The victim and the only suspect have been named in the fatal stabbing at the Tam‑Tams on Sunday. According to TVA, both men have police records.
Updates from April, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
86% of the STM’s maintenance staff have voted in favour of the proposed collective agreement, ending a two‑year negotiation.
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Kate
Saad Tekiout, who owns a landscaping business, has taken to repairing potholes himself. But the city says it doesn’t want people doing this work voluntarily.
Also, note this: “Dans une déclaration écrite transmise à Radio-Canada, le cabinet de la mairesse affirme que « c’est décourageant pour tous les Montréalais de constater l’état dans lequel nos rues ont été laissées par l’ancienne administration.» Soraya, sweetie, we’re six months into your term. You can’t blame Valérie any more. You made promises about the state of the roads (and their cleanliness too) and now you’re finding out it’s not so easy to deliver. Blaming Projet now is a weak, weak move.
Ian
Valerie would have blamed Denis.
It’s a normal and reasonable thing to expect a one year transition…
Unless we are pretending that the problems with the roads started after the election.To be real the roads are utter shit right now but letting PM off the hook is ridiculous.
Next spring, yeah, knives out.
Kate
I don’t remember Mayor Plante blaming the previous administration – at least, not in that way. There was a sense that they knew they were undertaking road repairs that had been neglected for a long time – other things, too, like the complex refit of city hall – but not with a particular taunt towards the Coderre era. Denis’s mistakes (like the entanglement with Formula E) didn’t need extra emphasis from Projet.
Ian
That’s very selective memory. PM definitely excused the proliferation of traffic cones and construction sites on the previosu administrations, but they totally blamed road surfacing on them. too. PM seemed to be perpetually incapable of taking responsibliity for any infrastructure problems, and absolutely blamed everythign either on previous administrations, Provincial funding, or a lack of vision on the part of the population – especially blaming all vehicular traffic on private ownership and recalcitrant businesss owners. It was a such a prediatble pattern that most people started ignoring it even in the media.
Besides, how many years were PM in power, again? How are these urban planning geniuses leaving a legacy of roads that turn into a moonscape in a mere 6 months?
bob
Plante changed nothing about the corruption that is this city’s lifeblood. And neither will Ferrada. Tune in this time in 2031 for the same observations.
Joey
I don’t disagree with your point, Kate, but it’s revealing that we blame the (current/previous) mayor for the city’s inability to build roads that have some semblance of durability to them. Whether our mayor were a anarcho-syndicalist or an ethno-nationalist white supremacist, they should be able to instruct the city’s public works department to demand better from its workers and contractors. And yet…
DeWolf
People think potholes are the problem but they appear because roads are crumbling from the bottom up. If the foundation is broken, you’ll be getting new potholes every year.
I don’t think we can blame Soraya for this year’s catastrophic pothole season any more than we can blame Plante. The real blame is on successive municipal administrations that underinvested in infrastructure. In many boroughs, nearly half of all streets are in bad condition. That took decades to happen.
Is corruption and poor quality work the issue? Sure, but not in every case, because there are plenty of examples of streets that have been repaired in recent years that are holding up well.
The only way to fix things is a full dig-out. Which is obviously very expensive and disruptive. PM was doing that more than the two previous administrations but it wasn’t nearly enough — and yet even then, everyone had a meltdown because of all the orange cones. I’m not sure exactly how Soraya is going to fix the streets when she cut the budget for road repairs. If we don’t see massive amounts of roadwork in the next two years, the problem will only get worse.
Incidentally, the idea that PM managed to hold things together for eight years only to have it all fall apart within six months of them leaving power required some pretty nefarious planning on their part. Pure evil! One might even say it’s witchcraft.
Kate
Exactly. SMF promised to remove orange cones from the cityscape, but she can’t properly repair deeply fissured and fractured roads without major digging and cone placement.
Ian
Ah so nobody is to blame then, it’s just a legacy of failure that can’t attributed to anyone in particular and nobody has been able to do anything about it.
Glad we got that sorted out.
Kate says “Soraya, sweetie, we’re six months into your term. You can’t blame Valérie any more.” OK, fine.
If 6 months is enough to assume that everything is Soraya’s fault now, 8 years surely should have been enough to move the needle.You can’t simultaneously blame the 6 month noob and absolve the 8 year legacy on the same terms for the same reasons.
DeWolf
The needle did move, Ian. I know you have an absolute blinding hatred of Projet Montréal that obscures anything positive they did, but they invested a lot in road repairs and reconstruction. It was still just the tip of the iceberg and it wasn’t enough. But you can’t say they weren’t working on it.
And when you say there’s a legacy of failure, well, you’re describing a systemic problem that runs deep. A broken tendering system compromised by provincial laws. Dysfunctional bureaucracy. There’s a lot of reasons why the roads in Montreal are and continue to be so bad.
CE
The fact is that potholes are worse this year than they were in previous years. I haven’t heard anyone say otherwise based on what they’ve seen out in the wild and the numbers say the same thing. From this article:
“The issue reflects a broader problem. Radio-Canada reported last month that between Jan. 9 and Feb. 24, CAA-Québec assisted 3,526 Montreal motorists with flat tires, an average of 75 cases per day — a 48 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2025.”
“The administration says 14,845 potholes have been filled across Montreal this year. Between Jan. 1 and Sunday, the city’s 311 service received 13,667 requests related to potholes, compared with 3,938 requests over the same period in 2024. Officials note multiple reports can be made for the same pothole.”
Why are flat tires up by nearly 50% compared to last year. Why are 311 calls about potholes up by 277%? Did Projet leave landmines under the pavement to make Ensemble look bad this year? I’m not saying Projet fixed the problem and the new administration brought it back, but the fact that there are many more potholes this year (after the road budget was slashed) puts some of the blame on them.
Ian
@DeWolf
Y’know, never once have I said that I hate PM, let alone an ‘absolute, blinding hatred’. That ‘hatred’ is a dismissive accusation you have levied against me so many times that I guess you are remebering it as fact. I guess it really is easier to craft your own narrative than to recognize your own hypocrisy.@CE
The election was in November… exactly how much responsibility for potholes can you place on an administration that literally started right before winter hit? Clearly there were issues leading up. to this.Either those in charge the last few years did a lousy job on surfacing maintenance, or it’s a job that nobody should be held responsible for. Which conclusion you come to apparently depends on whether you hate the right people?
CE
I really don’t know what the answer is. If only we had a robust media with adequate resources to fully research what is wrong, who is responsible, and what could be done to ameliorate the problem.
Kate
I agree, CE. But it isn’t secret. No city administration wants the expense and unpopularity of digging up streets and re‑laying them from scratch. But we can all see that patching is not a solution.
Here’s a question: some streets have had to be dug deep for water main and sewer repairs in recent years. Have any civil engineering types studied the surface conditions of roads reconstructed over the last 10 or 20 years? Are they holding up?
Joey
Google Gemini says the reason our roads don’t hold up here is a combination of a bunch of factors – frequent freeze-thaw cycles, expansive clay soil, frost heave, heavy road salt usage, concrete corrosion, high heavy-vehicle traffic density, aging infrastructure, and brittle asphalt compositions. Add in widespread corruption in the construction industry (how confident are you the contractors are using the kinds and quantities of materials promised in their contracts?) and, well, I guess there’s not much reason to be optimistic.
MarcG
If we make a concerted shitposting effort we can probably have genAI reporting that it’s because the island of Montreal is naturally carbonated and the escaping bubbles creates potholes by next spring.
JaneyB
In addition to the corruption factor, I think the city’s specs don’t account for the load from snow removal trucks. After a storm, a street will be holding up 4 or more snow trucks plus the bladed snow plow truck all at the same moment – and only for 10 minutes. That’s a really anomalous usage and I bet that’s never been in the specs for roadbed endurance. Just a hunch.
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Kate
24Hrs tells about the train dépoussiéreur that cleans the metro tracks after closing time: a single vehicle dating from 1967 that cannot be replaced.
Chris
What do you mean cannot be replaced? It’s a glorified vacuum cleaner, hardly beyond our engineering abilities. Of course we are too broke/cheap to do so, but…
Kevin
Earlier this month was provincial stage day, and one of my kids got to go to the STM garage and spend the day checking out this machine and many others.
The mechanics have the tools, equipment and the skills to build an entire train from scratch. They could certainly build another train-sized vacuum cleaner if they had the time and money to do so.
Oh, and it’s not mentioned in that piece, but it’s a three-car train. The first is the vacuum, the two trailers are the garbage containers.
Joey
Interesting piece. The guy in charge explains that, obviously, the cleaner train can be replaced – in fact the new ones can clean more than just the tracks – but the cost would be in the tens of millions of dollars, so the STM prefers to tinker and have his team keep it running. To Kevin’s point, they have a ton of expertise – having replaced the engine from manual to automatic, etc., over the years.
“A glorified vacuum cleaner” seems like a stretch but what do I know.
CE
Anyone who has ever seen the condition of the tracks on American subway systems, NYC in particular, knows how good of a job this machine is doing.
Joey
Also too, the article makes clear that the issue isn’t litter, it’s filthy dust from tires, breaks, the engine, etc., that if not vacuumed can be pose a health risk to transit users. While it does pick up small items as well, that’s not the intention of twice-weekly cleaning that takes nearly all night.
DeWolf
Question since it’s related: I live right above the metro and every night around 1am and again around 5am (if I happen to by lying in bed awake at either of those times) there is a fait but noticeable rumble as some vehicle passes down the tracks. It’s the only time you’d ever guess the metro line is underneath because normally there’s absolutely no vibrations or sound.
Anyone know what it could be? I was thinking it was this vacuum train but it happens more often than twice a week.
Kate
Might be this. I don’t think this is the vehicle from the 24Hrs story, but it’s also a cleaning vehicle. Back in 2011 I won a drawing for a small group of people to visit the metro after closing, and I brought Ben Soo with me, who took that photo at Snowdon station, where we stopped to have wine and snacks.
We rode around the system on a diesel-powered trailer thing – they have to use some diesel vehicles at night because they need to turn off the current, and they’re very intense about triple‑checking that the juice is off before they do any work on or near the rails. I seem to recall that yellow thing is also a diesel vehicle.
CE
In the video the STM worker mentions that there are diesel vehicles that use the tracks after hours.
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Kate
I was just listening to CBC radio news, where they reported Mark Carney’s announcement of Canada’s first sovereign wealth fund in which he will make it “easy for you to invest in the fund.”
Isn’t this basically the return of Canada Savings Bonds?
bob
It’s an entirely different animal. CSBs were a way for Canadian residents to provide the government with more income, and were a safe investment with a low return. They were also not transferable, so there was no secondary market for them as there is for typical bonds. They were kind of like voluntary tax that the government paid you back for.
This new thing seems more like a slush fund for private companies (the usual suspects) doing quasi-public projects, and it is not clear how it will provide revenue to the government. It seems also like a way to bypass direct government oversight over how this $25 billion (and eventually more) will be used and accounted for, since it will be managed “at arms length” (look at the management of the Canada Pension Plan and its “active” investment strategy to see how that is likely to go – https://archive.ph/ov2VH ). It is also unclear what the “retail investment product” will be, whether that will be transferable, or what the institutional products will be. It seems like it is modelled on an investment fund rather than, say, a development bank, and I think that $25 billion provided to the Business Development Bank of Canada would benefit the economy and “regular” Canadians more than this money siphon for 1%ers.
Blork
Given the crazy yo-yoing and probable imminent crash of the index funds, having a stable bond investment that also helps the economy (if that is indeed what this is) sounds mighty appealing. My first question is will these be available before the AI bubble bursts and guts everyone’s retirement savings?
bob
It is not a bond offering. It is almost the polar opposite of a bond offering. It is a pool of cash to be “invested” in heavy construction and engineering, big agriculture, mining, and such, via cronies of the Liberal government. Eventually, you will be able to buy shares of it by some government-facilitated mechanism whose details have not been sketched out yet. The model is basically that of a private equity firm, but theoretically directed at large projects of supposed national importance.
Kate
Thanks for the explanations, bob.
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Kate
Alexandre Boulerice has made it official that he’ll move to provincial politics with Quebec solidaire. He means to stay on as an independent MP till the Quebec election, expected on October 5.
bob
Avi Lewis says he won’t run there, so who’s it likely to be?
Kate
Does anyone think the NDP can win there again without Boulerice?
CE
No.
Tim S.
If I want to be an NDP optimist, a vote split between the Liberals and BQ might mean you only need 35%ish to win. A coin flip similar to the Verdun byelection.
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Kate
The city has abolished its periodic pickups of hazardous garbage as “too expensive”; borough mayors fear that people will simply chuck these things out in the regular garbage, or dump them on the street.
MarcG
As far as I know this service wasn’t offered in Verdun and I’ve always dragged my ass (by Communauto) to the Eco-centre. Sometimes you end up sitting in a huge lineup behind a bunch of massive dump trucks – they’ve added an estimated wait time to the website. I currently have a bunch of miscellaneous toxic junk in the garage waiting to go. I’m reminded of how the company they hired to manage one of the Eco-centres was found to be just dumping everything in the woods.
su
So now it will be up to individuals to dump things in places like La Falaise and the sewer system
dhomas
I go to the eco-centre from time to time (I just went this weekend to dump a TV that I could not repair). But I have a car. It’s really far if you don’t have a car. For someone in Tétraultville (not far from me), like the lady in the article, the closest eco-centre is in RDP! This will make people who want to do the right thing have no choice but to do the wrong thing.
I saw a range next to the garbage can in the park close to my house. I expect to see more of this kind of thing soon.
Kate
I don’t think Villeray has had a hazardous pickup since I’ve lived here either.
I’ve hauled things in a big Ikea bag on the 193 bus to the Eco‑centre in Frédéric‑Back park, but it’s not exactly a pleasure jaunt. I’m reminded I need to do this soon with a busted monitor and some other junk.
mare
If you don’t have giant objects, you could do this with a Bixi and a Bixi trailer. Or use your own bike and a Bixi trailer.
If you arrive by bike —at least in the Rosemont eco-centre— you don’t have to wait in line. I must admit that it feels rather nice to see the long line of waiting cars and just cycle past them. I’m sure there’s a German word for it.Chris
schadenfreude. or you mean even more specific?
Ian
Selbstgefälligkeit haha
Mozai
I remember a toxic-waste pickup for household items that use to happen twice a year in the plaza outside Mont-Royal metro station, but I couldn’t find info about when exactly it happens — I’d have to come across is by accident, then rush home and return to drop off paint cans and dead batteries. I haven’t been lucky enough to come across it again since Covid started, but most of my toxic waste is battery cells and pharmacies have drop-off bins for that now.
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