A recycling company with a lot of contracts with Montreal is visibly failing Rosemont, where rejected paper and plastic are visible on many streets.
Updates from January, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Under the Plante administration, the city had hoped to make restaurants and grocery stores donate all unsold but edible food to organizations feeding the hungry. But it turns out that cities don’t have the legal power to compel merchants in that way. So now the hope is to encourage the donation by means of a less forceful law.
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Kate
I’m a little shocked that La Presse bought Aref Salem’s flat claim that last year’s STM strikes are solely responsible for a decline in ridership, so far as to express it as a simple statement in the headline. The stinginess of the CAQ government in supporting public transit isn’t even mentioned, although the reduced numbers of immigrants and foreign students is noted.
Le Devoir’s piece on the same numbers is rather more even‑handed.
Joey
I’m more upset by the racist dog whistle about immigration. I suspect La Presse buys his take because it’s probably accurate, if perhaps not comprehensive. Why they didn’t push harder on the lame excuses for inaction on improving the STM at the end is beyond me.
bob
Here’s a theory: ridership is down because no one has anywhere to go. The kids don’t party, the adults don’t have jobs or work from home, everyone shops online, etc., etc.
Or maybe everyone is biking everywhere. HA!
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Kate
Two years ago, a language interpreter at the Longueuil courthouse was the victim of a savage attack which he survived against long odds. The alleged attacker’s trial has begun. No link has been mentioned between the two men, so the motive for the attack by a man who entered the courthouse armed with multiple knives is yet to be made clear.
CBC’s later account spells out that there had been no previous connection between alleged attacker and victim, and that police think the victim was chosen at random. If it’s established that a man of 44 chose a 70‑year‑old to brutalize, I hope the judge keeps that in mind during sentencing.
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Kate
Sonia LeBel, another CAQ ministerial star, has announced that she won’t seek re-election this fall.
Ian
But now Frechette is saying she’s thinking about it.
Is there a deadline for throwing one’s hat in the proverbial ring?
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Kate
We’re under a snow squall watch for Monday evening. The French words – rafales, bourrasques – are rather more poetic for the experience of getting a gust of snow in the face.
Kevin
People tend to squeal when caught in a squall.
nau
They’ve also been known to squawk.
MarcG
When I forget my goggles I squint
Blork
This thread is making me squirm.
PatrickC
Ah, “rafale.” I remember being struck by the different feel of French and English words long ago when my daughter discovered that a My Little Pony she had thought of as “Gusty” was called “Rafale” in French.
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Kate
The question whether police should have the power to randomly stop people reaches the Supreme Court this week. The CBC article is a good summary of how we got here, except, I think, for one thing: the word “randomly” is misused.
Blork
I agree. It should be “… stop people at random” or something like that.
Kate
No, my point is that it’s not random. Individual police may even be able to convince themselves they’re stopping drivers randomly, but when they’ve internalized the notion that anything a Black person is doing is inherently suspect, that’s not remotely random. What they mean is stops for no justifiable legal reason.
azrhey
either randomly or at random, neither reflects reality.
In all the almost 30 years I have been an adult living in Montreal, I have been stopped “at random” 4 times: 3 while in the company of a visibly brown man and 1 while in the company of a black man.
0 while in thousands of times I’ve been the company of white people.
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal… but how many friends and acquaintances must share their anecdotes before it becomes data?Blork
OK, Kate, I see what you mean. On the other hand, from a legal point of view what they seek is “random” in that no specific justification is required for the stop. Even if it is a conscious or unconscious bias that prompts the stop in real life, LEGALLY speaking the “power” they seek is the right to stop randomly. For example, they’d like the right to be able to stop “every 15th car that passes” or whatever. How that power is actually used is a separate (but related) question.
Tyler
“To stop people at an officer’s discretion”, then?
Nicholas
I think the legal way to describe this is the police seek to stop people without a reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime. It’s common to say these are random stops, but they’re not random. If it were truly random then we could have a reasonable argument whether people should have a right to go about their business without being stopped versus doing truly random stops to check for sobriety or licence and registration. But that needs to be truly random, as in we stop every (or every nth) vehicle on this street, and rotating streets, or based on some heightened problem, like on a street with a lot of nightlife or where drunk driving keeps happening. I don’t think pedestrians should be stopped like this, but I can at least see the argument for drivers, it’s a privilege, etc.
What I think most people who aren’t cops agree is that cops should not be stopping people based on characteristics such as race, but that is absolutely what the cops want here. When you fish you don’t catch every fish, but you really are doing it randomly; but here they’re not stopping the 7th car that passes after they finish with the last one, they’re stopping black and brown people. Like come on!
H. John
@Kate I understand where you were going with your objection to “randomly”.
But you went wrong when you said “What they mean is stops for no justifiable legal reason.”
@Nicholas you suggested “I think the legal way to describe this is the police seek to stop people without a reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime.”
Police are not required to have a reason or suspicion to stop a car. Quebec’s Highway Code was amended in 1990 to make that clear by removing the phrase “has reasonable cause…” from art. 636 following a SCC decision dealing with the same issue in another province.
Besides the Highway Code, the police also have a common-law right (i.e. court judgements which set precedents) to stop a vehicle.
The judges are trying to choose their words to differentiate between structured stops (e.g. road blocks), and “roving, random” stops as one judge described a police cruiser pulling over a car.
The first judge in this case described this as:
“Ce jugement ne porte donc que sur une pratique policière spécifique : l’interception sur un chemin public par la police du conducteur d’un véhicule automobile de façon totalement discrétionnaire, sans motif réel ou même sans un simple soupçon d’infraction, à des fins de vérification et de contrôle dans un objectif de sécurité routière, hors du cadre d’un programme structuré et d’une façon non régie ou encadrée par une règle de droit. C’est cette pratique policière que sanctionne l’arrêt Ladouceur. Il s’agit de la «mesure attentatoire» au sens que donne à ces mots l’arrêt R.J.R.-MacDonald inc.. Dans le présent jugement, c’est ce créneau particulier des interpellations policières que le Tribunal désigne par les mots «interception routière sans motif réel».”
I can understand the journalist, or headline writer, going with “randomly”.
Luanda’s lawyer is arguing the issue of racial profiling in cars pulled over by individual police cars.
H. John
The Superior Court ruled:
868. DÉCLARE que la règle de droit autorisant les interceptions routières sans motif réel, au sens du présent jugement, viole les droits garantis par les articles 7 et 9 et le paragraphe 15(1) de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés sans pouvoir être justifiée dans le cadre d’une société libre et démocratique et qu’elle est de ce fait invalide;
869. DÉCLARE inopérants la règle de common law établie par l’arrêt R. c. Ladouceur, [1990] 1 R.C.S. 1257 et l’article 636 du Code de la sécurité routière;
The Court of Appeal agreed with para. 868 but modified para. 869. Luanda’s lawyer also had to argue that issue before the Supreme Court.
Kate
Thank you, H. John.
Which way do you predict the Supreme Court will go?
H. John
@Kate I’ve only read half of the factums (submitted written arguments) so far, and I still have to watch the oral arguments, so no guess yet.
mare 01:06 on 2026-01-20 Permalink
I must say this firm wasn’t lucky that both Xmas and New Year’s Day fell on the weekday they should have done their collection, I’m sure it’s hard to find crews. My neighbours called 311, and the city came two days later to collect. Garbage day is the same day so it’s not just paper and plastic, and there have been quite a few surprise bags emerging from under the snowbanks that have been cleared today.
I know because my dog tried to feast on the garbage.
Joey 06:01 on 2026-01-20 Permalink
Except that, at least in the Plateau, the borough always maintained pickup schedules on holidays until this year – when they went with a new firm, adjusted the schedule and started screwing up regularly. Things were fine and then they got a lot worse.
dhomas 10:37 on 2026-01-20 Permalink
@mare I get city notifications for Rosemont since I used to live there and my mother-in-law still does (and doesn’t know how to get the notifications). Pickup days were shifted by one day from Thursday to Friday in areas where the pickup landed on the holiday.
https://montreal.ca/alertes/les-collectes-du-25-decembre-et-1er-janvier-reportees-arrondissement-de-rosemontla-petitepatrie-20251222104057
DavidH 13:39 on 2026-01-20 Permalink
The latest public art installation in Rosemont is on St-André between Bélanger and St-Zotique and consists of a weave made from various scrap metal found littering around Plaza St-Hubert. Bad recyclables pickup is part of Rosemont identity it seems.
I live in Rosemont and had once again to file a complaint about recycling not being picked up this week.
We used to have a couple of people roaming for scrap metal in their pickups. Now, even big chunks of metal lie untouched until you contact the city.
Kate 19:28 on 2026-01-20 Permalink
DavidH, is the scrap piece in that nice little park up the street from Yisst?
DavidH 21:44 on 2026-01-20 Permalink
No, it’s on the west side of the street further up north. It’s opposite the entrance to the city parking lot. That piece and a new mural were put up late last summer. Even though it is a sculpture, it’s pretty flat (it had to fit in the small space owned by the city between the businesses and the sidewalk). It looks somewhat like the outline of Australia for some reason. Can’t say it’s a great piece. It uses weaving to recall the textile trade that was so present in the area. Concept is good but it’s lacking some oomph.