Save St. Monica's

11/29/2025

SAINT MONICA'S PARISH CHRISTMAS CARNIVAL
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2025 - 12 NOON

Come celebrate the festive season with the St. Monica's parish cmmunity on Sunday December 7 from 12 noon to 3 p.m.

Wear an ugly sweater for the Ugly Sweater Fashion Show. Enjoy Christma pancakes with hot chocolate and marshmellows. There will be games and prizes and a singalong with Santa.

See you in the parish hall, 6405 Terrebonne. $15 family dicounts available.

11/21/2025

The next borough council meeting is Nov 26 2025 at the borough office on Decarie. I urge everyone in this group to attend .

11/20/2025

Several of our readers have alerted us that the first regular Borough Council meeting of the new term is in a week's time.

That will allow those in the St. Monica community who wish to address the new Council to do so: Here is the information that was conveyed to us:

NOVEMBER 26 7 P.M - FIRST REGULAR COTE DES NEIGES - NOTRE DAME DE GRACE BOROUGH COUNCIL MEETING

PRESIDED BY MAYOR STEPHANIE VALENZUELA.

ALL WELCOME !

The first Borough Council meeting of this new term is Wednesday November 26.

This regular meeting starts at 7 p.m and will be presided by Mayor Stephanie Valenzuela launching the 2025-2029 term.

The meeting is at the Borough Hall at 5201 Decarie and we everyone to attend.

Those wishing to ask questions can register with the Clerk between 6:15 and 6:45 p.m.

This meeting provides an opportunity to get to know the new faces at the Borough Council and learn about the changes they hope to make in the Borough over the next years.

It will also afford an opportunity to see if the new Council is more attuned and better able to work with St. Monica's. We hear that Father Jaison and the wardens beliee that the parish will enjoy far better relations with the Borough than it has over the apst eighteen months.

11/02/2025

11/01/2025

We encourage everyone to go out and vote tomorrow. You can find your voting station here:

10/21/2025

MONTREAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION

VOTING STARTS FRIDAY

We urge everyone to exercise their democratic rights and cast their ballots in Montreal's municipal election.

Residents of Cote des Neiges - Notre Dame de Grace Borough cast three votes. You will be handed ballots for Mayor of Montreal, Borough Mayor and City Councillor for the district you reside in.

Voting starts this Friday, October 24 when you can vote at the Returning Officer's location. The Advance Poll is Sunday, October 26 between 12 noon and 8 pm and is a convenient opportunity to get your vote into the ballot box.

Voters can also express their preference on Monday, October 27 or Tuesday, October 28 between 10 am and 8 pm with a final option being Wednesday, October 29 between 10 am and 2 pm.

The regular voting day is Sunday, November 2 between 10 and 8 pm.

There is a great deal of confusion about where to vote.

We understand that Montreal's Chief Electoral Officer has engaged a private firm to deliver cards which will alert voters as to who the candidates are and where they should go to vote.

We hope people receive this vital information soon. At the time of writing, few in our milieu have gotten the communication from the city.

However, the information is available online and can be consulted via the link below. Insert your postal code and civic number and you will be taken to a page that provides your November 2 voting station.

There are tabs that you can click which will open to your Advance Poll station for October 26 and details as to the location of the office of the Returning Officer.

We urge everyone reading this to spend a few minutes on this site and know where their voting station is located. We hope that the voting information will appear at your home but we are unsure that it will.

The private firm used by the city apparently does not have access to mailboxes in apartment buildings. We are hearing that in some buildings the notices were left on the stairs outside the buildings or on the floor in the lobbies.

We feel this may depress turnout and that is indeed unfortunate.

We thank all those who have supported the Save Saint Monica's group over the past eighteen months. We will provide further information over the coming days and ask each and everyone of you to vote in this pivotal municipal election.

10/06/2025

Hello Everyone,

Here's how you verify if you are registered on Montreal's electoral list:

If the entry contains an error, you can modify the search.Otherwise, you must register or have your information changed in order to vote.

09/26/2025

Hello Everyone,

We encourage all out readers to vote in the upcoming municipal elections. We say elections in the plural as every municipality in Quebec will choose their Mayors and Councillors for the 2025 - 2029 term on November 2.

While some of our supporters, readers and friends reside in Cote Saint Luc, Montreal West, Hampstead or other suburbs, most of you live in the Borough of Cote des Neiges - Notre Dame de Grace and we have already had questions as to how the municipal election works.

We’re thus pleased to provide this short guide and we’ll start providing you with useful information as it comes to our attention

HOW MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS WORK

Montreal has 19 Boroughs and election rules are slightly different between several of the them. However, if you live in Cote des Neiges - Notre Dame de Grace, a Borough of 185,000 people, here’s how it works:

- Election Day is November 2 although there will be advanced voting days as well.

- You will receive 3 separate ballots:

Mayor of Montreal

Mayor of the Borough of Cote des Neiges - Notre Dame de Grace

City Councillor for your district

Here’s how that works:

Mayor of Montreal - Everyone no matter where they live in the city receives the same ballot for Mayor. Choose one candidate.

Borough Mayor of Cote des Neiges - Notre Dame de Grace - if you are a registered voter in the Borough, you receive the same ballot for Borough Mayor. Choose one candidate.

City Councillor - The Borough of Cote des Neiges - Notre Dame de Grace has 5 distinct districts. You only get the City Councillor ballot for the district you live in. The five districts in the Borough are from west to east: Loyola, Notre Dame de Grace, Snowdon, Cote des Neiges, Darlington.

Most of our readers will be in the western part of the Borough. Grand Boulevard divides Loyola district from Notre Dame de Grace Borough.

Election day is Sunday, November 2 from 10 a.m to 8 p.m. There is an advance poll day on Sunday, October 26 from 12 p.m to 8 p.m and there will be opportunities to vote at your local election office.

Elections Montreal will send voters information in the mail indicating where and when to vote as well as indicating the candidates for Mayor, Borough Mayor and City Councillor.

Further information can be found on the Elections Montreal web sit:

08/13/2025

Hello Everyone,

We have been alerted that Soraya Martinez, the Mayoralty candidate for the Ensemble Montreal party, made some important promises on the Aaron Rand program yesterday on CJAD radio.

Following up on a press conference held the day before, the candidate told Mr. Rand that if she is elected Mayor, there will be a thorough audit of the entire bike path network in her first 100 days in office.

She stated clearly that bike paths that work will be kept, those with potential but with evident problems will be made safer or redesigned and those that are poorly designed or have almost no usage will be removed. She stressed the need for dialogue and meeting needs of various user groups.

We applaud this mature vision. In our view the current administration has divided Montrealers into warring factions over bike lanes. Mayor Plante and her party have been completely dogmatic about bike lanes ignoring issues raised by impacted stakeholders.

The situation at Saint Monica’s is instructive. For more than a year, the parish was unable to legally conduct funerals and weddings . It took an intervention by the municipal Ombudsman to force the Borough Mayor and her team to agree to lower the sidewalk to allow hearses and wedding vehicles to access the church and rectory.

Clearly, it is unacceptable that the future of the parish was put in jeopardy to accommodate a bike path that could have and should have been installed differently. It is even more shocking to note that for a year Mayor Plante’s party to which the Borough Mayor and the two current NDG Councillors belong, belittled the parish for “complaining”. Thankfully the democratic structures worked and the Ombudsman’s recommendation has provided some relief.

But while the situation at Saint Monica’s is more liveable, we note that the English Montreal School Board continues to have issues with the safety situation at Saint Monica’s School and residents still complain about the lack of parking and the changes to traffic patterns in the neighbourhood.

Ms. Martinez’s audit would allow an objective analysis of the Terrebonne bike path to proceed. Should the bike path be redesigned such as making it bidirectional on one side of the street ? Should it be shortened with the bike path removed for certain portions ? The current team has been unequivocal in defending the status quo and trying unfairly to portray those who raise valid questions as opposed to “sustainable transport”.

An audit would allow public input. It would also allow the public to obtain data as to the real usage of bike paths. You can believe your eyes or the claims of Mayor Plante’s supporters that bike lanes have “huge” numbers of users. We hear from residents all the time and they say almost no one uses many of the bike paths such as on Walkley or Montclair.

Municipal government is supposed to be about consultation and dialogue. That simply has not existed in our neighbourhood over the last years. Decisions imposed by the Borough Council majority are ideological not pragmatic. Those who feel this to be the case may wish to discuss the audit proposal at greater length with Ms. Martinez’s local candidates.