Tips for Those Headed to APSA in Montreal 2022

Great views from the top of Mont Royal. 
Yes, the hill is what the city is named after, and
it is a great way to spend some time--walking up
and down.

 

 

It has been a grand tradition here at the Spew to offer unsolicited advice when conferences are in Canada.  A big caveat: I haven't lived in Montreal in ten years, so stuff has changed.  But the most relevant changes are national, not provincial or municipal, so I can still provide some useful guidance.  

First, to get into the country (yes, Canada is a different country, with its own border stuff and everything including roaming rates for your phone), you need passports (this ain't the 1980s) and to have filled out the ArriveCan app.  You can download it via your phone, either android or iphone, and then you input a heap of information within three days of your entry into Canada.  You have to do it shortly before you come to Canada.  Airlines may check that you have done so, you definitely will be checked at the border posts either via land or air.  Downloading the app feverishly filling it out as you wait in the border line in NY or Vermont is not a great strategy as it will require info and maybe even pics of your covid vax records.  The good news is that you won't need a test (that changed last spring). 
Update: I forgot to mention that masking in Canada is ... not consistent.  The mandates went away but a fair amount of people still mask indoors. 

Second, there are multiple ways to get from the airport to downtown--train, bus, taxi.  Downtown is not that far away, but traffic in Montreal sucks with construction season always a challenge (rush hour is not great in the morning and starts early in the afternoon).  If you are driving to Montreal, well, vaya con dios, as the drivers and the structure of the system both are awful.  People will make right turns from the left lane, for instance.  Merging on highways can be a challenge since there may be very little space/time/visibility.  So, my best tip is this: if you are driving and you see a merging sign, head to the far lanes (far right if your lane is on the right side of the merge, far left if you are on the road on the left that is merging towards the right) as this will allow you to avoid being in that magical lane that merges instantaneously.  

Third, it is is a fun place for language politics.  One of the controversies of late has been the tradition of bonjour/hi. That generally service folks in downtown (more so as you go west, less so as you go east, and this might be my most outdated bit of info) speak both English and French and will respond with French if you respond to their bonjour and in English if you respond to hi.  I lived ten years in Montreal (suburbs and McGill, so not the most French of places) and never had to speak much French to get by.  When I got stopped for speeding, I asked the cop if we could it in English since I didn't want to mess up the high stakes conversation, he said "I don't have to" and then we continued on in English.  If you can speak French, go ahead, of course, although the accent may mess you up some. Far more nasal than French French.

Fourth, it looks like a bit of rain next week.  Bring a jacket as we are already in fall with temps in the low 70s as the high and low 60s and even high 50s as the lows.  

Fifth, I mentioned above as an aside but it is serious--Canada's cell system is expensive and your phone will work but at a price, so check your phone provider if they have any deals for roaming in Canada.  No, no worries about moose roaming.

The important thing is Montreal is a great city and easy to get around. The metro system works well, although the whole "underground city" tourist thing is wildly overrated.  The conference is south of downtown so it is close to the Old Port area which has a heap of restaurants and bars.  Quebec beer is better than Ontario beer, and heaps of great crafty stuff is available.  Here's what  I wrote for the 2011 ISA re tourism:

Tourist destinations:

• Old Port area has, well, the older, more European buildings, restaurants, tourist traps. It has the science museum and some other stuff. Plus perhaps even some skating.  Might even be one of the few places that would rent stakes as Canadians seem to be required to own skates (which means that most rinks do not rent).
• Bell Centre.  Hockey is religion here.  The game is always sold out and there are always scalpers selling tickets right out in front before the game.  Bring a heap of cash, and you should be able to find some tickets. 
• Art museum on Sherbrooke is pretty good.  
• If you want to see failed government planning, grab a metro or taxi and head to the Olympic Stadium.  They did productive stuff with some of the other buildings, including turning the cycling arena into Bio-Dome.

Also:

Basic navigation: If you are on Rene Levesque Boul and are looking at the Sheraton--you are looking North, and uphill.  The main east-west streets are Sherbrooke, Maisonneueve, St. Catherine and Rene Levesque.  St. Catherine is the most interesting--it has the most shopping, restaurants, naked lady places, and so on.  If you walk either east or west on St. Catherines, you will find a restaurant or an area that is interesting.  And have much to talk about.  St. Laurent and St. Denis to the east are the main streets with heaps of stuff.  Indeed, they sometimes call St. Laurent "the Main" especially when they are tearing it up.  At the bottom of St. Laurent is a small China town.  There are Vietnamese places there and nearby.

Money: C$ is about US$.80 these days. Lots of places to change money, especially on St. Catherine street (handy for the lap dance places, I guess), but any bank will trade US and CA dollars.  Best bet is just using an ATM.

This gets us to cuisine where there are just a few key rules as almost all food in Montreal is terrific:

1.  The only reliably meh food is Mexican.  Pretty much everything else is terrific.  There are a few key streets that have lots of restaurants--Crescent to the West and St. Denis to the right had heaps of places 10 years ago.  I don't know what the pandemic did.

2.  French, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese are all reliably terrific.  Indian and Portuguese and Thai are all good, too.  My old guide lists specific places but I can't tell you how many of them are still open and good.  My old students commented on the thread and have some great suggestions.

3.  The beer is quite good.  Again, from my old guide:  I like Blanche de Chambly.  Boreale,  Le Cheval Blanc, McAuslan, Dieu du Ciel are all good.  I like some of the more national brands as well: Alexander Keith's and Sleeman's. You can find these two in most places. 

4.  Chez Cora has a heap of choices for breakfast.  It is a wonderful Quebec breakfast chain.

5.  Tim Horton's is always super slow so only go if you have time to stand in line and learn how to be polite and patient (you would then be on your way to becoming Canadian).

6. Poutine sounds scary but is really tasty. Not at all healthy but super tasty--fries, cheese curds (WTF?), gravy.  Yum.

7.  Quebec food at nice restaurants features duck, rabbit, and other stuff--very good cuisine in its own right.

8. I didn't mention Montreal bagels because I wanted this to be a nice, positive post.  Smoked meat is also a thing in Montreal, but is not that special. 

So, do get out beyond the hotel--there are plenty of great bars and restaurants. All over the place.

Montreal Deja Vu

I am briefly back in Montreal for a presentation to Latin American military officers and diplomats.  It is a last minute kind of thing, but it was handy to force me to think about how does civil society (academics, think tanks, media) play significant roles in civil-military relations.  I will post my take tomorrow.

Being back in Montreal reminded me of many things and a few new realizations:

• There were more hipsters in the restaurant on the plateau tonight than probably in all of Ottawa.
• The construction alongside A-20 reminds me why I left--this monstrosity is going to take forever.
• Montreal drivers ne care pas about the HOV lane, as plenty of cars passed me despite not being electric and not having three passengers.
• I hate, hate not being able to turn right on red.
• The food is always, always good.  I don't usually take food photos but for deep fried chocolate chip cookie dough, I had to:
  

Oh, and the Bill Simmons podcast with Key and Peele had a very interesting quote that bothers me a bit: comparison is the thief of joy. Apparently, Teddy Roosevelt said it.  On the one hand, yes, envy and jealousy are bad, so we should just declare success and embrace our own happiness.  On the other, as a social scientist, I am a big believer in comparing, as we can learn more about ourselves (our politics, our foreign policy, etc) by comparing with that of others.

Anyhow, it was great to see some of my favorite people.  I look forward to presenting my stuff to a group of interesting and interested folks.  And, yes, I love my job.

Duck and Cover, Montreal-Style

The more things change, the more they stay the same....  Montreal had yet another overpass shed yet more concrete on yet another car. 

This time, no one was hurt.  And this time, it was further to the west, much closer to where I used to live.  I would go under this overpass nearly anytime I went to play frisbee or head downtown.

The assurance is that the overpass, despite its crumbling, is safe so the highway can carry traffic again.  Of course, anyone who believes that should consult my craigslist offering of a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell.

Why should we expect Quebec to take seriously this stuff when the PQ has done such an excellent job of providing a new, even more bitter version of distraction sauce--the Charter of Xenophobes Values?

Anyhow, I appreciate the reminder of one of the reasons why I left Montreal despite the good food and great friends.

Another reminder will be this afternoon when I lunch at the headquarters of the Dept of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.  The lunch guest heads a German think tank that was of great assistance to me, so I am glad to have the opportunity to meet with him and not have to drive two hours to do so.  I do, indeed, love Ottawa and all that it offers.  I would have moved even if I didn't fear the collapsing infrastructure of Montreal, but, as we are reminded yet again, my fears have a solid basis in reality, unlike the assurances of the Quebec highway folks.


Update: Montreal Gazette cartoon captures it

Thou Shall Not Pass

What is scarier than a knight with a big sword standing across your path?


A bridge that requires twice daily inspections is one that should be avoided.  This story about the Champlain Bridge should scare any commuter seeking to cross into or out of Montreal.  When I was thinking about leaving Montreal, I knew I would miss the Eastern Townships, which have several really cool ski areas.  Plus this was the most direct way to cross towards the US (although we had gotten in the habit of driving to the crossing near Kingston instead for non-New England trips).  I knew, however, that with the various infrastructure projects and the failing bridges that even if I had remained in Montreal, the Eastern Townships would be accessible only if I drove west to go east.

So, I miss much of Montreal and I miss Orford and Sutton, but I do not miss these kinds of stories.

Montreal infrastructure is going to suck very much before it gets any better.

Short Games vs. Long Games vs. Long, Long Games

There is a pretty good take on the Quebec Charter of Values mess in the NYT today.  It reminded me of a conversation I had last week in Scotland--what is the aim of the Parti Quebecois in pushing forth a hugely controversial but largely symbolic hunk of legislation?

The first explanation is that the PQ needs to play to its xenophobic base, as the CAQ might inherit its predecessor's xenophobic appeal.  With sovereignty/secession not so popular these days, the PQ has to do much to emphasize the Us by targeting a Them--immigrants.  Of course, this also helps mobilize the anti-Montreal folks since much of what goes on in Quebec is part of the Montreal versus everyone else dynamics.

But the problem is that this strategy by the PQ is in direct contradiction to its previous stance of reaching out to immigrants.  Why reach out?  Because if there were to be another referendum, the PQ would need votes from the new citizens of Quebec as well as the old ones in the hinterlands.  The turn to xenophobia (especially its anti-Muslim themes) might be due to a realization that the French speaking immigrants may never want Quebec to be independent regardless of how nice the PQ plays.

Someone in Scotland suggested a longer term strategy--perhaps the PQ wants to drive out the immigrants, so that the potential No-voters are no longer an issue.  The PQ and its policies have already done a nice job of alienating many Anglophones, leading to significant flight of those folks around the time of the last referendum (which meant that the house I bought in 2002 in Montreal was mucho cheaper than it might otherwise have been). 

So, the short term strategy of solidifying the base might run against the long term strategy of making immigrants good Quebeckers and more likely independence voters, but may also play into a longer term strategy of producing greater homogeneity in Quebec.  If Quebec becomes less diverse as Anglophones and immigrants leave, then Quebec separatists win.... even as Quebec loses.  Yes, Quebec would be worse off if Montreal lost its diversity flavor not just economically but culturally as well. 

But it has long been clear that what is bad for Montreal is good for the PQ: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Montreal Under Water (cont)

Here is some video focused on the other side of campus:


When I said that one of the reasons I left Montreal was the collapsing infrastructure, I was more focused on the roads.  Still, this event is not the first time this has happened, but clearly worse than the previous time.  Ug.  Will there be any accountability for this?  I doubt it.

Impact of Infrastructure

I saw this tweet

The Victoria Bridge, built for Grand Trunk Rail in 1860, may be our most structurally sound! #6degreesMontrealDownton google.ca/search?q=grand…
— Anna Anthropologist (@AnnaAnthro) January 7, 2013

and had to respond: Not Saying much.  That is, that the rest of the Montreal bridges and tunnels are in such lousy shape that it is not that hard to be the most structrually sound bridge/tunnel in the Montreal area.

The increasingly decrepit bridges drastically reduced my ability to enjoy Montreal:

• I dropped out of the city-wide Montreal Ultimate leagues as I could no longer stand driving through rush hour, especially to cross a bridge, to get to games.  As the league expanded and had more games in Laval (crossing bridges on the northern side of Montreal) and in Brossard and other parts of the South Shore (crossing bridges on the southern side), I had to spend longer and longer to get to where I wanted to go.  So, I dropped off of my teams, and told my friends that I would sub for their teams IF and only IF the game was on the Island of Montreal and in the middle or western parts of the island.  With tunnels potentially collapsing, games on the eastern side became less attractive as well.
• I became less enthused about skiing in the Eastern townships as that would require crossing a bridge to the south short.  Going north was less problematic but I really enjoyed the places to the East.  

I didn't move to Carleton and Ottawa because of the bridges, but the demise of the infrastructure in Montreal made the decision easier.  I found it harder and harder to enjoy the city and its surroundings, which made the other aspects of Ottawa and the new job more attractive.  I don't think I am alone in re-calculating the ability to enjoy the city as it falls apart.

Given that the political weight in the province is not in Montreal, I doubt that things will really change.

Hate the Player and the Game

The Mayor of Montreal, Gerald Tremblay, is currently giving a speech where he hopefully will resign.  He started by saying that his dad told/ him:
"My father told me to never get into politics because it was dirty, and I would be destroyed."

And my reaction is: I pity the fool who blames the game.  At no point did this Mayor ever seem at all sincere about fighting corruption.  The scandal led to his door.  He made his bucks so no sympathy for him now.  He played the game, he won, and now he has lost.  Suck it up, take some personal responsibility and then get off the stage.  Oh, and maybe donate some cash to something worthy.

Tremblay leaves as he governed--oblivious to the end.

The Corruption Tax

The investigation into the Montreal construction-corruption industry has implicated the Mayor.  Shocking?  Nay.  Excuse me, non.  I love that the Mayor's lawyer is now trying to challenge the witness.  That is going to keep him in business because it is not about challenging one witness  but the stream of witnesses.  So Mayor Tremblay is avoiding various appearances.  That makes him a gutless weenie.  If he is innocent (ha!), he should stand up for himself.  If he is not, then, well, suck it up.

The timing, of course, could not be worse, as Tremblay is proposing a tax hike. Since the government seems to be utterly corrupt, wasting huge amounts on crappy infrastructure programs, one would think that instead of raising taxes, the city could just agree to waste less of it.... at least while the corruption investigation is going on.

Tremblay is a disgrace, but he is not alone--this is a long term problem touching all of the major parties.  But the good news is that we can focus on nationalism in the next election and ignore the countability problems, right?

These Are The Cities I Know, I Know

As my time in Montreal is ending, I have been thinking about how it compares with the many places I have lived during my academic journey around North America.  Leaving aside the Philadelphia suburbs of my youth (didn't really partake of the city nor have incredibly fond memories of high school) or summer camp (great place but it could have been anywhere--the experience was entirely the people), that leaves us with Oberlin, San Diego, Burlington (VT), Lubbock, suburban Virginia, and Montreal.

As always, when grading, the top and bottom of the scales are the easiest.  As readers of my blog know, I was not very fond of my Lubbock experience.  I never felt like I belonged, entertaining my kid meant going to the mall since it was too hot to do much for about four months, the dust storms and the raining mud, the place was hostile to Halloween, and all of my friends were either in the department (only temporarily since all were destined to move on) or on the frisbee team--and it took a few years to get enough people together to have just one team.  We were friendly with our neighbors but had little in common.  Not a horrible place to live, but not one that I would have chosen.

On the other side of the spectrum, the answer to the question "where would I live if I could chose" is most obviously San Diego.  This is, of course, colored by the great experience I had at UCSD--just terrific folks in grad school.  But aside from that, great weather, great food, beaches!, we snorkeled, it was just beautiful (opposite end of the topography spectrum from flat Lubbock), and the traffic was not entirely awful.  Might be now, but what I experienced was just a great place to live.  No shortage of things to do--it would have been fun to raise a kid in that town.  Each weekend we could have gone some place completely different.  Four climates all available in a couple of hours.  Every time I go back, I have the same exact question: why was I so eager to leave?

The ones in the middle are harder to rank.  I have a deep fondness for Oberlin because it was such a great place to go to college.  Just a lively environment, interesting and interested people, but the winters were dim, the spring and fall were windy and often gray.  In my day, there were few restaurants.  While the college did a great job in bringing stuff to town, it is a great place to be a student, but to live?  

Burlington was a good place to live after grad school.  I had the most beautiful commute of my life--with mountains on either side and a lake that iced over in winter.  The skiing was great.  The town has a surprising number of good restaurants and food trucks.  The neighbors were very friendly, and we felt more at home there than most other places.  But it was remote, with limited non-snow things to do.  Could have had more ultimate.

Suburban Virginia (Burke in Fairfax County) felt mighty familiar as my wife grew up in the Maryland suburbs, I spent two years there as well growing up, and many of my camp friends were from the area.  I did take my young daughter to the Mall on a regular basis--mostly to the natural history museum.  It was a great place to be in the policy world as I did get to go to a bunch of events at think tanks until I got competent enough in my Pentagon job that I could not disappear for a couple of hours.  We had a chance to spend much time with my in-laws and my blond nieces.  The traffic was awful, but I didn't experience it much since I went to work so early.  If I lived there for real, the traffic would have ended my ultimate career, I think. The Metro system is falling apart, according to my twitter feed.

Then there is Montreal.  While I complain much here about the roads, the traffic, the nationalism, the people have been mighty friendly to us.  Our neighborhood feels like a neighborhood.  The skiing has been terrific except for this last winter of rain.  The ultimate community has been amazing, so I got to travel all over the city and meet plenty of people, learning heaps of Quebec curse words as a result.  We loved going to the comedy festival, and it appears to be against the law to be a lousy restaurant.  Other than Mexican food, we can get whatever we want here.  Well, I am not a big fan of Montreal's bagels.  The big obstacle to enjoying the city has been the roads--that they are designed to congest, so we did not explore as much of the city as we would have liked.  But in terms of pure enjoyment, I have to say that Montreal was terrific.

So, if I have to rank where I have lived (and blog rules say I must), focusing on where I would like to live again:

SD >  Montreal (due to ultimate community) > Surburban VA/DC > Burlington > Oberlin > Lubbock, but with Mtl/DC/VT very closely ranked.  I might have a different order of those three if I was in a different mood.  Recency bias may be at work.

I will miss Montreal a great deal.  The folks where I live, many of the faculty where I worked, all of the people I played ultimate with and against will be missed.  The skiing choices will not be as good or as close in Ottawa.  The ultimate, however, should be fun, as their community of frisbee folks is bigger than Montreal's.  But will I find folks to be as spirited, as silly?  Probably not.

Montreal Ultimate: Covered in Spirit Sauce!

While I have enjoyed teaching the undergrads at McGill, the amazing restaurants in town, and the annual comedy festival, there is no doubt that my favorite part of Montreal has been its incredibly vibrant ultimate frisbee community.  I have played a bit less the last couple of years--1-2 nights a week due to my frustration with traffic and due to, well, a body that heals slower, but it will be missed greatly even though there is ultimate in Ottawa.  So, I am posting some pics this morning to mark my last night of Montreal ultimate tonight.

Spanking Monkeys 2003

I have played on many teams and in many leagues and tournaments.  I started out playing indoors with Spanking Monkeys.  We were lousy but had good spirit.

BMFHard 2006

I picked up with BMFHard for my Tuesday nights for the first several summers.  I learned a lot playing with these folks as Bobby Lee was the most focused captain I ever had, getting us to learn a series of tactics and strategies.

Ultimate Angels 2004

Ultimate Angels was my Thursday team for many summers.  Great spirit, mostly Francophone so my French improved (as much as it could). 

Ultimate Angels 2007

In the summer of 2011, the Montreal Ultimate Association started a new league on the very western edge of the island.  This meant much easier driving, so I grabbed this opportunity with both hands.  It started out quite small with only four teams, with many folks who were relatively new to ultimate.  I started out with Rhubarb--who had great spirit and deceptive talent.  I was switched to a less successful team (whose name now escapes me) to help make it more competitive.  We were always short players, but had fun.  I played with Rhubarb again in the fall league.

2011 West Island Summer Team

Rhubarb 2011: Original WI Team

Swingers, Comedy fest 2008

I played in a heap of tournaments.  Most were beginning and end of the season tourneys with my various summer league teams.  I did play for a few teams that competed in the more competitive tournaments that the AUM hosted in Montreal with teams from all over Canada and the Northeastern US:  the Just for Laughs tourney and Jazzfest, including this one:



My favorite experience was with the Montreal Grandmasters (over 40 years old) team in the annual tourney.  In 2009, we ran the table and won the tourney pretty handily.  I learned that beer tastes far better when sipped from a championship cup.

My absolute favorite experience has been playing with General Admission for the past six or so years.  We played in the Concordia U intramural league (almost entirely taken over by non-Concordia students) including the past couple of winters in their temporary dome.  This team, with its changing personnel, combined the best of both elements: competitive and spirit.  It was always a smart, competitive team that played hard and when we played in the GA-style,we won much of the time.  It was also a very silly, spirited team, so we had a lot of fun with each other.  Tonight is my last game with GA.  I will miss quite a bit all the folks who cycled through that team 

GA 2011: Fall Champions: Moo!

My other post has some pics of some of my favorite people and moments (I don't want to crash your page or mine with too many pics).

Montreal Ultimate: My Last Night in Montreal

The best part of the scene here in Montreal has been the spirited folks I have played with and against.

Hard's most spirited moment?

Lindsay rocks!

She is Sparta!

See, I actually run sometimes

Committee meetings are
underrated

Yet I agreed to play with Chris's GA team

Funny foul call?

Doug cannot possibly be
suggesting a play to Sheillah

As long as Mike was around,
I was not the oldest guy on the field

Most spirited Lindsay

Next gen ultimate

Old guys cannot remember
the lyrics to their cheer.

I get the last word: Moooooooooooo!

Moo!

Bonjour-Hi

There is a secret code for folks shopping in Montreal: when in a store, the clerk will often say Bonjour-Hi.  And then you pick in which language the rest of the transaction takes place.  At first, I tried to do these transactions in my poor French, but that just caused confusion and frustration.  So, I just would say hi and move on in English.  This is pretty cool for a city where people speak multiple languages.

Well, unless your job is to enforce French supremacy.  Don Macpherson has a piece today about how the language police office is upset that 13% of transactions in downtown Montreal begin with Bonjour-Hi.  Worse, the Liberal language rep is "concerned."  Oh, please.  This is all just posturing for the language nationalists.  That sales folks want to make customers feel comfortable by operating in their language of choice, 13% of the time downtown, that is, is something to be concerned or irritated about? 

Ah, the joy of misplaced priorities. This, I will not miss.  Absolument non.

Protest is a Many Splendored Thing

I think the ongoing strife in Quebec is quite the Rorschach test.  People can find something in the past 14 weeks of events whatever they want to find: entitled students, oppressive government, corruption, the power of unions, the divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada, a battle against capitalism and neo-liberalism, whatever.

Bill 78 did not create an unholy alliance between student protesters, unions and the Parti Quebecois.  That existed before, as the PQ was supporting any effort to attack the Liberals as good governance has never been its mission.  Unions supported the students because they are not thrilled with the Charest government.  There were already folks involved in the movement spouting off the usual rhetoric about capitalism and neo-liberalism.  But Bill 78 did cause folks who believe in civil liberties, such as this McGill Poli Sci student, among others to oppose the government.

I understand that Occupy movements have been complaining about capitalism and that neo-liberalism is a nice thing to blast.  I do ponder what the hell would be the alternative.  Socialism?  Where is that working out?  I do believe in well-regulated capitalism, so I wish the focus of mobilization in Quebec would be good governance rather than tuition avoidance and whatever is now being demanded with the expanded coalition of the mobilized.  Indeed, this thing was never has coherent as advertised, but seemed to be since the two non-CLASSE groups tied themselves to CLASSE which sought a rollback in tuition and then some.  Negotiations were already hard since CLASSE was never interested in any kind of compromise, but now that the "movement" has grown to include folks seeking the end of capitalism, well, good luck bargaining on that.

Given the union funding behind the students and given the principal-agent problems on both sides, I am skeptical that this will end soon.  So, expect a summer of protests with occasional outbursts of violence.  I guess I picked the right summer not to attend the Just for Laughs festival.

Montreal News: Squirrel Again

I have been harping and harping on the idea that perhaps we are not so focused on the important stuff in Montreal.  Here is a tale of two pictures and then a third story:

http://www.news1130.com

This is from the big protest yesterday to mark the 100th day of the student protests of tuition (which has morphed into many issues with the current government, especially its response to the protests).

Montreal Gazette

This is a sinkhole that formed right outside McGill an hour or so after the protesters marched by.  My tweet last night was essentially that I have long compared the roads of Montreal/Quebec to World War I battlefields, but I will have to stop because it is an insult to the battlefields.

Ah, but why, other than the path of the protest, are these two pics related?  Because of a story buried in the paper: Quebec Justice Charbonneau is starting her commission to look into corruption in Montreal's construction industry.  Yes, the students have complained about corruption a bit, but that is not really the focus of their effort, and their efforts have taken the spotlight (as seen by the headlines and frontpages [the commission's opening is not even linked to the Gazette's front page on its website this morning]) off of the corruption problem.

That Montreal's infrastructure is literally collapsing should be the top story as it is a threat to people's lives, as opposed to the symbolic threat of an increase in tuition to access to education (symbolic because the crafting of the increase means that less than wealthy folks are not going to see any increase).

I get that the students are frustrated, I get that the rest of the province is frustrated with Jean Charest's mishandling of the crisis.  But the reality is that these protests are not going to empower real political change that might lead to less corruption, less waste and better construction.  It is no accident that the big unions are supporting the students--they are part of the corruption racket.  A new government led by the Parti Quebecois would not be focused on fighting corruption but on justifying secession.  Their focus is explicitly not on good governance (except when an occasional third party pushes them in that direction) but on more distraction sauce.  Would independence solve or ameliorate corruption and bad governance?  Hell no!  Would a separatist campaign that falls short make the roads better and the universities less expensive?  No.  So, consider me frustrated, too, as all of the attention is on issues that are not the fundamental ones.

Again, I get it that the demands of the students and their allies have accumulated so that corruption is now a bit more visible as a claim, but if only that were the central focus, then I might be supportive.  Instead, as the newspapers demonstrate, SQUIRREL!

écureuil, part deux

Squirrel!!  Yes, it is time for that game-y flavored distraction sauce.  Yesterday, two major news events occurred in Montreal/Quebec: Jean Charest tabled an emergency law that will suspend the classes for those colleges and programs where students have been not attending,* levying new penalties for disrupting classes, requiring more notice for protests and so on;** and several people close to Montreal Mayor Tremblay were arrested for corruption charges.

*  I have decided not to use "strike" or "boycott" to describe what the student groups are doing.  They are not refusing to work nor are they refusing to buy something.  They have already paid for a service--an education--and are refusing to partake.  I don't know of a word that describes that well.

** Folks on twitter this morning say that the law overreaches, especially as the problem in Montreal is mostly an "enforcement" problem.

I am not saying that the mayor's office has been helping the student protests along.  No, not at all, but I am saying that the corruption problem in Montreal and Quebec has often been a side show, overlooked as we focus on issues that are actually less significant in terms of costs, in terms of the quality of service--in terms of good governance.  Yes, the students are upset that they have to pay more for their education, but we forget that that they are also upset because they have witnessed heaps of money wasted on things like construction at UQAM that goes on forever (hmm, any corrupt contractors involved?), new satellite campuses for schools not based in Montreal, new campuses for schools based in Montreal (UdeM with a billion dollar project in Outremont), schools blowing heaps of money on firing elite officials and giving them big severance packages (Concordia), and schools spending more money than appears warranted on the travel of their boss (McGill).

To be clear, these spending scandals are, in total (with the exception of UQAM and UdeM) are pretty small compared to the other rising costs of education and to the costs to the university system of the tuition freeze.  Moreover, the costs to the city and province of corruption is much, much greater than the costs of the student protests.  Construction in Quebec costs something like 30% more than in other Canadian provinces even though wages are lower here, yet the construction projects almost always seem to produce crappy work.  Indeed, we are now going to be paying millions and billions to replace infrastructure (roads and bridges) that were built not that long ago.

But the corruption scandal, clearly touching the mayor, is going to be pushed out of the news by the student protests and the reactions of the Charest government.  I can only guess that Mayor Tremblay, who was complaining of the protests earlier in the week, is now secretly thrilled that these events have come so close together, even if it means that Montreal is a battlezone for police and students.  I guess it is a good thing that the roads resemble World War I trenches.

An End to an Ultimate Era

Last night was my last game in a Montreal ultimate league.  I played in essentially three leagues in my time in Montreal: the Montreal Ultimate Association's [AUM] city-wide league; Concordia University's "intramural" league; and last summer's brand new West Island league (which is run by the AUM).  I have had a great time in each.  The AUM was my first experience with an indoor league where I got to meet my first Montreal ultimate folks.  I then went on to play on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for all of my summers in Montreal except last year on a variety of teams including Ultimate Angels, Hard, Sexy Mother Huckers, and a couple of others whose names elude me.   Last summer, I replaced my bi-weekly treks across town and over bridges to play in the new league much closer to home.  I mentored a bunch of folks new to competitive ultimate. 

On Sundays for the past five or six years including the last several winters, I played on Sundays with General Admission, my absolute favorite team.  While the players have changed on that team, the folks have always been of great skill and spirit.  They tolerate and even welcome my hucks (long throws) and encourage me to dive or lay out for a throw.

I had so much fun over the years here.  I met so many people, Anglophones, Francophones, Allophones, silly people and not so silly people (ok, damned few of those), Montrealers, Quebeckers, Albertans, Americans, etc, younger folks (like my daughter's teammates) to older folks (giving me hope that I might play into my 60's--which, according to one teammate, would be next year).  It has just been a great ride, with many of my favorite Montreal memories being ones involved with games and tourneys, with throws, defenses, catches and all the rest.  Such a great community of players here. 

So, it was a great ending to my ultimate time here that General Admission won its bracket (B, this time, instead of the A division) last night.  My teammates kept trying to throw the disk to spots where I would have to dive, with only one succeeding--for a score.  Hence this pic:

Thanks for the cheers, the throws and the catches, and thanks for making up for my lousy defense.

Montreal versus Quebec

Henry Aubin wrote a column today that tries to make the point that the Parti Quebecois does not understand or does not care that a secessionist effort would be bad for Montreal.  I think he is close but not quite there.  It is not so much that the PQ is "willfully ignoring Montreal" as much as it is that the PQ is running against Montreal.  In my ten years here, it has been quite clear that a rural vs urban, Montreal vs the Rest of Quebec (ROQ to parallel the ROC of the rest of Canada) divide is perhaps just as important or even more so than the Angophone/Francophone debate. 

Depending on the year, Montreal is:

• the haven of immigrants that seemingly cannot assimilate into Quebec culture;
• overrun by non-Francophones;
• dominated by Anglophones;
• and so on.

Yet the electoral laws undercount the voters of Montreal and overcount voters elsewhere.  As a result, the major economic engine of Quebec is often under-serviced.

I have no doubt that Aubin is right--that secession would be awful for Montreal and thus bad for the Quebec economy.  I also have no doubt that the PQ largely does not care since its political strategy focuses mostly on getting votes elsewhere by running against Montreal.  It makes sense politically, but as we all know, what is good for a party or a politician can be bad for a state/province/country.  For Kin or Country indeed!

Collapsed Credibility

The reports on the tunnel collapse in Montreal have been released.  The Ministry of Transport is blaming the engineers and contractors they hired but disavowing any responsibility itself.  Good times.

There is so much wrong with these reports, let me count the ways:

1. The initial design: why was there a need for very heavy concrete and metal screens above the tunnel to filter the sunlight as folks enter/leave the tunnel?  Would not something lighter been fine?  Oh, and having these heavy "paralumes" rest on four inch ledges?
2. The Minister denied any responsibility for the collapse--it is the fault of the contractors.  The Ministry should not be expected to review all of the plans, as that would mean they are re-doing all of the work of the contractors.  Um, ok.  Bad analogies were deployed--house owners do not get blamed if their house collapses.  No, but the Ministry is more than just a buyer of infrastructure.  
3. It is always the same set of contractors--SNC-Lavalin is also building the new McGill hospital and has been tied to building stuff for Qaddafi. CIMA + and Dessau are also involed
4. The firms say: it is just an accident.  Sure, bad things happen, not our fault.  Unless the accident is produced by bad design, bad planning, bad oversight....   Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers famously said that "Luck is the residue of design."  So, bad luck or accidents are the residue of bad design, n'est-ce pas?

Looks like the Ministry of Transport continues to lack a learning curve and seeks to cover everything in denial sauce.