The Main at night in 2026
Radio-Canada goes out at night on the Main and finds out what the vibe is like in 2026, when getting roofied is a constant concern. A team called Les Veilleurs looks out for people ejected by bouncers or abandoned by their friends.
PatrickC 22:23 on 2026-01-10 Permalink
Interesting note in the piece about people in that scene (way too young for me) speaking mostly English (or is really just more English than one “expects” to hear?). Also, the security guy in the photo is wearing a vest labeled “SECURITY.” The OLF would surely have something to say about that.
Kate 14:16 on 2026-01-11 Permalink
Writer Marianne Dépelteau makes a point of the presence of English on the street but almost as if it’s a new and creeping problem, but it isn’t! It’s always been a mix and when I went out in the area myself – some time ago – there were a lot of anglos and most of the music played had English lyrics. Hell, a lot of the music was from England then, so what else was new? Plus, there are always plenty of McGill and Concordia students around that night scene.
Dépelteau even drags in the cliché about the Main being a line between francophones and anglophones, but that’s always been an oversimplistic way of looking at the city. There used to be anglophone parishes and schools well east of the Main – my father went to a couple of them, and I’ve done enough family history examining census forms from 1921 and 1931 to see that Hochelaga, for example, was roughly half anglo and half franco names at the time. And that there were plenty of francophone names in enclaves like Point St Charles, too. (Plus Ukrainian, Polish, Chinese and other ethnicities. Immigration isn’t new either.)
Sorry to go on, but the myth of the golden age when everyone in Montreal was a francophone gets on my wick.