By chance, maybe, today La Presse is looking at medical errors made in our hospitals and the Journal at a specific instance of error: a north-end hospital that allowed a distraught patient to wander off and make a suicide attempt that was ultimately successful – a type of incident that's been seen before. But when emergency wards are overcrowded and understaffed it's inevitable that a few people will slip through the cracks every year. posted at 08:12

 
The municipal affairs minister's promise to solve the chronic power struggle within the metropolitan agglomeration by June has been dealt away in a political deal. It's not something that can be fixed by decree, anyway – the merger-demerger debacle has demonstrated that. posted at 07:59

 
The STM is promising better bus service in the western parts of the island; plans for a fast train link to Quebec City are on hold, waiting on endless studies. It only takes 3 hours to Quebec anyway, which makes little sense of the idea, although the point is made that the tracks between here and there are often busy. posted at 07:52

 
Many folks have no doubt noticed the postering campaign up and down the Main, urging that it be renamed for Lucien Rivard, a colourful Quebec bandit of the 1950s and 60s. Turns out it's a viral marketing stunt to promote an upcoming film by Charles Binamé; there's also a website here.

(I've also been told there's virtually no chance of removing any saint name from any Montreal street in the foreseeable future, due to longstanding sacerdotal clutch on city hall heart strings. This came up a few years ago when the Haitian community was asking about renaming Saint-Dominique.) posted at 07:39

 
The race track is being repaired and other little improvements added for next month's Grand Prix race. posted at 06:53

 
Yesterday's three provincial by-elections snubbed the ADQ, returning the PQ in two Montreal ridings and the Liberals in Hull and leaving the National Assembly balance unchanged. posted at 08:13

 
Pointe Claire enclave is all of a twitter over their part in this weekend's royal wedding. posted at 08:09

 
An interesting look at how independent video stores survive in a competitive market. posted at 07:56

 
This is the kind of piece Le Devoir can do so well: pondering what "forever" means in law specifically as applied to the land donated by Louis-Joseph Papineau for a public square, it first makes the case for allowing such things to be changed over time, and then the opposing arguments for letting the legacy stand. posted at 07:53

 
The Journal has some pretty specific details about the activities that got Selwyn House teacher Richard Doucet nabbed by U.S. police, although I have to say that the "super-flic" who spends not only his work hours but his evenings and weekends posing as a 13-year-old boy on chatrooms does not sound entirely happy either. Doucet remains jailed in the U.S. and may face more charges soon. Also an old boy's thoughts about the school – from Toronto, of course. posted at 07:47

 
The Bouquinistes who've set up Paris-style bookstalls along the Old Port yearly since 1992 won't be appearing this year because, in the end, it hasn't been profitable. posted at 07:21

 
The Vision Montreal party has dwindled since the departure from politics of its initial leader, Pierre Bourque, but the acclamation of Benoît Labonté as its new leader will either revive it, or consign it to the dustbin of history. But do we really need a year and a half of campaigning before the November 2009 election? posted at 07:31

 
Shopkeepers along Mont-Royal Avenue plan a march this evening to protest the city's treatment of their commercial area: high parking fees and those condos being built over the city parking lots are sore points.

(I understand their annoyance, but why don't they do more to emphasize their street as a walking street, and its easy accessibility by metro and bus? Surely nobody who's not disabled actually needs to drive to shop along Mont-Royal?) posted at 07:14

 
Water from Lake Ontario has been held back so's not to flood Montreal's ports, but the headline on this story seems chosen to build melodrama. posted at 07:05

 
A venerable and much-decorated firefighter on the brink of retirement says the escalating struggle between the city and its fire service has to stop or the public will inevitably suffer. posted at 07:01

 
A look back to an incident in 1936 that displays the cautious approach of Canada and Quebec to Nazi Germany before war broke out. posted at 20:05

 
The new area code 438 will slowly be coming into use, mostly for cell phone service at first; it's meant to provide more numbers for the 514 zone. posted at 19:57

 
The news that another Selwyn House teacher has been accused on pedophilia-type charges has upset students and parents at the tony private school. However, this time the suspect was entrapped online by U.S. investigators, and no charge has been made against his conduct as a teacher. posted at 10:56

 
Some of the British are getting only a bit excited over the marriage of Montrealer Autumn Kelly to the Queen's grandson next week, although some remain refreshingly snide. posted at 09:56

 
Guy Lafleur is still thinking about the Habs' season, how it went and how it might have gone differently; a La Presse writer also looks back, perhaps a bit wistfully. posted at 09:41

 
The tam-tam gathering in Mount Royal park is marking its 30th year this year but its origins are a matter for a little bit of debate. posted at 08:11

 
It's free compost weekend at the Saint-Michel environmental complex and several other locations. You need to bring your own shovel and containers and proof that you're a Montreal resident. posted at 13:59

 
Controversial airport flight path may be abandoned after protests, but of course the planes have to go over somebody's house sometime. posted at 11:00

 
Montreal Underground Film Festival runs next week, and the lineup's been announced for next month's Suoni per il popolo festival. Festival season is upon us. posted at 10:52

 
Museums Day, coming up on May 25, promises to be a good one this year, falling at a time when some exhibits are drawing to a close and others will have just opened. The Musée d'art contemporain is holding a huge "triennale" show, the Fine Arts show of Cuban art will still be open, and various special events are planned. posted at 10:02

 
Continuing opposition to the plan to "modernize" Notre-Dame East into a highway, plus thoughts on the utility of covering up the Ville-Marie and reclaiming the urban space lost when construction of the trench highway erased rue Vitre and its surroundings. posted at 09:44

 
The city is temporarily trapping raccoons on Mount Royal so they can be vaccinated and microchipped. posted at 09:09

 
Montreal municipal court tiptoes into the new century with a plan to find ways of helping homeless people suffering from mental disorders, rather than putting them in the slammer for not being able to pay fines. posted at 09:03

 
Today the Journal has a story about an ongoing collaboration and "secret agreement" between Radio-Canada and Gesca, the parent company of La Presse. Union rights are invoked and the question of the public broadcaster relying on private industry is raised. Radio-Canada has already defended its practices. A legitimate problem, or is this only the Journal cooking up another scandal to sell papers, and get in a dig at its competition at the same time? posted at 08:01

 
The plan to widen Notre-Dame East has been tinkered with again to add reserved bus lanes, although there will still be a section that's a sunken trench, Decarie-style. posted at 07:51

 
A woman's research into her family history turns up the first smoked meat deli on the Main a hundred years ago. posted at 07:48

 
Of 98 public gardening sites in the city, 22 are found to be too contaminated – with old industrial wastes, hydrocarbons and metals, mostly – to safely grow food. Montreal has been praised for its garden plot system, but it's several years now that stories about contaminated soil have cropped up in the news, and my suspicious side is wondering if this is not the beginning of a softening-up process via which the city will quietly reclaim some of these plots, set aside in the 1980s when the local economy was stagnant, and now looking much more desirable for construction. posted at 07:35

 
East-end residents get their water pressure back after repairs on a major main are completed; there were fewer water main breaks last year even so, compared to a veritable festival the year before. posted at 13:10

 
Work is to start on the contentious enlargement of Notre-Dame East in mid-October; not surprisingly, the Charest government is opting for one of its pet PPP projects to undertake the major rebuild of the Turcot interchange. posted at 13:06

 
Lysiane Gagnon marvels at the CHUM's wasteful flipflopping on its construction plans. She doesn't say, but the CHUM's contortions are pretty much mirrored by its mirror institution, the MUHC, which has been zigzagging between starting construction at the Glen site and enlarging the Montreal General, in much the same way (with the additional twist that they have to deal with the Shriners issue as well). posted at 12:57

 
The CCA is opening an exhibit on city life in Tokyo and London with an accompanying website; there will be a 3D photo exhibit of Montreal scenes across six locations this summer – no damn use for those of us without stereo vision, so somebody's got to go and tell me what it's like. posted at 07:49

 
Citizens are banding together to protest growing numbers of night flights in and out of Trudeau airport, a demo being held this morning outside Aéroports de Montréal's annual meeting.

Incidentally, Mirabel is mentioned in passing as still being in operation for cargo flights. Whatever happened to the scheme announced in 2006 to turn the mostly disused airport into a giant interior fun fair "destination"? posted at 07:47

 
The STM is to spend a million federal anti-terrorism dollars on a system that will chiefly keep random loonies, daredevils and teenagers from wandering on foot into its metro tunnels. posted at 07:44

 
Police helped deliver a baby in an SUV on Decarie this week. posted at 07:42

 
City administration to pour $400 million into infrastructure repairs this year, roads, water mains and sewers mostly. In the "you can't win" department, some journos are already kvetching about the inconvenience. La Presse has a PDF file listing all the upcoming work sites, although not with very specific dates, or you can check this section of the city site for details. posted at 07:38