montreal city weblog

No flies on Autumn Kelly

2008-05-16T09:07:00.001-04:00

There are more news stories on Autumn Kelly, but clearly nobody's digging up any dirt on the Pointe Claire woman marrying into the royal family tomorrow. British media are raising a few implied eyebrows over her plebeian background, and the National Post managed to find some priest to tut tut about her abandonment of her Roman Catholic "faith" in order to join her husband's Church of England, but that's a reach in a time when most people under 60 use a church only for the occasional wedding or funeral. After tomorrow, let's hope this remains a non-story.

City's Chinese plan fund-raisers for Sichuan

2008-05-16T08:59:00.001-04:00

The city's Chinese community is raising funds to send to Sichuan to help victims of the recent terrible earthquake.

U of M wins design award for new campus

2008-05-16T08:56:00.000-04:00

The University of Montreal plan for its Outremont campus has won an urban design award – even though not a sod has been turned yet.

Telus theatre not ready for prime time

2008-05-16T08:53:00.000-04:00

Even though it opened officially last month, downtown's newest big venue, Salle Telus, won't be ready for general use till this fall – and, with Bell and Videotron sponsoring the big festivals, they're not likely to want to do shows in a hall named for a competitor.

A look at smaller museums for Museums Day

2008-05-16T08:39:00.001-04:00

A quick look at several of the city's smaller museums as Museums Day approaches this Sunday.

Slow tourism summer expected

2008-05-16T08:28:00.001-04:00

A slow summer is expected in local tourism, what with the strong loonie and other factors; Tourisme Montreal has certainly pulled out all the stops in its new "Montreal in two minutes" video.

Montreal remains a popular destination for sex change operations: although Quebec won't pay for them, other provinces will.

I'm number 3!

2008-05-15T09:17:00.002-04:00

I'm holding a printed copy of today's Mirror here (their website always goes up later on Thursday, so I can't yet link) and am pleased to see that this blog came in #3 in its category, after Midnight Poutine and Pregnant Goldfish, the latter of which I've never looked at. But the Poutine crew deserves congratulations.

Struggle continues within agglomeration

2008-05-15T07:41:00.000-04:00

Municipal affairs minister Nathalie Normandeau now says she will make her decision on the division of metropolitan powers in two weeks' time. The suburbs are said to be fighting hard to get their 13 percent of the island's population recognized. I can tell you one thing: whatever solution the minister proposes in Bill 22, it won't last long.

Universities benefit from religion's decline

2008-05-15T07:30:00.000-04:00

Concordia gets a gift from the Jesuits and McGill has bought the adjoining Anglican college now that Anglicans are down to less than 1% of the city's numbers.

La Ronde opens Saturday

2008-05-15T07:26:00.000-04:00

La Ronde opens this weekend for the summer season.

City crime numbers are down

2008-05-15T07:17:00.000-04:00

Crime figures are down although some downtown residents still complain about prostitution and drug dealing.

Hospital errors and oversights: a theme

2008-05-14T08:12:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-14T07:59:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-14T07:52:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-14T07:39:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-14T06:53:00.000-04:00

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

ADQ snubbed in by-elections

2008-05-13T08:13:00.001-04:00

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

2008-05-13T08:09:00.000-04:00

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

Independent video stores and how they survive

2008-05-13T07:56:00.000-04:00

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

What does "forever" mean in law?

2008-05-13T07:53:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-13T07:47:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-13T07:21:00.000-04:00

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.

Vision Montreal: a history without a future?

2008-05-12T07:31:00.000-04:00

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

2008-05-12T07:14:00.000-04:00

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"

2008-05-12T07:05:00.000-04:00

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.