We’ve reached that stage of winter when hardly has a snow removal operation completed than another begins.
Updates from January, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The Chamber of Commerce wants to hasten the return to the office of many workers who have been happy staying home most of the time since Covid. But a government union is fighting back.
The argument for the return isn’t that people aren’t doing their jobs. It’s that they’re not going downtown every day, buying lunches, refreshing their office wardrobes, and otherwise frittering away their money and time commuting back and forth. “La mission des professionnelles et professionnels de l’État est d’offrir des services de qualité à la population, pas d’aller grossir les bouchons de circulation et de dépenser inutilement de l’argent en essence et en stationnement,” says the union chief.
The mayor also wants people back to work in person.
steph
Where is the money actually being spent when it’s not spent downtown? Why does the Chamber of Commerce seem focused almost exclusively on downtown investors?
Consumer behavior has clearly shifted. Many people are shopping at places like Dix30 and supporting their local neighborhood restaurants instead. On top of that, more meals are being eaten at home, which has driven grocery profits up significantly. So who exactly is being “rescued” when we argue that people need to be pushed back into downtown spending—especially when that spending looks like $28 hamburgers at places like La Cage on Ste-Catherine?
More broadly, isn’t it healthier for society to use resources more efficiently? Less wasted time commuting, less energy spent on unnecessary transportation, and less pressure to consume things we don’t actually need. Trying to force economic activity back downtown feels a bit like forcing people onto unnecessary bus rides just to balance the STM’s budget—it addresses a financial metric, but ignores whether the behavior itself still makes sense.
Kate
I could not agree more, steph.
Chris
>Where is the money actually being spent when it’s not spent downtown?
If my circle of acquaintances is representative: Amazon.
GC
All the packages in my lobby suggest this, too.
Em
Having people work from home part of the time is also a pretty easy way to reduce emissions. Remember when politicians said they cared about that?
Ephraim
The same Chamber of Commerce that ripped us off with the parking meters, Bixi bikes and Tourisme Montreal? Why are we listening to these people at all?
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Kate
Bombardier is constructing a new $100M manufacturing centre near its existing facilities in Dorval to build more private jets. Quebec’s lending some millions.
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Kate
James Théramène, the only suspect in the New Year’s balcony push that killed Tadjan’ah Desir, has been charged with manslaughter.
bob
Once again, life is cheap in Canada. If convicted he’ll be out in what, three years? Four?
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Kate
The city used to welcome new babies with the gift of a baby box containing diapers and other items useful for a newborn, but it’s been discontinued by the new administration. Not only are new parents likely to be disappointed, but some firms that used to provide the materials will now have to lay off workers.
su
There is no need to reward breeders over other folks. This was a very strange costly program.
David S
I’m confused as to why the contract for this Montreal initiative, paid by Montreal taxes, was given to a Laval company in the first place.
It doesn’t sound like it’s an expertise or anything like that, which could potentially justify this. Am I missing something?
Meezly
Why use the derogatory “breeder” term? It sounds resentful. Besides, adoptive parents were also entitled to a baby box if their baby was less than a year old, so I’m assuming this would include families of all sexual orientations who wanted to start a family.
Baby boxes have been implemented in many countries for generations, mostly as a way to counteract low birth rates/high infant mortality, so I find it odd you’d see this as a “strange costly program”.
I think baby boxes may also be a societal indicator and cutting such a program is another sign of an economic recession.
dhomas
It’s kinda stupid that they discontinued this initiative. This should be part of the city’s advertisement budget. Lots of local products get known by new parents through this, who then continue buying these local products. I know the city has a budget, but I see this as an investment more than anything.
Oh, well, at least our taxes will go down on account of these savings… Oh wait, no? Then will the extra savings go to pothole repair? No to that, too? Hummm…I guess they need money to tear up all that bike infrastructure.
Daniel
As a new parent who picked one up at our local library, I can tell you it was a much appreciated gesture. Not only did our child get their first library card on that same visit, as mentioned above it was filled with local or Montreal-branded items, and even passes to the Espace pour la vie facilities, that gave us a great sense of pride and appreciation for our city. It’s a cynical and sad decision to discontinue it.
Joey
Didn’t even try to get companies to contribute goods – as dhomas points out, this is incredible advertising for companies targeting parents of young kids. Get them to donate the essentials and have the city pay for distribution.
Nicholas
Why would we want to help out people during one of the most stressful and difficult times in their lives, just so we could bring them some joy? Isn’t their new child, who we’re going to have to pay for for decades, enough? Maybe we could also stop paying for health care for these unnecessary, optional pregnancies, and daycare and school for those kids once born.
azrhey
yeah, I am child-free by choice and happy about it, but this program was great and a good signal that this city cares about families. I have several friends that have benefited from it here and abroad int he many places where it exists. I would rather my taxes go to this that to a very long list of other wasteful things.
I also don’t bike and I want more bike paths. Someone should run on a bike-paths & babyboxes ticket. I’d vote for them.
Breeders is such a uselessly derogatory word…DavidH
Seeing as how making and raising children is absolutely essential to all of society, yes there is definitely reason to reward parents (breeders and non-breeders alike). With no kids, everything collapses within one generation.
For over forty years people have been complaining that families are moving to the suburbs and the city doesn’t do enough to make them feel welcome here. Projet managed to do a little something and it helped level the field for those with money problems (diapers get expensive) as well.
The money spent on this is peanuts compared to the rest of the city budget. We will still spend money to advertise libraries and the science equipments at large. But somehow, we need to stop the publicity initiative that targeted most precisely and efficiently the one segment they need to reach.
If this initiative wasn’t so identified with Projet Montreal and Valerie Plante, it would probably have been kept. Same as dropping the REV name for major bike paths.
dhomas
I just looked it up. It seems the”Bienvenue Bébé” boxes had a budget of 2 million dollars:
https://www.985fm.ca/audio/576773/d-ou-vient-l-idee-des-boites-bienvenue-bebeOut of a budget of 7.67 BILLION for 2026. Less than one percent of the budget. A drop in the bucket. I think DavidH hit the nail on the head. They are getting rid of it because it was a PM initiative.
SMD
RIP Baby Box. It was a wonderful program. I worked last year with pregnant newcomers to Canada and they were always so pleased to get their box. The items were useful and of high quality. It also brought the moms into the library and introduced them to all the services there. I gotta say, this move feels cheap and petty.
patatrio
They’re really winning over hearts and minds there in city hall with this one.
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Kate
Lots of reading Thursday on François Legault and what he leaves us: a less than shining economic record despite claims of financial pragmatism and the promise to run the government like a business (it never works); a timeline of his political history (with a photo of Legault kissing his wife – not the more notorious shot of him kissing his sister) and a list of his fiascos; the CAQ hopes to rise again after the loss of an unpopular leader; a stern goodbye from Taylor C. Noakes.
jeather
The Beaverton is on it too.
“The best employee is one whose ancestors knew Samuel de Champlain, calls himself a Catholic but never goes to church, and has a large collection of speedos for Florida,” Legault said, adding, “And is not un hostie d’un Woke. I will do for the private sector what I have for the public sector.”
Kate
Excellent
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Kate
The REM was down Thursday morning between Deux‑Montagnes and McGill. As I type close to 9, it’s still down between Bois‑Franc and TMR.
There are also road troubles since after all, nobody is ever ready for snow in January.
Ian
I actually saw an STM bus fishtail a whole lane on Cote de Liesse this morning at about 7. Fortunately there was nobody else in that lane.
According to CBC this morning the issue with the REM was freezing rain accumulation on the overhead lines, which makes sense, but also seems like a kind of obvious issue especially since the amount of freezing rain was pretty minimal.
PatrickC
What happens in places like Switzerland when there is freezing rain on the wires? Do their trains shut down?
Ian
Truly a mystery for the ages.
mare
Yes. I don’t know about Switzerland but it happens In the Netherlands too. On top of that, trains often shut down in the fall because of leaves on the track, since that’s the other pole of the electric circuit. As do trams.
But electric *heavy* rail uses a different type of catenary so might be less susceptible to freezing rain than light rail.
Nicholas
The Netherlands, plus Belgium and the north of France, got a few inches of snow last week and it caused havoc to their heavy rail, electric train systems. To be fair, they’re not used to this much snow the was the Swiss or Swedes or Finns or Russians or Japanese are, who seem to manage fine, but I don’t know the details. Chicago famously sets it’s track switches on fire when it gets cold so they don’t freeze, but there are other solutions.
I think it’s completely appropriate not to build a system that will run perfectly during rare weather events, whether that’s snow in Florida or hurricanes in Montreal. But Ottawa and Montreal should rightly be ridiculed for designing trains that can’t handle regular winter, such that it needs to shut down regularly.
I know someone who was a conductor for CP and he said during the 1998 ice storm the West Island commuter rail line, which is not electric, ran almost without issue. The only problem was that the tracks east of Dorval were controlled by electric signals, so with the power out they had to drive slowly, like when traffic lights go out; the tracks west of Dorval were assigned by handing a sheet of paper to the driver that gave them protected use of the track, so it worked fine without electricity. I don’t know how well the Two Mountains line, which was electric, worked.
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Kate
A tentative route 10 km wide has been traced out for the TGV that’s to link Quebec City to Toronto.
dhomas
“Les gares de Toronto et de Montréal devront être au centre-ville”. From the map, it looks like they’re aiming for Gare Centrale. Even if it’s a new downtown station, it will be interesting to see how this new TGV will get there coming from Quebec/Trois-Rivières. It will not be able to use the Mount-Royal tunnel (though it does seem to be included in the shaded area; could they have provided a lower quality image??) as the REM has exclusive rights to the tunnel.
The first part of the project, going west from Montreal toward Ottawa, should be easier, I think.Kevin
I guarantee nobody planning this has even thought about the difficulty involved in getting to Central Station.
Joey
Is the issue with the Mount Royal Tunnel simply because the REM has exclusive rights, or are there practical considerations? I know less than nothing about trains, but I am thinking of something along the lines of infrastructure that was built for the REM being incompatible with the TGV. If it’s purely a question of who has rights/priority, then it’s conceivable that the current arrangement could change. If it’s a technical issue with the infrastructure or an inability to accommodate the REM schedule with the TGV schedule without significantly reducing service for either (or both),
PS: I love that we call it TGV in English
James
Multiple options are being studied for montreal and laval stations. I can assure everyone that the complexity of getting to downtown Montreal is well understood.
Using the REM tunnel is basically impossible due to many many technical and regulatory obstacles.Joey
Thanks James. As we are seeing on other ‘national interest’ files, the current federal government (the province too) sees regulations as nothing more than fun little obstacles to swipe out of the way. Technical limitations are another thing altogether.
Nicholas
Using the Mount Royal tunnel is impossible because it was retrofitted this way by the CDPQ to specifically exclude the possibility of high speed trains using it. At the time various people brought up the advantage of using the tunnel for both regional rail and intercity rail, including one commenter on this blog in a presentation to the National Assembly, and at the start CDPQ said it would be possible to share the tracks. But then they changed their mind (or were lying from the start) and chose a system that would not be able to. And so now, due to a lack of foresight and attention by all the people who mattered, we will have to pay a lot in money or time to bring the trains downtown, or be stuck with a station outside of downtown.
azrhey
I know next to nothing about possibilities…but why not arrive/depart at Vendome ? It’s close enough to downtown…i think? Happy to be told why it can’t be done
Anton
The internal quote from within via rail ten years ago about sharing REM with HFR was “if you make it impossible, it’s going to be difficult”.
REM it’s designed to have capacity problems even at the highest frequencies – die to very short trains, so there aren’t any schedule slots for sharing. The trains are also narrower than heavy rail, so TGV cant pass platforms at Eduard montpetit. REM has taken over half of gare Centrale, unclear where tgv would fit. Insertion south of gare central is difficult. Cdpq owns the tunnel and gare Centrale, unclear what they would allow.
DeWolf
I’m not sure why everyone is assuming the TGV will use existing tracks or platforms. With the project’s budget — a very flexible “$60 to $90 billion” — it could involve an entirely new tunnel under downtown Montreal.
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