The Journal looks at changes in city zoning that will allow one real estate promoter to build density along the blue line extension.
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Kate
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Kate
A researcher at Concordia has found 317 tree species on the island of Montreal, and that the eastern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis), sugar maple, lilac and boxelder (Acer negundo) are the four most common species. (A caption in the item says the boxelder is one of the most commonly planted, but nobody plants the boxelder, it just shows up.)
MarcG
I’ll shoehorn in a couple things: The Un Arbre Pour Mon Quartier program spring campaign, which sells fairly priced trees, is still running, and Box Elder is one of the few listenable early Pavement songs.
dwgs
The boxelder, or Manitoba maple, is a weed tree. And if you try to prune it or cut it it just comes back twice as hard. Come the apocalypse rats, cockroaches, and Manitoba maples will rule.
Kate
I had friends from Manitoba who claimed their dad tapped his boxelder trees and made syrup.
EmilyG
I enjoy the Quebio tree map of Montreal.
This is the French version: https://quebio.ca/fr/arbresmtl
There’s an English version, but that version seems to have lost the ability to search for particular kinds of tree.EmilyG
As for lilacs, I wonder if all lilac species are lumped in in this study.
It seems to me that there are at least two kinds of lilac trees in Montreal: the usually-purple variety that blooms in May, and the Japanese lilacs that bloom in June, are white, and are a common street tree in Montreal.Ian
Ther’s also the smaller dwarf lilac that has more of a shrub form and blooms several times a year – pretty common as a yard planting throughout the island.
Steve
Or my mystery lilac which hasn’t bothered to flower for at least seventeen years ♂️
walkerp
Is the boxelder called érable à giguère en francais?
Kate
Yes.
walkerp
I know everyone calls them weeds but I kind of like them. They get into neglected places and grow fast, bringing green and living spaces for birds and bugs where there might not otherwise be.
Ian
Lot of invasive plants look nice. Purple loosestrife is beautiful.
I agree though, it’s interesting seeing how nature reclaims urban space and boxelder is a handy first stage rewilding species. It’s also another one that like cottonwood plays an important role in preventing erosion in the city.Blork
Well, to be fair, box elders are native to North America, so they’re not really invasive, even if their habitat has been spreading. Weedy, yes, and spreading, but they’re not as disruptive to local ecologies as true invasive species like purple loosestrife can be.
Tyler
I have recently tasted the syrup from some Manitoba maples tapped while growing in a Plateau alleyway, courtesy of a friend. Quite respectable.
Ian
I know that in Germany they make syrup from birch sap, too. Did your friend make bxoelder syrup in the regular way or did they have to reduce it at a lower temperature than sugar maple?
nau
I’d like to see the list to see which ones I’m missing. The closest I can get associated with the researcher is a list of 187 from the chaireforeturbaine at UQAM, which admittedly is a good start. A lot of the others are going to be from genera like willow or oak or hawthorn that have multiple species that are difficult to quickly distinguish.
Kate
Ian, I don’t know the details. I only know they said it tasted “wilder” than sugar maple syrup, but I never got to try it, and now they’ve gone back home.
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Kate
Claude Paquin, convicted of two murders on false testimony in 1983, was finally acquitted last year. Now, aged 82, he’s suing the authorities for $64 million.
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Kate
A sinkhole capable of swallowing up a car has opened up on Somerled and Mariette in NDG.
Ian
If we see an incipient sinkhole, who do we contact? There’s been a small one forming by a manhole on Normanville for a few noths now that seems stable enough, but they alwyas do until they give.
MarcG
The Montreal city app as a specific “Report a pothole” feature but you could also just call 311.
Ian
AH nice, thank you 🙂
dhomas
I’ve reported one close to my house using the Montreal app. They came by the very next day… to put an upside down cone in the hole. 😀 They did get around to fixing it, but the initial response was quite funny to me.
Blork
A pothole and a sinkhole are very different things, so reporting an imminent sinkhole in the pothole app might not get a quick enough response.
A couple of years ago I was up on Beaubien (I think) about a block or two east of St-Laurent, and I saw the telltale signs of a sinkhole forming right at the intersection. It even had water flowing out of the crack in the pavement.
I called 311 I think. It was a weekend, late in the afternoon, and it took a while before I got through to a human. That human appeared to not give AF about what I was saying and was pretty dismissive. But I got them to commit to sending someone to look at it. I didn’t stick around, so I don’t know what ever became of it. No news of cars being lost in a pothole in Little Italy in the following days, so I guess they fixed it.
DeWolf
I called 311 recently for a missing stop sign (it looked like somebody had run it over and then dragged the sign onto the sidewalk). Someone picked up immediately. It was fixed within a day. Definitely worth calling for anything urgent.
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Kate
Cavalia, which did well for some years with its horse show in Laval, has declared bankruptcy. I was also struck by a related story about how the Cirque du Soleil is putting off its new big top show in the Old Port till 2027, but on Googling, I find that the Cirque is constructing a giant arena in Toronto so they can’t be doing too badly.
Meezly
Oh dear, I hope their horses will find homes or will be able to retire at a sanctuary.
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Kate
Radio-Canada headlines a seemingly minor comment from Donald Trump at the Pope’s funeral: Quebec, Canada? We’ll make a deal!, spoken to Martine Biron, Quebec’s international relations minister.
Just watch him. Trump knows, or someone is telling him, that all he has to do to break up Canada is make special deals with Quebec and Alberta. And he just may be able to do it.
Joey
So far he seems to be having the opposite effect, but OK.
Kate
So far.
Blork
And anyone who thinks that Quebec will be more “independent” and the French language more secure when Quebec is under the yoke of MAGA (or even a more benign version of the U.S.) has another thing coming.
Nicholas
Alberta, maybe, but I agree with Blork: Quebec is not ever choosing to become part of the US: laïcité, language, special deals. And the US could offer some beneficial trade deal if Quebec became independent, but who would trust that?
Ephraim
Quebec will never agree. Not unless the US changes it’s constitution and has some VERY specific guarantees including language and it’s own pension fund. I can’t see the US agreeing to anything where English isn’t supreme.
Robert H
All right, sure Joey, Canada is experiencing a unity bump, an unintended byproduct of President Trump’s reflexive blustering. But as Kate suggests, this is not the norm. How long will this upswell of One Canada Coast to Coast last before it inevitably fades back to the default setting of mutual interregional loathing that typically characterizes the nation’s political life? The Prairies, especially Alberta, despise Quebec, B.C is all about the Pacific Rim, Ontario’s too busy being the economic engine to bother with ROC, and the Maritimes? Remember them? All of these antipathies exert a centrifugal force that makes one wonder why Canada hasn’t already disintegrated.
But Quebec, true to form, is pursuing its own agenda. Martine Biron is wise not to make too much of the Deal-Maker In Chief’s comment but she’s very smart about being prepared. I didn’t know about “la doctrine PGL,” but that makes sense as a manifestation of Quebec’s impulse of autonomy. Could it be that some indépendantistes see Trump as an unwitting ally? Emphasis on unwitting, because like Blork, I think they should best beware: the U.S. President that frees you from the yoke of your Ottawa overseers is the same person who will declare French to be a nonmonetary free trade barrier. In that policy dispute, it’s not the United States that will yield.
Kate
Would Quebec be capable of cutting off its nose to spite Canada?
What do you think?
Blork
I don’t think Quebec would ever choose that deliberately, but I worry about being seduced only to wake up next morning and realize we’ve made a huge mistake. As in, I can see the US tempting Quebec with some great sounding deals that encourages the separatist movement because it seems to add legitimacy to independence and economic empowerment, etc. and the day after Quebec separates the MAGA shows up and says “Look at me… I am the captain now.”
Joey
I think the Alberta separatist threat is a real problem, and that if Trump were shrewder he could really exploit it. I don’t think he’s interested in anything other than annexing all of North America. I don’t see any province willingly leaving Canada to join the US, for lots of reasons, including the fact that it’s really hard to do. I think an attempted US annexation of Canada is more likely (but still very very unlikely).
My point was simply that Trump has effectively short-circuited Quebec’s separatist movement, just as it was getting going again. The Liberals won the election because Quebec nationalists voted for them! This story, more than anything, feels like a Quebec politician trying to make herself look important.
Also, and I say this is a person who loves to live here, what exactly do we offer the US? Majority non-English aging population with a persistent educational attainment problem, maxed-out natural resources, most unionized workforce in the continent, and a huge infrastructure deficit. I guess we make a lot of aluminum…
I’m also very skeptical that having a bunch of diplomats running around will make one iota’s worth of difference to a lazy, demented president whose agenda is set by whatever’s on TV.
And what, exactly, could the US (under Trump!) offer us?
Robert H
I think there are some (not including myself) who feel this has already happened considering the shockwaves of the 1970s (domestic terrorism, language mandates, the exodus of anglophones and corporate headquarters, Montreal’s subsequent eclipse by Toronto, the first referendum). But, relative to sovereignty, I don’t believe that ultimately, the sentiment exists among Québécois to step over the line and reject Canada for milk and honey tales of how wonderful their lives in an independent nation would be.
I think they would respond to such suasion with unambiguous, basic questions: “What exactly will improve about my life? What will change? What will we use for money? Will we have armed forces? Will we be governed better? Will I be able to afford a home, get medical care, have a beyond-subsistence income? What will I have to give up? Will somebody fix the damned roads?” There’s a limit to what Quebec’s citizenry will sacrifice even if they are told that it will be good for the survival of their culture. As a matter of fact, I believe most Canadians, as exasperated as they are with each other, would prefer to squabble within the confederation as it stands, than break apart or join the seductive colossus to the south.
There is just enough of a shred of unity and pride that’s about something more than pragmatism.
bob
Why do people waste time thinking and talking about this nonsense?
Kate
It’s the timeline we’re on, bob.
Ian
While I do have sympathies for Canadian Republicanism, it’s worth noting that at the time of the Lower Canada Rebellion les Patriotes sought support form the Americans for their own “Canadian Revolution” and there was a lot of talk of ridding North America of the British and uniting Canada and the United States, ie, adding Canda to the American Confederacy.
The whole joining the US angle of les Patriotes is usually glossed over by Quebec nationalists, but it’s a fact. It’s not for nothing that Louis-Joseph Papineau ran away to New York after the rebellion failed.
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Kate
A writer for Le Monde (en anglais!) sees our potholes through a political lens. The writer seems to have been contacted by Ensemble and to take their part, but doesn’t know enough of the city’s recent history to ask why the potholes were not permanently dealt with under Denis Coderre either. He also doesn’t seem to grasp why roadwork can’t be done in wintertime.
Joey
I note the journalist is originally from France and came to Montreal last summer by way of Vancouver. I can only presume he went over a pothole, busted his car real good and decided this is news.
Blork
They could have at least used a photo of a proper pothole. The pothole illustrated would barely be noticed by a motorist. The ones that cause problems are two or three times deeper than that.
I was driving around the city one day last week and saw a bunch of potholes that you could basically fit a watermelon into.
jeather
Blork, that giant pothole is your fault.
Blork
I was thinking that too.
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Kate
Moving day is expected to be unusually difficult this year, given the generous rent hikes blessed by the TAL. The city is bracing itself.
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