Fifty studio apartments were inaugurated on Monday for the newly homeless, apparently meant to keep them from drifting into a state of permanent rootlessness.
It can’t be easy these days to lift people from a dependent situation to a state where they can afford $1500 a month in rent, but that’s what they’ll have to try to do.
The woman mentioned briefly in a post below, hit by a car on René‑Lévesque early Monday, has died.
A man stabbed two others and barricaded himself in, Monday morning in St‑Léonard. One of the victims has died, making him the sixth homicide of the year on the island of Montreal. The presumed attacker has been arrested.
The Canadian Jewish News summarizes Federation CJA’s recent analysis of census statistics about Jews in Montreal. Not linking to Federation CJA’s “unapologetically Zionist” website, but the demographics in the linked article are interesting.
Of special interst, I think, is that the overall demographics are shifting as Hassidic populations grow. That’s of particular relevance in that the older conservative population that is more politically right-wing, hawkish, & super pro-Zionist is shrinking. When the demographic shifts enough that CSL and Hampstead are no longer ther dominant neighbourhoods, it will be interesting to see if the political winds shift, too. No matter how you look at it, the simple fact of Hassidic family sizes represents ongoing demographic growth that is going to change the face of what political leanings have “the highest percentages of Jew”, as this article put it.
Are the Haredim less right-wing than their older, seemingly more worldly co‑religionists?
For a while the ones in Mile-End were voting NDP as a bloc. Conservative Jews vote Conservative or Liberal.
Also worth noting Mindy Pollak (Projet) is Hassidic.
Europe is rearming, and François Legault sees an ‘extraordinary opportunity’ for Quebec.
It’s the 34th Rule of Acquisition: War is good for business.
Rule 34 means something completely different on the internet.
Indeed it does.
Ukraine’s GDP dropped by 30% in 2022. Apparently, not being bombed by the Russians is also good for business.
The internet Rule 34 is also a source of profit.
@Tim bring invaded is never good for business.
The point of the 34th Rule of Acquisition is that there’s always somebody who can profit from war. Not that everyone does better out of wartime.
Although rule of Acquisition 34 is “War is good for business”, lets not forget rule 35 “Peace is good for business”
azrhey: 🥂
Bixi is undergoing an unprecedented expansion to four new towns, including Sherbrooke.
This makes me curious. Is Bixi a service or a business? This item calls it an “organisme paramunicipal” – does this mean that Montreal will either be subsidizing Sherbrooke, or that any profit eventually accruing from operations in Sherbrooke will come back to Montreal?
I wish they had Bixi out here in the West Island. I would’ve thought maybe it could be a priority to get it out in the rest of the island of Montreal before expanding it to other places, but I don’t know how that works.
Good questions, I’m happy for all those places though, it’s a great ‘organism’! IMO would have preferred to see them expand more to the west on the island itself, still not that much in Lasalle – Lachine and beyond, except on the riverside.
There’s a confusing set of layers here, which I think I’m describing correctly. Bixi is owned by the city parking bureau, who runs it. CycloChrome is based in the same building near the Rosemont bus barns and does the bike repairs. Cycles Devinci in Saguenay makes the bikes, which the cities buy. PBSC (Public Bike Share Company) was started by the city to do all this in 2007ish, but went bankrupt so the city bought the local assets and the rest was spun off, and is now owned by Lyft; Lyft is the provider of the Bixi app, that’s all, but in other regions they also operate the system.
Because Bixi is operated by Montreal, it can set the prices, locations of stations, number of bikes, and Montreal decides what to buy every year. The other cities operate on a contract basis. Westmount, the first non-Montreal partner, pays Bixi money every year to deploy a set number of stations and a proportionate number of bikes. The bikes obviously move around between cities but the docks and locations are chosen by Westmount. All the other cities that joined in are all buying in this way, from what I understand: they choose the locations and number of docks, and Bixi quotes a price.
So the reason there are no Bixis in the West Island is the West Island cities choose not to pay for it. There is a limit to the number of bikes the Davinci company can build, but I guarantee if Dorval or Beaconsfield wanted Bixis they could have them. (There used to be two stations in Dorval — one at the airport and one at the train station — to help with last mile connections, but I think that was sponsored by ADM.) At full summer build out there will be stations in Lachine right up to the Dorval border, which I’ve used. And iirc there are no cities on the island with Bixis other than Montreal, Westmount and maybe TMR? No CSL, Hampstead, Montreal West, let alone further cities.
To be fair to the cities, Pierrefonds and PAT don’t have Bixis either, even though they’re in the city; last year I used the last station in Ahuntsic, at Beausejour Park. I did a focus group a few years ago with Bixi and I said it’s not fair that cities can stunt growth of the system, that I can take transit anywhere on the island, but not Bixi, and that should be an Agglo responsibility. I don’t think Bixi disagrees, but as a city operator, they’re not going to pay to put Bixis in other cities. The best way to get Bixis there are for residents, business owners and, less importantly, customers/tourists to reach out to those cities and ask them to expand. Elections are this year, and I know expansions in Laval, Longueuil and elsewhere were due to municipal leaders prioritizing this.
Thanks.
(I am in Pierrefonds, technically part of Montreal.)
Bixi has plans to expand to Pierrefonds but the borough has never reached an agreement on where to put the stations. There’s a news story from 2023 if you Google it.
I seem to recall Dorval was also in negotiations with Bixi but can’t find any sources at the moment. Last summer there were Bixi stations right up to the Dorval-Lachine border. Dorval would have to enter one of the contract arrangements with Bixi that Nicholas describes.
Nicholas’ description is accurate except that I am pretty sure the parking bureau (now called the Agence de mobilité durable) has nothing to do with Bixi, which is an independent non-profit established by the city.
Incidentally, many people assume Bixi is somehow heavily subsidized but in fact the service is profitable, with the clarification that this only refers to the operations – the city pays for (and owns) all the stations and bikes.
Noovo.info (sorry about all the popups) has a piece about increased density in the proposed Bridge-Bonaventure development.
More on the plans from CBC and from CTV. They’re pretty long term – I wonder whether they’ll survive the next municipal elections.
A brief piece on RFI goes into raptures about food in Montreal: “La mer, la terre, le fleuve St Laurent, les forêts sont son vivier, le levain côtoie le sous vide, version originale : la conserve, le plaisir de recevoir en prime. Il est sans doute dans cet art-là, celui de recevoir, d’accueillir, qui différencie Montréal, le Québec : la gastronomie est unique, autant dans la salle à manger qu’aux fourneaux, c’est un tout, une identité.”
And so on. Pass the poutine.
Cue another wave of French people coming. Which is great. But I wish we could get serious about building enough housing for everyone.
Wow, that was definitely a rave. Every so often, France rediscovers Quebec. Isn’t this preferable to L’Hexagone’s customary indifference and occasional contempt/condescension (“Quelques arpents de neige,” “rien que des ploucs qui parlent français comme des pequenauds.”)? Should be good for tourism. Montreal’s not Barcelona, yet.
Hey this city isn’t going to gentrify itself
Five regions in Quebec, including Montreal, have to stop using private health care agencies and hire directly, depriving private investors of the opportunity to profit.
Police blotter of the weekend: a building in St‑Léonard caught fire Sunday and was still burning Monday morning; a woman was hit by a car on René‑Lévesque at Crescent, early Monday, and an arrest made for suspected impaired driving; a Tesla was torched in Longueuil; a man was stabbed in St‑Léonard on Monday morning.
Impaired driving on Crescent? Who could believe it! (We have a decent late night transit system, people, let’s use it.)
Sadly, the woman hit by the impaired driver has died.
About the late night transit system, it’s not so great after the metro closes, unfortunately. For me to get home from downtown, it’s a little over 20 minutes by metro. After the metro closes, it’s somewhere between 45 minutes and 1h15m.
I really wish we could keep our metro running 24/7. Or maybe only keep it running 24 hours on Friday and Saturday? They do it for Nuit Blanche, so it IS possible.
When I was in high school the night bus system was much more robust, and I think we could consider that as an improvement too.
They can do it occasionally for special events in the metro, but essentially, it’s a maintenance issue (clean the tracks, inspect the switches, etc.). They can allow a few nights of the year, but more than that, and we would probably start seeing daytime performance affected.
24/7 underground transit is quite rare. New York has it because they have the 4 tracks on many lines, so service trains can run parallel to passenger trains simultaneously. London only was able to offer the NightTube as of 2016, because they had invested billions in network improvements that provided those adjacent tunnels to allow service and passenger trains to co-exist. I think Copenhagen has it as well but that system was built in the early 2000s, and some lines are above ground. Some lines of the Chicago L operate 24/7.
Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, Berlin, etc. don’t have 24/7 underground services. They have buses, and overground trains and trams running all night, but closed tunnels require a special level of service that above ground lines don’t need. I guess the STM figures the trade-off isn’t worth it, and if we compare ourselves to the world, it seems that we’re not alone. I think the investment needed to enable the metro to run all night would probably be better spent on more frequent buses. Will they do that, that’s another story, but dollar for dollar, that’s where I would invest our precious transit funds that are increasingly hard to find.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_service_(public_transport)
The power is out for a lot of people in Quebec following the freezing rain Sunday, mostly north of the city.
A man was shot dead by police Saturday night. TVA says police opened fire on an armed man in a rooming house at St‑Hubert and Ontario. BEI are investigating.
The Gazette reports two other incidents involving police gunning men down in other locations overnight. One is given out as in St‑Michel and the other as “in the Villeray–St‑Michel–Parc‑Extension borough” but nothing more specific.
There is some seriously poor reporting on all these incidents. No location is given in this piece from CP, for example, which could refer to either of the incidents reported vaguely in the Gazette.
Likewise, no location is given in this piece from TVA either.
New layer in the incident map for shooting deaths by police – as far as ascertainable by the vague locations given in these items.
Crime journalism may as well not exist anymore, because “journalists” are wary of law suits. “Something happened (we won’t tell you exactly what) somewhere (we won’t tell you exactly where) and there were people involved (we won’t tell you who).” There. No facts, so no defamation. What a contrast to the olden days where the story would tell you what the dead guy had for breakfast, and publish quotes from the alleged murderer’s fourth grade teacher below a photo of his mistress. But the underwear-shaped statements from the police are thinned out to nothing also, because they don’t want to say anything that might be construed as relating a fact that can be used in court in case a constable shot a guy holding a potato.
The federal government’s intention to intervene in the Supreme Court challenge of the “upgrade” to Quebec’s language law, still commonly known as Bill 96, will be a factor in the federal campaign, as aspiring prime ministers vie to position themselves vis‑à‑vis the knotty issue of Quebec language politics.
Mark Carney is promising to intervene, for example. Does this mean simply making a case at the Supreme Court – or something more direct? The feds are already planning to “intervene” on the Bill 21 challenge coming up later this year. Quebec is already in a snit although Carney has said nothing about defending the rights of anglos.
Meantime, Quebec has cut all funding to an organization that helps young Anglos find work.
The funding cuts to Montreal-based Youth Employment Services is yet another nail in the coffin of Anglo institutions. Within a few generations, it will be as if we never existed at all.
We should see this as a positive. The last cobwebs of anglo colonialism are being swept away.
Hooray for ethnic cleansing!
Yes, did not realize the author was pro ethnic cleansing, good to know
Which author, and who are you?
And did you miss the irony?
I went to YES about 10 years ago when I was between jobs and needed some guidance and support. I found it to be a very helpful organization. As with most things, it’s what you make of it…I found it gave me some structure in my job hunt and I got some good advice on my cv
A friend of mine just went to YES for some help with accounting for his business. He found the advice they gave him very useful. I got a summer job through YES while in university many years ago. It’s too bad to see them go.
They won’t disappear overnight, as money from the Quebec government represents 20% of their total funding, but losing that much in one shot will present challenges obviously. They might have to replace that with federal money, there are several pockets of funding available in Ottawa for linguistic minority groups.
Metro police are busy enforcing the new no‑loitering rule, and a protest was held Friday against the new ruling.
Yes, they’re chivvying people out of the metro who have nowhere else to go, but it’s naive of Ted Rutland to label this simply as the Plante administration turning their backs on the vulnerable. The metro is not a homeless shelter. The people who clean the metro and the stations should not be expected to deal with constant biohazards, and passengers should not have to cope with incivility.
More help is needed – permanent housing, more day shelters, and support from social workers and medics. Those would ideally have been in place before the metro sweep, but the sweep couldn’t wait. It’s sad and unfair but it isn’t the city being cruel.
Thank you Kate.
Incidentally, I got an STM survey this morning, but was disqualified when I said I hadn’t been in the metro in the last 7 days. I guess they’re really trying to see if passengers have noticed the effects of the new policy.
I have. Bonaventure has been a little more clean and there’s less homeless around. Before the initiative there were homeless camped out in the tunnel between the metro and the REM and it smelled like pot, urine, sometimes feces and food. There’s more metro cops and I also see exo staff with social workers at vendome. It’s a sad situation, but there were times especially during the holidays when transit use is lower when there were homeless people everywhere- on stairs, halls, sleeping on the platform, wandering on metros yelling or begging for money. Even had to dodge a fight between two men to get to the fare gate. I use it because I hate driving, but I fully understand why my coworkers tell me they don’t feel safe so they drive instead. I hope it continues but with recent budget news concerning public transport I doubt it.
A gang of orange cones is gathering near the exit from the Jacques‑Cartier bridge. What can they be plotting?
It is not for mere mortals to question the cones. The cones are as God wills the cones to be. Let us pray.
Our Mother who art in City Hall, hallowed be municipal graft; Thy traffic cones come, thy will be done, in the streets as it is on the autoroutes. Give us this day our daily congestion. And forgive us our carbon emissions, as we forgive those who delay our journeys. And lead us not into fair and open bidding, but deliver us from transparency. For graft-tainted public works are the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, except during the construction holiday.
Lo! Though I idle in the exhaust fumes of the valley of cones, I fear no pothole; for the Minister of Transport is with me; His cones and His high-visibility barriers, they comfort me. Amen.
Nice one bob!
Saved to a Word file – like
I meant – Like !!
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