Montreal City Weblog

Updates from September, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• Kate 14:15 on 2025-09-18 Permalink | Reply  

  CTV has a list of everything you need to know about voting in the civic election. Students will be able to vote at CEGEPs and universities for the first time at this voting level.

  The campaign is officially starting Friday, although in reality it’s been simmering for awhile.

  Luc Rabouin launched his campaign Wednesday with all 103 candidates from Projet. Ensemble’s campaign was launched on Sunday (video).

  I haven’t seen news of Transition Montreal doing a campaign launch, although they launched their slogan on September 5: Avec courage, pour Montréal.

  Projet’s slogan is a sly Pas de slogan. Que des solutions. and Ensemble’s is Écouter et agir. The fringe parties are not even named in this La Presse piece on the difficulty of inventing a catchy slogan, and yet how forgettable they become.

  (The only one I do remember was Gérald Tremblay’s “Go Montréal” in 2005 because it fell foul of the OQLF.)

   

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• Kate 09:45 on 2025-09-18 Permalink | Reply  

  Le Devoir looks at Valérie Plante’s time in office. Is the city truly greener than it was eight years ago when Projet first won city hall? Nice aerial comparisons in this piece.

  Another piece examines where her administration fell short: the proliferation of construction sites, a ballooning budget, homelessness and the housing crisis. But Montreal’s problems are not unique to this city and can’t be solved only by plans made at city hall, no matter how clever or well‑intentioned. As this piece says, quoting an academic critic, “l’influence qu’a Montréal devant le gouvernement du Québec s’est dissipée au fil du temps. La Ville assume de plus en plus de responsabilités, notamment en matière d’itinérance, sans avoir le financement requis.”

  A third piece discusses bike paths and urban mobility generally.

  On the other hand, CTV reports that Montreal is getting its sixth UN office before the end of the Plante era. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, aka UN‑Habitat, is opening an office downtown, and Plante is said to be delighted. But this piece also goes on to list ways in which Plante’s promises led to disappointment.

  SMD, Blork, and DeWolf are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • DeWolf 15:49 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    The Plateau got a head start on greening under Ferrandez and now the same approach has been applied throughout the city since 2018. I think it’s easy to take the change for granted when you’re living here, but take a stroll with someone visiting from another city and they’ll remark on how lush Montreal is.

    You really notice the difference when you go to Toronto, where most of the greenery is on private property and there are a lot of streets like Dufferin or Broadview that are almost completely denuded.

  • Blork 16:36 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    Hmmm. This comment is more about the first Le Devoir article than about the question of whether or not the city is greener. The comment is simply that the aerial shots are a bit of a gimmick because they don’t really show any change, yet the supporting text implies they do show significant changes.

    The top one shows a handful of trees planted in a few places in one park but neglects that in a few other places there are actually fewer trees. (Overall more, but nothing significant.)

    The slider over Parc Lafontaine shows no change at all. A street and a parking lot have been turned into a pedestrian path and some other “pedestrian facility” but there is no change in the greenage. (The change in roles is an improvement, but visually from overhead it looks the same, aside from differences in how the sunlight lands.)

    The other overhead shots show improvements in streets in terms of traffic calming and whatnot, but not a significant change in “greenery.”

    Anyway, nice work on the part of the city, but let’s not convince ourselves that we’re living in some kind of new urban forest or whatever. Still much that can be done.

  • SMD 18:50 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    A related article discusses the challenges of greening and cooling in Park Ex, where it can lead to eco-gentrification: https://therover.ca/the-problem-with-fixing-heat-waves-in-parc-ex/.

• Kate 09:16 on 2025-09-18 Permalink | Reply  

  The updated Covid vaccine will not only not be free, it will cost $150 a pop unless you’re in one of the high‑risk groups.

  C’est la faute du fédéral, inevitably.

  jeather, SMD, MarcG, and 4 others are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Ian 09:23 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    If Quebec ever does seperate they’re goign to miss being able to use that excuse. For all our duplication of federal services any actual responsibility seems oddly elusive.

  • maggie rose 10:00 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    Making the Covid vaccine more difficult to get is not good, even for those high-risk groups who can get it. We all share air. Is this fallout from the bad example to the south of us?

  • MarcG 10:30 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    I bet if you asked Boileau, Quach, and their ilk if Covid was airborne, can harm children, affects all organ systems including the brain, can cause Long Covid even in vaccinated people, etc, they would deny, deny, deny. Imagine the risk they would be taking by admitting to those established scientific facts now that everyone and their kids have been infected multiple times and they’re on record as having actively promoted pro-virus policies. That would take some serious moral fortitude (and expensive legal defense?). Limiting access to vaccines is just the next step in the long process of pandemic denial.

    Here’s a choice quote from the CBC article on this subject: “[Boileau] clarified that public health is not “against” vaccination for the general population.” Sounds a bit like Legault claiming he’s not racist while passing racist policies.

  • Kate 10:48 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    It’s probably to cut costs. The CAQ government is not the best, but they’re not anti‑vaxxers.

  • MarcG 10:51 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    If the policy reduces the number of people who get vaccinated then I consider the policymaker to be anti-vaccine.

  • MarcG 11:44 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    Here’s a totally unrelated story about a family suing Sepaq for not protecting them from being seriously injured by smoke exposure in their park. https://archive.is/5QW3S.

  • jeather 11:50 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    Sure, it’s to cut (miniscule in the context of the entire budget) costs — but they can afford the shots. (MNAs just got 10k increases this year.) And most of the costs now are likely long covid effects, something that is the next parliament’s problem. Honestly they could just not have announced much when the new vaccines came out and they’d probably spend the same amount.

    At first I thought this was a leak to see how people responded, I suppose it could still have been, but the response was not particularly negative.

  • Chris 15:41 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    MarcG, you’re entitled to your covid policy opinions of course, but I hope you realise you’re way out there, outside probably 99% of the population.

    There are many many many things that it would be nice if medicare covered for free, but we have to prioritize. Flu vaccine is also not free. Hopefully they’ve done the math and this is a good tradeoff.

  • MarcG 16:04 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    Thanks for your concern, Chris. Let me know when being “way out there” has any bearing on the truth.

  • jeather 16:49 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    The flu vaccine is (was?) free to anyone in Quebec who wants it. I do not trust for a second that they are correctly looking at costs of long covid, though I am sure they are correct that the cost of the vaccines is higher than the cost of hospitalizations. I do not know how or if they include regular time off work for milder cases.

  • SMD 18:47 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    @Chris, the flu vaccine has been free for a couple of years now. And RSV too, for the elderly.

  • jeather 20:06 on 2025-09-18 Permalink

    A lot of the articles used to say flu would remain free for everyone and have since been edited, so I would not be shocked if this changed as well.