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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Hospital errors and oversights: a theme
 
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.

Agglomeration problems put on hold
 
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.

More buses, no fast train
 
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.

Movement to rename the Main
 
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.)

Track repaired for next month's Grand Prix
 
The race track is being repaired and other little improvements added for next month's Grand Prix race.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
ADQ snubbed in by-elections
 
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.

Royal wedding a stir in Pointe Claire
 
Pointe Claire enclave is all of a twitter over their part in this weekend's royal wedding.

Independent video stores and how they survive
 
An interesting look at how independent video stores survive in a competitive market.

What does "forever" mean in law?
 
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.

More details on Selwyn House scandal
 
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.

Bouquinistes won't grace Old Port this year
 
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.

Monday, May 12, 2008
Vision Montreal: a history without a future?
 
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?

Mont-Royal merchants to march
 
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?)

Lake water's being held back "for Montreal"
 
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.

Top firefighter asks for peace between union and city
 
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.

Sunday, May 11, 2008
The day a Nazi ship berthed in Montreal
 
A look back to an incident in 1936 that displays the cautious approach of Canada and Quebec to Nazi Germany before war broke out.

New area code slowly coming into use
 
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.

Another Selwyn House scandal
 
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.

Autumn Kelly to remain Canadian
 
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.

Guy Lafleur ponders the chances of the Habs
 
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.

Origin of the tam-tams lost to history
 
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.

Saturday, May 10, 2008
Free compost at environmental complex
 
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.

Controversial flight path may be shut down
 
Controversial airport flight path may be abandoned after protests, but of course the planes have to go over somebody's house sometime.

Festival season is upon us
 
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.

Museums Day promises to be good
 
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.

Notre-Dame and the Ville-Marie
 
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.

Mount Royal raccoons to get their shots
 
The city is temporarily trapping raccoons on Mount Royal so they can be vaccinated and microchipped.

Municipal court tiptoes into new century
 
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.

Friday, May 09, 2008
Gesca-SRC deal: real problem, or paper tiger?
 
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?

Notre-Dame plans rejigged again
 
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.

Montreal's delicatessen history
 
A woman's research into her family history turns up the first smoked meat deli on the Main a hundred years ago.

Public gardens: 22 are contaminated
 
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.

Thursday, May 08, 2008
East end gets its pressure back
 
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.

News on even bigger roadworks
 
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.

CHUM: wtf with the new building
 
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).

Shows and exhibits on city life
 
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.

Group slams night flights at Trudeau
 
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"?

STM to install tunnel tracking tech
 
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.

Police help deliver baby
 
Police helped deliver a baby in an SUV on Decarie this week.

City to embark on infrastructure blitz
 
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.

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