Three ministers have announced their support for Bernard Drainville as the vote for the new head of the CAQ is about to begin.
I’m guessing that in the short term Simon Jolin‑Barrette sees himself as éminence grise to a second premier, and in the longer term, displacing him. But I don’t see either one as history’s man.
Lady Gaga has cancelled her final show scheduled Monday evening at the Bell Centre, citing a respiratory illness.
How’s everyone enjoying the ‘smoldering ashes’ stage of the pandemic? Reminder that Lady Gaga doesn’t care about the health of her fans.
Hey! On stage was six feet away from the fans.
There’s been a fire Monday afternoon in an abandoned building on St‑Laurent just up from Sherbrooke. It’s been empty for a long time, but used to have a little store on the ground floor, one of those oddball places that sold everything, so if you needed a screwdriver and some balloons and a phone cable and a new belt, it was a one‑stop shop. Run by a couple of brothers from Pakistan. I don’t know what it was called, because although you can see it on Streetview, going back to 2015, there’s no name at all on the frontage.
I think you’re referring to « tabagie Saint-Laurent ». I used to live nearby, but never went in.
I got the name from Apple Maps:
Oops, I was a corner away. Please disregard my previous post 😉
It wasn’t a tabagie, more a kind of dollar store with an unpredictable stock, but somehow always managed to have the thing I wanted when I went in. I think I must have discovered it the summer I was working down in the next block for Just for Laughs, because I didn’t live nearby.
I walked by there every day on my way to work a long time ago and seem to remember a large mustachioed gentleman would stand out front smoking in the mornings but I might be getting some memories tangled up. When I first looked at the photo in the article I thought “Kate got the wrong building, it’s the one next door” but that’s because the building with the fire is simply *gone* in the photo!
The building north of Monday’s fire has been gone for awhile. Streetview from 2015 shows a small bar or restaurant called Zante, which I have no memories of. Streetview also shows it was demolished between October 2021 and August 2022. There was quite a deep hole dug as well, suggesting a planned construction project, but nothing has happened there since then.
TVA has some photos from Monday’s fire. The adjoining building south of the fire looks like it has apartments upstairs but nobody has mentioned whether they were occupied or evacuated. Even in 2015 they look empty.
The building on the right is a 4-unit apartbent block. Two families were home at the time but everyone got out safely.
Thank you, Kevin. Here’s the link I missed seeing.
Pretty amazing video on Instagram of the fire in full rage.
Wow. Could that just be from a decade of drying out, or was something flammable stored inside?
Zante is a very good restaurant now located next door to Le Cantlie Suites on Sherbrooke.
Nora Loreto is keeping track of the cuts by the federal government, which is valuable work right now, when I think most of us are so relieved to have a prime minister who’s not a raving nutbar that we’re not looking too closely at what his government is doing.
I’m going to a retirement lunch tomorrow for a former colleague in the federal cultural sector whose job was cut, along with 13 others.
I don’t imagine there will be any toasts to Mark Carney.
Claude Deschênes reports on a new purpose for Notman House.
bob 10:09 on 2026-04-07 Permalink
Who cares? They will not be a party after the next election.
Ian 21:17 on 2026-04-07 Permalink
I do hope you’re right but the regions can still be whipped up to blame everything on furriners what hate real Quebec culture
bob 08:39 on 2026-04-08 Permalink
They have the resurgent PQ for that. Though, oddly, as the CAQ vote collapses, the PLQ vote is picking up more than the PQ.
Philippe Fournier at 338canada.com has had the CAQ at zero seats for months, and at or near zero seats since June last year. They have been behind the PCQ and QS for that long.
Ian 21:51 on 2026-04-08 Permalink
PSPP has kind of hamstrung himself with the whole referendum thing, I think he could have had a fighting schance if not for that. Even hardliners don’t have as much of an appetite for it in the midst of a global financial crisis with the spectre of invasion & annexation on top of it.
Joey 16:37 on 2026-04-09 Permalink
All PSSP had to was smile and coast until the campaign. Easier said than done, I suppose. The conventional wisdom has it that Frechette will handily win the CAQ nomination (it’s kind of insane that 20K CAQ members get to pick the PM, but it is what it is), but I wouldn’t count out Drainville’s support among the motivated members of the party – she is the candidate of the CAQ elite but his message probably resonates more with the membership. Basically Legault bet that he could get both the right-wing business community and the French-language white nationalist community together and ultimately it fell apart.
It will be interesting how the CAQ, kind of like the Conservative Party, might have a huge impact on the election even if they don’t win any or many seats. A Frechette-led CAQ will probably clip the Liberal Party’s wings a bit, leaving only Duhamine to challenge PSSP on which party has the more (intentionally) xenophobic posture – easily a boost for the PQ. If Drainville wins, a lot of CAQ support would probably bleed to the Liberals and suddenly PSSP will have two guys gunning for the nationalist vote. Could the LPQ eke out a narrow victory? Definitely possible…