A Jewish student is suing McGill University over failing to prevent antisemitism in the course of the Gaza encampment and other protests on its campus.
Updates from April, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The border is seeing a rise in asylum seekers as the U.S. policy of finding and punishing irregular immigrants – or any immigrants, really – threatens so many. In Montreal, schools and community groups are concerned about finding the means to assist the influx of newcomers.
SMD
Kate
This is the thing. We have a falling birthrate and a crying need for hands for all kinds of work. This situation should be seen as an opportunity, not a burden.
But we need to get housing built pretty fast, whatever happens.
SMD
Addendum: we need affordable and appropriate housing built fast. There is no shortage of overpriced one-bedroom condos. They represent the majority of new builds yet do not meet the needs of the majority of tenants. They are perfect as a safe asset class, however, and will continue to be bought simply as investments. What society actually needs are off-market homes, where families can have room to live and not break the bank on rent.
Chris
>On pourrait se demander pourquoi cet esprit humanitaire et de solidarité ne se retrouve plus aujourd’hui
Because housing.
roberto
Can our healthcare system, currently being slashed away to bits, afford to support more people? Can any of our government services afford to service a bigger population? Is it that we don`t have the will or that we don`t have the budget? WIth the record deficit, it`s clear that we don`t have the funds to afford it. Which brings us to taxation and the problems we have as a society in taxing the rich. Tax rates for the super rich are at historic lows and something needs to be done about it because it`s starving our society and making these growth oppertunities immposible. To the CEOs, all that matters is the current quarter and the immediate bonuses – no one is planning for a sustainable future anymore.
Kate
With a bigger population the government will be collecting more tax. Maybe not right away, I admit, if the people arriving need a moment to get jobs and figure out what they’ll be doing. But this shouldn’t be seen as the influx of a horde of freeloaders. Most people want to work. If they’re not massively ambitious for themselves, they’ll want to see their kids do well.
And yes, tax the rich.
This would be a great time for Canada to get together with other countries and do something about outlawing tax havens.
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Kate
In St-Michel, anger against police for the March 30 killing of Abisay Cruz, against a chronic background of police profiling, is on the rise.
Ian
What a relief it must be for the community that there is no systemic racism in Quebec.
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Kate
A third arrest was made Sunday in the shooting deaths of a grandmother and granddaughter in Pointe‑St‑Charles in December 2022. TVA has details on the two young men previously arrested in connection with these murders.
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Kate
Allison Hanes talks to would‑be mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada, but I can’t pin down any actual ideas in this piece. Statements like “Martinez Ferrada intends to bring vision, purpose, planning and co-operation to the next generation of major projects” sound hollow, and while Hanes comes off as keen, it might be as much because a tight struggle for the mayoralty would be more interesting for journalists to report or comment on, than any personal preference.
DeWolf
Wow, what a puff piece. Lots of empty rhetoric but no actual ideas, other than “reviewing” all of the existing cycling infrastructure (dog whistle politics) and some vague promise to “build a bigger tax base” which every mayor in history has wanted to do. Nothing tangible on public transit? Housing? How exactly would a “big tent coalition” be managed, with all of its competing visions and interests?
The lovey dovey tone here really stands in contract to the very negative soundbites and social media messaging coming from the Ensemble campaign, whose strategy seems to be attacking Projet without offering any alternatives to their policies. In other words they’re playing the same losing strategy Coderre did in 2021.
Maybe it will somehow work – Soraya is not as polarizing as Coderre. But at the same time, she isn’t doing much to distinguish herself either. And I have my doubts that in the post-Trump environment, playing to the “angry social media commenter” base is going to win an election.
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Kate
There was no violence as supporters of Palestine encountered Israel supporters at Cavendish Mall on Monday. Nonetheless, the mayor of Côte St‑Luc was disappointed there were no arrests either.
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Kate
Hydro-Quebec is concerned that its installations could be vulnerable to attack by hostile forces.
Interesting how ideas about hostile forces have changed lately…
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Kate
What did you say when you looked out the window Tuesday morning?
MarcG
oh hey it snowed i wonder how many palestinians were murdered yesterday
Ian
I thought it was pretty, I guess I forgot to dwell on horror for a moment. Thanks for the reminder.
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Kate
Fire broke out Monday evening in a vintage graystone building on St‑Laurent near de Maisonneuve. TVA calls it a “bâtiment résidentiel désaffecté de quatre étages” and CityNews calls it a “a four-story abandoned residential building” but it’s not four storeys and it’s got storefronts at street level, although they may have been empty. Here’s the Streetview image.
Another abandoned building, this one on a major street. What is wrong with this picture?
Tyler
For what it’s worth, I can attest that the building that burned (and that is now a pile of rubble) is slightly down the street. It had aluminum cladding that had once sported a Provisions Ben’s sign, as can be seen in Streetview.
Kate
The location is made clearer in the photo from CityNews. Not as bad a loss as I had feared.
Fifty years ago Quebec started welcoming “boat people” fleeing south-east Asia. The political movement, started by provincial immigration minister (and Jesuit priest) Jacques Couture, ended up settling and integrating 180,000 refugees who went on to make rich contributions to Quebec society.
La Presse had a thoughtful and moving dossier on the anniversary this weekend, including this insightful quote from Rémy Chhem, whose family was part of the mass immigration: