ha ha! your medium is dying!

As a print reporter, it’s depressing reading the web some (most?) days.

st. paddy’s day “too english”

I had a story in today’s paper about complaints by a new sovereignist group, the Réseau de Résistance du Québécois, that Montreal’s St. Patrick’s day parade is too English. The RRQ plans to crash take part in the parade even though organizers say the group is not authorized. RRQ members will be distributing leaflets and waving [...]

art imitating life

I’m three weeks behind on my TV watching so I just caught the Jan. 26 episode of 3600 secondes d’extase, Marc Labrèche’s show on Radio-Canada.
One of the skits involves an anglo pretending to be a francophone who tries to bring a petition to Air Canada to complain about its lack of French language services. It [...]

franco comme moi

I had a piece in today’s paper about my personal undercover language investigation. I was initially going to write it as a blog item but it turned into a feature for the paper.
Here’s the top of it:
Speaking French in anglo ‘hoods
‘Francophone’ goes on shopping spree
ANDY RIGA, The Gazette
In Quebec’s long, tumultuous history of language squabbles, [...]

a project for the abandoned seville block?

 
(More Allen McInnis/Gazette pictures here.)
In October, I wrote about the old Seville Theatre and the abandoned Ste. Catherine St. West block it sits on. I also posted some comments from readers. 
Well, the theatre is in the news again. I had a story in today’s Gazette about work being done there this week. Since the owner (Claridge Properties Ltd.) isn’t talking, it’s unclear [...]

via rail will get you there… just as soon as it finds its stations

While working on an upcoming travel column tonight, I came upon a strange line on a Via Rail website page that features Google maps.
“Please note that station locations on some Google maps may not be entirely accurate. We are currently verifying the exact locations of all our stations.“
Now, one would think Via knows where its [...]

airbus chery and airbus jean-jacques

Infoman – aka Jean-René Dufort, aka Radio-Canada’s (funny) answer to Rick Mercer – pulled off a funny one on Brian Mulroney, getting the former prime minister to sign not one but two copies of his autobiography for people claiming their first name was “Airbus.” One claimed to be named “Chery Airbus” (see above), the other [...]

the properties of snow

After Montreal’s first winter storm, the city claimed 45 centimetres of snow fell, while Environment Canada said 36 cm. I wanted to figure out how and why Environment Canada and the city could come up with snowfall estimates that diverged so widely.
The story that resulted from my research was published in today’s Gazette (see the bottom [...]

ste. catherine st. w.’s ghost block

I have a story in today’s Gazette about the crumbling Seville Theatre and the ghost block it sits on. Here’s the top of the article:
The outer limits of downtown
Andy Riga, The Gazette
The strip of Ste. Catherine St. W. was once alive with nightlife, full of Montrealers heading for Canadiens games at the Forum, movies [...]

save the architecture, spare us the smoked meat

A group called Art Déco Montreal wants to save the Ben’s building. Tomorrow (June 14) at noon, they’re having a demo outside the landmark restaurant at de Maisonneuve and Metcalfe. It closed in December during a strike.
Back in the 1980s when I worked at a newsstand at Peel and Ste. Catherine, I used to enjoy [...]

why can’t montreal cyclists and montreal drivers get along?

Are Montreal cops monitoring this blog? They put out a press release today about bicycle safety.
I had another near-death experience on Ste. Catherine St. this morning, wondering as I dodged driver-side doors and was cut off by taxis about who in the Gazette newsroom would write my obit and whether they’d quote yesterday’s prescient blog [...]

I quit; goodbye cruel facebook

Top 12 reasons why I am about to deactivate my Facebook account, just 35 days after enthusiastically embracing the service:
12) I’m too old.
11) It’s too much like being on a reality-TV show.
10) Once it starts making the front page of paper-based content aggregators, it has lost its cachet.
9) I have a sneaking suspicion all those [...]

léa and william are top quebec baby names

 
Stop the presses: the annual list of hot Quebec baby names is out.
Léa was the most popular girl’s name in 2006 and William was the top boy’s name. The one that always surprises me is Océane (number 9 this year; last year it was 13th). Océane? There’s a database here that lets you look up [...]

the scud stud does afghanistan

Eight more Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan this week.
If you want news coverage that goes beyond what Canadian newspapers and TV networks are producing, check out a new project by Arthur Kent, the Scud Stud of the first Gulf War.
Kent, who has reported from Afghanistan on and off for 27 years, launched SkyReporter.com last month.
On [...]

campaign buses named; “reeferendum” called

The E-File, my Quebec election notebook started in today’s Gazette. Have an interesting tidbit or comment? Send them to me at ariga@thegazette.canwest.com.
A couple of items from today’s E-File:
Reporters are mulling campaign bus monikers. PQ: Brokeback Express. Liberal: Federal Express/JC Resurrection Tour. ADQ: Hérouxville Express.
* * *
Hugô St-Onge is convinced he has the [...]

the internet’s marginal effect on elections

The news media love stories about the Internet and its impact on election campaigns. But how much influence do YouTube, blogs and other sites actually have on political outcomes?
Very little, according to Stuart Soroka, a McGill University professor I interviewed yesterday. The story was partly about how Quebec’s Director General of Elections plans to keep [...]

quebec’s enthusiastic voters

Quebec’s director-general of elections has found the three Quebecers who are ecstatic about today’s election call.

and they’re off

Who needs voters when you have polls and number-crunching websites? Using recent survey results, democraticSPACE, a site run by a former Montrealer, has calculated that the Parti Québécois is set to win a minority government.
We’ll see on March 26. More election links down below, under the Blogroll.

peter mackay gets lost

Quebec politicians about to hit the campaign trail can learn a lesson from Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay: if you’re going to speak publicly, make sure you know where you are (especially if you are in your home province, on live television and going to be followed on stage by a comedian).
Speaking at the East Coast [...]

how old can “new” be?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was elected on Jan. 23, 2006. That was 387 days ago or one year and 22 days. Yet his Conservatives still call themselves “Canada’s New Government”?
I covered this announcement today. Three times the press release refers to “Canada’s New Government.” Ministers Lawrence Cannon and John Baird also repeatedly used the phrase [...]

quebec’s road to ruin

OK, I’m going to say it: it’s time to stop all these reasonable accommodations. Give these people a centimetre and they take a kilometre.
We let them speed. We let them barely touch the brake pedal at red lights. We let them consider stop signs optional. And we end up with the second highest accident injury [...]

never a dull moment in quebec politics

Two anglophones born in Ontario – union activist Arthur Sandborn (Québec Solidaire) and Robin Philpot (Parti Québécois) – are running for sovereignist parties.
And Radio-Canada’s Quebec City bureau chief, Bernard Drainville, says he’s running for the Parti Québécois– a week after a long interview (under Audio et Vidéo) with his new boss. André Boisclair must have [...]

hérouxville’s 15 minutes of fame

André Drouin, a town councillor in Hérouxville, Quebec, made international headlines with a motion that forbids, among other things, the stoning of women in his town. Last week, he appeared on the Radio-Canada tabloid-TV interview show Tout le monde en parle. The interview (in two parts) is below but more interesting is the debate raging [...]

Writing Turcot Yards

I wandered around part of the Turcot Yards last week with Ken McLaughlin, a photographer who has a passion for the abandoned rail yard and the interchange that runs over it. I had heard about his blog – Walking Turcot Yards – on Montreal City Weblog.
I eventually discovered a bunch of other Montrealers who also [...]

should police force accommodate cop’s anti-immigrant tune?

A Montreal police officer is being investigated after his anti-immigrant song ended up on the Internet. In it, he complains Quebec is doing too much to “accommodate” immigrants who “spit on our culture.” He invites those who aren’t happy to “go home

Listen to the catchy tune at Humour Québec. Beware: the site is very slow [...]

montreal oscar contender, a clip

Norwegian-born Montrealer Torill Kove is up for an Academy Award for her animated short film, The Danish Poet. The NFB, which co-produced the film, has some cool stuff on its website, including clips and a guide to how cell animation works,
The Gazette has a story about the filmmaker.
The idea for this post was shamelessly [...]

montreal: bootlegs ‘r us

In a story this week, the Hollywood Reporter reports that at least one big studio is threatening to delay releases of movies in Montreal because the city is a haven for “cammers” – people who sneak digital movie cameras into theatres to record the flicks. The pirated copies end up sold around the world.
“Montreal is [...]

montreal libraries disintegrating, closing

Compared to many other cities, Montreal has a rather sorry library network.
There are some rare jewels, however. Two of them are making headlines.

The $100-million Grande Bibliothèque (above) has been a runaway sucess. A Globe and Mail story last week said the library, opened in downtown Montreal in April 2005, “is attracting more patrons than officials [...]

you’ll have a gay old sign…

 
I received quite a few emails a few weeks ago after I wrote about Esso considering changing the name of its Quebec dépanneurs from Marché Express to On the Run. It caused a storm of controversy (though it would not have contravened Quebec’s language laws).
I used one of them for an item that appeared in today’s Gazette. [...]

goofy quebec site hits tv big time

Quebec’s Têtes à claque site, already a global Internet phenomenon, has hit the big time. The guy who founded the site in his basement just six months ago has signed an international TV deal. Couldn’t have happened to a funnier guy.
Maybe he was distracted by all the TV wheeling and dealing when he put together [...]