A demonstration on bicycles was held in support of Palestine, Saturday afternoon.
Updates from April, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Contractors are complaining of non‑payment as many snags plague the project to upgrade St Joseph’s Oratory to make it more welcoming to pilgrims. The cost of the project continues to rise, with all three levels of government chipping in millions, and now some of the issues are in court.
R T
Chris
It’s number 5 on Tripadvisor for Montreal, so: yes, at least mostly.
DeWolf
The new visitor’s centre is really nice and it makes the journey up much more pleasant, especially in the winter. Last time I went it was very busy and I didn’t get the sense that most visitors were there for religious reasons.
JP
Yeah, I kind of hate to say it… My family is not Catholic or even Christian and we would bring family and out-of-town guests over to the Oratory when they’d visit. I suppose part of the appeal is the view. I personally haven’t been since before the pandemic though.
Curious to know how the visitor’s centre makes the journey up more pleasant. I suppose I should just head over for a visit this spring to see for myself…
Ian
I’m not Catholic or Christian, raised entirely without any religious tradition. I like the architecture though, and see the intrinsic value in it. Of course I would just as willingly visit a mosque or synagogue, and often visit denominational cemeteries.
Kevin
When my kids were young and into princesses and castles, we told them there was a castle in town and went to the Oratory.
Kate
I did grow up in a very Catholic family, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before. As a kid I was taken to the Oratory by relatives, roughly once a year, but I think no particular day. I can still remember the deeply creepy feeling I got from that hall with the banks of candles, and the crutches and canes clustered on the walls.
We never went out back where the pool and Stations of the Cross are, which is actually quite nice, and which I found the last time I visited on my own. The pool fills up via a sheep fountain. Lamb of God? I’m not sure about the symbolism. The article suggests they may be changing all that – if they can afford to.
If you want to get a real sense of how big and dominant the Oratory is, creep up on it from the far side in upper Westmount, Surrey Gardens. I don’t know how anyone can stand to live there with that dome looming over them. From other angles it’s always up there in the distance, but from that vantage point it’s IN YOUR FACE.
MarcG
When I quit smoking in 2007 I would bike up there in the evenings when cravings/boredom were difficult and watch the sun set. Not religious but transformational.
jeather
Yeah, it’s good the province is helping save a Roman Catholic building (along with not charging property taxes), because we know the church is just barely hanging on financially.
Kate
The Catholic church as a worldwide entity is not hard up, but here, individual parishes – as we’ve seen with church buildings falling into ruin – are not doing so well. Constructed on a huge scale on the assumption everyone would be tithing forever, now nobody wants them.
Money isn’t sent down from the Vatican for local parishes – I suspect the flow of money was always upward, not downward. I don’t know how non-parish churches like the Oratory fit into this scheme of things, but I’ll bet they don’t get grants from the Vatican either. The assumption has always been that the numerous faithful would pitch in. My mother told me how her mother (a Catholic convert) would donate to “buy a brick” toward building the Oratory. All those massive churches around town were created by funds donated by the working poor, who were probably promised indulgences in return.
But not any more. I suppose it’s fair to assume the Oratory is a tourism draw, along with the two Notre Dame churches in Old Montreal and the cathedral on René‑Lévesque. So maybe they should be partly supported with public funds. But all the big old hulks like St‑Eusèbe are just going to fall down.
jeather
Individual parishes are poor because the Catholic church has carefully set itself up so that it benefits from them but never has obligations to them. I, however, do not feel the need to pretend that “this parish is penniless” is relevant: the church has chosen to make it penniless, and the church could afford not to.
Ian
Oh don’t worry, the Oratory has funding – they are a registered charity.
from 2024:
“The charity is in the process of building a new oratory that will be more modern and accessible. According to newswire, the development project costs $110 million. The Quebec government provided $30.8 million, the Canadian government provided $22 million, and the city of Montreal provided $10 million. The rest of the funds are from public, corporate, and religious donations.
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L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal received $22.3m in donations in F2022.”
My bold. If they got 22.3 million in donations in 2022 alone plus all the “patrimoine” funding I think they’re probably doing ok. By way of comparison the CAQ cut 570 million to education spending in 2025.
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Kate
A strike at the Metro distribution centre means that some grocery stores will be short of fruit and veg this weekend. The union has rejected the paltry offer of an 11% wage increase over six years.
Ian
Good to know, I do shop at Metro for my bigger grocery items but if there’s a strike I will make a point of buying whatever I need short-term from smaller independents in the neighbourhood. I hope going to the Jean Coutu doesn’t count as strikebreaking (JC & Metro are affiliated ), I need to fill some prescriptions …
Ian
adendum: as most of the articles and even teh official Metro coporate release don’t name the union I did some digging.
It is the Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses des épiciers unis Metro-Richelieu–CSN.
https://www.csn.qc.ca/actualites/les-employe-es-dentrepot-et-du-siege-social-de-metro-rejettent-les-offres-de-lemployeur/The Metro coporate site (corpo.metro.ca) helpfully points out who they own so I guess I won’t be filling prescriptions for a while.
“Metro, Metro Plus, Super C, Food Basics, Adonis and Première Moisson, and some 640 pharmacies primarily under the Jean Coutu, Brunet, Metro Pharmacy and Food Basics Pharmacy banners”
Kate
Ian, if your Rx involves anything you should be taking regularly, I think the union would forgive you refilling it at a Jean Coutu.
Ian
I’ll be good for the week, I guess after that I can see about getting them filled at a Pharmaprix for the duration. If I go off my pills my doctor would be super mad at me haha
Kevin
IIRC this strike is of head office workers and people at the company’s only produce distribution centre. It doesn’t affect any other goods.
Bert
Not knowing anything about the union structure in “a” pharmacy. Is the actual pharmacy and connected workers not supposed to be a separate entity? Think of the locations that have (or had) Canada Post outlets. It could also be argued that their services are essential.
Nicholas
Pharmacies can only be owned by pharmacists. All prescriptions and medications are sold by pharmacists, and though some are fully independent, most affiliate with a banner like Jean Coutu. Contracts vary but they pay money to the banner in exchange for services like advertising, leasing, buying products in bulk, professional/business help, etc. The money can be flat or a percentage of revenues, the latter of which is subject to 17 years of litigation. It appears pharmacists usually pay something like mid single digit percent of their revenues to the banner, but to not run afoul of the law you can’t share profits with non-pharmacists it’s in exchange for market price goods and services.
Long story short you could treat it as giving money to the company or you could treat it as not going to an independent business at a mall when there are people striking at a facility that services offices owned by the same company as the mall.
Ian
The good sold at the pharmacy come through their distribution contracts. It’s why you can use the same loyalty card at Jean Coutu and Metro, or conversely, Pharmaprix and Provigo.
jeather
I’d continue to buy prescription meds there at least, those are pretty far removed from the corporate name.
Ian
I hear you, but for purposes of solidarity I think the connection is relevant.
Nicholas
The goods sold at the pharmacy come through the PJC distribution centre, while the strikers work at the Metro distribution centre. When Metro bought PJC they put the founder’s grandson in charge and kept their separate headquarters and distribution centre in Varennes, with the Metro one in Laval. I agree that ultimately the CEO of Metro is in charge of both companies, but should we have boycotted IGA when Sobeys workers were striking last fall, or boycotted Exo when Alstom workers in Belgium and Brazil went on strike in the last few years?
Ian
Ah, I didn’t realize PJC has its own distribution centre.
Thanks for that.TBH it’s not so much that I think any subsidiary being on strike means that you should boycott all other subsidiaries – that would get really complicated with the flip side of the coin, picketing all unionised business affiliated with CSN to support any CSN affiliated union that is on strike. My point is not to inadvertently violate a local picket. For example if Metro started getting its distribution through the PJC distribution centre then yes, I would also boycott PJC in solidarity with the Metro workers – though that would technically be scab labour which is against QC law, but that law gets bent sometimes.
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Kate
The president of the Port of Montreal was abruptly sacked on Friday and nobody is saying why. I’m betting it will become one of these “woman boss was really mean” stories, if it becomes a story at all.
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Kate
Almost every news platform ran the Morgan Lowrie CP piece on the new secularism law and its possible effect on Easter weekend observations, but so far only the Gazette is reporting that the Good Friday procession was held in silence. I don’t know whether this has always been the case.
dhomas
While I was driving in Rosemont yesterday, my way was blocked by a Good Friday procession. They had a police escort. I don’t think this law will be enforced for religions considered “part of Quebec’s culture and heritage”.
Ian
My way was blocked today by a bicycle protest supporting Palestine. I know which I support more, but hey, chacun à son goût.
dhomas
My comment was more to point out that the religious procession seemingly had the blessing (pun intended) of the police. The authorities were not applying the new law to this outdoor religious prayer / gathering.
A protest supporting Palestine is not in and of itself a religious matter, let alone “public prayer”. Bringing it up is not really relevant to the subject of these articles.Ian
I didn’t mean to imply that both were religious processsions, I meant that both are controversial for different reasons, but that I would be more annoyed to have my plans foiled by an Easter procession than a pro-Palestinian protest.
Jonathan
Oh they were not silent at all.
I assume that the provincially-funded renovations to Québec and Canada’s largest church and a pilgrimage site for Catholics worldwide are of an inherently laïque nature.