A protest was held Saturday in several Quebec cities including Montreal, against the Quebec government’s cutoff of the PEQ program.
Some mayors of small towns are also fighting the end of the program, saying they need immigration to keep their communities viable.
There’s a National Assembly petition you can sign to support grandfathering in the people to whom promises were already made.
This isn’t much of a story – a teenager stabbed in a minor brawl in a restaurant Friday evening. It’s the phrasing “un restaurant du boulevard Saint-Laurent, près de la rue De Castelnau” that’s key. There is only one restaurant in that location, and it’s a McDonald’s. Why be coy?
I wonder if it’s a liability thing, like some business sued a newspaper once for bad publicity
It must be, or a series of court cases that penetrated through the journalistic world like a cold hand.
But as someone who doggedly reads all the local news, I find it completely blunts the impact of a story.
It’s also inconsistent. A fire was set overnight in Petite‑Patrie and while Radio‑Canada is direct in reporting it was at the Saint-Zo bar, the Gazette and TVA tiptoe, telling us the corner but not the name.
Steve’s Music, which moved uptown from St‑Antoine nine years ago and marked its 60th anniversary last year, has been forced into restructuring and is closing some locations.
Not mentioned, so I don’t know whether it’s a factor, is that Quebec’s latest language law makes it illegal for music stores to sell equipment labelled only in English, as reported here as a concern in May 2025.
(Shoe drop moment: could the law be afflicting camera stores as well?)
Their Ottawa location is one of the stores that’s closing (the only one staying open is the flagship in Montreal) so the labelling rules can’t be having that big of an impact.
Haven’t seen Heated Rivalry yet, although it’s all over media. Latest is that a character who wore a Saint‑Viateur Bagel t‑shirt for a brief scene has caused a surge in orders for the business – more shirts than bagels, so far.
I really wanted to like it but, well, it’s a dramatic TV show that feels and sounds and looks like a TV show, and I guess that’s not a format I enjoy. (Also tried other ones that people say are good, Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Breaking Bad, etc, with the same disappointment)
If Louise Penny has watched the series, she must be overwhelmed with jealousy for Heated Rivalry’s author Rachel Reid’s luck in having Jacob Tierney as the producer of the series. I don’t think Penny has been very lucky in her multiple tries to find someone to bring her character Inspector Armand Gamache and the eastern townships village of Three Pines to life.
Tierney, on the other hand, has done an amazing job of faithfully reproducing on the screen the world and characters that Reid created.
I liked the show a lot, though I am definitely a Fairmount bagel person and commented about that when I saw the episode.
I think the difference is that Tierney approached Reid because he read the books and wanted to adapt them, vs trying to find someone who might be interested. (I have read both Reid’s books and many of Penny’s, though I eventually stopped the latter because I just could no longer deal with her characters’ only imperfections being that they are too wonderful.)
I watched the show when it first came out and before the type so I was going in with no preconceptions. I found the first two or three episodes kind of weird because they cross so much time. There’d be a scene, and next scene starts with SIX MONTHS LATER and then the next scene starts with FOUR MONTHS LATER and the next would start with THREE YEARS LATER, etc. Very odd for that to go on for several episodes. But then things sort of normalized after the third or fourth episode and I found I really got into it. Even if you cut out all the humping it was still well put together with a good story, great performances, etc.
I enjoy hot gay jock sex as much as anyone but Fairmount is the only bagel shop worth mentioning.
I don’t entirely understand the thinking behind “I saw a T-shirt from a business on TV so I need to buy one for myself.”
It seems to be “I love the show and want to have something tangible to remind me of it”. Sort of like why, despite reading almost exclusively on ereaders, I buy hardcover copies of some favourite books.
@CE So I’m guessing you haven’t signed up to the mailing list to be notified as soon as the Heated Rivalry Fleece jacket is ready. Carney was given the original.
When I first read that the winter Olympics would take place in Milan-Cortina I wondered why I felt the name Cortina evoked tinkly music and sparkling lights. But it wasn’t random. Here’s a postcard image I’ve found of the Cortina Bob amusement park ride. It’s Coney Island in the picture, which I never saw, but Belmont Park had one too.
It was an odd ride that went up and down mostly inside the structure. I don’t remember what, if anything, was projected on the inside, but it must have referred to skiing or sledding on snowy hills, given the art on the exterior.
Watch out for those madeleines, folks. You never know when one will bite you.
This is funny. For British people the name “Cortina” conjures the most popular car of the 1970s — the Ford Cortina. Which I learn from Wikipedia was named after the same ski resort, because the winter Olympics were held there in 1956 (the Cortina was first produced in the early 60s).
Well, it’s catchier than Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The new city pound Proanima is being criticized by rescue groups for euthanizing too many animals too quickly.
Disappointing, but very unsurprising.
I know. But it was horror of Berger Blanc’s practices that impelled the city to create this facility in the first place, so reading that it’s no better is depressing.
Putting the control freak in anmal control.
Are those rescue groups paying the costs? If they are willing to take over, let them take over. But it’s easy to criticize when you don’t have bills to pay.
I suspect the new facility is not nearly big enough to hold all the abandoned and stray animals it receives, but – unlike the SPCA – it hasn’t been in existence long enough to develop other options like a pool of foster homes.
But you can’t put the burden on rescue groups. Their aims aren’t the same – they’re founded as volunteer initiatives by concerned citizens and their intention is usually to save as many animals’ lives as they can. Whereas Proanima presumably has a different remit – to get unwanted animals off the streets.
I don’t think most rescuers would debate that some stray animals are so sick or injured that they need euthanasia. But if Proanima is already triaging its intake based on very scanty space for temporary shelter, something’s got to be done.
Well I gues therein lies the rub, at least from the article it sounded like the goal of the trappers was to rescue cats and get them adopted when possible, whereas Proanima is taking a stricter animal control approach with the end goal of eliminating or at least drastically reducing the feral cat population through breeding control. It must be hard on the “rescuers” to know that the kitties are being used at moving parts in a scientific animal control strategy.
Having feral cat colonies is definitely a strategy; I do not know how good or not good it is in general, but it’s not an unusual one. Unhealed cats post surgery and releasing cats before a winter storm seems like an odd choice, but saying a cat’s health status is “confidential” to the trapper who brought it in is insane — cats don’t get medical privacy. Also curious why they keep the traps, though limited dropoff hours doesn’t feel like the worst way to reduce costs.
“But the cat rescue community believes Proanima is delusional for thinking there’s a network of money-hungry trappers looking to save a few bucks on sterilization and vaccination fees to then turn a profit on adoptable cats.”
Yeah this seems insane.
Domestication is cruelty. It all needs to end.
Please tell me how domestication is cruelty.
@Kate – Some of those volunteers have good intentions, but there just is never enough money in the pot to hold on to all of the cats until adopted. Even PITA is realistic about it. https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/overpopulation/euthanasia/
But the journalists aren’t doing their job if they aren’t asking them how they will fund it. We need to be realistic about many things that we just aren’t. That’s how so much of our streets became parking lots.
steph, domestication of dogs and cats was mutual, it’s well understood. It was mutually beneficial for them to live with or near us, and it still is.
Ephraim, it’s a problem if they’re putting down lost pets too quickly. Of course people should not be letting their animals wander around, but animals can become separated from their owners for all kinds of reasons and no one should find their cat has been euthanized 24 hours after it got outside by mistake.
As a note, microchips can move around in the body so you could have a microchipped cat where they can’t find the chip.
A vet told me he has found as many as 3 chips in the same cat.
In the neck or just floating around? My cats are microchipped but they have zero interest in the outdoors anyways, which is a really underrated quality in a cat.
He didn’t specify where he found them in the cat.
My cat has no interest now in going beyond her back yard, so I know how you feel.
That’s in summer. Right now, she’s not very interested in leaving my bed. Now and then she puts her nose outside and sniffs at the air, and comes in with a mild air of disappointment that I haven’t made summer come back yet.
In the summer my cats really want the door to the back balcony to be open all day so they can sit inside but really see the outside properly. If there is exactly zero snow they occasionally spend a bit of time outside in the winter. They don’t really mind the rain, though they immediately run to my bed to dry off.
FWIW, there is significant evidence that urban racoons are self-domesticating: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/raccoons-are-showing-early-signs-of-domestication/
Also, while it’s hardly scientific research, Yann Martel’s novel “Life of Pi” has a section that presents the animals’ view of being in a zoo, and the perspective was that they were content because they were well fed, had zero danger of predation, and didn’t have to do any work. Literary license, for sure, but it was food for thought (which is better than being food for a lion).
“Now and then she puts her nose outside and sniffs at the air, and comes in with a mild air of disappointment that I haven’t made summer come back yet.”
I suspect this is a nearly universal experience haha
All of my cats have been rescues but I have found the females are way more interested in just defending their yard once they get beyond the inquisitive stage of youth. Male cats have whole territories to prowl. Last time I lost a male cat he had gone on a toot and strolled back in a week later smug as can be. My female cat on the other hand last got lost because she was scared by lightning and decided she was going to live under the neighbour’s stairs for the rest of her life – or at lest until she got overwhelmingly hungry.
@steph cats as a species are actually barely domesticated at all, and have a morophology and behaviour still essentially the same as their wild cousins beyond a small group of inbred “types”. That cats wander into our homes uninvited and take up residence at their whim also speaks volumes.
https://labgenvet.ca/en/cat-genetics-4-0-evolution-breeds-breeding-strategies-and-inbreeding/
Ian: yes, totally. The last time my cat left the yard, something spooked her and she did exactly that – went into next door’s yard and hid under his back porch. I don’t even know what scared her.
My late male cat once got lost on the spiral staircase going from my balcony to the ground (which he never reached).
The Weakerthans wrote a pair of songs from the perspective of a cat that maybe yall will enjoy: Plea from a Cat Named Virtute, Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure.
Canadian Tire has been fined for false advertising in its Montreal stores. Short version: they offered discounts from fictional high prices they had never charged. Since this is a standard procedure on the web, they may have thought it was fine in a physical store. Not so much, apparently.
Nice. I know grocery stores do this often too.
One of the late 70s memories of shopping advice given to teenager me by my Dad was: “never….ever buy anything that is regular price at the Bay, Sears, Eaton’s, and Canadian Tire……those are inflated prices to make their sale x % off prices look more appealing”. I have never forgotten those words.
Crappy Tire is one of the very few remaining stores that has real sales. Every week there are sales, especially on tools, at prices that no one else will come close to.
I wish they would bring back paper Canadian Tire money. I know, I know – they still offer a loyalty program and the card is free – but I liked the idea of a loyalty program that wasn’t digitally tracking me.
I wonder whether it was ever true, as I’ve heard claimed, that travellers were able to pass off Canadian Tire money as Canadian currency in far‑off lands.
While I have never met anyone who did this directly (always a friend or cousin) I do know that for a while at least Canadian Tire money was actually made using the same paper suppliers as real Canadian bills.
I recently found a $1 Canadian Tire bill. I didn’t know you could get them in such high denominations. I recently spent a huge wad of Canadian Tire money. It took the cashier about 4 minutes to count and I saved about $3.50.
Isabelle Hachey has a six‑part series Saturday on Pierre Ny St‑Amand, who drove his bus into a daycare two years ago, seeking to understand what he had experienced that could result in such an act.
Some homeless people have been using the airport as a refuge.
Ian 14:45 on 2026-02-08 Permalink
Thanks for the petition link. I had intended to go to the manif but couldn’t for reasons, so im glad i can at least do this much.
SMD 18:06 on 2026-02-08 Permalink
There was also a protest in front of the CBSA headquarters denouncing Bill C-12, a proposed federal overhaul of the immigration system. It would, among other major changes, allow for Trump-style mass deportations. Info here: https://migrantrights.ca/actionslist/votenoc12/.
SMD 12:23 on 2026-02-12 Permalink
C-12 protest coverage here: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/montreal-protest-urges-ottawa-open-193433093.html