Two elderly people were seriously injured by a car Thursday in the Place Vertu parking lot. The victims were 89 and 97, the driver 80.
Adding later: TVA has a more complete report, with photos. They specify that the driver was in reverse when he hit the pair, and they also say he’s 80 and was driving a Jeep.
Adding even later: the 89‑year‑old man has died.
An exhibition of Montreal street photography is on at the McCord Stewart Museum till the fall.
Friday being a stat holiday for many, some weekend notes are out early: La Presse, CityCrunch, CultMTL.
I also see mention of a poutine festival, although the image shown on the website looks more like Old Montreal in the summer than the Marché Central in April.
Traffic warnings of the weekend.
On the eve of Easter weekend, two Italian businesses were attacked overnight. Alati‑Caserta in Little Italy was shot at and Magasin Berchicci in St‑Léonard was set on fire.
In the city’s second homicide within 36 hours, a man was stabbed on Decarie in St‑Laurent early Thursday and brought to hospital, where he died. TVA says the suspect was a friend of the victim, named as Cedrik Emmanuel‑Choquette, 30.
For the increasingly creaky people who remember when the Canadiens could win a Stanley Cup, it’s kind of sweet to see people celebrating the team getting into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth.
Easter weekend, which comes late this year, often involves uncertainty whether Friday or Monday, both or neither, are holidays. Some notes from La Presse, from CTV, from Le Devoir.
(Shouldn’t Quebec have public holidays that don’t dance around the calendar based on some obsolete sacerdotal purpose? Ha ha, what am I saying, this is culture, not religion.)
If the Mouvement laïcque were serious they would disrupt this weekend’s public marches and break into stores closed on Sunday.
/s but not really
The Mouvement laicque were strangely absent last weekend when a parade of Palm Sunday celebrants a few blocks long marched down Cote des Neiges, complete with a large police escort to facilitate things.
I am shocked to find hypocrisy in so-called secularists here.
The city had planned to extend Souligny Avenue in the east end to facilitate access to the port, but the project is being abandoned. Not everyone is happy.
That extension would go right through the middle of the Ray-Mont project everyone was just talking about.
That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for them. Think how railways used to go near or through industrial facilities.
I bet they actually like having the railway spur go along two edges of their site. But for roads, yes, Dickson and Notre Dame are right there.
A court order has banned pro‑Palestinian protests on the McGill campus for ten days.
A regular reader sent me some clarification: demonstrations:
But they aren’t banned outright.
I would have thought those normal demands at all times?
An ambitious plan to restore the Place des Nations to usable condition has ground to a halt as the firms meant to work on it are demanding more money.
The lawyers will obviously go over the contract, which we can’t read, but in general unless you have an inflation clause or a cost plus clause or a generous force majeur clause, you don’t get to not fulfill your fixed price contract or demand more money just because your costs rose. If you promise to do a thing for $100 and you think it’ll cost you $85 and you can get $15 in profit, but then costs go up and now it’s $95 or $105, well too bad, you take a loss. The park here should either force the contractor to finish the contract (specific performance) or sue for damages (liquidated if they exist). If the contractor goes bankrupt, well tough, bid better next time. And certainly no government should ever use them again. Enough socializing the losses or low bidding and then asking for more money later.
Also it’s really funny that one of the contractors said they don’t consider there to be a legal case as of yet, so they won’t comment. It’s usually the opposite. I guess they’ll never comment.
I coincidentally came across this poster yesterday for a Bad Religion show at Place des Nations on May 22, 1999 billed as its “Official Reopening”. (source Montreal Concert Poster Archive).
I wonder how that happened, MarcG. The site has been nothing but abandoned concrete risers for years. When I explored it, about 15 years ago, it was clearly on the verge of becoming hazardous.
I found 2 other shows at Place des Nations that summer, The Offspring and Everlast, The Roots, and Macy Grey, and summer 2000 No Doubt played there with Lit and the Black Eyed Peas, and Grimskunk headlined a 2-day punk fest. It really seemed like the place to play in the 70s: Jeff Beck, Supertramp, Zappa, Peter Tosh, April Wine, Beau Dommage, BTO, Nazareth. According to this Gazette article, the Jazz Fest had a show there in 2004 featuring Vic Vogel.
Whoever put that poster archive together has my deepest admiration. Goodness, the early 90’s were something else – a lot of nostalgia for my (somewhat) misspent youth.
@saintlaurent: His name is JF Hayeur and he’s video documented tons of shows as well, available on his Punk Empire YT channel.
@saintlaurent he really deserves it. I commented on a post referencing a show I attended as a six year old and he replied with a scan of a Gazette ad promoting that concert.
This isn’t the first time it’s been in the news, but the STM has to halt the project to retrofit metro stations with elevators from lack of funds.
Elevators were inaugurated Wednesday at Atwater station, and work being done at Édouard‑Montpetit and to the yellow line at Berri-UQAM will be completed, but that will be that, for a long time.
The Canadiens have squeaked into the playoffs with a defeat of the Hurricanes in the last match of the regular season.
Film director Emmanuel Gendron-Tardif, who stabbed his mother to death two years ago, was declared not criminally responsible Wednesday because of mental illness, and may soon be allowed accompanied trips outside the Pinel Institute.
La Presse even found that Gendron-Tardif has been able to post to Facebook despite his incarceration in an involuntary mental facility.
The Tribunal administratif du logement, which allowed an unheard‑of 5.9% increase in rents this year, is promising to review how it calculates the hike to moderate next year’s increase. Thanks so much, Mme Duranceau.
This new method still doesn`t adress that rent increases contribute to the IPC, thus contribute to the rent increase. This circular type of calculation is only going to lead to ever increasing inflation and increasing increases. Someone needs to stop that train.
Ah yes, but even if the rent increase is only inflation, it will still contribute to inflation. Meanwhile, the landlord also needs to pay for their food that has increased by inflation. Inflation is always circular… ask Argentina
Well, you raise an interesting point. Rent is based not on a landlord’s profit margins, but their costs.
I guess what it boils down to is simple enough – do you think the point of rent control is to keep rents affordable, or to balance whatever profit the Ministry thinks the market can support against the government’s popularity at election time?
François Croteau, who used to be mayor of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, asks in a Le Devoir column who our commercial streets belong to and should only the merchants have a say in its direction? He points out that the pedestrianization of St‑Hubert last summer was welcomed by residents, but voted down for this year by a small majority of the merchants’ association – and is this the way to go?
Sounds a lot like the discussion we’ve had about this.
Interesting to see Croteau take a more Projet position than the the Projet mayor of Rosemont…
Blork 13:15 on 2025-04-18 Permalink
CTV says the driver is in his 60s. It also says he was “performing a maneuver.” Would it kill them to be more specific?
Kate 13:40 on 2025-04-18 Permalink
La Presse says “L’automobiliste impliqué est âgé de 80 ans.”
Blork 13:43 on 2025-04-18 Permalink
Oh, I know. I’m just pointing out that the two articles disagree.