Friday night will be the Tour la Nuit, and Sunday the Tour de l’Île. Notes on streets to be closed for the cycle events and for any other reasons.
Weekend notes from Le Devoir, CityCrunch, Journal de Montréal, CultMTL.
Updates from May, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
It isn’t a new story that a lot of social housing units are in disrepair, nor is it news that schools are in such poor condition that they can make kids sick.
One of the authors of the school report asserts that “the root cause of the education system’s crumbling infrastructure is that governments didn’t invest enough in maintaining schools over decades.” You think maybe?
jeather
“Education Minister Sonia Lebel believes the province is already investing enough in education.”
Which I assume is true because surely her kid(s) are in public schools, right?
Meezly
I’ve been waiting for an education-related topic to post this petition:
https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-12243/index.htmlDeadline is June 4 and there’s only about 11K signatures so far.
Key notes:
Data indicates a marked decline in book purchases by schools and libraries in 2025, representing approximately 250,000 fewer children’s books;
in a context where we wish to strengthen literacy and graduation rates, protect the French language and Quebec culture, and mitigate the effects of overexposure of young people to screens, access to books in schools is essential…It’s shameful citizens have to beg the CAQ to invest in something as basic as book and basic infrastructure.
Please sign and share.
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Kate
Quebec is delaying funding for STM projects while bank charges pile up fruitlessly.
Nicholas
It’s weird the story keeps using “frais bancaires” when the quotes use “frais financiers” and “financement à court terme”. Bank fees read to me as overdraft, which obviously isn’t happening to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. They’re paying interest. And because these are short term loans by the STM, rather than long term loans issued by the province, the interest rate is surely higher. But at least they can make the budget deficit look artificially lower during an election year.
Hey what’s that school funding story just above about?
Joey
Buried at the bottom is the news that this kind of thing is no longer possible – basically projects were being approved at all levels but financing was held back for reasons… which meant that transit agencies had to borrow to finance the early stages until the full funding came through. Except that:
“De nouvelles normes de comptabilité dans le secteur public s’appliquent à la STM depuis avril 2024. Celles-ci n’autoriseraient plus le début des travaux avant les approbations officielles, comme c’est le cas du côté fédéral.”
In other words, rather than just allocate the money upfront with the other approvals, projects will be completely delayed until the mysterious budget-allocation process is complete.
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