Updates from July, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 17:29 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

    The downtown SDC says it’s disturbed by the fatal shooting early Tuesday at Place de la Paix. The victim was, as the saying goes, known to police, so he was not a random shooting target.

    The tone of this piece suggests a growing support for more law and order downtown. Will Glenn Castanheira be running for Ensemble in November?

    Le Devoir also interviewed workers in nearby businesses open at night who say they’re unsettled by the incident. There wasn’t this swell of concern in April when a murdered man was dropped on the parterre of Place des Arts, so why is the SDC shopping this story to the press?

     

    • Kate 17:18 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

      A national funeral was held Tuesday for Serge Fiori.

       

      • Kate 12:17 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

        I had just observed that only one woman had been murdered here so far this year, when a new item popped up about a woman found dead in Anjou on Tuesday morning. CTV says an investigation is under way, but also says this has been determined a homicide. TVA more bluntly says there were signs of violence.

        Later it has been reported that the the woman’s son has been arrested.

         

        • Kate 12:14 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

          The city is warning that fraudulent QR codes have been affixed to some parking meters.

           

          • Blork 12:36 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            QR codes are nasty. They’re the security equivalent of “hand your phone to a stranger and let them play with it.”

          • jeather 15:13 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            Restaurants that have a QR code that links to a pdf file formatted to print that you’re supposed to read on your phone. Cursed.

          • Blork 15:31 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            I know! So annoying. Typically you can work around it by simply going to the restaurant’s website and following the link to the menu. The QR code is typically just a shortcut to that same menu.

          • CE 15:43 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            Im glad the QR code menus are starting to go away, I truly hated them. A few times I’ve left a restaurant when they couldn’t give me a physical menu.

          • jeather 15:54 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            It is not more convenient for me to find the link to an unreadable pdf menu than to use a QR code, really.

            Many restaurants have printouts now.

          • Blork 16:54 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            @jeather, I didn’t mean that going to the website is more convenient than clicking a QR code. I meant it is less risky.

            QR codes are essentially blind links; you have no idea where they’re sending you or what amount of tracking and other crap is built into the link. At least with a link on a web page you can get a sense of what it is. It’s not bulletproof but at least it’s not a total shot in the dark like a QR code link.

          • jeather 16:56 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            When I scan a QR code, it shows me the url I am going to. I grant this can be abused, and I’m sure lots of people click without checking, but it doesn’t actually open the link unless I want it to.

            I really find it objectionable to try to read a menu on my phone, though.

          • Mozai 00:35 on 2025-07-16 Permalink

            “It shows me the url I am going to…” Just about every QR code I’ve seen on the street uses a URL shortener, to make the QR code as simple as possible, so you don’t know where it’s going until you click it. These URL shorteners inject ads on your way to the final destination. And some (most?) phones will pre-fetch the remote content so it feels to the user like it gives a snappy response when you do click on it.

            You get an email from a stranger with a link you can’t read asking you to “CLICK HERE” and of course you would shun it. But people in shops and posters in public transit think it’s okay. It’s like the joke: “2013: dont get into a stranger’s car. 2023: Your Über is here.”

          • Mark Côté 08:59 on 2025-07-16 Permalink

            Funny, a link shortener is pretty much redundant with a QR code, unless you are purposefully trying to obfuscate the destination URL…

          • jeather 09:51 on 2025-07-16 Permalink

            I don’t often get QR codes, to be honest, but when I do I don’t see a shortener. But I’m sure it happens.

            I tried to look up the pre-fetch and I couldn’t see that confirmed.

          • Orr 17:21 on 2025-07-17 Permalink

            in regard to qr-codes, we went into a restaurant and the server pointed at the qr code on the table so we stood up and walked out the door.

        • Kate 09:38 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

          Warnings about heat and air quality continue Tuesday. Montreal’s air quality is one of the worst urban readings in the world at the moment. I can actually see haze on my street in Villeray.

           

          • EmilyG 13:26 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            According to the Weather Network, the current weather is “smoke.”

          • jeather 15:14 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            From here the smoke is much less bad than it was yesterday.

        • Kate 09:12 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

          The Gazette’s Jason Magder talks to several habitués of the river’s famous standing wave.

          The Journal’s Louis-Philippe Messier suggests a different approach to beating the heat by taking to the river.

           

          • DeWolf 09:29 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            It’s always fun to go to Dieppe Park and see people unloading their surfboards from cars (or bikes) as if we’re somewhere on the coast of California.

            For just observing surfers, La Vague à Guy in LaSalle is actually a bit more accessible.

          • MarcG 12:35 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

            Is there a legal way to access the Dieppe wave riverside? I noticed huge “private property” signs when I’ve been there and people casually strolling across the lawn.

        • Kate 08:57 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

          The rain that fell Sunday broke a record.

          Many media are running pieces about houses being flooded. La Presse’s Stéphanie Grammond writes about how the city has generally avoided the issue of natural land contours and how some areas will always be prone to flooding, even far from the river.

          TVA has some maps showing where flood basins exist in various parts of town.

          Mayor Plante says it will take a couple of years before enough sewers are replaced to cope with the effects of climate change on our rainfall. Soraya Martinez, parroting the Ensemble playbook as usual, said the mayor should pay more attention to the sewers than to the bike paths – whereas if the city did more digging for sewer replacement, with the attendant cones and disturbance to businesses, she would be the first to kvetch.

          Or, as someone says on reddit, “Soraya Martinez Ferrada a été la députée d’Hochelaga pendant 4 ans et elle a fait sweet fuck all donc je pense pas qu’elle ait de leçons à donner à personne…”

           

          • Kate 08:38 on 2025-07-15 Permalink | Reply  

            A man was shot dead early Tuesday in Place de la Paix, the small square on St‑Laurent near René‑Lévesque. There has not yet been an arrest.

            Tuesday, Chloé’s cartoon shows 12 feminicides in Quebec in 2025. On updating the 2025 incident map just now I was struck by an imbalance: in 21 homicides on the island of Montreal so far this year, 20 were of men or boys. No woman has been killed here since January. I don’t know what this says about Montreal vs. the rest of Quebec but it’s interesting.

             

            • Ephraim 09:43 on 2025-07-15 Permalink

              Irony. Does it need to be renamed to Place des troubles or would that fail the OLF and have to be renamed again to Place d’inquiétude

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