Charlie Billions says he’d renew the notwithstanding clause that protects Bill 96 from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Obviously it’s in Milliard’s interest to demonstrate that the PLQ is not on the side of the anglos.
And Mark Carney assured Christine Fréchette on Friday that he won’t meddle with the clause.
What’s the point of a charter of rights with a get‑out clause that basically says “unless we really want to, then we will”?
It’s the 50th anniversary of Robert Charlebois’ classic Je reviendrai à Montréal, so his son has recorded a new version with a video featuring historic views of the Canadiens in their glory years, and new lyrics about playoff season. The video.
City blue collar workers are marking the last day of their three‑day strike with a protest in front of City Hall on Friday.
Weekend notes from CityCrunch, Le Devoir, Journal de Montréal, La Presse, CultMTL, the Gazette.
Some weather notes.
Mile End Kicks, a movie about the neighbourhood back around 2011 when it was felt to be a hotbed of new pop music and coolness, opens on Friday. Wikipedia says the working title was Anglophone. Descriptions in Le Devoir and La Presse.
Tangentially relevant, the Gazette looks at the disappearance of affordable artist studios, the factor which is probably most responsible for the decline of this city as a creative hub.
Pretty harsh that a film set in a Montreal music scene couldn’t pick a local song for the trailer.
Reminds me a bit of Guillaume Morissette’s fine novel New Tab (Véhicule, 2014), set in roughly the same place and time, although its (mostly anglophone) characters would have laughed cynically at the supposed life lesson of the movie, which according to a critics cited in Wikipedia, is about “learning to embrace our love, our anger, and our talent,” thanks to the magic of the neighbourhood.
Makes me think about that musician in Mile End who was bludgeoned to death by his bandmate with a bass guitar. It wasn’t all wine and roses.
Artists ate the shock troops of gentrification. People dont have loft parties because they dont like ballrooms.
Cheap studio space in a neighbourhood the cops don’t care about too much is all that is required. A couple of dive bars and a good diner helps. The parasite class like the Kornbluths and Shiller-Lavys of the world will inevitably follow when the desirable/cool boundary approaches, next come the yuppies and chain boutiques.
*artists are
Lol
I thought you were supposed to eat the rich.
no no no Janet, eat the rich is wrong!
God knows what they are filled with
OTOH, compost the rich…grows tasty strawberries and fragrant tomatoes…
If anyone’s looking for a way to support local music, CKUT 90.3FM is currently running their yearly funding drive.
I hope the film doesn’t have any glorification of Arcade Fire. It seems that that band is just somehow facing no consequences for the rotten things their lead singer has done.
What consequences do you think they should face?
They still sell out concerts, and even were on Saturday night Live I think it was, after the allegations against their lead singer came out. People just still casually mention the band without condemning them.
I wish more people would speak out about the harm they’ve caused. The harm caused by both their lead singer who’s accused of sexual misconduct, and the rest of the band, for condoning his actions by not speaking out against them.
I wish fewer people would go to their concerts and buy/stream their albums. I wish fewer venues would book their concerts (maybe weird to say in our current age, when music venues and live music performance are in danger, but I don’t care how good their music is because sexual misconduct is serious. And I say that as someone in the music business myself.)
I think some radio stations have stopped playing their music. Which is probably the right thing to do, though I don’t know if that’s enough.
I’m aware that I might sound like a vindictive and vengeful person or that I complain too much. Or want to “censor” or “cancel” people. I guess I just wish there were consequences for sexual misconduct, when it just seems to be business as usual for Arcade Fire. Which implies that that kind of behaviour is okay.
I do what I can about the situation, and speak up about it. I’ve found that there are actually people who didn’t know about the allegations. If you want to read more, there’s this article here: https://therover.ca/opinion-arcade-fires-rotten-legacy/
I never followed the story in great detail, but it sounded like Win Butler took advantage of fangirls, as rock stars have been doing for decades. It isn’t admirable, but we’ve seen so many men leveraging their fame, wealth, social position, to get younger women into the sack – can we expect the front man of a mildly popular band to be more saintly than them? Or did Butler present himself as a more decent man than most, therefore the disillusion is worse?
I don’t know how his colleagues could condemn him without bringing an end to the band – which perhaps you’d feel only appropriate, I don’t know.
Yes, there has generally been a culture of taking advantage of fangirls in the past, though that seems to be somewhat changing these days.
It looks like more deer will have to be culled in parks in and near Montreal. Deer are vectors for ticks, besides damaging the greenery in enclaved spaces like Longueuil’s Michel‑Chartrand park. A specific species of mouse (not the house mouse) is also blamed for carrying Lyme disease in the area.
Deermice and these guys carry hanta virus, too.
H. John 16:43 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
Milliard may have taken a step back:
https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/973001/charles-milliard-fait-volte-face-quant-disposition-derogation-loi-96?
Kate 16:57 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
I think he’s testing the waters to see how the public is responding to the options. But flip‑flopping too much isn’t wise either.
Ian 22:21 on 2026-04-17 Permalink
It’s been pretty obvious for a long time that the Liberals really don’t give a crap about anglos. They assume that anglos will simply vote for them becasue they are federalists or whatever so they put all their energy into vigorously demonstrating what “real” nationalists they are, in no small part by performatively screwing dem henglish.
So given that ALL our parties are now apparently ethnonationalists, who are immigrants and anglos to vote for?
Kate 20:57 on 2026-04-18 Permalink
Michel David writes about just this in Le Devoir.
R T 18:16 on 2026-04-19 Permalink
Milliard’s backtrack, saying that he’ll invoke it if they need it, is in some ways the worst of both worlds. It dissatisfies many francophone voters and it allows the CAQ and PQ to accuse him of backtracking, while on the other hand, invoking the notwithstanding clause when it’s not needed doesn’t abrogate any Charter rights—it’s when it is needed that’s an issue!
Ian 21:24 on 2026-04-19 Permalink
Between Anglade and Billions I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Quebec Liberals have no intention of giving special attention to anglo voters so we may as well just get used to this as the new normal until some new party shows up that swears up and down it is anti-racist, progressive, and federalist (lol).