After two years of wrangling, Canada Post has reached a tentative deal with letter carriers across the country. Details remain to be hammered out.
The union has agreed to end pressure tactics and the employer to abandon its right to lockout.
Updates from November, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Pablo Rodriguez is talking about suing the Journal de Montréal to find out who – if anyone – sent texts implying he was paying for party members to support his bid for leadership of the PLQ.
Interestingly, according to the Election Act, giving someone money to influence their vote in a party leadership race is not illegal. But Rodriguez denies having done that.
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Kate
The new mayor met with François Legault Friday and we found out the city will be the location of a new international bank that will fund defense projects and they also discussed homelessness and, inevitably, the preservation of French.
Defence? I got soft. After the end of the Cold War, I really did think I’d be able to live out my natural lifespan without facing World War III. But there are moments I feel the world tooling up for it again.
Tim S.
Doesn’t look like the bank is a done deal yet.
I don’t know about WWIII precisely, but I hope the government is doing some contingency planning for accommodating a potential wave of refugees from down south. Not to mention ‘lost’ militia members.
SMD
Legault is definitely not planning to accommodate any more refugees. He told Soraya that there are already too many in Montreal:
https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/montreal/935916/signes-apaisement-entre-montreal-gouvernement-legault.Kate
Would Legault have been aware that Martinez Ferrada’s own family came here because they were fleeing the Pinochet regime?
Nicholas
Next month Chile may elect the most far right President since Pinochet, someone who has vowed to do mass deportations, among other things.
Ian
Pinochet wasn’t elected, worth noting.
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Kate
There have been no reversals in the recounts in St‑Léonard, leaving the borough with a mayor and three councillors from Ensemble, and one councillor from Équipe Saint‑Léonard.
Those were the final recounts requested from the November 2 election.
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Kate
La Presse has a talk with the president of Quebec’s Bar Association on the places where he feels the province is losing its adherence to the rule of law.
Le Devoir’s Émilie Nicolas also writes about the CAQ’s attempts to mount legal attacks on professional autonomy, fundamental rights, and the checks and balances essential to democracy.
On a related theme, some are worried that the new federal hate law may have the effect – intended or not – of quashing legitimate protest.
Saturday, more about doubts over Legault’s constitution.
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Kate
Weekend notes from Le Devoir, La Presse, CultMTL, Montréal Secret, CityCrunch, CTV.Also the road closures from construction and the Santa Claus parade, which is on Saturday.
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Kate
Since we’re doing advice, the Journal has twelve pieces of advice for coping with ice storms. Although I don’t see how item 2 – get a good shovel – is any use against ice.
Mark Côté
A good metal shovel is useful to scrap ice off of steps and walks if temperatures pop above zero for a bit, or even after sprinkling salt/ice melt.
Kate
I have an ice chopping tool which was sent me by a person who used to comment on this blog. It isn’t a shovel – more like a large flat screwdriver in shape – and you don’t need it even every winter, but boy, it’s handy when you do.
Joey
Yeah, I have one of those too. A shovel is useful to haul away the iced once you’ve chopped it, but a shovel is otherwise basically useless on ice to your point, Kate. Maybe 10 years ago I bought one of those sleigh shovels and it made snow removal after huge storms almost a breeze. Also missing: charge all your devices ahead of time.
Ian
I have an ice chopper and several snow shovels… the main thing with a snow shovel is to make sure you remove the snow before it turns to ice (haha) but as Joey points out the shovel is also useful for moving chipped ice. It’s also usefel for moving slush.
At my last apartment I had a kind of patio that would get covered in snow when it would slide off the roof, but as there was a half basement underneath it would start to leak and get moldy of I didn’t move the snow and ice off before it started to melt. I’d create a channel with the chopper so I could sluice out the melt with a shovel before it iced up, as the ice chopper really messed up the patio surface.
Regardless, as MArk points out, a metal shovel or plastic shovel with a metal edge is good for removing freezing rain buildup from steps and stairways.Kate
Why don’t we have laser heat guns yet for moving snow and ice around?
Ian
Do you not remember Marjorie Taylor Green’s “Jewish Space Lasers”?
That we don’t have hand-held versions is clearly part of the conspiracy.
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Kate
Thousands of West Island residents will be in the dark overnight Friday when Hydro‑Quebec turns off the juice to work on equipment. The Gazette has a survival guide.
Ian
It’s interesting that Hydro Quebec said that nobody would be pleased regardless of what time of year it happened , eg, in summer it owuld affect AC – but winter has the unique quality of getting cold enough to actually die. I think this could have been planned better, and they are just making excuses. Anyone with pets (especially birds or fish) are going to have to dos ome planning for sure.
Nicholas
Summer has the unique quality of getting hot enough to actually die. INRS found last year that 470 people die from heat every year. Good chance that many of those people don’t have AC, but there could be more without it.
I do agree that October would be a better time than late November. Especially as this is being done at night, when heat is less a concern than cold.
Blork
Doing it in winter has the added advantage of no food spoilage, as all you need to do is put your perishables out on the balcony or whatever. (Although really, if you just don’t open the fridge nothing will spoil in that short amount of time.)
No one will die from this as it’s only a few hours overnight and the temperature is not even going below zero until just before the power comes back. It takes quite a while for a building to cool down unless you have the windows open, and an extra couple of blankets will keep pretty much everyone comfortable. Sure, people will wail that they’re FREEZING and then you check and it’s still 12 degrees in the house. You walk around outside in 12 degree weather and you don’t feel like you’re dying.
FWIW I used to go winter camping in an open lean-to, and I never froze. I woke up a few times with ice in my hair and one time with the whole bottom half of my sleeping bag under a foot of snow, but that just served as insulation. Yes, I know it’s not the same thing, but a few overnight hours without heat will not be a problem for the vast majority of people, and since they know it’s coming they can do things to prepare.
EmilyG
I’m in the West Island and will be affected by the outage. I’ve been trying to prepare as much as I can. Some local restaurants are open late, I saw in West Island groups on Facebook.
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Kate
In 2022, Quebec passed a law, which had been requested by municipalities, allowing them to levy a tax on unoccupied housing. The revenue would have been welcome, but the intent was to encourage landlords to let their buildings be inhabited, rather than leave them empty, as so many do.
But no municipality has yet made use of this law, including Montreal. The Union des municipalités says the bureaucratic mechanism you’d need to put the law into effect would be complicated and expensive. It’s too hard to prove that any given flat or apartment is truly vacant for no reason.
bob
I don’t buy it. If it works in France, Toronto, and Vancouver, it would work here. Landlords speaking through UMQ.
Ian
“It’s too complicated to apply the law” is an excuse that is so Montreal I think it should be on a plaque at the airport as a warning to newcomers.
Annette
“It’s too complicated to obey the law” is something I never tried in traffic court, but should have.
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