Onetime police chief Philippe Pichet is having his moment in front of the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) about his dismissal from the top cop position. Valérie Plante testified Wednesday, denying that the decision was hers.
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Kate
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Kate
The English Montreal School Board is going to try to have the Bill 21, aka la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État, challenged at the Supreme Court. The Supremes may or may not agree to hear it, of course – and politically it would be a scorching hot potato should they declare it unconstitutional.
Update: Simon Jolin-Barrette says Ottawa should mind its own business. Has the minister forgotten that Quebec is still a part of Canada?
Ian
I guess it’s a chance to see if the notwithstanding clause trumps all.
Given what pathetic chickenshits the federal politicians have been in this matter I have my doubts, it’s a long shot for sure.
Kate
My money is on the Supremes declining to hear it.
H. John
@Ian I think the question may be not whether the “notwithstanding clause trumps all” but instead whether the court deals with the issue of preemptive use of the clause.
Some people argue that the clause was intended to be used only after a law had been challenged in court, a decision had been rendered striking down a law, and then legislatures could decide whether or not to override the court.
@Kate I think waiting to read the factum from the appellants (to see on what basis they’re launching the appeal), and, far more importantly, seeing who chooses to join the case as an intervenor would be useful before putting your money on the table.
Ian
Good point, H. John. The pre-emptive use is truly problematic, and Legault seems to be deploying it by default here as in other cases.
Kate
H. John, good warning.
Does the court weigh the possible political impact of its rulings – or even of agreeing to make a ruling – or is it committed to the pure legal logic of the words on the page?
H. John
In cases where appeal is not of right, that is where the court has to decide whether or not to hear a case, the SCC only hears cases that it considers to be of public importance and to have national significance.
“As many as 600 applications for leave to appeal are filed each year and the Supreme Court of Canada grants only approximately 80 of them each year.”
https://www.scc-csc.ca/unrep-nonrep/app-dem/guide-eng.aspx
I think it’s safe to say the court weighs what it says, or won’t say, very carefully.
An example of it choosing not to answer would be one of the four questions the federal government sent to them as part of the Reference re Same-Sex Marriage [2004] 3 SCR 698. The question concerned Quebec’s civil code:
“4. Is the opposite‑sex requirement for marriage for civil purposes, as established by the common law and set out for Quebec in section 5 of the Federal Law–Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1, consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
In the unique circumstances of this reference, the Court should exercise its discretion not to answer Question 4. First, the federal government has stated its intention to address the issue of same-sex marriage legislatively regardless of the Court’s opinion on this question. As a result of decisions by lower courts, the common law definition of marriage in five provinces and one territory no longer imports an opposite-sex requirement and the same is true of s. 5 of the Federal Law–Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1. The government has clearly accepted these decisions and adopted this position as its own. Second, the parties in the previous litigation, and other same-sex couples, have relied upon the finality of the decisions and have acquired rights which are entitled to protection. Finally, an answer to Question 4 has the potential to undermine the government’s stated goal of achieving uniformity in respect of civil marriage across Canada. While uniformity would be achieved if the answer were “no”, a “yes” answer would, by contrast, throw the law into confusion. The lower courts’ decisions in the matters giving rise to this reference are binding in their respective provinces. They would be cast into doubt by an advisory opinion which expressed a contrary view, even though it could not overturn them. These circumstances, weighed against the hypothetical benefit Parliament might derive from an answer, indicate that the Court should decline to answer Question 4.”
https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2196/index.do
Two books dealing with the court’s decision making process are available at the BAnQ:
“The Transformation of the Supreme Court of Canada: an empirical examination” – Songer, Donald
Law, ideology, and collegiality: judicial behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada” – Songer, DonaldKate
H. John, as always, I appreciate your legal contributions here. You’ve been educating me for quite some time!
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Kate
The STM says it’s boosting security in ten metro stations in response to a sense of insecurity among passengers – but only till the end of April, and no new agents are being hired. Pretty explicitly it’s a matter of public reassurance and not of permanent solutions, because STM chair Éric Alan Caldwell says the STM can’t fix the social crises driving people into the metro to shelter, sleep or take drugs.
Nicholas
So they’re paying for overtime hours for three weeks when they admit it only papers over the problem and can’t solve it. Did I miss the story that their massive budget deficit was somehow solved and they won’t have to layoff all those other staff and cut service?
Chris
It might not be totally useless if it encourages enough people to return to taking transit, thus increasing revenue. It could also serve to shoo away some of the undesirables, who maybe don’t know it’s only for 3 weeks, and may not return.
Kate
By the end of April the weather will be milder and they can rely on spring and summer weather to reduce the numbers taking shelter in the metro – but the same problems will return in six months’ time.
walkerp
Is it actually any less safe in the metro? I wasn’t here in the 70s and 80s but I’m sure it was much less safe then (statistically that was the case for crime in Montreal). A lot of this is perception, with social media attacks on cities as a concept in general and more homeless people and drug addiction freaking out some people while not actuallly being dangerous.
Though did see a foiled purse-snatching at the St-Henri station last week, which was the first time I’d ever seen an actual crime on the STM in Montreal.Kate
walkerp, a lot of the crime recorded then – as now – was internecine gang stuff. I walked around alone a lot, and took public transit all the time, often at night, and never felt under threat.
I don’t think people exactly feel threatened, even now, but they do feel unnerved. Faced with fucked‑up unpredictable people in public spaces, we don’t know what to do.
maggie rose
Just saw a piece on BBC World News that they’ve temp brought in the National Guard for this same issue. Stats say the subway in NYC is safe, but video of gunshots inside a full subway car and musicians being attacked and robbed are unnerving. Most interviewed said they’re not afraid. Of course truly affordable housing and truly affordable healthcare for the ensuing mental health issues that often come from such suffering would benefit more than sinking millions more into policing. Yay, we’re sort of like NYC now.
Chris
>A lot of this is perception…
Perception matters.
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Kate
The city has acquired numerous buildings with the intention of converting them to social housing, but layers of bureaucracy means very little has been done. Now they have to decide whether to keep acquiring properties, since government requirements have been blocking renovation plans at every turn.
Nicholas
Finding a non-profit that has the capacity and experience to find funding for and then retrofit or construct a housing project is not easy, and just adds complications, costs and time to a project. Sometimes it’s the right move, but usually it’s just better to build it yourself (and by that I mean put it out to bid) and the builder can either return the completed project to you or OMHM or whatever or can operate it itself under contract. Or if that doesn’t work, let a for-profit builder do its thing and then subsidize some low income people to live there, or anywhere, with the sale and increased property taxes from the new building. I trust the city to hand out some cash to low income people who need housing way more than I do for them to build a housing project.
bob
Maybe acquiring “entre autres des incinérateurs, des églises, des garages, des bureaux, même des étables et un caveau à légumes” is not the best strategy when you want to make housing. It’s a great way to take worthless property off the books of some connected person or organization. Maybe enforcing rent controls and forcing empty housing stock onto the market would be a more effective to keep housing affordable. Not likely.
Kate
True. Maybe that’s why Maxime Bergeron focuses on the old Chinese hospital, which really would be worth converting, but should be worked on soon before it starts to crumble. Like Bergeron, I pass the building quite often, and never fail to ponder its condition and its future. Forty new housing units in that location would be a benefit not only to its residents, but to the surrounding neighbourhood.
Ephraim
I wonder if anyone has talked to Habitat for Humanity. The people who want social housing, though, will have to put in sweat equity.
Nicholas
The page on the Heritage Montreal site for the old hospital says it needs “major renovation”, and was built in 1974. Having been abandoned for a quarter century, half its life, and given the potential to maybe make it four or five stories to increase the housing potential, I would assume it’s easier to knock it down and start over, and it’s not like it’s a significant heritage structure.
mare
@Ephraim Habitat for Humanity only does new construction and appear to have problems in Montreal, probably of the same kind as the city. Walls of bureaucracy and a lack of terrains (they rely on donated land). They have build *very few* homes so far in Montreal. (I tried to find their yearly reports to find exact numbers but it seems they don’t make them available anymore.)
I worked on two duplexes in Mercier 13 years ago, and the problems they had then don’t seem to have been solved. Lack of terrains, lack of continuity in paid and volunteer staff, lack of funding.
JaneyB
@mare and @Ephraim – I tried to volunteer with Habitat in Montreal back about 15 years ago and it was a non-starter – rudderless, lack of professional tradespeople, and also Quebec doesn’t really have a volunteer culture. In my hometown of Winnipeg, Habitat is a steamroller of efficiency and know-how, largely because it is sponsored by the Mennonite churches (15% of the population) and their community includes many tradesmen and construction companies. Those companies lend Habitat their tradespeople as a charitable donation for tax purposes. This method works; you need to have a critical mass of skillful people around which you can add volunteers. Habitat here needs to talk to Habitat in Winnipeg to figure out how to get the ball rolling in Montreal.
JP
Interesting that you’ve observed that Quebec doesn’t have a volunteer culture. I was a regular volunteer at a meals on wheels for a long time, but when it came up with friends, acquaintances or colleagues the reactions would range from mild confusion to bewilderment.
Ian
@JaneyB The Mennonites run https://www.maisondelamitie.ca/ which is very volunteer-centric. I used to volunteer teaching ESL there. There isn’t much of a rural Mennonite population here compared to even Ontario.
Kate
Quebec tends to feel that paying high taxes means we get the services we need in return, and nobody needs to work for free. There are exceptions but I’ve definitely seen studies showing that volunteering is much lower here than elsewhere in Canada.
And JaneyB: I don’t see Montreal taking lessons from Winnipeg.
Blork
“Quebec tends to feel that paying high taxes means we get the services we need in return, and nobody needs to work for free.”
The problem with that model is that it is entirely money-based and doesn’t touch on the more humanistic aspect of service to your community and fellow citizens. It’s a bit like saying as long as you hand over cash to a coterie of robotic bureaucrats you can be as much of a selfish prick as you want because it’s not your job to be helpful.
The other thing is that in a more volunteer-oriented society it’s not seen as anyone needing to work for free. It’s volunteer work. You don’t NEED to do it, you do it because it helps people and contributes to creating a better and more sympathetic society. And not everyone does so; only those who want to.
But yes, Quebec society can’t seem to get over the idea of deferring to the higher authority. It used to be the church. Now it’s the government. Same shit, different asshole.
That said, I haven’t done any notable volunteer work in decades, largely because (as JaneyB said) Quebec doesn’t have a volunteer culture.
Kate
Blork, I’m not implying that anyone needs to work for free, but that I have deep distrust of any social system that relies on having a certain number of people work for free so it can deliver needed services. Our taxes should guarantee that people need not appeal to volunteer‑based charities for help when they need it.
Also, I’ve never volunteered, but over the years I’ve encountered various kinds of projects that were being done on an unpaid basis, and they were inevitably a mess, because it’s almost impossible to fire incompetent volunteers. It’s not a great way to get things done.
Blork
Yes, I get that. But I have a deep distrust of any social system that just hands everything over to the government or government agencies. As with most things, I’m most comfortable when things are in balance. My lament in this case is really about the lack of volunteer culture in Quebec. It just feels weird to me, and it feels (as I’ve said above and elsewhere) like a variation of the passivity one sees in a society that is under authoritarian rule, be it church or state.
MarcG
Quebec doesn’t have a volunteer culture but we do have a grassroots organization culture. Off the top of my head I can think of a few in Verdun alone: Centre des femmes de Verdun, Comité d’Action des Citoyennes et Citoyens de Verdun, Coopérative de Solidarité Abondance Urbaine Solidaire…
Blork
MarcG, true that. I love me some grassroots. Different kind of thing, but useful and valuable.
K.D.
Speaking of volunteering, If anyone is motivated to volunteer AND wants save a life, you can volunteer to be a living kidney donor. A living kidney is a better (longer-lasting) kidney for the transplant recipient to receive.
Other provinces (BC and Ontario in particular) have a much higher rate of living kidney donor donations vs Quebec.
There are three forms of donations: direct to someone you know; If you are incompatible with that person you can do a linked pair (chain) donation where a chain of donors matches compatible recipients; and a simple anonymous donation.
I know this because I have spent the last few months going through tests to be a kidney donor. After meeting with a friend who I discovered had received a kidney transplant which saved their life, I signed up to be an anonymous donor. This part of the Quebec health care system works really good – it just needs donors to step up (kidney.ca for more info).
In any case, please sign your organ donor card.
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Kate
The city archives, which moved from their longtime home under city hall in 2018, will return home this summer. They were all moved to a building opposite Rosemont metro while the lengthy renovation of city hall was done.
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Kate
From today, it will be possible to recharge an Opus card with a phone and we will soon be able to pay a fare with a bank card.
Blork
No instructions as to how, but I suspect it’s this:
Get the latest version of the Chrono app. (I’m not seeing an update today, but I suspect you’ll need an update.)
Be signed in to the Chrono app, meaning you’ll need an account. (I’ve been waiting an hour for my activation link… tick tick tick tick…)
Will probably need to input a credit card number, but if things are magical it will have the option go directly to your Apple/Android wallet. (I have doubts such magic will happen.)
Most likely a menu item in the app, with on-screen instructions.
Joey
I joined the open beta – it was a breeze. Didn’t need an account – there’s an icon on the top right (and a menu bar option) that previously was used to let you read the balance; you click on it, read the balance by holding your card up to your phone, and then choose what you want to buy, then you pay. Can’t recall if it used Apple Pay or not. But it was not account-based, so anyone could fill anyone else’s card.
Blork
That’s good news, Joey. Sensible and easy to use. Hmmm… MUST BE A HOAX!
Blork
Not working for me. I get the thing for reading the card and reporting the balance, but there’s no option to purchase.
jeleventybillionandone
I believe the app with the payment option is on a phased rolllout. I did see news of up several weeks ago, but the version of the app with the payment option did not appear until the other day for me.
DeWolf
You probably have to update the app.
I just went into the metro, discovered I had no more tickets left and used the new feature to quickly add them to my Opus card instead of lining up at the horrible machine. Worked like a charm.
We should really be able to add a virtual Opus to our phones like in countless other cities. Then you wouldn’t even need a physical card. I did that recently in Tokyo and it worked like a charm.
What we really need is to scrap the silly ticket system and treat the Opus like a purse. You could still add passes, but instead of buying tickets you’d just add cash value that would be deducted when you take a trip. (And ideally it would max out at the value of a day pass.) For that to work properly you’d need to have people tap out, at least in zones B and C.
dwgs
Like Joey, I was part of the beta testing, it works very well and I use Google Pay although there is the option to enter a cc as well.
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Kate
Canada Lands has big plans for the Wellington Basin, with 2800 housing units and a beach.
Ephraim
So the only green spot in the area, with a lovely view of what I have renamed “Pont Pauline Marois” (CNR Wellington Bridge). I named it after here because it goes nowhere, doesn’t do much and yet is going to cost us money anyway. (How much did it cost to shut down Gentilly? Supposedly $1.8B and we are already talking about starting it up again)
qatzelok
The proposal’s model features a 40-story tower right next to the beach.
Do people really want to swim in the shadow of a giant tower?Why not distance that tower more from the water and public park?
Or is that tower there to demonstrate that the real estate mafia cares very little about the quality of the environments that they leave behind? ie. “We will build gigantic towers next to beaches and just try to stop us! We got Grffintown just the way we wanted it to be.”
Spi
@qatzelok the shadow that building would cast is mostly only an issue in the morning as it’s on the eastern side of the basin. Past noon-1pm the beaches would be completely clear of the buildings shadow.
su
That huge building looks like it could create quite a windtunnel on that beach!
bob
The end product will be more sterile than that render. If this is the pitch, I can only imagine the soulless barrens that will waste this opportunity – much like the other development downhill from downtown over the last fifty years – the levelling of Burgundy, the bizarre bedroom suburbs, the ticky tacky high rise condos. How is it that urban planning has gotten worse over the last century, as if not a single lesson has been learned from the vast landscape of failures that surround the livable, human neighbourhoods that were built well over a hundred years ago. It’s like, “hey, let’s model the built environment after those experiments on rats that made them literally murder and eat each other,” “let’s design a building that houses 750 people such that none of them need ever know any of the other 749 residents exist,” “let’s make sure there is no commerce so that people will drive literally across the street to Costco – maybe Walmart will put in a store across the lot from it,” “Let’s put grass on whatever is left over and call it green space, and make sure that there are trees and sidewalks and boulders on any strip of land large enough for sports”
Shall we start a betting pool on how many of the promised 1000 “affordable” units? One bet on the number they claim, and another on the actual rent of an “affordable” unit.
Kate
I’ve wondered this often, bob, but haven’t formally studied urban planning. It’s clear that Montreal’s successful neighbourhoods have come about piecemeal over time. How do you replicate that kind of organic development? Can you do it deliberately?
And to respond to your betting pool: a lot will depend on who gets into power over the next couple of years. Nobody else seems to remember it, but there was a point when the city, drunk on neoliberalism, sold off a lot of its properties that could have been used for public housing. That could easily happen again.
MarcG
I wonder what the quality of the water is like, presumably there’s no swimming in the Lachine canal for a reason.
carswell
@MarcG Have read that the problem with the canal water is two-fold: runoff and discharge from industrial operations along the canal and, the bigger concern, overflow from the sewer system. There’s also the issue of all the crap that’s settled on the bottom over the decades, during many of which the canal was a convenient dump.
The water in the Lachine harbour at the west end of the canal is usually clean enough to swim in (the city’s planning to put a beach there). Maybe the flow of water into and out of the basin is sufficient to dilute any nasty stuff in the canal water? Or maybe the pollution sources are finally being tamed?
bob
@Kate – There is no way to replicate organic development. Organic development is contrary to everything that this clot of developers and spseudo- para- semi- governmental institutions do for a living. Ideally, the city would put in the streets and services, declare some area a park, zone the rest, and make sure that no single developer could get more than, say, ten percent of the whole. The people who manage these things are business school idiots. Not enough money in doing anything well or right.
Also – what will end up there will be nothing like these renderings. This is pr. It will be like if Griffintown made a colony.
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Kate
Plaza St-Hubert will be pedestrianized for the first time this summer. This item has a list at the bottom of all the pedestrianized streets and their dates, which vary.
carswell
Great news about the Plaza. Too bad, with all the new trees, it’s short on shade.
Very little for boroughs not east and south of Mount Royal, however. Nothing other than the occasional weekend street fair in CDN-NDG (the city’s largest borough), St-Laurent, Ahuntsic, Lachine, Sud-ouest, LaSalle and I could go on. Typical of Projet, sorry to say.
Kate
I wonder if it’s that their SDCs aren’t on board.
nau
One imagines that is an important factor. Plus the fact that neither LaSalle nor Saint Laurent have any Projet representatives calls into question how seriously one should take that list as proof that it’s Projet that’s the common element.
carswell
That may be part of the issue, Kate, but the city’s relative neglect of (roughly) non-Plateau/Plateau-adjacent boroughs is an ongoing trend. Look at the bike path network, for example. Not only is it far more built up in P/PA boroughs, that’s also where innovations are introduced (REV, year-round BIXI, hell, even BIXI) before slowly being extended to other hoods. And the Plateau gets a REV but cyclists in CDN-NDG and SL don’t get even a feeble attempt at a safe path across the deadly Décarie autoroute/service road corridor. And even if the city comes through and builds the promised Jean Talon West REV in the next decade, that’s one safe crossing between Villa-Maria and the Metropolitan; someone biking on Côte-St-Luc, Queen Mary or Édouard-Montpetit isn’t going to detour all the way up to Jean Talon and back to get across the death trap. Similarly, the De Maisonneuve-Décarie intersection is an unsafe mess, especially for cyclists, a known fact for decades; betting that if it were in the Plateau, it would have been remedied years ago.
Speaking as a resident of CDN, my impression is that, having quashed and booted Sue Montgomery and parachuted in an outsider chosen, one suspects, because she’s photogenic, order-following and not a white male as the new borough mayor, CDN-NDG has returned to being a backwater as far as city hall is concerned. About the only positive municipal initiatives we see and hear about in my neck of the woods are city-wide projects like improvements to the (few) bike paths and the pending introduction of composting for apartment blocks.
For the past few months, I’ve been asking locals — neighbours, friends in NDG, etc. — if they can name the borough mayor. Tellingly, no one has to date. Some didn’t even know she’s a black woman. Obviously, part of that is their apathetic fault but it also says something about the borough administration’s pathetic presence.
Touché, @nau, though as the ruling party, Projet is responsible for the entire city, not just Projet-controlled boroughs. But instead of nitpicking, how about addressing the actual point of possible Plateau/Plateau-adjacent favouritism at city hall?
Kate
A shoe just dropped over here. Hasn’t rue St‑Paul been pedestrianized now for several summers? But it’s not on the list.
Another street that has had a pedestrianized moment in the past is Masson, but it’s not listed either. And yet Rosemont’s a Projet borough.
Not that I’m defending Projet, but it seems to me to pedestrianize a street effectively it has to be both commercial yet narrow enough, and the city doesn’t have suitable streets evenly distributed by borough. It’s why the only part of St‑Denis that gets pedestrianized is south of Sherbrooke. North from there it’s too wide and carries too much traffic, a situation common to many of our commercial streets.
All that said, I agree that CDN-NDG is suffering neglect. I don’t know what kind of political leverage it would take to break that borough in half, but it really needs to be two entities, with the attention and financing it would get if NDG and Côte‑des‑Neiges were separated. But that isn’t going to happen.
Joey
@carswell after the Terrebonne bike lane fiasco, it will be a long time before Project tries to bring major cycling infrastructure to NDG.
carswell
@Joey Last I heard, the Terrebonne path is finally happening. And there are unspecified plans to upgrade the Édouard-Montpetit path from Côte-St-Cathérine to Côté-des-Neiges (expecting the existing lanes will be moved from between the parked cars and the road to between the curb and the parked cars, as has been done west of CDN.
Unfortunately, the plans do not include the obvious, natural and necessary linking up of the E-MP and Fielding paths, because that would mean having to make the Décarie crossing safe for people not wrapped in speeding tons of steel, clearly not a priority for any level of government.
carswell
@Kate When asking friends and neighbours for the CDN-NDG mayor’s name, I also asked several if they felt any connection with the other half of the borough, the part they didn’t live in. None of the respondents did and several wondered why it isn’t two separate boroughs. That’s definitely a development I’d favour but am not holding my breath.
nau
Well, @carswell, if what you were going for in your first post was Plateau and alentours favouritism, I’m disinclined to address it since I suspect that it does exist. You’ll excuse me if I didn’t manage to infer your focus immediately as I live within striking distance of Rue Wellington and so pedestrianization isn’t an issue that screams Plateau-centrism to me.
It does seem fair to note that Projet was first elected in the Plateau and may well still have its most supportive public there (or not, as certain other posters may well take the opportunity to remind us yet again), so it’s not entirely surprising that its initiatives are most advanced there.
I agree that the De Maisonneuve-Décarie intersection is bad for cyclists, but in that case one does have to keep in mind CP’s role in blocking the obvious solution of routing the bike path above Decarie beside the rail bridge.
Ian
Many have said, for years, that it’s just straight-up elitism. The highly educated, mostly white, mostly Francophone wine bar crowd that makes up most of the PM elect doesn’t really care about places like CDN/NDG except insofar as they want ot be in control. That said they didn’t manage to hold Outremont because they were perceived as too elitist, so who knows.
I think pedestrianizing Mont-Royal made perfect sense, and pedestrianizing St-Hubert makes perfect sense, too. Monkland seems like a possible candidate for it in NDG. For bike paths the path along DeMaisonneuve connects all the way from Atwater through Westmount then jogs through Upper Lachine for NDG… no small feat to get Westmount on board. A Decarie path would be nice but that trench was a stupid idea for pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, and even delivery traffic flow. It’s a travesty of bad urban planning that we will have to endure until it is either covered or backfilled. I’m not sure the city is even allowed to change traffic flow around it much, isn’t that provincial jurisdiction as part of the highway system?
dhomas
Could it be that we’re looking at the causality backwards? Maybe it’s not that areas that elect Projet get more bike/pedestrian infrastructure, but areas that are more open to this type of infrastructure are also more likely to vote Projet?
Kate
dhomas, that idea was creeping up on me too.
Chris
>the city’s relative neglect of (roughly) non-Plateau/Plateau-adjacent boroughs is an ongoing trend
Perhaps they have simply gauged that the population outside Plateau are just not as in favour of those things. See for example Terrebonne bike path. They may figure it would cost too much political capital. Perhaps they think better to test these ideas/policies/infrastructures in Plateau first, to show by example that it’s a good idea, then they can expand it elsewhere in time.
Tim S.
I’d love a pedestrianized street in NDG, but I don’t think there are any reasonable candidates. Monkland is too major of an artery, I think, with not many other east-west streets (NDG blocks are very long, plus they re-did Somerland last year and will be doing NDG avenue this year.). We can argue about the role of cars etc, but even people on buses and bikes have to get around somehow. What they are doing though is closing off streets adjacent to small parks to make them bigger, which is something.
Nicholas
I’m really confused. Last year CDN/NDG put in a two-way protected bike lane on Bourret, from almost the Hampstead border, crossing Decarie, to Légaré. Almost immediately local residents and even the mayor of Hampstead were demanding its removal. (I gather Hampsteaders use it as a cut through to get to Cote-Saint-Catherine and the NB entrance to Decarie at Edouard-Montpetit while avoiding Van Horne and Isabella.) A few years ago they put in a lane on Terrebonne, and there were incessant complaints to remove it, which finally happened, and they are only replacing it this year. Last year they also added protected lanes on Walkley, EM, Barclay, Fielding, Plamondon, Lacombe and Goyer, all totalling 11.4 km with Bourret. I’ve noticed some significant changes in the last 5 years or so, though obviously it’s nowhere close to the Plateau. (Also note PM did not have a majority on the borough council for half of its first mandate, due to the Montgomery issue I’m not going to get into.)
Jurisdiction fights really get in the way. Streets are either borough, city or province roads. If a proposed route even crosses another’s roads, you need their approval. Someone at MTQ, likely with soft political oversight, is going to have to approve taking away car space from whichever road you want to put a bike lane on across Decarie, which is probably why they put it on the Bourret pedestrian bridge. The city can do projects on medium-importance roads, but not local borough ones, which is why you see way more lanes on smaller streets in Rosemont than St Laurent. Want to change this, or split CDN-NDG in two (a good idea, imho)? Talk to Quebec, who wrote the new megacity charter. I know there were some great potential corridors specifically blocked by Quebec on one side and certain boroughs on the other.
As for Decarie and de Maisonneuve, having gone through there thousands of times in my life, it is better than ever before. For people going east-west, I really have nothing to complain about, it’s fully protected and allow people to cross before cars can move. For going to and from the hospital it is not great because there’s nowhere to wait safely. However that intersection is not easy to deal with, with tons of buses making multiple turning movements, lots of trucks, emergency access and traffic coming from and to 5 directions with tight turns and grade changes, with a lot of throughput requested and long light cycles. I can think of lots of other similarly unpleasant intersections in PM areas, like St Joseph and D’Iberville, Rosemont and St Denis, anywhere and Sherbrooke. Would it be great if we could reduce motor vehicle by half and fill in the Decarie with a park and lake, sure, but if it took four years to get a protected lane back on Terrebonne, I’m not sure how this is going to happen.
If you made me benevolent overlord, you’d see a lot of changes, but in a democracy the people in charge are responsive to public opinion, even if the public doesn’t have a referendum on an issue. Just like a lot of the bike lanes, pedestrian streets are subject to popular support. If you don’t get the SDCs, or at least a good portion of shopkeepers on board, you are going to hear about it every day until the next election. Monkland would be great as a pedestrian street, but besides parking (which is often store owners who want to park there themselves rather than customers who live nearby) Monkland has a major bus route, the 103, as well as the less important 162. (My former 99-year old neighbour who lives near Mont-Royal Ave said he had to walk much farther to the bus on St Joseph, and also can’t stop in a shop on the way to the Metro, or bus to the grocery store.) You could move the buses onto Terrebonne, but now that will be one-way with the new bike project. Put them on NDG/CSA and that’s a big transit gap to the north. Allow only buses on Monkland and Sherbooke? Great idea, but without a benevolent overlord, get ready to fight, because they’re not there yet.
I won’t go on longer, but lots of correct points already said: projects are easier where support already exists, control is not solely at the municipal level, and, well, lots of Montrealers still like driving, and if you do too much too fast where people don’t want it you’ll hear about it on CJAD, in the Suburban and on TVA, as well as on Facebook and in council meetings. 11 km in one year, well, could be much worse!
Kevin
I know it’s been a few years, but the last time Monkland was closed on a weekday for a street festival ended up with lots of yelling at councillors and the ouster of the head of the SDC.
Doing it again when the closest east-west street has been changed to one way (a move that many people are unaware will be happening) would likely generate more anger.
James
Linking up Edouard-Montpetit with Fielding requires the cooperation of Hampstead which is not too likely to occur. Perhaps the Edouard-Montpetit or Isabella crossings at Décarie could be done with a safer configuration for cyclists to link up with Earnscliffe/Clanranald. The crossing at Bourret (done in 2023 I believe) is a good improvement.
Terrebonne will be a big change for NDG this summer. Making it one way for cars and adding 2 one-way bike paths. Expect a lot of complaints about this in the typical anti-bike sources (The Suburban / The Gazette).
I received two home-made flyers from affected residents that tried to mobilize opposition to the Terrebonne changes (my house is on Terrebonne)..Kevin
James
It’s not a dichotomy. There are people who bike and who walk and who drive cars.bumper carz
@Ian: “…straight-up elitism. The highly educated, mostly white, mostly Francophone wine bar crowd… ”
And the Plateau welcomes bike paths and pedestrian zones.
Ville St-Laurent barely has sidewalks, let alone bike paths or pedestrianized streets. It’s new towers have zero commerce at ground floor.
To blame their lack of ped-zones on Projet… is to not understand why suburban towns got to be independent entities in the first place: they “split off” from central cities in order to allow very car-centered urbanism that doesn’t respect the 5000-year history of place-making. Ville St-Laurent is a car-heaven, and that’s why it doesn’t have any high quality streets to pedestrianize.
Ian
Who siad anything about VSL? Weren’t we talking about CDN/NDG?
bumper carz
The article is about Plaza St-Hubert, and the comments rotate about how unfair it is that West Island areas like VSL and NDG-CDN don’t have any.
Meanwhile, the urbanism of these areas is car-suburbia extremis. Sherbrooke St in NDG was sacrificed as a quality street in order to create a highway that killed the commercial potential. VSL had the same post-war development pattern but started with fewer existing historic buildings, but the result is the same: improverished walkability and a low-quality public realm.
Kate
The old part of Ville St‑Laurent around du Collège metro is pleasant and walkable, but doesn’t offer any commercial street that could be pedestrianized in the same way as the ones on the list. That’s the problem with commercial streets outside the city core – they’re also highways. We simply don’t build streets like Wellington or Mont‑Royal any more.
Ian
All good points, Kate.
@qatzi CDN/NDG is not west island. The west island literally starts at the western border of NDG.DeWolf
I think a lot of people don’t understand that the pedestrianization projects are led by the SDCs. The city offers financial, logistical and political support, but it’s the SDC that decides whether they will happen and for how long – not the mayor’s office.
If NDG or Côte des Neiges want pedestrian streets, it’s up to their local SDCs. But here’s the thing: merchants in both neighbourhoods have historically been extremely resistant to the creation of SDCs in the first place. There’s one that was recently created in CDN, but that’s it. Monkland has a merchant’s association but it’s voluntary and doesn’t benefit from the municipal funding and full-time organizational support an SDC would have. There was a push to create an NDG SDC in 2022 but it was killed due to opposition.
On top of that, as others have noted, which streets would be good candidates for pedestrianization? I can’t think of any. All the commercial streets are too wide to be comfortable pedestrian spaces. The commercial intensity and volume of pedestrian traffic is generally lower than on streets like Wellington, Mont-Royal and St-Hubert, too.
One of the fundamental challenges of CDN/NDG is that as a borough, it’s generally quite car-oriented, even in areas that are relatively dense. This is a problem for pedestrian streets, but also for creating safe bike infrastructure. Even though you actually have more space than in other boroughs because the streets are wider, the car dominance creates strong political opposition. Even as a casual pedestrian or cyclist, you can feel the difference walking around CDN/NDG: drivers are that much more hostile.
@Kate – I’ve heard that St-Paul isn’t included on the list because there’s a plan to pedestrianize a chunk of Old Montreal and those plans will be announced later. Also, Masson has never been pedestrianized aside from the occasional street fair. The SDC has always been extremely resistant.
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Kate
Although trials for Olympic swimming have to move to Toronto following the fire at the stadium facility, another aquatic event, Red Bull Cliff Diving, is coming to the Old Port in August. I don’t know where they will find a cliff in that part of the city.
Blork
I have seen Red Bull cliff diving on television a few times, and it’s always been at spectacular places like the Adriatic coast of Italy. I don’t see how diving off some scaffolding into the cold Saint Larry can possibly compete.
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Kate
Most of Tuesday morning’s news consists of reports about the eclipse. Both the Gazette and La Presse liken the experience to a music festival. Reports and images from CTV, Radio‑Canada and a selection of images, TVA, Global, CBC, NPR. TVA tells about highway chaos. TVA also has suggestions what to do with your eclipse glasses as does Chapleau in La Presse.
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Kate
It’s an established fact that Ali Ngarukiye killed his cellmate in June 2021, but now a jury has to decide whether it was murder or manslaughter, or whether Ngarukiye was not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.
Ngarukiye was found guilty in December of trying to kill policeman Sanjay Vig in January 2021. This Gazette report suggests that Ngarukiye’s sentence for that incident will depend on the verdict of this one.
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Kate
I agree with the comments below that the eclipse was beautiful and otherworldly. There was a quality of light I’d never seen before. I’d expected totality to bring down darkness like a black velvet curtain, but it didn’t.
I wasn’t planning to photograph the sky, because I wanted to experience the event unmediated by technology, and I don’t have the proper equipment anyway. But I was on a rooftop near Jean‑Talon metro station, four storeys up, and as the eclipse descended over the city it was truly magical and I took one shot. This is just a phone photo.
Myles
I was excited for it, bought glasses far in advance and all that, but I was completely unprepared for how spectacular it was to see the sun’s corona at totality. I had always assumed pictures of it were embellished a little in editing!
Ian
The weird desaturated quality was a real surprise for me, too. One of my friends thoguht it looked almost sepia toned, and opined that perhaps we were in a flashback sequence 😀
Mozai
I knew to expect the desaturated look of the city from the partial eclipse in Montreal a few years ago. This is the first time I’ve seen “the black sun” of a total eclipse and it was haunting.
carswell
Still in awe of the experience. Totality is so different from a partial eclipse. The quality and colour of light was unique and the corona — safe to view without glasses during the minute or so of totality — jaw-dropping.
Pressed for time, I’d been planning to go to the promenade in front of the UdeM’s pavillon principal but from my rooftop could see and hear a crowd assembling and a party atmosphere reigning by 15:00, so I stayed put. In the moments before totality, the yelling and applause reached a loud climax and then… stunned silence. A couple of male cardinals launched into their evening song ritual and a dog began barking, but all creatures fell silent during the totality.
Unexpected was seeing the edge of the path of totality — a line sharper and straighter than any caused by clouds — sweep in from the (Montreal) west-northwest and over Mount Royal.
carswell
Also, the veil of clouds ended up not being a disaster: thin enough not to interfere with appreciation of the event, including the corona, but also, from where I was standing, producing a rainbowish halo at a distance of (guessing) 15 or 20 degrees around the darkened sun. Magical.
TC
You took your shot. It caught the moment. Thank you.
azrhey
I was in Magog and it was stunning as everyone else said. We had over 3 minutes so real time to look around and what was the strangest for me ( besides the show in the sun ) was the darkness above but light sky 360 all around the horizon. We are so used to have one part of the sky dark and the other light for sunrises and sunsets have light sky all around and a done of darkness above was really eery!
azrhey
oh yes, and it took us 2h15 to get there from VSL on sunday morning and a total 5h30 to make it back last evening.. the ONE TIME being stuff in traffic was worth it!
kb
We went to the AstroLab on Mont-Megantic. It was such a fun atmosphere – they brought out all their different telescopes so everyone could try them, and so many people came with their own telescope set-ups, and were happy to let people look in those as well.
Not a single cloud, and 3 minutes of totality! And unlike azrhey, there was really no traffic coming back home.
jeather
I was near the rapids in Lachine and it was fantastic. The looks like sunset, the weird wind changes, the really sudden temperature change right at the beginning and end of totality, the diamond ring image, the oddly shaped shadows. Sadly the trees were too bare so I just used a colander for that one.
Neither the ducks nor the geese acted more oddly than ducks or geese ever do.
nau
It really was marvelous. The temperature change was the most unexpected for me and started well before totality. I was surprised to feel not only excitement but immense good fortune to be able to experience the eclipse and in such ideal conditions. The daytime fauna didn’t seem to react much, but it definitely confused the bats, who came out for a couple turns.
Kate
Yes! We also noticed the change of temperature and winds.
Tee Owe
Speaking as one who wasn’t and couldn’t be there, I am deeply envious – thanks for your accounts, treasure your memories – lucky you all!
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Kate
It’s the big day. Here’s some eclipse etiquette from Plateau Astro man Trevor Kjorlien.
Seeing highways moving southeast of the city turning red already on Google Maps.
Blork
I’m seeing clouds in the sky off to the west, and the Environment Canada forecast has changed from “sunny” to “mostly sunny.” Apple weather says “partly cloudy conditions from 3PM-4PM, with mostly cloudy conditions expected at 4PM.” DISASTER AWAITS!
Blork
We really cannot have anything pretty, can we?
Kate
This is what I get just now:
Blork
MarcG
That was absolutely spectacular
Blork
Yay! No more eclipse FOMO!
JP
It was truly beautiful and special.
Daisy
It was so beautiful I almost cried.
Blork
I have to say, it was better than I expected and I didn’t even have glasses.
Ephraim
It was fantastic. It was difficult to take a photo even through the glasses that showed how spectacular the light show was when the moon finally covered the totality of the sun. The corona was wild! But it is equally amazing how strong the sun really is, that even a little sliver of the sun, from behind the moon can light up our daily lives so much.
Kate
Ephraim: exactly! When totality was over, it was surprising how fast it felt like “everything is light again” even though it was just a fingernail sliver of sun peeking through.
MarcG
Here’s a tangentially related presentation on light and human health.
JaneyB
@Kate and @Ephraim – same. Just the tiniest sliver of light was enough to make our world bloom. We earthlings are such solar beings. We know this at some level but to see it is humbling.
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Kate
It was news last year when Ste‑Anne‑de‑Bellevue was to lose its only grocery store, then someone swooped in and reopened it. Now it’s closing again.
Ian
A particular shame because for Sainte Anne that’s the only real grocery store in walking distance.
Chris
It’s Sainte Anne, I doubt many walked. Indeed, owners point to Ile-aux-Tourtes Bridge, suggesting their clients mostly drive.
MarcG
That doesn’t change the fact that the people who *did* walk are now rather fucked. How is food not considered an essential service? Nationalize the grocery industry.
Chris
Are you arguing that it should be a *right* to have food stores within walking distance? Seems a bit extreme to me. How would that work in rural areas? Seems to me there comes a point where certain places are just not dense enough to support that, like say a cottage on a lake. It’s a spectrum, and it seems Saint Anne has just fallen off that spectrum.
Kate
I suspect the store may have been undermined by delivery services. I haven’t seen any articles studying the trend, but the guys who run the local fruiterie tell me that, since the pandemic, their sales are down because more people have acquired the habit of getting groceries delivered. And this is in a fairly dense central residential area with no major grocery store for blocks in any direction, a spot that was profitable for several years before Covid, not a marginal suburb.
Josh
I tend to agree with Chris. In many parts of Quebec and Canada this is simply not a realistic idea.
dwgs
No, of course it’s not a right to have a grocery store within walking distance. However, if one chooses a place to live based partly on the ability to find the necessities of life within walking distance and then one of those places goes out of business that is unfortunate. It makes that neighbourhood less desirable to some.
Ian
@Chris
So let me get this straight, you don’t think people in West Island towns should have cars, but also don’t think they should be able to get groceries in walking distance. That’s some real galaxy-level urban planning there.As I’ve mentioned before, even Baie d’Urfé has a higher population density than Sherbrooke. The West Island isn’t a “marginal suburb”, and Sainte Anne really is a walkable town for many people that live there.
Sure, lots of clients came from off-island to this grocery store but there are lots of older folks that don’t drive in Ste Anne and lots of students that don’t have cars. This isn’t in the middle of nowhere, it’s right downtown across from the library. Literally the only other place to get anything remotely resembling groceries in Ste Anne is the Couche-Tard.
Kate
OK, marginal suburb is a little unfair. But presumably that store is in a location where profits are marginal, or else it would be worth keeping it open.
Ian
It does make you wonder, as there are several large grocery stores in île-perrot, just over the bridge.
Philip
I just find it regrettable because when I lived in Ste-Anne, the store felt important. Or at least that the quality of life would not have been as great had it not been for the store. It was centrally located to the whole village and easily walkable from anywhere. Great operating hours. It was a blessing to be able to just walk over to the store to grab nearly everything I needed, whenever I needed it – I was probably there 2 or 3 or 4 times a week.
I’m a bit nostalgic, but living there was great. I was a student and while a lot of my friends lived downtown, I chose to live there. It wasn’t a particularly easy choice, because I loved living downtown and having everything in walking distance. I did not want to live in a suburb where everything would require driving and parking. I was happy to find that living in the village had everything I needed only a few steps away.
I also am a bit curious about what the books looked like. Grocery margins are notoriously slim, but are they that slim that a store like this can’t exist (or can’t exist anymore in 2024)? Is it that they can’t compete with the big chains at the autoroute exits east and west of there? Is the commercial rent prohibitive? Is it a labor thing?
In any case, the family who stepped in and tried to save it a few years ago should be applauded for trying to make it work. It’s a big loss to the town and that more than one iteration has failed makes the outlook bleak.
Chris
Come now Ian, I didn’t say any of that. I asked MarcG to elaborate on his comment, and didn’t even give my own opinion (beyond saying I thought his extreme). Don’t put words in my mouth, please. I would love for Saint Anne to keep this store (and have others), but that doesn’t mean I support nationalizing it, let alone the whole industry.
Ian
I didn’t mention nationalization, don’t put words in my mouth.
You DID say this :
“Seems to me there comes a point where certain places are just not dense enough to support that, like say a cottage on a lake. It’s a spectrum, and it seems Saint Anne has just fallen off that spectrum.”
You are literally handwaving the closing of the only grocery store in Ste Anne, as you don’t think west island boroughs matter. Not very civic-minded of you.
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Kate
A young woman was killed last summer in St‑Michel when a truck driver, ignoring a stop sign on a street where trucks aren’t permitted, knocked her down. The driver isn’t being charged, although the reasoning is not being given out.
Robert H
“…la victime se trouvait dans l’angle mort du camion et que celle-ci ne « regardait pas du côté d’où venait le camion avant de traverser ». En effet, au moment de l’impact, la jeune femme faisait dos au camion et était engagée d’un mètre sur le passage piéton.”
So it’s Dilan Kaya’s fault that she didn’t make a left-backward glance before crossing the street? That she was careless enough to not anticipate her path would intersect with the blind spot of a driver at the wheel of a vehicle that was prohibited by law from being in that area?
Is no one responsible? Is there no penalty to the truck driver for simply operating a prohibited vehicle on that street in that district? Is the DPCP’s decision final with no follow-up? And why is the reasoning kept private? Will there be no initiative, as has already happened in the U.S., to require the installation on large trucks of lateral protective devices, cameras, and sonic warnings?
I don’t understand this, and the missing information is infuriating. Someone here said it before, but I think it bears repeating that if you want to kill someone with impunity, the best way to do it is with a motor vehicle. I’m succumbing to cheap cynicism, but events like this make it seem like there’s no justice, and I already feel vulnerable enough on foot or on two wheels.
I’m afraid Dilan Kaya’s young life has become the latest sacrifice to universal indifference.
Tim S.
Agreed, Robert H.
Ian
Is it just me or does it seem like most of these kinds of accidents are big trucks and/or “working” vehicles?
There seems to be some actual impunity where they are involved, I suspect in part because the cops are loathe to impose moving or parking violations on them.
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