On reddit, the excellent typo on this page about concerts at Notre‑Dame – video report – has been pointed out. Anyone for a visit to Notre‑Damage Basilica?
I’ve screenshotted the page for posterity.
Updates from July, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Reported crimes in Canada fell in 2024 overall, although they rose a bit in Quebec, except for Montreal.
While finding a link in English I was amused to spot, quite high in the Google rankings, a page on the Conservative party site headlined Carney’s Crime Wave Continues which basically lies, lies and lies again about the crime stats – also as if Mark Carney has even been prime minister long enough to pin these bogus numbers on him.
DeWolf
That Conservative screed is hilariously bombastic.
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Kate
Back in 2019, when the consortium developing the old Children’s Hospital site decided unilaterally not to build any social housing, the city clapped back by limiting the planned sixth tower to four storeys. A Superior Court judge has just ruled that the city was within its rights to do so.
walkerp
[Nelson “Ha Ha!” meme]
And these shitbags named themselves “HRM Projet Children inc.”
Tim
I see nothing to celebrate here. My recollection is that the developer simply exercised a clause in the contract and did not violate any conditions. The city then took action to punish them by moving the goals posts and now the court has vindicated them. This should be taken as a warning to not cross officials, as a company or even as a citizen, because they can make up the rules as they go.
Tim S.
As far as I can tell, the developer thought they found a loophole, the city countered with a different loophole. I celebrate the fact that the city at least established a norm of public good, even if they should have written a better deal in the first place.
Ian
The initial “deal” was on Coderre’s watch, worth noting.
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Kate
Quebec is proceeding with an almost Trumpian policy: the removal of children of visa workers from subsidized daycare. That these workers often can’t afford any other form of daycare, that their work is important – even to other daycares! – is clearly of no importance to the CAQ.
bob
The CAQ is a party of and for racists.
Notable: the Quebec government gets $1.2 billion of its $2.6 billion budget for (now) $9.35 daycare from Ottawa despite opting out of the federal program (CWELCC), yet still blames the feds for their inability to fund daycare completely.
Quebec actually went to court last year to prevent asylum seekers from accessing the program, but the court said no, because ti is discriminatory, and therefore unconstitutional. But the CAQ and other racist nationalists regularly wipe their asses with Quebec’s own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, so what do they care about what a court has to say? Anyways, Legault blamed the “federal” court for preventing “citizens of Quebec” from accessing the system, and the CAQ and the PQ blame the federal government for underfunding the system whose budget they themselves set.
A net $1.4 billion for subsidized daycare – and $10 billion for a corrupt airport facelift, $10 billion for a corrupt river crossing, $10 billion here, $10 billion there, all vacuumed up by their legalized mafia of finance, engineering, and construction firms.
As Lyndon Johnson said: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Ephraim
@Bob, you think that it’s just the CAQ? Outside of Montreal (and even inside it), the level of xenophobia in this province is sometimes astounding. I mean 54% of people in Quebec (in a poll) expressed discomfort with a woman wearing a veil. It has nothing to do with the CAQ, these sentiments are long and hard in Quebec. Look at this sign from Val David… https://histoirevaldavid.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/LES-COMMUNAUTE%CC%81S-JUIVES-DE-VAL-1.pdf
walkerp
It has much to do with the CAQ. They came to power on a false centrist campaign and a promise of better economic management (“homme d’affaires” lol ) but since have doubled down on the desperate ethno-nationalism of the PQ before them. Yes, there is a strong strain of racism and xenophobia in Quebec but there is also a strong tradition of progressive and inclusive politics as well. The party in power has the ability to steer the province in one direction or other. The CAQ has gone hard on the racism part (and the corruption and pork as bob well describes above).
Racism is alive and well across Canada. I don’t really understand how you are trying to excuse the CAQ by saying Quebeckers are just racist.
Ephraim
@walkerp – I’ve lived with this xenophobia all my life. It was here under the PQ, under the Liberals and under the CAQ. It’s just different flavours of it. Yes, the Liberals are the most progressive of it, but as soon as you leave the Island, you see more and more of it.
Joey
Ephraim, perhaps you should think of the CAQ as the party specifically of these people. It didn’t invent Quebec’s particular brand of xenophobia, it just realized it could go far appealing only to those people. The business elite and the media fell for it a couple of times, but the jig is up and it’s clear that they only have another 15 months to run wild.
At least the PQ made appeals to “cultural communities”; Lucien Bouchard event went to the Centaur!
Robert H
So now, there will be children who lose a comforting part of their daily routine, and parents, already struggling, who will not be able to work or will have to hunt for a new job because they’ve been deprived of subsidized daycare. If or when they become clients of social welfare, certain pundits and politicians will complain of how Quebec cannot afford these leeches on the public purse, these undesirables who come to Quebec to live off hardworking gens du pays. I’m disgusted with Legault and the CAQ, but I still don’t believe Quebec is any more racist than the rest of Canada.
I tend to agree with Walkerp that the CAQ is tapping a xenophobic, nativist strain that can be found across Canada. As a member of a visible minority, I feel comfortable in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, even Quebec City, but in the regions and small towns, my guard does go up a bit. It’s a reflex, but I wouldn’t call myself paranoid, just careful. And the cities aren’t paradise, but neither are they the hotbeds of tension I’ve experienced in the United States. As in so many other aspects, Quebec’s brand of xenophobia has a distinct ethno-nationalism not found elsewhere in Canada, but the reactionary racist bigotry behind it can be found across the country.
It’s even more complex. As Walkerp suggested, Quebec does have a strong image of progressivism and inclusivity, though this sort of news can make us forget about that. Quebec is a frequent target of conservative critics on both sides of the border for its socialist, “woke” tendencies. You’ll see denunciations in Canadian and U.S. rightwing media lamenting Quebec’s anti-capitalist stance and communist oriented labour fixation. So what is this place? Canada’s version of deep red Missisippi, or is it true blue Massachusetts?
Tim S.
Robert H: it’s not logically incompatible for a closed community to be socialisty. A sense of “we’ll look after each other, but be mistrustful of outsiders” (real or perceived). Building a sense of solidarity with people who don’t look/sound like you is an ongoing challenge for the left.
Ian
I disagree, communism tends toward nationalism, socialism toward multiculturalism. Anarchosyndicalism only recognizes divisions based on labour roles & community building. It’s not as cut and dry as “Stalin committed the Holodomor, therefore”.
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Kate
Individuals and citizen groups are unsettled by the possibility that Hydro‑Quebec might want the Miséricorde block for its new downtown substation.
Chris
And yet people seem to love electricity. Pity it doesn’t grow on trees.
MarcG
Chris
And in your comic metaphor, which is “improving society somewhat”: building an electric substation, or blocking it?
steph
Their Decoy Effect is working. The empty lot is looking like a better option every day.
Nicholas
I’ve said before the issue is there aren’t many places to put this, as it’s downtown, and power demand is growing, especially due to electric vehicles. But that lends to an obvious solution: ban cars. No cars in downtown, no charging in downtown, problem solved. Buses would be faster, the STM fare revenues would jump and we wouldn’t need to spend money on bike lanes because you only need bike lanes to protect people from cars. Sewer replacement would be much cheaper. And with no cars there’d be no need for such a wide René-Lévesque, so we could narrow it and put the replacement substation on half of the street and a new transit line on the other half, and turn the old station into an extended park, with a slide and toboggan hill.
I’m half joking, but I’d love to see what the province would think of this plan.
walkerp
You’d get my vote!
CE
Mine too! A few years ago, I walked down the middle of Sherbrooke after an event had finished but before cars were allowed back on the street and was astonished by how nice it was. I had never fully appreciated the mix of architecture and the views down the hill at the intersections. A car-free downtown would be wonderful!
Kate
Unfortunately, we couldn’t even keep a small perimeter of downtown free of cars for a few hours for Car‑Free Day, back when that was a thing.
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Kate
The media have revelations of the financial troubles of Luciano Frattolin, accused of murdering his daughter Melina in New York state on the weekend. Frattolin has pleaded not guilty.
GC 21:32 on 2025-07-22 Permalink
HA!
Robert H 22:06 on 2025-07-22 Permalink
C’est Damage! (rimshot)
MarcG 06:19 on 2025-07-23 Permalink
Peut-être en est-il de plus beaux, mais c’est le nôtre !