Justin Trudeau won the nomination as Liberal candidate in the federal riding of Papineau this weekend. The riding had been a Liberal fief for years until the Bloc's Vivian Barbot nabbed it during the last general election.
posted at 19:28

 
Long wished for and promised, the de Maisonneuve bike path from Berri to Greene Avenue has finally been announced by the city, and should be ready this year.
posted at 18:57

 
There's going to be lots of road repairs this summer as the city dishes out big bucks to create 72 separate construction sites throughout the city. There's even an official section on the city website to find out more.
posted at 11:05

 
The new metro stations had their first real rush hour today, although thousands of people visited them during the free transit days on the weekend. Facts and trivia about the metro system; the STM is also holding a contest with the prizes wittily chosen for their connection with the names of the new stations.
posted at 10:35

 
Thousands of people have been pouring through the transit system this weekend – free for the occasion – to see the new metro stations in Laval.
posted at 13:47

 
McGill University made student records public on their website this week, and the CHUM was caught recycling confidential documents into scratch pads. Lesson: Expect privacy to be highly relative when institutions know your details.
posted at 13:20

 
It's a continuing Expogasm with a detailed memoir from the Gazette reporter who covered the story back in the day, part of a big retrospective feature on that site. If you were unable to see Expo 67 yourself, by now the many features and memoirs ought to give you an idea what it was like, and why it dazzled Montreal so much that it's never been forgotten.
posted at 14:34

 
Yet more on the new metro extension to Laval, and a photo essay showing the new stations and some details of their construction.

La Presse has thoughts on courtesy in the metro with open commenting, and also has comparisons to the London underground, the New York subway and the Paris metro.
posted at 14:28

 
With the new metro stations comes new public art pieces including a new one at Henri-Bourassa. The STM has a website section with pictures and info on all the Metro system art (except for the new ones); the AMT has new pages on the extension.

(Most of the art pieces are apparent to the eye in each station, but I used the Mont-Royal station for years before noticing the Charles Daudelin sculptures worked into the walls.)
posted at 18:06

 
A bacterium killed either four or six premature babies at Ste-Justine Hospital, depending on your sources, but about fifty babies were infected there in 2004 and 2005. The health minister says there was no coverup and the place is safe now.
posted at 17:59

 
It's exactly forty years since the opening of Expo 67; La Presse has a photo gallery of the event; more personal memoirs about the event; the mayor evoked the success of Expo 67 yesterday in a speech pitching for more money for the metropolis.

Here's the city's official subsite about Expo 67, and Radio-Canada's archive.
posted at 13:35

 
A terse preview of the summer's festivals; looks at events planned to commemorate Expo 67; the lineup of this summer's FrancoFolies fest.
posted at 10:52

 
After a year and a half of a lacklustre term, Mayor Tremblay is to defend his record in a speech today.
posted at 10:47

 
Here's a gloomy omen: the ceremonial inauguration of the new Laval Metro extension today was marred first by a union protest and then by the death of a worker from a heart attack.

Radio-Canada has an archive about the Metro, and the Gazette has a sour look at whether the new extension was worth the money. (Short version: they don't think so.)

Rides will be free on the STM this weekend as the new stations open for public use Saturday morning.
posted at 10:33

 
Montreal landlords want their upstairs tenant to stop smoking in her apartment. The Régie is to rule on this point soon. But it seems clear to me that since smoking wasn't mentioned in the lease, the tenant has the advantage in this case.

Whether it'll become more usual for landlords to require this clause remains to be seen – and then what happens if a tenant has visitors who smoke, or starts seeing a smoker? Will they be fined or evicted? I'd prefer it if nobody smoked, but I don't want landlords to be given more control over their tenants' lives. It's a dilemma.
posted at 10:23

 
The Port of Montreal has been breaking records and port czar Dominic Taddeo says the Bickerdike Basin, part of the old port, isn't going to become some glitzy tourist trap either.
posted at 11:21

 
One of a series of reminiscences of Expo 67 for the 40th anniversary of its opening this week.
posted at 11:13

 
The city is doing very well off parking meters, and posted a budget surplus for 2006.
posted at 10:56

 
Forbes magazine rates Montreal the tenth cleanest city on the planet, which runs contrary to recent general head-clutching over municipal tidiness.
posted at 18:49

 
Montreal Tech Watch deconstructs a recent cease and desist letter received by local blogger Chris "Zeke" Hand. Important, because such letters often try to warp the written record to the benefit of the person who can afford a fancy lawyer, and it's good that a third party is commenting dispassionately on the story.
posted at 11:16

 
The construction of the Highway 30 route around Montreal has been imminent the whole time I've been doing this blog. Farmers south of Montreal have resisted the proposed route, and now the Mohawks of Kahnawake have spoken up to say they want to be consulted on the route of the highway that will pass so close to their lands.
posted at 10:49

 
A British paper unleashes a flood of British snark on the Cirque du Soleil.
posted at 10:42

 
More background on L'Âge des ténèbres and Cannes; another reviewof the MSO on tour.
posted at 11:01

 
Montrealers of Haitian origin held an états généraux this weekend to discuss problems plaguing the community, and it was considered a success. A report is due in June.
posted at 10:47

 
Yesterday's Earth Day environment demo was proof that Montrealers aren't buying the federal government's refusal to honour the Kyoto accord. Even journalists took note that the police overseeing the march left their cars idling for hours (although cops have finally begun giving out a few tickets in gratuitous cases of idling).
posted at 10:33

 
Excellent photo from Eric Baillargeon of the Earth Day demo along Mont-Royal Avenue.
posted at 18:18

 
The CHUM is employing debt collectors to try to recoup some four million bucks in health care bills run up here by tourists.
posted at 11:38

 
Memories of Expo 67 (with the inevitable, insecure Toronto dig at the end about Montreal's relative status); the fair through the eyes of an 11-year-old; stream-of-consciousness Expo thoughts from Toronto's poet laureate. Expo 67 opened 40 years ago this Friday. Here's a great bit of vintage video via Expo Lounge.
posted at 11:17

 
More shots were heard on the Main this weekend, and people are starting to call it a trend.
posted at 11:11

 
In the case of the body parts in the bag, the victim's family say they had to investigate because the police did not.
posted at 10:32

 
Anglo Montreal apparently has pretences as a poetry capital; TNM's Ubu Roi receives kudos; review of a current show at the CCA, on architecture via zine.
posted at 13:27

 
A little more information today on the federal government's ideas about their lands around the Old Port, but actual plans are vague and more details are promised for tomorrow.
posted at 11:17

 
A journo writes about moving to Point St. Charles.
posted at 11:04

 
It feels like this blog just won Best Blog in Montreal, but that was 2006. The Montreal Mirror ballot for the best stuff in Montreal is open again for 2007. Remember: you have to put entries in 25 categories for your vote to count for the Montreal City Weblog!
posted at 15:06

 
A general look at Kent Nagano and his plans as artistic director of the MSO.
posted at 13:30

 
The latest Denys Arcand opus, L'Âge des ténèbres, is to close the Cannes film fest next month, despite recent announcements that its completion would be delayed till the end of the year. Nathalie Petrowski comments on this puzzler.
posted at 12:56

 
The federal government wants to pour millions into the Old Port, but it still remains open what they expect to have done with it – and whether it fits into the city's own plans and ideas.

Also, the NSCM Halifax is at the Alexandra Quay, and the public can visit the ship this weekend.
posted at 12:46

 
Ville-Marie has rejected the plans of the Grande Bibliothèque to construct a series of barriers to distance people from its walls, asking it instead to find a more permanent solution to the tendency for its glass panels to pop out and fall off. This comes only a few days after the building won a prestigious award for being a "grand urban gesture, masterfully executed."
posted at 11:52

 
A symposium next month at Concordia will discuss logos and symbols in cities.
posted at 11:27

 
A hundred and seventy-five teachers want to bail from the Montreal school commission.
posted at 11:13

 
A man has been charged with murder in the Rosemont body parts case. Flickr user Hasemeister has two photos of the handbills posted by the victim's family before the grisly discovery.
posted at 11:06

 
Brief interview with Fabrice de Pierrebourg, author of Montréalistan.
posted at 10:57

 
A curious blog contains lots of stills from the CBC webcam, spliced with vaguely poetic prose; video interview with an Île Sans Fil VP; blog entry on this Sunday's march for the Kyoto accord.
posted at 00:50

 
Police arrested a man in Rosemont after human remains were found in his SUV.
posted at 11:27

 
A city cop was arrested last week then suspended for dealing ecstasy. I think you can fill in the cynical commentary yourselves (although I can also see how frustrating it must be for police to have their PR undermined by incidents like this).
posted at 11:25

 
The federal government is giving megabucks to the Old Port for infrastructure maintenance and new projects, although these are not specified.
posted at 11:22

 
After the incident in Virginia, it was a particularly bad time for two students to walk with paintball rifles through a student residence at CEGEP Saint-Laurent. They face charges.
posted at 11:12

 
Interesting Blogcritics.org piece comparing the Canadiens to the Basque football team Athletic Bilbao, and generalizing to points about nationalism and sport.
posted at 20:44

 
Again, the city is not clearing the recent snowfall so's to save money.
posted at 14:08

 
The Austrian inventor of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz, is said to be eyeing the Canadiens as a possible acquisition. Is George Gillett tired of the Habs and more enchanted by his new toy, Liverpool FC?
posted at 13:53

 
A French teacher from Montreal is among the victims of yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech in the U.S., an incident that has revived anxieties among those that experienced the September shootings at Dawson.
posted at 13:44

 
The city has resumed classification of heritage sites after sixteen years of not doing so.
posted at 12:38

 
Two Montreal artists are bound for the Venice biennale this June.
posted at 11:22

 
A list of the ten top attractions of the city leaves out the churches but includes the Grande Bibliothèque.
posted at 11:17

 
Mtl Street is a fashion blog that notes the good points of random people photographed around town. They should get a look at la bloggeuse's hastily resurrected boots and parka today, and that snow shovel makes a perky accessory.
posted at 11:08

 
The city's vague but grandiose cultural development plans haven't materialized spectacularly, but it's blamed on lack of money from other levels of government.
posted at 11:04

 
A mid-April blizzard, part of a big storm system all down the east coast, thwacks the city hard. Accidents and school closures inevitably follow.
posted at 11:00

 
We're expecting some heavy rain later today that may turn to another snowstorm.
posted at 14:07

 
Les Amis de la montagne are hoping that the magical tramway might be extended to bring people up Mount Royal without their cars, but it's not clear whether the envisioned technology could handle the slope. Nice mockup of a possible Tramway du Havre, too.
posted at 12:35

 
Police have been keeping an eye on Jarry metro and environs since January, when a fire destroyed a high school and forced 1,300 kids to share another school. A lot of teenagers mill around the area, which doesn't offer them much to do, and the usual disaffections follow.
posted at 12:16

 
Owners of buildings plan to fight the new tidiness laws that make them liable for litter outside and graffiti on their walls. And shopkeepers who have asked for a reduction in taxes and parking meter rates have been turned down by city hall.

This is the kind of popular disaffection which, if it gets organized, spawns new municipal parties and dethrones mayors, possibly even ones who have lined up big guns on their side.
posted at 12:10

 
Skilled artisans who worked on the restoration of St. James United haven't been paid yet out of government church heritage largesse, which is shameful. An auditor is going to find out why.
posted at 11:54

 
The city is officially not clearing the snow from Thursday's storm because it would be too expensive. Snow-clearing contracts only cover to the end of March, after which it's à la carte.
posted at 11:46

 

Anyone familiar with Duluth Street has probably puzzled over the moribund corner business run by P. Gillman of Planter's Peanuts – a 1930s general store gone to seed. Mr. Gillman died in November at age 97. More info in the link.
posted at 13:08

 
West end street gangs are bucking an established trend of mostly operating during the summer, so a new police squad has been detailed to clamp down on them, and is already claiming results.
posted at 12:35

 
April snow costs real money to clear, which may be why the cleanup from last night's 12-cm binge has been less than stellar.
posted at 12:31

 
Among the new improvements floated by the Société du Havre: an urban boulevard replacing the Bonaventure Autoroute. Work is to start in 2009 so there's still time to lurk around the area with a camera. Also, Silo No. 5 is likely to be turned into some kind of art installation with an observatory on top.
posted at 12:21

 
Images from the new Cirque du Soleil show and a correction emailed by a reader: "the latest Cirque show
opens next week; it's the "World Premiere" that's in May." Just so's you know. I'd like to suggest they consult the Urban Dictionary for words that may sound like the name of the new show, however.
posted at 12:16

 
With no warning, the Le Parisien cinema on Ste-Catherine is sold off and closed up.
posted at 11:38

 
Lots of chatter about the new Cirque du Soleil show called Kooza, which will open on the Old Port next month.
posted at 11:13

 
Montreal anglos held a meeting yesterday, but these accounts make the group sound too fragmented to move ahead with unified plans or ideas. Indeed it's not clear what they could achieve as a group: in some parts of Montreal speaking English is simply regarded as being in poor taste, and that's not something you can change by shouting at it.
posted at 11:09

 
Faced with embarrassing rates of dental decay, dentists are once again begging for water fluoridation in Montreal, something the city has always obstinately refused to do.
posted at 11:06

 
The AMT says it managed to save $58 million on the Laval metro extension, even though costs rocketed from $179 million in 1998 to a final bill of $745 million. Stats about the stations are in that article, photos here, dossier here.
posted at 10:59

 
The metro extension to Laval is to open April 28, either two or three months ahead of schedule (depending on your source) but massively over budget. Extra fares will apply, but there's supposed to be free rides that weekend.
posted at 20:18

 
A plan for a tramway, current panacea for all urban troubles, and changes in the Bonaventure autoroute, are meant to revitalize an area that's been down too long, but we've seen this kind of dream come and go, as fictional millions and billions are tossed in the air for grabs.

Here's the report and a link to various images and diagrams showing what's envisaged.
posted at 10:54

 
It's a slow news day after a long weekend during which a few drug busts at a rave is the biggest story.

The exhibit Le Monde du corps 2, Gunther von Hagens' display of plasticized human remains in various forms, is coming to the Centre des sciences next month; this show always inspires controversy. And the 12th annual Vue sur la relève multidisciplinary festival opens tomorrow.
posted at 10:51

 
The promoter who's meant to build the very exciting glass box at St-Laurent and Ste-Catherine has been caught out promoting the rental of space that doesn't exist in a building that hasn't been approved for construction yet.
posted at 10:35

 
Reviews of the Disney show and the Maurice Denis show both currently on at the Museum of Fine Arts.
posted at 13:48

 
A look at plans for the lower Main and whether the city stands to gain or lose from the sanitization of the peep shows, poutine and pinball.
posted at 13:18

 
It's cold comfort to know that with yesterday's win by the Islanders, the Leafs got knocked out of the eighth playoff spot. Yes that's right, the Canadiens were downed by a team that couldn't squeak into the playoffs either. Inevitably, there's now lots of surmises about the changes that will have to be made in a team that has now broken its own record for not-winning the Stanley Cup: 14 years.
posted at 13:08

 
Two boroughs are following Plateau Mont-Royal's lead in allowing more restaurants and cafés to have terraces on sidewalks, but some councillors say that this could make the streets noisier. To some folks, lively activity means noise, and visibly thriving businesses obviously mean trouble, but who moves onto a main drag (where most of these terraces will operate) expecting the silence of the suburbs?
posted at 12:49

 
Montrealers are mostly passive and unexcited about the gloomy environmental forecast released two days ago, even though it's the fragile members of our population who are at risk from the most immediate effects, like increased heat waves and smog.

(This blog will soon be moving to a new platform when montreal.com launches its redesign, and I plan to have a side blog following environmental issues exclusively. It's not a flake issue or a granola issue any more: it's really the major issue facing us, and it's soon going to make other issues look like trivia by comparison.)
posted at 23:03

 
A brief look at two young street people celebrating Easter without a home – an Easter which, for the first time in ten years, was a snowy one.
posted at 21:16

 
An unholy weekend for hockey, but it's a dually Christian holy season with both Roman and Orthodox Easters coinciding. Friday saw the Marche du pardon that bisects the city from Ahuntsic to Notre-Dame and, in related news, a study has shown that most Quebecers still call themselves Catholic although only ten percent of them still go to church.
posted at 01:58

 
After a roller-coaster game, and despite a hat trick by Michael Ryder, the Canadiens ended their playoff chances by falling 6-5 to the Leafs. That crinkling sound you hear is your blogger putting a paper bag over her head.
posted at 01:01

 
Cristobal Huet is to be in the net this evening for a hockey encounter so fateful that it could never have been planned this way. (And apparently it's never come down to the wire in this particular way before.)
posted at 19:00

 
From Zeke's Gallery, an annotated Google map of art exhibit spaces in and around Montreal.
posted at 16:28

 
One of many bloggers covers the story of the Youtube video showing a Montreal man handing a littering motorist back a handful of his butts. I hadn't posted about it mostly because it wasn't that good a video. Now it turns out to have been a hoax.
posted at 14:07

 
Lots of local medical stories this week: a woman is suing her doctor after a misdiagnosis of cancer led to damaging chemotherapy; another woman is trying to sue her doctor after a bungled cosmetic surgery (maybe I'm heartless, but I have somewhat less pity for her than for the first case); a baby was born to a woman with no ovaries after a new fertilization technique at Hôpital Saint-Luc (and, once again, maybe I'm heartless but, in the bigger picture, isn't fertility medicine a bit like deck chairs on the Titanic? The human race is not, by and large, suffering from not being able to produce enough offspring); possibly most interesting is a McGill discovery of a genetic cause of memory loss that may lead to pharmaceutical means to enhance memory.
posted at 13:48

 
After losing to the Rangers last night, the Canadiens are now faced with a do-or-die game Saturday night against the Leafs. But who will be in goal?
posted at 13:37

 
Interesting survey by Christopher DeWolf of the city's street signs with photos, showing the accretion of styles that have come and gone over the years. I have a particular dislike for the red signs in Old Montreal with their bogus and not very legible gold University Roman lettering – designed in 1977, it was a popular font in the 1980s and looks dated (in entirely the wrong sense) now.
posted at 19:07

 
A small bomb exploded at a Jewish community centre on Tuesday, i.e. on Passover. No one was hurt and no responsibility has been taken.
posted at 11:15

 
A study shows that eating properly is expensive in Montreal, especially for families: a selection of basic groceries costs $6.11 per day per person compared with $5.50 in 2005.

The study also shows that big grocery stores are cheaper although this doesn't consider the valid reasons for not shopping much in giant stores, like the time it takes to find things in them, and the availability of ethnic food in smaller groceries and locally grown and organic food at the markets.
posted at 11:06

 
Two pieces on how Montreal is lagging behind other cities in wiring itself up for wi-fi and cellular communications in the metro.
posted at 11:21

 
The Carmelite monastery in the Plateau is given provincial protection as a heritage area, so with any luck that's the end of any plans to turn it into fancy gated condos.
posted at 10:52

 
The mayor is encouraging all the boroughs to start ticketing mess-makers and litterbugs with fines of up to $1000 if you're caught. He seems to have taken the criticism of the tourism czar to heart.
posted at 23:34

 
The Tamtams on Mount Royal have a website but do they really deserve a logo made out of Comic Sans?
posted at 11:21

 
New York Daily News runs a short piece by that Journal de Montréal scribe who's written a book about all the terrorists hiding out in Montreal. Next time you spend three hours at the border on a trip to the U.S. you'll know who to thank. Great illo though.
posted at 11:16

 
After several arsons on the weekend, residents of Park Ex are angry and frightened and want to see something done about drug users skulking in alleys.
posted at 11:11

 
In this blog's more than five years of operation, I've noticed several cyclic phenomena: among them are police efforts to calm traffic and make pedestrians behave, which happens periodically but makes very little difference in how everyone acts when no cops are around.
posted at 10:55

 
The director of the city cops says police will be more visible on the streets to reassure the populace even though crime figures are low, and that despite the bump in homicides, there's no discernible gang war going on.
posted at 11:18

 
Tenants who've received rental increases have to do their homework and decide whether the rate is fair and acceptable. Meantime, a tenants' group is fighting the new tendency for owners to bar smoking in rental properties.

And here's a piece on the difficulty of getting social housing even for folks badly in need of it.
posted at 11:07

 
Evidence is anecdotal, but the question is raised whether our anglo hospitals are run better than our francophone ones.
posted at 10:50

 
In one of those periodic best-city-to-live-in reports, Montreal comes in 22nd worldwide, below Vancouver and Toronto but ahead of any U.S. city.
posted at 10:45

 
Yahoo pictures of the Faceless Invasion event; some pix of the Metro party event.
posted at 23:39

 
A nice little page on the streetcars of Montreal with photos; a page about the end of the last trams in Montreal with a Quicktime movie showing them being crushed; history of a train line to Montreal North; another rail and urban transit site with lots of local content, including this mondo gif file of the city's tram routes in 1941.
posted at 23:31

 
Ville-Marie is going to experiment with replacing green bins with recycling bags as Montreal strives to reach the 2008 goal of sending 60% of the city's refuse to be recycled.
posted at 23:16

 
An interesting look at the Gentlemen of Saint Sulpice, the religious order that's been most prominent in the history of Montreal.

(The one omission is a mention of the beautiful garden hidden behind the building in the photo. I caught a glimpse of it once, but I wasn't supposed to.)
posted at 18:19