On Friday, a demonstration was held against the American force ICE at Garda World in St‑Laurent, and was crushed mercilessly by our police. This action has been condemned by Amnesty International as a violation of the right to protest.
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Kate
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Kate
The city has launched an initiative called in English the Mobile Tactical Intervention Group as promised during the election campaign (second link from last September) to tackle homelessness.
On CBC radio at noon, executive committee chairman Claude Pinard, also on this spiffy intervention group committee, said they expected to clear up homelessness in three years.
The intervention committee is to meet every three weeks.
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Kate
According to Tourisme Montreal, nearly 12 million tourists visited the city in 2025, 7.3% more than 2024. A slight drop in Americans was more than made up for by an increase in visitors from elsewhere in Canada.
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Kate
This editorial by Brian Myles does the best job I’ve seen of assessing the long‑awaited report from the Gallant commission on what went so wrong with SAAQclic.
It seems to still be unclear who knew what when – how long Karl Malenfant was able to truly keep the premier, his finance minister and his transport minister in the dark, and how much Legault knew and chose to keep from the public till it was impossible to keep under wraps any longer. Legault continues to hold that his government did not know.
Some of this is bound to end up in court.
Tuesday, the Gazette’s Allison Hanes writes a column taking the report to exonerate the elected officials, but that ignores the looming fact that the politicians washed their hands for far too long of the need to keep an eye on a project of that size. Claiming that they were lied to for that long and that completely doesn’t hold up well as a testament to their intelligence or sense of responsibility for public funds.
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Kate
The issue whether Quebec’s government can hold back redistribution of Quebec’s electoral map will be heard by the Supreme Court. Montreal is to lose one riding, in the eastern tip of the island, where two ridings were to be blended into one – unless the changes can be rolled back.
(Thanks to H. John for letting me know the Supreme Court had decided to hear the case.)
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Kate
Two troubled brothers in Montreal North were given a light sentence of house arrest this week, closing the bizarre case of the men who lived with the cadaver of the Inuk girlfriend of one of them in their apartment for months (second link is from 2023).
I’m assuming in cases like this that a social worker will be sent to check in on these men, but who knows whether there’s the resources.
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Kate
Both these brief items say Google Maps is sending drivers to the wrong place if they ask for Trudeau airport – but not where they end up. Bain Colonial, maybe?
CE
When driving on the 20 to the airport, the highway signs switch back and forth when they indicate Trudeau or Mirabel airports. I wonder how many people have just looked for the airplane symbol and have turned off toward Mirabel and missed their flights at Trudeau.
Joey
TVA says they wind up at the fire service office at the airport… Uber also loves to send drivers down snow-filled and ice-covered back alleys to avoid spending 15 seconds waiting for a red light to change, especially when the alley is actually closed at the supposed exit point… to think cabbies used to have to know where everything was.
MarcG
Interesting to reflect back and see how GPS driving directions were early AI destroyers of knowledge.
Ian
Yes and no, using Waze has shown me some really good routes I would never have considered. It’s also really handy if there’s been an accident or roadwork up ahead that you can detour to avoid. FWIW Waze did get bought out by Googel but maintained its live user input so is a lot more accurate.
MarcG
Thinking about the increasingly frequent phenomenon of making conversation with someone who has an interest in a subject and you want to hear what they have to say about it… and they suggest that you just look it up on the internet. A literally dehumanizing enterprise. (Or maybe people are just fucking exhausted).
On the other side of the map-apps-are-useful ledger, I have to fight with them to not send me over the tracks in St-Henri because as far as I can tell they don’t consider the train schedules and I could end up rotting there for 20 minutes, and the other day there was a backup on the 20 and it directed a bunch of us to an offramp, only to send us right back on again after properly clogging up the local overpass, presumably in order to shave a few seconds off the total trip time.
Kate
No app completely compensates for knowledge of the situation on the ground.
Joey
@Kate no, but these algorithms are supposed to learn, right? Like you’d expect that after the Nth driver did not complete the route because the alley is closed at one end, the algorithm would adjust and conclude that the route is never going to work. Same for railway crossings – a true learning machine should be able to anticipate the likelihood that a train is coming. I wish these apps would allow you to designate a preferred route for regular trips and only suggest alternatives if the ETA is more than, say, 5% shorter.
MarcG
Not only do they not learn on their own but it can be frustratingly difficult to get changes made manually. When visiting Parc national du Lac-Témiscouata a few years ago, Google maps told me that the drive to a trailhead would be 20 minutes or so – it turns out the map had detected a bushwacking trail which wasn’t actually a road and it ended up taking way, way longer, especially because I trusted the directions and wasted a bunch of time circling around trying to find it. I told the park staff and they said they’re aware of the problem and have repeatedly asked Google to fix it. I just looked now and they’ve fixed *that* problem, but it now directs you down a different non-car-friendly-path which seems to be some sort of logging road. I wonder if the person I spoke to at the park has any hair left.
SMD
@MarcG I was there this summer and ran into the same issue. They now have a sign saying “Don’t trust Google Maps, this is not an entrance” at the trailhead.
Ian
Waze updates baased on user inputs, Google maps doesn’t. Given the random closures brought on by construction sites in this city, I find Google maps pretty much useless a lot of the time.
vasi
When heading to the airport, I’ve learned to ask for “Departures” rather than things like “Air Canada” or “YUL”. Somehow that always seems to send me to the right place, rather than some ridiculous route
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Kate
The city is going to fix potholes even if it means sacrificing other things it planned to do. In this piece, SMF blames Projet for having paid for bulb‑outs rather than repairing streets.
patatrio
That image of sideshow bob surrounded by rakes spring to mind.
Ian
The thig about SMF’s assessment is that the bulbouts came out of sidewalk budgets, which is a different envelope. City budgets are kind of a shell game, TBH.
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Kate
Temperatures may be more clement but they bring a risk of freezing rain starting Monday night.
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Kate
Last month in Cornwall, a jilted lover (age 81) shot at his ex‑girlfriend (80) and her new lover (83), wounding the girlfriend and killing her new man.
No charges mentioned yet.Blork
No charges because the shooter then shot himself (fatally).
Kate
Of course not. Thank you.
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Kate
Le Devoir profiles groups that introduce newcomers to outdoor winter activities, such as by cross‑country skiing in Jeanne‑Mance Park.
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Kate
The Centre Compassion, which opened in 1999 to provide cannabis products for therapeutic reasons, has closed up shop, Marc-Boris St-Maurice saying there’s no more need now that the stuff is legal.
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Kate
CTV asks why Family Day, a stat holiday in some other provinces, is not observed in Quebec. It’s being debated on reddit, but although some cite François Legault’s concern for productivity, surely nobody really thinks a single day off would dent Quebec’s GDP. Legault doesn’t want us to have a long weekend between New Year and Easter because it’s Lent, and we have to suffer deprivation in Lent. Even Jews and Muslims and atheists. Especially atheists.
jeather
I still stand by my statement that I would vote for any party that promises a new stat day or two.
Daisy
Lent doesn’t begin until Wednesday.
Josh
Lots of Quebec gets January 2nd off. I always sort of assumed that was the other part of this equation.
Uatu
It’s a stat holiday at the MUHC
jeather
Jan 2 is optional and a business can take it away at any time, a stat holiday is not. Quebec is among the lower half of stat holidays.
Bert
Quebec has 8 official statutory holidays: https://www.cnesst.gouv.qc.ca/en/working-conditions/leave/statutory-holidays/list-paid-statutory-holidays
Anything else is either employer free-bee, part of a union or other employment contract, or falls under federally mandated and regulated industries such as railways, banks, etc.
Kate
Daisy, I think there’s an ingrained sense that people are supposed to keep their nose to the grindstone till Easter, whether it falls on March 22 or April 25. It’s April 5 this year, splitting the difference.
Daisy
If so it has nothing to do with Lent. There is a strong tradition of pre-Lent merry-making (Carnival, Mardi gras, etc.).
Kate
But no days off!
Ian
I’m kind of surprised Montreal doesn’t do Mardi Gras.
Kate
A Mardi Gras here would be a winter carnival. There used to be a winter carnival here in the 19th century – there’s a famous photo of an ice palace on Place d’Armes, for example – but why Quebec City carried on with theirs, and we did not, I’ve never found out.
An amateur historian who posts to Facebook is promising a book about its history so maybe then I will know why.
In a way, the High Lights Festival is a sort of attempt to revive festivities this time of year, I suppose.
I find that The Main blog has a recent piece about ice palaces here, but it’s partly closed to non‑members.
CE
The modern Quebec City carnaval was a purely commercial scheme to bring people to the old city in the 1950s (I assume as people were fleeing to the suburbs).
From their website:
En 1954, dans une perspective de développement économique de la Vieille Capitale, un groupe de gens d’affaires relance la fête et choisit Bonhomme comme représentant de l’événement. La première édition du Carnaval d’hiver de Québec a lieu en 1955. Le Carnaval devient alors une manifestation incontournable pour la population de Québec et le moteur de l’activité touristique hivernale dans la ville. Aujourd’hui, le Carnaval de Québec est sans contredit un événement hivernal d’envergure et demeure une locomotive de la vie hivernale québécoise.
VAZKEN BALOUZIAN
There should be a stat holiday every month. the fact that there’s long stretches of time without one are CRIMINAL
Nicholas
When asked if Quebec would make Indigenous Peoples Day a holiday, Legault said “we need more productivity.” “We are not in favour of adding statutory holidays for any reason whatsoever in Quebec,” Legault said. “We have, proportionately, already a lot,” he added, falsely.
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Kate
CBC’s really pushing the idea of involving Montreal in a new Olympic bid. Some Olympic honcho is quoted as saying “hosting the games can be […] transformative for the host communities.” Yes, you can spend decades paying for them with public money – that’s transformative, all right.
Montreal does not need another rats’ nest of Olympic involvement to put it on the map. It’s already on the map.
Joey
Isn’t the most likely scenario that the IOC rotates among a small group of ‘permanent’ Olympic hosts (think dictatorships looking to sportswash or locales that are uniquely suited for the games, like Alpine cities)?
Jim
Exactly, Joey. Canada can manage this with support from our newly refreshed China connection.
Kate
Joey, you’d think so, but enough cities are still willing to bid on big sports events like the Olympics and the World Cup that the dance goes on.
Jim, I think that was sarcastic. But maybe not.
Andrew
Someone posted some pictures of the infrastructure from the Turin games rotting away from 20 years ago. Which is insane when you realize that Turin and Milan are way closer than Milan and Cortina.
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Kate
Montrealers marched along Ste‑Catherine Saturday in support of the people of Iran.
Chris
And 350k in Toronto, and 250k in Munich. Nice to see such massive protests!
Ian 16:06 on 2026-02-17 Permalink
some animals are more equal than others