A worker at Bordeaux Jail has been charged with manslaughter in the 2022 death of Nicous d’Andre Spring, an incident that sticks in the memory because the young man should have been released, but was still in the jail because of some bureaucratic sloppiness blamed on the Christmas break.
Updates from July, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Brendan Kelly trolls the Gazette readership with a view that the Beatles weren’t all that, sparked by the announcement that Paul McCartney will play two concerts here in November.
Kevin
Music without the Beatles is like a fish without water. You don’t wear Beatles t-shirts for the same reason you think certain people don’t have a unique culture. They were and remain ubiquitous
Whether they were original or merely populist ripoffs, they were the zeitgeist and the catalyst of the era.
More than their influence on other musicians, they changed the aural expectations of the audience, and that is how their impact should be measured.
So help me Laurence Welk.
Joey
“The band was great but no greater than say… Wilco.”
Mr.Chinaski
“The best band will never get signed” Wilco
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Kate
The Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) has put out a report suggesting the city should refrain from dismantling homeless camps until it has something better to offer. It also suggests setting up basic facilities – drinking water, toilets, waste collection and electricity – but I can already feel the resistance here, because doing that is to essentially admit the camps are a permanent feature of the city. We’re not supposed to have bidonvilles.
The city says it will not stop dismantling, despite the report.
The camp on Notre-Dame East has been spared till July 21, as if the city could come up with a better option in the meantime.
I wonder whether people have moved into the temporary modular housing being put up in various spots around town.
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Kate
Canadians continue to shun the United States as its leader maintains his frenetic flip‑flopping from tariffs on to tariffs off to tariffs on again.
My only personal sacrifice is in boycotting American cherries. I adore cherries but the supply here is all from the U.S., and I couldn’t enjoy them. Anyway, the local strawberries and raspberries are fantastic this season.
CE
Even before the boycotts, I never understood why we import berries from the US during berry seasons. Why anyone would buy those big tasteless California strawberries that are white inside when there are delicious local berries right beside them is beyond me, especially considering they’re usually both sold at around the same price.
Blork
I know! It’s one thing to sell imported berries off-season (I personally don’t buy them) but it weird that they keep selling them during the berry season. Last week a small tub of really good local strawberries was $1.99 at Provigo, while the Driscoll imported berries were still on the shelf at more than double the price.
Weirdest of all is that I actually saw someone buy the imported ones!
Nicholas
CE, my guess would be there aren’t enough. Either due to not enough planted or not enough workers to pick them.
Blork
I don’t think that’s it, as there’s no shortage of the local ones. You see the local and non-local ones side-by-side with no shortage of either.
I’m pretty sure it’s just mega-store logistics, where they have a deal with the U.S. berry distributors and they can’t suspend it during local berry season.
Kevin
It really is the volume. Chains have to deal with mega-logistics, and often firms like Driscoll, which imports from Mexico and the US, are the only ones large enough to deal with.
I believe Metro allows a lot more leeway for individual stores to order from outside their internal market system, which is why they carry more local products and have the Cabane a ma maison in the spring.dhomas
I think Kevin and Blork are right: it’s a logistics thing. I’ve noticed this not only with berries, but with Canadian products in general. The big box grocery stores must have some agreements to keep stock of big (American) producers’ products. I wanted to buy Primo ketchup (Canadian-made, Canadian-owned) instead of Heinz (sometimes-but-not-always Canadian-made, American-owned) or French’s (Canadian-made, American-owned), but I could never find it at Metro/Maxi/IGA. I found it at Adonis (owned by Metro), instead. I wanted to buy snacks for my kids’ movie night but could not find any Covered Bridge chips or Hawkins Cheezies (both 100% Canadian) at the big boxes. I finally found them at Giant Tiger (100% Canadian). (Covered Bridge had a fire that destroyed their factory last year and likely caused them to not have enough stock to supply the big stores for a while). Giant Tiger has surprised me with their food selection. I always thought they were like some kind of Rossy or Hart store. But their food selection is actually pretty decent for some types of products. I’ve been going there more often, even though it’s further away from me.
I’ve found that avoiding the big stores might be the way to go. Next, I’ll try small fruiteries to see if I can find more local fruit products.Joey
These products are effectively commodities – yes, we all have our preferences but for the most part they are interchangeable (your recipe *usually* calls for berries, not Quebec berries, or ketchup, not Heinz Ketchup). So huge grocers treat them as such – it’s only since January that a significant portion of consumers is passionate about distinguishing among the commodity providers. I don’t think I know anyone who cared about not buying American products prior to Trump’s re-election. We’ve seen grocers try to ‘pivot’ to made-in-Canada options through signage, etc. (and sometimes they accidentally – or not – market American-made products as made in Canada), but to do so at large scale would take more time, cost a lot more and may not be feasible. You can only sell so many strawberries if you refuse to list those made in California.
@dhomas it’s lost on a lot of us that manufacturers pay distributors who pay retailers to stock certain products – it’s not that Metro prefers Heinz to Primo, it’s that Heinz effectively pays Metro for better store access. Fun!
And, yes, to Blork’s point, if you tell Driscoll that you won’t sell their products during berry season, they’ll walk away from you completely. Driscoll is not interested in cleaning up in the winter months only. We like to think of the supermarket as just a larger version of a local exchange between growers and buyers, but (as we saw with the bread-fixing scheme), it’s much much more complex than that and almost always in a way that ensures consistent access to mediocre goods. Unfortunately, it feels like 99 out of 100 decisions about the kind of economy we live in have to forego concerns about ethics, sustainability, etc.
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Kate
A must-read: Nora Loreto on white supremacy in the armed forces: “White men have murdered more people in the name of far right extremism than any other subset in Canadian society. And still the CBC has to make sure that Canadians are more afraid of brown people than white.”
Meezly
Loreto seems to be onto something, but I feel like there should be more supporting material for her arguments. She’s claiming that Gurski, a former CSIS analyst and president of a security risk consulting firm is “objectively untrue” when he says that “the greater threat of violent extremism comes from Islamist groups” and his “real crime is trying to launder the reputation of white extremists in the virtual pages of the public broadcaster. And that broadcaster defends it.”
But she doesn’t provide any further examples or evidence of how they are pushing this agenda or why. What are their possible motivations? Are they also upholding white supremacy, consciously or unconsciously? Or is there a reason for minimizing the threat of far right extremism? I understand Loreto may be an independent journalist, so may lack funding and time to go deeper, but this warrants further research!
Chris
This author seems confused:
“…the biggest threat to Jews in Canada was the far right, CBC’s Elizabeth Thompson sought out comment from a man who insisted that, actually, the threat comes from Radical Islam…”
Radical Islam ***is*** far-right. I guess her definition of “far right” seeks to include only the “white” variety, and not the “brown” variety? Islamism is socially conservative, authoritarian, theocratic, anti-pluralism, anti-gay, nationalist, sectarian, etc., etc. These are all right-wing traits.
Chris
> I understand Loreto may be an independent journalist
Her own website does not describe her as such. It says “Writer. Activist. Podcaster.” Activists have agendas, not aspirations to unbiased reporting.
Josh
Hard agree with everything Chris says.
Nicholas
When I first heard this story I was worried, until I saw the photos: a bunch of sad men cosplaying saving the world by “taking land near Quebec City by force” (they gonna take a barn? disrupt the strawberry harvest?). The Mounties got their men, their weapons were seized last year, they had…imminent plans? Vague plans? Concepts of plans? They advertised their terrorism recruitment on Instagram? Two digit numbers of posts, four digit numbers of followers, good chance most were gun nuts from abroad? Not saying there aren’t issues with right wing extremism (which Chris points out should include radical Islamists), but if this is “the largest cache of weapons and components in any terrorism incident in Canadian history,” well, I’ll sleep pretty soundly tonight.
jeather
Whether radical Islam should be considered far right or not, currently we consider far right extremism to be based on a Christian extremism and not part of the same category as Islamic extremism.
I think this — which I have not fact checked — seems to be the overall upshot: Indeed, white men have murdered more people in the name of far right extremism than any other subset in Canadian society.
Kevin
The FBI has long said that White extremists are a bigger threat to the US than any foreign terrorist. The attempt to kidnap and kill Gov. Whitmer, Waco, McVeigh, lynchings… the list is endless.
We have similarities in Canada, what with Bissonnette and Veltman.
What’s notable about these four recent arrests is how they allegedly acquired their weapons by stealing them from the Armed Forces, and really how overt they were.
There are a lot of slightly smarter but just as bigoted people in positions where they have the sheen of authority in using force.
bob
Radical Islamism shares very little with the Western right wing. Each generally considers the other as evil incarnate.
Loreto is an activist whose politics are quite radical. She seems to want to deflect accusations of antisemitism against the radical left anti-Israel movement by claiming that the traditional right wing is the real threat (like in this: https://noraloreto.substack.com/p/instrumentalizing-antisemitism-again). It’s a kind of zero-sum thing where if one is worse the other is not so bad. But, of course, the recent rise in antisemitism owes more to sympathies with Islamist entities than to Christian nationalists or white supremacists.
@Nicholas – Anders Brievik is a sad cosplaying man, and he managed to murder 77 people in one day, more than half of them teenagers.
Kate
I don’t remember ever promising to only link to unbiased reporting.
Joey
“But, of course, the recent rise in antisemitism owes more to sympathies with Islamist entities than to Christian nationalists or white supremacists.”
The richest man in the world bought the most influential media platform in the world and turned it into a white supremacist propaganda machine. Thank u next.
Interestingly (and not in the good way), the one area where the Christian extremists and Muslim extremists are *perfectly* aligned is how they consider and treat women.
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Kate
There are 3 city workers outside my window, spreading mulch around the trees in the sidewalk.
They’re speaking English to each other.
Robert H
Ne vous inquiétez pas, j’ai déjà appelé la police et la Sûreté du Québec. Ils m’ont tous deux dit qu’ils pourraient envoyer des équipes d’armes tactiques dans quelques heures. En attendant, restez calme !
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Kate
The city is suing two engineering firms for $14 million to recoup some of the cost overruns on the new Île‑Bizard bridge.
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Kate
The city administration hopes to create dense, walkable neighbourhoods in project areas like the old Molson brewery site, Bridge‑Bonaventure and Place Versailles, in contrast to the random development of Griffintown when it was thrown to the sharks. Is it possible, will bureaucracy bog it down and will people enthusiastically adopt high‑rise living without so many cars in the mix?
su
Is that schematic cartoon of a crowded concrete square surrounded by cement sardine can high rises supposed to promote the project? One can only imagine the heat that design will emanate. How bout grass for picnics and cooling – maybe community garden space.
DeWolf
This article reads like something that would have been published in 2005, not 2025, when development was moribund and families were still leaving the city en masse.
All three of the projects mentioned are being led by private developers – they weren’t instigated by the city. Which means there’s market demand for dense neighbourhoods. When the article asks “can the city deliver?” it’s the wrong question, because it’s not the city delivering these projects, it’s for-profit interests who aren’t doing it out of charity or a sense of idealism.
The focus on Montreal’s net loss of population is weird too. Yes, more people move from Montreal to the suburbs every year than vice versa, but they are replaced by even more people coming from elsewhere. In terms of absolute numbers, Montreal’s population is growing every year.
Also the question of whether Montrealers are willing to live in dense housing – huh? Most Montrealers already live in apartments. A huge number live in relatively dense neighbourhoods like RPP and the Plateau (the combined population of which is larger than the West Island). And the downtown population — basically all high-rises — grew by 25% between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, making it one of the fastest-growing downtown areas in Canada.
So weird premise for an article.
DeWolf
Also, the whole “not another Griffintown!” thing needs to be put to rest. Griffintown is developing like almost any urban neighbourhood in history has developed: as a hodgepodge. How do you think the Plateau became what it is today? It wasn’t master-planned, that’s for sure.
If you walk around Griffintown today, there are nicely revamped streets, lots of new trees, quite a few parks and plazas — with three more on the way — and lots of people walking around. There’s too many chain stores, but even then, there are also quite a few interesting independent businesses.
Here’s a good video exploring why Griffintown isn’t the boogeyman it is made out to be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iiIaFRMg1E&pp=ygUbb2ggdGhlIHVyYmFuaXR5IGdyaWZmaW50b3du
Robert H
That “Vue de la Place Publique” looks wonderful! It’s certainly an improvement over the vast parking lot and strip mall that fills the Place Versailles site now. People claim to hate sprawl, but seem to hate density even more. It’s not as simple as land-gobbling subdivisions of pseudo-chateaux vs. “cement sardine can high rises,” but that’s the way some people would frame the matter. High rises are actually part of the solution, and I’m encouraged to see this project and the intensified Îlot Voyageur proposal among others, get the go ahead. Of course, I’m aware of the reservations people have had about these plans, especially relative to affordability: exhibit A, Square Children’s. But Iet’s not make perfect the enemy of good. I welcome these new developments.
Coincidentally, perhaps it’s time to revisit Griffintown as the preferred example of how not to densify Greater Montreal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iiIaFRMg1E
Robert H
Hello, DeWolf! Great minds watch alike!
DeWolf
I am willing to bet that in 30 years, Griffintown will be considered a lively, eclectic and interesting neighbourhood, while the Quartier des lumières and and Place Versailles developments will be rather dull, with a distinct sense of artificiality because their development was more centralized. A bit like the parts of Angus that were developed in the early 2000s still have a Truman Show vibe after so many years.
Nicholas
I had also just watched that video. Even before that, I was more anti-anti-Griffintown. There are a bunch of parks and car-free promenades, still lots of indie businesses on Notre Dame (leading into Little Burgundy) and the canal, obviously. The streets aren’t too wide, the reconstructed sidewalks are pretty wide, street trees are small but growing. Also there should be a REM station there in 2070.
I think the biggest knock from most people is that people like red brick, that is Montreal, and many of these buildings don’t have that. Also the dep that you never use is fancy rather than old. Oh and fancy local chain restaurants, but have you seen Mont-Royal lately? Even the homegrown restaurants are now chains: they have a L’Avenue in Toronto, and Saudi Arabia!
Lastly, even though this “rich” (it’s not that rich, and there is social housing) area may seem “new Montreal”, the developers made sure to put in the most quintessential “classic Montreal” place ever: a mob hangout that gets shot up and firebombed every so often. Where else in Canada can you get that kind of local flavour in a gentrified neighbourhood?
Mark
Long-term, I think DeWolf is correct in that Griffintown will evolve into the fabric of the city. My main concern has always been the lack of a school in the planning, and now, 10-15 years later, they are still trying to get that off the ground. Ok so maybe the condos are not great for families with 3+ kids, but honestly, most families are smaller now, and condo life with 1-2 kids is fine. But no school nearby really makes that a difficult sell for many people and has artificially created a less diverse population because of it.
jeather
The complaints I heard from friends who moved away were mostly about difficulties with public transit access.
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Kate
A young man was shot dead in Anjou on Wednesday afternoon. Few details are included in these brief items except that it may have been a case of mistaken identity.
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