Quebec finally came across with the simoleons for the ARTM for 2025. One source of the money will be higher registration fees for drivers.
Nonetheless, Quebec expects the ARTM to squeeze more out of its budget over the next few years.
Quebec finally came across with the simoleons for the ARTM for 2025. One source of the money will be higher registration fees for drivers.
Nonetheless, Quebec expects the ARTM to squeeze more out of its budget over the next few years.
The city is opening a winter shelter right next door to city hall, in the Lucien‑Saulnier building. Thirty places are being made available, and the city is not waiting for provincial funding, a fact that they must have emphasized as it’s mentioned in several reports.
Other spots, one of them in UQAM, are being opened up as a cold weekend approaches with Saturday night expected to plunge to –17°.
Friday, La Presse has a few more details about the Lucien‑Saulnier shelter and a couple of other places where people with nowhere else to go can shelter from this weekend’s deep freeze. The shelter is spare, with chairs only. Would it be so much harder to put in bare army cots? Anyone who’s sat up all night by necessity would know how much a person wants to lie down past a point.
Is it fair that cities around the world have to deal with homelessness while suburbs are often free of that obligation (Westmount and others famously escorting homeless people to the city limits)? No. But that’s the hand we’re dealt and we shouldn’t shirk our moral responsibility to the less fortunate. It’s good to see some action here.
Many homeless travel to Vancouver to endure a milder winter.
Yes, the homeless are well known for their snowbird habits. Travelling cross country is no problem at all.
Do you even hear yourself?
I lived in a mostly abandoned building downtown years ago and we kept the door to the foyer open so a couple older homeless guys could sleep there. One of them bid us farewell in the late fall because he was off to Vancouver for the winter, which he had done many years in a row. He’d save up money panhandling for the bus ticket. It’s probably harder these days but homeless punks used to hitchhike across the country. I thought it was common knowledge that many homeless people make the trip for the winter.
Part of the explanation for gutter punk ‘trainhopping’ traditions was to seasonally retreat from cold places.
Could’ve just asked Ralph Klein for a one-way bus ticket…
I stand corrected, I did not know this was a thing. I mean yeah I know about riding the rails and have known more than my share of crust punks, and even I used to hitch between Montreal and Hamilton through the late 80s but actual homeless folks having the ability to save up a for a ticket to Vancouver… I had no idea. I guess it’s cheaper than rent for the winter.
Allison Hanes in the Gazette bemoans that the Projet leadership race can’t be voted on by everybody. But that’s how party politics works. If anyone’s keenly interested in the leadership of Projet, there’s an easy way to get more involved: join the party.
That’s such an American opinion. Where else do parties let anyone who wants vote on candidates the party presents? Americans think primaries are normal and good and are very surprised to learn they’re the outlier.
This is a very weird take. It makes the assumption that Montreal is like some Democratic or Republican stronghold city in the US where whoever wins the primary will essentially be crowned mayor. But we have a very different political environment and anyone can pop up and run for mayor between now and October – and if the stars align, they could find themselves with a lot of support.
A bit of historical perspective: in the 2013 race, Denis Coderre didn’t officially become a candidate until May. Mélanie Joly didn’t enter the race until June.
Now that is one dumb column, for all the reasons described above. I think the net cost of a Projet membership (after tax credits/rebates) is about $20, so it’s not exactly out of reach for the average citizen. Anyway, it is interesting to note that the federal Liberals allowed for non-contributing “supporters” to vote in leadership contests – I gather that helped Justin Trudeau win the leadership – so there is some precedent in recent Canadian political history.
@Joey Trudeau won the leadership under the old rules. He moved to change the rules in 2016:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/justin-trudeau-liberal-party-constitution-1.3518543
H. John, that was the permanent change in the party constitution. As the article you linked to says:
The proposal builds on a change adopted by Liberals four years ago [2013], when they agreed to let anyone willing to sign up for free as a party supporter vote in leadership contests.
Constitution on agenda for spring conventionTrudeau was the first leader elected under the new process, which saw some 300,000 people sign up as supporters.
DeWolf also makes a good point: people in Quebec especially are willing to change their mind on leaders quickly and en masse. We all remember the Orange Crush in 2011, largely because people liked Layton (and didn’t like his opponents), and I remember a strong Projet supporter in June 2017 saying they would love Plante to win but there was no way she would beat Coderre. Parties are very leader-focused here, and if people like that leader they can shift quickly to a party that never had more than marginal support or even one that didn’t exist. I think the Projet winner has good odds to be the next mayor, but the race is absolutely wide open right now. (But we know Projet will win the Plateau and Alan DeSousa will win VSL if he runs.)
@Nicholas I ran into Chantal Hebert just before the start of the 2017 campaign – I asked her if she thought Plante had a shot and she dismissed it out of hand, insisting that Coderre had it wrapped up. The extent to which Coderre bungled that campaign (and everything since, basically) is amazing.
Joey, thanks for the anecdote. I think after the last federal election being basically a repeat of 2021, and other similar situations (easy CAQ re-election, very little movement in US voting behaviour) we’ve forgotten that campaigns do matter and people do change their minds (or never had their minds made up in the first place). It’s been frequently noted that incumbent parties have done terribly in 2024 around the world. We shall see what happens in 2025, but I think it’s wise to no longer dismiss things out of hand.
Coderre literally stopped running the final week of 2017. He didn’t do any events after the news broke about the Formula E cost.
If we’re now talking about Denis Coderre, those extremely unimpressive granite stumps cost us 4 million dollars.
Those stupid stumps really ruin the vibe when you’re walking around the mountain, being regularly reminded of that special breed of grandiose political idiocy.
Kanuk, which has always prided itself on producing its parkas on Rachel Street, is turning to China for production.
Make China great again!
To be real though, everyone else in Quebec with any real stake switched to overseas production years ago. When I last worked in garment around 2008, there were only 5 or so knitting mills left in Montreal and all the noitons, buttons, and label places had shut down years ago or turned into jobbers with Chinese production associates. We should be saluting Kanuk for holding out for so long. Even Gildan and Moores switched to Caribbean production decades ago.
What’s more, most winter garment doesn’t even work with China anymore – they are too expensive. They mostly switched to Vietnam then Cambodia long ago.
When I worked on Chabanel around 2009 my employer was getting his shirts made in Istanbul. I used to know Turkish words for colours, and parts of a shirt.
Impressive, even back then most shirt cotton was from Bangladesh or Pakistan.
I don’t like the offshoring, but I get it. But the PRC is our enemy, and that is the part of the choice I hate most.
Is the PRC our enemy?
There was a fire in a pizzeria in Rosemont early Thursday, and people living upstairs were evacuated.
Adding later: A few days later, a TVA report on a family upstairs losing their apartment says the fire was criminally set.
It might have been arson, we just don’t know yet. From the article:
“l’enquête sur l’origine et les circonstances de cet incendie n’a pas débuté pour le moment”
There was also a resto fire on Jarry recently that wasn’t reported as suspicious either, but I wondered.
Some shelters for the unhoused are only able to offer a chair for the night out of the cold.
Beats freezing to death in a port-a-potty, but sheesh.
If I tried to sit up all night I’d probably end up sliding down to stretch out on the floor eventually, even if I wasn’t intoxicated.
A new refrigerated rink will be installed in the Place du Village, in hopes of “revitalizing” the area.
A visit by Canadiens honchos Kent Hughes and Vincent Lecavalier to St Petersburg in Russia has sparked criticism – should sports ignore war?
The executive vice-president of the club isn’t bothered either.
Joey 10:41 on 2024-12-20 Permalink
Sounds about right. I just got my registration renewal, due end of January – it’s up $90, about 1/3, to support public transit. This is a good thing.
DeWolf 11:53 on 2024-12-20 Permalink
This is the bare minimum that Quebec needs to be doing. It’s enough funding to keep existing services but certainly not to improve anything. We need a big, long-term boost in funding to massive improve operations: more frequent buses and investments in Exo so we can have 15-minute all-day headways on the St-Jérôme line like was planned more than 10 years ago.
Good news about being able to add Opus to your phone in 2025, though. I’ve used that feature in Tokyo and Toronto recently and I think it’s even more convenient than using a debit or credit card, especially since you get the cost savings associated with using the transit card. (Here it will be the ability to add a strip of tickets onto your phone, whereas debit/credit would charge you full price for a single fare.)