I’m almost considering adding the Montreal melon to the list of annual news stories, because periodically there will be a piece about the fabled fruit being revived, but then you never see it in a store or in the market, so you forget about it until a new claim is made.
Updates from August, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Montreal overall is greener than it was – greenhouse gas emissions are down, thousands of trees have been planted, active transport has been encouraged and the chronic waste of drinking water from leaky old water mains has been slowed down, if not halted.
But each of these items is still a work in progress, as Mathias Marchal enumerates in this piece.
(As we found out this summer, the leaky pipe issue is not all bad.)
MarcG
The Un Arbre Pour Mon Quartier and Verdissement Laval campaigns are still running their fall campaigns if anyone is interested in planting a tree for cheap or sometimes free.
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Kate
It’s being widely reported that STM buses will not be displaying ‘Go! Habs Go!’ before winter because it costs a lot to have the displays on a thousand buses changed.
That sounds very low tech. Is the display device networked? Even if not, presumably each display contains a file that includes all the bus routes plus some seasonal and sportive slogans and functional things like SPECIAL or EN TRANSIT. It can’t be rocket science to update that file.
If GO HABS GO was deleted from every bus at the same time, surely it could be restored to every bus at the same time? If not, surely not every driver went into the device and obediently deleted the phrase?
Joey
Drivers change the sign all the time (like at the start of a route). Maybe the message needs to be loaded up at the terminus beforehand? Maybe that task is collectively bargained to be done in a certain way?
steph
I suppose it’s only a unionized technician that is authorized to do it. Simple tasks easily get bogged down by bureaucracy. Even a motivated employee wouldn’t be allowed to use their spare time to do the work. (IIRC it took months to delete them in the first place)
Andrew
Good. I know I’m being a killjoy, but the Canadiens are privately owned, for profit organization. We shouldn’t devote a penny of already scarce public transit funds to give them free promotion.
CE
Also, do we even need to display these messages? That space displays important information about the route which I’d rather see than any other kind of message.
Kate
I assumed it was a popular gesture of social cohesion, akin to flying military jets over CFL games. But CE is right. It isn’t necessary.
Chris
I dunno, we could do with some social cohesion…
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Kate
Christiane Pelchat, who glories in the title coprésidente du Comité sur l’application de la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État, says street prayer is not really a problem in Montreal, and that Muslim prayers held outside Notre‑Dame are a statement in support of Palestine rather than a true religious observance (why not both – and how would she know?).
On the other hand, Pelchat says the city should crack down on protests being held without permits, instead. So hers isn’t exactly a tolerant position.
steph
Before accusing people of being religious, we should test their faith. And only with empirical truth should we brandish the accusation. It has to be real belief in a real god.
Mozai
Kneeling and quietly mumbling to yourself: corrupting our vulnerable children. Erecting a sign in every metro station and handing out flyers: don’t worry about it. Wearing a scarf: coercive and dangerous. Going door-to-door in uniforms, trained pairs of people asking pointed and rhetorical questions: not a problem, carry on.
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Kate
Notes on what’s open and closed for Labour Day. The weather seems to have received the memo that summer is over.
MarcG
Pretty safe to assume there’s more hot days coming. The past 3 Septembers have basically been summer months with average temps over 20C including spikes up to 28C last year and 32C in 2023. And October last year we had two long stretches of heat at the beginning and end, with a random 21C day on Nov 6th.
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