The ongoing squabble about the southeastern corner of Westmount and whether it should be built up with towers has evoked a claim from previous Westmount mayors that the entire town should qualify as an exceptional heritage sector and thus be exempt from the metropolitan community’s impending plans for increased density.
Why don’t they just say “we’re rich, we don’t want too many neighbours”?
Fierté, the main pride organization here, is excluding a group that explicitly supports Israel.
Singer Safia Nolin had announced that she wouldn’t perform in the Fierté Montréal festival this weekend because of the presence of a “Zionist” group, after which Fierté made the announcement. An alternative festival is being held.
Comments off.
Since before I started this blog, there’s been story after story about the people (or their descendants, now) who want satisfaction for the damage caused at the Allan Memorial during the MKUltra experiments. Sometimes the defendants can proceed, sometimes they’re blocked. Thursday, a class action suit has been cleared for them to sue the Royal Vic, McGill University and the government of Canada.
Sébastien Simon, who stabbed Brigitte Serre 72 times in a gas station robbery 20 years ago, is being allowed limited freedom from prison, and her family is not happy.
Unless we commit to locking people up forever, are they not allowed some freedom after 20 years if they have not shown themselves dangerous within prison walls? I don’t know the terms of the legal principles here.
Incidentally, Simon got married while in prison and has been allowed conjugal visits at least since 2017.
More on the family and their views from Global.
Yeah perhaps but I don’t blame victims’ families for speaking out and trying to keep people who killed their loved ones locked up.
I know. I can’t imagine how you feel when your kid is dead, but her murderer gets to have conjugal rights and gradually resume having a life in the outside world. And that’s leaving aside the question whether someone who could wreak such violence is truly safe among us. I do not know what to make of this.
I guess a lot if it depends whether the point of prison is to reform, or to punish.
Or the third option which is to keep the rest of society safer.
SÉBASTIEN SIMON
His life so far could easily provide the plot line for the next season of Florence Longpré’s TV drama “Empathie”. She plays a psychiatrist working on a locked ward.
His father is described as “irresponsable, absent et alcoolique. Sobre ou intoxiqué, il fait preuve de violence physique et psychologique envers le requérant.”
“Sa mère, aux prises avec des problèmes d’alcoolisme et de jeux de hasard, était instable, peu disponible et peu encadrante.”
Both parents and his older brother were violent towards him.
He was drinking and doing drugs by the time he was 9.
He spent most of his childhood in and out of care.
As to that marriage “il s’est marié le 3 mars 2017 avec une agente des Services Correctionnels du Canada. Madame a démissionné de son poste lorsque la relation est devenue plus soutenue. Cette dernière a deux filles nées d’une union antérieure.”
From 2021, the detailed rejection of his last request for earlier parole suggests the system is woking well – so far.
https://citoyens.soquij.qc.ca/php/decision.php?ID=BCF1E3CFCDDD7BE0A2305B2B1B065948
Thank you, H. John.
I’m still ambivalent about this. Some people do get locked up forever, and I’m concerned that it’s as much over public opinion as any other factor: Paul Bernardo, Valery Fabrikant, Robert Pickton till he was killed by another prisoner. But for most people, Sébastien Simon isn’t a name that means anything. He can stroll out of prison, and the only photo the media have is one that’s 20 years out of date. We’re not expected to be scared of him.
The media frenzy around Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry continues, with everyone from CTV to People magazine reporting that he attended her concert in Montreal on Wednesday evening.
Even the New York Times mentioned their dinner date!
From Russell Brand (a short marriage a while back) to Justin…no comment.
I’m finding it all quite stimulating!
At the same time, I feel bad for all the local single women whose ambitions got overtaken by this carpetbagger!
The ruined apartment building on Park Avenue near Van Horne is finally going to be demolished starting next week.
I noticed another company name up on the hoardings yesterday, I guess that.’s why. I had to call the fire department to get the back fenced off area moved in 3 feet to make the alley passable in case of emergency. They told me they have been bugging the city to demolish for months.
Nicholas 19:54 on 2025-07-31 Permalink
Hahahahahahahaha. The area along St Catherine just west of Atwater has no heritage. Zero. None. The building at 4026, which had the garage upstairs (closed iirc due to condemnation), has some minor character, but has been covered in netting for 15 years and probably should be torn down. The former Reddy Memorial may have some history attached to it, but it has architecture that, I’m sure, all these people would object to if we built it today, so I don’t think building something next to it is an issue. The issue is that these people don’t want to look at tall buildings.
Remember, this is the city where a person bought the seven figure home next to theirs and successfully argued to demolish it, a Category II heritage building, to build a garden, which council granted, overruling the demolition committee, so long as the owner agreed to a servitude to never let it be a home again, something the mayor at the time, who’s one of the ex-mayors opposed to this plan, specifically asked for, and was willing to grant the tax break by the reduced valuation for it. That’s right: the mayor used the reduction of the tax base as a way to reduce the number of families who can live in Westmount, in perpetuity, to demolish a heritage building. This is how much he cares about heritage.
I hope the province, the CMM, the agglo and Montreal force this issue, and credit where credit is due to the former mayor and much of the council, plus all the people, especially young people, who are expressing their support for this plan. Westmount does some things really well, and there is certainly heritage to protect there, but the city cannot be frozen in amber in its entirety.
Ephraim 21:31 on 2025-07-31 Permalink
On the other hand, it would increase tax revenues, even if they are rich, that’s more money to spend on the city’s projects.
Margaret Black 07:20 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
On the other hand, I refer you to the following link on the Atwater Library’s homepage…https://atwaterlibrary.ca/our-surroundings/
su 07:49 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
I was not even aware of the new density law requiring 480 dwellings/ hectare (1076.3910417 square feet).
Will these density projects be including adequately sized parks , recreational facilities, new schools, increased number of metro trains and busses, sewage and water and other such public services ?
From recent council meetings in Westmount, the main concern among residents, pertains to the lack of natural green space included in the project and,the pressure this will put on allready existing public spaces.
DeWolf 10:42 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
I struggle to understand why it’s bad to build high-rises in a tiny corner of Westmount that is already filled with high-rises.
Ian 10:44 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
Housing crisis? What housing crisis? Why there’s 200 affordable housing units available in PAT alone
https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/nearly-200-affordable-housing-units-left-abandoned-in-eastern-montreal/
Between the NIMBYs and the investment landlords while there are literally homeless camps, heads should roll.
Joey 11:06 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
Weird that the head of Canderel is arguing for fewer buildings, no? Anyway, I’m surprised Westmount isn’t following TMR’s lead with Royalmount, opting to max out tax revenue by building up the tiny portion of the city that is basically the start of downtown Montreal. The presence of two or four towers on Ste-Catherine facing Alexis-Nihon will have a very minimal impact on 99% of Westmounters, and the boom in tax revenue should far outweigh the cost of providing services to the new residents. As Nicholas points out, the south side of Ste-Catherine west of Atwater has been a dump for decades. There is no reason why people shouldn’t live there.
Kate 11:31 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
Jonathan Wener (Canderel) likes to build high. He wants fewer towers, but higher ones.
At one point, Canderel built the tallest building in Toronto, although I doubt it’s still the record holder. It’s still the highest residential building.
Ian 15:25 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
Canderel is behind the Tours des Canadiens projects, which were mostly bought up as AirBnbs. I wonder how many units still are.
dhomas 20:39 on 2025-08-01 Permalink
I have a friend who actually lives in one of the Tour des Canadiens. His floor was almost exclusively AirBnbs. It emptied out quite dramatically when the regulations came into effect. He lives almost alone on his floor now and the apartment owners are just not present. They are mostly foreigners (mostly Chinese) parking their money outside their countries, from what my friend tells me. From what he’s gathered, the main point was to invest and get money out of China. The AirBnb revenue was like gravy.
walkerp 05:59 on 2025-08-02 Permalink
Interesting, dhomas. That’s precisely why they implemeted the Empty Homes Tax in Vancouver. I believe it has had an impact but not sure how far. They are quite rigorous about it and the penalty is severe.
Margaret Black 07:48 on 2025-08-02 Permalink
There is such a thing as human-scale densification that would seem to be a perfect fit for this area. Montreal has a history of -plexes which highlight densification while allowing families the advantages of street or lower level homes from which to supervise their children’s play. Having a family live on the top stories of a 25 floor condo tower isn’t moving forward. And as seen with other residential towers, the move toward investment purchasing does the neighbourhood little good if there are only Airbnb visitors in them or no one at all. The trend is away from this sort of downtown living and formulae that were popular 10 years ago are quickly showing their failings in tower vacancies.The area around them becomes abandoned with no sort of street interest to passersby. With the addition of the Sanaaq Centre and various community organizations, that area is being revitalized in a way that may bring more families back if they are not faced with the concrete pedestals of towers darkening their parks and greenspaces, as opposed to more and lower -plexes in the same area and expanding to include the Tupper St lots. Densification on a human scale, not a developer’s.
su 11:31 on 2025-08-02 Permalink
Thank you Margaret for pointing out QUALITY OF LIFE factors. These developer driven, unimaginative tower concrete projects are conceived only in terms of numbers and profits. And the way they market these hellscapes as the only way to create living spaces is laughable by now.
DeWolf 16:59 on 2025-08-02 Permalink
Plexes are not appropriate for this corner of downtown, which is already filled with high-rises. In DDO? Absolutely, convert those single-family houses into plexes. But in the middle of the city?
You can’t build the same type of housing everywhere. Gentle densification is appropriate for low-density neighbourhoods. But you can’t really justify building low-to-medium density housing in an area that is already very dense. The corner of Westmount we’re talking about is essentially part of Shaughnessy Village which has the absolute highest density of anywhere in Montreal.
Not to mention the economics: if you build plexes in this area, the land values are so high that each apartment will sell for several million.
I agree that plexes should be the baseline for Montreal density. They’re a great form of housing. But not appropriate for a downtown area next to a metro station.
Margaret Black 12:02 on 2025-08-03 Permalink
The “south” side area of St. Catherine and heading down to the rail line has many occupied housing complexes without the tower height, mostly on the Westmount side of Atwater, as opposed to the Peter McGill / Shaughnessy Village area. Trending back to this sort of quality housing for groups of people instead of single unit living, with little or no stake in community life is future-looking, while towers building is now an old idea, proven to not be sustainable for neighbourhoods wishing to invest in their futures. Again, families would enjoy the proximity to the libraries, the parks, secondary / tertiary institutions, hospitals and the metro system within walking distance of home – a home which seldom takes the form of a 30 storey tower for families. With the attraction tower residency sliding, investing in yet more empty concrete monoliths seems destined to repeat earlier failures. Public funding would be needed to subsidize these and make them affordable, for sure, but public funding directed toward quality of life is better than other uses we’ve seen.
DeWolf 13:05 on 2025-08-03 Permalink
You’re making a lot of assumptions about the kinds of people who live in high-rises! Do you really think they’re all transient singletons who don’t contribute anything to the neighbourhood? That’s a pretty extreme value judgement.
According to the 2021 census, the historic low-rise area near the CCA has a lower proportion of children than the high-rises along de Maisonneuve.
Margaret Black 14:26 on 2025-08-03 Permalink
Sorry DeWolf, I guess I am in “Squabble mode”. I apologize. I do want this neighbourhood to develop in ways that add quality to the lives of the residents and have a hard time seeing these shade-casting towers being the answer at this point.