Maxime Bergeron looks at blunders the city has avoided, including the tower Jean Drapeau wanted to put on top of Mount Royal and the highway that nearly ran right through Old Montreal.
Updates from December, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A temporary foreign worker killed in a construction accident in Montreal North in 2023 had no training or experience and no protective equipment. Neither did the other two men injured in the same accident. Life is cheap when it’s temporary.
bob
So is labour.
Andrew Aitken
The CNESST can bring charges under the Quebec health and safety law, and police can charge owners and supervisors criminally under bill C-45. It seems obvious that “Mr. A” should go to jail for killing that guy, but the article and the CNESST report don’t mention anything like that as the next step.
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Kate
A walk in the snow was the theme this week, Chapleau, Côté and Godin all referencing it, and all before Christian Dubé resigned.Following the recent dictum on not allowing school kids to climb snow piles, Côté gave us a partisan game of King of the Mountain and Ygreck saw a line of unhappy kids, forbidden traditional games, lined up for the psychologist. Chapleau also gives us a King of the Mountain drawing (has he ever given names to his two nondescript commentators?).
The shooting in Australia was illustrated by Godin and Ygreck.
Godin tips the wink to floor‑crossers.
Côté’s Santa has a virus, and he also tries to plug in his electric sleigh. Eric Duhaime has aspirations to the throne, and Ygreck sees all parties marching into 2026 with its unknown hazards.
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Kate
While the Santa robbery of the Metro store in the Plateau continues to make headlines, 24Hres looks back to an incident in 1997 when similarly motivated bandits stole the buffet from the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
DavidH
LeDevoir also used this event to look back into the city’s past. They went with an action movie worthy bank heist that resulted in a fatal shootout.
https://www.ledevoir.com/actualites/societe/942870/quand-pere-noel-volait-mitrailletteKate
The days when Montreal was the bank holdup capital of North America!
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Kate
Thirty parking spaces are to be restored along Atateken by “modifying” the bike path. Thank goodness, the city is saved!
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Kate
The Rover reports how changing media habits have led to a decline in contributions to the Gazette Christmas fund.
Kevin
The Gazette puts out feature articles to profile the recipients, and I know several people who decided not to make a contribution after reading this article
Kate
Is the problem that the woman came here on the skilled worker program, but has a high‑needs child and can’t work?
If find it odd that although she talks about a husband back home, she’s not actually married to him yet.
Also, is someone who’s in Canada via that program in a position to sponsor another immigrant?
jeather
It sounds like she planned to work but her son got worse and she can’t care for him solo while working, especially as his school is distant from where they live. Unclear why she isn’t moving near his school, though 3 years without a job makes a new job hard to get.
Kate
And 3 years without a job makes it hard to move to a new place, as well.
Kevin, can you explain for us what people are finding hard to believe about the story?
jeather
I assumed this isn’t his first year at the school.
Kevin
Kate
Oh they believed it. They just felt the person who recently flew overseas was coming across as entitled instead of being needy.
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Kate
A regular reader recommended this piece on The Conversation by the author of Montreal After Dark, about evolutions in the city’s nightlife.
Although the title and the book page discuss Montreal, The Conversation article doggedly writes “Montréal” which gets on my nerves. Maybe they have a house style. If they do, it is wrong.
DisgruntledGoat
Ivory Coast is now Côte-d’Ivoire, no issue with that.
As anglos we don’t spell it correctly as Muntreal.
Kate
There are always going to be exonyms and endonyms and they often involve compromises. Where we draw these lines often has history or politics behind it. Here, putting the accent on Montreal when writing English is a political statement. Only French is correct.
What I’d like to know is whether these writers give the name its French pronunciation when speaking English. If you’re going to bend the knee, bend it all the way.
Goat, we don’t write “Paree” either – what’s your point?
p.s. I’m not the only one ruffled by orthography.
Ian
@goat
MAWNchree-ALL, surelyjeather
I see a lot of use of Türkiye instead of Turkey in English. I guess I just don’t care enough about the accent in Montreal whether it’s there or not.
But let’s not be silly, phonetic spellings are not “correct” in English. They are sometimes used to denote specific accents in writing, but usually only lower status ones.
jeather
To be very clear, I will never spell Montreal with an accent in English because I am way too lazy to fuck around with keyboards like that. It’s why I spell one friend’s name correctly on my phone, which has been fixed to autocorrect to the accent version, but never on my computer.
Josh
jeather, The Türkiye thing is as a result of a request by the Turkish government in 2022: https://globalnews.ca/news/8978180/canada-change-turkey-to-turkiye/
Ian
But of course I don’t spell Montreal phonetically haha, it’s just a cultural shibboleth. Much like telling what part of Canada people are from by how they pronounce Toronto.
jeather
I’m not saying it’s wrong to follow Turkiye’s preferred spelling, just that English often uses accents/diacritics for places that use them in their main language, and Montreal is officially a unilingual city.
I could tell that Heated Rivalry was done by a Montrealer because it had some random extra who had one line as a Boston airport employee pronounce the city name correctly.
Kate
I imagine enough Turks became aware that, in English, calling something a turkey – a movie, for example – was not a compliment…
dhomas
We travel to Italy, not Italia; Germany not Deutschland; Sweden, not Sverige. When writing in English, we use English spelling.
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Kate
A dollar store on Mont‑Royal East is closing, posting a sign blaming the city’s business tax. But then the owner also blames the summer pedestrianization of the street, and a coda brings in Peter Sergakis, although the item doesn’t say he’s the landlord.
CE
I actually bought some wrapping paper from there a couple days ago and was sad to see it was closing. It was a bit more like a general store than a dollar store. The sign says it was taxes that did them in but it was probably more likely that it was the two big Dollaramas on either side of the store.
steph
Montreal businesses need to get with the times and start thinking local. No one is coming from outside your neighbourhood to come shopping at your store – especially not a dollar store.
Nicholas
What CE said. As usual, failing businesses love to blame anyone but themselves. Blaming taxes or pedestrianized streets can seem sympathetic to some; blaming similar businesses that outcompeted you less so.
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Kate
The city’s biggest sponge park is in limbo as Quebec delays its approval.
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Kate
A 92-year-old pedestrian has died after being hit by a pickup truck going 5 km/h Thursday in Verdun.
MarcG
Sad. That’s a tricky corner that the city did a lot of work on recently to improve safety. There are several retirement homes and a CHSLD nearby. Given that it was the middle of the day, it seems like the likely culprit is poor visibility from big trucks.
Kate
I lived in Verdun when I was a kid, but I never knew that bit of town at all. On Streetview it’s an odd corner, the north side being old‑school Wellington Street with a couple of small brick Protestant churches and a jumble of triplexes and small apartment buildings, the south, a completely suburban vista of a giant gas station and a massive Canadian Tire and Maxi store.
I’m not surprised that the suburban side could prove fatal to an elderly person from the other side of the street.
MarcG
I believe it was actually one block over on this corner where the accident happened. That corner of the neighbourhood is a real mess architecturally for sure. It was even odder when the old Pointe-Ste-Charles houses on May street were still standing.
Kate
I took some photos of May Street before it was demolished. The quaint houses faced the blank concrete wall of the highway, so it wouldn’t have been too pleasant a place to live, but there were some unique façades and I wished I could see the interiors of a few before they were swept away by progress.
MarcG
I went to visit one when it was for sale and you could see the faces of the people in their cars on the 15 from the 2nd storey windows.
Ian
There’s a “penthouse” on Bedford that has the same relationship with the Rockland overpass, but despite bring built over 20 years ago I don’t think it’s ever been occupied.
MarcG
This one on Bates with the boarded-up door and “Condos!” sticker peeling off the windows?
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Kate
Weekend notes from La Presse, Le Devoir, CityCrunch, Montréal Secret, CultMTL. -
Kate
DNA analysis has solved a longtime missing persons case: James Daniel Khan went missing in 2010 at age 19 without the psych drugs that kept him stable. Some remains found in 2012 beside the Back River proved to be his in an analysis done this year. Part of TVA’s ongoing series on how DNA is being used to solve cold cases.
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Kate
The high-speed rail link between Montreal and Toronto could see dozens of departures daily, according to an internal study just made public.
azrhey
That would be great, I am a great fan of high speed rail all over Europe. But as with the extension east of the blue. I will believe it when I am ON it and not a minute before.
Mark Côté
I won’t even believe it until I’m in Toronto 3 hours later. 😀
Sadly I will almost certainly be retired by the time the line to Toronto is complete, even at the current best (read: highly improbable) estimates.
Anton
It’s like a cathedral of old. Those working on it today won’t be alive to experience it finished.
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Kate
La Banquise is setting up to offer poutine delivery around the clock.
Poutine Pundit
Poutine should always be eaten on-site for maximum french fry crispness and cheese squeakiness.
I suppose it doesn’t make much difference with the overrated Banquise, as their fries are limp and their cheese sub-par,
DavidH
This almost feels like licensing the Banquise name. The new service will not operate from La Banquise restaurant but from a ghost kitchen elsewhere in town dedicated only to uber orders.
Ian
@Poutine Pundit
Where’s your favourite in Montreal?Kb
Ian, my favourite used to be montreal pool room, but they don’t use good cheese anymore.
It now goes to Decarie Hot Dog…their sauce is unique, buttery and has a hint of rosemary I find. Their fries are also great.
Whenever I get poutine from anywhere, I ask them to double fry the fries. And always double the curds.
I know you didn’t ask me, but I love talking poutine.
Kate
I seldom have poutine, but Patate Rouge is the best I’ve had. But their fries are so good on their own that I’d probably eat them as is.
Unfortunately, P.R. is on a depressing stretch of Crémazie near St‑Hubert, not one of the city’s pleasanter walking streets.
Ian
I still think Green Spot in Saint Henri is the perfect Montreal poutine, but I know tastes vary.
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Kate
Quebec news: family doctors vote overwhelmingly in favour of a tentative agreement with Quebec; Marc Tanguay is interim leader of the PLQ – again; Sonia Bélanger replaces Christian Dubé as health minister.
Uatu
Waiting for Belanger and the next neoliberal solution that will solve all our healthcare problems because that approach always works…
Ian 13:14 on 2025-12-22 Permalink
The Milton Parc soviet-blocks-turned-luxe is such a rollicking tale of idealism quickly turning to greed, it’s such a blessing htat people were able to organize and prevent that project’s fruition.
Kate 15:41 on 2025-12-22 Permalink
It’s time we named something after Blanche Lemco for saving Old Montreal from becoming a wasteland like the spaces under and beside the Met.
Joey 10:43 on 2025-12-23 Permalink
Maybe we could rename a pedestrian street in Old Montreal after her.