The falcons on the UdeM tower had four eggs this year, but none have hatched. It isn’t clear what went wrong, but the caption here suggests researchers will examine the unsuccessful eggs to find out.
Updates from May, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Concordia University is facing a possible layoff of workers as it tightens its belt under current conditions. Fewer people will be able to get a university education in English, though, and that’s a big boost for Quebec.
Quebec has also just passed a bill requiring newcomers to immediately adopt and share Quebec culture and values.
dwgs
You will be assimilated, resistance is futile.
Kate
I was thinking about that. My maternal ancestors came here in the 1840s. I’m still here and still, primarily, speaking English and consuming media in English (except for the blog, where I read everything in French as well). People do not surrender their own culture so readily.
GC
At what point do they have to agree to it? To get any sort of visa? To become a permanent resident? To get citizenship? All of the above?
Kate
The article says “Quebec can use the new law to withhold funding for groups and events that don’t promote Quebec’s common culture.” But I wonder whether that means things like festivals (which would be bad enough) or whether it would encompass grassroots cultural groups, including those that help newcomers to find their feet here.
Ian
You can assimilate to the dominant culture all you want but you’ll never be a white French-speaking francophone with ancestors from mainland France. There are some hoops that are impossible to jump through and all the rest is smokescreens, shibboleths, and dogwhistles.
It’s ethnonationalism, pointe final.
Kate
In my case, I am simply not French. My ancestors come from the British isles, mostly Ireland. I don’t speak my ancestral language – I believe the last person in my bloodline who did was my g-g-grandfather, who died in Galway in 1912. He was illiterate but spoke both Irish and English.
Have I lost something by not knowing Irish? In some sense, but not knowing it hasn’t blighted my life in any way.
Uatu
Better crack down on the francophone guys I know who dated and later married Asian women because according to them they were classier than Quebecois girls lol
Ian
My family got chased out of Europe for being the wrong kind of Protestants in the early 1700s but stopped speaking German altogether in the 1900s. Maybe MBC and I are related haha
MarcG
I wonder if they considered killing the parents and baptizing the children (in poutine sauce of course, now that we’re a secular society) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/84254078/mercy-brisebois?
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Kate
Merchants at the city’s markets are facing rental increases, some of them steep.
Ian
Interesting to see Enseble actually bring some solutions to the table instead of sniping.
Kate
Another Ensemble story I was about to post concerns the party’s candidate for mayor of VSMPE, photographed outside the abandoned old Chinese hospital in the borough, who has ideas about housing, but would probably dismantle some bike paths.
DeWolf
Gariépy sounds like a decent guy who would probably be a decent borough mayor. But I wouldn’t exactly say he has ideas about housing. His idea is to improve relations with Quebec to unblock funding to turn the old hospital into housing, which has been the plan all along. I mean… sure? Of course? But that’s a bit like Soraya saying “I’ll be the mayor that gets along with everyone!” That’s not political vision, that’s just wishful thinking.
Kate
Exactly. What magic would he use on Quebec to get funding, when others have not been able to?
SMD
I also found that photo curious. Why pose in front of a problematic building if you don’t have concrete solutions to propose for it?
Ian
It’s not unlike the virtue signalling of Projet councillors saying “we would love to save ___ if only there was funding” and that gets in the paper too. I find it irritating no matter what politician does it, though.
Joey
Joey’s one and only rule of politics: all politicians are assholes, especially the ones you like
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Kate
As we recall, Donald Trump insisted that Canada spend a lot of money on stopping drugs at the border. So Canada now has a Fentanyl czar (the phrase is used in this story) and did a massive swoop at some undefined recent moment.
“There were 2,600 seizures. Of those, 67.5 per cent were illegal narcotics coming to Canada from the U.S., while 17.5 per cent were going to the U.S. […] A total of 116 fentanyl shipments were seized, including 1.73 kilograms intercepted in British Columbia, Quebec and Alberta. Of these seizures, 1.44 kilograms were destined for the United States.”
They also seized 0.19 kilograms of heroin.
Here’s the White House page on drugs coming over the Canadian border: “There is also a growing presence of Mexican cartels operating fentanyl and nitazene synthesis labs in Canada…”
Ian
There’s no pleasing some people. That said, Wall Street has already figured out the TACO strategy. Trump is losing credibility all over.
roberto
Trump has claimed that since drug seizures increased under Biden, this indicates a larger amount of drugs entered the United States. He argued that if more drugs are being intercepted, it must mean even more are getting through. (And when Trumps administration seizes drugs, a different logic applies.)
You just can’t win with the orange clown.
Blork
The NYT had an article yesterday about a strong MAGA town in Missouri where the residents are shocked that a beloved member of their community — a woman from Hong Kong who has been waitressing in the town’s diner for 20 years — has been detained and will likely be deported despite her having a family and children born in the US. Apparently the sentiment is shifting, with many townsfolk saying things like “we wanted them to deport gang members and drug dealers, not moms in our community.” Welcome to the tsunami of bullshit that you voted for.
I feel like this sort of thing is happening all over. Even Elon Musk has defected, but that’s a different story.
Is MAGA crumbling? Maybe. I hope so.
Ian
I was hoping Musk would get a Night of Long Knives treatment but this works, too.
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Kate
Friday night is the Tour la Nuit and Sunday is the Tour de l’Île. CTV’s headline “Montrealers asked to clear streets for major cycling event” is a tad bizarre. Nobody west of Pie‑IX will even know they’re happening.
Also the coda “Millions are expected to participate in the two events” is odd. Thousands do.
Thursday, Radio-Canada estimates 40,000 cyclists for the main Tour. And the CTV article I linked Wednesday has amended “millions” to “thousands”…
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Kate
The REM will close for six weeks this summer, starting July 5, and will be running on reduced hours till then, including no weekend service. There will be buses instead.
Ian
LOL what? If this isn’;t a poster child for the failure of PPP I don’t know what is.
dwgs
Maybe we should have opted for the monorail.
dhomas
I mean, the monorail put Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook on the map!
Kevin
This was announced months ago, maybe even before snow fell. It’s part of hooking up the tracks under the mountain.
Ian
Ah well that explains why the entire network has to be shut down, of course. Since it was planned there is no way this will affect existing commuters or the opening of the western line.
Since we’ve been quoting the Simpsons around here lately I can’t help but think of the monorail episode.
Marge: But Main Street’s still all cracked and broken…
Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!Uatu
I wish they would just return my rush hour express bus in the interim. Taking a bus to a train station to take another crowded bus and paying 196$ for it makes you feel like a loser
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Kate
A citizen committee in the Milton-Parc area is begging all levels of government to work together to provide housing and services for the homeless who congregate in the area.
Ephraim
Anyone want to take bets that every time someone suggest building for them in Milton Parc, we are going to see the same people be NIMBY to stop it?
saintlaurent
Le Comité citoyen de Milton-Parc supplie tous les paliers de gouvernement de travailler ensemble pour offrir des logements et des services aux sans-abri…à Montréal-Est.
CE
“In addition to calling for a better dispersion of services for the unhoused, wider sidewalks and more trees along Parc Avenue, the group wants the city to expropriate the empty lot and building at south-east area of the intersection to build social housing, with the needs of the area’s Inuit in mind.”
Joey
My kingdom for a comment system that forces you to read the linked article before posting…
Ephraim
The corner where they are all camped out. I still bet that if the city could expropriate there will be people fighting it tooth and nail. Why? Because they already fight the church that’s there that helps them. Like https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/article210312.html and there are many more.
Kate
I’m sorry, Joey. What have I missed this time?
Joey
My (admittedly facetious) point was that the article clearly stated that this committee recommended building cheap housing on-site for this specific population (CE quoted) – and yet the first two comments argue that the committee must be a bunch of hypocrites because surely they want to send these folks elsewhere. Why comment on a new item that directly contradicts the assumption at the root of your comment?
(Obviously none of this is on you, Kate – you even made it fairly clear in your summary that the group in question wants government to act on behalf of the unhoused population in MIlton-Parc.)
saintlaurent
The committee is undoubtedly comprised of a number of well-intentioned, passionate and committed residents of Milton-Parc. If you read the biographies and look at the calendar of events on the committee’s website, this is not in dispute (although at least one of the very earnest biographies verges on self-parody, a Plateau version of Portlandia). And yes, I acknowledge that this committee is the very group who propose the social housing to be built at the corner of Parc and Milton.
However, I imagine that there is a much larger number of less-engaged residents and homeowners in the Milton-Parc neighbourhood who will become significantly more engaged – on the opposite side of this issue – when they are faced with the prospect of building social housing for the population that congregates at the corner of Parc and Milton, on that very same corner. They will, of course, be noisy and NIMBY and, in that vein, will earnestly and sincerely say that services be provided and housing built…somewhere else. They just don’t have a formal committee. Yet.
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Kate
Residential construction workers are now on an indefinite strike.
Ian
Oh good, just in time for the STM strike.
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Kate
A hot and humid summer is in the long‑term forecast for Quebec, with more powerful storms than we’ve been generally used to.
La Presse talked to Emmanuel Kamal, the teenager who was crushed under a tree that fell on Grande Allée in Ahuntsic during the storm on April 29. He’s still hospitalized and faces lengthy rehabilitation.
Orr
I don’t recall in the past that almost every (early-) summer day in southern Quebec had an afternoon thunderstorm but it seems that is the new normal. Perhaps the dedicated weather-watchers will correct me on this, but it seems like it has been the pattern recently.
The heating up of the atmosphere is actually “more energy in the atmosphere” and that energy has to go somewhere. (this is how the university-professor climate scientist living in my building explained it to me.)
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Kate
Real estate agent in chief (aka housing minister) France-Elaine Duranceau blamed Verdun borough officials for the 26 signatures that blocked a residential development on Nuns Island – then she withdrew her tweet.
I may be mistaken here, but isn’t the law mandating referendums for certain bylaw and zoning changes a provincial matter? Can cities (or boroughs) change this unilaterally?
Nicholas
That was the case, but it seems it no longer is. Back in 2017 the Couillard government passed Bill 122, which allows municipalities to avoid referenda on any zoning change, or really any by-law, if they have a public participation policy that meets certain requirements. The policy requires a lot of openness and transparency and notice, but doesn’t require citizens to have a veto, just influence.
I have no idea if any municipality has adopted such a policy. And it does note the minister may “establish different rules on the basis of any relevant criterion or for any group of municipalities”, so it could be Montreal or the metro area has stronger requirements. But given the summary of Bill 122, it’s pretty clear the intent was to allow municipalities to avoid referenda if they have a more open process. It would be interesting to see if, eight years later, any have, and how it’s gone.
Nicholas
In reviewing further, Rosemere has a policy it adopted as the provincial rules were changing, but says in it, “The Town does not intend to circumvent the referendum approval process provided for
by the Act respecting land use planning and development.” So they are aware they had the option to get rid of the referendum process, but chose not to. There was also this op-ed about these changes that fall, right before the municipal elections.
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Kate
Quebec has just voted to cut ties with the monarchy. I believe that means Quebec is an independent republic now.
Ian
Lol let the Terror begin.
H. John
Maybe someone can explain why they think, based on how the National Assembly works, the Liberal Party of Quebec keeps allowing these resolutions. I know the unanimous resolutions are not binding on the government, but they are embarrassing.
Ricardo
They realized there are no transfer payments.
CE
I’ll miss the crown on the top of the National Assembly.
Kevin
Quebec MNAs really do like to pass unanimous meaningless motions, don’t they?
Kate
Ian, if we follow the previous pattern, we get rid of the king, in about ten years we’ll have an Emperor.
Kevin
Oh no Kate, that would be a regression from the people who think that the governance of a country is exactly the same as portrayed in a video game, and that a democracy is more evolved than a monarchy.
Joey
Unanimous resolutions serve two purposes: to give the QC gov’t (regardless of which party is in power) another tool to attack the federal government, and to allow non-nationalist parties to assert their Quebecois bona fides in a basically meaningless way – without this kind of performative nonsense, I don’t know that the Liberal Party of Quebec ever wins another election…
Uatu
Excellent with the Royals out of the way I can finally get a GP, right?
Ian
For sure, it was probably teh only thing keeping everyone from speaking French in public and in private, so now that we’re all assimilated all the other problems facing Quebec will naturally melt away like a bad dream.
Orr
Still bitter about Louis XV selling them out, I see.
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Kate
Five arrests have been made in connection with a homicide last month. Attacked on April 4 near the old Forum, Glenn Griffith died on April 20, and has been numbered the 12th homicide of the year.
Tim S.
The ages of the accused are a bit older than we usually see in these kinds of things.
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Kate
The death of Abisay Cruz, who met his end in a police action in March, is being likened to that of George Floyd, the American Black man who was killed by police in Minneapolis in May 2020. Floyd’s death sparked protests and riots all across the U.S. and beyond.
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Kate
Frank Zampino keeps insisting he never knew, never saw and never owned a hard drive that was found on a search of his house, as his trial for fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust continues.
If Zampino’s getting legal advice that, since nobody can ever prove what another man saw or knew or can remember, he should just stick to denial all along the line, the upshot is that he’s virtually claiming that he walks through life in a state of catatonia.
James
The “Tremblay” defense to the rescue !
Ian
When you’re up for re-election choosing between crooked or incompetent is tough, but when trying to avoid conviction, incompetent is just fine.
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Kate
The Bifteck on the Main has been in existence as a bar for 30 years but I don’t buy T’Cha Dunlevy’s assertion that its part of the Main was desolate and scary thirty years ago.
Nicholas
I don’t have much memory of that, but I do remember going to Waldman when it was huge and busy, as were a couple other places we went, some of which have downsized more or entirely. It’s certainly changed, but was it worse then?
MarcG
He said it was desolate and scary when it became a bar for the first time in the mid-80s, so that part of the story is 40 years ago.
Lorie
ha, desolate and scary! not quite. I was 18 and used to hang out on that strip very late, albeit at the dance clubs featuring bouncers, and sometimes Angels. After the bars closed there would be lineups at EuroDeli.
Kate
It was different but by no means worse. When Bifteck turned from being an old-worldy modest steakhouse into a cool hangout, there was still an eastern European vibe in the commercial side of the Main, but that finally died out when Charcuterie Hongroise and the Slovenia deli closed, a few years ago. The Portuguese influence was also prominent then, but it too has faded. But desolate? Never.
DeWolf
I haven’t been to Bifteck in about a year, so maybe they’ve raised their prices, but post-pandemic I really came to appreciate that it’s probably the only place in town where you can still get a pint of Boréale for $5.50 tax included.
Blork
Well, he said desolate and SOMETIMES scary, so everyplace is scary sometimes I suppose.
But it was definitely different then than now. Far fewer places to eat, with few if any open after midnight (was Eurodeli really open at 3:00AM? I don’t remember…) Only one cafe in those days (an un-interesting Van Houtte on St-Laurent just below Pine) and it wasn’t open late. The shops were mostly pretty dusty and old-school feeling, even then. The vibe, as Kate says, was mostly Eastern European and Portuguese during the day, and somewhat desolate at night with a few noisy exceptions. It wasn’t the kind of crowded sidewalks at midnight scene like we see now, at least not until the late 90s IIRC.
I was never cool enough for the Bifteck (although I went occasionally anyway). I think I’m the only person I know who actually ate a bifteck there, but hat was about 1988 I think, and by the look I got from the waiter (and the time it took to deliver the meal) I was probably the only person that week to order one.
My scene in those days was farther up the Main, at the Copa and east a bit to Else’s, with occasional pop-ins at places in between like Frappé, a dive at the top of some stairs that I forget the name of, Barfly now and then, and maybe one or two more.
Going way, way back (’87-89) there was the grim little Café du Poet on St-Laurent somewhere between Napoleon and Roy I think, where you could get a beer (in a bottle) for $1 (including tip) and the one sad little pool table was always available.
The only food I remember being available at closing time (3:00AM) was the pizza slice place next to the Copa, another one up at the corner of Rachel, and maybe Patati Patata. (Were they open that late? I don’t remember…)
Ian
I remember Biftek in the 80s and lived 3 doors down for a bit in the mid 90s and yeah even by the 90s even though that stretch of the Main was still a little skanky it was by no means desolate. Ti used to sit on my roof and watch the after hours fights in front of Euro Deli between the Gino’s coming out of the fancy joints toward Sherbrooke and the alt crowd coming south.
dwgs
Euro Deli was open very late until the early 90’s, when it switched to more regular hours. The Main was the place to go for a post closing time bite on the way home, they were open 24 hours. Else’s opened in 1993, the dive at the top of the stairs was probably Miami although it could be Double Deuce or the Garage that you went to. Nobody went to the Van Houtte, Melies was just down from the Bifteck and Cafe Central is still going on Duluth just east of the Main. There used to be a decent cafe in the green building as well at the corner of Duluth. There were also a few holdouts from the Jewish era (Pecker Bros., Simcha’s, Boulangerie St. Laurent…)
Blork, I know that I served you a few times.CE
How long was Copacabana in its spot on St-Laurent at Bagg? It always seemed like a classic place. My heyday of partying on the Main was around 2006-2012 so we had only the remnants of the 80s and 90s bars. I’d go down to Copacabana to take a break from the party upstairs at Karova which is now a pinball bar. I’d go to Miami (later Montenegro) if I wanted an especially skeezy night out and occasionally to Saphir for a weird night. A couple times I got dragged up to Tokyo, usually by co-workers, but it wasn’t at all my crowd. A night on that stretch was never complete without peanut butter noodles but I was never able to eat them again after having once tried them sober.
Kate
dwgs, the café in the green building was called Laïka and was pretty good – nice music too. I noticed recently that the windows are just papered over now.
Blork
Right, I forgot that The Main was open 24 hours. I never went there late-night though because by the time I was stumbling out of the Copacabana (or where ever) I only had the stomach and budget left for a slice of pizza.
Laïca opened in the early-mid 90s I think, didn’t it? Maybe it was open before that but possibly under a different name; I’m not sure. I remember going to “spoken word” events there 1995ish, including a reading by Yann Martel before he was Yann Martel.
I loved the magazine store that was on the south side of that space (same level as Laïka). I think it was called the “Green Spot” or something like that. One night there were some people shooting a student film there, totally rogue, and they let me stay in the shot as “random guy looking at magazines.” I never found out what film it was.
I’m pretty sure the top-of-the-stairs place was Miami. I remember being in a line on the stairs one new year’s eve when someone at the top basically upended a bottle of something and arcked a stream of liquid all the way down to the doorway, and we turned our faces up all opened our gobs like chicks in a nest and got our mouthfuls. I have no idea what was in the bottle. Those were the days.
I only went to that Van Houtte a couple of times, like in late mornings, and only on the rare event of there being a table available in the window. The coffee wasn’t very good and there was no “scene” but if you just wanted a morning coffee in the sunshine that was the only option. I think I wasn’t cool enough in the late 80s to go to Melies, and Cafe Central seemed like you needed to show an expired Portuguese passport in order to be admitted.
dwgs, now I’m curious. Where were you serving? Copa? Else’s?
Matthew
Bistro 4 was before Laika. Also a nice cafe.
Point vert. I was a regular, they had a really great magazine selection. Years later the owner worked in the same building as me downtown. When I was a smoker, he’d be out there too, we were friendly. I said after a few years: you look so familiar… “yah! you were always in my store!”
Miami had a line? Possible I guess. I feel like I might’ve seen lines to get in to bifteck in the late 90s. I could be wrong. But Miami was not a really a line-up place.
Nobody’s mentioned Bagel etc. A bit father up, sure, but after 3am was definitely a thing. I was one of the guys making those CC/Lox. It was a pretty fun place to work for a time.
Not sure when Barfly opened, it was Cleo’s then G-Sharp in the 90s, or the other way around.
Blork, similar: early 90s walking down the street, someone stuck their head out from Cleos or
Gsharp, said: do you want to be in a movie? I sat at the bar watching a blues band, they gave me whiskey (no prop drink), there were many takes. There was a few too many takes that I didn’t think to ask what the movie was called when I left.Blork
The line at Miami was only because it was New Year’s Eve, and even then it was more like a long row slowly trudging up the stairs.
Ian
I stole the velvet rope from Miami one night because I was annoyed it was blocking up the sidewalk with nobody there. ’95 or so?
Copa was a bit cokey for my tastes, I mostly hung out at the Deuce but there were certainly some fun places that came and went. To add to the list, anyone remember Loonies?dwgs
Blork, I definitely served you at Else’s (we used to play softball together too, we were both friends of Dwight B.) but I also worked at Quasimodo, Balmoral, the Deuce, Miami, and BSL so…
Ian, Miami really wasn’t a velvet rope on the sidewalk place, you must be thinking of somewhere else.
Agreed on Point Vert, great spot, friendly staff.
GSharp immediately preceded Barfly, the current owner bought the biz from Gary, who died not long after.
I think Copa opened when the Deuce did, which would have been around 1991.Ian
Fair enough, it was somewhere on St Larry near Prince Arthur, I just figured it was them. On another note, I was in Else’s on Monday afternoon, love that place.
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