.
Let’s not forget that even if suburbanites don’t go downtown as often as before, the downtown residential population increased 25% between 2016 and 2021, and it has probably grown another 25% since then given all the new residential units that have been completed in the past couple of years.
Also, lol at the comments from the owner of Ziggy’s in the CTV article. So 60% of his regular customers were *driving* from the West Island and South Shore? Maybe it’s not a good business model to rely on drunk drivers who are commuting 30-40 minutes to get an industrial beer they could get anywhere.
rob
It`s great that we’re developing new focal points. Even the off-island suburbs have begun developing their own nightlift, more than ever! I wouldn’t want to go see a show at Dix30 and then head to it’s neighbouring bars, but I’m certain lots of people do – to the detriment of downtown.
Robert H
What’s remarkable is how much outside of the norm Montreal remains relative to most North American cities. Central Montreal is still livelier than most cites in ths continent. The default these days in the major metro areas is a poly-nodal sprawl with a remnant office-ghetto “downtown” that empties out after 5 PM. Centre-ville is in transition with all the new residential development. Its role in the city is changing, but it is also developing its own constituency. The era of relying on a daily influx of commuters to sustain its businesses and institutions is over. There’s a strong foundation to build upon.
Kate
This would be the moment for Ville-Marie to get its own borough mayor and fully elected council. Man, I wish Valérie Plante could do that for the city as her parting shot, but I doubt Quebec would comply.
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Kate
Forbes offers a piece on five hiking trails within Montreal “city limits” of which two are not on the island of Montreal at all. The writer also handwaves the complexity of taking public transit to Mont St‑Hilaire and airily tells us to take the train to Ste‑Anne‑de‑Bellevue without hinting that the Exo schedule is very limited.
Nicole
The article also neglects to mention that both the Gault Nature Preserve and the Morgan Arboretum have entrance fees (both ~$8/adult/day)
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Kate
We’ve discussed before what “perpetuity” means in a cemetery, and one reader assured me it doesn’t mean forever. But now a grave owner at Notre‑Dame‑des‑Neiges is alleging that the cemetery has pulled a fast one by redefining perpetuity unilaterally, given that other cemeteries in Quebec mean by the word what it seems to mean: forever. Pedro Gregorio is hoping to lead a class action suit intended to make the cemetery respect the terms of its original contracts.
H. John
My guess would be he’ll lose. He didn’t buy a burial lot, he didn’t become a part owner in a cemetery. It’s rented space that still belongs to the fabrique Notre-Dame. It’s a lease, and as steph pointed out, the CCQ now limits lease to 99 years.
The argument concerning other cemeteries doesn’t seem to hold up either:
H. John
and the wording of the CCQ, since 1991, is pretty clear that it applies to already existing leases:
1880. The term of a lease may not exceed 100 years. If it exceeds 100 years, it is reduced to that term.
1991, c. 64, a. 1880.Joey
It’s weird that cemeteries – presumably not just NDDN – aren’t more accurate in their descriptions. That said, I would assume H. John is correct. Anyway, “man wants to launch a class action” isn’t really news…
Kate
I’m sorry it’s not news, Joey. It was a topic we’d discussed here before (and, to be honest, one that concerns me, as my g‑g‑grandparents are in there, since 1878, and I assumed they always would be). I will be more selective about newsworthiness in future.
JP
@Kate, You should post about whatever you’d like. It’s your blog. I think a lot of us appreciate the personal touch you add to this site. it’s nice to deviate from perfect newsworthiness from time to time.
walkerp
Yeah, I don’t think Joey was critiquing your posting of it here, but that it is a new item in general.
At some point, just theoretically, you can’t keep adding bodies to a graveyard. Though that is cool that your great-great grandfather is still there and findable. I would hope that people who have been there longer than 100 years old and still have living relatives would get “grandfathered” in to keep the plot longer.
And there are people developing composting coffins, which seems to make the most sense to me.
Kate
I’d prefer to be wrapped up in a shroud and dug in somewhere to fertilize an oak tree, yes. But we don’t do that in Quebec, for obscure religious reasons originally I suppose, but now, I suspect, to keep enriching the funeral business.
walkerp, I agree it’s cool I know where some of my ancestors are, but what if NDN came to me and said, e.g., Madame, you’re the last local living descendant of these people, so give us $3,000 or we’ll dig up your ancestors and throw the bones in a pit, and grind up the headstone for gravel – ? I might be happy to let it go.
Joey
Kate, I was referring to CTV, not you! IMO “I’m gonna launch a class action” is like bar talk, the kind of boast that usually doesn’t amount to anything, especially when there’s precedent. That there’s an interesting discussion here is a testament to your years of being a critical curator of information for this community, but I think that aspect is lost on the broader CTV readership.
H. John
Mr. Gregorio acted as an expert in another class action brought by Me O’Brien against Samsung and Apple.
Here’s an interesting dialogue between one of the applicants in that case, Tracy Arial, and Me O’Brien.
Orr
Speaking of graves, I recently had a tombstone of my ancestors (historic anglo (or should I say Scot) born in 1828, buried in 1907) levelled and cleaned. The tombstone company insisted they had to do both, and upon seeing the results, I agree. So I feel for anyone who’s ancestors get erased after 99 years.
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Kate
La Presse has a dossier Monday on the thorny subject of where the city can safely put shelters for the homeless. In theory, they’re supposed to be at a distance from schools and daycares, but that’s impossible in any part of the city that’s densely populated. There’s even a map making a demonstration of this fact.
There are further pieces examining the limits of Ontario’s law, trying to balance the needs of homeless against the feelings of residents, and a further exercise with maps.
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Kate
The STM apparently tolerates its police wearing the Thin Blue Line badge on their uniforms, although it was officially forbidden as of 2021.
rob
What stops them from wearing it underneath their vest, hidden from the public?
Ephraim
@rob – Don’t care what character underoos they wear. But the “Thin Blue Line” is essentially a gang. It’s used as a reasoning that it’s US versus them. The problem is, the police are supposed to be part of “US”, which is why they are NOT supposed to be above the law themselves.
steph
I think rob’s point was that removing the symbol from the public eye doesn’t stop racist cops from being racist. I’ve had heard of Montreal Police officers wearing the badge under their vests, it just adds a level to the nefarious nature of the coded gang signaling.
Kate
First off, authority has told cops not to wear the badge, or indeed any extraneous symbols not approved by the service. That they have not been obeyed shows that either they’re weak, that they covertly approve, or both. Neither is reassuring to the public. Secondly, allowing officers to sport the symbol normalizes the concept that police are a culture apart, and have the right to close ranks against the public, which is exactly what they should not do.
The symbol became popular in the “Blue Lives Matter” movement, which arose in response to Black Lives Matter in the United States. But the motivation behind it is different, and smacks of authoritarianism. We do not need this here where, if anything, cops are being overly catered to by governments.
Joey
Nice that the police get to decide which rules are real rules and which ones aren’t. Explains a lot.
yasymbologist 22:42 on 2024-10-28 Permalink
thank god, it’s the immigrants to blame, again. I used to think discreetly that it’s the late-stage capitalism derailed worldwide fertility rate.
Ephraim 09:24 on 2024-10-29 Permalink
Is his next idea to make condoms and contraceptives illegal, forcing women to have children against their will? Are we really going to follow the path of “The Handmaid’s Tale”?
If the goal is to encourage people to have more children, we need to focus on building a thriving society. People should feel secure, knowing there is a social safety net to support them both financially and socially. They need assurance of having food on the table, access to hospitals and healthcare, and support from nurses and other services. The whole Maslow’s Pyramid. This issue isn’t about immigrants; in fact, immigrants contribute to the tax base necessary to ensure this sense of security.
Joey 11:43 on 2024-10-29 Permalink
PQ leader gonna PQ lead… remember this little gem from Lucien Bouchard during the late stages of the 1995 referendum campaign: « les Québécois sont l’une des races blanches qui fait le moins d’enfants au monde ».
The La Presse article doesn’t seem to make any reference to the birthrate of locals, I wonder if it’s been edited without a notice. Le Devoir covers it here: https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/822544/plan-reduction-immigration-parti-quebecois?
walkerp 11:48 on 2024-10-29 Permalink
I had a brief period of naive ignorance when I thought that when we get the CAQ out of here the PQ will at least be better about social programs. Completely forgot their entire playbook has been based on racist ethnonationalism for a while now. Depressing.
bob 10:46 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Locals have a birthrate? I’ve heard that kids today aren’t even having sex any more.
@Ephraim – “They need assurance of having food on the table, access to hospitals and healthcare, and support from nurses and other services.” – and they don’t need kids for any of that, or anything in Maslow’s hierarchy, least of all for self-actualisation. Since the 50’s the West in general and Quebec in particular has drifted into a supremely narcissistic mode based firmly in an ideology of selfish, greedy individualism. No room for children in that lifestyle.
@walkerp – Is there a party in Quebec that is not based in Quebecois nationalism, or at least panders to it?
walkerp 11:39 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Depends on how you define “nationalism”. I’d say QS toes the line of sovereignty but doesn’t actually propose any legislation that attacks minority groups.
Orr 17:10 on 2024-11-01 Permalink
Well the Catholic church is still against condoms, masturbation, and sex for pleasure. Sex is for making babies, they preach, to the elderly still going to church every Sunday morning.