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  #341  
Old Posted Aug 30, 2018, 5:32 PM
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It's guess it's all subjective. What more can be written about Montreal that hasn't already been said? My wife and I are here right now, and we're feeling a lotta love. St. Laurent, Mile End, the Plateau, the majestic residential near McGill and in Westmount, the terrific Picasso exhibit at the Musee des Beaux-Arts, two delicious taco spots (La Capital in Chinatown, Tacos Tin Tan on Rachel), the enjoyably Seinfeldesque banter with the old guy at St. Viateur Bagel, the dependably friendly and unpretentious manner of every single person, young or old, to whom I declare in French that I'm practicing French so can we please speak French?

I could go on. And I mean that literally. There are several seat-of-our-pants observations about the social aspects of Montreal that my wife and I are nursing while we're here, though they could very well be banal, clichéd commonplaces. Maybe I'll jot them down in the forum anyway after the trip. Just for fun.
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  #342  
Old Posted Aug 30, 2018, 11:58 PM
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I like Fairmount bagels better. Check out H-M + NDG.
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  #343  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2018, 10:13 PM
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Originally Posted by kool maudit View Post
Interesting, and perhaps reflective of the fact that my impressions came from a vacation and not a real move.
Interesting thread. As someone who grow up in the6ix, I too have noticed that the city's mentality has done a complete 180, shedding its old Scottish Presbyterian roots as a staid second-city to becoming the shining metropolis of Anglo-Canada. It now has a sense of place, gripped by optimism, and a burgeoning culture and style that's distinctively Torontonian.

At the same time, I was surprised by your observation regarding Montreal's main arteries. I was in Montreal for several weekends over the summer (SO is Quebecoise), and the streets were bustling and overflowing with people. Montreal still has a "je ne sais quoi" about its streetlife that I feel Toronto lacks, and our observation was that people seem to stay out later at night there relative to Toronto.

and the Quebecois definitely know how to throw a party - the Jazz Fest, Juste Pour Rire, Osheaga were all buzzing.

Montreal may have been late to the party in the current development cycle, but it seems to be in a good place at the moment with the new projects on hand. If the pro-business CAQ wins the provincial elections, I think it'll only give Montreal another leg up, and maybe even set the city up for the next golden age. I think even Torontonians would be happy to see more growth spill into Montreal to take some pressure off our own city.

Last edited by P'tit Renard; Sep 6, 2018 at 10:24 PM.
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  #344  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2018, 10:38 PM
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Let me give you an equally emotional, equally unempirical and biased example of mine to compare to your sentiments about Montreal. I left Toronto in 2008 and returned last year for family reasons. In the intervening time, everyone I knew and cared about moved north of Bloor street to areas between Dupont and Saint Clair. The only guy I know who stayed south of Bloor moved way east to Little India and started a family. It's funny. You go up to St. Clair and Bathurst or walk along the much more urbanistically inconsistent Dupont restaurant strip, and it feels like the whole graduating class of 2005 is there. When I travel south of Bloor, I feel like we all collectively left this part of the city to the tattooed under 30-somethings, or people who made a lot of money on Bitcoin and bought a whole house. The writing is on the wall: we are going to get pushed further north into suburbia. I don't feel that this generational segregation is as much of a force in Montreal. I don't feel that people who live in the Plateau are counting down the days until the kids push them out to Ahuntsic and then, eventually, Laval. There is further pressure in Toronto given that the size of the decent urban fabric is smaller than in Montreal. I don't think this is wholly a product of housing prices, either. I think there is an underlying mentality of "if you want to inhabit these 4 square miles south of Bloor, be creative and productive or rich, or get out".
I agree that the forces of gentrification are more noticeable in Toronto than Montreal, though it's more about absolute population growth than an "underlying mentality". If the Montreal region was seeing population growth of 100K+ a year it would also be pushing out artists and long-time denizens of plateau and mile-end.

Moreover, the "pushing-out" that you lament - I see it as a positive. It absolutely puts more and more pressure on city-hall to loosen zoning restrictions, so that we don't have 70-80% of the city's area walled off from new development. Eventually, the politicians will have to cave (or risk killing the golden goose), and development plans like the Avenues will encroach on these precious neighborhoods slowly and discretely.
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  #345  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2018, 8:24 PM
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Originally Posted by mistercorporate View Post
More about the French language university in Toronto: https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/new...ticle36110367/

There's a lot of info on the project on UT, not sure if I'm allowed to link to that site here. Basically, it's going to be built on Toronto's East Bayfront, among the other new developments, and it will also house another French college and media organization, making it a sort of French hub for the GTA. Most of the students will be coming from Toronto, London and Windsor apparently, along with international students from the Francophonie.
Doug Ford's government just announced it is cancelling this project.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle...wxdrpzvq0achk8
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  #346  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2018, 9:43 PM
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  #347  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2018, 9:46 PM
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I'm trying to figure out if this is the francophone university campus they literally just announced for the Distillery District earlier this month. It seems like it is? I guess when they announced they were cancelling the other three satellite campuses they just forgot about this one. Which wouldn't be surprising at all, really.
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  #348  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2018, 11:22 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
Doug Ford's government just announced it is cancelling this project.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle...wxdrpzvq0achk8
I guess I was more surprised when it seemed to survive when the three other proposed campuses were cancelled a few weeks back.
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  #349  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2018, 11:32 PM
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What was the Liberal Party's rationale for having a French-language university in Toronto, of all places, anyway? Doesn't uOttawa fulfill this role in Ontario already? Isn't Toronto 400 km west or south of where the majority of Ontario's francophones live?

If Toronto even has a foot in the Francophonie, it's because it has a growing number of immigrants from French-speaking countries [relative to other English Canadian cities], but I doubt that these are the people this school would be catering to, since almost every French-speaking immigrant to Toronto is fluent in English and made a deliberate choice to move here for that reason.

Whatever motive there was to make Toronto one of the Francophone poles of Canada seemed a bit contrived.
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  #350  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2018, 11:41 PM
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Originally Posted by hipster duck View Post
What was the Liberal Party's rationale for having a French-language university in Toronto, of all places, anyway? Doesn't uOttawa fulfill this role in Ontario already? Isn't Toronto 400 km west or south of where the majority of Ontario's francophones live?

If Toronto even has a foot in the Francophonie, it's because it has a growing number of immigrants from French-speaking countries [relative to other English Canadian cities], but I doubt that these are the people this school would be catering to, since almost every French-speaking immigrant to Toronto is fluent in English and made a deliberate choice to move here for that reason.

Whatever motive there was to make Toronto one of the Francophone poles of Canada seemed a bit contrived.
I doubt that was a consideration in the choice of Toronto.
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  #351  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 12:04 AM
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There are many people here who would like to develop their french language skills and knowledge in Toronto, many of them are just bilingual expats from Montreal. Not necessarily people from the francophonie. None of the students I know studying in French programs in Glendon are of francophonie origin.
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  #352  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 12:06 AM
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It wasn't really the Ontario Liberal Party that absolutely wanted a French university in Toronto.

The Franco-Ontarian community (which tends to massively support the Liberals) has been lobbying the Ontario government for a couple of decades for a French-first university. The finally made some real progress on this with the Wynne Liberals. The Ontario government was fairly willing to go along with what the community recommended as far as a location was concerned.

To the astonishment of many, the Franco-Ontarian braintrust recommended Toronto as the location for the university. As opposed to more obvious choices like Ottawa and Sudbury.

There are a few reasons for this.

One is that the Franco-Ontarian braintrust has delusions of grandeur that they're going to be able to establish a decent francophone beach-head in the biggest city in the province and the country. (It's true that the francophone population in the GTA has grown, but let's be serious - there are more francophones within a 2 km radius of my house than there are in all of Toronto.)

Another is that the University of Ottawa has always been extremely hostile to any plan for a French-first university in Ontario. Because it wants to keep that niche for itself - even though it fills it very imperfectly as a bilingual institution whose programs lean increasingly towards English. But uOttawa has lots of friends in the Franco-Ontarian braintrust. If it was going to happen, they couldn't stop it, but they could stop it from being located in Ottawa.
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  #353  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 1:28 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
Doug Ford's government just announced it is cancelling this project.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle...wxdrpzvq0achk8
This is certainly unfortunate, hopefully when the financial situation turns around we'll invest in cultural/educational institutions like this again.
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  #354  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 1:54 PM
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This is certainly unfortunate, hopefully when the financial situation turns around we'll invest in cultural/educational institutions like this again.
I fully realize that Ontario's deficit is daunting, but obviously a big part of this decision is political, as opposed to strictly financial.
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  #355  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 2:06 PM
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I fully realize that Ontario's deficit is daunting, but obviously a big part of this decision is political, as opposed to strictly financial.
What was the political reason?
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  #356  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 2:14 PM
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We're in the wrong thread, but Franco-Ontario does not vote Ford Conservative, does it?
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  #357  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 2:21 PM
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We're in the wrong thread,
Well, there is no "right" thread for this, is there? Nor should there be a thread just for this issue.

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but Franco-Ontario does not vote Ford Conservative, does it?
No, they generally don't, though they did elect a couple this time 'round.

Even so, I don't want to be overly dramatic but I think it's safe to say that in many "heartland" Ontario Tory circles, there isn't much sympathy for the Frenchies. Even in 2018. It's not even close to a boiling point but it's still there beneath the surface.
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  #358  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2018, 2:40 PM
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Well, there is no "right" thread for this, is there? Nor should there be a thread just for this issue.



No, they generally don't, though they did elect a couple this time 'round.

Even so, I don't want to be overly dramatic but I think it's safe to say that in many "heartland" Ontario Tory circles, there isn't much sympathy for the Frenchies. Even in 2018. It's not even close to a boiling point but it's still there beneath the surface.
It should be in the Ontario politics thread or the Ontario really has gone down the tubes thread, istm. (I'm not actually sure what the distinction between those two threads is supposed to be).
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  #359  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2018, 6:20 PM
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I’m late to the thread, but after a number of years in Toronto I think it’s undoubtedly a great place to visit, but not a great place to live if you earn under $80,000/year (and are single).

The cost-benefit ratio for me to live in Toronto is just too poor compared to almost every other city in Canada. Average rent there has skyrocketed in the past year to the point that the city has now surpassed Vancouver for average rent. The rest of the GTA isn’t much better.

I will be leaving Toronto in the new year. It’s not worth it for me at this stage in my life; nightlife and entertainment are not priorities for me and most of what Toronto otherwise offers can be found in most other Canadian cities.
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  #360  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2018, 7:03 PM
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I’m late to the thread, but after a number of years in Toronto I think it’s undoubtedly a great place to visit, but not a great place to live if you earn under $80,000/year (and are single).

The cost-benefit ratio for me to live in Toronto is just too poor compared to almost every other city in Canada. Average rent there has skyrocketed in the past year to the point that the city has now surpassed Vancouver for average rent. The rest of the GTA isn’t much better.

I will be leaving Toronto in the new year. It’s not worth it for me at this stage in my life; nightlife and entertainment are not priorities for me and most of what Toronto otherwise offers can be found in most other Canadian cities.
It's fun to live in a big, expensive city for awhile. Especially during your most creative/exploratory years. There's things that Toronto offers that not many other places offer outside of the largest cities in the world.

There's a point where that wears off though, especially if you're in a field where you can relocate and receive a similar salary. Then the downsides make themselves much more apparent - what you net after living costs is much smaller, getting to work is a hassle, etc.

I've said before if you move to an area that's relatively close (e.g. Kitchener-Waterloo), you get 90% of the benefits of the city without nearly as much of the hassle. Or live in a smaller city (such as Ottawa) that has many of the amenities that larger places have.
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