Updates from October, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 18:31 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

    If my blog poll, which I started yesterday and which collected 170 votes, is anything to go by, Craig Sauvé should be elected mayor in a landslide. I’ve now turned it off and you can see the results at the link.

    Not saying the readership of this blog is a representative pool of Montreal voters. Among other things, it’s probably far more anglo and left‑leaning than the average, and I have no way to verify how many of the participants were eligible to vote. I think most probably were – why else would they be reading this blog? – although there may have been some expats expressing their opinions.

    Still, it’s an interesting result. Thanks all who voted.

     

    • Chris 12:52 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

      >it’s probably far more anglo and left‑leaning than the average

      Definitely far more left-leaning, almost all the regular commentators are.

    • DavidH 13:10 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

      I want to vote for Craig Sauvé but am genuinely concerned about splitting the vote and letting Soraya in. Still don’t know what my final vote will be.

    • Kate 15:37 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

      DavidH: Same.

    • Ian 19:07 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

      Strategic voting is a cynical approach, more appropriate to betting on dogs than exercising your democratic rights. Vote for whoever you believe in. If the armchair critics here are to be believed Rabouin will win handily anyhow, so make your voice heard.

    • Kate 10:59 on 2025-10-26 Permalink

      Is it, though? Is it better to stick to your principles even if it means four years of heck?

      I’d rather have a politician in power whom I support 50%, than hold out for one that I support 90% and put someone in power that I do not support at all.

      Online, I saw many people righteously refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 because she had flaws, and that gave the U.S. its first bout with Trump.

    • Ian 16:55 on 2025-10-26 Permalink

      Certainly picking the lesser of evils has value. Clinton repreents the neoliberal establishment, actively suppresses the more progressive elements in the democrats, and is an utter warhawk… but she’s still a million miles better than Trump. I would have voted Clinton for sure.

      That said, you might not like SFM but she’s no Trump, lol.

  • Kate 18:15 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

    Two men already in prison pleaded guilty Friday of plotting killings of opposing gang members from their cells, via text.

     

    • Kate 09:46 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

      Radio-Canada has a text summary of the mayoral debate held this week.

      Luc Rabouin is accused of running a negative campaign, which is rich coming from Ensemble, who’ve done nothing for years but launch negative snipes against Projet.

       

      • DeWolf 11:25 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

        The PM campaign didn’t start out negative but I think it was only a matter of time before it changed given the tenor of the EM campaign.

        What’s particularly frustrating about EM is they’re using the very Trumpian technique of taking criticism against them and projecting it on everyone else. “No, you!” It’s childish and exhausting.

      • Ian 11:50 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

        Plante kind of started the sniping on the PM side, talking smack abt Sauvé… But like i said before, I don’t think Rabouin is being negative so much as reactive. He’s being defensive, essentially, becaasue he knows this won’t be teh relative cakewalk it was for Plante. This is his kingdom to lose.

      • Joey 20:15 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

        Alex Norris is currently laundering the Rebel News hit piece on Sergio Da Silva on Facebook. Really shitty look for Projet, IMO.

      • Ian 23:39 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

        Well, there’s a reason Plante kept Norris on a short leash. He says shitty things.

    • Kate 09:41 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

      Once again, the issue of suicide and suicide attempts in the metro comes up, once again platform doors are suggested, and once again they’re put off to an uncertain future because of the cost. So what can be done meantime? Training of metro workers exists, and a plan (mentioned a year and a half ago) to use artificial intelligence to spot potentially suicidal behaviour is still “underway”.

       

      • Kate 09:31 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

        The Moulins du Sault-au-Récollet site, part of Île de la Visitation park on the Back River, is a partly restored ruin, but has recently been neglected again and is collecting graffiti. This is an open letter from several parties concerned with its preservation.

         

        • Ian 11:52 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

          It’s an interesting site not only for its historicity but also in that it clearly was at least partially secured & open to public access then was closed off, presumably because of risk of injury – but the temptation to enter the site persists and is even heightend by the clumsy enclosure. I am not surprised teenagers hop the fence after dark, I would be surprised if they didn’t.

      • Kate 08:50 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

        A growing number of homeless people are facing the impending winter, some with a tent, some with nothing at all.

         

        • Kate 08:36 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

          Radio-Canada has a good feature on the end of the streetcar era – why and how it happened, and how it might have gone differently. Some nice (though short) video clips show the trams moving through our streets.

           

          • MarcG 09:51 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

            Wow that ‘observation’ train is really something.

          • Kate 09:55 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

            I’ve seen colour photos. It was open top and all the scrollwork was painted gold.

          • SMD 10:23 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

            It is a well-conserved one at the ExpoRail museum in Saint-Constant. There also seems to be one still running at a trolley museum in Connecticut: https://www.facebook.com/montrealtramway4/.

          • Kate 10:32 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

            SMD, you’re good at this. I’m not old enough to remember trams here, but I do remember seeing an open top bus that was made up to resemble that observation car, and I’ve since seen a photo of it to confirm my memory, but I don’t know where it is now.

          • CE 13:29 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

            I remember once seeing an old photo of funeral tram which I assume took bodies up the mountain to one of the cemeteries.

          • patatrio 15:18 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

            great scrollytelling piece. continuing on the cars per 100 residents figures they track from 1911-1851, the last figure I can find is from 2017 (39 per 100 residents). you can see why cars have strangled funding for other mobility options and why parking is so scarce in denser neighbourhoods.

          • MarcG 16:31 on 2025-10-24 Permalink

            Holy shit those Connecticutians treat that streetcar like Jesus hisself rode in it – so loved and well-preserved.

          • SMD 22:48 on 2025-10-25 Permalink

            @Kate, I can’t find anything online about that observation bus. Sorry. It sounds awesome!

          • Kate 09:57 on 2025-10-26 Permalink

            SMD, this image is the closest I could find, but obviously this bus doesn’t have the kitschy grandeur of the tram, which I gather was called the Golden Chariot.

          • SMD 16:07 on 2025-10-26 Permalink

            Oh wow, what a great find! A lot going on there. The Red Ensign and Stars and Stripes flying above the old Wax Museum, the sign (“Finest in America!”) and of course the open coaches. Compare to July 2022 (https://maps.app.goo.gl/JC6UHX32Rx39vs9H6). Does anybody recognize the flag on the left?

        • Kate 08:26 on 2025-10-24 Permalink | Reply  

          weekend notes

          Weekend notes from Le Devoir, La Presse, CityCrunch, CultMTL.

          Also a list of Halloween party events.

          Traffic warnings et en anglais.

           

          c
          Compose new post
          j
          Next post/Next comment
          k
          Previous post/Previous comment
          r
          Reply
          e
          Edit
          o
          Show/Hide comments
          t
          Go to top
          l
          Go to login
          h
          Show/Hide help
          shift + esc
          Cancel