New Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier has already announced plans to try to keep Tomas Plekanec and also to keep both Halak and Price on the team. posted at 21:40

 
The disappearance of two young men continues to puzzle police, who are looking for leads on where they went in the wee hours of Wednesday after they left the Diable Vert bar on Saint-Denis. The car they were using has also vanished. posted at 21:36

 
Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive has its eye on the old Dominion Bridge site in Lachine in hopes that it will somehow get to build cars for the Montreal metro.

Let's see: undercuts the Bombardier-Alstom offer, changes the system over to the cheaper and more flexible steel wheel model, and creates a thousand new jobs in the city. I'm beginning to wonder what arguments there are against this, unless pneumatic tires are seen as emblematic of the distinct society.

Yet the STM remains adamant that the Chinese offer is not acceptable. posted at 20:11

 
Guillaume Saint-Jean has a terrific Flickr photo set of the abandoned Franciscan church both as it looked before it burned down on the weekend, and as it looks now, accompanied by a chronology of its beginning and end. posted at 18:06

 
A man who beat an elderly nun to death in 2007 has been declared not criminally responsible and will not stand trial for the incident. posted at 17:36

 
Bob Gainey has stepped down as general manager of the Canadiens, and Pierre Gauthier will replace him. posted at 16:59

 
Quebec is giving several construction consortiums a final chance to submit acceptable bids to build the superhospitals under the provincial government's pet PPP system. If that doesn't work, it may revert to building them as a conventional public works project. posted at 09:05

 
A steady stream of Haitian exiles continues to arrive in town; the other side of this coin is the story of a Haitian-Canadian nurse who went back to do what she could to help out. posted at 08:55

 
The Casino is closing its cabaret for four years so a massive $305-million renovation can be done. posted at 08:44

 
A man hit with a speeding ticket has not only challenged his own ticket for having no police signature, but also put in legal doubt millions of dollars worth of tickets issued in this way. A judge has to rule on the case soon. posted at 08:39

 
I hope it's not permanent, but the Gazette site is dead this morning.

Later note: Back. But it's not exactly zippy. posted at 08:35

 
Mile Endings blog on the end of an era as the Maple Leaf Hat and Cap Co. closes up shop and goes away. Her original piece on the hat-maker, from November 2008, is here. posted at 20:34

 
Two young men have been missing since Wednesday; they were last seen at a bar on Saint-Denis. Photos of both here; I looked for them on the police site but it's down!

Later note: Police site is back again Monday morning. posted at 13:04

 
Some more detail on the Franciscan chapel destroyed by fire yesterday. The arson squad is investigating. posted at 12:25

 
Rima Elkouri gives us a perceptive critique of the testimony of Jean-Loup Lapointe. posted at 12:17

 
Victims of Earl Jones are hoping to sue the Royal Bank for not acting on its presumed knowledge of his unconventional management of their money. A court may have to decide whose due diligence was at fault. posted at 17:39

 
I think I understand the Longueuil metro problem better. Most folks taking the metro from the south shore already buy the TRAM 3 pass, which costs $111 and lets you use not only the metro, but the south shore bus system and commuter trains as well. A smaller group has been buying the $70 CAM grandfathered by the longtime understanding that Longueuil was in the same fare bracket as all the other older stations.

It's estimated that about 15% of the regular users of the Longueuil station are using a CAM, but that still means several thousand people who will be affected by the new requirement to pay more or buy a TRAM 3 pass to take the metro in Longueuil.

Fagstein also has a summary of the story.

There's talk of a new deal among the suburbs and the city over distribution of transit money and fares. The one outcome I'm certain of is that the ridership will likely be paying more to ride, not less. posted at 12:38

 
Review of the Marcel Dzama exhibit at the Musée d'art contemporain.

This is the last weekend of the John William Waterhouse show, last chance to see.

Review of Diabolique at Galerie de l'UQÀM till February 13.

It's also a free admission weekend at the Insectarium to mark its 20th anniversary. posted at 12:10

 
Blow-by-blow description of the shooting of Fredy Villanueva is now under the microscope as Jean-Loup Lapointe is grilled about each move he made that fateful evening. I don't think it's implausible he spotted a dice game from a distance – you don't have to see the actual dice to recognize the body language of a group around a craps game – but a nagging question remains how Jeffrey Sagor Metellus got shot in the back if Lapointe was only shooting at guys coming at him. Lapointe's testimony resumes next Thursday. posted at 12:06

 
The Franciscan chapel on René-Lévesque burned down this morning. It dated from 1893 and had not been in use for three years.

Later note: Guillaume Saint-Jean is quick off the mark with a then and now showing how the church used to look. He notes that the church had been emptied out so that no important works of art had been destroyed when it burned. posted at 11:33

 
Rue Frontenac is making a mini-scandal of expensive trash bins for the part of Jean-Talon that goes through Saint-Léonard. The price tag does sound a bit high, but isn't it worse if the city installs cheap fittings that fall apart quickly? posted at 11:15

 
Ce soir l'émission Fifth Estate de CBC va se pencher sur Earl Jones; on sait déjà que la Banque Royale était conscient que Jones avait l'habitude de faire des choses étranges avec ses comptes bancaires. posted at 14:00

 
Jean-Loup Lapointe a brisé les protocoles policiers après avoir tué Fredy Villanueva. posted at 13:22

 
Le blogueur Jean-Claude Rochefort, qui a fait un site en admiration de Marc Lépine, est toujours en prison. Son site reste disponible, la dernière date étant le 4 décembre, le jour de son arrestation. Le juge le trouve troublant. posted at 12:22

 
Longueuil metro users are getting a kick in the tush with a $41 hike in their monthly pass as of July. Their mayor responded by saying her city will, like Laval, now refuse to kick in its scheduled contribution towards Montreal's transit system.

The irony here is that Laval has been refusing to kick in because its users have been paying more than Longueuil's (even though they have three stations dating from this century, while Longueuil's single station is as old as the system itself). Now that Longueuil is facing higher fares, will Laval feel justice has been done, and write Montreal a cheque? I wouldn't hold my breath.

A number of honchos today signed a statement in Le Devoir saying the city needs more money for transit – but not via taxing parking lots, an unpopular item on the recent municipal budget. posted at 20:28

 
A business coalition has decided to try to fight Mayor Tremblay's downtown parking tax hike but the mayor says he's not backing down. posted at 09:19

 
While the Villanueva inquiry continues in Montreal, a preliminary hearing for another case touching Montreal residents is under way in Kingston as the evidence surrounding the murder of four women from Afghanistan is sifted to decide whether a murder case can be brought. posted at 09:17

 
Jean-Loup Lapointe says he felt he was cornered by a scrum of young men on that fateful day in Montreal North and had no choice but to draw and fire. His testimony continues today. A group of protesters against police violence gathered at the Palais de justice yesterday. posted at 09:10

 
The Gazette has a notice today reminding people in Pointe-aux-Trembles that the rotating blue-collar strike is in their borough tomorrow, so not to expect garbage pickup. They're doing this every day (always with the same photo of that devastated-looking pigeon) but on Tuesday I took them seriously and didn't put mine out, and there was garbage pickup anyway – maybe my street's covered by private contractors, who knows. So don't assume it's necessarily a true fact for you. posted at 19:34

 
More cities are climbing on the Bixi bandwagon, which is great for us, but makes me wonder what sets it apart from an obvious precursor like Paris's Vélib'. posted at 19:20

 
The city is still short of the 3 books per resident considered a basic minimum for municipal libraries. posted at 19:04

 
Opposition parties at city hall are accusing the mayor's party of wilfully stalling a number of complaints about racial profiling. posted at 09:11

 
Spacing inquires into the precise nature of an urban boulevard, a notion we've seen given as an alternative to trenched or elevated highways in our time. posted at 09:08

 
A big sculpture formed of books is on display at the library archives building on Viger; a brief piece on the year of glass theme in our museums; Montreal comic author Michel Rabagliati won a major prize in France for Paul à Québec. posted at 08:58

 
A mildly snowy winter has spared the city's snow clearing budget – so far. And no storms are in the long-term forecast either. posted at 08:46

 
Time for a little Olympic schadenfreude as we contemplate Vancouver's incipient debacle in the games department. posted at 00:21

 
It's not the first time I've seen this promise, but the STM has restated its intention to replace the 40-year-old public address system in the metro, citing in particular their inability to communicate details about Monday's lengthy outage on the orange line. posted at 00:19

 
Policewoman Stéphanie Pilotte finished her testimony this morning at the Villanueva inquiry, and the much awaited appearance of Jean-Loup Lapointe began. posted at 19:00

 
A recent study advises that submitting superhospital food services to the PPP treatment means worse food at a higher price. posted at 09:10

 
A fire destroyed a building on Atwater last night and a dozen people are homeless. The arson squad is investigating. posted at 09:08

 
Plans have been announced for the Nuit blanche, which will be done on the night of the 27th, a Saturday, instead of the 28th. Makes more sense, I guess. posted at 09:07

 
The funeral for Kate McGarrigle is said to have packed Notre-Dame. I wonder how many folks went mostly to see if they could catch a glimpse of Rufus Wainwright or hear famous folks performing. posted at 08:58

 
The Fredy Villanueva inquest resumes today and the policeman who shot him is expected to testify soon. posted at 08:49

 
Provincial and federal money will help build five organic waste plants in the Montreal area by 2014, some to create biomethane and some compost. Eventually we shouldn't be sending any of that stuff to landfills any more. posted at 02:26