Radio-Canada/CBC has a report on how produce being sold at farmers’ markets is implied or explicitly labelled to be local, but often isn’t. As one commenter on the Radio-Canada story writes, “des pommes Royal Gala à l’année, ça vient pas de chez nous ça !”
Updates from July, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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The Montreal fire service is in mourning for Thierry Godfrind, the man who died Friday in a mishap with his own fire truck. Witnesses of the incident were shaken up by the sight and his colleagues were given some time off. The previous death of a Montreal firefighter on duty was in January 2006.
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We broke a temperature record on Saturday afternoon, but the health authorities are still holding off on special measures.
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The federal language commissioner has had to defend giving $4.4 million for 22 projects, three quarters of which are for the English communities in Quebec.
Let’s see, that makes roughly 16 projects at 200 grand each. When it comes to the real world, that’s not a lot of money. Hire a couple of people, pay a bit of rent, and pfft.
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Marc
I’m actually surprised Graham Fraser is even giving a small amount to support Quebec anglos.
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Le Devoir notes that the Royal Bank has moved out of its historic digs at 360 Saint-Jacques, a seriously glorious bank branch that included a ton of brass fittings, elaborate ceiling work, swag curtains on tall windows, and war memorials.
The journalist says the new owners will preserve the “valeur patrimoniale” – but will they allow the public in to see the space?
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Matthew
The murals will still be open to the public. The rest will depend on what type of tenant occupies the space…service provider, office etc…
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Matt
Makes me sad. I went in to visit on Wednesday (possibly for the last time) and still got goosebumps coming up the stairs. I do hope they preserve the space as-is as much as possible and render it accessible to the public. I wonder what kind of business can operate there?
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Guillaume St-Jean
Gestion George Coulombe a entre autre restauré l’édifice de La Sauvegarde en 1998 sur Notre-Dame près de la place Jacques Cartier. Ça augure quand même bien.
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Kate
Oho, Guillaume. Ça peut être intéressant.
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Some bloggers have done a series of rollover then-and-now photos based on old photos, some of which are pretty familiar to anyone interested in historic city pictures – I reshot some of them myself in 2004, and undoubtedly some were also redone by our king of then-and-now camera work, Guillaume Saint-Jean.
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Blork
Those “then and now” things are always fun. I was at the AGO in Toronto recently and I found the ultimate “then and now” book: New York Changing: Revisiting Berenice Abbott’s New York, by Douglas Levere. Levere re-shot much (all?) of Berenice Abbott’s photos from her “Changing New York” book that was published in 1939. What makes this one exceptional is the level of detail that Levere undertook to make the images as similar as possible. He shot from the exact same place, at the same time of year, and even the same time of day so the light would be right. He also used similar equipment and lenses, etc.
Obviously it’s more than a passing whimsy for this guy. He made a real study of it, resulting in a fabulous book.
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steph
There are many more trees in the now pictures! Makes those older streets look bleak.
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Charles
You could get you hat cleaned on the corner of Laurier and Parc…
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Kate
Someone pointed out, re that 1933 photo, that clearly Park Avenue is always being dug up:
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Police shot a man in the Old Port early Saturday morning. He wasn’t killed but it’s kind of a weird story.
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Kevin
Cops really shouldn’t be shooting at cars that are fleeing a scene, even if the driver did just try to kill them.
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I’ve been wondering about the political effects of known corruption, so I’m floating this as a question.
Canada is still suffering from the fallout of the sponsorship scandal, whose effects were such that many in Quebec still hate the federal Liberal party with a white-hot hatred, the party was brought low and the Harper government rules all. Nobody likes being had, but we’re all suffering from the punishment Quebec has meted out to the federal Liberals.
But it’s become clear that the Charest government is up past its elbows in corruption, with dodgy deals galore accruing to it – and yet it seems likely that if an election is called for this autumn, Jean Charest will be back in power for another 4 to 5 years. Are people not just as insulted by what we’ve seen his party doing? Have we not also been had by the Charest Liberals? Why doesn’t this matter?
Besides that, a discussion a few threads down is about the Tremblay administration. Before the last municipal election stories were coming out about brown envelopes at city hall, and we’ve seen city hall people turning against each other, and serious questions of corruption and collusion in connection with the city’s construction contracts. But it seems all too likely that in 2013, Tremblay will be re-elected if he runs again. Have we not been had by Gérald Tremblay and the people he chose to associate himself with? Why doesn’t this matter?
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Chris
because our bellies are fully and our TVs are working.
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Kate
That was no different during the sponsorship scandal. It’s not as if people went hungry because the federal Liberals gave money to a bunch of Quebec PR hacks.
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James
Didnt Harper (at the time) run on the platform of openness and cracking down on party & government corruption? I seem to remember that. (Whether or not he’s fulfilled those promises are largely up to ones political point of view.)
No party leaders in Quebec really ever stands up and says we need sweeping reform, and deep investigations into ALL the parties finances, and industries where we know corruption and dirty money exist. If we had this kind of alternative, instead of mired in the federalist/separatist schism, we’d probably be angry enough to change our votes.
Since none of that is going to happen, you have what you’re reporting on: a collective ‘hey, nothin we can do about it’…. (goes to the terrace, drinks)
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Jack
Tremblay won’t run he knows he is done.Despite constant media framing, Richard Bergeron is going to look better and better.No doubt he is a character but for goodness sake look at Labeaume you can feel the passion he has for his city pour out of the screen,same with Bergeron.With Tremblay you get the feeling that your about to enter the Director of the Funeral Home’s office.
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qatzelok
Reports about Charest or Tremblay winning the next election are highly dubious. If they do win, then they may have cheated. Perhaps all these mass-media polls are also rigged.
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Kate
qatzelok, although votes here can be rigged I don’t think either Charest or Tremblay would have to descend to anything so crude. They can rely on voter apathy – it’s served them well so far.
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Adam Hooper
Here’s an alternate theory for the aftermath of the sponsorship scandal: it didn’t affect the 2006 election. Harper won because he ran a better campaign. The Conservatives were finally organized. They reduced their platform to a bullet-list, while Martin wanted to solve everything all at once. And the Liberals suffered from a leak so the Conservatives knew exactly how to counter the Liberal campaign.
All of this made the Liberals seem disorganized and the Conservatives seem in control. That narrative still hasn’t changed, and it has nothing to do with corruption.
What’s more important: corruption, or the reach of capitalism in our country? Corruption, or copyright law? Corruption, or our economy?
I don’t believe corruption affects voting habits. Happily, newspapers are an important check on corruption, and I think they can be (but aren’t today) enough. For instance, many Canadians dislike Bev Oda after a torrent of unsavoury news about her (let’s not call it corruption, but let’s call it “un-Canadian”), and now she’s gone. (Ooh ooh this one: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1224540–bev-oda-allegedly-expensed-air-purifier-to-smoke-in-her-office .) And regardless of who win the next Quebec and Montreal elections, many criminals in and around political parties have been and will be charged for corrupt behaviour.
So I’ll definitely vote for the parties I think will deliver transparency … as long as I agree with the rest of their platforms.
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Kevin
The corruption tainting provincial politics has decades-old roots. Whatever the Liberals have been up to, people suspect the PQ have done the same or worse.
The third party is just too new to be fully trusted or understood. CAQ’s platform is high on promises but low on details, and Legault is not much of a talker. He’s a competent businessman with a politically checkered past.
So it comes down to stewardship/management of the economy, and no way does Marois win that battle. Her record of flip-flopping is long, and 2/3 of Quebec has no interest in watching the economy tank, yet again, under a PQ govt that cares more about raising taxes and preparing for a referendum.
On the municipal side, the public at large does not even know who the players are. I’d say 7 out of 10 would not be able to name the mayor, and both opposition leaders.
And if they do, they know Harel is the one who created the merger debacle, and that Bergeron is passionate but lacking in specifics. -
Marc
I was sure I saw Denis Coderre measuring the drapes in the mayor’s office. That’s assuming Tremblay doesn’t run.
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david m
devoir has a good summary of the parties’ strategies coming into the election – http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/354567/entre-boite-a-surprise-et-cocktail-explosif per that article, the economy doesn’t figure at this point, at least in the francophone campaign that actually matters, but a general stewardship argument figures with the students, the corruption and various other pressure points (personal leadership, for instance). it’s just impossible to guess who’ll win this one, though at the outset, i think smart money is on marois.
as for the municipal, what a shitshow. in a normal place, bergeron would sail into the mayoralty next year, and that’s still my prediction, but anything could happen. there’s even talk of denis coderre heading the union team, could you imagine?
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Kate
I can imagine Coderre, and it’s been hinted at here and there, although whether he’d give up his comfy federal niche for the wacky world of municipal politics, who can say? People like him and he uses Twitter like a champ. I don’t know whether he has the cojones to stand up to Quebec, which we need more than almost any other trait in a mayor. Montreal has half of Quebec’s population – imagine if we had a mayor with the balls to say to Quebec, over an issue like rebuilding the Turcot: “No, you can’t do that, and if you try, I’ll take all of Montreal’s support away from you!”
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John
@Kate – I don’t think Coderre lacks the body parts you mentioned. When Mackay wouldn’t book him on a military plane to Afghanistan, he booked his own commercial flight via Pakistan – and talked to local radio shows from every airport on the way. And, when he thought his boss, Iggy, wasn’t being respectful to his position as Quebec lieutenant, he went public and quit. Cojones he has, now as to brains….
@Adam Hooper – I have to disagree. A quick look at the polls will tell you the Liberals were ahead in 2006 until the bizarre, and still unexplained, announcement made half-way through the campaign by the RCMP (via a letter from Zaccardelli to a Manitoba MP) that Ralph Goodale was being investigated for an insider trading leak . That story took over and dominated the rest of the election blocking any announcements the LPC might have wanted to make.
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willie granger
The non-franco demographic might finally be tipping the scales against the separatists.. I think the separatists saw this coming long ago and that’s why they rushed those two referendae, once the Syrians/Lebanese/Congolese,etc, fill up this province there’ll never be any hope of the Country of Quebec.
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david m
^ you know nothing about quebec.
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Jake
I think that the problem is that provincially, there’s no one to vote for. Provincially we’ve got the PQ or the Liberals, both of which are equally corrupt. Or you could vote for Quebec Solidare but it’s run by arrogant pricks or the ADQ but it’s run by assholes. So there really are no options. If you’re a mouse (like most of us) you’re just choosing which colour of cat you want to eat you. On the civic level it’s pretty much the same thing only less interesting for the average voter.
I love the idea of voting but when it all comes down to it I don’t really care whether it’s Pauline Marois, Jean Charest, Gerald Tremblay or Louise Harel that’s robbing us because they’re all thieves.
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willie granger
People vote on the economy. The economy of Quebec isn’t particularly disastrous right now and people remember that the PQ is terribly at dealing with the economy, so that’s why the Liberals will be re-elected again, even if it’s in a minority with CAQ.
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Metro notes that it’s 25 years since the massive deluge that broke over the city on July 14, 1987. More than 100 mm of water fell in less than two hours, the metro shut down and all hell broke loose. The incident has its own Wikipedia page.
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The project to find places to live for the homeless continues, and Le Devoir files a report on how it’s doing. They also have video interviews with three homeless people and how they’re doing.
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I am reminded by tweets that the big Sainte-Catherine Street sidewalk sale is this weekend. Looks like they’ll get more of the unbroken hot sunny weather we’ve been having.
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Charles
There’s also one on St-Denis between gilford and roy, but I don’t think they are closing down the street. Here’s a link: http://www.rue-st-denis.ca/fr/accueil.aspx
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Kevin 21:09 on 2012/07/14 Permalink
And who thinks those bananas are from Quebec? ;)
Kate 22:08 on 2012/07/14 Permalink
I think the story’s implicitly about things like tomatoes that could conceivably pass as having been grown here. Not avocadoes and oranges and bananas.
A month or so ago I was at Jean-Talon market wondering how it was so many “Quebec” tomatoes were for sale, so early in the season…
david m 03:18 on 2012/07/15 Permalink
yeah, it really calls into question the mission and mandate of a market like the jean-talon if you’re essentially buying the same vegetables or whatever you could get at the marché richelieu or métro near to you. the fact that the producers would resort to subterfuge suggests that they understand that the cachet of such a market rests in the implicit understanding that what’s sold there ought to be local, at the very least. which suggests that the problem lies with the market’s management, and the way in which vendors are being selected and brought to account.
Ian 08:43 on 2012/07/15 Permalink
I used to work at Atwater Market and most of the farmers would routinely dump produce purchased from the same depot as Super C or Provigo into “grown in Quebec” boxes.
Jack 08:59 on 2012/07/15 Permalink
The Marche Jean Talon is by far and away the worst offender. I really didn’t think anything of it until a bunch of neighbors and myself organized a campaign to pedestrianize the market about 5 years ago, which was marginally successful. What hit us between the eyes was that a majority of the stall owners agriculture consisted of driving to the Marche Central buying California or Florida produce, sticking some straw in their mouths, and pretending to be farmers. It was brutal, they were also the most pro car service of all the people who worked there. As for the management they are scared to death of these families who have run roughshod over the real farmers for decades. These stories actually emanate from one farmer who was the most sympathetic to the anti car campaign and has dealt with the threats and intimidation from the ‘grossistes”, he apparently has had enough. I am worried for him and his wife and son. Ask the “grossistes” where they farm and they will lie to you, I only shop off the middle alleys where after years I have identified who is real and who is not. That shouldn’t be the job of every consumer, it should be the markets.
Blork 10:20 on 2012/07/15 Permalink
That happens a lot in regular grocery stores too, although in that case it’s mostly laziness and incompetence. For example, the sign over the aparagus will say it’s a product of Quebec but the elastic band around the actual asparagus will say “Product of Mexico.” That’s not an attempt at subterfuge, it’s just people being careless and not bothering to change the sign when the Quebec asparagus runs out and they start selling the stuff from Mexico.
BTW, most of those “Quebec” tomatoes are indeed from Quebec, but they’re hothouse tomatoes that are grown year-round.
Kate 11:08 on 2012/07/15 Permalink
Jack, that’s some story. I hadn’t realized you were one of the pedestrianize-the-market people – it was a story I followed on this blog back before I had comments on.
Jack 18:13 on 2012/07/16 Permalink
Kate it took 3 years to have the summer weekends. It started for me when a car honked at me and my daughter for not walking fast enough…..in the market. It took the concerted effort of dozens who could not believe that a Market run by the city had given almost total decisional power to 3 families. They still run the market and make a hell of a lot money (no receipts?) Even trying to get those weekends was tough, until someone realized that the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, Andre Boisclair, had provided millions to the market to add an underground parking and new infrastructure, one of the reasons, to make the market more pedestrian friendly.The “grossistes” saw it as an opportunity to add car friendly roads and did, they signed 4 roads to criss cross the market so people could shop from their cars (Orange Julep?). When the then mayor of the Rosemont-Petite Patrie borough (Andre Lavallée, former Louise Harel aide) was confronted with that text, Boisclair was the leader of the PQ and an election was coming. Within three weeks the summer no car weekends were added, until that moment zero traction. It makes you wonder…..