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Per this article in The Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Montreal+picked+five+hubs+Future+Earth+project/10008798/story.html Montreal has been selected as one of five global hubs for a United Nations project called Future Earth, an ambitious 10-year initiative to build and connect international research on the environment and sustainable development — and to find ways to intensify and accelerate the impact of that research. It is a united, international effort to create sustainability and advance scientific study on questions of environmental impact, to merge science and public policy — and to address urgent environmental challenges. Future Earth’s globally distributed secretariat will also have hubs in Paris, Tokyo, Stockholm and Boulder, Colo. Those involved in petitioning to get the hub here — there were at least 20 competing bids — believe that Montreal’s star will definitely shine brighter on the international stage now. While the project will involve all of Montreal’s universities, Concordia University will house the local hub that will bring together Quebec researchers to contribute to this major scientific initiative. It is news that has Concordia president Alan Shepard smiling these days, although he is primarily focused on what a coup this is for Montreal and the opportunities he believes will emerge from it. “This is great for Montreal and very good for Concordia,” Shepard said in an interview on Monday. “We’ll be the host but it’s collaborative, an intersection for all the universities in Montreal to work together on climate change and the health of the Earth.” The universities came together to work on a joint proposal to lobby for the hub at the urging of Montréal International, which acts as an economic driver for Greater Montreal. Montréal International vice-president Stéphanie Allard is also convinced that Montreal’s involvement in the project can only be a boon to its universities and to the city itself. “It’s a very big opportunity for all the universities and for Montreal,” said Allard, who oversees international organizations. “It will increase our visibility in the world, it will establish us as an international city and it will certainly make us more attractive to researchers.” Future Earth is the result of a commitment made in 2012, at the United Nations conference Rio+20, to develop a new international network to advance sustainability. It is being overseen by the International Council of Science, a non-governmental association with a goal to strengthen international science for the benefit of society. The project is committed to developing the knowledge for responding effectively to the risks and opportunities of global environmental change and for supporting transformation towards global sustainability in the coming decades. It will mobilize tens of thousands of scientists while strengthening partnerships with policy-makers and other stakeholders in the quest for a sustainable planet. “Solutions to the major sustainability challenges facing humanity require integrated science and a closer relationship with policy-makers and stakeholders than we have seen to date,” said Yuan-Tseh Lee, president of the ICSU. “Future Earth has been designed to respond to these urgent needs, and I am impressed by the innovative consortium that has come together to drive the program forward.” In making its pitch, Montréal International cited that Montreal has a rich, diverse and high quality research network already in place, that it is multicultural and multilinguistic, that it is very well-positioned to be a hub and that office space is cheaper here than in many cities. Shepard said it’s hard to say what financial benefits there could be for the city, but he said having the secretariat will certainly bring UN resources, international visitors, research opportunities, graduate students and lots of attention. “Montreal becomes a neuronetwork and it’s glowing really bright,” he said, adding that the project meshed well with Concordia’s “intellectual values” of integrating different academic disciplines. An added bonus is that it also fits well with a preoccupation of the university’s students, namely sustainability and environmental science. “Future Earth clearly recognizes Montreal’s research capacity and the valuable contribution we will make in developing solutions to global environmental challenges,” said Shepard. “It’s a beautiful thing to have in your city; it will bring great intellectual leadership and passion and opportunity.” kseidman@montrealgazette.com Twitter: KSeidman

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/independent+Quebec+might+benefit+from+currency+report/9637904/story.html An independent Quebec might benefit from its own currency: report Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois said an independent Quebec would accept the loonie, along with Canadian monetary policy, and consider asking for a seat at the Bank of Canada. Photograph by: Jonathan Hayward , THE CANADIAN PRESS An independent Quebec might be better off with its own currency rather than following Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois’s suggestion that it keep the Canadian dollar, a report says. A Quebec currency and separate monetary policy could bring “potential benefits” in the long term to Quebec, Paul Ashworth and David Madani of Capital Economics said in a research report. “The basic problem Quebec faces is that it is a manufacturing-orientated province tied to the resource-rich provinces in the west. The energy boom has boosted the economic performance of those western provinces, saddling Quebec’s manufacturers with a high exchange rate and higher than needed interest rates.” A Quebec currency would presumably depreciate against the Canadian and U.S. dollars, particularly if interest rates were lower than the rest of Canada. The resulting boost to Quebec competitiveness should trigger a rise in exports and a reduction in imports, the report said. But a referendum on separation would have negative consequences — including on investments in Quebec and higher yields on Quebec provincial debt — while a new Quebec currency would bring additional challenges, the economists noted. “If the Quebec currency depreciated in value against the Canadian dollar, then it would make it harder for the new government to repay any debt still denominated in Canadian dollars. The same goes for Quebec households and businesses that had borrowed Canadian dollars.” Separation would bring the loss of equalization payments — $9.3 billion this year, equivalent to about 2.5 per cent of Quebec GDP — while contending with higher debt servicing costs. “The bigger problem is the legacy of provincial debt, equivalent to 49 per cent of Quebec GDP. Assuming that an independent Quebec assumed responsibility for a per capita share of federal debt, too, we estimate that its overall debt burden would rise to 89 per cent of GDP. Under those circumstances, Quebec might find its borrowing costs rising, which would only add to the budget deficit and, in conjunction with the loss of equalization payments, force the new government into a sizable fiscal consolidation. “The risk of default would also be greater if an independent Quebec allowed the Bank of Canada to control monetary policy, since it couldn’t resort to printing more currency.” On the campaign trail last week, Marois said an independent Quebec would accept the loonie, along with Canadian monetary policy, and consider asking for a seat at the Bank of Canada. Her comments sparked discussion over the economic costs of sovereignty even though polls show support for independence running well below 50 per cent. Capital Economics, known for its bearish views of the Canadian housing market, weighed in on Wednesday. “Politicians who are striving for independence, whether it is in Scotland or Quebec, know that talk of adopting a new currency makes the electorate very nervous, so they have a tendency to argue that the new sovereign state would be able to keep its existing monetary arrangements,” the economists wrote. In any event, Quebec should be looking to adopt a looser monetary policy than the rest of Canada, the report’s authors said. “The evidence is overwhelming that interest rates should be set lower in Quebec, to provide more support to the depressed economy.”

Ottawa is preparing to crack down on employment-insurance recipients who are not seeking work in areas where employers are forced to bring in foreign workers to fill jobs. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday the government wants to reduce disincentives to work by creating a “greater connection” between the EI program and the temporary foreign worker program, which is under Mr. Kenney’s purview. “What we will be doing is making people aware there’s hiring going on and reminding them that they have an obligation to apply for available work and to take it if they’re going to qualify for EI,” Mr. Kenney told the National Post editorial board on Wednesday. He was touting immigration reforms that will try to streamline the entry of immigrants and foreign workers, favouring entrepreneurs, innovators and those with high quality professional credentials. The reforms would require unemployed Canadians to accept local jobs that are currently being filled by temporary foreign workers. “Nova Scotia province-wide has 10% unemployment, but the only way Christmas tree operators can function in the Annapolis Valley is to bring in Mexicans through this agricultural worker program,” he said, also pointing to the increased number of Russians working in Prince Edward Island fish processing plants and Romanians working at the Ganong chocolate factory in New Brunswick. “Even on the north shore of New Brunswick, which has the highest unemployment in the province, the MPs keep telling me the employers definitely need more temporary workers. What’s going on here?” Minister of Human Resources Diane Finley will soon address the issue in further detail, Mr. Kenney said. The coming changes were first revealed in last month’s federal budget, which proposed spending $387-million over two years to align EI benefit amounts with local labour market conditions. The government will consider more measures to ensure the Temporary Foreign Worker Program will continue to meet those labour needs by “better aligning” the program with labour demands, according to budget documents. At the same time, businesses will have to have made “all reasonable efforts” to recruit from the domestic labour force before they seek workers from abroad. When an employer looks to the government for a labour market opinion, which is one step in getting approval to hire foreign temporary workers, Mr. Kenney said the government will soon point out the number of people on EI in that employer’s region and ensure the people collecting EI are aware of that job opportunity. “If you don’t take available work, you don’t get EI,” he said. “That’s always been a legal principle of that program.” http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/18/conservatives-want-unemployed-to-fill-jobs-going-to-temporary-foreign-workers-jason-kenney/

MONTREAL — Add “promoter of international soccer matches” to the dossier of the Montreal Impact. The Impact has officially landed Montreal France’s Champions Trophy, a one-game final between the winners of the French Championship and French Cup to be held on July 25 at Olympic Stadium. It will be the first time the Champions Trophy has been held outside France, and past winners include Bordeaux, Lyon, Nantes and Monaco. “The Impact is the promoter,” Impact vice-president Richard Legendre said. “As (Impact president) Joey Saputo has said, we think it’s the right timing to bring international soccer to Montreal. We think there’s a market for that and we’re at a better place to organize it. “It’s in our mission to promote and develop soccer here, and this is a very good way to do so. We went after it. We worked on it, and it’s up to us to promote it. Hopefully we can also bring new sources of revenue. There are costs, but we think the revenue will be higher than the cost.” The Champions Trophy (officially Le Trophee des Champions) brings together the winner of France’s Ligue 1, currently being contested between Bordeaux and Marseille, and the winner of the French Cup, which is competed for by all divisions. Ligue 2’s Guingamp won the French Cup on May 9, beating Rennes 2-1 on a pair of goals from Brazilian striker Eduardo in front of 80,056 spectators at le Stade de France. Guingamp, the first Ligue 2 team to win the tournament-format French Cup in 50 years, will face either Bordeaux or Marseille in Montreal. Bordeaux, which Thursday announced it had signed Yoann Gourcuff to a four-year contract, ending the possibility of the French international playmaker going to AC Milan, needs only one point against Caen Saturday night to secure the Ligue 1 crown. A record crowd of 55,571 was at Olympic Stadium last February to watch the Impact play a CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final game against Mexican first-division club Santos Laguna. While it remains to be seen if two visiting French teams can attract a similar crowd in Montreal, Legendre is confident the interest will be there. “We think it’s an important event with a lot of stature, certainly from the interest we’ve received so far. The fans of international soccer, and of course the fans of French soccer, I think will be very excited to attend,’’ Legendre said. “We haven’t set any specific objective in terms of numbers, but think that such an event should draw 30,000-plus. That’s why we’re holding it at Olympic Stadium.” Montreal Gazette

Un article, qui, je le sent, fera plaisir à Malek Should Downtown Crossing be reopened to traffic? Would car traffic bring back the crowds? Boston Globe, by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | March 1, 2009 Downtown Crossing's problems have been well-documented: Crime has spawned fear, heightened by a stabbing and shooting in the midst of a bustling afternoon. Shops that once thrived next to Jordan Marsh and Filene's have shuttered, leaving empty storefronts cheek-by-jowl with pushcarts, discount jewelry stalls, and gaping construction sites. Sidewalks that teem with rowdy teenagers and office workers by day lie empty and forbidding at night. For years, city planners have been promising to restore the area to its former grandeur and make it a major urban destination. But as they have attempted solution after solution without success, they have never tried one idea: reopening the streets to traffic. Indeed, Downtown Crossing remains one of the last vestiges of a largely discredited idea, the Ameri can pedestrian mall, which municipal planners once believed would help cities compete with proliferating suburban malls. In the 1970s, at least 220 cities closed downtown thoroughfares, paved them with bricks or cobbles and waited for them to take hold as urban destinations. Since then, all but about two dozen have reopened the malls to traffic, as planners, developers, and municipal officials came to believe that the lack of cars had an effect opposite of what they had intended, driving away shoppers, stifling businesses, and making streets at night seem barren and forlorn. "Pedestrian malls never delivered the type of foot traffic and vitality they had expected," said Doug Loescher, director of The Main Street Center at The National Trust for Historic Preservation. "The sense of movement that a combination of transit modes provides - whether on foot or in car - really does make a difference," he said. "People feel safer, because there's some kind of movement through the district, other than a lone pedestrian at night. It just creates a sense of energy that makes people feel more comfortable and makes the district more appealing." Boston planners are against opening up Downtown Crossing, but as the district suffers the exodus of anchor businesses and a deepening malaise has settled in, some shop owners long for the energy, ease, and excitement they remember before Downtown Crossing closed to most traffic in 1978. "There was a constant flow of cars, stopping and going; it was very active, very busy, like a typical city street," said Steve Centamore, co-owner since 1965 of Bromfield Camera Co., on Bromfield Street, part of which is open only to commercial traffic. "There were people coming and going. It didn't seem to impede any pedestrians. It was a lot busier. People could just pull up and get what they needed. Now, it takes an act of Congress to even get through here." Pellegrino Bondanza, 72, who has sold vegetables in Downtown Crossing since he was a boy, said the pedestrian mall "didn't work out well." He hopes the city will reopen it to traffic. "Maybe it would bring some of the action back in town," he said. "I remember as a kid, I tried to squeeze in with a pushcart and, if I could locate at a corner, I could sell what I had in an hour and make a good living there. You had to be a little careful crossing the streets and everything, but don't forget the cars went slow when they were going up them streets there. There was no fast driving." Boston officials say they considered reopening Downtown Crossing to traffic and, in 2006, hired a team of consultants from London, Toronto, Berkeley, Calif., and Boston to study the idea. The consultants concluded that the mall should stay because the estimated 230,000 people who walk through Downtown Crossing every day should be enough to keep the place lively and economically vital. "What we heard from them pretty loudly was, 'Not just yet. Make it work. Give it your best effort,' " said Andrew Grace, senior planner and urban designer at the Boston Redevelopment Authority. "Lots of cities throughout the world make these districts work. The historic centers in most European cities function, and they thrive." Kristen Keefe, retail sector manager of the BRA, warned that bringing back traffic could squeeze out pedestrians who, she said, already contend with crowded sidewalks. "We just think these two things are in conflict," she said. Boston built its pedestrian mall after a study showed that six times more pedestrians than cars traveled down Washington Street - in front of what was then Filene's and Jordan Marsh - "so the impetus was to reassert the balance for pedestrians a little bit and improve the safety and amenities for pedestrians," said Jane Howard, who helped design the mall for the BRA and is now a planner in a private firm. It was a time when malls were being built across the country. Some are still considered successful - in Burlington, Vt., and Charlottesville, Va., for example. And New York City is experimenting with blocking traffic on Broadway through Times and Herald squares to create pedestrian-only zones. But those are the exceptions. Chicago, which turned downtown State Street into a pedestrian mall in 1979, reopened it to traffic in 1996, convinced that the mall had worsened the area's economic slump and left the street deserted and dangerous. Eugene, Ore., scrapped its mall in 1997, frustrated that "people went around downtown instead of through it," said Mayor Kitty Piercy. Tampa got rid of its mall in 2001 because it "didn't bring back any retail," as the city had hoped, said Christine M. Burdick president of Tampa Downtown Partnership. Buffalo, which has trolley service on its mall on Main Street, is currently reintroducing cars after finding that shoppers avoided stores that were cut off from traffic. "It takes a leap of faith to go somewhere nearby, pay to park, and then walk to someplace you haven't been yet," said Deborah Chernoff, Buffalo's planning director. "All the cities are dealing with the reality of how people actually behave." Downtown Crossing is not even a full pedestrian mall. Because Washington Street, its main thoroughfare, is open to commercial traffic, pedestrians mostly stick to the sidewalks, avoiding the cabs and police cruisers that often ply the route. After dark on a recent weeknight, just after 8:30 p.m., Downtown Crossing resembled a film noir scene, its deserted rain-slick streets glistening with the reflections of neon signs from a shuttered liquor store and a discount jewelry shop. The few pedestrians who hurried by were mostly teenagers and office workers descending into the subway or headed to the bustle on Tremont Street. They walked purposefully, scurrying past darkened store after darkened store with metal gates pulled shut. The only cars were a police cruiser that rumbled past, an idling garbage truck, and the occassional taxi. Yet some say the mall should stay. The developer Ronald M. Druker, who owns buildings on Washington Street, said he has "vivid memories of the conflict between cars and pedestrians," before the mall was built. "If you insinuated cars and trucks on a normal basis into that area, it would not enliven it," he said. "It would create the same problems that it created 30 years ago when we got rid of them." But others, particularly the shop owners struggling to survive the recession say they are eager to try just about anything that would bring back business. "Downtown Crossing definitely needs something - that's for sure," said Harry Gigian owner since 1970 of Harry Gigian Co. jewelers on Washington Street, which has seen a sharp dropoff in sales. "Nobody comes downtown anymore." De mon côté, j'adore les rues piétonnières européennes. Par contre, dans la plupart des cas, plusieurs des éléments qui font leur succès là bas ne sont pas réunis de ce côté ci de l'Altantique: - Bien qu'animées à certains moments de la journée ou de l'année, nos rues principales sont plutôt tranquilles la majorité du temps (les matins, les journées froides d'hiver, etc) - la présence d'itinérants, plus nombreux ici - il n'y a pas de "point focal", de destinations, ou point d'attraction majeure à chaque bout de nos rues qui ont le potentiel de devenir piétonnières. Par contre, il est très agréable de se promener dans la foule, l'été, sur une rue sans traffic automobile. Un compromis: avoir des rues piétonnières temporaires? par exemple, fermer Ste-Catherine les vendredis, samedis et dimanches de l'été, de midi à minuit? Bon, on ouvre les lignes! Les amateurs d'urbanisme, bonjour!