Latest news with #EnsembleMontreal
CTV News
24-07-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Businesses, residents raise safety concerns about site of April fire, vacant building
There are concerns about squatters and safety issues along a section of St-Laurent Boulevard in downtown and business owners are calling on the city to do something about it. (CTV News) On St. Laurent Boulevard, between Maisonneuve and Ontario streets, there is a stretch of business owners that have been voicing concerns over safety and security. Back in April, a fire destroyed a building and since then, a security perimeter has been placed around the site, as well as around another building that is empty. It has decreased foot traffic and led to a decline in business for some in the area. 'Being surrounded by the fencing and having issues inside and having employees not feeling safe coming to work … and clients not being able to find the store — it's just, like, what can you do?' said Hillary McLellan, manager of operations at the Eva B. vintage clothing store. CTV News spoke with some other businesses that also have safety concerns. One man said that squatters have been living at the back of the building. Since May, the city's opposition party has been calling for the demolition of the empty building. 'Because what we realize is that people don't feel safe and the situation has been normalized. That's something that we were really worried about. So obviously, we were asking for the administration to act and unfortunately, nothing has been done in the past two months and a half,' said Ensemble Montreal's Alba Zuniga Ramos. In a statement to CTV News, the city says it is aware of the problems, adding back in May it received a report stating that the structural integrity of the neighbouring building is compromised and the borough has plans to demolish it. The city says it is confident that after the demolition, the situation will improve. It was supposed to start the work last week, but it has yet to happen and it's not clear why there has been a delay.
CTV News
14-07-2025
- Climate
- CTV News
This Montreal street keeps getting flooded; residents' despair and bills are growing
Garages, basements and other pieces of property were damaged again in Montreal's Saint-Leonard borough. In Montreal's Saint-Leonard borough, many homes on Belmont Street were again flooded on Sunday night. It is the second year in a row that homeowners have seen their basements and garages fill up with water, the street blocked off, and furniture destroyed. Many on the street had finished repairing and renovating their living spaces from flooding in 2024. Resident Karim Chemaa said it's scary because residents do not know if flooding will happen in the coming months or years. 'It could happen another time,' he said. 'We don't know.' City politicians held news scrums on Monday to speak about the flood response and what is being done to respond to the regular heavy rains that cause flooding. 'Unfortunately, I'm not mayor of Montreal,' said Ensemble Montreal leader Soraya Martinez Ferrada. 'I'm a citizen of the east part of Montreal, I've been flooded myself four times. I understand the frustration. I understand that when it rains, you want to be there because you're scared of what's going to happen to your house.' @ctvmontreal Residents on Belmont Street in Montreal say they're angry after their basements were flooded for the second year in a row. tiktok viral trending mtl montreal weather rain storm flood ♬ original sound - CTV Montreal - CTV Montreal Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said the heavy rain on Sunday and the rain last year during storm Debbie regularly puts incredible pressure on the city's sewer systems. 'No system can, in fact, absorb so much rainwater so quickly, despite all the efforts our administration is making to make our city more resilient to this kind of torrential rain,' she wrote on X. She said the city is investing heavily in adapting to the regular downpours. 'We are moving in the right direction, and quickly, but zero risk does not exist, and this is a new reality to which we must respond,' she said. 'Today, my team and I will be at work to assess the situation and assist Montrealers who are affected by the flooding.' Plante said on Monday that there are dozens of small areas in Montreal, such as Belmont Street, that are regularly flooded and that they are not all the same. 'Sometimes they are very small, it can be just a piece of a street and other places it's more like a few streets altogether, and for each of those vulnerable areas, the potential solutions are varied,' she said. 'What we're trying to do now is to consider everything.' She added that some boroughs were more affected than others, particularly in the north of the city. Those affected can contact 311 for help.
CBC
02-07-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Ensemble Montréal mayoral candidate pledges $1M for community housing initiatives
Mayoral hopeful Soraya Martinez Ferrada, the leader of Ensemble Montréal, said that if elected she would allot $1 million to "empower community organizations and expand successful housing initiatives" to prevent families from ending up on the streets. Community organization programs she aims to reinforce include La Maison du Père 's rent assistance bank, which provides interest-free loans covering up to three months of unpaid rent. Those loans must be repaid within five years. "I want July 1 to no longer be a tragedy where families end up in hotels for months or on the street. These are preventable situations," Martinez Ferrada said in a news release published on Wednesday. The former federal tourism minister and self-proclaimed "mayor of housing" found herself in hot water after the Journal de Montréal reported on her collecting a security deposit from a tenant who is renting out her family home — a violation of Quebec law. She previously announced her intentions to abolish the city's " Bylaw for a Diverse Metropolis," which aimed to have developers include social housing in new projects but failed to produce any such unit within two years of its implementation. Martinez Ferrada said at a news conference on Wednesday that she is committed to creating a housing bank to reserve affordable housing units on the market and transfer the leases to "nearly 100 households without housing on July 1" — an initiative presented in Ensemble Montréal's 2021 campaign. She said her party would create a reliable municipal rental registry to protect renters' rights, noting that the current registry is spearheaded by Vivre en Ville and is not mandatory. A report by Statistics Canada released last week shows the average asking price of rent in Montreal has shot up nearly 71 per cent since 2019. Projet Montréal commits to new guarantee fund Martinez Ferrada's announcement follows that of Projet Montréal mayoral candidate Luc Rabouin. Monday, Rabouin said his party would implement a $100 million guarantee fund to help non-profit organizations secure funding for affordable housing. "We will guarantee from 10 to 15 per cent of the amount of the banking loan to be sure they get all the money they need," Rabouin said. He noted that his party would mandate the city's municipal housing office to contact all tenants for whom Quebec's rental tribunal (TAL) issues an eviction notice to assist them in finding another residence. Rabouin said he intends to do more to reduce the wait time for issuing construction permits.
National Observer
02-07-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
Montreal's move to biweekly trash pick up is a slow process
The garbage may be piling up and causing some disgruntlement on the sidewalks of a few Montreal streets, but municipal officials say it's all part of a plan to become a zero-waste city by the year 2030. And they say their plan is working. "People are making progress in their thinking, realizing that when they participate in the recycling collection, the organic waste collection, that there is not much waste left," Marie-Andrée Mauger said. As a member of the city's executive committee in charge of ecological transition in Mayor Valérie Plante 's Projet Montréal party, Mauger is the point person overseeing a switch that has reduced the frequency of garbage collection in some neighbourhoods to a biweekly pickup. Three boroughs —St-Laurent, Verdun and Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve — have started implementing the plan, which is also a part of Plante's pledge to "make Montreal the greenest city in North America." But residents in Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve are not thrilled with the stench. Jonathan Haiun, a spokesman for Ligue 33, a community group in eastern Montreal that advocates for quality of life issues, said spacing out the collection hasn't had the desired effect since it was brought in late last year. "The problem seems to be some people who just aren't composting or at least not doing it properly, and then a lot of the stuff that we do find in the garbage is just a mix of everything," Haiun said. "What we have been asking for since the beginning is that they go back to collecting garbage every week because we don't feel that that's actually an ecological measure." According to most recent survey results conducted for the city and obtained by Ensemble Montreal, the opposition party at city hall, some 54 per cent of residents polled consider switching to trash pickup every two weeks 'unacceptable.' Meanwhile, other major Canadian cities have had biweekly pickup for years: Toronto since 2008, Halifax in 1999 and Vancouver in 2013. In each case, there were growing pains but all happened hand-in-hand with organic waste collection. Mauger said she expects once composting extends to 100 per cent of the city by the end of 2025, things will begin to shift. According to the Leger city survey, less than half of Montrealers use the so-called brown bin to dispose of organic waste and their knowledge of what goes in the bin has only risen by one per cent, to 41 per cent, since 2021. The survey results aren't surprising and transition rarely comes without complaint, said Karel Ménard, a Montreal environmentalist. "I think it's a shared responsibility between the citizens, and the municipality, which has an obligation to have a clean and healthy city," said Ménard, head of Front commun québécois pour une gestion écologique des déchets, an organization that promotes ecological waste management. "Also, I would even say, the producers, because what we often see in the alleys are short-lived, disposable items, so there's also a problem of overconsumption." Many municipalities in the Greater Montreal area and elsewhere in Quebec, have switched to biweekly pickup, if not every three weeks or monthly in some cases. But Greater Montreal is mainly suburbs with single-family homes, which isn't the case in the city's boroughs. "There are 900,000 doors in Montreal, plus 40,000 businesses, industries, and institutions that have municipal collection," Mauger said. 'We estimate that eighty per cent of the buildings in Montreal don't have their own driveway, so it's not really one size fits all." The zero waste plan places an emphasis on reducing food waste, more composting and recycling. The city has also prohibited the use of single-use plastic items, like cups, utensils and straws. Opposition Coun. Stephanie Valenzuela of Ensemble Montréal said the polling results suggest Projet Montréal has a lot of work to do. "The results really speak to the amount of energy and investment the city has been putting into informing residents on the goals that we're trying to achieve," Valenzuela said. Valenzuela said the public reaction also contrasts with how the administration has portrayed itself as being innovative and avant-garde when it comes to the environment. "We've seen that when it comes to their big promises, when it comes to the environment, they're actually missing the mark," Valenzuela said. But Mauger is confident the city will be able to extend biweekly pickup to all 19 Montreal boroughs by 2029. 'What we see in this poll, it's also that three-quarters of the population are aware of the problem of sending too much waste to the landfill that's filling up at a very high pace,' Mauger said. 'And they want to do more to be part of the solution … so that's really promising too.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2025.
Global News
02-07-2025
- General
- Global News
Montreal's move to biweekly trash pick up proving to be a slow process
The garbage may be piling up and causing some disgruntlement on the sidewalks of a few Montreal streets, but municipal officials say it's all part of a plan to become a zero-waste city by the year 2030. And they say their plan is working. 'People are making progress in their thinking, realizing that when they participate in the recycling collection, the organic waste collection, that there is not much waste left,' Marie-Andrée Mauger said. As a member of the city's executive committee in charge of ecological transition in Mayor Valérie Plante's Projet Montréal party, Mauger is the point person overseeing a switch that has reduced the frequency of garbage collection in some neighbourhoods to a biweekly pickup. Three boroughs —St-Laurent, Verdun and Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve — have started implementing the plan, which is also a part of Plante's pledge to 'make Montreal the greenest city in North America.' But residents in Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve are not thrilled with the stench. Story continues below advertisement Jonathan Haiun, a spokesman for Ligue 33, a community group in eastern Montreal that advocates for quality of life issues, said spacing out the collection hasn't had the desired effect since it was brought in late last year. 'The problem seems to be some people who just aren't composting or at least not doing it properly, and then a lot of the stuff that we do find in the garbage is just a mix of everything,' Haiun said. 'What we have been asking for since the beginning is that they go back to collecting garbage every week because we don't feel that that's actually an ecological measure.' According to most recent survey results conducted for the city and obtained by Ensemble Montreal, the opposition party at city hall, some 54 per cent of residents polled consider switching to trash pickup every two weeks 'unacceptable.' Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Meanwhile, other major Canadian cities have had biweekly pickup for years: Toronto since 2008, Halifax in 1999 and Vancouver in 2013. In each case, there were growing pains but all happened hand-in-hand with organic waste collection. Mauger said she expects once composting extends to 100 per cent of the city by the end of 2025, things will begin to shift. According to the Leger city survey, less than half of Montrealers use the so-called brown bin to dispose of organic waste and their knowledge of what goes in the bin has only risen by one per cent, to 41 per cent, since 2021. Story continues below advertisement The survey results aren't surprising and transition rarely comes without complaint, said Karel Ménard, a Montreal environmentalist. 'I think it's a shared responsibility between the citizens, and the municipality, which has an obligation to have a clean and healthy city,' said Ménard, head of Front commun québécois pour une gestion écologique des déchets, an organization that promotes ecological waste management. 'Also, I would even say, the producers, because what we often see in the alleys are short-lived, disposable items, so there's also a problem of overconsumption.' Many municipalities in the Greater Montreal area and elsewhere in Quebec, have switched to biweekly pickup, if not every three weeks or monthly in some cases. But Greater Montreal is mainly suburbs with single-family homes, which isn't the case in the city's boroughs. 'There are 900,000 doors in Montreal, plus 40,000 businesses, industries, and institutions that have municipal collection,' Mauger said. 'We estimate that eighty per cent of the buildings in Montreal don't have their own driveway, so it's not really one size fits all.' The zero waste plan places an emphasis on reducing food waste, more composting and recycling. The city has also prohibited the use of single-use plastic items, like cups, utensils and straws. Opposition Coun. Stephanie Valenzuela of Ensemble Montréal said the polling results suggest Projet Montréal has a lot of work to do. Story continues below advertisement 'The results really speak to the amount of energy and investment the city has been putting into informing residents on the goals that we're trying to achieve,' Valenzuela said. Valenzuela said the public reaction also contrasts with how the administration has portrayed itself as being innovative and avant-garde when it comes to the environment. 'We've seen that when it comes to their big promises, when it comes to the environment, they're actually missing the mark,' Valenzuela said. But Mauger is confident the city will be able to extend biweekly pickup to all 19 Montreal boroughs by 2029. 'What we see in this poll, it's also that three-quarters of the population are aware of the problem of sending too much waste to the landfill that's filling up at a very high pace,' Mauger said. 'And they want to do more to be part of the solution … so that's really promising too.'
