Twenty-nine cats were found living in a Montreal apartment and rescued by the SPCA, which is offering a discount now on cat adoptions because it now has 162 cats on the premises.
Updates from July, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
If your eyes are feeling gritty on Saturday morning it’s because we have an air quality warning.
Most of my life we didn’t have wildfire smoke every summer. Now it’s just as much part of summer life as butterflies and lemonade.
“You may experience mild and common symptoms such as eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches or a mild cough.” This from the Environment Canada site. Mild and common symptoms. Nothing to worry about.
Let’s build more oil pipelines!
MarcG
Sad that this is the future we chose and keep choosing.
I probably posted this earlier but if here’s a handy tool to find an air cleaner. I preset some options that you probably want to tweak for your room size, noise tolerance, etc.
CE
I’ve been outside all day since about 10am and haven’t felt any of the usual symptoms of smoky air (itchy eyes and throat, weird taste in my mouth, thirst, etc). I think the air was worse last night than it was today.
walkerp
Same.
EmilyG
I remember a time earlier in my life when the weather forecast never said “smoke.”
maggie rose
I notice the AQI (air quality index) varies at different stations around Montreal, could account for reports of few or no symptoms. Proximity to trees & parks helps, as does not being over 65 yo. PM 2.5 readings have been higher in CSL/NDG and Westmount for the past 2 days, way higher than further east. And we have lots of trees around us. Weird. With my windows open it was sort of an itchy eye day yesterday, but I ventilate my apartment well. The green hazy sky wouldn’t look out of place in Bladerunner.
MarcG
The air is still garbage this morning and just because you’re not experiencing acute symptoms doesn’t mean you’re not breathing in PM2.5. I can’t believe this needs to be said but since the pandemic broke everyone’s brains, here we go: Air monitors and studies on the impacts of wildfire smoke provide useful data, people on the internet saying “I feel fine” do not.
MarcG
Another common-sense-isn’t-useful and delayed-symptom-onset-is-real tip: You can get a sunburn on a cloudy day if the UV index is high. Walking around under a cloud feeling fine, wake up next day with a painful burn.
walkerp
A couple of issues with all this hemming and hawing about people not reacting to the air quality warnings.
First, we have already a trend of Environment Canada and the news media over-hyping every weather event in advance, basically Never Wolfing them so people become inured.
Second, the actual health impact of this bad air is very unclear. I’ve heard people anecdotally suffering in the short-term (which does sound quite unpleasant) with a sick cough that goes on for a few days, burning eyes, etc. I assume there are also long-term impacts, which I would suspect are akin to the risk of skin cancer going up when you get a sunburn.
Finally, in practice, most people don’t actually suffer, at least in the short-term. Yesterday (Saturday), I played intensive outdoor sport for 2 hours and finally spent the rest of the day outside at Pocha MTL (which was very fun!) and do not feel a thing today.
Is there anywhere that clearly explains to the layperson the real risks of exposure to particulate matter from forest fires, both long and short-term?
If I currently do a personal risk analysis, the physical impact of breathing in the bad air is less negative for me than the psychological impact of being stuck inside the house on a precious Saturday with so much going on in this great city. This would be different perhaps if I were not already 5+ decades in, reproduced, etc.
Ian
CCOHS is a good resource. Worker health and safety is much more closely monitored as there are legal repercussions when someone files a claim for workplace related exposure to toxic substances.
https://www.ccohs.ca/newsletters/hsreport/issues/2021/05/ezine.htmlAlberta is even more specific:
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/news/ev/ne-ev-wildfire-fmm-smoke-exposure-info-for-workers.pdfMeezly
It’s the cumulative effects of exposure that is the concern.
Sun exposure has a cumulative effect, meaning the damage from UV radiation builds up over time, leading to premature aging, skin cancer, etc.
We all know cigarette smoking, including 2nd hand smoke, has a cumulative effect over time. This is similar to breathing in bad air whether from wildfire smoke, pollution, etc. Sure, a day outdoors won’t hurt, but seeing that wildfires are becoming a regular occurrence, we’re going to have more poor air quality warnings during our summers.
According to a Stanford U study, an AQI measurement of 20 is equivalent to smoking one cigarette a day.
It noted that exposure to wildfire smoke causing an AQI of 150 for several days would be equivalent to smoking about seven cigarettes a day if someone were outside the whole time. Looking at Montreal’s AQI today is ranging from 110 to 127.The warnings are there to help people decide how they want to manage their time outdoors.
MarcG
The choice for the individual isn’t between having fun and hiding at home. This is exactly the same false dichotomy that was presented for Covid; a result of the pre-existing cultural resistance to masking (based in anti-Asian sentiment?) buttressed by political and economic forces pushing against the normalization of socialistic empathic behavior.
I went for a walk by the river on Saturday morning and a family gathering in the afternoon, and on Sunday I went for a jog in the morning and several walks – the last one without a respirator because the AQI was finally below 100.
The problem is that at a population level these health events cause harm. Maybe not to you or anyone you know, at least in the short term where it’s easy to draw a correlation, but to the collective. ERs are more crowded, more people die waiting, more strokes, more dementia, more traffic accidents, more burned out health professionals, more sick days, more pressure to work while sick, more days off to take care of unwell loved ones, resources become strained. And the current response has been *more* individualism, more austerity, more ignoring simple preventative measures, rather than building up the habits and support systems we need to deal with the effects of smoke exposure, repeat Covid infections, aging population, etc. We all want a functional healthcare system to be there when we need it, and as much as the major problem is neoliberal government underfunding, the actions we take as individuals play a role as well. Self-care is social care, all is one, thanks for coming to my TedTalk.
MarcG
Here’s someone else’s interesting thoughts on prevention: No One Knows When They Don’t Die
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Kate
The concert by Sean Feucht was held despite the city ban and the presence of protesters outside. One man was arrested and a smoke bomb may have been let off inside.
Photos of the event show a handful of people in the audience. This was no major revival event.
The city intends to fine the church for holding the event without a permit.
The evangelical Ministerios Restauración Church now owns the building at Berri and Roy that was originally St‑Louis‑de‑France but was sold by the Catholics years ago. It was built to replace the original church by that name on Roy, destroyed by a fire in 1933.
steph
No one thought to call in a noise complaint?
Kate
If they did, it hasn’t been reported.
Nicholas
I don’t understand this permit issue. Yesterday I briefly skimmed the church’s website and recent videos and there was lots of singing and music (and preaching). Is that not allowed in a religious venue? Singing and music have been a part of religion for a long, long time. How is what this guy doing different from what this church does every week? This isn’t Paul McCartney or Taylor Swift; his song, from what I understand, is specifically preachy, and the CTV article says he spent two hours singing and preaching. He’s a missionary!
The number of chamber music concerts or quartets I’ve seen advertised in churches is too many to count, but I guess they all had concert permits? But even if so, you’d think a church occupancy permit would include music as part of religious events, which this clearly is. And this is obviously retaliation from the city for views they don’t like. If we’re going to shut down every religious event that expressed backwards views….
H. John
@Nicholas I had the same concerns.
According to two of the news reports, “although the performance was indoors, the city considered it subject to public event rules because of its scale, publicity, and impact”.
And from what I can see, the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal (SIM) requires a safety/risk management notice for events, whether in public or private venues, if they are considered “special events.” That means large, organized gatherings—even indoor concerts of significance—need authorization in advance (at least 10 working days before).
As Kate referenced the poster from the church posted on X says “concert gratuit” – concert, not church service.
If the church had complied and submitted a permit request in time, I can’t see how it could have been refused.
I do think we have a major problem when officials like Plante’s spokesperson say publicly that an event was forbidden because of content.
CBC reported:
“Catherine Cadotte, a spokesperson for the Montreal mayor’s office, told CBC News that the show “goes against the values of inclusion, solidarity and respect” and that the venue, located in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, would be advised that the concert cannot take place.
“Freedom of expression is one of our fundamental values, but hateful and discriminatory speech is not accepted in Montreal and, as in other Canadian cities, the show will not be tolerated,” she wrote in French.”My concern is that some people seem to think that only “nice” speech is protected. Freedom of expression protects “hateful and discriminatory speech”.
When government officials start to make those decisions for us, minorities will be the first to lose.
Kate
I had the impression Montreal felt under pressure to close this man down because half a dozen other towns had already done so. But Quebec City’s event, at any rate, was meant to be held outdoors on a public site belonging to that city, which is not the same thing as a performance held inside a church.
CBC says that his shows planned on public space elsewhere were also an issue.
CTV says the city is fining that church $2,500 for holding a concert without a permit – apparently it was arranged in a hurry after Feucht was deplatformed in Quebec.
Possibly the distinction between a concert and a religious gathering is the issue here.
Nicholas
Thanks for all that info, both of you. It seems weird for a venue that is designed to hold events with lots of people, many of which have music, needs a special permit and fire review to hold an event with music for people. What if someone dies and they want a concert instead of a traditional funeral, will they have to wait two weeks? Are the fire concerns different between this and a regular sermon? Is plugging in a guitar a danger? There were no pyrotechnics (at least no planned ones).
Having been to a number of Baptist Church services, not out of choice, they always have singing of religious songs, usually accompanied by piano. This is 15 minutes long before the pastor even came out; is that a concert? When one of the teens played three violin pieces with no religious context, just to celebrate life accomplishments of one of the congregants, is that a concert? What about the teen Christian rock band with incredibly cringe lyrics? Or the worst, which offended me as a Montrealer (but also made me laugh, especially when they noted how the original lyrics were not fitting with their values), a Christian version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (no I will not link to it)?
And all this for, what, some event with 50 people? And as many protestors outside? I’ve hosted parties with that many people at my home! And now they get a news cycle before, one after, and surely another when they protest the fine. For probably the 473rd most attended event of the day in Montreal, with fewer people that can fit into a city bus? Just let them be assholes in their basement.
But overall, it just seems like leading to a really bad place if the government, incited by its disapproval of certain speech, is going to decide what is and is not a proper religious service and fine those it disapproves of.
EmilyG
An article on CBC says that he performed in Toronto and the concert was well-attended. Apparently people even came from other parts of Ontario, some of them to “support the cause.”
I guess he has gotten a lot of free publicity from the media, unfortunately.
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