A Hydro substation in Hampstead was the cause of this week’s blackout in NDG and Côte St‑Luc. It’s old and needs to be replaced, but that work won’t be done till 2029.
So if NDG folks are wondering why they have so many outages, it looks like this is the culprit.
Also, as noted below in a comment by jeather, two women have died as a result of the outage and resulting deep freeze.
Bernard Drainville, who aspires to be crowned premier in April, has been in charge of the environment portfolio for the CAQ for four short months, in which time he has delayed the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions target by five years, and weakened or abandoned other environmental principles as listed in this piece.
None of that matters, he has declared himself a right wing ethnonationalist with his focus on the “real” Quebec (the regions) so unless the general political climate shifts rather surprisingly its going to be him vs ol’ “no problem with pipelines” PSPP fighting the brave fight to defend Quebec’s honour in the whites-only culture wars.
The environment minister who is also the champion of the troisième lien… time for an election…
Oddly in sync with the Carney/Sabia feds.
Montreal wants an exception made for people suddenly orphaned by Quebec’s cancellation of the PEQ (Programme de l’expérience québécoise), both Ensemble and Projet unified on this point.
A coalition is proposing to take the government to court.
Toula Drimonis spells out how these CAQ decisions affect the Montreal area in particular.
Some residents of NDG and Côte St‑Luc are still without power as Monday evening draws in, the areas clearly marked on Hydro’s outages map.
Yep. 4 revised estimates since Saturday morning. Third night in the hotel. House is about 0 degrees now. Drained all the pipes, radiators, and hot-water tanks.
The numbers of plants and small pets dead from the cold must be through the roof.
Two women have also died
https://globalnews.ca/news/11638125/hudson-avenue-montreal-cold/
Exo is being forced to cut 11% of its work force and some of its services as it’s forced to cut $100 million from its operating budget between now and 2028.
Aw no worries, the wonderful new REM is totally picking up the slack (lol)
A recent Léger survey revealed than one out of four Montrealers has trouble keeping up with the rent. (La Presse says one out of four, CTV one out of five…)
CTV says 1 in 5 for Quebec, La Presse 1 in 4 for Montreal. So, I think they are both right, based on the breakdown that La Presse gave. (25% for just Montreal, 21% for the rest of the province.)
Frightening stats either way, though.
I have a an elementary school teacher who used to work in DDO and now works in VSL. He would love to move closer to work, but there are literaly zero apartments he can afford in VSL Cartierville Ahuntsic. Even studios are at the limit of what he an afford. I don’t think asking to afford something with a closed bedroom shouldn’t be too much for a full time teacher, ya know? Some places have said “oh, single income? I don’t think you will find anything, you need a couple for this 3 1/2. A couple because a roommate would need a second bedroom and that is out of the price range. The market is discussing…
The northern spur of the REM suffered a ralentissement de service at morning rush hour Monday.
Cold temperatures and snow continue, messing with the Monday commute and cancelling flights.
Honestly, not that much snow hit us overnight — I think it tracked south after it walloped Toronto. I know more is coming today, but I don’t think we’re getting the threated 20 cm. Traffic was terrible, though.
The official Canada forecasts tend to overstate the predicted impact of any weather. If they say 15 to 20 cm and we get 10, we’re happier than if they say 10 and we get 25. Or, in summer, if they say sunny, and we go for a picnic and get rained on, we complain. It’s better if they say rain, and we stay home and it remains sunny. It’s a very cautious, Canadian approach to weather info.
For what it’s worth, Danish forecasters do the same – it goes back to a lawsuit many years ago ‘you didn’t tell us this would happen’ – we’re having a ‘snowstorm’ at the moment, 1 mm snow – looks nice
to be fair, maybe 1 cm
I find Environment Canada very accurate for temperature and very cagey about precipitation amounts. The Weather Network is willing to give precipitation forecasts, which from about 48 hours out I find usually accurate enough.
The guy who does youtube forecasts, Frankie, is usually pretty accurate and he also called for a lot of snow. Ottawa got a lot; it’s unusual that it missed us.
Get your Pepsi, get your Chinese food!
Does Frankie ever mention the east coast phenomenon of Storm chips?
Any east coaster who’s trekked to the store to buy the requisite five cases of Pepsi and five cases of Coke is definitely going to pick up a bag or two of chips.
A woman was found dead Sunday in a Montreal West house with no electricity by firefighters going door to door to check on people.
The city has plans to sell or donate 80 sites for development, either to nonprofits or to developers. FRAPRU already fears that the city may be benefiting developers more.
Considering how long the city has been sitting on some of those properties, it’s time, as my grandma would say, to shit or get off the pot.
If the budget isn’t there to develop the properties, what precisely is the point of holding on to them, effectively abandoned, until they collapse or catch fire?
The otehr obvious option would be to change requirements for city-owned shelters, and use those properties as temporary housing – but even PM didn’t have the political will to do that.
The city clearly hoped that by acquiring the properties, it would add weight to their pressure on Quebec to provide the funds, but after it became clear that Quebec wasn’t interested, some decisions should have been made.
This is sort of related but I recently noticed a Dollarama opening up at 15 ave du Mont-Royal, inside the building where the CLSC St-Louis-du-Parc is located upstairs. The ground floor had suites that were part of the community health centre providing various services which are now no more due to budget cuts.
I wonder if the QC government is making CLSC’s sell or rent out to private businesses and developers too?
And also how this may be part of the wave of discount stores like Maxi and Dollarama meeting a general demand for cheaper goods?
There are now 4 Maxis in or within walking distance of Mile End, one of the most expensive rental neighbourhoods in the city.
In my neighbourhood, there is literally a Maxi across the street from another Maxi:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/DXn1yr16MauTh5Ls9?g_st=ac
It feels like that old Lewis Black skit with Starbucks.
@Meezly more likely that the province doesn’t own the building, and therefore just stopped renting out the ground floor. If ever there were a good spot for a big walk-in clinic. Ah well.
The challenges facing Mark Carney were a big theme this week, Godin focusing on Trump’s reaction to Carney’s speech, Ygreck drawing Carney on the menu and Chapleau with a spin on David and Goliath. Côté shows him hitting the bumps.
Bernard Drainville’s pushing back of the 2030 climate goal gives Godin an opportunity for a response to Côté’s cartoon from November.
The caprices of Trump continue to be a reliable topic, Chapleau’s inimitable skill as a caricaturist (in the English rather than the French sense) comes out in his portrait of François Legault as a mother‑in‑law, while Ygreck, following Carney’s lead, brings us back to the plains of Abraham.
And yes, it’s cold out.
The cold continues to bite, with snow expected to start midafternoon.
An emergency shelter has been opened for people in NDG and Côte St‑Luc whose power went out Saturday and won’t be back, in some cases, till Monday. CTV lists other warming options for Sunday daytime and gives some information about electricity usage and savings which will be useless if your power is out.
Like the “Illiterate? Write for free help” ad I saw on a subway train.
A bar called the Voodoo Lounge was set on fire early Saturday in Lasalle, but what these brief reports omit mentioning is that the same establishment was shot at last month after being previously firebombed last April.
Ordinary citizens wanting to skate indoors are finding that most arena hours are booked for hockey or for figure skating.
Either you can train local people up for the NHL and the Olympics, or you can let Joe Blow horse around on his old Bauers. You can’t have it both ways.
The reality is that there are too few non-work arena hours for everyone who wants access. I have no idea what the best balance would be — though I’m surprised that all the sports groups who get reserved time can sometimes get it for free
So much to address here. The first part of the article talks about the lack of free figure skating time at local arenas, I guess it would be nice if there was another hour or two available at different rinks but is there a demand for more time dedicated to figure skating? All arenas have several slots per week open for free skate, which is what most people who want to go get some exercise would opt for. The artificially refrigerated rinks run by the city all have plenty of open skate times. The next issue is based on a three year old two week sample at one location. They found mostly white able bodied men used the ice during those times, well most people are able bodied so it makes sense that they would be a majority. As to the white men thing, those periods are open to the entire population, anyone can show up so I don’t think the rink can be held responsible for who chooses to use the facilities. In the next paragraph they note a more even gender and minority breakdown for public skating time. Did the previous study at Francis Bouillon arena not also take place during public skating time?
The vast majority of organized hockey that is played in city arenas is single letter house leagues. Other typical organizations would be for kids figure skating and ringuette. I would bet that practically no one goes on the the NHL or the Olympics from these groups. Those clubs pay for ice time. Yes, they get a preferential rate but in return they offer healthy and affordable exercise options for local youth, encouraging fitness and community. I don’t know of anyone who gets free ice time. Garage league hockey players get the late evening spots and pay market rates, in a sense subsidizing the kid’s ice time.
In general they system works very well and is actually pretty inclusive.
dwgs, where do the serious training athletes find rink time, then? I know more about how tennis people train here (through living near Jarry Park, not because I care about the sport), but recent news that there isn’t a single Quebec‑born player on Canada’s Olympic team has made me wonder what’s become of serious hockey training in the city.
The arena nearest me has just two hours of open skating a week, at 10am on a workday. Everything else is training for youth figure skating or junior hockey.
If I read it right, they said most people who used the ice overall were able bodied white men, but if you only looked at free skate times, it was much more balanced, but there is so much more reserved time than free.
With Arena St-Louis in the Mile End still under renovation (until late 2026!!), this may be a contributing factor to the popularity of Mont-Royal arena.
A bit more precision though: the article stated that users were overwhelmingly white males generally without disabilities AND with an advanced skating level, thus, not representative of the neighborhood’s demographics.
The article also recognized that rinks have a huge overhead and would of course favor organized clubs for ice time at the best times of day, It’s making a case that indoor rink schedules can be more equitable and accessible as a public service. And I agree there’s room for improvement.
I though Plateau-Mont-Royal city councillor Maeva Vilain stated this very well: In sports, what’s important isn’t that people who already do sports do even more, but that as many people as possible do some kind of sport.
Serious chutzpah from Maeva Vilain, whose administration stabbed us Jeanne Mance ballplayers in the back.
@Kate, I can’t speak for all ice sports but for hockey from 12 year olds and up there are usually 2 AA and 1 AAA team per birth year. When my kid was involved our home base was Arena Michel Normandin, most practices and a lot of games were there. That team included kids from Pointe aux Trembles in the east to NDG in the west. Most kids do extra one on one or small group training as well but those aren’t in public arenas, they’re mostly in privately owned 3 on 3 rinks.
In single letter hockey these days there are a lot more recent immigrants, they’re still a minority but my kids played with kids from Haiti, China, India, Pakistan, Congo, north Africa, Iran. One of my kid’s ex teammates from Togo was drafted 21st overall to the Pittsburgh Penguins last June.
@Meezly, that’s ridiculous, they closed that arena like years ago for renovations. It’s especially bad in a neighbourhood with a dense population.
Kate, certain rinks end up drawing specialized professional athletes. DDO has a short-track speed skating club, and 15 years ago at least Pierrefonds was the place to go for figure skating. I knew someone who went to Vancouver in 2010 and she was out there any chance she could get, often at 6 am.
As for hockey players, they’re getting their time. Youth rec leagues (single letter) are usually getting 2 hours a week of time, while double letter are getting 4 or 5. And once they get high and old enough level they’ll join the QJMHL, which is a feeder into the NHL, and they have their own rinks.
It’s certainly the case that we could have more ice time. I remember adult hockey players would find a $400 rental 40 km away at 11 pm on a weeknight and jump on it. There is basically infinite demand. But it’s very expensive to build a rink, and you need the land. For public rinks, who gets to use it is a balancing act, like for many resources, and there are reasonable arguments for different partitions of the time.
But one last data point on that. The old Westmount arena used to have an odd setup: they had one regular rink, plus one half sized rink, with no glass so no hockey, so it was always open for general skating, except a few hours a week where the termite hockey players basically learned how to skate (ages 3-5 or so, so they couldn’t lift the puck). For $3 anyone could come skate, about 100 hours a week, and it’s a 10 minute walk from the metro. Few people did. Not that it wasn’t a valuable setup, but there just isn’t a large demand for indoor general skating, while there is for hockey.
Thanks everyone for info on rinks and skating. I haven’t laced up a pair of blades since I was about 12 years old, so I’m fully out of that loop.
Kevin 10:26 on 2026-01-27 Permalink
I wouldn’t mind so much, except Hydro first presented a plan to replace that substation in 2019.
And work has been done since then, but it’s still pretty sucky.
qatzelok 13:33 on 2026-01-27 Permalink
I read the article and in the comments, not one person mentions that we blow our budget on car infrastructure every single year, and that there is not much left over for maintenance of everything else.
I realize the majority are addicted to their cars, so the denial is very strong. But this lack of maintenance is a disaster on many levels, and will continue to cause preventable tragedies.
Grow up, civilization!
maggie rose 14:09 on 2026-01-27 Permalink
Two women died. My part of NDG has had many street lines fixed in recent years after a slew of outages and complaints, so we were spared this time. The Covid pandemic, cited by the HQ rep, was six years ago. Yes, the sub-station should be given a fast-track to repair before 2029 and I heard Mayor David Tordjman say on the news that “we can’t wait four years”.
Got me wondering (again) why we don’t have more solar battery-storage backup for times like this.
Solar homes that my ex, who recently died, built in the Eastern Townships in the 1970’s are still operating. Solar panels, which have dropped in price by 80% since 2010 make hybrid systems more feasible. Modern lithium-ion batteries would allow homeowners to store excess solar energy for use during winter months or power outages, increasing energy independence. Our hotter summers affect health too.
Sure, we have some of the lowest energy rates in North America, and that has reduced the incentive for homeowners to invest in solar.
In 2025, Hydro-Québec launched a new solar grant program, offering $1,000 per kilowatt (up to 40% of installation costs) for residential and commercial solar projects. This could reduce a typical $25,000 system cost by $10,000 or more, improving payback time. The program aims to support 125,000 solar-connected homes by 2035.
Indigenous opposition to Hydro-Québec’s expansion projects, such as the proposed transmission lines to export power to the U.S. has intensified. Nations like the Innu, Atikamekw, and Anishnabeg have filed legal challenges, arguing that these projects violate treaty rights, cause environmental harm, and proceed without proper consultation or compensation.
All of this reinforces arguments for decentralized, community-based energy solutions like solar.
Nicholas 15:13 on 2026-01-27 Permalink
We certainly have lots of examples of public or semi-public bodies taking forever to finish a project. But part of that is repeated delays due to public and political pushback, what some would call, in some cases, NIMBYism. The first one that comes to mind is the HQ Berri substation. Years of back and forth, making a plan, throwing out the plan, making a new plan, etc. It’s perfectly fine to try to make the best plan before starting work. But maybe people will realize the consequences of repeatedly delaying necessary critical infrastructure upgrades. I certainly hope we don’t suffer a brownout in half of downtown on the coldest day of the year because the substation can’t handle the load.
It’s hard to tell what happened with this specific project, but the public consultations seem to have been extensive, and there were definitely requests for changes that were just deemed not feasible, with some small changes on the margins. There are benefits to longer processes, but also consequences.
Andrew Aitken 15:47 on 2026-01-27 Permalink
I think they’re underselling it a bit, the substation is one part of a project to upgrade the transmission lines north to south across the entire island (greenwashing covered here https://mtlcityweblog.com/2020/12/07/west-end-park-corridor-announced/ ) I looked it up recently because the new bike path would go past my work, but it turns out that’ll be phase 3 scheduled for 2040!
jeather 21:07 on 2026-01-27 Permalink
My mother is in this substation (named Hampstead but in CSL) and she has had problems with it for well over a decade now, though she had power this weekend. It’s not new, and there was an outage of a similar length a few years ago (though it was less cold). It’s a well known problem.
jeather 12:24 on 2026-01-28 Permalink
They’re going to cut power to over 900 customers who already lost power this weekend most of today.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/power-to-be-temporarily-cut-to-more-than-900-customers-in-c-s-l-n-d-g-on-wednesday