Philippe Mercure has a good piece here on how the city is not being transparent about its ideas for Jarry Park as the tennis club gets ambitious for a bigger facility. But the park is more, and to far more people, than a few fans for one sports event in August.
Updates from June, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Anyone know whether the Parc Lahaie fountain circulates?
Mind you, it was nice and cool by the fountain under the trees today.
DeWolf
It was on last time I was there a few days ago.
I really hope they don’t turn it off. It would be a token gesture at best and fountains really do cool down the surrounding area, on top of providing a lot of mental relief.
Turning off the fountains to make a point about saving water because of a leaky water main that is currently being fixed feels like the kind of cruel gesture dreamed up by somebody who doesn’t spend any time in public space.
MarcG
Kate, were you asking if the water in the fountain is recirculated? Seems like it would make sense for most public fountains like this to be chlorinated and recirc’ed to save water but I have no idea how they’re engineered.
Kate
Yes, I was asking that. Tuesday afternoon was super humid and hot, but in the environs of this fountain, it felt about 10° less.
But then I wondered, having seen the statement in the news that the city was closing fountains to save water, whether this one even should be on.
So I took a picture.
DeWolf
I just passed through Parc Lahaie and the fountain has been duly turned off.
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Kate
A suspect has been arrested in the nightclub incident last month in which two random women were shot.
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Kate
A wine collector who confided 219 priceless and irreplaceable bottles to the SAQ for storage will be drinking Notre Vin Maison for the foreseeable future as the corporation has destroyed them all. But the story delves into complications beyond a mere warehousing error.
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Kate
Lots of plaudits in the media for actress Sophie Faucher, who has died at 68.
As a bad anglo, I have to confess that I knew nothing of her career, but the second La Presse piece linked above gives a resumé of her stage and TV work.
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Kate
The city plans to repave the Camillien‑Houde, notoriously full of potholes, and in plenty of time for the international bike race to be held there in September.
Bert
A question I have wanted to ask for a while, has that strip of road between the Fleuve and the Seaway been paved? Streetview dates to 2022 and has it as gravel, as I have always remembered it. Are we in for a Parix-Roubais TT?
steph
The voie du Fleuve is all paved between the Ville de Sainte-Catherine locks and St-Lambert locks. Lots of bugs, but a very nice ride.
Blork
Yes, they paved it at the end of October last year. I rode on it a few days later when the paving was brand new and it was beautiful. Here’s a photo of it looking down from the Champlain Bridge bike path, taken on October 28, 2025, when it was brand new: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blork/54894734876/in/dateposted-public/
Bert
Thanks for the follow-up. I had to assume that that was the case, but without proof….
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Kate
A dozen people are living in a camp under the Van Horne viaduct, and a court injunction says they can stay there for the time being. The city had wanted to move the residents on, since it’s close to a skate park and a basketball court.
Homeless people hesitate to call emergency services even when it’s critically necessary, because they know they will not be treated the same as other people, an observation made by organizations working among them. Homeless also often carry an invisible weight of unpayable fines and other legal encumbrances that make them wary of engaging with the forces of order.
dhomas
I don’t understand the point of “démenteler” these encampments. These people will still be homeless. They’ll just be homeless elsewhere. The last time they dismantled the Notre-Dame encampment (2024? Early 2025?), it just sent the homeless population everywhere else. Shortly after, there were people living in the park close to my house near Radisson metro. Tents appeared on the banks of the 25 (they are still there to this day). It solves nothing and just causes more inconvenience and stress to the homeless population.
On the topic of emergency services, I recently spent a few long periods in the ER at the Glen and I can confirm that homeless people are definitely treated differently (indigenous people, as well). While I was there, a homeless person came in for triage. He needed help getting out of his wheelchair and into a waiting room chair. I’d seen other patients get this kind of help. No one wanted to help the homeless guy. I ended up helping him out of the chair myself.
Kate
I was thinking about your first point, dhomas, and I believe it comes down to this: the city can’t quite face the reality that if it displaces an encampment, it’s simply moving the residents to another encampment, because that would acknowledge both the permanence of some of the camps and the apparent impossibility of giving the displaced residents more proper and decent places to live.
We’re edging closer to permanent camps anyway, with recent discussions of adding toilets and showers to some of them, but we’re not quite there yet.
I hope whoever’s in your entourage that has needed the ER will recover. Good on you for helping the homeless man.
Chris
>I don’t understand the point of “démenteler” these encampments
Perhaps because you’re looking from their point of view.
From the point of view of one’s neighbourhood being ruined (not saying that’s my personal view, but it is a view held by many), moving them on solves the problem and shares it around.
Kate
It’s a knotty problem. I can’t deny that the presence of people with mental and/or drug problems is unsettling, unhealthy and occasionally dangerous. Solutions have to be found that are bigger than any of the stopgaps we’ve seen so far, but I don’t know what they are.
Blork
Dhomas, I think you’re only seeing homelessness as a single problem (“these people have nowhere to live”), but homelessness brings a cluster of problems, including that obvious one, but also problems of safety and security for the general public, issues around limited funding for social issues and the competition for those resources, and all sorts of other things. As such, not every solution can address the full cluster of problems. Some solutions only address one immediate problem.
In this case, moving the encampment is intended to address the problem of security for people who want to use the skate park and the adjoining social areas in relative safety. While some might take offence at the idea that the unhoused are somehow a security risk we have to be realistic. There are some among the unhoused who are potentially dangerous (mental health problems and/or drug problems). An absurd example is this: would the playground of a garderie be an acceptable place for a homeless encampment? Probably not. It’s a sliding scale, and arguably the skate park lies somewhere in between “garderie playground” and “remote field next to a river.”
dhomas
@Blork @Chris: I totally understand that it’s a complex issue and that sometimes we cannot allow the homeless to remain in areas that put themselves and others at risk. My point is that “just” dismantling the camps is not enough. I wrote some additional thoughts on the topic a few days ago:
https://mtlcityweblog.com/2026/05/27/city-announces-plans-for-homelessness-money/#comment-244670@Kate: thanks for the well wishes for my ER visit!
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Kate
TVA says the number of Moving Day address changes are down this year, as they have been for the past two, although the supporting story is only an interview with one moving company owner.
Seems likely that people unsatisfied with their living space who would, in the past, have moved house on July 1 hoping for better, are now more likely to hang onto something they can afford, even if it’s sub par.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says rents are falling in other Canadian cities because of new construction, but there’s little change in Montreal yet.
mb
I’ve been on the apartment hunt last 2 – 3 months, and I can see that rents appear to be dropping in mtl too. In fb marketplace once you’re chatting with a landlord or agent, you get a notification when the price drops. It hasn’t dropped on all apartments. But i’d say a solid 1/5 have dropped in price from the time I began talking to within a few weeks.
One weird thing I noticed, some landlords are keeping up the price of an apartment in the lease, but offering tenants a “rebate” in the annex of the lease. And they say it explicitly: “rents are dropping so we’re offering this rebate but for our bank we want to keep it at $X amount on the paperwork.” I suppose it has to do with getting approved for higher loans if they charge higher rent on the actual lease itself.
In any case, the rents are declining from totally obnoxious amounts to just moderately obnoxious amounts. So, nothing to celebrate much about just yet.
Mozai
‘for the bank” If you use property as collateral of a loan, it’s valued at the potential income. I believe this is also why some rental properties are empty and won’t lower the asking rental price — that might trigger a reevaluation of the loan that property is supporting.
Em
Offering a lower rent means that this is the rent going forward, subject to the annual increase amount etc. Offering a rebate instead means they can raise it back up easily to where it was before, just by no longer giving the rebate.
Ian
I bet there’s a clause in there that if you don’t renew you owe the money back, like an Adobe subscription.
SMD 13:41 on 2026-06-11 Permalink
Petition to save the pool, from the Friends of Jarry Park: http://www.change.org/piscine_du_parc_Jarry
Kate 14:14 on 2026-06-11 Permalink
Thanks, SMD