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http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreals-economic-stagnation?__lsa=c702-331f Stagnation city: Exploring Montreal's economic decline Peter Hadekel PETER HADEKEL, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE More from Peter Hadekel, Special to Montreal Gazette Published on: January 31, 2015Last Updated: January 31, 2015 7:28 AM EST Prime St-Catherine St. real estate stands vacant in Montreal on Tuesday January 27, 2015. Prime St-Catherine St. real estate stands vacant in Montreal on Tuesday January 27, 2015. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette The Montreal skyline is dotted with construction cranes as an unprecedented building boom continues to unfold in condo and office construction. On the surface, at least, signs of prosperity abound. But look a little deeper and you’ll see a city that’s slipping behind the rest of the country. Over the last decade, Montreal’s economy grew by an average of just 1.5 per cent — the lowest rate among Canada’s major cities. Personal disposable income is also the lowest among the country’s eight biggest cities, and unemployment is among the highest. The bad news doesn’t stop there. Montreal is living through a period of crumbling infrastructure, widespread corruption, failed governance, inadequate fiscal power, low private investment, an exodus of head offices and an outflow of people. Even the real estate activity that’s dominating private investment in Montreal these days is of some concern to economists. They point out that it’s largely speculative and does little to improve productivity, innovation or the knowledge base of the local economy. We’re starting to see the long-term cost of the city’s economic decline. What if Montreal had simply kept pace with the Canadian average over the last 25 years? A November report from the Institut du Québec, a research group started jointly by the Conference Board of Canada and the HEC Montreal business school, found that if the metropolitan area had grown at the Canadian average since 1987, per capita income would be $2,780 higher today and income for the province as a whole would be up even more. “Despite its strengths and obvious attractions, Montreal suffers from major economic shortcomings compared with Canada’s other large urban areas,” said the report. “It fails to adequately fill its role as driver for the provincial economy.” That role becomes more important in a global economy that relies on cities as engines of growth. We are witnessing intense competition between cities for capital, talent and ideas — a race that risks leaving Montreal behind. Montreal’s economic heyday At the dawn of the 1960s, the case could still be made that Montreal was Canada’s business capital, even though Toronto was gaining fast. A black-and-white snapshot of the city’s economy looked like this: Perched at the top was a thriving financial industry, driven by banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges and investment brokers. The city was home to the head offices of the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada, as well as insurance giant Sun Life. Both the Montreal Stock Exchange and the Canadian Stock Exchange served a large community of brokerage and investment firms. A big part of the picture was a broad network of head offices in Quebec’s natural resource industry. Ste-Catherine St. W. in 1963. Montreal was once the economic capital of Canada. Ste-Catherine St. W. in 1963. Montreal was once the economic capital of Canada. Photo courtesy City of Montreal Archives Farther down the chain were the factories that made Montreal hum: metal and machinery plants, appliance manufacturers and rail-equipment makers, food processors and cigarette plants. The so-called soft sectors of the manufacturing industry were thriving in the days just before Asian imports began. Montreal was Canada’s leader in clothing, textiles, leather and shoes, with the industry providing well over 100,000 jobs. The St-Lawrence Seaway opened up the shipping industry through the Port of Montreal while the city served as headquarters for both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways. In 1962, when world-renowned architect William Zeckendorf completed the stylish Place Ville Marie office tower, it seemed to symbolize a new optimism for Montreal. What followed instead were decades of underperformance in which the city never fulfilled its promise. The head office operations of the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank gradually shifted to Toronto to take advantage of that city’s impressive growth as a financial centre. Political tensions over language and the issue of Quebec sovereignty hurt private investment and drove some of the wealthiest and best educated people out of the province. Sun Life left in a huff in 1978 after the Parti Québécois took power for the first time. The Canadian Stock Exchange closed its doors in 1974, while the Montreal Exchange lost increasing trading volumes to its Toronto rival before switching its vocation to financial derivatives. The fancy new airport built in Mirabel didn’t take off as promised, with Toronto becoming the hub for Canadian air travel. At the same time, the city’s aging industrial base felt the first effects of globalization as imports from Asia began to hurt the textile and clothing industry. The Montreal economy tried to reinvent itself and got a boost from free trade in the 1990s. Industries such as aerospace gained in importance thanks to the success of aircraft maker Bomabardier Inc. while investment also picked up in pharmaceuticals and information technology. But as the new millennium began, more negative trends had crept in: offshoring, outsourcing, contracting out. Companies had found new ways to cut costs by sending work to places like China, India and Mexico at a fraction of local wage rates. More industrial plants began to shut their doors. Gazette front page from January 7, 1978. Insurance giant Sun Life left the city for Toronto shortly after the Parti Québécois took power for the first time. Gazette front page from Jan. 7, 1978. Insurance giant Sun Life left the city for Toronto shortly after the Parti Québécois took power for the first time. Gazette file photo Failures along the way Economist Mario Lefebvre, president of the Institut de Développement Urbain du Québec, points to a number of failures along the way. Perhaps the biggest, he says, is Montreal’s inability to adapt its transportation network to the new realities of the global economy. The airport, the port, the rail network and the highway system need to work seamlessly together. “Goods and services are not produced in one place anymore, those days are gone,” he says. “Step one might be in Brazil, step two in Chicago, step three in Montreal and step four in China. To be a player in this kind of environment, goods and services must be able to come in and out of your city quickly. “We have all the means of transportation but the fluidity between them is still very complicated. There are too many decision-makers involved and we end up with projects that are not completed as rapidly as they should be.” The city’s aging industrial base remains vulnerable because it hasn’t closed the productivity gap with other jurisdictions. “We have educated people,” says Lefebvre, “but we haven’t surrounded them with state-of-the-art technology.” The private sector hasn’t done its part to renew the city’s industrial base with new machinery and equipment. And with a low rate of investment in research and development, innovation in Montreal has lagged behind the rest of the country according to measures such as the number of patents per capita. One of the biggest obstacles facing Montreal is its low rate of population growth. Among the country’s eight biggest cities, only Halifax had a lower rate of growth over the last 10 years. Montreal’s population grew at an annual average of one per cent, vs. 1.6 per cent for Toronto and nearly three per cent for Edmonton and Calgary. The low birthrate and the low rate of immigrant attraction explain part of the trend. But perhaps most serious, according to the Conference Board, is that on average more than 16,000 people a year leave the metro area for other parts of Quebec or other provinces and countries. Just holding on to that number of people each year would have added more than 450,000 to the population over the last 30 years. That would have meant more people working, paying taxes and spending money on housing, goods and services. It would have given a real boost to economic growth. So would have a stronger commitment from the provincial government to help Montreal. Lefebvre points out that the Quebec government has been pushing a Plan Nord strategy to develop natural resources in the northern regions, but what Quebec really needs is a Plan Sud that helps Montreal develop its knowledge-based economy. Closed stores on Ste-Catherine St. in Montreal Tuesday January 27, 2015. Closed stores on Ste-Catherine St. in Montreal this month. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette The payoff would be so much bigger, he argues, not only for the city but also for the province. A dollar of additional economic activity in Montreal generates at least another dollar for the province in spinoffs and benefits. Montreal funds more than half the government’s spending, 53 per cent of provincial GDP and more than 80 per cent of all research and development. Along with a Plan Sud, the government should at last recognize that Montreal needs new tools to manage its economy, Lefebvre says, including new fiscal resources and powers to promote investment, integrate immigrants and train workers. The property tax base has reached the limit of its ability to fund those new services. While such legislation has been promised, it’s not yet clear how much real power will be conferred on Montreal. The federal government has a role to play, too, Lefebvre argues. “I think we wasted an incredible opportunity when the GST was reduced by two percentage points (in 2006). A GST point is worth about $7 billion. If we had given just one point to the cities for infrastructure, that would have meant an extra $50 billion to $60 billion for infrastructure over the last eight years.” Fighting the exodus The city has suffered other blows. One is the decline in the number of head offices that call Montreal home. Between 1999 and 2012 Montreal lost nearly 30 per cent of its head offices, according to an estimate by the Institut du Québec. Toronto suffered a five-per-cent loss as economic weight shifted to Western Canada, but the impact on Montreal was far more painful. “Head office jobs are important for the indirect impact they have,” said Jacques Ménard, president of BMO Financial Group in Quebec. Head offices support a range of activities like legal, financial, accounting and advertising services. They maintain high-quality, high-income jobs and provide the city with a measure of economic influence. Part of the solution is to create more such companies in Montreal in the first place, Ménard says. Quebec is suffering from a deficit in entrepreneurship and can’t expect to replace these corporate losses without growing new success stories. “If you look at a company like Stingray Digital, it didn’t even exist seven years ago. It’s now in 110 countries,” Ménard says about the Montreal-based provider of digital music services. “I’m on the board of directors and I have seen the company grow to where it now has 200 high-paying jobs in its headquarters.” Along with the head-office challenge, Montreal is looking to become a more international place to do business, taking advantage of its multilingual and multicultural assets and its potential position as a gateway to the Americas for European and Asian trade and investment. Construction continues around the Bell Centre in Montreal Tuesday January 27, 2015. Construction continues around the Bell Centre in Montreal Tuesday January 27, 2015. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette European firms already have a significant presence here and now “there is a ton of money looking to leave Asia for investment diversification,” says Dominique Anglade, who heads the economic development agency Montreal International. Asian money represents a big potential opportunity for the city as it tries to sell itself internationally and attract both investors and professionals from abroad. People are eager to come here, she insists. “We had 300 openings on the last recruiting mission we did in Europe and for those openings there were 13,000 applicants. There’s a phenomenal attraction power, especially for workers who are educated.” Still, it’s not easy for companies and professionals to move here. Companies are often deterred by the weight of regulation and red tape in Quebec while professionals face barriers such as the recognition of their credentials or concerns about French-language requirements and schooling. When 50 top executives were interviewed last year by the Boston Consulting Group on the challenges facing Montreal, several said that the emphasis on French in the immigrant selection process restricts the pool of talent on which Montreal can draw. They argued it would be better to cast the net wider and invest more in French language promotion rather than in defensive measures. Digging ourselves out At Ménard’s request, the Boston Consulting Group looked at the experience of other cities that suffered economic difficulties and how they managed to turn around. The report focused on cities such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in the U.S., Manchester in Britain and Melbourne in Australia. All have made impressive comebacks, owing largely to two common factors: a high degree of citizen engagement and a focus on infrastructure projects that have made those cites better places in which to live and work. RELATED Two Montrealers helping breathe new life into city's economy It’s one reason Ménard launched his Je vois Montreal initiative last fall in an effort to get citizens rather than governments engaged in the process of building a better Montreal. “We’ve had so much of the top-down approach — ‘We know what’s good for you,’ ” he says. “Yes there is a role for governments, but communities really thrive when citizens take ownership of their future.” Je vois Montreal has launched more than 100 projects to get the city moving again. While they are not heavy on investment or job creation, they do herald a significant change in the mindset of many Montrealers who are simply fed up with the status quo sent via Tapatalk

Merci à MTLskyline sur SSP Developer’s third design for riverside condo project up for approval http://westislandgazette.com/news/st...-for-approval/ Cheryl Cornacchia | From The Gazette | June 25, 2013 Other News Preliminary approval has been granted to a Montreal developer who wants to build a condominium complex in Pierrefonds-Roxboro alongside the Maison Joseph Théorêt and facing Rivière des Prairies. At a special borough council meeting June 19, council unanimously adopted a draft bylaw to rezone three lots on Gouin Blvd. at Aumais St. so that the Vered Group could build a 115-unit, six-story condominium alongside the heritage home recognized by Montreal’s Conseil de Patrimoine. The draft bylaw is now expected to come up for a second vote at another special borough council meeting, August 5, at which point, if passed, the bylaw would pave the way for the project could to go forward, at least, in theory. On Tuesday, André Giguere said he and other neighbours of the proposed project plan to request the borough open a register that could in effect tie up, if not halt, the condo project entirely, should sufficient number of neighbours sign it and signal their opposition to the project. Johanne Palladini, a borough spokesperson said on Tuesday once a register is opened, area residents would be given a specified day to sign it. If the project is opposed by a certain percentage of area residents, determined by the number of electoral voters, Palladini said, the borough would be forced to hold a costly, borough-wide referendum on the project. http://westislandgazette.com/news/story/2013/06/17/developers-third-design-for-riverside-condo-project-up-for-approval/

Cirque du Soleil’s Amaluna is performed in Old Montreal on Tuesday, April 24, 2012. Photograph by: Dario Ayala , Montreal Gazette MONTREAL - Quel horreur! It’s possible that the Cirque du Soleil may find its first permanent Canadian performance venue in Toronto rather than Montreal. According to stories published recently in the Toronto Star and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, MGM Resorts International, which is lobbying to get in on a proposed downtown Toronto casino, is hinting that it might include a permanent venue for Montreal’s Cirque du Soleil. This would be a huge blow to Quebec pride. Unless, of course, Cirque owner and adventurous billionaire Guy Laliberté appeases les gens de notre pays by completing a permanent venue for his billion circus here first — something he has been talking about doing for decades. The most recent Montreal rumours have to do with the Cirque’s acquisition of the Maison Alcan building on Sherbrooke St. Paul Godfrey, chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation as well as president and CEO of PostMedia (the company that owns the Gazette), says there is indeed substance to the rumour: “From what I understand,” he said Tuesday in an email response, “if MGM is chosen as the successful gaming operator, their facility would include a permanent Cirque facility. This is all subject to the city approving a casino in Toronto. I do know that from both MGM and Cirque.” Cirque du Soleil public relations director Renée Claude Ménard, too, confirmed the story Tuesday. “If MGM obtains something in Toronto,” she said, “we have confirmed that we would be their entertainment content provider. What it will be will be determined at a later date, but yes, we have of course confirmed our interest to our partner MGM.” When Alan Feldman, MGM Resorts senior vice-president of public affairs, visited Toronto last month to plead his case, he talked of a $4-billion resort that would include a 1,000-room hotel and create 8,000 jobs. The Las Vegas-based MGM is but one of several companies lobbying to run the proposed Toronto casino, which probably would be located at Exhibition Place, although other Toronto locations are being considered. Caesars Entertainment Corp., the company that runs Caesars Palace, the performing home of Céline Dion in Vegas, also wants in on the Toronto game. (There are, as yet, however, no rumours of a Caesar’s that would entice Dion to take up permanent residence in Toronto.) Godfrey has requested that the City of Toronto come to a decision on this matter by February 2013, hinting that the planned casino might find a better welcome outside the GTA area. Many Torontonians are opposed to the idea of a casino. Meanwhile, the James Cameron film Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away just had its debut at the Tokyo International Film Festival last weekend. And here in Montreal, it has been announced that Cirque CEO Daniel Lamarre will be awarded an honorary degree by McGill University. pdonnell@montrealgazette.com © Copyright © The Montreal Gazette Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Cirque+Soleil+might+permanent+Toronto+venue/7435689/story.html#ixzz2AE1Lxm7j

(Courtesy of © Copyright © The Montreal Gazette)

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Ce fil est pour mettre des nouvelles sur l'industrie automobile au Canada (ventes, etc) Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2513062#ixzz0eQ4DFfuA It is indeed a little disappointing that the Big 3 aren't really profiting that much from Toyota's woes. Especially considering how good the product is these days (and how reliable American cars are!).

The French President replaces the English-language channel The French President plans to replace the English-language channel with a new, purely French-speaking network, France Monde French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced the killing off of the English-language news channel France 24, barely a year after it first hit the airwaves. The president announced on Tuesday that it would be replaced by a new, purely French-speaking network, France Monde. The new creation is to be a combination of French-speaking broadcaster TV5, Radio France Internationale and France 24, and is expected to be set up at some point later this year. According to Sarkozy, it should be no problem to include subtitles in English, Spanish and Arabic, to present a "French vision." The announcement sounded the death knoll for the pet project of his predecessor Jacques Chirac. France 24 was launched in December 2006 and broadcasts around the world in French, English and Arabic. The aim of the 24-hour news channel had been to offer a French alternative to global news channels like BBC World and CNN. However, on Tuesday, Sarkozy said he was not comfortable with a French channel that broadcast in other languages. "With taxpayers' money, I am not prepared to broadcast a channel that does not speak French," Sarkozy told a press conference. The main journalists union, the SNJ-CGT, reacted with fury to Sarkozy's announcement that French government would stop funding France 24's foreign language programming. The union's secretary general, Jean-Francois Tealdi, told Agence France Presse that the president was "confusing the mission of France 24 and RFI, which was to cover world events with a different vision from that of the Anglo-Saxon approach, and the mission of TV5 Monde, which is to provide a space for the French-speaking world." An English-speaking member of the France 24 staff told AFP that "everyone is sad and shocked" by the news. The journalist said that if the English and Arabic speaking service disappeared, it would "give France an image of being behind the times." Provided by Spiegel Online—Read the latest from Europe's largest newsmagazine

WTC in NYC : Recession could change the timeline By Julie Shapiro and Josh Rogers January 16-22, 2009 The Port Authority may try to delay the opening of some World Trade Center offices if the economy takes too long to bounce back, the agency’s leader said this week. The best way to ensure that Towers 2 and 3 are successful may be to phase them in over time, said Chris Ward, the Port’s executive director. “It would be naïve to think real estate can respond in the same way it was expected to respond in 2006,” Ward said in an hour-long interview with Downtown Express Tuesday. “It’s a different, different world.” If Towers 2 and 3 do not rise over the next several years, as was expected, Ward promised that something temporary would go in their place. One possibility is to build a retail-filled podium of several stories, then add the skyscrapers when the economy improves. Another possibility is to build a platform at grade. No matter what, the sites will not remain fenced off behind barriers indefinitely. “This will not be left a construction site,” said Ward, who took over the Port last May. “The last thing that’s good economically and the last thing for the community is to…have it feel like some pit.” The two towers are being developed by Silverstein Properties, which signed a 99-year lease with the Port for the World Trade Center two months before 9/11. Larry Silverstein, the firm’s head, has maintained that tough economic times are the ideal time to build offices. “By building now, even if demand for offices either Downtown or anywhere else in the city softens temporarily, we will be ready when the New York and U.S. economies rebound,” Silverstein wrote in a Downtown Express column two months ago. “And have no doubt — they will. They always do.” Silverstein Properties declined to comment Wednesday on Ward’s remarks. Ward said Tower 4 will be the easiest for Silverstein to build on time (2012) because it is the most economically viable — the city and the Port have already agreed to lease two-thirds of the office space from Silverstein. Ward said he was optimistic the incoming Obama administration, which is emphasizing economic stimulus, will back extending the deadline for the tax-free Liberty Bonds beyond the end of the year. Silverstein plans to use the bonds for three W.T.C. office towers and the Port will use them for the Freedom Tower, which is under construction. The bonds will be difficult to sell if they are put on the market long before the buildings’ openings. Ward also spoke Tuesday about the newly released quarterly milestones for the W.T.C. site. The Port met eight of its nine goals for the fourth quarter of 2008 and set nine more goals for this quarter. The one goal the Port did not meet was to turn over the excavated sites for Towers 2, 3 and 4 to Silverstein so he can build the towers. The Port initially said in October that the sites for Towers 2 and 4 were ready, but Silverstein disputed that, and an arbitration panel ruled last month that the Port had more work to do. The largest problem was a 200-foot wall the Port left standing right where a column for Tower 4 needed to go. Ward told Downtown Express that he knew the wall needed to come down, but he thought Silverstein had enough space to work around it and build other parts of the tower’s foundation first. He acknowledged Tuesday that the Port may have overstated its case. “If we were overly aggressive in that assertion, it was in the sense that we were paying a lot of money in the failure to deliver [the site],” Ward said. The Port is paying Silverstein $300,000 a day until the sites are cleared and ready for construction under an agreement renegotiated in 2006. The Port also missed another deadline at the end of the year for work on the sites for Towers 2 and 3 and has racked up $60 million worth of fines to date for missing the June and December 2008 deadlines. As a result of the arbitration, the Port and Silverstein have agreed on more detailed guidelines to determine when the sites are done. Ward said the No. 1 lesson he learned from the arbitration was that communication is essential. “If we’d been there earlier, better and more often, I don’t think we’d have come to this problem,” Ward said. It’s the same lesson he’s learned with the community and the public as a whole, whether it’s about street closures or the site’s schedule and budget: The more upfront the Port can be, the better. But no matter how candid Ward is, many New Yorkers won’t believe in progress at the site until they see it with their own eyes. “There’s such a cynicism that’s in society right now about building,” Ward said, referring to other major construction projects as well. “That’s just bad for the city, to have the feeling we’re not really building.” Ward expects the perception to change between the middle and end of the year, as steel for the memorial rises above street level and the Freedom Tower continues to grow. This is a critical year for the project, as work shifts from excavating behind construction barriers to pushing steel skyward, Ward said. The quarterly milestones are part of Ward’s effort to gain the public’s trust that he will meet the revised schedule for the site, announced last fall. He hopes to add more detail to the milestones and release the goals further in advance, providing a detailed map the public can trace toward completion. Looking ahead, Ward does not foresee any engineering or planning crises, but he said meeting the deadlines will come down to teamwork and timing — along with good weather. “There’s no leisure to it,” Ward said. “You can’t take a week off. You can’t think about, ‘I’ll make that up later….’ Those days for this project are literally over.” One potential source of delay is 130 Liberty St., the contaminated former Deutsche Bank building that stands right where the Vehicle Security Center will go. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. recently announced another delay of six weeks to three months on the building’s demolition, and that in turn will delay the Vehicle Security Center by the same amount of time. “Unfortunately, there’s not a lot that can be done without having it completely down,” Ward said. As construction of the Trade Center progresses, the many projects crammed onto the 16-acre site will continue coming into conflict over the limited space and resources. Ward described his priorities for the site whenever those conflicts arise, and for him, it all goes back to getting the memorial plaza open by the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. Opening the memorial leads to the priority of finishing the PATH Hub and Vehicle Security Center, which will both open after the 10-year anniversary but will be important to getting people on the site. The 10-year anniversary also made the Port prioritize Greenwich St., the site’s north-south spine, which people will use to access the memorial. After that comes the office towers: the Port’s Freedom Tower and Silverstein’s Towers 2, 3 and 4. Finally, Ward listed the site’s other projects, like Liberty Park and the performing arts center, which are not as integral to the plan. One conflict the Port has already resolved required the redesign of the Santiago Calatrava’s PATH hub. To open the memorial on time, the Port added some columns to Calatrava’s belowground mezzanine, enabling workers to build the roof of the mezzanine first, which gives the memorial a floor. Silverstein, the city and the memorial foundation all lobbied the Port to scale back the $3.2 billion station further, but Ward said that was much more difficult than it seemed because everything is interconnected. “You couldn’t simply say, ‘Make it smaller,’” Ward said, “because then it would have an implication for how much mechanical equipment could you put below-grade, which affected whether or not you could pump the amount of water that you need to pump to make the fountains work…. Probably a fair number of people think we didn’t do enough, but I think we struck the right balance.” Ward is also trying to balance the community’s concerns with his goal of keeping the project on schedule. Nowhere is that clearer than Vesey St., which the Port had said might have to close between Church St. and W. Broadway for utility work. “At some point, for hopefully a limited amount of time, it will have to close, and that’s just a fact of life,” Ward said Tuesday. He expects the closure to last less than a year. More than 15,000 pedestrians use Vesey St. during the morning rush hour, pouring out of the temporary PATH station at Greenwich St., and Ward said he would try to minimize the impact of the closure by keeping the Vesey St. pedestrian bridge open. The community is particularly concerned about Vesey’s closure because the Port is definitely closing Liberty St. on the south side of the site at the end of this year. Liberty St. will be closed for much longer than Vesey St., but the two closures will likely overlap.

Montreal heritage activist celebrates Order of Canada honour Last Updated: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 | 1:27 PM ET CBC News Montreal heritage defender Dinu Bumbaru is being recognized for his local efforts with a national honour, the Order of Canada. Bumbaru, director of Heritage Montreal, was among the new members of the order announced Tuesday by Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean 'Somehow this is a recognition from the highest authority in the country that communities count.'—Dinu Bumbaru, director of Heritage Montreal Bumbaru was walking on Mount Royal when he heard that the list was announced with his name on it. "It is a big beyond reach. You don't feel that you deserve such things," Bumbaru said. The citation from the Governor General states that Bumbaru was nominated for his leadership in promoting, protecting and enhancing the historical and cultural heritage of Montreal, including the preservation of world heritage sites. Bumbaru said the honour is important because it recognizes the work in communities across Canada that often goes unnoticed. "Somehow, this is a recognition from the highest authority in the country that communities count," he said. "In the days of climate change and social crisis, we tend to feel the big issue is the green and the greed of people. But we see the greatest achievement of mankind is the city where people actually live." Bumbaru has a degree in architecture from the University of Montreal and a degree in conservation studies from the University of York in England. Since joining Heritage Montreal in 1982, he has become one of the city's most vocal defenders of community preservation, including during the recent debate over the redevelopment of Griffintown southwest of downtown. Céline Dion, investment guru honoured Quebec TV personality Suzanne Lapointe will be named a member of the Order of Canada. (CBC) Other Quebecers honoured Tuesday included singer Céline Dion and Montreal investment guru Stephen Jarislowski, who both become companions of the Order of Canada. Businessman Claude Lamoureux and dancer Louise Lecavalier will become officers. Quebec television personality and singer Suzanne Lapointe will also join the order as a member. The newest additions will receive their insignias at a ceremony at Rideau Hall at a later date. The Order of Canada, the country's highest honour, recognizes citizens for outstanding achievements or for exceptional contributions to the culture of the country. Established in 1967, the award has been presented to more than 5,500 people.

Owens-Illinois closing Toronto glass container plant, Last Updated: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 | 9:02 AM ET The Canadian Press Owens-Illinois Inc. is closing its glass container plant in Toronto effective Sept. 30, affecting 430 workers. The company said Tuesday that the closure arises from an "ongoing review of its global manufacturing footprint," and the Toronto plant's production will be shifted to other factories, including sites in Brampton, Ont., and Montreal. "This closing was driven by our global asset utilization process which identified the opportunity to shift our production to other O-I North American facilities, resulting in lower energy consumption and production costs while still meeting current and anticipated market needs," stated Scott Murchison, president of the 24,000-employee company's North America glass containers division. "The market impacts of a strong Canadian dollar, high energy prices and the recent activities of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario were contributing factors."

Push for tidier city starting to pay off But more work to do, mayor says. 'If the streets look clean today, it's because of the rain we had Tuesday,' merchant maintains JAMES MENNIE, The Gazette Published: 4 hours ago As far as Raffi Kotchounian is concerned, if the streets aren't paved with cigarette butts it isn't so much because of an act of city council as an act of God. "I was walking down Ste. Catherine St. the Wednesday before the Grand Prix. The street was a mess - papers everywhere, garbage everywhere. ... It was filthy," Kotchounian said. "If the streets look clean today, it's because of the rain we had on Tuesday," he added. Kotchounian is the owner of the Vasco cigar store on Ste. Catherine east of Crescent St. He has been doing business on the street for 30 years. When it comes to assessing how clean - or not - the neighbourhood has become since Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay and Ville Marie borough mayor Benoit Labonté declared separate wars on downtown litter, he gives credit where credit is due. "I have to tell you, the cigarette butts weren't as bad as the flyers," he said, referring to the handbills handed out by various nightclubs and businesses to downtown pedestrians. "They were a real problem. But with the police cracking down, it made a big difference." But Kotchounian's take on the big picture of downtown cleanliness is one that perceives the trash can as half empty rather than half full, presuming, of course, the trash can was even there to begin with. "There was a trash can at the corner of Ste. Catherine and Crescent that was taken away during the riot after the Canadiens-Bruins game (on April 21). "It still hasn't been replaced." Last Tuesday, the city of Mont-real kicked off its annual cleanliness campaign with Marcel Tremblay, the executive committee member in charge of the operation, meeting members of the media on a street cleaning vehicle as he explained how 200 cleaning crew members would be deployed in the city's 19 boroughs. That announcement was made a week after the downtown Ville Marie borough announced its own cleanliness crackdown, noting that more than $1 million in tickets were handed out last year. They were issued for infractions ranging from improperly recycling garbage to the lack of an ashtray outside a commercial establishment. The cleanliness campaigns have been going on for three years. While their effectiveness remains a matter of dispute, a stroll through the quadrilateral formed by Ste. Catherine St., de Maisonneuve Blvd., Atwater Ave. and St. Laurent Blvd. suggests that something has changed. Cigarette butts that could once be found by the score, piled at street corners or along sidewalks, were noticeable by their scarcity, popping up in ones or twos at the sidewalk's edge. City trash cans, once overflowing, had been cleaned and emptied, while the drifting paper, plastic bags and other lunchtime junk that seemed to be part of every summer breeze were absent. Tremblay, who once berated a passerby who was littering while the mayor was in the middle of a cleanliness photo op, acknowledged yesterday there was still work to be done. "Sometimes when I go up St. Laurent or St. Urbain, I'll see trash cans that are full. Perhaps we have to improve the logistics of emptying them," he said. "And when I drive around the city, I have these portable ashtrays in my car, and when I see a citizen throw their cigarette butt out of their car window or on the sidewalk, I'll stop, and I hand them an ashtray. "We're calling upon the civic duty of citizens, and it's starting to have a major impact. Mont-realers are proud. And they weren't proud to see that the city wasn't up to their standard. "But we still have a lot of improvement to do," the mayor said. jmennie@thegazette.canwest.com http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=fade8e50-eebb-4878-a41a-eecc8d1c4181

(Courtesy of CBC / The Canadian Press)