Public health says that, in Montreal, girls are vaping more than boys, and drinking and using drugs more too.
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Kate
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Kate
More pothole news: a woman fractured her ankle in a pothole in Chinatown recently. Everyone needs to look out as they cross streets – I went for a walk in my neighbourhood Thursday and so many corners had big holes just where a pedestrian tends to cross.
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Kate
Allison Hanes asks whether the Fréchette version of the CAQ will treat Montreal better than the Papa Legault version. Answer is not clear, and may not matter given the little time Fréchette has to act.
Apropos, La Presse runs a CP piece on the unfortunate decision to return Chantal Rouleau to the role of social solidarity and community action minister, as her actions (or lack of them) in that role so far have led to an actual strike by community groups.
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Kate
The Olympia on Ste-Catherine East is marking its centenary, having come close to being razed for condos in 2005.
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Kate
The SAQ is keen to keep profits up while booze consumption declines. Patriotic Québécois should be knocking them back.
Kevin
We need to write a song called Unrealized Consequences of an Aging Population
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Kate
The new premier has announced $700M for the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital, which has been in need of renovations for years.
Nicholas
Of course the only thing they had actually funded before this was parking. Though it is interesting that more than half this money is to buy nearby property.
On a tangential health note, it is really neat at the CHUM where you scan your health card at any kiosk and it finds your appointment, confirms info, reminds you which floor to go to and where, and then when they’re ready for you a board tells you which room to go to, like at the SAAQ. No hospital card needed. Still there are a ton of volunteers guiding people, but it really helps, and I hope HMR does the same thing, plus all the hospitals.
Joey
IIRC the argument was that it made the most sense to renovate the parking garage first, from a construction sequence perspective. Still very positive to see this investment from the Frechette government. Though the CAQ has seen a slight uptick in the polls, the odds are stacked against them for this fall. Frechette will have to choose from three options, IMO:
1. Try to win the election – be smart, calculating, and force PSSP and Milliard to make mistakes.
2. Try to unite the CAQ/solidify your position and focus on whatever election will follow this October’s
3. Try to do as much as you can between now and October – really mid-June, given the National Assembly calendar – to leave your mark on Quebec (classic example: Kim Campbell’s major public service restructure during her few months as PM).If I were her I’d do more of this – unblock major, delayed long-term projects, like a transit plan for the east end.
Nicholas
One of the first supporters of Fréchette to run just left the CAQ to sit as an independent because she appointed Drainville and some of his top supporters to her cabinet. This guy thinks they’re bad, she’s trying to keep the team united, and the fractures that Legault papered over are showing.
Kate
Gilles Bélanger. He had reason to expect a role in the cabinet so he flounced out.
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Kate
CBC reports on frankly gross conditions at subsidized housing in NDG.
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Kate
A celebration of Israel’s independence day drew a crowd downtown Wednesday, as well as a counter‑protest.
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Kate
Thursday morning there’s a fire in a metal recycling yard in the east end, producing a lot of smoke. Photos from TVA.
Midday, it’s reported that the city has revoked the permit of the firm, but that this is a coincidence and it was going to do that anyway. Public health issued a recommendation for people with respiratory weaknesses to stay indoors.
jaddle
I didn’t see any smoke from downtown/Westmount, but there was a nasty plastic-burning smell now and then. I thought my bike might have been on fire for a moment. 🙂
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Kate
A new dépanneur has opened in the Milton-Park area, but police want to block its alcohol permit because of the homeless who hang around around the intersection.
bob
Oh what bullshit. There’s a 24 hour dep literally around the corner. Who isn’t getting paid?
Ian
There’s a LOT of deps right around there. It does sound like somebody forgot to pay somebody off for sure.
“Several other alcohol outlets are located within minutes — even seconds — of Marché Shanaj.
(…)
At the Couche-Tard convenience store on the corner of Sherbrooke Street and Park Avenue, staff confirmed they do not sell alcohol to people who appear intoxicated.At the Metro grocery store in Galeries du Parc, the owner said security guards screen individuals as they enter.”
There’s also an SAQ in Galeries du Parc and yeah, a whole pile of deps within a 5 minute walk of that corner.
Regardless, blaming a depanneur for contributing to the problem of homelessness instead of oh, I don’t know, actually using that grotesquely inflated cop budget to improve community policing in a stressed area is pretty damn rich.
it would be more effective to put money and effort towards addressing social and economic problems such as drug addiction, homelessness and mental health than strengthening law enforcement. This is just one more example underlining that the police are not up to the task.
Joey
Big banana republic vibes to this story. Cops acting as if they can determine that it’s OK for these stores to sell certain products but not those (I suspect Ian’s hypothesis is correct), a store-owner selling beer and wine without a valid permit, business owners freely admitting that they illegally refuse entry to all homeless people.
Kate
I think a lot of them do refuse entry. Couple of years back I was waiting for the light at the corner of Park and Sherbrooke when an Indigenous man sitting there, leaning up against the wall at the corner, asked me for a handout. I talked with him for a moment, and he told me that what would really help, instead of just giving him money, is if I would buy him a sandwich and some juice in the Couche‑Tard across the street, because he was not allowed in there himself.
He seemed to take it as normal that he could not enter a business premises and needed to ask a white person to do it for him.
So I got him a sandwich and juice. I didn’t query him about how many establishments kept him and his confrères out, but I bet it’s most of them that area.
Ian
You’re not wrong. I’ve been asked to do dep runs before in that stretch, and not for beer.
We know the Metro illegally bars people they perceive as homeless, I wonder if the Provigo at Sherbrooke and Parc does, too. It’s kind of shocking that they can so brazenly flout the law considering it basically means homeless people have problems buying food.
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Kate
The mayor and the new premier seem to be getting along so far.
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Kate
The CAQ objected to a redrawn riding map, under which Montreal island loses a provincial riding in the east end, but the Supreme Court has ruled that the map will stay in force and be in effect during the upcoming Quebec election.
H. John
“and be in effect during the upcoming Quebec election” would not be my guess.
The government still has other options, as the Superior Court pointed out in its original decision. We should see new legislation introduced by the CAQ government this week to protect the two ridings in the Gaspé.
Kate
How deeply implanted are the rules about riding size, H. John?
bob
All the rules around electoral district boundaries are suggestions. We don’t have southern US level gerrymandering, but we do have subtle shifts in boundaries after the same purpose. The rule of one person one vote does not apply in Quebec, nor in Canada.
H. John
@Kate asked “How deeply implanted are the rules about riding size”?
It’s a very general rule which Elections Quebec tries to apply.
But this case is not about Elections Quebec or an Elections Commission doing their assigned job. This case is about the LVI (Loi visant l’interruption du processus de délimitation des circonscriptions électorales (« LVI »)) passed by the National Assembly to override the proposed new map from Elections Quebec.
The Superior Court wrote in its decision in this case:
50. … La représentation effective implique que d’autres facteurs que l’équivalence mathématique soient pris en considération lors de la délimitation des circonscriptions électorales. En particulier, la représentation effective exige la prise en compte des communautés naturelles et des facteurs qui influencent la capacité d’un élu à remplir ses rôles de législateur, de médiateur et d’agent de développement. Cela tient compte d’un certain nombre de facteurs, comme la taille de la circonscription. Les circonscriptions qui s’étendent sur de vastes territoires limitent la capacité des électeurs à accéder à leur député.
52 À cet égard, dans le Renvoi de la Saskatchewan, la juge McLachlin, s’exprime pour la majorité de cinq juges comme suit :
[L]a représentation effective et la bonne administration dans ce pays obligent ceux qui sont chargés de fixer les limites des circonscriptions électorales à tenir parfois compte d’autres facteurs que la parité du nombre des électeurs, tels les conditions géographiques et les intérêts de la collectivité.
We already have a riding that’s completely outside the norm:
145. Notamment, bien que l’option de simplement protéger les circonscriptions de la Gaspésie de la même manière que la Loi électorale protège les Îles-de-la-Madeleine et de laisser la Commission rééquilibrer le reste des circonscriptions semble possible, rien ne démontre que cette approche aurait reçu l’appui unanime de l’Assemblée nationale.
I keep mentioning CAQ is only concerned about protecting the riding in the Gaspé and even the Court of Appeal was clear on that:
63. Même si le texte de la LVI ainsi que les notes explicatives sont muets à ce sujet, la preuve administrée permet de comprendre que le premier objectif poursuivi par la LVI vise à éviter la suppression d’une circonscription en Gaspésie[85]. En effet, il est évident que ce n’est pas à cause de la perte d’une circonscription à Montréal, laquelle n’est mentionnée qu’au passage, que le législateur choisit d’intervenir. D’ailleurs, c’est la réalité de la Gaspésie ainsi qu’en général celle des circonscriptions en région qui est ciblée dans le mémoire et la plaidoirie de l’intimé.
We’ll have a better idea of “How deeply implanted are the rules about riding size” once the Supreme Court releases its written reasons. The decision, in favour of the applicants, was read from the bench with reasons to follow
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Kate
An El Niño system developing in the Pacific may bring what CTV calls dramatic weather to southern Quebec by June.
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Kate
A woman in her seventies was killed by a street sweeper in Boucherville on Tuesday morning.
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Kate
CBC’s Benjamin Shingler shows us a selection of Gabor Szilasi photos.
maggie rose 06:49 on 2026-04-24 Permalink
Vaping is addictive when it contains nicotine. Not all vape pens or liquid refills contain nicotine. Buyers have to request it. I know because I quit a 50 year stubborn smoking habit with vaping, luckily just before Quebec make it extremely difficult to obtain reliable vape products (except in person at shops, and not all are equal in quality). After the first time I used it, I never smoked another cigarette. I slowly reduced the amount of nicotine, took a few months but worked. BTW, vape liquid with no flavour (even nicotine) tastes horrible, which is why they add them. Most are disgusting, I found one called Earl Grey that was innocuous & masked the other taste. I can see why teens are drawn to the child-like flavours marketed to them. I think it verges on abuse by designers and sellers. Adults trying to quit smoking don’t vape for the bubble-gum & strawberry flavours (yuck).
Anyway, isn’t it very sad that girls are self-medicating more than boys, and there is not the mental health support for them? Lets hope this Public Health announcement will afford that help to them fast.