Has anyone had any mail delivery since the postal walkout ended?
I haven’t, but then I don’t get a lot of postal mail normally.
Friday, still nothing. Somebody was distributing those real estate promotional cards around here but I don’t know whether it was Canada Post or a freelancer.
The outflow from Lake Ontario is going to be increased on Friday and Saturday to raise the level of the St Lawrence. Pleasure craft are stuck in mud because the river’s never been so low, so they need to be floated out before the ice comes.
Is this something you could go and see? Could be kind of cool.
I suppose if you go to Cornwall you could see the extra flow coming out of the dam. But then you’d have to go to Cornwall.
Luc Rabouin criticized Soraya MF openly on Wednesday morning: “She tries to pass off inconsistency incoherence as nuance and opportunism as pragmatism, with values that change depending on which way the wind blows.”
Is it too late in the campaign to launch this kind of attack? Or is it just the right time, given that everyone but political junkies does not seem to have been paying attention to the campaign until now?
Incidentally, I’d quibble with the translation of incohérence as inconsistency — I know that’s a perfectly acceptable translation, but in this context I think it really ought to be the same word in English, because Soraya has been completely incoherent in her positions. She has a different message for every audience she speaks to.
I was wondering too about the timing. Rabouin may be trying to turn the tide back toward Projet.
Incoherence it is.
Sadly, a war on cyclists can pay off big time: Doug Ford in Toronto, Mark Sutcliffe in Ottawa and now Soraya MF. Hopefully Projet can pull it off: not perfect but WAY better than the alternative.
I’m not that old, but I’ve already figured out one thing: politicians don’t actually have to keep their promises—so why not just go all in? Promise the moon! Free pizza Fridays, brand new basketball nets on every corner, and of course, the total abolition of all bike paths (obviously).
Pardon my cynicism.
@ottawaowl In many cases it’s just the opposite:
Ottawa and Toronto both suffer from the same problem which is that, post-amalgamation, all of the political power is in the former suburbs. That isn’t the case in Montreal: Rosemont-PP and the Plateau alone have as many seats on council as Anjou, St-Leo, Pierrefonds and Île Bizard combined (just for example).
We saw in 2021 that anti-bike rhetoric doesn’t win elections in Montreal. That’s why Soraya is so slippery on the subject: the “audit” is a dog whistle that allows her to plausibly claim she isn’t actually against bike paths, and when pressed on whether she will remove any paths (eg during her radio interview with Patrick Lagacé) she gets real evasive and refuses to answer.
The candidates who are more militantly bike are running for council seats and they are unlikely to win. In fact, even if Soraya becomes mayor (which is entirely possible), Ensemble is very unlikely to have a majority on council.
“The candidates who are more militantly bike”
Militantly anti-bike did you mean?
Yes, anti-bike!
Another thing: for all of her faults, Soraya is not an ideologue. She’s an opportunist. And her relationship with Ensemble is a marriage of convenience. Her positions on everything are so wishy washy, if she becomes mayor with a Projet majority on council, I wouldn’t be surprised if she drops the whole bike path thing completely. But if Ensemble somehow won a majority, then yeah, that’s a different story.
Rabouin is on his back foot. That this isn’t going to be a PM shoo-in is evident; copying Sauvé’s positions and shit-talking Ferrada shows his uncertainty. Not to be all ‘tu quoque’, but Rabouin is flailing here.
I wouldn’t say he’s copying Sauvé’s positions. Their positions on everything are almost identical, which should not be a surprise since basically everyone at Transition was a PM member until a hot minute ago. Transition is taking positions that haven’t been watered down by pragmatism, but there’s very little daylight between the two parties. And in some cases (eg transit) Transition’s platform is worse than PM’s.
I was looking at the 2021 election results and it’s remarkable how most districts in Montreal are extremely polarized. PM got huge majorities in most of the districts it was elected in. Looking at those that were tight, I’d say PM is at risk of losing 7-8 council seats (including a few borough mayors) — which is significant because it would mean losing their majority. Any more than that would be a tidal shift in support that I just don’t see happening.
You’re probably right in terms of the results, but I do see Rabouin’s campaign becoiming much more reactive.
Let’s not forget that a) most of the people that left PM say it’s specifically because of Rabouin and b) even PM only started with a couple of seats.
Ian, what sense do you have, and do you think people have, of Rabouin as Plateau mayor? I remember picking up on a sense of relief that Luc Ferrandez had moved on, but not much since then.
Honestly even my most militantly PM friends don’t have a lot to say at thsi point, my perception is that he is seen as status quo but trying to be less controversial… and that the people that left PM for Sauvé see him as more centrist/ business-oriented than Plante was.
That said hardly anyone I know even knows who Sauvé is, an the only thing htey know about Ferrada is that she’s a crooked landlord. I would be surprised if wither of them made any inroads in the Plateau.
La Presse talked to downtown merchants about homelessness and how they feel it’s driving clients to shop in suburban malls where the homeless are banished.
The Rover has a scathing op-ed in reply, by Marie-Élaine Guay.
« Je demeure atterrée de constater que la souffrance n’existe, dans l’espace culturel et médiatique, que lorsqu’elle nuit à la rentabilité. La misère dont on parle n’est pas celle des personnes qui dorment dehors, mais celle des propriétaires de magasins qui en ressentent les répercussions financières. On en vient à se demander si nous existons encore pour le bien-être des gens ou pour celui des entreprises. Se poser la question, c’est y répondre.
Excellent piece, SMD. Thank you.
Indeed. Measuring the city’s worth by its lack of friction for moneygrubbers is not a measure worth knowing.
La Presse has a brief interview with Soraya MF in which she outlines her plans to decentralize homelessness services, and wants the city to think like a real estate developer.
An Ensemble candidate in Sud-Ouest is defending a quip about Gaza he tweeted a few months back.
Meantime, CityNews interviews Luc Rabouin.
I know La Presse is a Liberal newspaper but wow — talk about a softball interview. Nothing about Airbnb? Nothing about her absolute lack of a plan for improving transit? Nothing about the illegal security deposit she charged her tenants? Nothing about the dodgy candidates she hand picked?
Do you think La Presse would have been more hardball with Rabouin or Sauvé?
The Gazette has a bit more detail on the suit being brought against the city and the landlord in the collapse of 5990 Park Avenue.
Why does 24Hres have a landing page headline reading Trump nous avait mis en garde contre Oussama ben Laden avant 9/11 while the article lede inside says “C’est faux”?
They forgot the Truth Sandwich rule.
Are there any anglophone suburbs of Montreal that supported Osama bin Laden no matter what atrocities he had engaged in?
For balance.
Off your meds again, qatzelok?
jeather 12:38 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
Not as of yesterday.
Daisy 12:58 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
Yesterday we got a flyer from one of the municipal parties. (This is inside a locked condo building, so it had to have been Canada Post.)
Blork 14:10 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
I received an actual piece of mail yesterday.
azrhey 14:13 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
I got a “renew your health card” letter somewhere last week, can’t say when because I check my mailbox about once a week or less…
Ian 16:09 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
Nope, expecting letters, too.
walkerp 16:44 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
Yes, we just got a letter from Revenue Canada today.
dhomas 18:19 on 2025-10-15 Permalink
I got a huge Uline catalog via Canada Post today. The last one I got was shipped via UPS.
Margaret Black 07:19 on 2025-10-16 Permalink
We got delivery here in Boucherville on Wednesday.
DavidH 13:18 on 2025-10-16 Permalink
Got a flyer with the street closing for the Mtl Marathon (to be held last September) and some fiscal stuff for which all the deadlines are now past. As far as disruptions go, it somewhat worked. But it also proved we could do without the service with only minor adjustments.
Ian 18:38 on 2025-10-16 Permalink
I got a letter from the bank for my apartment’s former tenant so I guess my mail is just slow haha
Mozai 20:02 on 2025-10-16 Permalink
letter from my bank yesterday (Oct 15) sent on Sept 23