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  • Kate 10:57 on 2026-06-05 Permalink  

    Early Friday, a building CTV describes as “a synagogue in Westmount on the Island of Montreal” and TVA as “un lieu de culte” (religion not specified) was the site of an attempted arson. CTV’s photo shows a broken back window and smoke damage to the outer wall.

    CTV’s description of the building as being on Sherbrooke near Wood, in Westmount, makes it clear this was the Temple Emanu‑El‑Beth Sholom. The Gazette does name it in their report, and interviews the rabbi.

    Meantime, Projet Montreal plans to present a motion to city council condemning Israel for its genocide in Gaza. No matter what the rabbi says about not importing foreign conflicts here, it’s already happened.

     

    • Kate 10:37 on 2026-06-05 Permalink | Reply  

      La Presse doesn’t usually get clickbaity like this, but they’re headlining three homicides within 36 hours and emphasizing that one was in a park near a kids’ playground (at 10:30 pm mind you – not many kids out), asking should we worry – then backing off saying the answer is “nuancée”.

      The journalists then go on to say that the Walmart stabbing and a shooting in a Villeray park happened in the same neighbourhood, which simply isn’t true. If anything, they should make a point of the park being right next door to a hospital, but I haven’t seen that mentioned anywhere.

       

      • Nicholas 12:41 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

        Is that what the story says? The quote is: “D’abord, quatre jeunes de 15 ans ont été arrêtés et trois ont été accusés en lien avec le meurtre d’un homme de 22 ans dans un Walmart de Montréal-Nord, mardi après-midi. Puis, mercredi soir, un jeune homme de 22 ans affilié à un gang de rue du quartier Villeray a été tué par balle au parc de Turin, dans le même quartier.” It seems to be that “dans le même quartier” is comparing the neighbourhood of the park to the neighbourhood of the street gang, both mentioned in the same sentence, though I agree you could interpret it as referring to the neighbourhood of the previous sentence.

      • Kate 13:11 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

        You are right.

    • Kate 10:08 on 2026-06-05 Permalink | Reply  

      weekend notesWeekend notes from Le Devoir, CityCrunch, Journal de Montréal, CultMTL.

      Roadblocks of the moment.

       

      • Kate 09:40 on 2026-06-05 Permalink | Reply  

        La Presse talks to the two women who were shot at the École privée nightclub a month ago about their experiences.

         

        • Kate 09:32 on 2026-06-05 Permalink | Reply  

          A map posted by the STM showing various bus stops finds a stop at Beeshop between Guy and Drummond. The slip is being blamed on AI, but it could just as easily have been human error, or an internal joke that slipped into print.

           

          • Nicholas 12:46 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

            I actually sent the STM an email about that map the other day. I counted nine errors. Also I agree with you about how it probably happened; AI tends to create weirder problems.

        • Kate 09:28 on 2026-06-05 Permalink | Reply  

          Loïc Cordelle, CEO of Pulsar, which operates the REM, has been dismissed. Pulsar isn’t directly cited as saying it’s because of all the interruptions and slowdowns on the system, but the article certainly says so.

           

          • Kate 19:48 on 2026-06-04 Permalink | Reply  

            A man who produced and sold fake parking stickers has been sentenced to probation and community service, but no jail and no criminal record.

             

            • Ephraim 09:50 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              And now. the new for a new security system. May I suggest a validating QR code that ties back to the database to issue tickets that prevents the agent from issuing a ticket based on GPS data. So if the QR code is fake, the printer will still issue tickets, but if it’s real, it just validates and says “NEXT”

            • Joey 10:26 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              Not sure I understand but the issue is that the ticketing agents can’t be expected to verify that every sticker is legit – there’s just far too many. No word about any kind of consequences for the buyers of these stickers, which feels like a huge failure for the cops.

            • Nicholas 12:53 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              The buyers absolutely should get it trouble too, as Joey says.

              I bet there are a few ways you could do validation. A QR code, if large enough, could be scanned by a parking inspector vehicle without having to stop, just as it can scan for parking spots with vehicles that the system says hasn’t paid. But it’d have to be pretty large I’d think, or you’d have to get out in person. Another option is an RFID, but though it’s low power, it’s not no power, so you’d have to get out of the car and apply the reader to it within a centimetre, the same way OPUS cards can be read without the card itself having power, but inducing it from the reader. Maybe there’s some way to make it work without getting out of the car, but I fully agree it should be validated before printing a ticket.

          • Kate 19:39 on 2026-06-04 Permalink | Reply  

            Quebec had proposed a law giving it direct control over housing co‑ops, but has let it drop, preferring to focus on a law to bar 27,000 students from vocational training in English.

             

            • Ephraim 09:51 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              Yup, because 27000 people a year not getting a new job seems like a priority. The voc ed system also has French courses that they need to pass for proficiency in their new vocation…. because everyone needs to know that it’s a UCT instead of a CPU.

          • Kate 19:36 on 2026-06-04 Permalink | Reply  

            Robins des ruelles have struck again, but this brief report doesn’t say what value of goods they made off with from Metro Bigras in the Plateau.

             

            • Nicholas 13:00 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              That is a very small store, barely smaller than larger fruiteries. 50 people would be a lot! There is only one Metro Bigras, so the franchisee isn’t spreading the losses around. When I’ve been in there there were just three or four employees. I wouldn’t be surprised if this theft cost them a week’s worth of profits.

          • Kate 17:42 on 2026-06-04 Permalink | Reply  

             

            • Zi Rui 17:48 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              wait this is awesome

            • MarcG 18:08 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              haha love it. now can you do this one? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

            • GC 20:36 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Works for me!

            • Ephraim 09:52 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              Can we make the arms sway in the wind?

            • Taylor C. Noakes 11:39 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              I’d pay good money for this.

          • Kate 16:15 on 2026-06-04 Permalink | Reply  

            Two tenants of a building in either Ville‑Marie or Hochelaga‑Maisonneuve have received $160,000 after it was shown that they were evicted on false pretenses.

             

            • Nicholas 18:38 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              It’s Ville-Marie; de Maisonneuve doesn’t continue through to Hochelaga. The details from the group helping them sue the landlord are here. The new landlords, Gabriel Fortin and Jacob Frappier, decided to merge two units on each of the two upper floors, so they could kick everyone out. But the reno was very small, $14,000, and would keep a kitchen in each side. The tenants complained to the TAL, who said they doubted the landlord, who contradicted himself, but said there wasn’t enough proof. The landlord put a door between the two halves but put a lock on it and when a friend asked once it went back on the market the new tenant said it was always locked, meaning they were kept as separate units. At the TAL again the landlord said oh while it seems they’re separate they’re actually joined, the two half tenants sign a joint lease. So the judge said let’s take a look, in three days. The day of the visit the landlord went in and removed the lock before the judge and other parties arrived to trick them. Later a current tenant spilled the beans. The landlord finally realized the game was over, and admitted it was all true, and so the judge found the landlord lied and tried to trick the court while acting illegally, and lifted the corporate veil so that the people are personally jointly liable.

              The group claims they found similar fake merges to renovict in Rosemont, though no word if there are lawsuits.

          • Kate 16:11 on 2026-06-04 Permalink | Reply  

            Quebec labour minister Jean Boulet was beheaded in effigy during a May Day demonstration downtown, and the cops want to identify the perpetrators.

            Mock executions have been a thing lately, with investigations as well into pretend hangings of Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Donald Trump during a protest last month.

             

            • Nicholas 17:32 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Why do the cops care about this? What law did these people break? I can’t imagine how any interpretation of the criminal code or human rights law could be applied to these facts and result in a Charter-proof conviction. Is it possible they just want to harass these people for their constitutionally protected speech, maybe retaliate against them to get them fired from their jobs? Dear cops: get back to solving the few murders still unsolved.

            • jeather 17:43 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              A house near a friend always has a (generic) body hanging in effigy before Halloween and despite multiple complaints, it is legal.

            • Chris 18:19 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              >What law did these people break?

              I believe death threats are a crime. One could interpret these that way.

            • Nicholas 19:35 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Chris, beheading a puppet is not a death threat. It is longstanding political speech to make effigies of people you disagree with politically and burn or behead them; a quick google finds cases back to the 14th century burning an effigy of the Pope. To be a crime in Canada it has to be meant seriously as a threat to intend to harm or kill someone. Is it ambiguous whether these people seriously intended to kill the minister? Was this just bluster and political theatre? Reasonable doubt. That it’s unclear if these people said any words, rather than just beheading a puppet, further muddies the waters as to whether a threat was uttered; non-verbal actions are often more ambiguous. Did the people intend to intimidate the minister, or did they just disagree with him? Whether the minister felt intimidated or he took the threat seriously has no effect, legally speaking.

              The most recent Supreme Court case on uttering threats is when a guy called his ex-girlfriend from jail and repeatedly said if she went through with her planned abortion of their child he would kill her. She testified that he always talked like that and it wasn’t serious. He was acquitted. So long as these guys here can claim they were just making political bluster, that this was just a crude expression of their political ideals, and that they had no intent of seriously harming anyone, they just wanted to harm the political ideals of the government, there’s no way they can get a conviction because the crown needs to show they knowingly intended to go through with this or intimidate.

              But if you want further proof this is a sham, here is the chief inspector at the SPVM describing this situation: “It’s not black or white, but definitely one thing is for sure, using a simulation of a public execution is not a good way of doing things, and the Montreal police will have an eye on that, and we will warn the protest organizers that they should not be using that type of means to express themselves, and if they do, they are walking on a fence, and they can quickly fall on the side of becoming a criminal offence.”

              It’s not black or white? Reasonable doubt. Not a good way of doing things? Not how cops usually describe crimes. Warn protestors they should not do this because they are walking on a fence? Come on, he knows this is bogus! This isn’t a serious murder plot, it’s a bunch of dummies trying to act edgy to impress their friends at a freaking May Day celebration: look at me, I burned an effigy of someone 99% of the population can’t recognize, and then I’ll go home to my parents’ basement. The minister or the premier or someone high up in the chain feels the sads for being mocked and instead of sucking it up like the powerful person they are, they want the police to waste time making a show of these people so they can scare them or maybe even use the power of the state to retaliate against them. Everyone involved here should grow up.

            • Chris 20:38 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Nicholas, no need to argue it to me (I wasn’t taking any position), argue it against the other side’s lawyers. 🙂

            • Tim S. 21:58 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              I look at it this way: in a democracy, everyone should be able to participate without fear – and participation means voting and protesting but also running for and serving in office. Criticism of actions and policy positions, sure, but not threats of personal violence. If it was me, or someone in my family, who was caricatured on a beheaded puppet, then yes, that would make me much less likely to participate or continue in elected positions. And fewer people being willing to participate in democracy, I think, would be bad for everyone.

              So yeah, I’m ok with the police investigating this. Should it be a criminal offence? A bylaw violation? I dunno, but the act is not OK.

              And Nicholas, has your research told you what happened to those 14thC people who executed effigies? Because medieval governments – ones that lasted – were not particularly tolerant of public disorder and threats to governments (of course, it also matters which pope, the 14thC being the time of the Schism).

          • Kate 09:09 on 2026-06-04 Permalink | Reply  

            A young man was shot dead Wednesday night in Turin Park in Villeray. The tenth homicide of the year, one day after the ninth.

            Four teenagers have been arrested in the fatal stabbing in the Montreal North Walmart on Tuesday. There was also a fatal shooting in Laval Thursday morning.

            (Has anyone ever plotted homicides and other violent attacks on a graph vis‑à‑vis temperature? My impression after years of doing this blog, and the incident map, is that hot weather gets people riled up. Or is it just that folks are out and about more, carrying knives and guns, and things happen?)

             

            • Nicholas 19:49 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Studies have found this correlation all over the place. The possible direct causes are unclear, posited as the heat–aggression hypothesis, where it being hot makes people more irritable and violent, the routine activity theory, where people are out and about more, and the economic theory of rational criminal behavior, where people do fewer property crimes when daylight is longer.

          • Kate 19:08 on 2026-06-03 Permalink | Reply  

            The Mount Royal cross is to go dark starting later this summer for extensive repairs.

             

            • jeather 07:17 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Ah good, lots of provincial money for the giant, secular cross to be repaired, representing a secular vow to the secular Virgin Mary.

            • Kate 09:24 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Not sure what I think about this. Like most Montrealers, I’m accustomed to seeing the cross there, but if taken down, should something replace it, and if so, what?

              Here’s a suggestion: one of the elements of the Expo 67 logo. It was meant to express human solidarity, after all.

            • jeather 09:37 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              It’s not that I necessarily want it to be removed in a vacuum but in the current political climate it’s just more hypocrisy.

            • Ephraim 10:36 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Time to put up the M and the L amd make it MtL

            • Joey 10:52 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Unlike a lot of the ‘leftover’ Catholic symbols that populate this city (e.g., schools named after parishes), the cross on the mountain is IMO actually a legitimate part of the city’s heritage.

            • jeather 11:04 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Right, if the government weren’t playing stupid games about no visible religion anywhere, the cross wouldn’t actually bother me. But they are, so it does, especially when they are paying for repairs (which also wouldn’t bother me).

            • MarcG 11:18 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              I was going to suggest throwing some rainbow bulbs on it and calling it a day, but I can’t help thinking about all the victims of the Catholic church having to view that symbol all the time.

            • Taylor C. Noakes 11:21 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              I’m working on something about Drapeau and discovered his plan from 1986 to build a 100-storey broadcast/observation tower atop Mnt Royal, in the shape of a cross.

              It’s literally what led to the creation of Les Amis de la Montagne

              Apparently it wasn’t some off the cuff idea, Drapeau was talking to SNC and a bunch of architects. Was supposed to be the city’s 350th anniversary ‘gift’. Completely self-financing!

              We dodged a bullet.

              That said, I’d advocate for repalcing the cross with the Expo twin rune logo, same height/consistent dimensions. The cross could be moved either to the cemetery or the grounds of the oratory. No harm no foul.

            • Kate 13:07 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              Let us know when that piece is done and posted, TCN. I want to read it.

              I remember hearing that the tower was supposed to include a restaurant as well. It may have been the requirement to raze a lot of the park for parking that got Les Amis going. (If Drapeau was planning a resto on a tower, I bet it was a rotating one.)

              Drapeau also wanted to persuade the French to dismantle the Eiffel Tower so he could borrow it for Expo 67. The man had a thing for towers.

            • GC 13:47 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              I’m pretty much with jeather on this. I’m fond of the cross, in isolation, but keeping it while making “secular” laws to dump on ever other religion smacks of hypocrisy. (Like the cross in the AssNat..which I believe was eventually removed?)

            • Kate 14:20 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              GC: yes, the AssNat cross was taken down in 2019, but is apparently still on display somewhere in the building, in a case, as an historical artifact, as it’s obviously “cultural”.

            • Nicholas 19:56 on 2026-06-04 Permalink

              There are lots of things that are part of our heritage. It doesn’t mean we should keep them all. We all know why it was put up, and by whom. It’s not a holy site, of which we have many. If it fell down would we rebuild it as a cross or just a tower? Or maybe we’d take out the concrete base and let trees grow over the space. Us continuing to spend public money on this is a choice, even without the hypocrisy.

            • Taylor C. Noakes 11:43 on 2026-06-05 Permalink

              @Kate will do – it’s supposed to be in the 100th issue of Maisonneuve this summer. I’m also writing about Corridart for Canada’s History.

              And yes I do believe there was a rotating restaurant and a discotheque planned as well.

              I mention the Eiffel Tower/ Tour Paris-Montreal plan in an upcoming column for Cult.

              I find it interesting that, for all of Drapeau’s Montreal boosterism, he couldn’t help himself from entertaining schemes that would rob Montrealers of everything Mount Royal is. The tower was but one of his various efforts to ‘make use’ of the mountain, and that’s after the morality cuts.

          • Kate 19:05 on 2026-06-03 Permalink | Reply  

            A third man has been convicted in the murder of Andrei Petuhov in the parking lot of the Orange Julep, three years ago. Video shows Nedjem Eddine Khirat kicking the man when he was already down.

            Khirat will be sentenced later.

            It was over a matter of road rage.

             

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