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I'm starting this thread to inquire more about the relationship between the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec. Let me start with some of my observations. Having lived almost 6 years in this city it seems to me that people from Montreal are pretty much split into two categories: Those who consider themselves Quebeckers (mostly francophones) and those who consider themselves Montrealers (mostly anglophones). The former seem to know a lot about the history of Quebec, while the latter know that there used to be a famous restaurant where the Hotel St-Martin now stands, and are informed of at least one major urban development on the island. I find this division to be a bit dangerous, and very similar to the relationship between Quebec and the ROC, though in a smaller scale. During my time here I have come to understand a bit more the need for Quebec to separate from the ROC (almost every person from outside of Canada has been explained this conflict as a complete joke before coming here). However I feel that if Quebec were to leave Canada, the "Montrealers" I described above would not be very happy. Not because they consider themselves to be Canadian, but because they feel Quebec has never really cared about the problems of this city as much as a province is supposed to care about its largest and most important urban centre. Do my observations make sense to you guys?

(Courtesy of Monocle) She is actually 1st of 5 people Monocle profiled for "city voices" for their July/August issue.

A new vision for the country? Harper's federation of fiefdoms will drive Canadian traditionalists nuts LAWRENCE MARTIN From Thursday's Globe and Mail July 31, 2008 at 9:21 AM EDT Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been knocked for not giving the country a sense of direction, for visionlessly plotting and plodding, politics being his only purpose. Not true. Something has been taking shape - and it just took further form with pledges from Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon on the dispersal of federal powers. Yes, Matilda, the Conservatives have a vision. A federation of fiefdoms. Stephen Harper - headwaiter to the provinces. The firewall guy has curbed the federal spending power, he's corrected the so-called fiscal imbalance in favour of the provinces, he's doled out new powers to Quebec and now, if we are to believe Mr. Cannon, more autonomy is on the way for one and all. Mr. Harper has always favoured a crisp reading of the Constitution. He has always been - and now it really shows - a philosophical devolutionist. His nation-of-duchies approach will drive Canadian traditionalists bananas. They will see it not as nation building, but nation scattering. They will roll out that old bromide about the country being more than the sum of its parts. They will growl that we are already more decentralized than the Keystone Kops and any other federation out there save Switzerland, and that only rigorous paternal oversight can hold us together. But do these long-held harmonies still hold? Or are they outmoded, in need of overhaul? Has the country not moved beyond its vulnerable adolescent era to the point where now, like a normal family, it can entrust its members with more responsibilities? After 141 years, is there not a new sense of trust and maturity in the land? Identity? History is identity. If you don't know who you are at 141, if you still think some provinces have stars and stripes in their eyes, the shrink is in the waiting room. Now even Liberals don't think the new Canada is as dependent on the centre as the old. The old parts were fragile, in need of nurturing, in need of national and protectionist policies. But now there is more wealth and more equality, a levelling of the braying fields. Little guys like Newfoundland and Saskatchewan, with their newfound riches, are no longer little guys. They are not as beholden and their new level of maturity requires new thinking in Ottawa. Treat them like teenagers and they'll be more inclined to rebel. Give them space and they'll be more inclined to be part of the whole. Not to say that a balkanization of the federation is in order. Not to say that you want a host of provinces running off and negotiating treaties with other countries or that you want better north-south transportation systems than east-west or that national programs are not worthwhile. But a recognition of modern realities is in order. When we get more meat on the bones of Mr. Harper's plans, we'll know how they stack up. There's plenty of room for cynicism. It's well known that the PM will do anything to woo Quebec politically. Letting the province negotiate a unilateral labour-mobility agreement with France can be seen as some rather timely toadying. Shouldn't he be doing more for labour mobility between Ontario and Quebec? Extending his autonomy push to other regions smacks of smart politics as well. Headwaiter to the provinces? How about head cashier at the polling booths. Westerners will lovingly see it as a kick at the Toronto-Ottawa dictatorship. It's gravy for la belle province and down East, loud guys like Danny Williams won't be complaining. The PM needed something to take the focus away from Stéphane Dion's attention-grabbing Green Shift. This raw-boned conservative stuff might do the trick. Joe Clark was the original headwaiter to the provinces. Pierre Trudeau mocked him mercilessly. But of course it was Mr. Trudeau's great centralist grab, the national energy program, that backfired. Brian Mulroney undid some of Mr. Trudeau's work and tried to go further with his province-friendly constitutional accords. Under Jean Chrétien, the Grits got in the act, forsaking economic nationalism. Mr. Harper is following and hastening the trend line. We needed - thank you, England - grandparents. We needed - thank you, John A. - a national policy. We needed measures to keep us independent of the United States and our social security systems and national institutions. Thank you, other leaders. All part of growing up. But now? Noteworthy is that while in more recent times we have seen a trend away from centralized powers, unity is now well intact. Many would argue the country is more unified today than at any time since 1967. The big centre is still needed. It's still needed for infrastructure, uniform social programs, defence and multifarious other initiatives. But, with the old family having a better sense of its bearings, it isn't needed the way it was before.

Montreal does it right Behind the chair BRYAN FADER hfxnews.ca I have just returned from a hair show in Montreal and once again I have fallen in love with that city. It is always so great to be in a place where people push the envelope with fashion. They seem to push the envelope with everything they do. While there I attended a Habs game against Ottawa. Now, to be honest, I am a Leafs fan and I hate both of these teams but to get caught up in all that was going on was easy to do. I did have some time in between great plays to notice that even at a hockey game the woman of Montreal dress well and have great hair and better makeup. What I also noticed is that they are not necessarily better looking. They are average I think in the big picture. But it's what they do with their version of average that matters. They accent the positive and hide the negative. They walk with confidence and a belief in themselves. It is really attractive to see a woman - any woman - carry herself with a sense of confidence. A sense of purpose and a sense of ease. Ease in herself and her look. I think it comes down to the details. Not a specific sweater or dress or haircut, but in all of the things that they pick it's quality over quantity. They make sure their hair is polished and their nails are manicured. The right earrings that can dress up any look. Now the great part about this is that you can do this, too. If you are feeling out of sorts with your fashion, whether it is your haircut or your clothes, this is the time to start to make a change, The first thing is to take a really good inventory. I was in Winners the other day trying on some shirts and I am not sure what the lights do in the dressing rooms but I know I look better than that!!! What it did do, though, was shine an honest light on what is working and what I have to work on. We need to be honest with ourselves if we expect to change and inventory helps with that. Start with your clothes. If it has a stain on it, if it has a rip in it or if you haven't worn it in a year then you must get rid of it. Just let it go. It isn't your friend. If it is your hair it's time for some detail. A cleaner cut, a solid colour that compliments your skin (your stylist can help you with that) . Think more polish. Think expensive. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just look expensive. And that means well done. Maybe your makeup is in need of an update. The first step is to book a consultation to reevaluate and start again. We get in such ruts with our looks that we sometimes can't see the forest for the trees. It's time to add a little French to our diet. Take the fashion challenge; you will be pleased with the results. [email protected] Bryan Fader is throwing out everything with hair colour on it and starting again. He is an international Platform artist for Piidea Canada and trying to get better every day. http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=107117&sc=273

and to get a sense of where surviving newspapers are going... http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/arts/movies-critics-picks/1194811622317/index.html

Developer floats alternate proposals for a $900 million tower project on Boston’s waterfront It’s not the best economic climate for building office space. But Don Chiofaro, a Boston-based developer seems unfazed. He is moving fast and furious to get approvals for a 1.5 million sq ft mixed -use project for Boston’s waterfront, betting the market will change by the time the project goes into construction. In January he proposed a two-tower scheme for the site, a prime location between the New England Aquarium and the City’s new Greenway. But when that scheme was met with little enthusiasm, Chiofaro unveiled yet another design last week, this three-tower scheme designed by New York architect Kohn Pederson Fox. While this scheme is reportedly the developer's favorite, he has an arsenal of ten different designs that he is prepared to launch on the public until one sticks. The current scheme, which has been likened to a "matched set of furniture" by Boston architecture critic Robert Campbell, features three tall slender glass towers framed with terra cotta walls. Pederson told the Boston Globe that the intent was to create a high rise that made sense in Boston, a city that has an architectural pedigree of brick townhouses and warehouses. “In both types you have long masonry bearing walls at both sides with large openings in the front and rear” said Pederson. The two "bookend" towers will be occupied while the middle tower is intended as sculpture and has no program. One tower will hold a 200-300 room hotel topped by approximately 120 condos. The second one will contain 850,000 sq ft of office space. The lower floors of the entire complex will contain 70,000 sq ft of retail space. Sharon McHugh US Correspondent http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=11108

Didn't know where to post this, but it makes the most sense here... Trudeau Airport was mentioned on Jeopardy last night... here's the link to youtube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hHKgaqL5d8 The category was International Airports... they were given the name of the airport and they had to answer the city it is located in. The category begins at 7:08. Trudeau was worth $1000.

Ottawa sells buildings in $1.64B lease-back deal Aug 20, 2007 04:48 PM Canadian Press OTTAWA – The federal government has sold nine office properties to a Vancouver-based real-estate company for $1.64 billion, but will lease them back for the next 25 years. Larco Investments Ltd. made the purchase after what the government called "an extensive open, transparent and competitive process" involving properties in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Public Works Minister Michael Fortier says the government sought independent advice from Deutsche Bank before making the sale, concluding it is a fair deal for taxpayers, particularly since markets were favourable at the time. A government statement says the deal makes good sense because it transfers ownership risk for major capital costs to the private sector and ensures the buildings are properly maintained. It says the conditions of the leases are fair and stable, and Ottawa will maintain the right to name the buildings. Fortier says office space is a commodity and government does not need to own it to use it. The transaction increases the percentage of leased properties in the Public Works portfolio from to 47 per cent from 43.

Chevron had warned it couldn't clean up Canadian coastal oil spill Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Chevron+warned+couldn+clean+Canadian+coastal+spill/3048813/story.html#ixzz0oRKon7wr Someone knock sense into the Newfies and don't let Chevron drill for oil.

I have a question: Why would city officials allow Segafredo to have a cheap terrace blocking half of the sidewalk on Ste-Catherine yet at the same time refuse to allow Apple to pay for 3 less parking spots in front of its store? It dosn't make any sense. Corruption or incompetence? I would like to hear your views on this. Thank you.

Ontario: the Province that thinks it's Canada Amid regional grievances, McGuinty fights for a fair share of taxpayers' dollars MURRAY CAMPBELL From Saturday's Globe and Mail August 2, 2008 at 12:00 AM EDT Dalton McGuinty was doing a favour for reporters afflicted with summer-brain stupor. “Here's the news,” the Ontario Premier said, helpfully, after a speech late last month. “Ontarians are coming together to more effectively assert themselves in the face of an unfairness caused by the financial arrangements between us and Ottawa.” Indeed, it would be news if this coming-together was actually happening, and it would be momentous given the suggestion by the federal government this week that it is prepared to shift some economic powers to the provinces. But the residents of Canada's most populous province do not have an unbroken history of rising up as one to take on the federal government. Ontario is not Alberta, and the philosophy that provincial rights should be paramount has always had to compete with a powerful sense that Canada comes first. Mr. McGuinty embodies this duality. For more than three years, he has wasted few opportunities to make his claim that Ontario is being treated unfairly in Confederation because it receives, by the latest estimate, about $20-billion less in services from federal government than its taxpayers remit to Ottawa. He criticizes the federal equalization program – financed predominantly by Ontario taxpayers – for redistributing money to provinces that are more prosperous than his. He takes issue with health and other transfer payments that are less generous than those given to other provinces. And he asks why an unemployed worker in Ontario is treated more severely than in the rest of the country and why the Harper government wants to leave the province under-represented in the Commons. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty gestures during his public lecture 'Ontario's Place in the 21st century' at the London School of Economics and Political Science in London, Monday, May 19, 2008. Hanging over all this is the feeling in Ontario that the 1988 U.S. free-trade pact broke the bargain of Confederation in which Canadians bought their manufactured goods from Ontario in return for a recycling of some of its wealth through programs such as equalization. The Premier is always careful to say that he is a proud Canadian and that he understands his province has been blessed by geography and circumstances that give it a responsibility to share its wealth. But the Premier's sustained effort – reflected in his website fairness.ca – suggests a growing sense of regionalism in Ontario. “My friends, it is time to stand up for our province, time to stand up for Ontario,” he said in his speech last month to the Chamber of Commerce in London, Ont. He suggested that lessons could be learned from other provinces that have gone mano-a-mano with federal administrations although he shied away from emulating Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, who stormed out of one federal-provincial meeting in protest and then removed Canadian flags from provincial buildings. Ontarians who realize that Newfoundland has a much larger per-capita income than Ontario, thanks in part to $477-million in equalization payments this year may wish their Premier to be as aggressive. But while his tactics may be lower-key, Mr. McGuinty isn't going away. “It's becoming more and more urgent, and there's a continuing need to speak about it, because there hasn't been an appetite at the federal level to really engage in fixing the system,” said an official in the Premier's office. The question is whether Ontarians are likely to respond to his appeal or whether circumstances will transform Ontario into a province with a profound regional grievance. The trend line of estrangement from Ottawa suggests it is possible, but this has to be countered by the strong identification with Canada that Ontario residents have always shown. Mr. McGuinty recognizes other provinces will resent Ontario throwing its weight around. “There is a lazy caricature that is convenient for people, which people can resort to, which is that we're being greedy, we're being uncharitable, we're being un-Canadian,” he told the editorial board of The Globe and Mail in 2006. He also knows that talk of regionalism makes his voters uncomfortable. He is fond of comparing the province's role in Confederation to his own situation growing up as the eldest of 10 children. “My responsibility in the eyes of my parents could be summed up in one word: compliance,” he said in London. “Just be quiet and set a good example. Maybe there is a little bit of that to us here in Ontario.” Neither analysis deals completely with Ontario's complex, shifting history. The province had a very strong sense of identity right from the formation of Canada in 1867 but it also was proud that one of its own, John A. Macdonald, was its first prime minister. And Ontario was conscious that it owed its growing prosperity to the high-tariff walls erected as part of Macdonald's National Policy that sustained its manufacturing industries. But, as historian Randall White notes, long-serving premier Oliver Mowat (1872-1896) battled Macdonald for control of provincial resources (earning the nickname “the little tyrant”) and, later, both Howard Ferguson and Mitch Hepburn fought pitched battles with Ottawa over federal encroachment on provincial jurisdiction. Prevailing attitudes changed during the Second World War, which transformed Canada into a modern industrial state with Ontario at its centre. The postwar province was so diversified economically that it was touched by almost every federal policy. As Queen's University political economist Thomas Courchene has noted, “national policy had frequently had little choice but to be cast in a pro-Ontario light.” Leslie Frost believed that political relations had to reflect these economic ties. When he became Ontario's premier in 1949, he set about building a co-operative relationship with Ottawa. The province surrendered much of its taxing authority and agreed to the equalization scheme that vexes Mr. McGuinty. During Mr. Frost's 12 years in office, the old confrontations died away and the modern notion of Ontario as a helpful saviour of Confederation – exemplified by John Robarts' Confederation of Tomorrow conference in 1967 – took hold. So complete was this subsuming of Ontario's regional identity that historian Arthur Lower concluded in 1968 that the province had little collective will and asked in an article: “Does Ontario exist?” No one laughed and, indeed, historian Peter Oliver questioned seven years later why “anyone would attempt to write the history of a region which isn't.” Ontario was firmly by the federal government's side during the energy battles of the 1970s, supporting Ottawa's move, through the National Energy Program, to gain a larger share of Alberta's oil revenues. And Ontario forsook its old alliances with Quebec to side with the Trudeau government's push to patriate the Constitution and enact the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The MPs that Ontarians send to Ottawa are still more likely to represent the federal argument to Ontario than vice versa – Mr. McGuinty has found few allies in any federal government caucus – but MPPs at Queen's Park began to fall out of step in the 1980s. The Peterson government was impatient with Brian Mulroney's agenda of fiscal restraint and free trade. In particular, Ontario saw the free-trade pact with the United States – the end of the old National Policy – as evidence that Ottawa was promoting the rest of Canada at its expense. By the early 1990s, Bob Rae concluded that the country seemed to be “based on the premise that everyone else could speak ill of Ontario and that this inherently wealthy place would continue to bankroll Canada.” In a 1993 speech, he described Ontario as “the part of Canada that dare not speak its name.” Mr. McGuinty owes much to Mr. Rae's decision to engage a consulting firm to draft a cost-benefit analysis to buttress his belief that the structure of Confederation in the wake of the free-trade deal and cuts in transfer payments neglected Ontario. Mr. Rae's “fair shares federalism” argument is the precursor of the current premier's “fairness” campaign. Mr. Harris agreed that the structure of Confederation served Ontario ill. He, too, fought the federal government (often along with other premiers) on everything from employment insurance to the Kyoto greenhouse-gas protocol. But the federal government at the time was preoccupied with Quebec, after the wake of the 1995 referendum that narrowly kept that province in the country. The federal Liberals' stranglehold on Ontario gave Mr. Harris's Progressive Conservative government no allies on Parliament Hill and Ontario's fundamental objections remained. Mr. McGuinty has earned some concessions in the past three years but the broad-ranging reform of fiscal relations he is seeking eludes him. His efforts seem to resonate with voters who find the notion of a $20-billion “gap” easy to comprehend. One opinion poll earlier this year gave him two-to-one support over federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in their war of words over Ontario's economic strategy. But will 13 million Ontarians find a will to act collectively and heed their Premier's call to arms? Mr. White concedes only that the province “is gradually recovering some sense of a regional identity it lost after the Second World War.” Mr. Courchene, too, is careful about predicting the future. “They're thinking of themselves as meriting better treatment from the federal government,” he said. “Does that make them a region? I don't know.” Certainly not in the way that Quebec is distinctive or the West feels it has been victimized by Bay Street and the NEP. It is also hard to define Ontario: The northwest feels closer to Manitoba and there is little identification with Toronto in the eastern part of the province. In addition, immigrants – and Ontario has been getting 125,000 or more a year – have only to look at their new passports to discern their allegiance. But circumstances may yet push Ontario into regional belligerence as the belief grows that the equalization program is unsustainable. Its taxpayers contribute 40 per cent of the cost of the scheme – $13.6-billion now, and growing by leaps and bounds – and this burden rises every year whether its economy grows or not. Conversely, while Alberta's oil revenues are part of the equation that determines payouts, the revenues themselves are off limits to the federal treasury. Mr. Courchene calculates that, partly as a result of this scheme, Ontario's per-capita revenues trail every other province. The prediction that Ontario will soon become a have-not province and qualify for payments that, absurdly, are largely funded by its own taxpayers casts a harsh light on the scheme's shortcomings. Mr. Courchene calls this prospect “fiscalamity,” and if Ontarians catch his drift Mr. McGuinty will have a blank cheque to throw some weight around. The eldest child may decide he's fed up with setting a good example and looking after the other kids.

Photographer Chris Forsyth on the Montreal Metro, Going Underground, and Overlooked Architecture Montreal-based photographer Chris Forsyth doesn’t see his city the way others do — that much is evident from his body of work, which includes rooftop photos of the Montreal skyline, nocturnal shots taken from the arm of a crane and now, images from the underground. The Montreal Metro Project is Forsyth’s latest series, documenting the often overlooked architecture of the urban subway since October 2014. Composed of 68 stations, each designed by a different architect between the 60s and 70s, the Montreal Metro system is as diverse and idiosyncratic as the city it underpins. Forsyth captures the stations empty of passengers, highlighting their architecture and reframing them in a manner rarely experienced. ArchDaily spoke to Forsyth about the series and the creative process behind it. Read his responses and view selected images from The Montreal Metro project after the break. Is there a reason for capturing these usually crowded urban environments without people? I often avoid having people in my photos for a few reasons. Firstly, due to the nature of my photos, the length of the exposure rarely works with people. When shooting with shutter speeds around 1 second, you either have to get lucky and hope people stand still enough, or avoid people all together. But people do make spaces much more interesting in certain situations. They offer a sense of scale that’s necessary for certain images, and unnecessary for others. Secondly, photographing on private property, I have to be conscious of others. I’m not allowed to photograph STM employees strictly, and out of general consideration, I avoid photographing people to avoid disruption. What message about this overlooked architecture do you hope to convey through the Montreal Metro Project? I hope to show that beautiful architecture and design is accessible and present in all spaces (with exceptions of course). In the metros, even the tiling of each station and the spacing of the signage was meticulously considered. The color of the trains, which were at one point supposed to be red, the city’s color, went through much debate too. I just want to show how beautiful it can be if you take the time to really look at the stations. Just take a moment to walk around and look every once in a while. How much is your perception of a city altered by experiencing it from underground? My sense of space and distance is drastically altered when taking the metro. I can hop on the metro in one neighborhood, travel the distance of 5 stations in a matter of minutes, and find myself disoriented at another station in a completely different part of the city. When traveling underground in dark tunnels, you lose a sense of time and distance. It’s not like driving at street level where you can connect A to B by streets and landmarks. When you’re underground, you only have the design of stations to tell you where you are. For how long has this project been ongoing, and what sparked your initial interest in metro stations? The project has been ongoing for about 6 months now. Taking the metro every day for several years now, I developed an obsession of sorts. I found the story behind the system interesting, from the planning and construction, to the reason behind why the metros ride on rubber tires as opposed to steel wheels. The more I learn about it, the more I’m intrigued. Not to mention, during the winter it’s a great place to hide from the cold and find inspiration. Is there any other “overlooked” architecture that you hope to explore in the future? I just love architecture, design, and urban spaces. I’m interested in photographing everything from the interiors of factories, to the architecture of holdout buildings as well as more commonplace architecture of course. The Montreal Metro Project can be viewed here.