J.P. Karwacki on The Word Bookstore at 50.
Updates from April, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Mayor Plante has been asked if she would consider running to become party chief of the federal NDP after she ends her term as mayor, and her response was ambiguous.
If the NDP wanted someone from Quebec, wouldn’t Alexandre Boulerice be the more obvious choice?
Kevin
I listened to that news conference and she said she wasn’t thinking about anything except being mayor of Montreal until her term was over, then came back and said she didn’t want people to put words in her mouth and would call any reporter who wrote that she was being coy about joining a leadership race.
But she said that in English so maybe La Presse’s reporter wasn’t paying attention.
Joey
Given what Singh revealed this week (credible threats against him), I’d be surprised if Plante was eager to jump back into electoral politics, especially at the federal level.
My impression is that Boulerice would be great but doesn’t want to upend his family life.
Tim S.
Plante entering federal politics is the only way she can keep her promise to build the Pink Line. Be a great bargaining point for supporting a minority government.
Ian
The Bob Rae effect but for Quebec, great. That’s the last thing the NDP needs.
H. John
@Ian I’m trying to understand your reference “The Bob Rae effect but for Quebec”.
The party would seem to have a far more existential threat than who the next leader will be.
Its debt.
Candidates in each riding spend on their campaigns, sometimes with borrowed money, with the hope that Elections Canada will reimburse 50% of their expenses. For the Liberals that will happen for all but one candidate, for the Conservatives it’s two. For the NDP, 296 of their candidates in this election earned less than the 10% of the vote required for a rebate.
H. John
And to provide a comparison in the last election 237 of 338 NDP candidates got the rebate.
Tim S.
That could be an issue, H. John, though my quick glance at the results suggests that in most ridings where they would have run a well-funded campaign they hit the mark. So some refund losses compared to other elections, but not that much. And I hope they had the sense to pull back on spending in the second half when it became obvious the polls weren’t budging.
But what are expensive for the NDP are leadership campaigns, which is one reason they usually hang to leaders longer than other parties. They cost money to organize, donations dry up without a leader, and other donations are directed away from the party itself and towards the contenders. So there’s probably some very careful planning going on to minimize that as we speak.
H. John
@Tim S Interesting point on leadership campaigns.
When the last campaign ended in 2021, even with the vast majority of their candidates receiving rebates, the NDP was $22 million in debt. They spent the next three years fundraising, not to create a war chest for this election, but to pay off what they had already spent in the past. By early 2024 they still owed $1 million.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say “in most ridings where they would have run a well-funded campaign they hit the mark”. Of the 342 NDP candidates in this election only 46 will get a rebate.
Tim S.
What I mean is most of those 296 candidate below 10% won’t have spent much on their campaigns, so losing the 60% rebate hurts a bit in aggregate, but 60% of not much is..not much. Maybe they spend more in rural Saskatchewan than I imagine, but overall that’s not the figure I would be concerned with.
And the NDP always funds its federal campaigns partly through debt. Before corporate and union donations were prohibited, Jack Layton got the unions to contribute enough money for the NDP to buy an office building in Ottawa, which they use as collateral for those loans. As long as they have the building, they’re OK. If they ever have to sell the building, that’s when any supporters should start to worry. Hopefully (from my POV) I haven’t just jinxed them.
Ian
@H.John I meanat hat Bob Rae was so disliked as an NDP Premier that it scuttled the NDP federally for many years, people would just point to him and say “this is what the NDP does”. That he eventually left the NDP and joined the Liberals says a lot.
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Kate
Besides the consequences of delaying renovations to Maisonneuve‑Rosemont hospital, Quebec’s austerity is afflicting universities and forcing Bernard Drainville to build schools only in CAQ ridings.
DavidH
It’s really rich of Drainville to claim he is not favoring CAQ ridings since “it’s the functionaries who chose the projects”.
The many projects in non-CAQ ridings, such as FACE and the ones that were to follow were all approved by the functionaries. BUT, they won’t go ahead because HE cancelled them. The two transitionary schools to be used by FACE were supposed to host other schools needing to evacuate during their renos afterwards. All of these Montreal-area projects won’t be happening in the short/medium term because these two schools will not become available anymore. He decided they would be the permanent FACE building even though they are not really suitable for that project. The elementary school Le Plateau was to move in next in order to be renovated and then a bunch of others. None of them are being budgeted now and it all stems from one unexplainable CAQ decision.
Money is available for CAQ ridings now because everything planned for Montreal was thrown out the window a few weeks ago by Drainville himself.
Ian
Hey now, NorthVolt and SAAQCliq won’t pay for themselves. In these times of austerity only porkbarreling can be afforded.
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Kate
A young man had to explain to police why he was carrying a gun at Lucien‑L’Allier metro when he shot himself in the leg at the station.
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Kate
A woman who held two franchises of Second Cup at the Jewish General has been charged with uttering antisemitic threats at a Concordia University demonstration. All else aside, a woman who clearly had no sense of consequences.
Colonial-douchebag
Does Second Cup itself support Palestine or Israel?
Kate
The tldr of qatzelok’s link is: it supports neither.
Ian
I’m offended that qatzi is calling the Québécois douchebags. Nouvelle France was certainly a colonial endeavor but douchebags? CAQ Algerians aside of course.
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Kate
The Grande Bibliothèque opened 20 years ago, and although chronically underfunded by the Quebec government, continues to provide Montrealers with services they didn’t know they needed till it existed. Also covered in La Presse.
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Kate
A brief but intense windstorm hit the city Tuesday evening, causing power outages and other damage. A teenager was seriously injured in Ahuntsic when a tree fell on him. Some good photos of wind damage around town on CityNews.
Adding: Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital was hit by an outage, which is having political fallout as it followed the government’s decision to delay renovations of the facility indefinitely.
dhomas
My neighbour’s heavy, metal gazebo flipped over into my yard last night. It’s very close to some power lines (and made of aluminum, so conductive) in its current state, so we didn’t dare touch it. It’s still there today. 🙁 I secured my gazebo ahead of time so it would be damaged or cause damage. Only a few compost bins were tossed around. I did notice some Tempos being shredded; I’m sure their owners are regretting dragging their feet removing them (the deadline in some boroughs, like HoMa, is April 30th). There were also lots of repair crews on my bike ride home today. They seem to prioritize leaving the car lanes free and park in the bike lanes, which kinda makes sense, though it was a bit of an inconvenience to me.
Kate
Going by reports on reddit alone, the winds were most intense on the eastern end of the island, Hochelaga being especially hard hit.
The storm touched Villeray but not for long. This morning, recycling day on my street, some trash and twigs had been blown around, but no worse.
…Has the metal gazebo been moved yet?
dhomas
Re the metal gazebo: the firefighters came yesterday to assess the risk of electrical fire. Hydro Quebec came this morning to move the gazebo away from the power lines. The gazebo itself was pretty much intact, just upside down resting on my kids’ swing set, the fence, and a neighbour’s shed. Then Hydro came. They didn’t even try to salvage the gazebo and destroyed it upon moving it, snapping a leg off to set it away from the power lines. My neighbour came into my yard and is currently removing the rest of the wreckage.
It was pretty scary yesterday because we were observing the windstorm and saw the gazebo seemingly coming directly toward us. Thankfully, there was a power cable that tethered it to the house and didn’t let it travel far.Ian
I was caught outside when the microburst hit my neighbourhood, I ducked into a storefront doorway for shelter until it passed – it was pretty impressive watching the wind changing directions quickly and the intense sheets of rain changing with it… I was pretty surprised no trees or large branches came down but that was just the north end of Mile End. South of St Joe they were still having a power outage this morning.
Glad to hear everything was ok dhomas, that must have been pretty freaky.
Kate
As the climate changes, we’ll have to accept that heavy objects that aren’t fixed down can become dangerous projectiles in windstorms like Tuesday evening’s. We’re not as accustomed to this as some (except for dhomas, who had his gazebo pinned down!).
Ian 21:57 on 2025-04-30 Permalink
Considering how much has changed in that area it’s amazing that anything is still on Milton after 50 years, let alone a good bookstore. They really are an institution.
Blork 16:07 on 2025-05-01 Permalink
Probably a third of my library comes from The Word. And I’m definitely part of the ecosystem; I dropped off a couple of boxes of books a few weeks ago for reintegration, and probably 3/4 of them were “coming home to roost” so to speak.
True story: about a decade ago I was in The Word looking for a slightly (but not entirely) obscure book by an African writer. I asked Adrian and he even checked the store room, but no luck. More than a year later I was back, having a chat with Adrian (who I know socially a little bit but not well). He excused himself for a minute and then returned with the book I had asked about previously. “Are you still looking for this?” he asked? (I had not mentioned it again; he just remembered.)
Kate 16:46 on 2025-05-01 Permalink
Blork: he really bought all your books? Or did he just take them off your hands?
Late last year I had some books I knew had some value and the Word wanted nothing to do with them. They were in good shape, too. I used to sell them books occasionally, but this time they were firm about wanting none of them. (It wasn’t Adrian I spoke with.)
I should add: I wasn’t trying to raise money. It’s more that although I didn’t want the books any more, I didn’t just want to leave them in a free library box in a back alley, where someone might bring them home for their kids to scribble on. It’s more that I wanted them to go to people who would like to have them.
Blork 16:53 on 2025-05-01 Permalink
They bought about 2/3 of them. It wasn’t Adrian that day, it was Scott and Brendan.
It’s a bit of a crap shoot. If you go anytime around late November or late April/May then they won’t be buying much, because they’re overflowing with recent acquisitions from McGill students who are moving away.
There’s also the matter of what kind of books they are and whether or not they already have it. They’re looking for books that are either rare and somewhat valuable, or will turn over quickly (generally, contemporary literature). I was a bit surprised that they didn’t take some of the ones I had, but Brendan noted that they already had several copies of this and that (in the rejects). But if I wait a few months and try again they might take them.
Blork 16:55 on 2025-05-01 Permalink
BTW, for the ones they bought they offered me a choice of store credit or (slightly less) cash. Decent cash too!
Ian 09:38 on 2025-05-02 Permalink
I’ve always found the Word to be fair, but selective. As a general rule of thumb most used bookstores will give you 20% of what they intend to sell the book for.
Once when I was there a woman was selling books and there were a couple that Adrian refused – I offered to buy a couple from her and when she quoted a low price he said “I wouldhave given her 5 bucks each if I had taken them” which I thought was fair & quite conscientious. I don’t think every bookseller would have piped up to make sure she didn’t get lowballed. Of course, I gave her 5 for each book I took.