Vi Trung Ngo is out on bail awaiting sentencing for a 2023 incident in which a pedestrian died because he was driving drunk. (We discussed the case last month.) But he’s been arrested again and charged with breaking bail conditions and driving without a licence.
The best part here is that he claims he wasn’t driving – it was another guy who looked like him.
Negotiations are said to be stalled between the STM and its maintenance union. Unless there’s a settlement over the weekend – which looks unlikely – Monday will dawn with a restricted schedule for buses and metro.
The James Bay Eeyou Corporation wants to buy the downtown building vacated by The Bay, which would bring things satisfyingly full circle, since the Hudson’s Bay Company largely existed to trade with Indigenous people.
The wealthy are squabbling over the 1670 founding charter of the company, with an eye to making a grand donation to one museum or another.
The James Bay Eeyou Corporation also want you to visit their lands, and this project is one of the tools they hope to use to achieve this.
I know a couple of people who do vacation in the James Bay region. One goes there for fishing, and the other have their vacation chalet there. It’s far!
Police were called to a fight in a homeless shelter for Indigenous people in 2022. One of the parties, Johnny Tukalak, later claimed he was treated with unnecessary force by officer Williams Bélanger. Bélanger had knocked him down, and his skull was fractured.
Tukalak died of an overdose last year; Bélanger was acquitted Thursday of using unnecessary force.
Weekend notes from CTV, Le Devoir, La Presse, Montreal Secret. CultMTL has a fall arts calendar instead of weekend suggestions.
Weekend traffic notes. Also, some roads are to close for marathon events Saturday and Sunday. There’s more interest than usual on the traffic difficulties segueing into the transit difficulties to follow.
More than 32,500 participants are expected to do the full run on Sunday.
Le Devoir accompanied a small team putting up election placards around Villeray as the campaign begins.
This week the paper also examined how parties prepare their candidates.
La Presse hails the start of the official campaign, not only in Montreal but in a thousand other towns around Quebec.
Another Projet worker has quit the party and gone to work for Transition.
I don’t know how many votes he’ll get, but Craig Sauvé has built up quite a loyal team in the past 18 months. It’ll be interesting to see what he does with it in future.
The NDP connection makes clear sense, not much of a scandal there.
I saw the signs and Sauvé’s is the most modern-looking. Rabouin is pretty standard and Martinez boring and out of date, so it all lines up.
Any advice on how we can be aware of events that can give us a chance to get to know our local candidates?
Projet’s candidates are all listed here. They’re very reliant on Facebook links, which is a bit annoying, but by following those links you should be able to find out at least something about what they’re doing in the campaign.
Ensemble doesn’t have anything close to a full slate yet, which is interesting to know, but their team page has very prominent banners telling you who’s already an elected official, and their individual pages have links to X and Facebook, which might give you some information.
Transition hasn’t got a full slate yet, although that’s less surprising given how new it is. The team pictures don’t link to individual social media pages either. But you can find Craig Sauvé on various platforms and he’s usually pretty informative.
I really want to know why whoever’s in charge of poster design for Project decided that all the candidates should give these tight-lipped half-smiles. Is it some kind of solemn recognition that things aren’t maybe where they had hoped?
I wondered also why Ensemble is putting candidates’ first names larger, much larger than the whole name. Someone called SYLVAIN blasts me in the eye as I enter Jarry metro. Maybe it’s because Soraya has a double barrelled surname that doesn’t fit on posters, and the rest have to follow? Or do they think it feels cosier?
Thanks for the links, Kate.
Nicholas 00:34 on 2025-09-20 Permalink
The original crime was for taking someone’s car he had no right to; did someone take his identity?
I’m sure the judge will be sympathetic to his original request to get a reduced sentence to save his ability to operate a car repair business.
MarcG 06:53 on 2025-09-20 Permalink
Did this guy have Trump’s psychiatrists doing his assessment and giving the all-clear? Seems like whatever this all, some kind of sociopathy, is flying under the radar.
Kate 09:42 on 2025-09-20 Permalink
Nicholas, why would anyone want to pretend to be Vi Trung Ngo, with his terrible driving record and bail conditions?
Chris 11:26 on 2025-09-20 Permalink
This kind of crap is why so many want 3 strikes laws, tough-on-crime policies, etc.
Kate 11:45 on 2025-09-20 Permalink
It’s hard to believe that the court thought its dictum would stop Vi Trung Ngo from driving, given his history and even his job. Taking away his licence was a meaningless formality to a guy like that. I suppose it was legally impossible to keep him locked up?
GC 19:16 on 2025-09-22 Permalink
Breaking bail conditions, while on bail, seems like it should be grounds for revoking bail. I say this from just the perspective of logic. I have no legal training and don’t know how it works in reality.