A water main broke Saturday on Mont-Royal Avenue near Brébeuf, closing the street and damaging an unnamed restaurant.
Updates from February, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Linda Gyulai recounts how the city expropriated an old industrial building near the Lachine Canal where artists and creators were working, then let it fall into ruin in the ensuing years. Now the city wants to see the building turned back into artist spaces, but it may be too late, and – even if it can be saved – will it be affordable for any of its previous tenants?
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Kate
Thirty tenants were ordered out of their homes in a Lachine building which was in the news early in January because landlord negligence had forced the borough to step in and restore heating and hot water. On Thursday, the building was declared too dangerous for habitation. The item says the landlord can’t be found.
Later, CTV reports that the city plans to sue the landlord.
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Kate
The Insectarium is marking its 35th anniversary. 🐞
MarcG
I preferred the black ant, it scared me when I first saw it, thinking there was actually a big bug on my monitor.
Kate
Oh no! 🐜
anton
attack of the emoticons!
Kate
🐍 🦇 🦖
MarcG
It’s interesting that those emojis appear differently on different devices. The ant on my desktop w/ Firefox is a simple flat black thing, which is what made me tihnk it was real, but I noticed on my Samsung Android phone yesterday that it was a 3D comic-style character. https://emojipedia.org/ant#designs
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Kate
Lots of pieces Saturday about the big Joyce Wieland retrospective on at the Museum of Fine Arts. Video from CBC. Le Devoir looks at this and other art exhibitions happening this winter.
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Kate
TVA profiles La Remise, which started out as a tool library but now offers spaces and support for people wanting to make things themselves.
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Kate
Daniel Renaud outlines how organized crooks pulled off a million‑dollar olive oil heist when a shipment vanished between Montreal and Toronto.
Nicholas
I saw recently that olive oil is the food product with the highest inflation over the last few years, apparently due to severe droughts in Spain, among other issues. Prices really have doubled in like 2 years. This won’t help, but it’s interesting this kind of shipment doesn’t even have a basic tracker.
Kate
Not surprising. I used to get Tunisian olive oil for 11.99 a litre, and now it’s 18.99 in the same store. Liquid gold!
If the owners of that shipment cheaped out by not tracking it, they were silly. But assigning blame in stories like this is impossible on the amount of data given in a brief news piece.
Blork
Olive oil also has a high level of fraud in terms of labelling of type and origin. Much of that “100% Italian olive oil” you’re paying a premium price for is cut with oils from other countries, and even different types of oils. The fancier the oil, the more likely it has been “tweaked” like this, including adding chlorophyll to make it smell and taste “grassy.” And of course the higher the price goes, the more fraud you get.
Don’t even get me started on San Marzano tomatoes!
Roman
Just an FYI if you are paying $19/L you aren’t getting olive oil. Even in the EU, the source of the oil, and the most regulated place on earth, there a massive crisis of fake oil. EU called it an epidemic and it’s the most faked product at the moment. I’ve asked local experts and was told that the price for good quality oil is 20€/750mL. ($30 CAD).
Kate
So is there any truth to the theory that if the ambient temperature goes below about 15° and the oil gets semi solid, that it’s a test for true olive oil?
Ian
No, that’s actually a good storing temperature for olive oil. It will congeal at lower temperatures but that’s not really a test per se. In reality you can only tell by flavour and consistency – and most people can’t really tell a real first cold press anyway.
I get my oil from a local Greek guy, those Cretans know from the good stuff.
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Kate
The STM has decided to bring an end to its adapted transit service to save money. As of 2026, some form of collective taxi will replace them.
The article goes on to say that 90% of adapted transit type trips are already served by collective taxi.
MarcG 09:44 on 2025-02-09 Permalink
Maybe Pizzadelic on the corner, the street seems to slope in their direction.
Nicholas 20:07 on 2025-02-09 Permalink
It’s Le Rouge Gorge, the wine bar on the SW corner. Police tape still blocking it this afternoon.