Author name: The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph

From Colombia to Quebec: Huge sailboat ships coffee for Café William

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From Colombia to Quebec: Huge sailboat ships coffee for Café William

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

For a city known for sailing ships, with even a ship as its symbol, it seems fitting the world’s largest modern cargo sailing ship should make its maiden voyage to Quebec City.

Such was the case last week when the Anemos – Greek for “wind” – docked in the Old Port with a cargo of green coffee beans from Santa Marta, Colombia, in its hold, the first shipment of many in the environmental ambitions of Café William, a Quebec-based coffee roaster and retailer.

The mission, according to Serge Picard, Café William’s co-founder and head of innovation and commercial operations, is to produce the “cleanest cup of coffee in the world, the most environmentally sustainable. Café William wants to one day transport 100 per cent of our coffee with zero emissions.”

The Anemos unloaded some 20 shipping containers of green coffee beans for Café William in Quebec City, which Picard says amounts to about 40 per cent of the company’s consumption. The beans, purchased from an Indigenous co-operative in Colombia, were to be transported to the company’s huge new all-electric roasting plant in Sherbrooke in a Volvo electric truck.

Picard said coffee is the second single largest commodity shipped around the world after oil, with some 90 per cent of production exported to other countries for processing.

The Anemos has a sister ship, the Artemus, which is currently sailing from a Vietnam shipyard to France. Picard said six more of the giant cargo sailing ships are in the works. The ships are the creation of a French company called TOWT (Trans-ocean Wind Transport), which has specialized in sail-powered marine cargo transport since 2011.

Guillaume Le Grand, president and one of the founders of TOWT, said the ship’s masts, towering at 64 metres high, “are probably the tallest in the world.”

The hulls of the ship were manufactured in Romania and then towed to Concarneau on the northwest coast of France, where the final assembly was completed.

It takes a maximum crew of eight to sail the 81-metre-long steel vessels, which are highly mechanized with many automatic or programmed functions. Le Grand said the average ocean speed is about 10 knots (nautical miles per hour) and it takes two weeks to cross the Atlantic. The ship has a backup engine to navigate harbours, but when under sail, the propellers can be reversed to generate electrical power for most of the ship’s systems.

Attending the ceremony to celebrate the ship’s inaugural voyage were representatives of Fairtrade Canada and of the Colombian coffee growers co-operative, known by its Spanish acronym ANEI.

The first voyage of the Anemos followed Café Wil- liam’s first experience with sail-powered shipping when it contracted with a German sail cargo company to ship five containers of beans from Co- lombia to Quebec. A company news release said, “This first voyage confirmed our vision: transporting coffee by sailboat is viable and possible.”

Picard said the company’s big dream is to have all its coffee beans shipped by sail, including from suppliers in Africa and Asia. He said the roasted coffee that travelled by sailing ship costs about 10 cents more per pound than Café William’s other coffees. “It’s minuscule compared to all the other costs that are tacked on when you’re importing raw coffee beans, so I guess you just have to be a tad crazy enough to want to disrupt the status quo and try something different.”

Café William coffee is available in most major grocery stores in Quebec, some U.S. outlets and online.

The “William” in Café William is for the Italian William Spartivento, who invented a rotary coffee roaster. Picard said, “Nobody could really pronounce Spartivento – which we could have kept [as a name] because it would have been cool. It means ‘split the winds’ in Italian.”

From Colombia to Quebec: Huge sailboat ships coffee for Café William Read More »

COVID, flu vaccinations for general population to begin this week

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COVID, flu vaccinations for general population to begin this week

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebecers who want additional protection against COVID-19 and seasonal flu will be able to book vaccination appointments online and over the phone as of Oct. 16, public health officials said last week.

“Every year, it’s no surprise, when temperatures start drop- ping and people start going back inside, there’s always an increase in respiratory viruses,” Quebec public health director Dr. Luc Boileau told reporters on Oct. 7. “Beginning the [vaccination] campaign in October is ideal, because it allows people who are at the highest risk of complications to be protected at the right time.”

Boileau said ministry data indicated that there has been “elevated community spread” of COVID over the past few months; cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) “were starting to go around,” and it was expected that flu season would start in a few weeks. He called on people who were experiencing flu-like symptoms to stay home and avoid spreading their illness to more vulnerable people. He pointed out that a negative COVID rapid test did not mean a person wasn’t sick – the test could be a false negative or the person could have another illness.

“If you have a fever, stay home. If you feel well enough to go about your daily busi- ness, wear a mask as long as your symptoms last and don’t visit people who are at risk [of serious complications from COVID or flu].” High-risk groups include seniors 75 and older, babies and young children, people with compromised immune systems and pregnant women.

Boileau added that although rapid tests are no longer recommended for the general population due to their relative unreliability, people at high risk of complications who believe they have COVID should still get tested in a testing centre, so they can start prophylactic treatment.

“Not the same vaccine”

Dr. Nicholas Brousseau is a Quebec City-based public health physician at the Institut national de la santé publique (INSPQ) and a member of the provincial consultative committee on vaccination. “This is not the same COVID vaccine that was available earlier [this year] – it is an updated vaccine targeting the KP.2 variant that will help you be protected in fall and winter,” he explained.

Brousseau said current vaccines are effective for a limited time because the virus keeps changing. However, he said it was too early to tell whether new COVID vaccines would be developed and made available annually like seasonal flu vaccines. “This is still a new virus and it’s changing a lot. We are always getting new variants – we don’t know if it will continue like that or if it will stabilize. There are still a lot of unknowns.”

Vaccination campaign to begin Oct. 16

Boileau said vaccination campaigns for COVID, flu and RSV have already begun in long-term care centres and among high-risk populations. He invited healthy adults at low risk of complications from COVID or flu to book a vaccination appointment online via ClicSanté starting Oct. 16. It is possible to get vaccinated against COVID and flu on the same day. Healthy adults under 75 are not systematically vaccinated against RSV, which main- ly affects seniors and young children. Babies will be able to receive a preventative antibody treatment against RSV as of Nov 4. The flu and COVID vaccines are free; the RSV vaccine and antibody treatment are free to at-risk groups; free and systematic RSV vaccination may eventually be extended to other groups, according to Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, head of Quebec’s immunization committee, who spoke alongside Boileau.

People who cannot or don’t want to make an appointment online can book by phone at 1-877-644-4545. The phone line is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends and offers services in both French and English.

Quach-Thanh noted that antibodies take about two weeks to develop after a person is vaccinated. “Since we don’t exactly know when the season of virus transmission is going to start, it’s better to do it early than late.”

“Thank you for considering the option of getting vaccinated,” Boileau said, addressing Quebecers at large at a press conference that was live- streamed on social media. “It can make a difference for you and a lot of people around you as well. Vaccination is free and accessible – there’s no reason not to do it.”

COVID, flu vaccinations for general population to begin this week Read More »

Learning centres suspend new francisation enrolments

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Learning centres suspend new francisation enrolments

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Three Quebec City-area centres offering subsidized French language classes for newcomers known as francisation have announced that they will be forced to stop accepting new students due to a funding shortfall.

The Centre Saint-Louis (CSL) in Loretteville, the Le Phénix adult learning centre in Sainte-Foy and the Cen- tre Louis-Jolliet in Limoilou, which has the largest francisation program in the region, are all expected to stop accepting new students when the new semester begins on Nov. 4, unless a funding solution can be found.

The QCT independently confirmed this information, first reported by Le Soleil, with the Centre de services scolaire (CSS) des Découvreurs, which oversees Le Phénix, and the CSS de la Capitale, which oversees the two other centres. Several similar programs in other regions of the province have also announced plans to close or suspend new student enrolments in recent weeks.

Law 14, better known as Bill 96, the reform to the Charter of the French Language which was passed by the Coalition Avenir Québec government in 2022, opened francisation classes, previously reserved for new immigrants, to newcomers from the rest of Canada and longtime Quebec residents. It also imposed a six-month deadline beyond which new immigrants would have to ac- cess most government services in French only. Demand for the courses increased after the new measures took effect.

However, as Carl Ouellet of the Association québécoise des directeurs d’école previ- ously told the QCT, the funding model used by the Ministry of Education and Higher Learn- ing (MEES) to finance the courses is based on pre-2022 student numbers.

“For reasons related to the MEES funding model, new student registration in francisation at Le Phénix has been paused since July,” CSS des Découvreurs spokesperson Marie-Ève Malouin said.

“When the MEES filed the 2024-25 budget rules, we learned that we will have to limit the number of students in francisation in order to comply with the funding granted for this sector,” said Malouin’s counterpart at the CSS de la Capitale, Jade Thibodeau. “We are currently receiving the same number of groups that we had last June. For the next session, it is impossible for us to welcome new students in order to respect the budgets granted.”

Brigitte Wellens, executive director of Voice of English-speaking Québec (VEQ), said she “almost expected” to hear that the programs would suspend enrolment. “I know there have been very significant delays for people wanting to access courses, and I can’t say I’m surprised.” Wellens said she had a co-worker who had been on a waiting list for a francisation course for a year, and three others who were expected to start courses this fall but would not. She said it was common for a newcomer to wait six, seven or eight months to enrol in a class.

“When someone has to wait for a year to learn French, it delays a whole bunch of other stuff. You can speak whatever language you like at home … but if you want to get a job, make friends, shop for groceries, you have to learn French. You can’t get by without it. That’s the first thing we tell people,” she said.

Wellens said the free classes offered at Le Phénix, Louis- Jolliet and CSL “fill a hole” for newcomers who can’t afford university courses or private lessons.

She called on the govern- ment to suspend the six-month deadline for accessing govern- ment services in French until it could make good on its initial promise of subsidized classes for all Quebec residents who need them. “With the passage of that bill, we were assured that francisation would be available for everyone for free. If we can’t make good on that, we need to remove the requirement … and to communicate that clearly with all the agencies responsible for providing services,” she said. “No one is walking around saying they don’t want to learn French.”

Malouin and Thibodeau said students already enrolled in francisation classes at the three centres would be able to continue their classes.

No one from the MEES was available to comment at press time.

Learning centres suspend new francisation enrolments Read More »

OCOL report challenges myths about Quebec anglophones

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OCOL report challenges myths about Quebec anglophones

Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Federal Commissioner of Official Languages Raymond Théberge has raised concerns about the effects of recent Quebec government policies on Quebec’s English-speaking community in a new report. 

“Over the past two years, English-speaking communities in Quebec have seen significant changes in both provincial and federal language policy, with the expansion of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language and the modernization of Canada’s Official Languages Act, which means that this official language minority community has had to find its footing and readjust not just once but twice,” Théberge wrote in the report, released Oct. 9 by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages (OCOL) and titled A Shared Future: A Closer Look at our Official Language Minority Communities. 

“For several years now, the English-speaking minority in Quebec has been facing challenges that are threatening its vitality. First, its legitimacy as an official language minority community is all too often questioned. There seems to be confusion between the majority status of the English language in Canada and the minority status of the English-speaking communities in Quebec,” he wrote. “In a difficult context, which includes the provincial legislature’s adoption of Bill 21 [banning people in certain positions of authority, including public school teachers, from wearing religious symbols including hijabs] and Bill 40 [replacing elected school boards with service centres], Quebec’s [official language minority communities] have engaged in several legal proceedings to protect their rights guaranteed under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Lawsuits have also been initiated against Bill 96’s amendments to the Charter of the French Language, citing the infringement of the community’s constitutional rights. I will continue to monitor all of these court cases very carefully.” 

Data cited in the report suggested that two persistent myths about the English-speaking community – its supposed lack of integration with the francophone majority and supposed relative wealth – are not based in fact. “The most recent census data from 2021 tell us that 71 per cent of Quebecers with English as a mother tongue are bilingual, and that most of them regularly use French at work, at school or at home, or have it as another mother tongue,” Théberge wrote. 

The report noted that the English-speaking community in many regions of the province “has higher unemployment rates, lower median incomes and higher poverty rates than the francophone majority, despite the former’s high workforce participation rates and higher levels of education.” 

Théberge also expressed concern about the confusion around the (later rescinded) directive by the Quebec government appearing to list situations where English could be used in health care, restrictions to enrolment in English CEGEPs, a lack of funding for local English-language cultural content, and – at a later press conference – about difficulties faced by English speakers in Quebec who want to learn French. 

​​”It is in everyone’s interest to ensure that the rights of English-speaking Quebecers are protected and respected, and that Quebec’s English-speaking minority is recognized as a provincial community whose commitment to bilingualism continues to be a key factor in the success of this political community we call Canada,” he concluded. 

“This report underlines repeatedly what we and other English-speaking community groups have been saying for years: we are not the enemy of the French language in Quebec, despite the picture often painted by the CAQ government and certain elements of francophone media,” Quebec Community Groups Network president Eva Ludvig said in a statement. “As he so astutely noted, ‘One of the main challenges facing the English-speaking minority in Quebec is the perception that it does not recognize the value of French as the province’s common language. This persistent perception is nevertheless a myth whose exposure would benefit everyone.’” 

OCOL report challenges myths about Quebec anglophones Read More »

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays

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TRAM TRACKER

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Four months after the Coalition Avenir Québec government announced its approval of the first phase of Quebec City’s tramway project, a deal is yet to be signed to restart construction.

The prolonged delay has the Quebec Liberal Party transport critic and MNA for Nelligan Monsef Derraji wondering whether the CAQ government is stalling in the hopes a Conservative federal government under Pierre Poilievre will kill the project if it comes to power in the coming months.

Derraji and other opposition members grilled Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault for two hours in the National Assembly on Sept. 27 on the tramway project.

In an interview with the QCT, Derraji said the problem for the CAQ government is “they have no money.” He said the government has been cutting programs and now Guilbault “said she’s waiting for money to come in from the federal government” for the tramway project.

He said Premier François Legault had called on the Bloc Québécois to support a Conservative non-confidence motion to defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. The premier “wants as soon as possible an election on the federal level.”

Poilievre has said on several occasions “he would give nothing to the tramway project,” Derraji said. The way he sees it, Legault and Guilbault “are waiting for a federal election, and after that they will say we don’t have the money for this project.”

Derraji said Guilbault had promised in June to give a mandate to the Caisse de dépôt et placement infrastructure division (CDPQ Infra) to restart work on the first phase of the $5.1-billion project.

“Why is she waiting? Next year we’ll have Pierre Poilievre.” Derraji noted that while Poilievre opposes the tramway, he has said a Conservative federal government would help finance the CAQ’s plan for a “third link” bridge across the St. Lawrence River.

Besides Derraji, opposition MNAs Étienne Grandmont of Québec Solidaire — whose riding would be home to several tramway stations if the project goes ahead — and Joël Arseneau of the Parti Québécois questioned Guilbault.

For her part, Guilbault said sending a mandate letter to CDPQ Infra is not a simple matter. “They [the opposition] just talk about the letter, but I don’t know if they understand how it works, the preparation and design of a major project. There are several things happening at the same time.”

She said meetings have been taking place between government officials and CDPQ Infra since June, when the agency submitted a report the CAQ government had requested that recommended a sweep- ing urban transit project for Quebec City and Lévis, to be called Circuit intégré de transport express or Cité.

Guilbauilt said the project transition committee last met on Sept. 24. “It’s important for people to know that the project is moving forward,” the minister told the opposition members at the National Assembly session.

As for federal funding, Guilbault said there are “certain people in the current fed- eral Liberal government who claimed in the newspapers that they were on target. That’s their usual claim: ‘We’re on target.’ But what does that mean in real life? For me, a target is money … I negotiate with them, I make my requests and I wait for the cheque, and the cheque doesn’t arrive.”

Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal minister of public services and procurement and MP for Québec, denied Guilbault’s claim (see separate story).  

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays Read More »

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , ,

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Federal minister and Liberal Quebec lieutenant Jean-Yves Duclos has sharply refuted Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault’s claim Ottawa has yet to “send a cheque” to help finance Quebec City’s tramway project.

Duclos responded to Guilbault’s comments at a media scrum on Oct. 4 following a Quebec City announcement about loans for small busi- nesses. The minister had taken the swipe at the federal govern- ment a week earlier in front of a National Assembly session focused on the tramway project. “I wait for the cheque and the cheque doesn’t arrive,” Guilbault said, in the context of answering questions from opposition MNAs about the CAQ government’s delay in mandating the resumption of construction of the first phase of the tramway project, as promised in June.

Duclos told reporters the federal government has put “$1.5 billion and more in a bank account for the Quebec [City] region for the tramway.”

As for Guilbault’s comments, “I say this with respect, but sometimes I need to say things more clearly … I explained to her again last week what she should have understood a long time ago. I told her several times. I don’t know why it’s not getting through.”

Duclos, who recently took over as Liberal lieutenant for Quebec in the wake of Pablo Rodriguez’s decision to seek the Quebec Liberal Party leadership, said, “To claim that there is no money from the Canadian government is false, and I think everyone should admit that, including Ms. Guilbault. We have to stop diverting attention and going back over old issues that have been clarified for a long time.”

Duclos said when Guilbault sends the bill for the tramway, “we’ll send her a cheque.”

As for the threat of a future Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre, who has said he would not fund the tramway project, Duclos said the Conservative leader “wants to steal money from the tramway bank account of people in the Quebec City region. We can’t imagine that he would want to do that, but knowing Pierre Poilievre, it’s pure Pierre Poilievre.”

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’ Read More »

Jean Robert acclaimed as new CQSB chair

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Jean Robert acclaimed as new CQSB chair

Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Before Jean Robert started school, his parents would take him to a daycare centre on Chemin St-Louis. The building which housed the daycare is now the home of the Central Québec School Board, where Robert is the outgoing vice-chair of the Council of Commissioners. He’ll be sworn in as chair in November, in what he calls an “interesting full circle moment.”

Robert has been involved with Quebec’s English-language education system for most of his life. He attended elementary and high school in English in the region – at the time, what is now CEGEP Champlain-St. Lawrence also offered high school programs. After completing his university studies in the U.S. and at Université Laval in educational psychology, he evaluated students and “did some counselling” for the regional Protestant school board, before school boards were reorganized along linguistic lines. He then took a job at St. Lawrence, where he worked for nearly 35 years. “I went to St. Lawrence, and then I ended up as campus director – it’s interesting, going full circle in that area too,” he recalled. “I did my university studies in French and English, but as for elementary and high school, it was all in English.”

He remained active in the community after retiring; he was named chair of the National Battlefields Commission, the Jeffery Hale Foundation and Jeffery Hale Community Partners, and a senior advisor at McGill University, while continuing to serve as vice-chair of the CQSB Council of Commissioners. He has served on the Council of Commissioners for 26 years – as long as the board has existed in its current form.

Robert said his experience in the English school system, as a student, a graduate and a board member, showed him the importance of English public schools for the community. “Schools are the central part of our communities, unlike in the French system. When we have a school in Thetford Mines, for example, that is the community. The English community is there. Everything around the community takes place at the school very often, whether it’s plays, athletic activities, parents’ meetings or whatever. The schools for the English population are really the centre of the community.”

Over the years, he has seen English schools evolve to adapt to the changing needs of the student body, placing more emphasis on bilingualism and extracurricular and specialized programs to prepare students for the local labour market and win over families who might otherwise choose French public or private schools for their children.

As incoming board chair, Robert’s top priorities will be overseeing the consolidated high school project – “a major event for the English-speaking population of Quebec City” – and upgrades to several elementary schools in the greater Quebec City region and at the northern reaches of the board’s vast territory in Schefferville and Chibougamau. Another major priority in the current challenging political climate is “continuing to work with the government to show the importance of English education in Quebec” and to advocate for the importance of elected school boards, which were replaced with service centres in 2022 – English school boards are still in place pending the outcome of a court challenge.

“We play an extremely important role in the province of Quebec, and … people have to realize that. We have to work with the government to con- vince them of that and to show them really clear examples of some of the wonderful things our students are doing,” Robert said.

“We [school commission- ers] are voted in by our community,” he added. “When I’m not happy with a government decision, I have no problem going to a politician and saying, ‘What you’re doing makes no sense.’ That would be harder if I was appointed by that same person.”

Robert and incoming commissioners David Eden, Ian O’Gallagher, André Gosselin, Cameron Lavallée, Debbie Cornforth, Shirley Picknell, Jo Visser, Karine Gauthier, Chantal Guay, Jo-Ann Toulouse and Debbie Ford-Caron were all acclaimed. For Robert, the fact that there were no competitive races and most serving commissioners chose to stay on means that “the population are very satisfied with the services they have.” He invited people with questions, concerns or suggestions for the school board to attend the board’s monthly meetings, either in person or online.

Jean Robert acclaimed as new CQSB chair Read More »

City bike lane network keeps growing

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

City bike lane network keeps growing

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec City cyclists now have an additional 12.7 kilometres of bike paths to enjoy. The Ville de Québec has added six new sections to its VivaCité* bike path network this summer – the Pente-Douce corridor (from Rue Marie-de-l’Incarnation to Chemin Ste-Foy) and the Ma- rie-de-l’Incarnation corridor (from Rue Guyart to Côte de la Pente-Douce) in Montcalm, the 3e Avenue Ouest/52e Rue corridor (76e Ave Ouest to 4e Ave Est) in Limoilou, the Du Pont corridor in Saint-Roch (from Rue du Prince-Édouard to Rue Saint-Vallier Est), the Quai Saint-André corridor in Petit-Champlain (Rue Saint- Pierre to Rue Dalhousie) and the Neilson corridor in Sainte-Foy (Rue de Marly to Rue André-Giroux).

Two existing bike lanes have also been spruced up with improved lane marking, additional protective barriers and traffic lights adapted for cyclists; they are the Boul. Laurier corridor near the Université Laval campus (Rue des Gouverneurs to Rue Marguerite-Bourgeoys) and the Chemin Sainte-Foy corridor in Montcalm (from Ave. de Vimy to Ave. des Érables).

Safety improvements to an additional corridor (the 4e Ave corridor in Limoilou) should be completed by mid-November, city officials said.

The additional corridors essentially triple the size of the bike lane network, modelled after Montreal’s Réseau Express Vélo, which began with six km of lanes in 2023.

Coun. Pierre-Luc Lachance, member of the executive committee responsible for mobility and road safety, estimated the cost of this year’s improvements at $4.8 million, although the exact cost won’t be known until all upgrades are com- pleted.

Lachance said the bike lanes are “part of the city’s big ten- year plan for mobility,” which includes a 150-km network serving 85 per cent of the city’s neighbourhoods by 2035.

“We are in a new dynamic to make biking a means of trans- portation and not just a way to have fun,” said Lachance, himself an avid cyclist. “Having separated bike lanes makes a huge difference in terms of safety – there are more families with kids taking their bikes to school. With every new installation, we see behaviour change; when we put in the corridor on Chemin Ste-Foy, the average speed of the cars went down by a few kilometres per hour, and that’s a big deal. If we want to encourage people to walk or take their bikes, it has to be safe.”

Over the next few months, the city is planning public consultations about the future of the bike path network. The consultation calendar is available at ville.quebec.qc.ca/citoyens/participation-citoyenne/activites/index.aspx.

*Editor’s Note: The version of this article published in the print edition of the Oct. 9 QCT refers to the bike network by its previous name, Vélo Cité. City officials announced the new name (VivaCité) on Oct. 8 after the print edition went to press. 

City bike lane network keeps growing Read More »

New book offers detailed look at wartime Quebec Conferences

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

New book offers detailed look at wartime Quebec Conferences

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

According to a newly published book, the first step in the long fight to beat the Nazis and liberate Europe from their grip began in the Salon Rose of the Château Frontenac in August 1943.

The Quebec Conference, bringing together British prime minister Winston Churchill and United States president Franklin Roosevelt, committed the Allies to the invasion of Normandy the following spring, code name Overlord, which became known as D-Day.

The momentous Quebec City meeting is chronicled in fascinating detail in historian, retired naval officer and QCT contributing writer Charles André Nadeau’s new book, Churchill et Roosevelt à Québec: Grande et petite histoires des conférences de 1943 et de 1944. (It’s available only in French at the moment, pend- ing translation arrangements.)

The book launch on Sept. 12, naturally, took place in the Salon Rose, little changed from when the chiefs of staff of Great Britain and the United States met there to debate the grand strategy for the rest of the war in Europe 81 years ago. In attendance were Nadeau’s family and friends, his naval comrades, fellow historians and the man who initially proposed the book project, former Château Frontenac director general Robert Mercure, himself a history buff.

Nadeau said the book, initially imagined as a pamphlet, would help Mercure respond to one of the most-asked questions by visitors about the landmark hotel, namely what happened when Churchill and Roosevelt met in Quebec in August 1943 and again in September 1944.

Mercure, who wrote a foreword to the book, applauded Nadeau at the launch for “having succeeded in bringing alive” the events at the two conferences. He confessed to getting a “frisson” each time he enters the Salon Rose, knowing what took place there.

Nadeau said his background as a student of military strategy at the U.S. Naval War College provided the context for the book, which lays out in accessible detail how the president and prime minister approved the “grand strategy” for the reconquest of Europe.

Nadeau notes that by pure coincidence, the 1943 Quebec conference took place at a crucial turning point in the war in Europe, the Allied forces having captured Sicily on Aug. 17, with the Italian boot literally in view across the Strait of Messina.

Churchill, Nadeau said, “was a better politician than a military strategist,” preferring to launch an invasion of Europe through Italy rather than northern France from across the English Channel. Churchill’s reticence, Nadeau said, was partly due to his role as British naval minister in the disastrous and bloody invasion of Turkey in the First World War.

“He saw Normandy as a potential Gallipoli,” Nadeau said. Besides the fascinating account of the strategy for the next crucial stage of the war hammered out by military commanders in the Salon Rose, the Citadelle and other places in the city, Nadeau offers up countless colourful details of the eight-day gathering.

One that boggles the mind is that of British vice-admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, taking out his revolver in the Salon Rose and firing bullets at a block of ice and one made of a new material called pykrete, developed to clad an aircraft carrier, an experiment that got no further than a lake in Alberta.

The overall conclusion of the Quebec Conference, as Nadeau asserts in the book, is that henceforth the United States would be the dominant force in the selection of the strategy of the war in both Europe and the Pacific.

As Nadeau observes, “kilometre zero” in the long road to win the war in Europe was the Salon Rose in the Château Frontenac.

Churchill et Roosevelt à Québec is available in local bookstores and online.

New book offers detailed look at wartime Quebec Conferences Read More »

Quebec ready to inject money into Mont-Sainte-Anne upgrade

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Quebec ready to inject money into Mont Sainte-Anne upgrade

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

With a nip in the air and the ski season in the offing, the Quebec government is reportedly negotiating a deal to help finance the revitalization of Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA).

A Sept. 25 report in the local publication Le Charlevoisien, citing an unnamed source, said the government would announce a deal with the ski centre owner, Calgary-based Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR), at the end of October.

Le Soleil confirmed the report from a “reliable source.” The reports sparked a flurry of reaction the same day at the National Assembly, with Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) ministers dodging questions but not denying the reports.

The group advocating for new owners for the resort, Les Amis de Mont Sainte-Anne, told the QCT, through spokesperson Sabrina Martin, “For now, we will not comment; we have not seen the agreement and have nothing concrete to base it on.”

Quebec Infrastructure Minister and Minister for the Quebec Capital Region Jonatan Julien told reporters during a brief scrum, “We are working hard, and when we have announcements to make, we will do them with pleasure.”

Prior to his stepping down from cabinet, Pierre Fitzgibbon had handled the file as minister of economy, innovation and energy. Fitzgibbon had ruled out expropriating the resort from RCR, but said the Quebec government would be willing to invest in its upgrade.

His successor in the super- portfolio, Christine Fréchette, said, “Nothing has been signed,” and refused further comment.

There have been two offers to buy MSA from RCR recently. The owners of Le Massif de Charlevoix made a bid in 2022; earlier this year, French businessman Christian Mars, with the backing of local investors, made a pitch to RCR that was rejected.

RCR does not own the mountain, but thanks to a 100-year lease signed in 1994 with the Société des établissements de plein air du Québec (Sépaq), it holds the management rights.

Last year, RCR proposed a $500-million plan to upgrade the facility, which has been plagued in recent years with accidents on its lifts.

While reaction to the reports of a possible deal was positive in media reports, Québec Solidaire MNA Sol Zanetti said, “It is important not to put public money in the pockets of a company that does not deserve it. Enough with subsidies for billionaires.”

Mont Sainte-Anne is one of Canada’s oldest and best-known ski resorts, and the host of many international competitions. It also hosts mountain bike races on its network of trails.

Quebec ready to inject money into Mont-Sainte-Anne upgrade Read More »

Buyer wants to bring back Provisions Inc. as grocery

QCNA NEWS / / / , ,

Buyer wants to bring back Provisions Inc. as grocery

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Those longing for the return of the popular Provisions Inc. grocery store on Ave. Cartier may get their wish.

Although the deal is not yet signed and sealed, the would-be buyer of the building, rental property owner Jean-François Picard, is talking about his plans. He told the Journal de Québec, “We really want to revive what it was and everyone is converging towards the same thing.”

Picard said, “There were citizen surveys, merchant surveys. I did my homework and [decided] a grocery store will go there.”

Picard, who lives close to Ave. Cartier, said he was a frequent patron of the store. “It brought life; it brought a beautiful magic too because it was very family-oriented. That’s what we want to revive.”

The Drouin family ran the store until the fall of 2022, when cousins Vincent and Bruno Drouin sold it to a couple from France. Stéphanie Bouillon Guessas and Christophe Bouillon operated the store until January 2024 when it was suddenly closed. The building was put up for sale by the National Bank following the couple’s default on the mortgage. Meanwhile, the Drouins are suing the couple for some $450,000 still owing on the purchase.

The three-storey building has two apartments above the grocery. The equipment to operate the store, such as refrigerators, shelves and cashier counters, remains intact.

Picard said he is now looking for a partner to run the grocery. “It’s realistic to think that well before Christmas, we’ll be in operation,” he said. Picard also said he hopes to work with for- mer employees of the grocery to get it back up and running.

The website for his company, Picard Immobilier, describes the business as “proud to be a Quebec company that is 100 per cent manager and owner of its buildings” with “nearly 700 apartments of all styles in the Quebec region.”

Among the company’s holdings are several buildings in the Montcalm district.

The impending purchase of Provisions Inc. was raised at a meeting of the Montcalm neighbourhood council meeting last week. Attendee Paul Mackey told the QCT Picard “may attend the next neighbourhood council meeting at the end of October to discuss his plans, if the sale is formalized.”

Hugo Asselin, the real estate agent who handled the deal, said it might take a few weeks for the sale to be processed by a notary. The listed price for the building, zoned for a variety of uses, was $2 million.

The QCT was not able to contact Picard before press time.

Buyer wants to bring back Provisions Inc. as grocery Read More »

English health services available on request under new ministry directive

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , ,

English health services available on request under new ministry directive

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Advocates for access to health care in English are breathing a sigh of relief after the Quebec government officially scrapped a directive that was widely seen as laying the groundwork for restrictions on the use of English and other languages in health institutions.

The initial 23-page directive, made public in July, contained a list of situations where it was acceptable for health institutions to use English or other languages, giving rise to concern that the list could be used to restrict the use of English. Minister for the French Language Jean-François Roberge repeatedly denied this was the government’s intention, and promised to replace the directive.

The new document, released Sept. 20, states that “no verification of a user’s identity is needed to access services in English or in another language.”

A language other than French “may be used when the user or their representative requests it, expresses that they do not understand or do not seem to understand French, or according to the judgment of the [professional],” the document says. Health care professionals can communicate in English or another language with a patient or their representative if they have the capacity, or work with an interpretation service if they don’t.

“This basically puts the whole issue to rest,” said Jennifer Johnson, president of the Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN). “If someone wants to receive services in English, they just need to ask for it – no certificate of eligibility for English education is required.

“Everyone has the right to ask for services in the language they are most comfortable in,” she added. “If someone asks for service in Spanish, the [professional] needs to do the best they can to provide those services.”

The directive applies to the entire spectrum of health and social services programming, including emergency services; public health; services for vulnerable youth, seniors and people with disabilities; addictions services and mental health, and to both spoken and written communication. It also states that a patient who is unsatisfied with the services they have received has the right to file a complaint with the local complaints commissioner.

“The difference between this directive and the one that came out in July is very clear,” said Richard Walling, executive director of Jeffery Hale Community Partners. “This categorically states that people have the ability to receive services in English or another language in all circumstances when the health of the person requires it, which is a broad definition … and there will be no need to validate the user’s identity.”

Walling, whose organization oversees Jeffery Hale Hospital and Saint Brigid’s Home in partnership with the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, said the directive “confirms our actual practice” with regard to providing care in English.

“Language should not be a political issue in the health system – it is a fundamental tool to be able to communicate effectively to get people services when they are sick and vulnerable,” he said. “This directive recognizes that and gives the user and the [health professional] the latitude to do what is needed to get informed consent and proper treatment that can be understood and followed.”

Walling said he was not aware of anyone being unable to get care in the language of their choice at Jeffery Hale or Saint Brigid’s since the initial directive came out. “I have seen staff make a tremendous effort to be able to find a way to communicate,” he said. “These professionals are people who got into the system to help people – that attitude has to prevail, and we have to find a means of effective communication.”

Creativity needed in regions

Although English speakers in the greater Quebec City area can access a bilingual full- service hospital without leaving town, people in vast swaths of the province cannot. Jeffery Hale is the northernmost and easternmost bilingual hospital in the province. The CHSSN supports access to health care in remote regions and in cities with very small anglophone populations where bilingual staff may be hard to come by. Johnson advises people who are struggling to access service in English or another language to “be gentle and persistent” and request an interpreter if necessary – the service is free, and preferable to relying on untrained family members or only understanding half of what is said.

“This directive doesn’t mean that every service will be available in any language anywhere in Quebec,” Walling cautioned. “It does depend on the capacity of the personnel – but I believe that the system will try everything it can to communicate with a person, although they have to get creative on how to do that.”

English health services available on request under new ministry directive Read More »

Register by Oct. 15 to vote in school board elections: CQSB

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

NOTE: This story was spiked from the print edition when we received a call from the CQSB stating that there would be no elections because all the candidates had been acclaimed.

Register by Oct. 15 to vote in school board elections: CQSB

Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) and the Central Québec School Board (CQSB) are encouraging members of the English-speaking community to make sure they are registered to vote ahead of school board elections this fall. 

Voters will choose a chairperson and 11 local commissioners for the CQSB Council of Commissioners at elections on Nov. 3. Early voting will take place Oct. 27. Voting can only be done in person – there are no mail-in or online ballots. 

“The people who get elected [as school commissioners] are the ones that set boardwide policies for the school board and local schools,” QESBA president Joe Ortona told the QCT. “They have an impact on kids’ education, on how schools are funded, on policies, approaches to social issues and things like bullying and rules.

“Registration is automatic for parents with a child who is enrolled in an English public school or who has voted before,” Ortona explained. Other voters may not be automatically registered.

Ortona encouraged younger English public school alumni to register to vote even if they didn’t have school-age children. “You may have children someday, and you want to make sure that there’s a vibrant and healthy school system,” he said. “Current parents are not the only people with an interest in our system. Schools are community hubs, and they are the only community institutions we have that are managed by us, the only governance level that is exclusive to the English-speaking community … and if we don’t exercise these rights, they will erode away.” 

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government abolished elected school boards in February 2020. QESBA challenged the ruling on the basis that it violated the federal constitutional right of official language minority communities to manage their schools in partnership with provincial educational authorities. After a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled in QESBA’s favour in 2023, the government chose to appeal. Ortona said he expects a ruling in the appeal sometime in 2025. “We’re very optimistic that the Court of Appeal will uphold the lower court’s decision,” Ortona said. 

“Voting is crucial for the continuity of school boards,” said Eva Ludvig, president of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN). “School boards are representative of the parents and we do not want to lose parental input. … We have a system supported by the community and we want to retain it.” Low turnout rates and the expense of organizing elections were cited as reasons to abolish school board elections, she pointed out. Turnout rates at elections for French boards hovered around four per cent in the years before they were abolished; English turnout rates regularly hit double figures.

Ortona said mail-in ballots, online voting, better promotion, more polling places and holding school board elections in tandem with municipal elections could potentially boost turnout even further. “There are people in the regions who are really dedicated, who are driving an hour and a half to vote, but that [distance] doesn’t encourage people to vote. In spite of that, turnout is going up.”   

The list of eligible voters will be finalized by Oct. 15, and registered voters should receive a notice of registration, with the address of their polling place, on or around Oct. 5. CQSB chief returning officer Vincent Laliberté encouraged people who are not sure whether they are registered to contact the CQSB or fill out a form on the CQSB website to double-check their registration status before the registration deadline. “Don’t be shy, call us or email us if you have questions,” Laliberté said. “It’s important that people who want to vote can vote, and that they have the right information.” 

Register by Oct. 15 to vote in school board elections: CQSB Read More »

Aquarium du Québec to close on weekdays until December

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

Aquarium du Québec to close on weekdays until December

Aquarium to be closed on weekends until December

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Aquarium du Québec will be open on weekends only until Dec. 15, the Société des établissements de plein air du Québec (Sépaq), which oversees the aquarium, announced late last week.

In a statement, Sépaq officials said, “The extent of the two construction sites in progress near the establish- ment” led to the decision. Work is underway on a new multilevel parking garage for the aquarium itself, and unrelated, extensive construction is ongoing along the Avenue des Hôtels in Sainte-Foy and near the entrances to the Québec and Pierre-Laporte bridges, making the aquarium difficult for drivers to access.

“Heavy vehicles and mechanical shovels are circulating extensively along the route to get from the parking lot to the reception area,” the statement said. “In order to ensure the safety of visitors, it was preferable to close the Aquarium du Québec during this busy period of construction site operations. The safety of visitors and team members remains our highest priority.”

The aquarium will remain open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends and over the Thanksgiving holiday, when the construction sites are less active. The Sépaq statement said “expanded programming” would be offered on week- ends, although further details weren’t available at press time.

A pre-booked online ticket is required to visit the aquarium. Clients and groups who had al- ready reserved weekday tickets during the period of the closure will be reimbursed. The expiry dates of annual memberships will also be extended. No job losses are expected.

Aquarium du Québec to close on weekdays until December Read More »

Local English-speaking community comes together at Fall Fest

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , ,

Local English-speaking community comes together at Fall Fest

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Photos by Cassandra Kerwin

cassandra@qctonline.com

Several hundred members of the greater Quebec City English-speaking community and friends gathered for Fall Fest at Quebec High School on Sept. 21. The annual fair, organized by Voice of English-speaking Québec, featured dozens of kiosks where people could learn about English-language and bilingual community organizations, churches and hobby groups; a bilingual health and social services job fair in the school library hosted by the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale and Jeffery Hale-Saint Brigid’s (JHSB); an arts-and-crafts market; hot dog and bake sale stands; a small farmers’ market; and a range of fun activities for kids and kids- at-heart including bouncy castles, a Lego tent and a bubble cannon.

The 78th Fraser Highlanders, the cast of the Quebec Art Company’s production of Cabaret, and talented and creative student musicians from Quebec High School and Dollard-des-Ormeaux School performed on the outdoor stage.

Representatives from JHSB, the Wellness Centre and the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale told attendees how to access health and social services in English. Although patients or their family members have the right to request service in English or request an interpreter at any health facility, JHSB is the only facility in the region expressly mandated to offer service in both languages.

Volunteers Patricia Odgers and Christy Ruggiero spoke with passersby about their rights within the health system and the importance of getting involved with the governance of their health facility. “People are aware that they have the option of [getting care] in both languages, but we are helping to educate people on how to make themselves heard if they have an issue,” Odgers said. “We’re concerned about people not knowing their rights, not raising their concerns, so they don’t filter down to the users’ committee.”

Deputy Mayor Catherine Vallières-Roland and Coun. David Weiser, member of the city executive committee responsible for immigration and vivre-ensemble, took the opportunity to meet with constituents.

“It’s really interesting to see the evolution of the English- speaking community, from families who have been here for generations to people from everywhere who have chosen to make Quebec City their home,” Weiser said. “It’s a big annual event where you get to see everybody. I’m also a Quebec High graduate, so it’s always interesting to come back here.”

Olena Peleshok moved from British Columbia to Lévis less than a year ago. At Fall Fest, she was busy running the South Shore English Network (SSEN) kiosk and meeting new people.

“My biggest challenges [after moving to Quebec] were not only learning French, but also just understanding how things worked here, things like the health system and applying for jobs. Everything in B.C. is different, even if we’re still in the same country.” Peleshok is now the SSEN community development co-ordinator, helping new arrivals find their feet on the South Shore. “As a newcomer, you’re always looking for connection, for opportunities, for ways to learn new skills and do things for other people,” she said, speaking from experience. She and her SSEN colleagues are busy helping people create those connections, with a range of activities for families, seniors and newcomers.

“Fall Fest was a huge suc- cess! We had close to 50 community groups and businesses in the gym, showcasing the amazing things they do and the services they offer,” VEQ executive director Brigitte Wellens said. “There was a wildly successful mini job fair by the CIUSSS-CN. This was a first at Fall Fest and some- thing that we hope to repeat at future editions. In terms of attendance, we estimate that 1,000 community members enjoyed the day’s activities – a record in attendance in the nine years that I’ve been at VEQ.”

For more information about upcoming activities with VEQ, visit veq.ca. For more about upcoming events on the South Shore, visit mcdc.info/en/events/events-ssen-levis.

Local English-speaking community comes together at Fall Fest Read More »

City, province differ on approach to organized crime

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , ,

City, province differ on approach to organized crime

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Mayor Bruno Marchand and Public Safety Minister François Bonnardel agree that an increased police presence is necessary to crack down on a recent uptick in gun violence in the city and surrounding areas, much of it linked to organized crime. They disagree on who should provide the personnel and how the operation should be funded.

Marchand has pressed the provincial government for greater funding for the Service de police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ). Bonnardel, for his part, has resisted calls for more money for the SPVQ but repeatedly offered to send Sûreté du Québec (SQ) officers to the city as reinforcements.

Bonnardel wrote a letter to Marchand on Sept. 20, which was shared with several media outlets. “I am, like you, deeply concerned by the recent demonstrations of armed violence in the Capitale-Nationale and its surroundings. However, these events to which you refer are associated with organized crime and raise issues that not only go beyond the strict limits of your territory, but also require national-level police co-ordination in the interventions carried out to combat this phenomenon – a clearly established jurisdiction of the Sûreté du Québec,” the letter said.

The letter was sent to Marchand’s office minutes before a scheduled City Hall press conference the same day, and the mayor hadn’t received it before he met with reporters.

The day of the press conference, the SPVQ and the Service de Police de Lévis were among dozens of municipal police services working in collaboration with the SQ on a provincewide crackdown on organized crime.

“We have no problem collaborating with the SQ, on mixed units, on collaborative projects,” the mayor said. “We do that already. We help them, they help us, they do their job very well and we have a lot of respect for them. But the SPVQ doesn’t need the SQ beyond the collaboration we’re already doing. We need additional resources for the city police to do work that is ongoing, not for a week, not for a month, but sustainably. We have been attacking organized crime for a long time.”

Earlier this year, the SPVQ released statistics showing a 6.6 per cent increase in violent crime in the city from 2022 to 2023, and a 29 per cent increase in “crimes against persons” between 2020 and 2023. The Quebec Liberal Party is among those backing Marchand’s call for increased funding for the municipal police service. “I find it very surprising that [Bonnardel] is talking about calling in the SQ when they have a major personnel shortage themselves. The city needs constant support, and that’s not going to happen if [the Quebec government] sends the SQ in once,” said Liberal public security critic Jennifer Maccarone. “It isn’t fair to compare Quebec City to Montreal and Laval – it’s not the same situation at all, but you need to trust the city if they are saying they need support. The government needs to have a conversation with the mayor – not just to stand up and say no, but to listen.”

Marchand appreciated the support, telling reporters, “So much the better; [crime prevention] should be a trans-partisan issue.”

“We aren’t in the same situation as Montreal, but we don’t want to wait for the situation to get worse,” Marchand said. “We have a good police service. I believe in them and I thank them. We need more resources to help them, and I hope the provincial government will be present present for that.” As of Sept. 23, media reports suggested that despite the disagreement, the Ville de Québec intended to accept the offer of SQ assistance.

Chief Denis Turcotte of the SPVQ declined to comment. Martine Fortier, president of the city’s police union, told Radio-Canada the union sup- ported Marchand’s demands, but that the mayor “can’t hide behind the fact that he’s being refused additional funding.” She would not go into detail on the union’s demands due to ongoing negotiations.

City, province differ on approach to organized crime Read More »

DND putting Sewell House and St. Louis barracks up for sale

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

DND putting Sewell House and St. Louis barracks up for sale

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

More than four years after the Department of National Defence (DND) declared it as “operationally surplus,” the future of the historic Sewell House on Rue St. Louis is still unknown. Also declared surplus is the St. Louis Barracks building behind Sewell House, on Rue D’Auteuil.

DND spokesperson Kened Sadiku told the QCT, “DND must complete Indigenous and local community consultations and complete the priority circulation with other levels of government and Indigenous groups before making a decision on the future of these properties.”

According to a DND document, the properties were declassified on Aug. 20, which triggered “the divestment process.”

The overall size of the property is 3,934 square feet, and according to the new city evaluation role, Sewell House is valued at $3.3 million.

Both buildings have federal heritage classification, which Sadiku said, means “the new owner[s] of the properties will be responsible for maintaining and preserving their heritage value.”

The St. Louis Barracks were built in 1856 as an armoury and artillery storage space, then expanded into stables and dormitories in 1887. They were used as the offices of the Royal Canadian Engineers until 1998, when the building became vacant. The building is protected because of its history as military infrastructure and its architectural importance. Sewell House has seen a lot of history since it was built in 1804 and occupied for several years by its namesake, Jonathan Sewell, chief justice of what was then Lower Canada. Parks Canada’s description of the house notes: “The original owner, Jonathan Sewell, may have been involved in the design, which placed the home within extensive grounds he owned through inheritance from his father-in-law, the former Chief Justice of Lower Canada William Smith.”

“In 1808, he became Chief Justice and Chairman of the Executive Council. In 1854, his estate sold the house to the Crown. The buildings were then inhabited by the officers of the Quebec Garrison Club, served as offices of the lieutenant governor and the Post Office Department and also as a school.”

The two-and-a-half storey building is still used as an officer’s residence. One former resident, QCT journalist Shirley Nadeau, lived in the lower half of the building for five years. She commented, “The rooms are enormous – the kitchen measured 26 feet long – and ceilings are 14 feet high on the first two floors.”

The house was of such dimensions, according to biographies of Sewell, to accommodate the large family he had with his wife Henrietta, which numbered 16 children.

The city’s inventory of architecture describes the building as “a fine example of the development of the Upper Town of Quebec City in the early 19th century under British rule. It evokes the establishment of the wealthy administrative class that chose the Upper Town during the boom and development of the area.”

Both the barracks and Sewell House are adjacent to the Quebec Garrison Club National Historic Site.

DND spokesperson Andrée- Anne Poulin told the QCT in an email: “Through pre- circulation, early expression of interest has come up from various groups from within the community.”

She added, “It’s important to note that the analysis required for divesting a property is intensive and thorough as described in the Treasury Board’s directive on the management of real property. These projects take an average of three to five years to complete. We take this deliberate, considered approach to ensure we consider the full value of these properties and make an informed decision.”

DND putting Sewell House and St. Louis barracks up for sale Read More »

Provisions Inc. building on Ave. Cartier sold

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Provisions Inc. building on Ave. Cartier sold

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The “Vendu” sign is in the window, but people will have to wait a few weeks to know the identity of the new owner of the Provisions Inc. building on Ave. Cartier.

The “For Sale” sign went up in the three-storey building on Aug. 21, the result of a court decision to sell the building to resolve a legal roadblock. The building had become the property of the National Bank when the purchasers, a couple from France, defaulted on the mortgage after fleeing the country.

The pair, Christophe Bouillon and Stéphanie Bouillon Guessas, had acquired the grocery in 2022 from cousins Vincent and Bruno Drouin, whose family had operated the popular store since 1949.

The bailiff handling the sale mandated Remax agent Hugo Asselin to list the building, which, besides a fully equipped grocery store, has two apartments on the second and third floors.. The asking price was $2 million, and a one-week deadline was set for submission of offers.

Asselin told the QCT there were four interested purchasers and the winning bidder is currently going through the legal process with a notary to make the sale official.

When the QCT visited the building the day after the “Vendu” sign went up, two men and a woman were seen talking at the building doorway. Asked if they were the new owners, one said “possiblement” but had no further comment.

Provisions Inc. building on Ave. Cartier sold Read More »

Joan of Arc statue on Plains gets fix-up

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

Joan of Arc statue on Plains gets fix-up

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Joan of Arc is getting her armour burnished.

The famous statue of the French saint and warrior in the Plains of Abraham garden that bears her name has been barricaded with scaffolding, part of a repair and renovation plan staged over five to 10 years.

A spokesperson for the National Battlefields Commission that maintains the garden said specialists from the Centre de conservation du Québec have been working on the life-size statue and base for two weeks. The scaffolding was to be removed by Sept. 20.

The cost of the makeover is estimated at $30,000.

The statue was a donation from the American sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and her husband, Archer M. Huntington, who were enamoured with Quebec City. It commemorates the soldiers who died in the Sept. 13, 1759, Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

The statue is an exact replica of the original one of Joan of Arc on her mount in Manhattan, New York City, erected in 1915. There are three other copies, in Los Angeles; Gloucester, Massachusetts; and Blois, France.

The Quebec City statue was inaugurated in 1938 along with the garden created to surround it.

There is one other statue of a mounted Joan of Arc in the city, located on the grounds of the former Soeurs de Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc convent in Sillery, now a residential complex.

Joan of Arc statue on Plains gets fix-up Read More »

City to change ‘purple bag’ collection schedule for winter

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

City to change ‘purple bag’ collection schedule for winter

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Most Quebec City residents participating in the city’s “purple bag” food waste program will have to adjust to a modified schedule as of the week of Oct. 7.

Starting that week, the city will shift from a weekly to a bi-weekly collection schedule for food waste. This change affects all boroughs of the city, except La Cité-Limoilou, the Montmorency sector of Beauport and Maguire Avenue in Sainte-Foy– Sillery-Cap-Rouge.

The collection of garbage and purple bags will alternate with the collection of recyclable materials. The recycling collection week remains the same.

The new schedule will be in effect until March 30; weekly pickup will resume after that and continue until fall 2025.

The city began rolling out its residential compost collection program in La Haute-Saint- Charles in November 2022 and gradually expanded it over the following year. In April 2024, after the city’s biomethanization plant was expanded to process additional food waste, the city opened the program to shops, restaurants, other businesses, public institutions and indus- trial facilities. At the time, Mayor Bruno Marchand said participation in the residential program had been “beyond our expectations.”

“Currently in winter, the majority of bins placed at the curb in the targeted sectors are not full,” Coun. Marie-Josée Asselin, member of the city executive committee responsible for waste management, said in a statement announcing the schedule change. “We can now adjust collection frequencies to real needs, which no longer justify a weekly visit by trucks in the winter period. This is good news!” Asselin did not respond to a request for further comment by press time.

In the statement, city officials said shifting purple bag collection to once every two weeks reduced noise, dust, safety risks and greenhouse gas emissions caused by truck traffic.

The city invited anyone with questions or concerns about waste collection to call 311 or consult the Info-Collecte web portal (ville.quebec.qc.ca/services/info-collecte).

City to change ‘purple bag’ collection schedule for winter Read More »

Male caregivers are welcome in the Shedquarters

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , ,

Male caregivers are welcome in the Shedquarters

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

English-speaking men in the Quebec City region who are caregivers will soon have access to a new Wellness Centre program aimed at creating social connections and making the experience of being a caregiver less isolating.

The Shedquarters project is inspired by the pan-Canadian Men’s Shed movement, ex- plained project co-ordinator Elise Arsenault. Men’s sheds are autonomous community initiatives that provide a safe and friendly environment where men can work on meaningful projects at their own pace, in their own time, in the company of other men. Arsenault, a master’s student in social work at Université Laval, explained that women tend to be more at ease than men when it comes to discussing difficulties they face openly, whether with a professional or with a friend or family member. “We know there are male caregivers around who are not using existing support services. When men talk about what’s bothering them, they tend to do it shoulder to shoul- der, rather than face to face,” she explained.

Shedquarters intends to give participants the opportunity to do just that. Arsenault said she hoped participants would take ownership of the project, creating “a community of English-speaking male caregivers, by and for the participants.”

The project is open to English-speaking and bilingual men of all ages who are caregivers, the schedule is flexible and the definition of “caregiver” is not restrictive. “You could be caring for a spouse or family member, or helping out a friend or neighbour – it’s a very wide definition,” said Arsenault. Men from around the greater Quebec City, Valcartier and Lévis areas are welcome to join. Arsenault said the program has already had several expressions of interest, and activities were expected to begin later this fall.

If you would like more information about the Shedquarters program for English-speaking male caregivers, either for yourself or someone you know, contact Elise Arsenault directly by phone (418-928-8388) or email (elars18@ulaval.ca).

Male caregivers are welcome in the Shedquarters Read More »

City to jack tax on vehicle fee by $60 to boost transit service

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

City to jack tax on vehicle fee by $60 to boost transit service

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Vehicle owners in Quebec City will be paying $60 more when they renew their registrations, a move by the city to raise money to expand urban transit service.

Mayor Bruno Marchand announced at a Sept. 11 news conference that the hike will take effect on Jan. 1, 2025, when the public transit contribution of vehicle registration will jump from $30 to $90, on top of the regular fee.

The $30 fee has been in effect since 1992; motorists in the Montreal region have been paying a special transit fee since 2011.

The measure, which the Quebec government made available to all municipalities in the province earlier this year, will affect some 300,000 vehicle owners in the Quebec City region. It is expected to raise $18.4 million in the first year, all of which, the mayor said, will be targeted to public transit improvements.

“We are waging a war on congestion,” Marchand said. “The longer we wait to develop the public transport network, the more congestion increases.”

Saying he was not happy to announce a fee increase, the mayor argued, “There is a cost associated with conges- tion. The family that has to buy a second or third car for their child who has to go to CEGEP represents an annual expense of thousands of dollars. The hours lost in traffic are time that people don’t have with their families and for themselves. Congestion has an economic cost and an impact on quality of life.”

The trade-off for the fee hike is an expansion of the Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC) network with a plan rolled out over the next three years.

Each year, according to a press release, the RTC plans to add a new fast, high-frequency Metrobus-type route to serve the northern suburbs, a new peripheral sector served by Flexibus with local routes revised accordingly, extension of the àVélo bike-sharing network, and a new Parc-O- Bus lot.

Coun. Maude Mercier Larouche, RTC president and executive committee member, said, “Year after year, the same problem arises: the RTC wants to develop and improve its services, but the funding is not there. Today, we are taking steps to remedy this and are presenting you with an ambitious development plan that meets the needs of our citizens and users.”

Opposition councillors had a variety of reactions to the fee hike, a step dozens of other municipalities have already taken, with fees higher than Quebec City’s $60. Opposition Leader and Québec d’Abord Coun. Claude Villeneuve, whose party is the successor to former mayor Régis Labeaume’s Équipe Labeaume slate, convened a press conference to show plans for RTC network expansion that the Labeaume administration had drawn up – which he said were very similar to the plan Marchand unveiled.

Villeneuve told reporters, “We clearly have a mayor who is waving this plan around with his left hand and who, with his right hand, is going into the pockets of families to get more money – money that will not deliver more mobility and fluidity.”

Transition Québec Leader and Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith, meanwhile, while sup- portive of the increased fee, offered other suggestions. In a news release, she proposed “the city offer the Opus card [transit pass] free of charge to residents of the neighbourhoods on the northern out- skirts of Quebec City who will pay the registration tax.

“The city is presenting us with an interesting project for what it will do with the money collected for the development of the public transit network in Quebec City, but I’m increasingly wary of these plans that are being dangled before us. As long as the CAQ is in power, I’m afraid that all mobility projects in Quebec City will remain imaginary projects,” said Smith.

To encourage drivers to try RTC services, the city plans to offer eight free bus tickets, a $30 value, upon request as of Jan. 1.

City to jack tax on vehicle fee by $60 to boost transit service Read More »

City buys historic Saint-Jean-Baptiste church building

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

City buys historic Saint-Jean-Baptiste church building

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Nearly 140 years after it opened its doors to worshippers and nearly 10 years after those doors closed, Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, one of Quebec City’s most distinctive religious landmarks, may reopen soon following the city’s purchase of the building on Rue Saint-Jean.

On Sept. 9, Mayor Bruno Marchand and executive committee member and local Coun. Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc announced the acquisition, for $175,000, of the monumental church, in the square in front of the building which is often used for cultural events. Marchand said Saint-Jean- Baptiste is one of eight religious structures the city is committed to preserving, following recommendations in a 2018 study led by former Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (MNBAQ) head John Porter. He said saving the churches was among his party’s election promises.

The other churches are the Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica-Cathedral in Old Quebec; the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, also in Old Quebec; Église de La Nativité de Notre-Dame (Beauport); Église Saint-Charles-Borromée (Charlesbourg); Église Saint- Roch, Église Saint-Sauveur and Église Saint-Charles-de-Limoilou. Saint-Jean-Baptiste is the only one of the eight churches currently unoccupied.

Coulombe-Leduc said the city is awaiting the results of a study by consultants to evaluate the investments required to convert the structure for new functions, already identified as “community, touristic and cultural.” She said, “There is enough space for the three to exist together.”

The estimate of the overall cost to repair and maintain the structure is $34 million over 15 years, Coulombe-Leduc said. The city would be the owner of the building, but the provincial and federal governments would contribute to the project. She said she already has assurances from Québec MP Jean-Yves Duclos that the federal government would be involved.

Coulombe-Leduc said she wants there to be at least temporary activity in the building “as soon as possible” while the details of a development plan are settled. “It is not a good thing for a heritage building to be unoccupied,” she said.

She said the overall structure of the building “is very good” and the windows and roof are in good condition. The parish has managed to do renovations over the years since the church ceased to be a place of worship in 2015. The building has had a heritage designation since 1991.

No one from the Saint-Jean-Baptiste parish council, which still oversees the maintenance of the church, spoke at the press conference or was immediately available to comment.

City buys historic Saint-Jean-Baptiste church building Read More »

No eligibility certificate needed for English health care, MNAs say

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

No eligibility certificate needed for English health care, MNAs say

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Members of the National Assembly have passed a unanimous motion stating that English-speaking Quebecers do not need to obtain or provide a certificate of eligibility for English education to access health care in English.

Liberal health critic André Fortin tabled the motion on Sept. 12. The motion called for the National Assembly to declare that English-speaking Quebecers “don’t need to obtain a certificate of eligibility for English-language education to have access to English-language health care and social services in Quebec” and that “clear and explicit” directives to that effect need to be given to local health authorities.

Fortin tabled the motion with the support of Québec Solidaire health critic Vincent Marissal and independent MNA Marie-Claude Nichols. The motion was to have been sent to every regional health authority (CISSS or CIUSSS) in the province.

Liberal critic for relations with the English-speaking community Greg Kelley is the party’s point person on the issue of access to health care in English. Kelley said the motion did not have the force of law, but sent a “strong signal.

“I thought it was important that the National Assembly send a clear message that no one needs an eligibility certificate to access health care,” Kelley said. “Lucien Bouchard said you don’t need a language test in order to get a blood test, and the [Coalition Avenir Québec government] should not play with things like that.”

Kelley, a second-term MNA for the Montreal riding of Jacques-Cartier, said his office has received calls from anglophone constituents concerned about health-care access in light of a directive issued by Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge in July. The directive, which laid out a list of situations where a language other than French might be used in health care, was widely interpreted in the anglophone community as potentially restricting the use of English with patients, although Roberge has denied that was the government’s intention.

Roberge later promised to issue a new, clearer directive, but no such directive has been released yet. “We’re still waiting for the new directive [but] the fact that all 125 MNAs say you don’t need an eligibility certificate is a solid sign,” Kelley said.

Although the motion refers explicitly to education eligibility certificates, Kelley said patients didn’t have to worry about showing other forms of documentation to get English-language service. “The only type of proof [of membership in the English-speaking community] that exists is the eligibility certificate, which a lot of people can’t get,” he said. “No one should have to worry about having a piece of paper to get services.

“When you go to a hospital, you don’t have to worry about language,” he added. “The institution is under the obligation to try to serve you in English – capacity is another issue, but you always have the right to walk in and ask, to say ‘It’s important to me to get service in English.’”

No eligibility certificate needed for English health care, MNAs say Read More »

GASPÉ TALES: Le Griffon cultural centre rises from the ruins for a second time

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

GASPÉ TALES

Le Griffon cultural centre rises from the ruins for a second time

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Three months ago, watercolour artist Claude Côté was thrilled to be able to move his workshop and gallery into the Centre Culturel Le Griffon, a bustling community and cultural centre in the heart of L’Anse- au-Griffon, the tight-knit community in the Gaspé that he’d never really left.

More than 20 years ago, he was part of a core group of volunteers who raised $300,000 to help build the centre out of the remains of a decaying, condemned former cold storage hangar which they had saved from demolition. More recently, he and his neighbours came to the centre to eat at the village’s only year-round restaurant, see concerts, use the ATM, rent winter hiking equipment at the volunteer- run ski counter and explore the art gallery. Now he was spending his days there. “I was very happy to be back; I had a nice big space!”

“The hangar was built at the peak of the cod industry, in the 1940s, but by the ‘90s, it had become a bit of an eyesore,” recalled Gaspé Mayor Daniel Côté (no known relation to Claude Côté). After volunteers petitioned the government to stop the planned demolition and had the hangar restored, “a place of warmth and colour” took root in the village.

In the wee hours of the morning of Sept. 1, however, it all went up in smoke. A fire, apparently caused by a dropped cigarette butt on an outdoor balcony, spread to the outside walls and roof. By the time firefighters arrived, there was nothing left to do except try to save the adjacent shrimp processing plant. When Claude Côté arrived a few hours later, he quickly realized his work- shop and gallery were gone. “I didn’t have a single paintbrush left,” he told the QCT, still processing the shock nearly two weeks later.

A metal framework installed to shore up the crumbling cold storage hangar rose above the ruins. Only the sign, two doors and two large ammonia compressors salvaged from the hangar could be saved. “Twenty-five years of work, just gone,” said Mayor Côté, who also hurried to the scene that morning. “No one was physically hurt, but there were a lot of moral injuries.”

There were economic injuries as well. “In the beginning, there were a lot of volunteers, but then over the years, things were professionalized,” said Stéphane Morissette, director of the non-profit which oversees the cultural centre. Twenty of the town’s 500 or so inhabitants worked at the centre, either at the café or in the office. Thousands of dollars of skiing and snowshoeing equipment and works of art were destroyed. “To see all of that go up in smoke is very, very hard,” said Morissette, a Quebec City native who has lived in the Gaspé for more than 25 years.

“In a rural community, we need places to go in the village,” said Hélène Gaulin, a square dance caller who coproduced a documentary partially filmed in the centre. Gaulin lives in the nearby village of Cap-aux-Os but has gone to many concerts at Le Griffon. “We need to be able to live our lives here and not have to drive into town for every little thing. It’s kind of the new church steps – we don’t really have church as a gathering place anymore, but a cultural centre brings people together.”

Le Griffon is bringing Gaspesians together even as the ruins still smoulder. Performance venues in surrounding towns have offered to stage concerts that were supposed to take place at Le Griffon. A crowdfunding campaign for Claude Côté, started by family members, raised nearly $50,000, which will go toward replacing equipment and reimbursing people who had lent paintings to be put on display. “It’s an extraordinary life buoy,” the artist said. The city of Gaspé, of which L’Anse- au-Griffon is a part, has offered technical support for grant writing, planning and dealing with insurance. Morissette said rebuilding the centre as it was on the current site would be difficult if not impossible – not least because its location, a stone’s throw from the St. Lawrence, is now considered a floodplain. However, he and his colleagues “are already in mode Cultural Centre II,” launching a crowdfunding campaign of their own and recruiting a project manager.

“We’ve seen a lot of generosity, and that’s what pulls me up when I get discouraged,” Morissette said. “The next phase will take a lot of work, but a lot of people want to help. That’s what is giving us the strength to think of the future.”

To contribute to Le Griffon’s rebuilding effort, search for “Centre Culturel Le Griffon: Relance phase 1” on GoFundMe.

GASPÉ TALES: Le Griffon cultural centre rises from the ruins for a second time Read More »

Anglican parish program brings cello lessons to community

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Anglican parish program brings cello lessons to community

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Sillery is starting the new school year on a bright note with a new program offering free, bilingual after-school cello lessons.

“The way we do things at St. Michael’s is we work with the gifts of people who are part of our community, and one of those people is Tomohisa Toriumi, who is a cellist with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec and a cello teacher,” said Rev. Jeffrey Metcalfe, the parish priest of St. Michaels, who is also the canon theologian of the Anglican Diocese of Quebec.

Metcalfe is an amateur cel- list who has been taking lessons from Toriumi for several years. “My son, who was three [when I started playing], said ‘I want to play too,’ and we weren’t going to buy him a $1,200 instrument,” Metcalfe recalled. He himself wanted to learn cello as a child but was discouraged from it by a music teacher, not picking up the instrument until his wife bought him one years later.

“[Toriumi] and I were talk- ing about how it can be difficult to start cello, how it’s expensive and how it’s a high bar … he said he would get some cellos and see if anyone is interested in learning.” With a few loaner cellos and a willing volunteer teacher in Toriumi, Les Anges Cordistes – the working title of the cello program – was born.

Metcalfe said he and Toriumi planned to start slowly, with brief weekly after-school gatherings to learn the basics, and then potentially move for- ward with more involved projects, such as a performance ensemble.

Metcalfe said he has gotten expressions of interest from children as young as seven and from adults. He hopes the program will help build community, foster intergenerational learning and engage children and young adults with classical music.

“A few generations ago, if you wanted to listen to music, you got together with your friends and you played or sang,” he said. “There are still some people who do that in Quebec City, but it isn’t the norm. It’s important to find ways of engaging young people in music. By starting younger, kids develop a sense of ‘I can do this!’”

Metcalfe, who cofounded the Anglican diocese’s Chapeau Vert ethical technology education program two years ago, said he sees Les Anges Cordistes as continuing in a long Anglican tradition of sup- porting the arts and as bringing more people in contact with the church community, with the “beautiful space” of St. Michael’s Church and with music as a potentially spiritual practice. “The cello is such a resonant instrument, and people say it has a range similar to the human voice. It’s important for people to find space for practices that bring them joy,” he added. However, he emphasized that participants in the music program didn’t need to be Anglican parishioners or to have anything to do with the church community. “This is for everyone.”

To join, support or learn more about Les Anges Cordistes, contact Rev. Jeffrey Metcalfe directly at jmetcalfe@quebec.anglican.ca.

Anglican parish program brings cello lessons to community Read More »

Student apartment project set for Jeffery Hale clinic site

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

Student apartment project set for Jeffery Hale clinic site

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Amajor student housing project is in the works that will transform an already busy sector of Saint- Sacrement.

Construction is expected to start in January on a 234-unit building on the site of the former Jeffery Hale Medical Centre on Chemin Ste-Foy. The structure is adjacent to the building that houses the offices of organizations serving the English-speaking community and the Jeffery Hale Hospital.

The as-yet-unnamed build- ing is a project of UTILE (l’Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant), a Montreal-based non-profit organization that already has 13 projects built or in development in Montreal, Sherbrooke, Rimouski, Trois- Rivières and Quebec City.

The group’s first project in the capital is called L’Ardoise, a 205-unit building on Chemin Sainte-Foy across from the Université Laval campus. Completed in 2023, the facility was an instant success, according to Maxime Pelletier, UTILE’s assistant director of public affairs.

Rents in L’Ardoise range from $618 per month for a studio to $1,600 per month for a four-bedroom apartment. When units become available, the group said, there is a flood of applications.

Pelletier said UTILE chose the site on the Jeffery Hale property because of its access to transportation and other amenities in the Saint- Sacrement district, plus its proximity to Laval.

The group bought the land for $3.45 million from the owner, Sobeys, the food and real estate giant. Pelletier said construction will begin in the new year once zoning issues are resolved with the city and financing secured for the new project.

Regarding the zoning, Pelletier said, “The main exemptions required for our projects are regarding the height of the building, which is slightly higher than what is currently permitted, as well as the parking-to-units ratio (since many students do not own a car and we want to encourage active and public transit, we have fewer parking spots in our projects).”

Pelletier said he is confident discussions with “multiple levels of government” will secure the financing for the new building. Once construction begins, he said the building should be ready to accept tenants for the 2026 fall semester.

Pelletier said the goal of UTILE is “to provide afford- able housing to students be- cause increasingly housing is the main source of financial debt and stress for students and therefore we believe that providing students with an adequate place to study that is affordable will improve their well-being as well as their capacity to concentrate on their studies.”

The group got its start as a result of the 2012 university student strike, Pelletier said, when there was a movement for a student organization to take over a corporate housing project in the works in down- town Montreal. The takeover didn’t happen, but the move- ment created UTILE, which launched its first project in 2017 in Montreal.

Pelletier said UTILE pours some of the rental income from existing buildings back into new projects but is committed to keeping rents affordable.

As for which students will be granted a lease on an apartment, Pelletier said priority goes to students in the most financial need.

The soon-to-be-demolished Jeffery Hale Medical Centre building currently has only one tenant listed, a dental clinic. The building opened in 1964, a project of five doctors, according to city records: Samuel L. Pollack, John W. Kelly, Peter E. Kozak, Denis Gendron and Ian C. Wilson.

The city inventory of buildings describes the structure as of “little heritage interest … [that] corresponds to a time of multiplication of medical clinics linked to the demographic boom.”

Student apartment project set for Jeffery Hale clinic site Read More »

Faubourg elevator to close in spring for upgrade

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

Faubourg elevator to close in spring for upgrade

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

One of the city’s more distinctive features is about to undergo a major overhaul. As of Sept. 4, work began on the exterior of the Faubourg public elevator, connecting Rue Saint-Vallier Est in the Saint-Roch district with Rue Saint-Réal in the Saint-Jean-Baptiste neighbourhood in Upper Town.

The exterior work will continue into December; all the while both the elevator and the restaurant will continue to function.

Come spring, though, the iconic Art Deco tower will be closed for about 10 weeks to allow for the replacement of the elevator machinery.

In a Sept. 3 news release, the city said it planned the $1.975-million elevator makeover in two phases “to limit the impacts on citizens as much as possible, in particular by keeping this important mechanical link operational during the winter period.”

Some short-term closures may be necessary during the first phase, and the city has said it will give notice when they are about to occur. Dur- ing the long-term closure in the spring, “measures will be put in place to allow citizens to travel from Upper Town to Lower Town.”

The elevator has considerable historical as well as functional value, according to the city’s architectural directory. It was designed by prominent architect Wilfrid Lacroix, who designed the Gérard-Morisset Pavilion of the Musée national des Beaux-Arts du Québec and collaborated on the design of Collège des Jésuites and the Édifice André-Laurendeau on Parliament Hill.

The structure has undergone various renovations over its 80- year lifespan; the most recent, in 1997, gave the exterior its current look of beige brick.

The city said up to 400 people use the elevator each day.

Faubourg elevator to close in spring for upgrade Read More »

City doesn’t plan to cash in on rise in property evaluations

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

City doesn’t plan to cash in on rise in property evaluations

Peter Black

peter@qctonline.com

The city’s new property assessment roll for the years 2025-2027 features some major increases in the value of buildings and land. Taxpayers need not worry about a bigger tax bill, the city says, since increases in value will be offset by a decrease in the tax rate.

City officials unveiled the new roll at a media session at City Hall on Sept. 5. The highlights include an average increase of 27.4 per cent on residential properties, 25.3 per cent on multi-residential housing of six units or more, and 24.4 per cent on vacant but serviced land. The overall increase in property value is 23.5 per cent.

Mayor Bruno Marchand said at the news conference, “There is no reason to be afraid. There will be no tax shock.”

That said, given a range of cost pressures, the mayor said, “It is impossible for the city not to raise taxes next December,” although he vowed such a hike would be less than the rate of inflation, as it was in the last two budgets.

Marchand said, “Depending on the increases we are experiencing, depending on the costs that are rising – because we are also experiencing inflation – we are going to make a colossal effort this year to make difficult choices to ensure that we are below inflation in the growth of taxes.”

The new tax roll shows the average value for tax purposes of a single-family home rose from $296,205 on the previous roll to $378,964 on the new one. Buildings with up to five units rose from $382,897 to $489,082 on the new roll.

The category of buildings that saw the largest increase was non-residential (hotels, motels and tourist accommodations) which leaped by 38 per cent. The city lists 145 buildings in this category.

Office buildings, on the other hand, actually decreased in value on the city roll by 7.6 per cent.

The new roll is now available for viewing on the city’s website.

City doesn’t plan to cash in on rise in property evaluations Read More »

Eligibility flap keeps aspiring St. Pat’s hockey player off ice

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Eligibility flap keeps aspiring St. Pat’s hockey player off ice

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Hockey players are used to getting slammed into the boards, but for Jordan Soulard-Clarke, 11, the biggest barrier to realizing his hockey dreams has arisen before he ever stepped on the ice.

Soulard-Clarke, who lives in Donnacona, dreamed of being part of the St. Patrick’s High School Fighting Irish hockey program and had been accepted to the school’s U13 team for Secondary 1 and 2 students. The family toured the school, and Soulard-Clarke met the head of the hockey program, Danick Powers.

“My son even had his class schedule and his bus plan,” said Soulard-Clarke’s father, Jason Clarke, a former professional hockey player and coach. “He’s a very nervous boy, and he felt so comfortable knowing he had his class [schedule], his locker and his teammates.”

All of those plans fell apart when the school contacted Clarke and let him know the Ministry of Education and Higher Learning (MEES) had not issued his son, who attended a local French-language primary school, a certificate of eligibility for English instruction.

Quebec-born students are normally considered eligible for English instruction if they have a parent or sibling who completed the majority of their primary school education in English in Canada (for parents who grew up in Ontario, the requirement is five years of primary school education). Jason Clarke said he fit that requirement, having attended English-language public schools in and around Cobourg, Ont., throughout primary and secondary school. However, two of the elementary schools Clarke attended, Dr. L.B. Powers Public School in Port Hope, Ont. and Grant Sine Public School in Cobourg, have since closed, the former in 2004 and the latter in 2014. Clarke said he has been told by the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board (KPRDSB) that records showing who attended the school are no longer available. (The QCT was unable to contact the KPRDSB before press time, but local media articles confirm the closure of the two schools.)

Clarke said he supplied his birth certificate and “all the English documentation we could find” including school pictures from both schools and a grade school ID card from Burnham Street Public School showing he had previously attended L.B. Powers. It didn’t help.

MEES spokesperson Bryan St-Louis said applicants for an English eligibility certificate must provide a report card, an attestation or ministry forms filled out by the parent or sibling’s educational “institution or organization” showing that the majority of their primary education was completed in English. The MEES would not comment on Soulard-Clarke’s specific case due to privacy concerns.

“We keep being told my son’s file is incomplete, but [the ministry is] waiting for documentation that doesn’t exist,” Clarke said.

Furthermore, the fact that the file remains open means that Clarke can’t go through the usual MEES appeal process or submit a new application on the basis that Soulard-Clarke, who speaks mostly English at home and struggles with reading and writing in French, should qualify for an exemption based on his learning difficulties or on “humanitarian or family considerations.”

Soulard-Clarke missed three days of school as the family waited for a favourable deci- sion. Finally, against his will and theirs, his parents sent him to École secondaire de Donnacona, where he has few friends and fewer opportunities to play hockey. “If he was at St. Pat’s, he would play hockey every day, but now he only plays once a week. He’s not himself – when a kid has his heart set on something and the day before, it’s taken away from him, you know how that feels,” Clarke said.

No one from St. Patrick’s High School or the Central Québec School Board was available to discuss the situation at press time.

Clarke told the QCT he is considering taking legal action. “It’s a form of discrimination,” he said. “St. Pat’s has done everything they are supposed to, but the ministry has decided to make an example of my son. They should have let him go to school [at his chosen school] and say ‘We’re missing some documents, we’ll figure it out later, but we shouldn’t deny him the chance to go to school and play hockey.’ They need to be held accountable.”

Eligibility flap keeps aspiring St. Pat’s hockey player off ice Read More »

Pride Solidarity March celebrates freedom

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,


Pride Solidarity March celebrates freedom

Pride Solidarity March celebrates freedom

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Hundreds of people of a wide range of ages and backgrounds gathered in Place D’Youville on Sept. 1 to mark the 20th anniversary of LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations in Quebec City and call for vigilance in the fight to protect the rights of sexual and gender minorities.

The march was the marquee event of four days of Pride celebrations, which included drag performances, outdoor concerts (despite erratic weather), parties at Le Drague, Le Saint-Matthew and other queer-friendly venues, an artists’ market, a community fair and a “gender exploration” activity at the Palais Montcalm, where people could try on new clothes and appearance-altering prosthetics and get free haircuts, discounted tattoos and style advice from eager volunteers.

While the festival has undergone a rebrand in the past year, changing its name from Fête Arc-en-Ciel de Québec to Fierté de Québec and add- ing more activities for queer, non-binary and young audiences, the traditional Sunday afternoon Solidarity March has remained the same. Organizers are adamant that the march is not a parade. Although the odd political party, labour union or church banner or pin could be seen among the throng of flag- bedecked marchers streaming through Vieux-Québec, there were no organized delegations.

Participants chanted “Pride was a riot!” alluding to the first Pride celebrations in North America, which were protests against a lack of of- ficial recognition, respect and protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people. They chanted slogans in French and English in support of the rights of transgender youth, Palestin- ian sovereignty, the Black Lives Matter movement and boycotts of multinational corporations. A touching open-mic session at Place D’Youville, where people could read poetry or speak about whatever was on their minds, followed the march.

“That platform [at the Soli- darity March] is there for people in the community to express their views, and the only rule is that they do it respect- fully,” said British Columbia- born Johnson Bresnick, who celebrated his first Quebec City Pride in 2008 and recently became secretary of the Alli- ance Arc-en-Ciel, which organizes the annual celebration.

Jean-Yves Martin came from St. Lambert, near Montreal, with his partner, Pierre Poisson. The two men in their 60s, dressed in colourful butterfly outfits, drew admiring looks from the younger marchers. The admiration was mutual. “I love seeing this,” Martin said, gesturing to clusters of people in their teens and 20s with brightly coloured hair and colourful signs. “I have four kids and six grandkids and I raised them just like this, so they can be free.”

Quebec City resident Katharina Urbschat was attending her first Pride, in solidarity with gay family members and to see what it was like. “I love this–Ifeelsofree,likeIcanbe anyone I want to be,” she said. “I can finally say that I belong to this community, and I’m proud of that,” said Hortense*, a recent immigrant from Cam- eroon, where homosexuality is a criminal offence. “There are places in the world where you can’t make that choice, to live out your sexual orientation or your gender identity.”

“As a person who has had to come out a few different times … it’s important for me to have a world where our kids won’t have to come out, where they can just be themselves from the beginning,” said Alexandre Bédard, a father of two young children and Alliance Arc- en-Ciel board member who is transgender.

At the microphone, speakers emphasized the joy of coming together, but also the fragility of LGBTQ+ rights in an increasingly polarized political climate. A Quebec City resident named Dominic, who gave only his first name, stepped to the mic and drew the audience’s attention to his wedding ring. “I’ve been married for 15 years, and to get us to that point, there are people who have been through torture, who have been put in prison, who have died.” He concluded by adapting a quote from French feminist author Simone de Beauvoir: “Never forget that it will only take a political, economic or religious crisis for our rights to be called into question. These rights are never acquired. You will have to remain vigilant throughout your life.”

*last name withheld for safety reasons

Are you new in town and trying to get more involved with the LGBTQ+ community?

• Volunteer with the Alliance Arc-en-Ciel and make your mark on Pride 2025! Email info@arcencielquebec.com to learn more.

• Discover Roller Derby as a player or volunteer and let your competitive side shine through with Roller Derby Québec. “It’s a contact sport on skates with a lot of people – one of the first contact sports developed for women,” explains Élodie Drolet of Roller Derby Québec. “We have a nice bilingual community and a lot of the jargon is in English.” Although teams are only open to women, transgender people and non-binary people, cisgender men are welcome to get involved as officials or volunteers. Follow them on Facebook (Roller Derby Québec).

• Join a queer-positive, creative community with Toustes Doux, a Lower Town-based nonprofit which organizes all-ages, pay-what-you-can queer-friendly community events such as picnics and arts-and-crafts nights. Follow them on Instagram (@toustesdoux).

• Open Zoom and join the Violet Hour Book Club, a bilingual, mainly English-language hybrid book club hosted by Montreal author Christopher Di Raddo. Email him at diraddo@gmail.com to learn more.

• If you enjoy French-language poetry and performance art and want to discover some new venues in Lower Town, follow the Collectif RAMEN on social media.

Pride Solidarity March celebrates freedom Read More »

Samuel-De Champlain beach will stay open into October

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,


Samuel-De Champlain beach will stay open into October

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Samuel-De Champlain beach will stay open into October

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The Promenade Samuel-De Champlain beach area, in only its second year of operation, has proved so popular it will be staying open until October.

The Commission de la Capitale-Nationale last week announced the decision to extend the season beyond its originally planned end on Sept. 3, after the Labour Day weekend.

The beach now will be open on weekends until Oct. 6, depending on weather condi- tions, those being a tempera- ture above 18 C and a forecast without heavy rain or a full day of precipitation.

If the weather co-operates, that could mean a total of five bonus weekends at the beach, which features an unheated swimming pool, a “mirror pool” with water jets and access for a dip in the river.

While the pool will be open only on weekends, the mirror pool and water jets will be open to the public throughout the week.

The CCN is betting on a repeat of last September’s weather, where the average temperature was 21.8 C, 3.9 C above the 17.9 C average. That made for 20 days above 20 C, well above the average nine for the month.

According to weather watcher David Page, “The way things are going, September is likely to mirror recent months and temperatures will be above normal. Environment Canada’s outlook for September is above normal temperatures for al- most the entire country.”

Page said, “While the temperatures are definitely rising with climate change, it will take a while to affect the averages. But it’s probably a good bet to predict averages of one or two degrees above average.”

CCN spokesperson Jean- Philippe Guay told the QCT it takes a small team to keep the beach site open. That includes the site manager, beach attendants, housekeeping attendants and lifeguards, depending on traffic and time of day. The snack shop at the pavilion will be open on weekends from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Promenade Champlain beach is not the only city swimming area to have a prolonged schedule this September. The Gerard-Guay pool in Parc Saint-Charles-Garnier in Sillery will remain open until Sept. 22, depending on weather conditions.

The reason for the extension, according to the city, is the shortage of swimming pools, due to the temporary closure of most indoor pools in the city for regular maintenance. A quick survey shows the only non-institutional indoor city pool open is Bourg-Royal in Charlesbourg.

Information on opening hours for municipal indoor pools is available on the city’s website.

Samuel-De Champlain beach will stay open into October Read More »

Nurses to refuse overtime if no agreement reached

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,


Nurses to refuse overtime if no agreement reached

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Nurses to refuse overtime if no agreement reached

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Members of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), the province’s largest nurses’ union, will begin refusing overtime requests en masse as of Sept. 19 unless the federation reaches an agreement with the provincial government, the union announced shortly before Labour Day Weekend.

The FIQ, which represents about 80,000 nurses and nurs- ing assistants across the prov- ince, has been in negotiations with the province for nearly a year and a half. In March, both parties announced that an agreement in principle had been reached, but 61 per cent of voting FIQ members rejected the agreement, sending both parties back to the table.

The government proposed a new offer on Aug. 29, which was rejected out of hand by the union. In a rare move, the union leaked a government overview of the latest proposal to the media and the public on its website.

“Following the rejection of the agreement in principle in April 2024, the employer side was sensitive to the various elements related to mobility that generated fears and dis- content among the employees represented by the FIQ,” government negotiators wrote. “An analysis was conducted to explore other avenues to take into account the observations expressed by the employees, particularly with regard to the recognition and respect of their expertise in ensuring safe and quality care and services to the population. Achieving flexibility objectives remains essential for the government. The employer side is submit- ting new alternative proposals to achieve a balance between the needs of the [health and social services network] in terms of clinical services and the stability sought for mem- bers.”

FIQ president Julie Bouchard told reporters the agreement contained “steps backward” in terms of nurses’ control of their schedules and work locations, allowing the health network to send nurses as far as 200 kilo- metres from the facility where they are normally based when they’re needed, and replacing stable day-shift or night-shift jobs with rotating-shift jobs when nurses retire or move.

In a statement posted to social media, Treasury Board president Sonia LeBel said she was “stunned to hear Ms. Bouchard negotiate in public while we are asked to negotiate at the table.”

LeBel said it was “false to say that the government wants to increase the moving around of staff.”

She continued, “It’s irresponsible to scare people when our objective is to take better care of them with a better organization of labour in hospitals – on a voluntary basis and with the training required.”

Nurses to refuse overtime if no agreement reached Read More »

Meet the QCT’s newest journalist, Manuel Cardenas

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,


Meet the QCT’s newest journalist, Manuel Cardenas

Meet the QCT’s newest journalist, Manuel Cardenas

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Manuel Cardenas is the QCT’s newest journalist. Based in Lévis, he is the first South Shore correspondent the paper has had for many years. Ruby Pratka had a brief chat* with Manuel to introduce him to readers.

Ruby Pratka: Hi Manuel! Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Manuel Cardenas: I was born in Peru. When I was six, we moved to Saint-Agapit. I grew up there and went to high school in Lévis.

RP: So you grew up speaking Spanish and French, but your English is also very good.

MC: I think the thing that helped me the most to learn English was Netflix. I always watch Spanish movies in Spanish. I did the same for English, so that’s how I learned. I just finished my bachelor’s degree at Bishop’s University [in Lennoxville], and that experience helped me to learn the English that I speak now.

RP: The first time we spoke, you mentioned that you did an internship at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Germany this summer. Tell us about that.

MC: That’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had! I’m a big fan of football, of soccer. I worked in the international broadcast centre as an [inter- mediary] between broadcast- ers and staff. All the players I’ve watched since I was a little kid on TV, I saw them in real life! I met so many people from Germany, Spain, Italy, Turkey, and everybody contributed to my experience there.

RP: What did you learn from watching those people work?

MC: There were a lot of older people there, and I thought they knew everything, but I realized they’re still learning! Another reality check was that I speak three languages, and everyone there spoke four or five! I’ve started learning Ger- man, and it’s quite hard. You always have to push yourself.

RP: How did you find out about the QCT?

MC: A year and a half ago, I covered a story for Le Journal de Lévis [about] the new English school in Lévis, and you contacted me for [an audio recording]. I’ve also heard that one of the oldest media [outlets] in the country was in Quebec City. I think it’s the oldest one, right?

RP: The oldest newspaper in North America, that’s us!

MC: So I looked at your website and found out more about the paper.

RP: And after all this time, your first “official” story for us is about the opening of New Liverpool – the same school!

MC: The universe works in a weird way … Maybe the universe wanted me to step up in this new direction.

RP: Why did you want to take up the challenge of working in English for the QCT?

MC: The best advice I got from the people I met during my internship was to keep learning and gain experience in different fields. I told them that I worked in French journalism. They told me I should work for Spanish or English media, [make] new contacts, [have] new experiences. Gaining experience in English is really helpful for international jobs.

RP: Do you want to keep trying different things for the next little while, or do you have a specific career goal already?

MC: For now I want to stay in Quebec, but [keep] enlarging my experience. As a long-term goal, after I finish my master’s, I want to work in international sports events.

RP: What stories are you looking forward to covering for the QCT?

MC: Mainly sports, but I like doing different stories. I’m also a musician. At the Journal de Lévis, I covered music stories, cultural stories, political stuff. I’m open to anything.

RP: I’m glad you mentioned music because I wanted to bring that up. You’re also a piano teacher?

MC: Yeah! I have two worlds, communication and music. When I was a teenager, my dream was to become a musician, but I realized I wanted to keep it as a hobby. It’s something magic to help me through rough times in life. Everywhere I go, I bring my piano [or] my guitar. I teach piano at a local music school. Music is cool because you never stop learning.

*This interview has been edited and condensed. 

Meet the QCT’s newest journalist, Manuel Cardenas Read More »

Stephen Burke to retire as CQSB chair

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Stephen Burke to retire as CQSB chair

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

On Sept. 26, Stephen Burke, the chair of the Council of Commission- ers of the Central Québec School Board (CQSB), will officially open New Liverpool Elementary School, the board’s brand new elementary school in Lévis. It will be one of his last acts as chair.

After nearly 37 years of involvement with the governance of the CQSB and the Commission scolaire des Découvreurs, Burke, a career civil servant, will not run in the Nov. 3 election. He plans to retire, spend more time with his family and focus on other pursuits including writing, music (he has made many appearances as an Elvis impersonator over the years) and stand-up comedy. “You’ve got to leave the game before the game leaves you,” he quipped, quoting Wayne Gretzky.

Burke initially planned to step down in 2020, but decided to serve a “final and last” term starting that year to address fallout from the pandemic and proposed legislation affecting the future of school boards.

Burke recently sat down with the QCT to look back on his long career in school governance, which began in the mid-1980s, when his own children attended the recently closed St. Vincent School in Sainte-Foy. At the time, school districts were set up along geographic and sectarian, rather than linguistic, lines, and St. Vincent was under the umbrella of the mostly francophone, nominally Catholic Commission scolaire des Découvreurs (CSD).

“They thought I was going to be the token English fellow who was just going to look out for St. Vincent,” he remembered. “That’s not knowing me very well, because I love to defend causes.”

Burke served on the CSD board until 1998, when sectarian school boards were replaced with linguistic boards. St. Vincent and the city’s other English public schools were absorbed by the new CQSB, which covered a territory ranging from Quebec City and the South Shore to Kawawachikamach, near Schefferville. Burke served as a CQSB commissioner and was elected chair in 2009, succeeding then-city councillor Michelle Morin-Doyle.

“I didn’t expect to be the chairman … but I think people realized that with a civil service background, I know how to read a piece of legislation, how to write a [position paper], how to defend a position … so I was lucky enough to get the confidence of my colleagues.”

The election of the Parti Québécois (PQ) government in 2012 brought the CQSB into its first high-profile scrap with the government. Bill 14 would have subjected the children of out-of-province military families to the same English school eligibility requirements as other Quebecers.

“There was a right that René Lévesque gave to the French Canadian soldiers who were based in Valcartier or Roberval, to send their children to the school of their choice. [Former PQ education minister Diane] De Courcy said, ‘We’re going to put a stop to that.’ We had two town halls, one in Saguenay and one in Valcartier, we went to the National Assembly and we fought like heck.”

The bill died when the PQ lost the 2014 election to the Liberals, but the fight against Bill 14 set the scene for the CQSB’s opposition to Bill 40, a bill tabled by the Coalition Avenir Québec government in 2019 which aimed to eliminate school boards altogether and replace them with service centres run by government appointees; Bill 96, which subjected English schools to French language requirements for internal communication; and Bill 23, which would make the directors general of service centres government appointees. (All French-language boards have since been replaced with service centres, but the bill has not yet been applied to English school boards pending an appeals court judgment.)

“I was lucky enough to attend the [inauguration] of the current government. I told [then education minister] Jean-François Roberge, ‘Look, we don’t cause any problems. We’re all fluent in French, but we want our schools. We have rights, and we want those rights to be protected.’ Who would say that if there were not elected commissioners?” he argued.

During his chairmanship, Burke has not only overseen these fights alongside his counterparts from other English school boards. His work has also laid the groundwork for two new schools – New Liverpool and the yet-to-be- named consolidated English high school in Sainte-Foy, a merger of St. Patrick’s High School, Quebec High School and Dollard-des-Ormeaux High School known for the moment as the “superschool,” expected to open in fall 2027.

“My purpose in life is to make sure we can provide good educational services in English from kindergarten to high school, and enough kids to provide them to,” he said, adding that he hoped the new high school, initially proposed in 2018 by a parents’ group, would encourage more parents to keep their teens in the English public school system.

“It’s the greatest thing that’s happened to the English- speaking community in 80 years, an extraordinary school. There are still three years to go before we open, but I think we’re on course and we have a plane that will fly.”

Burke said he believes the same thing about the board itself. He has a good idea of who his successor will be, but prefers for that person to announce their plans on their own time. “If something happens and that person has to remove [themself] from consideration, I would go back, but that’s not going to happen. Life goes on, and we’re in good hands.”

Stephen Burke to retire as CQSB chair Read More »

Poilievre mum about fakes in ‘Our Home’ video on Quebec City visit

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Poilievre mum about fakes in ‘Our Home’ video on Quebec City visit

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The images in news reports and on social media of Pierre Poilievre visiting a brewery and a factory in Quebec City last week are authentic; less so the images used in a video the Conservative Party of Canada posted last week called “Our Home.”

“Our Home” featured Poilievre giving a speech in a cowboy hat at the recent Calgary Stampede, interspersed with clips supposedly depicting typical Canadian scenes.

However, keen-eyed observers quickly noted many of the scenes were stock footage taken at various spots on the planet. For example, the fighter jets are Russian, the young student is at a university in Ukraine, the outdoor family dinner is in Tuscany and the “foothills of the Rockies” are in Indonesia.

Poilievre happened to be in Quebec City on Aug. 20 when the story broke about the images in the video. When re- porters asked him about it, his only response was, “The goal of the video was still to share my common sense plan, that is to say, cut taxes, build housing, fix the budget, stop crime; and there were mistakes, so it was removed.”

While in the Quebec capital, the Conservative leader, with Quebec lieutenant and Charlesbourg MP Pierre Paul-Hus and Portneuf MP Joël Grondin in tow, visited a brewery warehouse, a factory where worksite trailers are made and a distillery in Limoilou.

Poilievre reacted to the announcement that morning of the Coalition Avenir Québec’s plan to freeze temporary foreign worker entry in Montreal.

“The immigration system is out of control. Quebec is at a breaking point because of [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau’s radical policies. The population is exploding, with- out housing, without jobs and without the means to care for the people who arrive,” he said.

He also directed attacks at the Bloc Québécois, with polls showing they are neck-and- neck with Conservatives for the lead in Quebec.

“Voting for the Bloc means helping Justin Trudeau implement a policy that is costing the people of Quebec dearly,” Poilievre said, denouncing what he called the Bloc-Liberal coalition.

In a Radio-Canada interview from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet dismissed Poilievre’s comments, saying he and his party have consistently voted against the Liberal government.

Prior to his Quebec City visit, Poilievre spent a day in Saguenay, where he took a stand against the federal government’s plan to protect a caribou herd at the risk of local forestry jobs.

Poilievre mum about fakes in ‘Our Home’ video on Quebec City visit Read More »

Jackie Smith sends out appeal for Transition Québec candidates

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Jackie Smith sends out appeal for Transition Québec candidates

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Saying she “can’t do it alone,” Transition Québec leader and Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith is seeking to recruit candidates to run in the municipal election scheduled for Nov. 5 next year.

Smith, who ran for mayor but won her council seat as a colistier (running mate) in the 2021 election, said she is launching the recruitment campaign early “because we want to be really clear we have a process – we’re not just recruiting our friends.”

Smith said in an interview with the QCT, “When there’s an open process to become a candidate, there’s a lot more women that apply, a lot more people from minorities and a lot of people who are not necessarily from the political class.”

She said, “We are trying to make the process as familiar as possible, to let the population know that it’s open to everybody. You don’t have to be part of a political clique or a boys club to run for office.”

For those interested in applying, Smith said, “It’s like a job interview.” Applicants fill out an online form on the Transition Québec website, including a CV and explaining why they are interested in running and in what district.

“Some districts are coveted more than others,” Smith said, depending on more likely pockets of support for the party. Smith was the only Transition Québec candidate in the 21 districts to get elected, although the party came second in two and third in two others.

Smith said party officials will review an application, and if the applicant is deemed appropriate, an in-person interview will follow. There is also a detailed vetting document to fill out, and party officials will examine social media and an applicant’s engagement with community groups and the like.

Smith said the party has already received a few submissions since she put out the call on Aug. 19.

She said the concept of an open call for candidates is inspired by some American groups seeking to encourage more candidates for political office from the working classes.

Smith said, “Part of the objective of doing this announcement is to sort of call everybody home. I can’t run this by myself. We need to get our [activists] back in the loop.”

As for her own candidacy, Smith, the mother of two young children, said, “I’m thinking about it.

“It’s a lot of work and I love it. I still have the passion and vision for it. Can my body keep up, is the question. Like I say, we’ll see.”

Transition Québec, an unabashedly left-wing and environmentalist party, was founded in 2020 as a renamed version of Option Capitale- Nationale – a creation of the provincial Option Nationale party, which merged with Québec Solidaire in 2017.

Jackie Smith sends out appeal for Transition Québec candidates Read More »

Parc des Braves monument restoration could take 18 months

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Parc des Braves monument restoration could take 18 months

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

A massive monument conspicuously missing from Parc des Braves on Chemin Sainte-Foy won’t be back in its prominent spot for at least a year.

The towering column topped with a statue of Bellona, the Roman goddess of war, was removed from its base back in December. Erected in 1863, the statue commemorates the Battle of Sainte-Foy in April 1760 in which French forces defeated the British army, getting revenge for the decisive battle on the Plains of Abraham the previous September.

The initial motivation for the monument, and subsequently for the national park on which it stands, was the discovery in the 1850s of the bones of both French and English soldiers, exposed by years of erosion and landslides on the site.

Those remains were collected and placed in a casket that is encased in the monument’s base.

Although details are not available on the condition of the statue and other components of the monument, National Battlefields Commission spokesperson Katherine Laflamme told the QCT, “The ornamental elements – the statue, cannons and plaques – are currently being restored by the Centre de conservation du Québec.”

The other components, notably the sections of the cast iron column, are being stored, pending the “granting of mandates.”

The cost of the restoration has not been determined, Laflamme said. “Analyses are underway. An initial assessment two years ago estimated the work at between $500,000 and $1,000,000, but we do not yet have all the analyses.”

She said the work is expected to be completed and the monument returned “in 12 to 18 months.”

This is not the first time the massive monument, designed by famed architect and engineer Charles Baillairgé, has been dismantled. The widening of Chemin Sainte-Foy in 1970 required the column to be moved back from the road to its current location.

Parc des Braves monument restoration could take 18 months Read More »

Provisions Inc. building to be sold by order of bailiff

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Provisions Inc. building to be sold by order of bailiff

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The iconic Provisions Inc. building on Ave. Cartier could have a new owner within weeks, the result of a court-ordered bailiff’s sale.

Signs for a real estate agent went up in the windows of the once-popular family-run grocery store on Aug. 21, ac- companied by another sign saying “vente sous contrôle de justice.”

The building, with two apartments above the grocery, has been in limbo for months since the would-be new owners, a couple from France, fled town back in January. In the fall of 2022, Christophe Bouillon and Stéphanie Bouillon Guessas had acquired the grocery from cousins Vincent and Bruno Drouin, whose family had operated the store since 1949.

In July, according to the Journal de Québec, the National Bank of Canada won control of the property through the courts after the Bouillon couple defaulted on a $2.5-million mortgage. The couple had put the building up for sale for $4 million before taking flight back to France.

According to Remax agent Hugo Asselin, who is acting on behalf of a bailiff, several interested buyers have already submitted offers. The deadline for offers was one week from the notice of sale.

The listing says the “grocery store that currently occupies the ground floor could be put back into operation very quickly since the equipment can be included in the transaction.”

It also says, “Sale without legal warranty of quality, at the buyer’s risk.”

The apartments are described as recently renovated with bright rooms and high ceilings.

City zoning permits a variety of uses for the building, including restaurant, retail and “general tourist accommodation.”

According to media reports, the proceeds from the sale will first be used to repay the municipal and school taxes unpaid by the Bouillons, then the bank, as well as the former owners of the grocery store, who are suing the couple for $446,250.

Provisions Inc. building to be sold by order of bailiff Read More »

Irish and Scottish eyes will have plenty to smile about at the Celtic Festival

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Irish and Scottish eyes will have plenty to smile about at the Celtic Festival

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

St. Patrick’s and St. Andrew’s days may still be many months away, but as longtime Quebec City residents will know, there’s no need to wait that long to enjoy Celtic music and culture in their hometown. The Quebec Celtic Festival returns to the Domaine de Maizerets for an 18th edition Sept. 6-8.

The festival features local Irish bands, Scottish pipe-and- drum corps including the 78th Fraser Highlanders and Irish dance ensembles including the Shannon Irish Dancers. Sports fans will find plenty to enjoy, with the now-traditional Canadian women’s Highland Games championship, an elite men’s Highland Games competition and Gaelic football demonstrations by Les Patriotes de Québec.

The Clans’ Pavilion, reconstituted Viking encampment and a series of historical talks on topics ranging from warfare to skincare practices will delight history and genealogy buffs, and the Mythological Garden will enchant young children. The festival will also feature a Celtic-themed pub quiz night at Pub Galway on Avenue Cartier on Sept. 6 and a Soirée grivoise – a more casual version of the “Celtic feast” of past years – on Sept. 7.

“We’ll have all the classics,” said festival cofounder and board chair Guy Morisset. “We wanted to democratize the feast, make it more accessible and attract a different group of people.” For people who have other plans Saturday night or can’t get a ticket to the feast in time, the site still features food trucks and a beer tent with live entertainment. Local bands including Irish Tree, harp duo La Belle et la Barde, sea shanty crew Steamship Alice and Scandinavian-tinged neo-trad ensemble Nordri will perform. No featured show at the Agora du Vieux-Port is planned for this year, but next year’s show is already in development, Morisset said.

The Highland Games are also expected to draw a crowd. “We’re putting together an interesting calibre of athletes, especially in the women’s division, for something that is not always thought of as a feminine thing,” said Morisset. Following in the footsteps of similarly sized events, the festival has put in place a paid VIP area on the Highland Games bleachers – most seats have already been bought up by one competitor’s work colleagues.

Morisset said he is committed to keeping the festival financially accessible for all despite funding challenges for cultural events. “A lot of festivals like ours depend on public grants, which don’t come in until very late, and that creates a lot of stress. We find that a bit sad, because we want to keep prices low.”

Another constant challenge for the festival has been find- ing volunteers. “Finding volunteers has been a lot harder since the pandemic … we try to take good care of volunteers and make sure they have fun too.”

Morisset said he is looking forward to “feeling the vibes,” working with volunteers and celebrating the biggest francophone Celtic festival in North America. “I’m always so excited year after year just to watch people enjoy it,” he said.

To see the full program, to reserve your spot at the pub quiz or Soirée grivoise or to volunteer, visit festival-celtique.com/en.

Irish and Scottish eyes will have plenty to smile about at the Celtic Festival Read More »

Anglo numbers increase in QC area, slump in some regions

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Anglo numbers increase in QC area, slump in some regions

Peter Black

peterblack@qctonline.com

The English-speaking population of Quebec City has increased by nearly 40 per cent over 20 years, according to a new study by a research group on anglophone issues.

The Quebec English-speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN), centred at Montreal’s Concordia University, analyzing census data, found the “urban agglomeration of Quebec City” saw an increase in the proportion of English speakers from 1.79 per cent in 2001 to 2.53 per cent in 2021, the year of the most recent national census.

The same trend also applies to the city of Lévis, researcher Patrick Donovan said in an email to the QCT.

Donovan said, “Both the proportion and numbers of English speakers have gone up since 2001. As of the 2021 census, there were 14,715 English-speakers (first official language spoken)” in the Quebec City census region. That region encompasses areas outside Quebec City’s municipal jurisdiction, including L’Ancienne-Lorette and Saint- Augustin-de-Desmaures.

“The only part of the Capitale-Nationale region with a (small) proportional decline is the RCM (regional county municipality) of La Jacques- Cartier, which includes Shan- non,” Donovan said, “but that’s probably due to growing francophone suburbs rather than English speakers moving out of Shannon, since the population of that RCM grew consider- ably in the past 20 years, and there’s no numerical decrease of English speakers (only proportional).”

Numbers of English speakers are also growing in Montreal and Gatineau.

Voice of English-speaking Québec (VEQ) executive director Brigitte Wellens said the uptick in anglos in the capital region, a figure she puts at 3,170 people, has had a tangible impact.

“I can say that the increase was felt by the [VEQ] team, particularly in terms of services and activities for newcomers,” Wellens said. “While we have programs and activities for all, it’s a common misconception that we only serve new arrivals.”

Wellens said, “It’s easy to think that because new arrivals represent one quarter of our community, every five years, 20 to 25 per cent of the region’s English-speaking community is renewed by newcomers. In 2021, they represented 24 per cent: 8.2 per cent from interprovincial [arrivals] and 15.8 per cent from all over the planet.”

While the picture is relatively rosy for the anglo population in larger population centres, it’s less so in other regions of Quebec.

The QUESCREN analysis found “a more complex portrait emerges when examining other parts of Quebec and longer time periods. The 20th century was marked by a decline in the proportion of English speakers in most Quebec regions. The trend has shifted in the past 20 years, yet a notable decline continues in parts of coastal Quebec, the Eastern Town- ships and Rouyn-Noranda.”

The most drastic dip in anglo numbers was in the census division of Minganie–Le-Golfe- du-Saint-Laurent, which con- tains a string of mostly English-speaking coastal villages known as the Lower North Shore. The drop was 20 per cent between 2001 and 2021

Other areas with significant losses in the same time period were the Avignon RCM on the south shore of the Gaspé Peninsula (-18.9 per cent); Rocher- Percé RCM, which includes Chandler and Percé (-7 per cent); and La Cote-de-Gaspé, including the town of Gaspé (-7.2 per cent). The Magdalen Islands lost 6.7 per cent.

QUESCREN notes that “the French-speaking populations in the Gaspé and parts of the Lower North Shore also declined in broadly comparable percentages, but not in the Magdalen Islands.”

The study made an overall conclusion about the changes in Quebec’s anglo population. “The 1970s saw a noticeable exodus of English speakers from the province as a whole, propelled by economic shifts favouring Toronto, as well as political changes in Quebec.

“Language laws promoting French as the common public language of Quebec prompted many English speakers to leave. A total of 198,274 mother tongue English speakers left between 1971 and 1986. Those who stayed were more likely to be bilingual and to participate in francophone Quebec culture.”

The study noted, “The English-speaking population in Quebec is no longer facing the sharp declines it faced in the century before the 1980s. Indeed, recent years have seen the number of English speakers grow overall in the province, particularly in Montreal.

“That said,” the report concludes, “English-speaking population numbers have declined in several once thriving communities of the province. Many face aging populations, high unemployment, low income and a lack of job opportunities, all of which are determining factors when considering the health of a society.”

Anglo numbers increase in QC area, slump in some regions Read More »

Divers pull pile of garbage from Louise Basin

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Divers pull pile of garbage from Louise Basin

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Though hampered by murky waters, some 30 scuba divers pulled 768 pounds of junk and garbage from Louise Basin in the Old Port in the space of about two hours on Aug. 15.

A bicycle frame and a plastic chair encrusted with barnacles, a pile of cigarette butts and dozens of plastic and glass bottles were among the items fished from the artificial bay at the mouth of the Saint-Charles River that houses a marina, several tourist sites and an urban swimming area called L’Oasis.

The mission was part of an awareness campaign called the Éxpédition Saint-Laurent, an initiative of Stratégies Saint- Laurent and the international Mission 1000 Tonnes environ- mental organization. Divers from the Quebec Aquarium participated in the clean-up.

Éxpedition Saint-Laurent is a two-week campaign whose mission, according to the group’s website, is to engage “ecological restorers, scien- tists, artists, divers and young people to protect, restore and enhance the St. Lawrence River.”

Prior to the Quebec City event, the team had conducted similar operations in Montreal, Matane, Cacouna, Montmagny, Rimouski and Sorel-Tracy. Following the Quebec City stop, the team moved on to Les Escoumins, Baie-Comeau, Sept- Îles and Havre Saint-Pierre on the North Shore.

The harvest of debris from Louise Basin would likely have been more abundant were it not for the heavy rains in the previous days. Lead diver Manuel Ado told Radio-Canada, “We were really unlucky. All the water from the rivers flows into the [Saint-Charles] river and brings a lot of particles. Instead of being able to see several feet away, we had trouble seeing our hands.”

More information on the clean-up program is available on the Éxpédition Saint- Laurent website.

Divers pull pile of garbage from Louise Basin Read More »

Former Liberal minister, Louis-Hébert MNA Sam Hamad mulls mayoral bid

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Former Liberal minister, Louis-Hébert MNA Sam Hamad mulls mayoral bid

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Speculation is mounting about a possible mayoral bid by former Liberal minister and MNA for Louis-Hébert Sam Hamad.

Hamad’s former cabinet colleague Nathalie Normandeau said recently on the radio show she hosts that he had privately made the decision to run against incumbent Bruno Marchand; Hamad himself, however, said he is still weighing the pros and cons of the move.

In an interview with the QCT, Hamad, 66, said with the municipal election campaign more than a year away, he is taking the time to consult with people and examine his options.

“I’m still thinking about it,” he said. “I’ve been [approached] by many people, but it’s too early to make a decision.”

Hamad, who was elected five consecutive times as MNA for Louis-Hébert, starting in 2003, said he is enjoying a happy private life. He left politics in 2017 following his resignation from cabinet the previous year in the wake of allegations of inappropriate dealings with a party fundraiser. Quebec’s ethics commissioner did not sanction Hamad in the affair.

Prior to his resignation, Hamad, a former head of the Quebec Order of Engineers, served in several senior portfolios, including transport and Treasury Board. He was also minister responsible for the capital region and claims some credit for pushing ahead with the Promenade Samuel-De Champlain project.

Hamad wouldn’t say whether he intends to run for mayor as leader of an existing party at City Hall. According to several media reports, Hamad has had informal talks with members of opposition parties.

A spokesperson for Équipe Priorité Québec, which has two councillors and an unelected leader, told Le Devoir Hamad met with party representatives last October at their request. Since then, according to the report, “Discussions have continued in a ‘jovial and friendly manner.’”

As for Québec d’Abord, the official Opposition party at City Hall and the successor to for- mer mayor Régis Labeaume’s party, leader Claude Villeneuve has made it known he may decline to run for mayor next year, for family reasons.

Québec D’Abord Coun. Alicia Despins, while not offering specifics, said, “We’re still working on offering a viable option to our citizens in November 2025.” The party has seven councillors, following several defections to the ruling Québec Forte et Fière party.

Hamad said what is motivating him to consider a run for mayor “is what he sees as the lack of leadership” and vision at City Hall and the state of the city. “My heart is saying business is not going well, the economy is not going well. There’s a bad atmosphere between the government and municipalities. These factors push me to go for it.”

As for the city’s biggest- ever infrastructure project, the tramway system, Hamad declined to say whether he supports the most recent configuration proposed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement Infra and approved by the Quebec government.

“There is a lot of missing data, so I can’t judge it. How much is it going to cost citizens? Nobody knows that.”

In the event he does run, Hamad says he’d bring a new style. “We should come back to the basics of managing the city for the good of the citizens. Citizens pay a lot of taxes, and when the economy is going badly, the impact on citizens is very significant.”

Earlier this year, when rumours circulated that Hamad was interested in the mayoralty, Marchand said, “I hope Sam Hamad will run. You can’t have a better demonstration of what the city was and what the city can be between two politicians. So, let him come. We’ll have a great campaign.”

Municipal elections take place across Quebec on Nov. 2, 2025.

Former Liberal minister, Louis-Hébert MNA Sam Hamad mulls mayoral bid Read More »

English health care available ‘no questions asked’ despite directive: Roberge

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

English health care available ‘no questions asked’ despite directive: Roberge

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

After a hastily convened meeting with representatives of several hand-picked groups representing the English- speaking community, Minister responsible for the French Language Jean- François Roberge has said he plans to rework a controversial directive that was widely interpreted as placing conditions on access to health and social services in English. Health care services in English are available on demand, “no questions asked,” he said.

The directive was published by the Ministry of Health and Social Services in July as part of the implementation process of Law 14 (better known as Bill 96), the Legault government’s wide-ranging reform aimed at shoring up the role of French in public life. It listed specific situations where health professionals might use a language other than French when speaking with patients. It also appeared to place restrictions on when English could be used in written communication with patients, based on whether a patient had an eligibility certificate for English public education – a document which most immigrants and older patients would not have.

Anglophone advocacy groups raised serious concerns about the directive and its potential impact on access to care. Federal Minister of Official Languages Randy Boissonnault also weighed in, saying, “Understandably, members of the English-speaking community want further assurance of their ability to access health care in English.”

On Aug. 12, Roberge met with representatives of several organizations serving English-speaking seniors, including Jeffery Hale–Saint Brigid’s. The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) and the Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN) were also invited but did not participate; the QCGN declined to take part because Health Minister Christian Dubé did not attend, and the QCT was unable to clarify the reasons behind the CHSSN’s decision at press time. Richard Walling, executive director of Jeffery Hale Community Partners, said he attended the meeting but was awaiting clarification on some issues that were discussed and could not comment further.

“Huge misunderstandings”

Roberge told reporters he never intended for the directive to restrict access to care in English, and English speakers can ask for help in their own language at any health facility. “There were huge misunderstandings; we never did change our policy. Health care and social services are accessible for the English-speaking community, no questions asked. They don’t have to show any documents, any certificates at all,” Roberge told the Montreal Gazette after the meeting. “We are coming [up] with a new way to formulate it, with new wording, which will be more clear.” However, the current directive is expected to remain in place until a new one is instituted.

“Following the meeting with representatives of the English- speaking communities, we noted their concerns,” Marie- Joëlle Robitaille, a principal advisor in Roberge’s office, said on Aug. 19. We want to do things as quickly as possible, but do it right. We are giving ourselves a few days to clarify the documents concerning the directive.”

Attempts to reach Dubé’s office for further comment were unsuccessful. Mariane Lajoie, a spokesperson for the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, said health facilities in the region offer anyone with a “limited knowledge of French” access to an interpretation service for free. “That hasn’t changed for the moment,” she added.

English health care available ‘no questions asked’ despite directive: Roberge Read More »

Quebec City celebrates 20 years of Pride

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Quebec City celebrates 20 years of Pride

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec City’s annual celebration of LGBTQ+ pride and gender diversity is changing its name and rolling out a rich and varied program of events for all ages as it marks its 20th anniversary over Labour Day weekend.

The festival known since its founding as the Fête Arc-en- ciel – or, in some early, cheeky English marketing materials, Labour Gay Weekend – will now be known as Fierté Québec.

“We are proud to present to you for a 20th consecutive year the Fête Arc-en-Ciel de Québec. It is important to create inclusive spaces so that community members can gather and celebrate together while allowing allies to show their support and join in the festivities,” Dave Tremblay, president of the Alliance Arc-en-Ciel de Québec, said in a statement. “In order to celebrate this occasion in style, the branding of our beloved festival has been completely redesigned. With this complete rebranding, the goal was not to forget the unique character of this celebration, but also to embrace the future with a renewed and dynamic visual identity, reflecting our commitment to diversity, inclusion and the celebration of communities. Despite this exciting image update, our core values remain unchanged.” This year’s edition will take place from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2, with parties at Le Drague and Le Pantoum getting the festivities going on Aug. 29.

The festival will see the return of “the classics,” including community days, family activities and a queer-positive crafts market along Rue Saint- Jean, free evening drag shows at Place D’Youville featuring Quebec drag legends including Rita Baga, and a solidarity march, according to Sara Gagné Sonarriba, co-director general of the Alliance Arc-en- Ciel. “The march is not a parade – there won’t be any corporate or political delegations, we just welcome anyone who wants to march with us,” she said. After the march, a “gender affirmation activity” will give people the opportunity to explore, affirm or experiment with their gender identity or gender presentation, trying on new clothes, hairstyles and temporary tattoo ideas, among other things. “We always try to respond to people’s needs in a festive and motivating way,” Gagné Sonarriba said.

She described the festival as “a family event where you can learn a lot.” There will be free events at the Librairie Pantoute bookstore on Rue Saint-Jean and at the Centre Frédéric-Back. The festival is free, although a paid “VIP area” offers prime seats for outdoor shows, and parties organized by nearby bars and performance spaces including Le Drague (home of the traditional Drag Brunch), Le Saint-Matthew, Le Tequila Lounge and Le Pantoum do have a cover charge. To see the full program, reserve tickets to a specific event or become a volunteer, visit fiertedequebec.ca.

Quebec City celebrates 20 years of Pride Read More »

TRAM TRACKER: Demolition set for two former gas stations on tramway route

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

TRAM TRACKER: Demolition set for two former gas stations on tramway route

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Two former gas stations the city acquired to make way for the tramway project are slated for demolition in the coming days.

According to several media reports citing city hall sources, the former Petro-Canada station on Boul. René-Lévesque and Ave. Belvédère, and the former Ultramar on Boul. Laurier near Route de l’Église, will be levelled and the sites temporarily landscaped in anticipation of the construction of the tramway line.

According to the tramway plan, the Boul. Laurier site will accommodate track for the future Sainte-Foy interchange hub. The Boul. René-Lévesque site will be transformed into a surface station for a tramway stop, with the surrounding grounds becoming park space.

A third former (Shell) gas station acquired for the tramway, on Boul. René-Lévesque at Ave. Cartier, was demolished last year and the site decontaminated and cleared by the former owner as the condition of the property’s sale to the city for $2.4 million.

Other properties to be demolished in the coming weeks include two houses on Rue Landry, near Route de l’Église. The property is to become a green space on the surface, with underground parking to be built to compensate for spaces lost due to the tramway lines.

The restart of tramway construction comes after a delay the Quebec government imposed in the fall in the wake of the escalating price of the project due to delays and rising construction costs.

The government mandated the Caisse de Depôt et Placement du Québec (CDPQ) infrastructure division to study public transportation needs for the greater Quebec City-Lévis region and submit recommendations.

In June, the Caisse delivered a report, recommending, among other things, the essentials of the existing tramway plan, but with a change in the eastern route, from Beauport to Charlesbourg. The new master plan is called CITÉ, for Circuit intégré de transport express.

Since then, players in the project – the city, the provincial government and the CDPQ Infra – have regrouped under the leadership of the Caisse to kickstart work on the multi- year scheme.

One of the largest and most disruptive elements of the tramway plan, the preparation of the Boul. Laurier corridor, is expected to proceed full blast in August of next year. It will involve the reconfiguration of the major artery from the entrance to Université Laval to Route de l’Église where the tramway line heads north and west towards Cap-Rouge.

The work will add further complications to traffic in the area already disrupted by a massive project to improve ac- cess to the Pierre Laporte and Quebec bridges.

The city has issued a call for tenders for the Boul. Laurier tramway route, which includes relocating all the underground networks so that they do not cross tramway lines. That component of the project is budgeted at $70 million.

TRAM TRACKER: Demolition set for two former gas stations on tramway route Read More »

Major work underway to make Rue Saint-Vallier more ‘user-friendly’

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Major work underway to make Rue Saint-Vallier more ‘user-friendly’

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Merchants, residents, motorists and pedestrians will have to put up with a major disruption on a section of Rue Saint-Vallier Ouest until December.

Last week, work started on Phase 1 of the project aimed at transforming the busy east- west artery into a refurbished, more user-friendly and greener one-way street. The initial zone, now closed to traffic, is a 200-metre stretch between the intersection of Ave. des Oblats in the east and Rue de Carillon in the west.

The zone includes several restaurants, hair salons, a funeral home and many other businesses and offices. It is also on several major bus routes.

The city said in an Aug. 7 news release it has taken measures to minimize the impact of the closure on merchants and other users of the street. It said access to businesses will be maintained and those affected will be offered financial compensation for losses during the construction period. The maximum for eligible businesses is $30,000 a year. The city says about 20 applications for compensation have been filed already.

In one media report, the operator of the funeral home said it would be difficult to of- fer clients a cortege service for funerals with no street access for vehicles.

As for the impact on public transit, the city advises users to make themselves aware of the detours required for certain routes. The city says it will continue to work with the Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC) to “optimize public transit service in the neighbourhood,” and that “a new consultation process is planned on the subject.”

The project, which the city describes as one of most extensive street revitalizations ever undertaken, is the result of consultations on the future development of the Saint-Sauveur district dating back to 2016.

The third of the three phases will be completed in 2026 and ultimately will transform Rue Saint-Vallier from Boul. Charest in the east to Rue Marie-de-l’Incarnation in the west, a distance of two kilometres.

In the release, the city said, “An innovative approach is being put forward to make this axis a more user-friendly artery that will promote safety and quality of life in the Saint-Sauveur district. Neighbourhood life, greening and commercial dynamism will be at the heart of these transformations.”

In a video about the project on the city’s website, Rue Saint-Vallier is described as one of the city’s most historic streets and the main artery through the Saint-Sacrement district. Named for the second bishop of Quebec, it was initially the road connecting Quebec City with Wendake, then known as Village-des-Hurons.

Major work underway to make Rue Saint-Vallier more ‘user-friendly’ Read More »

Volunteer-run organizations seek board members amid post-COVID downturn

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

Volunteer-run organizations seek board members amid post-COVID downturn

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

APPEAL, a long-established volunteer-driven English conversation program in the Quebec City region, is appealing for board members and volunteers to continue its activities, amid what its president is calling a post-pandemic drop in volunteer engagement.

“Since COVID, things have really gone down,” said APPEAL president Teresa Chicoine. Fewer people are at- tending the group’s regular English conversation workshops and English-language social activities such as movie and board game nights and book club meetings, and fewer volunteers are stepping up to run activities or serve on the board.

Conversation workshop monitors, who receive a small honorarium, must be native English speakers; participants are mostly older francophones with a smattering of recent immigrants; board members and social activity facilitators can come from any background.

Across the board, she sees the same pattern – participation has dropped. “People don’t want to be bothered organizing things or going to meetings.”

She speculated that the aging population and the rising cost of living may be contributing to a downturn in interest in volunteering.

Chicoine said she surveyed the group’s members and found that “people don’t want to get rid of APPEAL, but they don’t want to step up [and start managing it]. We all wear a lot of hats, but the more people we have, the lighter the work is for all of us.

“It would be sad to see it go after 40 years,” she added.

Jo-Ann Lapointe is in a similar situation. She is trying to re- vive the volunteer-run Quebec City regional chapter of the Canadian Cat Association (Club

félin Québec Métropolitain). The club raises awareness about cat overpopulation and ethical breeding practices and organizes a popular annual cat show, microchipping clinics and various fundraisers and activities for cat owners – when it has the capacity.

She told the QCT that she and one other volunteer are trying to revive the local club after the previous board stepped down this year. In Quebec, a nonprofit must have at least three board members to maintain its legal status; board members oversee an organization’s finances, hire staff and ensure it respects its legal and accounting obligations and its mandate. They also often handle fundraising and the organization of events, which are two of Lapointe’s biggest priorities at the moment – the annual cat show is the Club Félin’s marquee annual happening, over one very intense weekend, usually in September. If volunteers can be found, she hopes the show will go ahead in September 2025.

“We’re looking for board members, whether they be breeders or non-breeders,” said Lapointe, a Lévis-based Serengeti cat breeder. “We’re just taking whoever would like to help us keep it afloat.

“We’ve been announcing on Facebook, through the Canadian Cat Association. It’s just that I’ve noticed that people in the Quebec region don’t seem to want to get involved in anything,” Lapointe said. “You do have to give your time [to organize an event like the Quebec Cat Show] but it’s really rewarding.”

To learn more about APPEAL and to get involved as a participant, facilitator, volunteer or board member, email appeal1984@gmail.com. To learn more about getting involved with the Club félin Québec Métropolitain, email Jo-Ann Lapointe directly at stormypointserengetis@gmail.com.

Volunteer-run organizations seek board members amid post-COVID downturn Read More »

Resident dies in Saint Brigid’s Home fire

Local Journalism Initiative / / / ,

Resident dies in Saint Brigid’s Home fire

QCT Staff

A resident of Saint Brigid’s Home in his 70s has died after a fire in a fourth-floor smoking room, the QCT learned Monday morning. The man’s name had not been released by press time.

No other injuries were reported and no other residents witnessed the fire, Mariane Lajoie, a spokesperson for the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, told the QCT. Residents living on the fourth floor were moved to other rooms.

The fire broke out early Sunday evening, Aug. 11, and firefighters and police intervened just after 6 p.m.

“The initial call was received at the 911 centre to the effect that there was a fire on one of the occupants in a smoking area on the fourth floor. Emergency services quickly went to the scene. When they arrived, the fire had been extinguished by one of the employees. Unfortunately, the death of a septuagenarian was confirmed on site. Fire investigators, investigators from the Service de police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ) and the Forensic Identification Unit are on site to determine the causes and circumstances that led to this death,” Alexandre Lajoie, a media and prevention officer in the public safety division of the Service de prévention contre l’incendie de Québec (SPCIQ; Quebec City fire department) said in a statement.

Richard Walling, president of the Jeffery Hale – Saint Brigid’s Advisory Committee, said he could not comment on the incident. He referred a request for comment to the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale. According to a report in Le Soleil, the city fire commission found that the fire was caused by a “smokers’ article.”

“A psychosocial support team was quickly deployed to the scene to assess and address the various needs of staff and users. All families of residents of the CHSLD Saint Brigid’s Home have been notified of the situation. In addition, additional staff has been requested as reinforcements, among other things, to co-ordinate continuity plans and ensure the safety of the site. Repair work on the damaged premises is upcoming,” Mariane Lajoie, the CIUSSS spokesperson, said. “The SPVQ investigation will determine the causes and circumstances that led to this death. At the same time, work is underway at the CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale to conduct an in-depth analysis of the event and determine what corrective action to take, if required.”

An autopsy is expected to reveal the victim’s exact cause of death.

With files from Peter Black and Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporters

Resident dies in Saint Brigid’s Home fire Read More »

New French language directive alarms health care advocates

Local Journalism Initiative / / /

New French language directive alarms health care advocates

Ruby Pratka – Local Journalism initiative reporter
editor@qctonline.com

People who need or prefer to receive health-care services in English are being advised to be vigilant and proactive in light of a new health ministry directive laying out specific situations where health care professionals might serve patients and their families in English.

The directive, officially titled “Directive specifying the nature of situations in which the health and social services network intends to use a language other than French where the French language charter allows” was issued as part of the Law 14 (better known as Bill 96) implementation process, explained Richard Walling, executive director of Jeffery Hale Community Partners. It came into effect July 18.

It specifies that English or other languages can be used orally or in writing “when health, safety or natural justice require it,” including whenever someone must receive emergency assistance, consent to his or her care or participate in decisions surrounding his or her care.

Itgoesontolayoutalist of situations where English can be used, including but not limited to obtaining parental consent for care decisions involving a minor, speaking to a person experiencing a mental health crisis or living with dementia, giving follow-up instructions to family caregivers, repatriating a body to another country or booking an appointment.

“One could argue that if you are consulting for your health, the [health, safety or natural justice] exceptions should apply,” Walling said. “Professionals have to respect their codes of ethics for things like informed consent as well.”

However, advocates are concerned by a reference to English eligibility certificates in the directive and about the fact that it makes no distinction between bilingual and non- bilingual health institutions.

“We thought former premier Lucien Bouchard had the last word on language and health care when he said in 1996, ‘When you go to the hospital and you’re in pain, you may need a blood test, but you certainly don’t need a language test.’ Not according to the current government, apparently,” Sylvia Martin-Laforge, president of the Quebec Community Groups Network, said in a statement. “If there is anything that will spark fear and anxiety in Quebec’s 1.3-million-member English- speaking community, or among other linguistic minorities, it is the suggestion that they might lose access to healthcare services in their mother tongue … or that they won’t fully understand what was being said about vital things during some of the most stressful and vulnerable moments of their lives.”

Walling said he didn’t want to create undue anxiety, but that he was still seeking clarification on how the directive would apply to Jeffery Hale– Saint Brigid’s, the region’s only designated bilingual health facility. “We’re trying to see if there are any changes we have to make, and how we can make those changes in a way that doesn’t reduce access.”

Jennifer Johnson of the Community Health and Social Services Network, which advocates for access to health care in English in the regions and works closely with the MSSS on health care access plans, also said she was “waiting for more clarity” on how the directive would be applied, particularly concerning immigrants and older Quebecers who don’t have eligibility certificates.

“Health care professionals are trained to provide health care – they’re not trained to interpret the law,” she added. “They are going to be conserva- tive with regard to taking the risk [of violating the directive] and unfortunately that means they may limit access.”

However, she emphasized that English speakers have the legal right to receive health care in their language of choice. “The Health Act is still in force and it says the same thing it did years ago – an English speaker has the right to service in English. The professionals are limited in how they can offer [English service], so you have to be proactive and walk in and ask for it.”

Minister for the French Language Jean-François Roberge told the Montreal Gazette last week that he intended to meet with community leaders to clarify the directive.

New French language directive alarms health care advocates Read More »

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