People abandon cars, sometimes in good condition and sometimes with their possessions inside, and then somebody has to haul them away and stash them.
Updates from August, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Montréal Secret lists an upcoming street food festival next week and also mentions a ramen festival coming at the end of the month.
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Kate
One of the most wanted men in Canada, Jonathan Ouellet‑Gendron, was arrested at the airport Saturday. He’s facing murder, drug and firearms charges in connection with crimes that happened out west.
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Kate
Godin on the appalling death rate on Quebec’s roads over the construction holiday.Both Côté and Godin drew Gaza.
Chloé on the decline of the monarch butterfly; Godin on plastic pollution in the sea.
Tariffs continue to be a theme as well as other Trump foibles.
MarcG
Pretty dark stuff
Kate
That’s the world we’re living in.
Major Annoyance
The redhead cutie takes some of the edge off at least. Is that your work?
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Kate
La Presse followed the retirement of firefighter Jean‑François Renaud after 33 years in the job, which began with a drastic mishap that nearly ended it when he was 24.
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Kate
A “radical march” Saturday evening organized by a group known as the Pink Bloc ran into trouble with police once a window was broken. This group is opposed to the main Fierté parade to take place Sunday. Radio‑Canada does its best to explain how the movement has split acrimoniously.
I’ve only been mildly amused to hear CBC announcers chugging through saying “2SLGBTQI Plus” every time aspects of this are reported. What happened to just saying “queer”?
steph
Some people are 2SLGBTI without being queer.
Kate
Maybe they’re “queer plus”?
Chris
>What happened to just saying “queer”?
Where have you been for the last decade or so?
H. John
@Kate Richard Burnett, in a recent article, seems comfortable slipping back and forth between the two:
https://www.concordia.ca/cunews/offices/advancement/2024/11/14/50-years-of-queering-concordia.html
Dating myself, I remember Christiane Charette on her Radio-Canada morning show asking Concordia professor Donald Boisvert, author of “Out on Holy Ground: Meditations on Gay Men’s Spirituality”, why there wasn’t an equivalent all inclusive term like “queer” in French.
Kate
I think the answer, if there is one, is that there wasn’t a movement to reclaim a French expression like déviant(e) and wear it with pride. French is a little harder to tinker with, as a language.
MarcG 13:24 on 2025-08-10 Permalink
Curious about this since there’s a car parked near me with a million tickets on it and some stuff inside and I’ve been wondering what the story is. First guess is the owner died, second guess the car died and they can’t afford to move it? I’m surprised the city hasn’t towed it.
Kate 14:20 on 2025-08-10 Permalink
You could report it to 311 or the police non-emergency number 514-280-2222.
jaddle 15:45 on 2025-08-10 Permalink
It’s not hard to get rid of an old car. Lots of companies will come pick it up for free, and will pay cash for at least the scrap value (usually $100 or thereabouts). https://retireyourride.ca/ for example. They’ll pay more if it’s a working, recent car, but less than if you actually sold it to someone yourself, of course.
Kate 18:07 on 2025-08-10 Permalink
The trick is to get rid of somebody else’s old car.
dhomas 01:59 on 2025-08-11 Permalink
I recently had to get rid of my old car. It was a 2006, so it had done its time. It died while driving quite far from my house in Outremont. I called KidneyCar (https://kidneycar.ca) and they came out the very next day to tow it away, for free. I got a 700$ tax credit for it. I wanted to act quickly as it really looked out of place, surrounded by multi-million dollar homes and luxury cars, so I was certain a neighbour would get it towed if I didn’t do it first. I didn’t want to get stuck paying to get it out of impound or something, but it looks like from this article I could have just let it rot in Meteor’s lot.
MarcG 09:24 on 2025-08-11 Permalink
The towing companies are complaining that they don’t get paid if a car doesn’t get picked up after 180 days, but can’t they sell it at that point? Is it not enough money?
Love French for referring to busted cars as ‘carcasses’.
Ian 17:27 on 2025-08-11 Permalink
I donated my last car to cars for kids and got a tax receipt for way more than i would have selling it.
dhomas 10:55 on 2025-08-12 Permalink
I specifically avoided Kars4Kids after reading reports that very little of the money they raise actually goes to help kids.
Ian 16:43 on 2025-08-12 Permalink
Aw, heck.
Thanks for the tip.
Orr 17:53 on 2025-08-12 Permalink
I once noticed a car on my street accumulating tickets so I called 911 and police discovered it was stolen out in the regions and was used to drive to Montreal and then abandoned.
MarcG 18:58 on 2025-08-12 Permalink
Is the parking monitor job so siloed that they will just stick a ticket on it every week into infinity, and something only happens if a neighbour calls the cops?
Ian 08:26 on 2025-08-13 Permalink
Yes. It’s like how you can ride your bike on the sidewalk if there’s a cop manning the streetlights right in front of you, or how you can drive however you want if the cop on duty is running a ticket trap for bicyclists.