Life in General

Back in Oz

John Quiggin3 Comments

Hi everybody, I’m back in Oz today and back blogging. Before I settle back in, I’ll give my impressions of Montreal. In economic terms, it was hard to figure out. On the one hand there were lots of fairly derelict-looking buildings and many not-so-derelict ones had “A Louer” (“To Let”) signs. On the other hand, there was new construction going on all over the place. Similarly, while there was a general air of prosperity, particular in the CBD, beggars and homeless people were considerably more evident than in DC. I’m not clear whether this is reflects a dual economy, or the early stages of recovery from a prolonged slump, or just the hazards of the random snapshot approach.

The city is overwhelmingly francophone and has apparently become significantly more so in recent decades owing to the language policies of the Parti Quebecois. However, at least in shops and so on, everyone switched to fluent English as soon as they’d heard a sample of my French.

3 thoughts on “Back in Oz”

  2. Unemployment Rates
    PROVINCES
    Quebec
    may – 9.3%
    june – 8.9%
    Ontario
    may – 7.3%
    june 7.1%
    Alberta
    may – 5.6%
    june – 5.1%
    CITIES
    Montreal, Quebec
    june 2002 – 8.3%
    june 2003 – 9.9%
    Toronto, Ontario
    june 2002 – 6.9%
    june 2003 – 6.3%
    Calgary, Alberta
    june 2002 – 6.2%
    june 2003 – 5.2%

    from Statistics Canada

  3. There’s really high unemployment rates elsewhere in Quebec (10-12%) so it might be a lot of the unemployed come to the big city (Montreal) looking for a job, or the shelters or whatever. That’s what happens in Toronto anyway. Couple that with unaffordable housing and the fact that police don’t chase them off the main streets…

    I go to downtown Toronto for school and work and the same guy asks me for money every day, and then you have the swindlers standing at the subway fare machine asking for change so they can buy a token. It’s not that bad though. They mostly hang around the high traffic areas. I tend to save my change for the musicians, but I haven’t really thought that hard about the reason other than that they aren’t annoying.

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