Each of those thousands of people you see around town requires a quick evaluation: should I be scared?
   Is it someone I know?
   Should I nod or smile?
   Are her boots more expensive than mine?
   This endless process leads to mental exhaustion.
   Here's my take on it.

  Marcia Smith, aka Marcia Eleccion, was a single mother of two working at Sir Winston Churchill Pub and acting in local productions after moving to Montreal from Brooklyn in 1966 to be part of Expo 67.
   By early 1971 she was living with her son Mark, 8, and 17-month-old daughter Kelle, daughter of Michael Howlett, on the second floor at 2274 Souvenir Street near Atwater and Dorch.
  Marcia had recently appeared at the Centaur in a play called The Electronic Nigger.
   She went up to Ste. Adele for a day or so, entrusting her two young handfuls to Monique, who also had her own kid with her while babysitting the two.
  Monique came recommended by Marcia's friend Andre.
  At 4 a.m. on Sunday 2 May 1971 an arsonist set a four-alarm blaze in the shed out back of 2276/2280 Souvenir.
   Monique the babysitter suddenly had three children to drag out of the conflagration, her own as well as Kelle and her older brother, who was very hard to rouse.
   She could only get two out on the first try, leaving 17-month old Kelle alone in the fiery apartment.
   Firefighters apparently told Monique that it would be too dangerous to try to rush in to save 17-month-old Kelle  and they did not venture inside to get her.
   However Marcia's friend Andre happened to be at the scene by some coincidence, as he had spent the evening in the company of a casual girlfriend across the street.
   Andre was undeterred by the warning and rushed up the stairs into the raging fire.
   He grabbed baby Kelle and rushed out.
   Kelle suffered minor burns to the hands and face and was treated at the nearby Children's Hospital but recovered fully.
   Kelle now lives in Vancouver and would very much like to find the heroic André who risked his life to save her.
   She offers this account:
   "Monique tried to get me out. She had her baby under one arm and me in the other and my brother who is 7 years older slept like the dead. She had to put me down and drag him out. Andre ran over asking where I was and when the firemen said it's too late for me he ran in. This is what I was told," says Kelle Majklen.
  The firefighters report makes no mention of Andre, instead crediting the station chief of Section 16, Louis Gervais, (28 July 1921- 6 July 1985) with saving the child.
    Neighbours listed in the 1971 Lovells directory might be of service helping identify the mysterious hero. They include Terry Quinn, Y, Troughton, A.Waugh, M
. Mallich, P. Bennett. M. Muir, P. Sutherland, L. Estrick and others.
   Other residents include the now-deceased French-born poet Patrick Straram and Bavarian-born cameraman Uwe Koneman, who cannot remember anything. Two other elderly longtime residents of Souvenir said that they couldn't recall the fire.
   If anybody has an idea please let us know in the comments below or by other means.
   Many thanks to the awesome Montreal fire expert Jean François Courtemanche for helping with this investigation. 

  Sunday Jan 23: 1972: Third place Habs tie Penguins in the last game before All Star Break...19 die in weekend Quebec road accidents ..Polish Ball and a charity fundraiser at the Ritz... Bond flick Diamonds are Forever fills seats.. and office managers think about the Telex operator and stenography positions they need to fill.
   The worm turned as usual when Monday rolled around.
   But not for a Riviere des Prairies resident who strapped on the boots and coat at 10:30 a.m. to cross through a frozen wooded area at 39th and 3rd.
   The resident trudged a path through the snowy scrubland on the -5 degree Celsius morning and spotted a shocking and grotesque figure at the base of a tree.
   The naked body of a young blonde beauty lay amid twigs and dead leaves stuck between a few saplings.
   The scene of the woman and the tragic solitude of her final resting resembled a hiemal Canadian Ophelia, John William Waterhouses' portrait of a motionless woman floating down a river, a a soul navigating through eternity.
   Carole Matte, 24, was no more.
    Grim-looking police investigators scribbled into notebooks.
   A police helicopter floated noisily above trying to spot the victim's belongings in the snow.
   Matte's body was bagged, put on a stretcher and dragged down the same path away from the scene. .
   She had been killed by a.38 calibre, four shots to the head.
   Matte, it was later said, had worked as a topless dancer, a claim hotly denied by her sister Anne who described Carole as timid, principled and ambitious, and was trained in stenography, secretarial skills.
   She had at least one rough friend, unfortunately.
   The killer, Anne suggested, might have been criminal ex-boyfriend Adelard Vallee.
   Vallee had been released from prison at the end of January and was staying at a halfway home.
   He swiftly visited Matte, inviting her for a drive. He brought her to a laneway near Frontenac and Marie Anne.
   Both were seated in the front seat of the car when he put four bullets in her head.
   Perhaps the chart-topping Don McLean saga Bye Bye Miss American Pie played on his car radio as he drove east to ditch her body.
   Police searched for Vallee and eventually located him holed out with friends in Rimouski.
   His lawyer pleaded the equivalent of "guilty but too high on drugs to know what I was doing."
   Indeed one day during his September trial Vallee called in "too stoned," and the trial was postponed a day.
   In those years far more cases went to trial because lawyers were not required to show their evidence before the action started, so they often rolled the dice in hopes of getting lucky.
   "My client was a rug addict when he killed the young girl of 24. He never had the intention of killing Carole Matte, I'm convinced. What is true and tragic in this whole affair is that Vallee was under the influence of drugs at the time of the killing," said Vallee's lawyer Robert LaHaye.

Vallee

   Prosecutors agreed to lower the charges to manslaughter and judge Jacques Ducros sentenced him to 25 years on Nov. 10 1972.
   Fourteen years later Vallee, 40, was given another conditional release and he was put into a halfway house where he hooked up with Robert Maningham, 35.
    The duo were allowed out for the day and stole a car and committed a hold up. Officer Robert Baril pulled them over to give them a ticket at Sherbrooke and Joliette.
   Officer Baril was unaware that the duo were criminals. .
    Vallee and his pal  sped off and Baril, 42, chased them in his cop cruiser. When they sped off on foot Baril chased them into an alleyway behind 3495 Aylwin.
   Vallee fought Baril, took his gun and shot the police officer Baril dead.
   Vallee was arrested a month later and sentenced to another 25 years in prison.
   The beautiful Matte, 1948-1972, is surely now a fading memory for those who knew and mourn her.
   Her heartless killer Vallee would now be about 70 if he he's still among us. 

Montreal Mirror June 3, 1999
Getting Away with murder
Dino Bravo, Frank Shoofey, Sidney Leithman, Miss Strip 1976. Four famous unsolved cases illustrate how the MUC homicide squad keeps a tight lid on unsolved murders
by Kristian Gravenor

   About 15 years ago, several murdered children between 19-14 were found in southwest Montreal. Eventually the MUC homicide squad caught the serial killer. Yet there was no perp walk down a line of exploding flashbulbs.
   No trial, no arrest. Today the murderer works with the public in a job which takes him all over the city. "They just couldn't get the evidence on the guy," says a police insider. "The police attention seems to have made him stop but cops try to keep this stuff quiet because they don't want the public to panic."
   That's one of hundreds of morbid secrets kept tightly within our homicide squad, whose shady world of information-control mirrors the dark world they police.
   So the new spirit of community policing has prompted you to ask questions about the methods of the 20-officer squad? Keep 'em to yourself. Want an update on a case? Use your imagination. Access to information? Access denied. Who's watching the detectives? Their only required report is an annual update to the provincial Justice Minister.
   Even other cops grumble. "It's a cloak-and-dagger-type section who perceive themselves, rightly or wrongly, as the elite," says a cop. "They want information but they're not willing to share what they've got an only unless they're dealing with a joint task force. Unless they have to share, they won't."
  The official explanation for putting a lid on morbid facts is that the killers will somehow use the information to their advantage. And there are other, less official ones. "They occasionally get wackos confessing to murders they didn't commit," says a veteran crime journalist. "If the nutcase had that information, the cops wouldn't know whether he was for real or not."
   Up until the 1980s Montreal police were famous for juicy press leaks, particularly to the splashy crime press. The strategy was tailored to create a public groundswell for larger police budgets. But the police no longer need public fear to raise their budgets: last year the police budget was hiked 2.4 percent to $390 in spite of a declining crime rate. However, most of that money has gone towards police salaries.
   "They don't want the public to realize that they don't solve all that many murders," according to one officer. (Last year there were 41 murders in Montreal, 13 remain unsolved.) "Of the three basic homicides, the family quarrels and the heat-of-the-moment street-fights are relatively easy to solve. Those raise their solution rate but the professional hits remain very hard to solve."
   For the homicide squad secrecy remains one of the few potentially useful weapons. The much ballyhooed use of DNA testing remains costly and has only resulted in a few convictions, most notable that of the Tara Manning case. The use of informants met its Waterloo when Mom Boucher's accuser had his credibility stripped clean. And if you ever dreamed of hitting the jackpot turning in that guy you know who-the-say-killed-somebody, wake up: our police officers no cash rewards and those offered by private groups or individuals are often aimed at sex slayings, which is generally useless because sex predators tend to keep their secrets.
   In cemeteries all over victims lie sleepless in their caskets, waiting for somebody to bring their killers to justice. Here are some of our biggest unsolved murder mysteries, the full details of which, years later, are still kept tightly under wraps despite prying by journalists.
   Dead men can't defend their honour 


   Adolfo Bresciano, 44, was a family man from Vimont, Laval who doted on his 6-year-old daughter and was known to be friends with plumber and bus drivers he grew up with in Rosemont. He was also Dino Bravo, a star 20-year veteran of professional wrestling circuits around the globe. To this day, fans still recall his famous battles, which included a nearly victorious title fight against Hulk Hogan. Bravo's scissor kicks, speed, showmanship and powerful arms-which could bench 500 pounds- are still fondly remembered around the world.
   But on March 11, 1993, he was just another fan watching the Habs play the Islanders on TV. he wouldn't see the end of the game, nor the Stanley Cup parade a few weeks later. Two gunmen, one wielding a .22 caliber, the other a .380, sprayed 37 shots in his living room, hitting him in the head seven times.
    According to the Journal de Montreal, an unnamed Laval police officer claimed to have found evidence of Bravo's involvement in cigarette smuggling on the scene. All of the press picked up on the rumour and the wrestling hero suddenly became, in death, a lowly cigarette smuggler, in spite of the absence of a trial, conviction or witnesses.
   "What the papers printed was bullshit," says Gino Bresciano, the wrestler's younger brother. "I feel rage in my heart, it really makes my blood boil. I never heard from the police since that day, yet I live for the day they catch his killer. I also always wonder who really did it, a jealous husband, an old wrestling rival, maybe someone at the top of the wrestling world-that's a multi-billion dollar industry. There's no way of knowing. I'm powerless in this and I really miss him."
The missing Briefcase

   Sidney Leithman didn't have to wake up at dawn to defend undrewold character. But he did. The 54-year-odl defence attorney had tow teenager daughter,s a mansion in Town of Mount Royal and enough cash for a few lifetime. But none of that caused him to hesitate to jump up at the sound of his alarm on May 14, 1991, to defend yet another drug dealer, this one a Cuban pilot with links to the Colombian cartel. The fast talking McGill graduate had drummed up his firs business pounding the marble floors of the courthouse, eventually defending such all-stars as Frank Cotroni, the Dubois brother and Dunie Ryan.
   "He was a likable guy, a real wheeler-dealer," says one crime journalist. Another remarked on his tendency to pub a price on everything.l "If he'd buy you lunch, he'd make sure you knew how much it cost. If you complimented him on his tie, he'd tell you how much he paid for it."
   As Leithman warmed up his Saab convertible at 6:40 a.m., he probably tossed some packages into his backseat. After a couple of blocks a Jeep cut him off at jean Talon and Rockland. A man about 5'7" shot six times into the car, breaking the window with his first tow, then hitting him four times.
   Two clear bags of white powder were found on top of Leithman's briefcase in the back; packages which witnesses believe were tossed in by the gunman. However, another item, believed to be Leithman's briefcase, was off-limits for detectives. Although they had a potential gold mine of clues, the detectives were forced to seal the bag and hand it over to the Quebec Bar. The most persistent rumour pins responsibility for th hit on a Colombian drug lord upset with Leithman for failing to get his girlfriend acquitted.

It helps to be loved 
Robert Morin was a man from St. Jerome who moved to the city, changed his name to Carole Jean, got a sex change and became a stripper name Saria. And she did that well, well enough for the 231-year-old to beat 100 hopefuls in a contest at Bar Robert for the title of Miss Strip 176. In the hours before the midnight which would star her reign, Carole was at her Viau street apartment, watching TV with the person she called her sister, Claude "Claudia" Jean, 21, a pretty pre-op transsexual, five years into the process of becoming a woman.
   Somebody entered, without any sign of force and around 9 p.m. the two shemales were both stabbed to death. There was no discernible motive, although Carole's presumed stash of cash she'd earned a stripper throughout the province was gone, as was the killer.
  "Back then gays were killed with impunity, says community spokesman Michael Hendricks. "Until 1992 being a homosexual was a reason  to get  murdered." In the 1990s, when a series of murders in the gay community started occurring, Hendricks and other aggressively demanded information from the homicide squad. "We told them that the victims often didn't have much in the way of family. It took a year, but we finally persuaded them to show us photos of the crime scenes and such."
   Although the homicide squad discourage publicity, Hendricks believes it was precisely that which led to a greater awareness in the community concerning safety issues. Of the 14 local gay murders from the early 1990s, only two are officially thought to be the world of a still-unapprehended serial killer. But another chilling rumour in police circles has it that the homicide squad secretly believes the number to be much higher, a fact that they have sought to mute in an effort to avert further panic.
King of the rumour mill

It was one of those rare ho-hum moments in Frank Shoofey's day. Whether organizing a criminal defence for one of his many high-powered clients, plotting his entry into the provincial Liberals or fielding one of the many calls he loved to answer, the 44-year-old lawyer had few quiet minutes. As he entered the hallway outside his office at 1030 Cherrier, on October 15, 1985 to comb his elaborate mop of a hairpiece, a gunman shot him in the head four times at close range. The much-loved lawyer's body fell to the ground in the exact spot where one of his clients had been killed six years earlier.
   Within hours, the city was buzzing with rumors about the murder; citizen sleuths knew that Shoofey had received death threat and that the killer needed a key to enter his building. They spoke of his newly-dissolved contract with the boxing Hiltons, an unusual deal in which the lawyer received half of their earnings as a hedge against heir father blowing the money on booze. Shoofey bragged of never keeping a cent of the Hilton cash, spending it instead on a huge Rigaud home of the clan. And you didn't need a Whisper 2000 to hear the talk about the American boxing promoter Don King allegedly getting Dave Hiton Senior drunk before getting him to sign an exclusive contact for his boxing sons.
   yet in spite of the cold-blooded killing, Shoofeys' son Dominique, who was 13 at the time didn't hesitate to enter to follow his father into criminal defence law.
   "I don't think of what happened to my father was really related to his practice, it was more of an exception to what happens."
   But one veteran crime reporter says that the homicide squad are barking up an entirely different tree. "They got an idea on who shot him, he's in and out of jail, they've tried everything to get him to make a mistake and get him to court. They put a guy in his cell and everything, it didn't work. it's banal, it's punk stuff, it's just a client who wasn't happy with Frank. Maybe he needed money off him for a fix or something."
   And if, God forbid,  you were murdered? In death you'd be come the compliant client of a team which sits behind close horizontal blinds int he glass-and-steel offices above the Places Versailles cinema, far int he city's east end.  
   Unlike other homicide squad, most notable that of Baltimore- which welcomed a writer to observed their day-to-day- operations for a year"with no adverse reaction" in the name of "our partnership with the community" as a detective from the city put it - your murder detectives work in secrecy and darkness And if, in the icy grave of a murder victim you are one of the one-in-three homicide victims whose killer walks free, try to summon some blind hope that your case won't be mishandled. And be patient, you'l be dead long enough. 

  Where in Montreal is Rue de la Bouteille Verte - Green Bottle Street? The easy answer is that the street is a myth from the fertile imagination of a newspaper writer who dreamt it up for a 2,000-word short story in 1954.
  The mystery begins in 1912 when a self-styled Christian Science healer, an officer in WWI and an all-round charismatic dazzler named Waddington had a son named Patrick.

Patrick Waddington

  The family moved to England and eventually returned to Ottawa where Patrick benefited from his father's friendship with newspaper tycoon H.S. Southam, who hired him as a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen.
  The young Patrick was covering a news conference in 1939 held by the League Against War and Fascism when he rapidly tumbled into love with its secretary Miriam Dworkin, an aspiring poet.
   The two soon wed. "It was horrible in 1939 to be Jewish or to marry a Jew. Southam was annoyed that he married me," says his former wife Miriam. The couple moved to Montreal where they settled on Dufferin.

Miriam Waddington

   The poet and the newspaper scribe were soon in with the local literati who'd publish staple-binded magazines of creative writing like Preview and First Contact. The duo made front page news in 1951 after the nearby Hampstead School refused their son, as the town policy of the time was to keep Hampstead free of Jews. The school eventually relented.
  As his poet-wife's reputation grew, Patrick banged out unremarkable articles, such as his profile of a Montreal bureaucrat who managed our city's street names, published in the January 18, 1947 issue of the Montreal Standard.
   Seven years later Waddington drew on the article for his short story, "The Street that got Mislaid."
   The tale revolves around City of Montreal official Marc Girondin, the "undisputed expert of the filing cabinets where all the particulars of all the streets from Abbott to Zotique were indexed, back, forward and across."
  The fictional Girondin says things like: "if my cards didn't say so, you wouldn't exist and Oven Street wouldn't either." But Girondin is eventually shocked to discover and index card long lost int he back of the filing cabinet. To his horror the City of Montreal had lost track of a street called Rue de la Bouteille Verte, named in honour of its unusual shape.

Montreal city official Albert Garand whose interview inspired the short-story

  "In his heart Marc had sometimes dreamed of such a possibility. There were so many obscure places, twisting lanes and streets jumbled together as intricately as an Egyptian Labyrinth. But of course it could not happen, not with the omniscient file at hand. Only it had."
   The story was translated into many languages and has stirred some to post it on the Internet. The tale allowed Waddington -who worked at Radio-Canada International and at the same sausage'n'mash lunch daily at the downtown Murray's- to escape the shadow of his famous wife before his death in 1973.
   So did Waddington conceal a private knowledge of a city street that none of the rest of us know? Here's how he describes the tight-knit, secret urban treasures whose residents life in peace and free of tax collectors: "On either side of a cobbled pavement were three small houses, six in all, each with a diminutive garden in front, spread off by low iron palings of a kind that had disappeared except in the oldest quarters." The story ends as Girondin moves to the street, forever keeping its secret.
   Waddington's ex-wife Miriam, one of Canada's well-known poets, has been living in Vancouver for a decade ("a terrible city, a toy city, not a real place") and denies knowledge of the secret street.
   His second wife Elaine, retired from the Royal Vic, lives on Doctor Penfield, where she plucks the viola da gamba, a precursor to the guitar. She talks fondly of Patrick's "beautiful voice and his soft, deep English accent," which never, apparently, revealed the secret of the Green Bottle.
And is she knows more about this mislaid Montreal utopia, she isn't saying.
From the Montreal Mirror Feb. 6 2002. 
Patrick lived from 1912-1973, Miriam Waddington from 1917–2004

See also:
Green Bottle Street - the quintessential MTL short story based on this article...

Verdun, a sprawling municipality-turned-borough sandwiched between the aqueduct and the river, is posh to the west, hardscrabble to the east and is also home to well-heeled Nun's Island off the mainland.
   Those who have spent time there know its unpretentious charms and the heart-and-soul good vibes that make it a great place to hang out.
   Have a walk through the past with these vintage photos.
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 The girls were charged with assault and after 18 months went to jury trial with a plea of not guilty.
 Photographer Caroline Hayeur got the four bored co-accused to pose for a dynamite photo outside the courthouse, which brought a lot of attention to my article, in which I present the case as evidence of the bloated justice system that wasted a ton of time and money on a trivial event.
  My editor called it the "finest piece" he had ever worked on, although it admittedly has some minor flaws, but hey, that's journalism baby.

  To compare murder from the past to today is to invite a show of contrasts.
  Take 1977, a year which saw 91 murders in Montreal, and 179 across the province.
   The victims were 116 male, and 63 females. About half  of all killed were attacked in or near their homes. 52 of the 152 murders were unsolved as of early January 1978.
    The 91 Montreal killings were typical of that era but are much lower than what we see today, as only 23 were killed in Montreal last year.
   Causes for the drop off in murder are many.
    There was more brain-damaging lead in the environment back then, more young people, more alcohol and drug use and drug trafficking then, more child abuse and fewer abortions, which meant more dysfunctional families, inefficient psychological treatment, more boredom as technology wasn't there to fill the void as it is now, and so forth.
   One local news outlet recently stated that the drop in murders was a result of better emergency medical care, as people who might otherwise have died in past eras are surviving now.
  But that explanation implies that there are just as many attempted murders and stabbings and shootings as before, something which hasn't been demonstrated.
   Most shocking of all the 1977 murders are those involving young children, notably the newspaper delivery boy and the four-year-old girl who entered the wrong door.
   There were also far more crimes of passion, men killing their exes because they can't continue without them, that sort of thing.
    Some context: 1977 was  one of the worst years for postwar Montreal, as the flow of cash that came through town prior to and during the 1976 Olympics was stemmed. Also there was a mass exodus of talented people as hundreds of thousands left for Toronto and other points west after the separatist Parti Quebecois and its regional agenda took power in the province.
   ****
Jan. Marcel Girard was stabbed to death while watching a movie in Archambault prison. Another inmate was charged.

9 Jan. Wayne Hernandez, 25, strangled his wife Merle Hernandez, 24,  at their home at 2145 Beaconsfield in NDG on a Sunday night at 10 pm. .

Jan John Wendell Hyppolite, 29, and Michael Daniel Myrmick, 18, and a teen from LaSalle killed John Frederick Jones, 16, of Toronto in a sugar shack in Sainte Madeleine.

6 Jan. Phillip Watts, 11, was stabbed to death at 7 a.m. while delivering Gazette newspaper. He was found behind 2010 Patricia in St. Laurent at 7 a.m.

Jan 15. Jacques Narbonne, 23, confessed to stabbing his uncle Ovila Leblanc, 53, dead at Leblanc's place on Chateauguay Street in Point St. Charles. He went to police voluntarily. He said that Leblanc had sexually molested him.

24 Jan. Marcel Lambert, 32, stabbed Nora Lambert 17 times, killing her in a car. They had just returned from watching a sado masochism show in Sept Iles.

27 Jan. 8 pm. Gerry Turenne, 48, a discotheque owner, was shot with two .22 calibre in the bathroom of his disco on Lajeunesse. Two in the head. He had been close to heroin king Lucien Rivard in the 1960s and had a private beach in Laval and owned the Cabaret Bobino in St Laurent and the Quebecois bar in Pont Viau. He was shot at 7:30 p.m. at the Maximum 10445 Lajuenesse in Ahuntsic. It might have had something to do with the ongoing take down of the Violi clan. Turenne had attempted to sue the Montreal Star the year prior for stating that he was part of the Canadian Connection that brought heroin into Canada.

28 Jan. Daniel Desormeaux, 27, shot Arthur Pelletier, 68, dead three times in a farmhouse in Saint Calixte.

29 Jan Jacques Sauve, 22, killed his half brother Pierre Thibault, dead with three shots on Demontigny Street in Montreal. during a family quarrel.

29 Jan.Peter Yank, 25, killed fellow inmate Normand Piche, 20 with a metal bar inside the cells of the Archambault prison in Ste. Anne des Plaines at 6 p.m Yank was inside prison for killing Jean Vallieres, 45 in 1975 near St. Jovite. Piche had testified against Yank in court. Yank was in a halfway house in 1987 preparing to be released.

29 Jan Donald Dancause, 19, was charged with murder after Raould Michaud, 40, was found frozen dead in the snow in Matane. Michaud had been beaten to death and robbed and left out there after a dispute with Michaud.

1 Feb. Gerald Cournoyer, 52, was killed during a robbery in a restaurant in Point St. Charles. They shot him twice after he made a movement that left the robbers feeling uncomfortable. The thieves took $500 from the small restaurant.

2 Feb. Jean Lapointe was found dead with a .38 bullet in his head in a tavern on St. Hubert street. He had been hired as manager with the task of cleaning up the place of crime.

Andrade

2 Feb. Theodore Robert Thomspson, 31, and his black model girlfriend Donna Marueen Andrade, 29, and Antonio Sorgente, 29 were found dead in an apartment in Haddon Hall 2150 Sherbrooke Street. All were shot in the head. It was thought to be a drug deal gone wrong. Scenes from the Satanic The Pyx were being shot in the building at the time. Thomspon had killed Diane Juteau on St. Matthew Street in 1975 but was out after serving a short sentence for manslaughter.

3- Feb Ludvig Anders Olsson, 89, killed his wife Olive Olsson, 84, beating her with a rolling pin on Westhill Ave. He was charged with two years for manslaughter. He was not imprisoned. He killed her due to her health issues.

5 Feb  Giseppe Bucci, 42 was found in the trunk of his car wrapped in a blanket on Gouin boulevard.

8 Feb. Taxi driver Richard Dubuc, 22, shot and killed Raymond McNaughton, 22 and Carole Bosse, 19 while they slept at 6235 Drolet. The two were staying at Normand McNaughton's place, who was the brother of one victim and the boyfriend of the other victim. After the shooting Dubuc drove Norman McNaughton around as if he was planning to kill him, eventually telling him that he owed him $5,000. An accomplice Gilles Cote, 23, was acquitted.

8 Feb. Francesco Violi, 38 was killed in his office in RDP at 7 p.m. He was the brother of Paolo Violi.

8 Feb. Gaetan Gadoury, 23, stabbed Danielle Vallee, 17, 23 times in Notre Dame des Laurenties on Erables Street.  He was given 10 years for manslaughter.

10 Feb. Jean Audette, aka Jean Haddad, 47, was shot seven times with a .22 at his home in Lac Jolicoeur by a masked men at 1:20 p.m. While his girlfriend was tied up and watched on. Audette's kids saw their father's dead body when they returned from school. Audette was a master fraud artist

13 Feb. Roger Chamberland, 21, killed Francois Couture, 51, with a knife and a hammer on Brebeuf Street in Montreal. It was a drug deal gone bad. Chamberland was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years.

14 Feb. Leo Paul Cote, 49, was found shot dead on Talbot Boulevard. in Jonquiere at 7 a.m. No suspects or possible motive. He lived alone.

Feb. Walter Maciura, 50, beat his father Andre Maciura, 72, to death in Point St. Charles. The two had been drinking.

17 Feb. Jean Lamothe, 20, shot Clement Dupuis, 25, dead in a the Le Cocotier Bar in Drummondville at 1:40 a.m. for trivial reasons.

Binette

24 Feb. Fernand Ellement, 30, shot Camille Tapp, 40, dead in his bed at 2:25 a.m. at 1150 Sherbrooke East apart 810. It was a gay lover quarrel.

26 Feb. Francine Binette, 23, a stripper, was found dead with five bullets in the face at 6224 Chabot Street Montreal. at about 6 p.m. it was considered an underworld settling of accounts. She was describe as a "cat lady."

26 Feb. A 17-year-old who had escaped and was drunk stabbed Suzanne Gregoire, 29, 80 times, killing her on St. Denis Street. She was a student. Her body was found the next day.

23 Jan. Regent Gagne, 18, Daniel Perriere, 18, and Victor Morin, 25, were arrested for killing Georges Richard Gallaghan, 51. The three had beaten and robbed him in a nightclub.

Martel

13 Jan. Yvon Bernier, 42, killed Armandine Cote-Bernier, 50, with a .410 shotgun in Grosse Roches in Gaspe. It was a crime of passion. He killed himself immediately.

4 March Philippe Warren, 22, shot and killed Real Gregoire, 33 while robbing a tavern on Papineau. Gregoire was the manager. Warren killed himself in prison soon after being sentenced to 14 years.

12 March Michel Mitchell, 26, died after being beaten to death on Notre Dame Street in Ville St. Pierre in an underworld slaying.

March A lone gunman killed Michel Arsenault, 40, Monique Renaud, 34, Ginette Adams, 25, Jaques Fortin, 42 and Michel Chorel, 19 in a bar on Belanger Street.

13 March A 17-year-old stabbed Gerard Tremblay, 46, to death in his apartment on Moreau Street in Montreal at 2:45 p.m. They had been quarreling.

14 March Pierre Lanctot, 59, killed his wife Monique, 39 in Malatric.

24 March Lambert Choquette, 34, killed Maurice Gagnon, 48, stuffing a pair of scissors in his eyes on in his apartment on Rachel Street in Montreal. The two had only met a few hours earlier.

24 March Guy Gloutnez, 19, killed his father Bernard Gloutnez, 50 with a knife in Ville La Salle.

25 March Louise Camirand, 20, was found dead on a country road in Austin in the Eastern Townships. She had been raped and strangled after disappearing two days earlier.

26 March Richard Villeneuve, 29, killed his 2-year-old child Marc Villeneuve. He killed himself with a knife and set fire to his home in Joniquiere at 830 a.m. His wife exited safely.

28 March An unidentified vagrant was found in a burnt car in Longueuil. It was thought it might be Roger Brisson, 43, a grocer from Brossard. But Brisson was arrested for the killing when he returned to Canada. It was an attmept to get rid of his debts.

25 March Georges Duran, 31, killed his wife Myrian Durand, 22 in St. Jean de Matha. She wanted to leave her. He shot her with three 22 bullets. Found guilty of murder.

March Roger Duhamel, 29, Thomas Guay, 35 and Reginald Berger, 29, were charged
with murdering Robert Brabant, 23, of the provincial police in a car chase in Ste. Emilie de L'Energie.

1 April Michel Lepine, 29, was found dead in an apartment on Iberville. He was shot in the face. Lepine was a tough guy who had survived a previous attempted murder.

1 April Gaetan Gosselin, 21, and Daniel Cote, 22, killed Roland Cloutier, 56 over a $2 billiard debt in a downtown alley. Both were sentenced to 12 years.

2 April A woman aged between 18 and 25 was found wrapped in a blanket in a dump in Longueuil. She was never identified.

4 April Yvette Roy-Bisson, 38, killed Claude Pellieter with a .12 calibre at her friends house on Rivard Street in Montreal.

5 April Hermel Lachance, 25, killed Lucien Saint Hilaire, 44, dead with two punches in a cafe on Gouin Boulveard in Montreal.

12  May Jacques Saint-Louis, 34, shot and killed his wife of five years Nicole Saint-Louis, 25, and killed himself after on Berthiaume Street in Contrecoeur.

20 May Two teens were charged with the murder of Martha Brown, 37, whose body was found behind her home in Ville Emard. She was found stabbed to death at 3 pm on May 20 at the foot of a staircase.

27 May Irene Taylor, 65, was found dead with a knife in her ear on Masson Street on 26 May. The killer did not steal her money. Her body had been rotting for some time before found.
 
27 May  Revie Willette, 32, of Saint Jules de Cascapedia in the Gaspe, killed his wife Catherine Willette, 26, and three children Shelly, 7, Stephanie, 2, and Scott, 5, before killing himself at around 9 a.m. on 27 May. They were all shot with a bullet to the head. Nothing in his behavior had hinted at such an outcome.

30 May Jacques Paradis, 26, was killed by two men, one black and one white near the Jacques Cartier Plaza in Old Montreal around 10:30 p.m. He was a drug dealer.

May Charles Jackson, 18, Sandy Brown, 26, and James Wilson, 26, were charged with killing Randal Ross Gagnon, 16, who was shot in the back in Abercorn in the Eastern Townships. The three believed he had ratted them out.
 
17 June Jean-Guy Decarie, 31, shot his ex-wife Danielle Decarie, 24, in the head twice on Darveau Street at 10 pm. The two had been recently separated and were arguing over their two year old child. Decarie also shot himself in the head and died four days later.

19 June Alain Bujold, was playing with a firearm when he shot his friend Michel Gill, 17, dead in the street in St. Francois Laval at about 12:20 p.m.  Bujold shot himself dead immediately after realizing what he had done.

29 June Louis Bedard, 38, was strangled in her apartment on St. Denis in Montreal at around 2:30 a.m. Reasons unknown.

2 July A 17-year-old was charged with murder after killing Pierre Boisvert, 19, with an axe in Disraeli.

5 July Sex pervert Roger Dubois, 38, raped and murdered Melanie Casselman, 4, after she went

Melanie Casselman,4

Dubois

into the wrong door on Pepiniere Street. She lived at 3255 Pepiniere and the killer lived at 3271 Pepiniere, which still look identical. Melanie  went next door to get her friend Stephane to go to the pool with her and her mom. She instead rang Dubois' door. Dubois lived with his parents who were away visiting New Brunswick.  Dubois saw the little girl in the tiny bikini and asked to kiss her. She screamed. Dubois panicked and suffocated her. Dubois was sentenced to life in prison. Three guards were punished for torturing him in Parthenais, as they made him walk up stairs rather than take an elevator as they smacked him from in front and back and made him masturbate in his cell and such things.

8 July Denis Lafontaine, 22, shot Richard Turcot, 35, dead with a bullet to the head in a restaurant on Gouin at 4:30 a.m. on July 8.

July Douglas Foreman, 20, and a young man under the age of 18 went to rob the home of Ghislaine Desormier, 27, at 3430 Sainte Famille on the pretext of having an orgy. They drank and did cocaine but instead of having sex, they robbed and killed Desormier, as they hoped to go together to San Francisco with the stolen cash. Foreman was sentenced to prison and returned several times behind bars and became an advocate for prisoners stricken with HIV and hepatitis. He noted in a 2012 recent interview that since cigarettes were abolished in Quebec prisons, sexual favours have become a more common form of payment. Foreman died in a B.C. prison in 2014.

10 July Pierre Paquette, 28, met Lise Coutu, 21, on St. Denis Street. He killed her and disposed of her body in a dump. Police could never find the body but Paquette confessed to the killing as well as another woman killed July 23.  He was sentenced to life in prison.

21 July Lawrence Carpman, 27, was found dead on July 21 in a quarry in Saint Canut. He had been shot in the face in what's believed to be an underworld settling-of-accounts.

Paquette

23 July Pierre Paquette, 28, murdered Rolande Martel, 33, of Verdun. He strangled her and chopped her up with a saw on 23 July and placed her body parts in a plastic bag that kids discovered in a laneway on Drolet. The bag also contained an envelope with his name on it. He was angry because Martel, who he had just met, refused to have sex with him. He confessed and was sentenced to life in prison.

14 July Taxi driver Andre Desmarais, 48, was found with a cord around his neck and a bullet in the back on his head after his car was found at the bottom of the Chamblay Canal near St. Luc. Desmarais was a loan shark.

18 July Jean Carbonneau, 39, was found dead in his apartment on Rachel shot several times in the head. His body had been there for some time.

25 July Denis Labelle, 20 and Robert Pelletier, 25, were charged with murdering Daniel Thierry, 23 on 25 July at 8 p.m. inside the Archambault Prison.  Thierry had refused their sexual advances.
See also: Archambault prison's bloody, brutal history

27 July Frank Smoke, 29, and Karen Borden, 22, were sentenced to life and 10 years in prison after killing Veronica Parent, 23, on Biret Street in Ville St Laurent in a carjacking. Smoke had been getting into trouble since 1963, for assaulting police, escape, illegal weapons and so forth.  He had only been recently released from prison. Borden only knew him for three weeks when he came to her home at 630 Ste. Croix with a gun. They first carjacked a Cadillac. A third person, named Linda managed to get away as they drove near the river. After jacking Parent's car and killing her, they robbed the bank at 1110 Laurentian Blvd. They were caught within 48 hours.

Poirier

27 JulyClaudette Poirier, 15, went missing from her home in Drummondville, her bicycle found on the road to Hemming Street in Drummondville.  Her remains would be found nine years later.

29 July Chantal Tremblay went missing from Rosemere and her remains found two years later.

31  July Robert Hartuk, 24, was found dead in his apartment on Pie Ix on 31 July. A bullet had been shot through his head.

1 Aug. Michel Gervais, 27 and Ginette Raymond, 25 were found shot dead on Champlain Street in Montreal on August 1. Police considered it a settling of accounts.

Dorion

15 Aug.Johane Dorion, 17, was found dead in the bushes, stabbed to death near 3rd Ave.after she got off a bus at Arthur Sauve and Ste. Rose in Fabreville, on the way home. A 12-year-old child found her lifeless body. Police classified it as a sex crime. Several potential suspects were interviewed but all were released. He family is still hoping that the killer be brought to justice.

13 Aug. Viviane Laliberte, 26, suffocated her child Alexandre Laliberte, aged 16 months, in Charlemagne. The mother was mentally deficient.

Aug. Paul Christie, 33, stabbed fellow drunk Gerald Gagnon, 39, in the thigh in a Montreal park.  Gagnon died. Christie was sentenced to five years for manslaughter.

Aug. Car salesman Pierre Loiselle, 23, killed his girlfriend Danielle Cardinal, 16, as well as her father Maurice Cardinal, 41 in Valleyfield. He shot them both with a .12 then tried to kill himself after.  He was charged with murder after his release from hospital.

20. Aug. Roland Cholette, 53, was shot dead as was his daughter Helene Cholete, 14. They were found at 7 p.m. on August 20 near their home in St. Eustache. No motives or suspects.

22 Aug. Marcel Dion, 26, a drug dealer, was shot dead with two .32 in the head in an apartment on Claude Legault in Montreal North at 10:30 a.m.

27 Aug. Peter Joe Price, 45, shot and killed his wife Marguerite Price, 43, in their home on Souvenir Street in Chomedey Laval at 9:45 a.m. The husband didn't want to give up his home, as they went through a divorce.

2 Sept Prison escapee Michel Belley, 43, shot Monique Marchand, 34, dead with a bullet to the face at her husband's grocery store in East Hereford in the Eastern Townships. Dion then got in an accident that caused four deaths in Montreal and was arrested.

4 Sept. Denise Saint Maurice, 61, killed her husband Florient Saint Maurice, 66, with a .410 in the head at 6 :00 a.m. The victim had severe health problems.

7 Sept. David William Foster, 26, killed Kevin O'Brien, 22, as he was sleeping inside his cell in Saint Anne Des Plaines on 7 September.

7 Sept. Robert Richard, 25, shot Sylvia Coupal, 20, a barmaid who dabbled in prostitution, dead in Laval.

10 Sept. Marcel Carriere, 50, killed his girlfriend Helene Cutler, 30, on 10 September. Carriere was drunk and Cutler had described herself as a "femme de gaffe," which means party animal or worse.

10 Sept. Robert Cormier, 27, was found shot dead near Rawdon. Cormier hung out with a rough crowd as his girlfriend's two brothers had been killed two years earlier.

11 Sept.Helen Monast was found half naked on her 18th birthday at 8:20 a.m. in a park near the

Monast

Chambly marina in Chambly. She had been strangled after celebrating her birthday at a pizza parlour and was last seen crossing  Bourgogne Ave.

15 Sept. George Sievright, 39, died after getting a beating in a bar in Alexis Nihon. Daniel Sullivan, 35, and David Morrison, 38, were questioned and held responsible by a coroner but no charges were laid. The victim had apparently spat in somebody's face.

10 Oct. Slvain Aubut, 19, killed Maurice Fiset, 38, with a knife on St. Hubert Street. Aubut was a grocery delivery boy and the affair was deemed a homosexual thing.

10 Oct. Roger Brosseau, 61, killed Isabelle Brousseau, 60, with two bullets in the mouth on Oblats Street in Quebec City. He set fire to the house afterwards. The killer was badly burned and confessed later.

Laudi

13 Oct. Richard Forget, 22, was chaged with killing Robert Vincent, 39, with two bullets to the face , leaving him by the side of the road in Mascouche.

14 Oct Roger Courchesne, 40, was charged with killing Ginette Lyrette, 342 in Rouyn. He shot her several times.

14 Oct. Derek Charlton, 30, was charged with killing Louise Laudi, 41,  beating her with an iron bar in St. Calixte. He was mentally deficient.

14 Oct. Inmate Luc Chounard, 20, had his throat slashed in Sainte Anne des Plaines prison. Nobody was arrested.

15 Oct. Gerald Papatie, 26, ran over Jeannette Papatie, 26, in La Verendrye Pak. He was charged with murder.

19 Oct. Gerald Lambert, 25, was found dead after an orgy in his apartment on Bruchesi Street in Montreal. He had been stabbed to death.

20 Oct.Chrstian Sullica, 21 and Daniel Cayer, 19, killed Peter Petrouilias, 46, stabbing him at his restaurant on St. Dominique in an attempted robbery.

 20 Oct. Denis Fortin, 30, a mentally deficient man, strangled Gisele Fortin dead in St. Lambert near Quebec City.

21 Oct. Jeanne Denis, 64, was killed at her home on Prieur Street for reasons unknown. She was battered in the head.

Oct. Hector Napoleon Romero, 31, and Gustavo Jamarillo, 30, were charged with stabbing to death janitor Gilles Levesque, 34, at his apartment on St. Denis Street in Montreal

23 Oct. Claude Beland, 30, killed his family: Ginette Beland, 30, Eric Beland, 3, and Thierry Beland, 8 months to death with an axe and then drove to his death off a bridge in Buckingham.

24 Oct. Denise Bazinette, 23, was found naked and strangled to death by a road in St. Luc She was a cashier at a restaurant. No motive known.

27 Oct Guy Belanget, 26, was charged with killing Jean Pierre Labelle, 33, stabbing him 57 times with a knife in a home for invalids. Both were nurses.

31 Oct. Paolo Ciccarone, 38, was charged with killing Maria Ciccarone, 36, stabbing her to death at their apartment on Papineau in Montreal. The two were separated.

Oct. Francois Boucher, 31, was charged with killing an ad salesman Jean Leblanc, 29, in his apartment on Fullum. His body was never found.

1 Nov. Gerard Auger, 56, was held criminally responsible for killing Roland Genereux, 51, killing him with a punch in a restaurant on Notre Dame Street in Montreal.

3 Nov Raymond Bolduc, 31, a butcher, was charged with strangling Marcel Auger, 36, to death on Chagnon Street in Sherbrooke at 7 pm. in a drunken quarrel.

4 Nov. A 14-year-old was arrested for killing Denise Messier, 36, with a bullet in the back of the head while they were lying down and reading at her place on Caumartin Street in St. Hubert at 10 pm .

6 Nov Paul Lafleur, 39, was charged with strangling Anna Maria Oborowska, 24, at her apartment on Pine Ave. in Montreal.

10 Nov. John Cross, 24, was found dead in a parking lot on Montcalm Street at 6 30 a.m. He was a native from Kahnawake.

12 Nov. Maurice Goyette, 23, confessed to killing Laureir Durand, 23, in a fight in St Gabriel de Brandon.

15 Nov. Louis Steven Hamilton, 53, strangled Valerie Hamilton, 43, with an electrical cord on Prud'homme Ave, The two were separated.

15 Nov. Maxwell Bergon, 40, was strangled by is own tie in his car near a bar on Charland Street in Montreal​. He was under police protection at the time.

22 Nov Francine Beaudoin, 21, was charged with stabbing her boyfriend Michel Levesque, 27, to death on Boulveard Hamel in Quebec City She had only wanted to scare him she said. He died with one stab wound.

28 Nov. Jean Shaker, 21, was charged with shooting Alphonse Faucher, 41, dead. on Richelieu Street in Quebec City. Faucher had apparently ratted out his friends.

Nov. Charles Havell, 52, was arrested after Pierre Galipeau, 19 was killed with three .303 bullets on 14th Avenue in Lachine. Havell was unhappy with the smell of frying foods coming from Galipeau's place.

5 Dec. Jean Paul Collin, 58, confessed to killing his wife Leona Collin, 57, beating her to death in Montreal.  She had turned off the television three times, provoking his anger.

7 Dec. Real Beaudette, 36, a bachelor and former priest was found dead in his apartment on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal at 11 pm. His hands had been tied and his was stabbed to death.

11 Dec. Denis Paquin set a fire that killed Steve Desaulniers, 2 and a half years old. He was seeking revenge on an ex and was charged with murder and arson.

12 Dec. Denis Therrien, 26, confessed to killing Raymond Faille, 38. They were roommates at St. Barthelemey.  Faille had been cruel to his roommate Therrien apparently.  His body was found about 1,000 feet away from the home.

12 Dec. A teenager, 16, allegedly killed Jacques Coutu, 32, at in an English school on Papineau Street. The janitor supposedly caught him stealing copies of a French exam.

18 Dec. Clement Dionn, 28, was shot dead in St. Philippe de Neri. Cause unknown, he was a logger

15 Dec William Dumas, 56, killed Mario Blain, 29, with a gun at 12:30 a.m. because he insulted a woman with a sex joke in a bar in St. Amable.

18 Dec. Jean Dessureault, 18, was found in a pit in Laval with two bullets in the head.

22 Dec. Elisabeth Wright, 37, and Lucien Papin, 51, were shot in the face during a robbery in an apartment on Galt street in Cote St. Paul.

24 Dec. Rose Aimee Ethier, 54, attempted to kill herself after murdering her husband Yvon Ethier, 54, in a family argument at 8:30 a.m in Laval.

24 Dec. Barton McGlynn, 38, was arrested after Barbara McGlynn, 34, was shot dead on Evangeline Street apartment in Verdun. They had been separated for a month

25 Dec.Denis Paquette, 21, was arrested after Rene Cote, 22, was stabbed to death in an apartment on Tilleuls in Montreal after a jealous fight.

28 Dec. Guy Field, 44, was arrested while praying in church after he murdered Brigitte Roberge, 7, strangled and raped her in Levis.

30 Dec. Claude Larochelle killed his wife Lois Larochelle, 26, with a gun at a hunting lodge in St. Francois Xavier de Brampton, near Sherbrooke Quebec.

    Mass delusions gripped Montreal in the early 1970s as consumers were convinced that denim pants with extra, useless fabric dangling around the ankles were a good idea.
  The final row shows photographer Sam Getz in "vintage jeans" and "cashmere cardigan." Getz was a fashion photographer who worked closely with Monahan, so the idea of him being randomly shot walking down the sidewalks is a little contrived. Getz was described elsewhere as a "hot photographer," but intern Sarah Menard says that "he looks about as hot as a, you know... fucken..  you know,,,a thing that's not very hot at all."
   Next comes designing couple Toby Klein and Allan Goldin holding hands, as they surely still are doing today, surely steadying themselves in case they trip over their stupid fuggen pants.
   Then two fashion buyers, Carolyn Wiener is seen striding purposefully as the wind blows up her thigh and Bev Lee fills out the list with her groovy look.
    We will be forwarding these photos to the United Nations International Fashion Crimes Commission for further evaluation. 

 Federal Industry Minister Jean-Luc Pepin dodged the gimmick-photo bullet by writing the forward, in which he announces that Canada will have 40 million by 2000 and will be "difficult to govern." He died in 1995 at the age of 71.














 A.C. De Lery of Canadian Asea Electric promised barbecue outdoors in winter and cleaner air with "breeder reactors stretching uranium supplies by more fissionable material that us the heat from the splitting of uranium atoms to convert water to steam, turning turbines to generate electricity."


 Alfred Hamel of Hamel Transport predicted self-driving trucks on special truck roads.


 Camille Lacroix of Matapedia Company "Canadian forests will once again be considered as one of the great natural resources of our country" and that forests will 'offer a revitalizing source of contact with nature."

 Mayor Jean Drapeau predicted, well, see here to find out.
 E.A. Martin of Uniroyal said that freer trade was on the horizon and that would lead to more international "political co-operation and stability."
 F.R. Kearns of Canadair promised 45 minute flights from Montreal to Tokyo by 2000. He saw moon bases and manned flights to Mars and supersonic and hyper-sonic aircraft that travel at "10 times the speed of sound."

 C. Norman Simpson of Acres Ltd failed to actually predict anything but noted "We have departed from dogmatic adherence to old social orders and are reaching out for a time when there will be complete freedom of spirit."
 Laurent Beaudoin Bombardier predicted snowmobiles "will have miniature jet engines and will run on an air cushion at speeds of up to 300 miles an hour."
 Fernand R. Bibeau of Shockbeton just predicted more wonderful things for cement and his company.
 Jean Marie Poitras Laurentian Insurance Bad weather insurance for vacationers and automatic insurance quotes over the phone.
 Jacques Carriere Sogena Inc. Cleopatra, Lady Godiva and the modern beauty queens will be replaced by a physiognomy inspired by interplanetary travel and the ideologies of an almost limitless universe.
 Pierre Desmarais II Pierre Desmarais Inc. said "far from menacing printed communications the invasion of the data machines, along with the increasing concern for aesthetic values, is a reassuring factor for the future."
 Raymond Vachon Dumont Express said "large consortiums" will take over from small moving companies.
 Wilbert E. Thibault Commercial Litho Plate "Full colour newspapers run off at breakneck speeds."
 John C. Parkin, Architect, said all would be "double everything that now exists in North America. For every expressway that now exists another must be built."

 N.R. "Buck" Crump of Canadian Pacific Promised self-driving cars and a dial-a-bus system in which a "small, automatically operated bus directed either to his front door or to a a nearby stop. The passenger would be notified of its arrival by a light on his phone." Crump also promised around-the-world flights in 80 minutes.
 Paul Vachon of Vachon Inc predicted "Chinese swallow nests, nail pudding, liqueur-soaked tarts, sweet tortillas and enchiladas"' and noted "all potentially harmful elements will be strictly controlled as a result of new legislation. Vitamins, hormones, steroids and other supplements will be added to certain foods."
 Robert Hendricks of Cominco Ltd predicted mining with laser beams, ultra sonic rays and nuclear energy.
 Dr. Roger Gaudry University of Montreal predicted lectures and notes will be "transmitted by television or another forms."
Roland Desoudry of Bromont Inc. just wrote a lot of platitudes about the ski hill.
Roland Giroux of Hydro Quebec predicted that in 2000 energy would be created by using the energy from the fusion of deuterium and tritium which is found abundantly in sea water." which would increase electricity abundantly.
 Taylor Kennedy and Leonardo Franceschini Canada Cement predicted that "hundreds of new cities will be born," in a "second Canada further north."

Benoit Beauregard Quebec Poultry inc predicted that microwave ovens will replace other cooking methods and "the chicken will be untouched by human hands It will be plucked by ultra-sounds and boned mechanically." Chicken would largely replace beef.
 Willliam E. Soles Anglo Canada Pulp and Paper Wood usage will increase fourfold, which will require proper maintenance of forests.
 Jean-Guy Dionne Dionne Spinning clearly hired his slickest writer to pen a future that didn't involve offshoring of the needle trade to cheap Asian sweatshops. "With the kaleidoscopic varieties in man-made fibers that blossom like brilliant orchid from the industry's laboratories, downtime will surely be an academic concept." He also predicted "fibers that will cool the body for tropical travelling."
 Lucien Arcand Victoriaville Furniture predicted futuristic furniture with "push button devices for drawers, slide-doors, partitions,""rubber or plastic inflatable seats an armchairs, tables and writing desks concealed under the floor board, raised at a push button command. Build-in tape libraries, lamps and TV-stereo combinations." But he conceded "furniture styles will not change drastically for all people because many of the buildings presently constructed do not lend themselves to revolutionary designs in furniture."
 G. Ross Herrington Corby Distilleries "We are now three-score and ten years through the 20th century and we are experiencing a curious phenomenon - the 'permissive age." If today's manners and mores are 'permissive," what then of the year 2000? The youth of today will be oldsters then. And what of the youth then? "What, on the surface, seems rebellious today, may well be accepted thirty years hence as perfectly moral behavior.""The lingering concept of alcoholic beverage in Canada as somehow illicit and sinful - although pleasurable - will surely have disappeared." The work week will be shortened and the average salary cheque increased immeasurably. There will be more leisure activities. Theaters, baseball and football stadia, hockey matches, trade shows, expositions and other public performances will provide many occasions for enjoying beverages in reasonable, socially -acceptable ways. It will be commonplace to take cocktails or a bottle of wine along on a picnic - without any suggestion of impropriety or daring."
 Paul Chapdelaine St Laurent Cement "The cement industry will regroup its facilities and concentrate operations in new, fully-automated factories. The extensive use of television, cameras and screens will facilitate the control of all facets of productions."
A Olaff Wolfe Microsystems International "micro-circuitry will shape an entirely new kind of world for us, which is difficult to visualize even though it's only thirty years away."
 R.P. Mills Magnetics International Ltd. "Magnarail installations are envisioned between major cities with speeds of 300 miles per hour. in these applications, ferrite bricks laid in upper and lower levels of suspended steel channels would provide the force to support the load of freight or passenger vehicles." He said "ferrite permanent magnets will "speed crop growth by as much as 25%." because "Seed germinates faster in a strong magnetic force field; the growth rate is accelerated and root systems can be directionally controlled for more efficient plant feeding and cultivating."

 Guy Corbeil, Corbeil Ltd."The time-honoured craft of shoe-making is in the process of becoming much more automated."
 Laurent Langevin, Louis-Philippe Duval Sno-Jet Inc. Snowmobiles will "rise in what appears to be headed for great popularity during the next decades."
 Kenneth P. Lavery P.S. Ross and Partners "Of all human institutions, the business corporation will change the most. To be left on the wrong side of the knowledge gap is akin to being beached on a dry shore from which the ocean has receded.""There is room in Canada for a fourfold increased in professions trained in the arts, sciences and technology. In such a policy will be found the origins of future economic expansion." A management consulting firm...will be part of the Knowledge industry, a conceptual conglomerate without boundaries."
 Peter Kilburn Greenshields Inc.Hopefully there will e a much freer flow of people, goods and ideas from continent to continent." Canada will witness extensive development in the Great North and therefor remain, on balance, an importer rather than an exporter of capital." Computers will "eliminate the time-consuming paperwork which for years has plagued the investment community."
 Charles B. Neappole The Canadian Stock Exchange"This venerable institution will no longer bustle with the Floor's daily activity, when, as a matter of fact, local stock exchange will be obsolete except for the horse and buggy type of investment in small local industry, if there are any of those left.""We might find ourselves with two or three gigantic, entirely computerized processing units with one say in Bermuda, for all of Eastern America and Europe, East and Wet, another in Honolulu for the Pacific users and maybe ea third in Mauritius. All these would, of course, have three or four back up units as a preventive measure in case of major disaster but even now from a purely technological standpoint one world wide exchange is not only possible but feasible."
 The Berlitz School of Languages "Berlitz will play an increasingly significant role for Canadians as well as others."
 B.A. Benneteau Quebec Telephone If scientists could find a way to use laser beams to transmit sounds and pictures, the cost per communications channel wold plummet. ?As yet no one has devised an efficient method of putting messages onto a laser beam that takes full advantage of its tremendously high frequencies. Researchers are not at all sure they can master laser technology by the year 2000. Most people would however be surprised if they didn't." Man will have facilities capable of producing whatever type of communications he wants he will have the option of sending text, or speaking, or seeing, or perhaps communication in all three ways at once with people sitting hundreds of miles away of halfway around the globe. Facsimile transmission will enable him to sign a contract via the telephone; with the picture phone he'll be able to show his products in colour to a prospective customer in a distant city. he'll avoid all but the essential business trips."
 John E. Brent IBM"Unlike any generation before us, we have the technology which permits us to choose the kind of future we want to have. Determining the quality of the society we will have in three decades from now is one of the most crucial questions we face. The responsibility is awesome, for the decisions we make will affect not only the lives of our own children but the lives of our children's children. We have to choose now. in making our choice, the computer can be one of the most valuable predictive and planning tools available to us."
 I. R. Ransen Mondev Corp. Giant neighbourhoods will rise vertically from common multi-level bases or plazas. There will be a minimum need to travel from one self-sufficient neighbourhood to another and whatever transportation of people and materials is necessarily will take place through pneumatic systems.
   Each neighborhood complex will be autonomous. The lower levels will contain the energy producing facilities plus storage and reuse of waste facilities and bases for long distance transport. Subsequent levels will include manufacturing industries and commercial and local transport facilities.
   Above these levels will spread great plazas from which the living neighborhoods will rise. Each neighbourhood will include single and multi-family homes together with schools, churches, shops, hotels, cinemas and other forms of entertainment. The surrounding plazas will offer parks, playgrounds, stadia, golf course and the necessary facilities of a healthy outdoor life.
  Some and some will be eliminated by conceiving an industrial complex using common or related power sources so that all human and material waste is reused and whatever possible the waste form one industry will become the raw materials of another.
  The elimination of surface street,s the integration of industry and the concentration of whole neighborhoods in giant buildings will create a need for new building material. We can visualize a new plastic-type material offering the lightness and strength needed for higher buildings with less eight and  permitting modular systems construction.
   There will be new concepts of ownership and finance and new systems of land use; the public and private sectors will have to combine efforts and the role of the developer will become paramount."
 Dr. H. Rocke Robertson McGill Univerity "Formal lectures in most courses will be few and far between." The student will have great freedom in selecting his own programme and will make his choice according ot the main problem or area of interest which he, at the outset, decide to pursue.  The realizations that the inequalities in the world are primarily due to inequalities in educational opportunity will lead universities to increasingly concerted efforts to assist the developing counties in educating their people. "
 Dr. William G. Schenider National Resarech Council Biochemistry will play a leading part in the world of the future. The possibility of genetic engineering holds enormous potential for improvement of agricultural crops and animals. Studies on cell biochemistry will lead to the control or culture of cancer and to safe effective methods of population control.
 J.W. McGiffin Canada Steamship Lines Ltd. By 2000 automation may well have replaced mental labour in the sense that mental labour means the effort required to think in terms of details. Details will be handled by computers. Though, as far as industry's concerned, will be a reciprocal arrangement between man and machine."
 C. Ritchie Montreal Engineering Nuclear technology will be universally applied, not only in huge power stations but also in smaller plants space vehicles and perhaps private cars and uses. By the year 2000 a massive and costly onslaught will be required to save the developing countries from mass starvation while the technically developed  countries must be saved form a slow death by poisoning.
 W.J.R. Paton Atlantic Sugar The sugar refining process will be improved by the increased use of computers ultra sonic and nuclear radiation.
 Anton Johl B.K. Johl Inc. Shorter working hours, release from routine tasks that can be done quicker and more efficiently by machines, mounting opportunities to use creative talent and an infinitely more pleasant environment. The era of the cubicle may be fading out Architects seem to have discovered the advantage of he wide open spaces concept. Molded fiberglass may succeed the present day upholstered seats. man made fibers may supplant wool in the sound deadening deprecating that not only covers the floor but also goes up the walls. The executive office will probably look more like a private salon in an exclusive club.
 H.G. Hallward Argo Construction"The concrete bubble idea may take enormous proportions in the near future.  Assembly plants will create prefabricate element that make a typical 21st Century building with astonishing speed, the buildings skeleton is fitted with modular units completed wired and equipped with plumbing and appliances.
 Robert F. Kelley Jeffrey Manufacturing Ten foot wide conveyors extending over 10 miles moving at 2000 feet per minute. "There will be little economic room for the small volume producers in a big volume market.""newer and yet undreamed of metal alloys and plastics will further revolutionize most known designs of machinery and equipment."
 Robert M. Schmon Quebec North Shore Paper"very substantial progress directed to great production of higher quality paper per dollar of investment. disposable clothing, linens, dishes, containers are here now but will be in use on a much greater scale." Increasing literacy should maintain a large demand for paper products."
Andre Piche Reynolds Aluminium"molten metal will be directed virtually unattended through the various cold rolling annealing and finishing operations at more than double the present speeds. The white collar will outnumber the blue collar worker." auto cleavable pouches will be in great demand for vegetables fruits and meat.' The use of aluminum for the majority of automobile components will offer a solution to the disposal problem, eliminating that much decried blight on most North American highways, the car graveyard."
 W.W. Oughtred An asbestos plant will be a couple of linked computer and a handful of men. There will certainly be a large market for asbestos assuming that ore reserves are of the same character and that basic product markets such as building products and friction materials remain.
 Eugene Laflamme South Shore Designs Instant meals will prevail, sometime taking the form of a limited assortment of pills while succulent dinners by candlelight become a costly hobby for the connoisseurs and the gourmet." The viewing and communications room will become the most important room as children sit there to play, tune in to college and university lecture or to point the tape of the most controversial paper presented on a topical subject. The man in the house will sit there to check up on the family budget, screening his bank accounts and his bills in various department stores and restaurants. Mother and daughter will delight in at-home window shopping glimpsing at the most recent displays of both the supermarket and the latest fashions. The entire family can enjoy at the most convenient hour, a replay of its favourite program or movie.
 Donald Kouri R.J. Reynolds Foods "A supermarket where all the products are automatically vended. Purchase of food products by a combination of the telephone and the closed-circuit television. Home shopping will eliminate the tedious time consuming trips to the supermarket. The ultimate package would be placed in boiling water, removed after a few seconds, opened and the package then served as a plate for the product inside. After the meal the package and utensils would be thrown out."
 Alberto Cefis Domco Industries Floor covering spread to patio, wall, ceiling sofa, everywhere.
 J. Marien Cote, Griffin Enterprises The year round all over vehicle or individual air bubble which would permit everyone to fly over any obstacle and to hop about according to his needs or whims.""Man will seek to occupy himself more fruitfully, seeking hobbies and interest more varied and of greater intellectual and physical value."
 Gabriel Buisson Laurentian Chemicals"return the forest to tits role of purifier and beautifier to its function as a place of leisure and sports for with all the innumerable fibers and additives additives organic chemistry has produced we can now satisfactorily reproduce all the forest products from wall paneling to paper using these synthetic fibers and all the family of plastics and polymers."
 Adrien Baillargeon Express Ltd. The moving industry may take an entire unit, complete with all the contents from one multiple housing complicate and deliver it to another group of residences some distance away - floor, walls, roof and all."
 Rubin B. Zimmerman Zimmcor (aluminum) Canadian cities will consist of a large number of integrated structures to to 100 storeys high grouping under one roof office space, shopping facilities, green area and residential units. " thanks to "highly improved aluminum curtail walls."
 R.L. Riker Combustion Engineer Superheater Ltd. Magnetohydrodynamic generators, thermoelectric generators, thermionic converter and fusions reactions will become commonplace to convert chemical energy to electrical energy as power generators of the future.
H.P. Paterno Avco Financial Services People will take care of all their bills, rents and school expenses insurance , heating payments at an Avco financial supermarket
A. E. Horsburgh Farr Company"clean air outside as well as inside living, working and recreational quarters. Scientists say there is no alternative, Either we clean up the air around this globe or we'll e snuffed out."
Dr Roger Veilleux Henri Vallieres Inc. Furniture will remain the same but "the most radical changes are the ones that have taken place at the furniture manufacturers' plant. There, the craftsman has been replaced by assembly line workers- except perhaps in the case of costly, custom-deigned furniture. "
Papineau Gerin-Lajoie, Leblanc Edwards architects. Orbital Architecture "plastics sound, light and air curtains materials to be invented will form the new vocabulary of XXIst Century Builders. We must create an Orbital Architecture extra terrestrial inter planetary where transport and communication will link all Beings of our planet of other planets rapidly efficiently in yet unknown ways.

Lars Olsson SF Products Canada Ltd. The processing of vast quantities of wood - a 60% increase over present consumption - is going to create a vast waste disposal problem. "kraft pulp mills give off their distinctive and offensive odor. Further developments will remove what is left of offending mercaptans and the content will be reduce to be undetectable to the human nose."

   There is a path to creating an urban utopia here where taxes are low and services are high.
    But be ready for some tough questions: is it immoral to oppose new condo construction? Should churches or heritage buildings be demolished and replaced by office towers?
   ***
For our pregame skate, consider this.

• Place Ville Marie pays a stupendous $31 million per year to Montreal in taxes.
• Montreal spends $155 million annually clearing snow.
• Police costs Montrealers $587 million annually.
• Non-profits often pay very little for their municipal taxes.

***
   The lovely landmark Trinity Church, has occupied a space on Sherbrooke Street near Marlowe since 1926 but it's no longer being employed to worship the man in the sky.
   The 3,300 square metre terrain houses a church structure on a property worth $2.4 million. How much does the city collect in taxes from the property? It's a mystery, as they craftily conceal certain tax bills from the evalweb site by triggering a "error, try again" alert.
    But it's safe to assume that the Trinity, which no longer operates as a church, enjoys a considerable exemption and pays something like $12,000 a year.
   In spite of its obsolescence, there might be reasons for preserving the venerable old greystone including the fact that the NDG food bank operates from the premises (although it could be easily relocated back to lower rent De Maisonneuve). It's one of NDG's rare beautiful things, in an area with such eyesores as the corner of Decarie and Sherbrooke.
   But on the other hand, if the church were demolished and a condo or commercial project were to replace it, it would bring in around $200,000 more to the municipality.
    That extra $188,0000 could be given to 38 NDG students in the form of $5,000 scholarships.
    Hello education, hello opportunity, hello youth, hello utopia.
   That same new condo revenue could alternately go to a variety of different directions, such as government-subsidized housing, which some people seem to favour, even though its advocates often fight against the funding required to build them.
***
    To distribute wealth, one must first create wealth.  Therefore opposing condos could be argued to be immoral.
   So the solution is clear: knock down all the churches and replace them with Place Ville Maries and we'll live in paradise.
    Of course there's no demand for a Place Ville Marie on every street corner and besides, carpet-bagging developers can manipulate politicians with the lure of increased revenues.
   Take for example the Overdale example from the late 1980s in which wealthy art dealer Robert Landau promised the city that he'd build a luxurious condo project if they would simply allow him to evict the 100 people living on the land.
   The Dore administration was dazzled by the promised new revenues and sneakily declared the structures uninhabitable. Several councillors quit the party and Dore was eventually voted out of power.
   The emptied land lay empty for decades, with a tax revenue considerably cheaper than what the city had dreamed of.
  No mechanism can ensure that a developer goes through with a property he promises to build, so there is always a risk of demolishing an existing structure and regretting it for a long time after.
**
   Buildings owned and occupied by non-profit organizations are sometimes eligible to get dirt-cheap tax rates.
   Churches and other non-profit-owned and occupied buildings can apply for municipal tax exemptions from the Quebec Municipal Commission which, if accepted, allows them to pay just .50 cents per $100, so the Lachine Curling Club pays a mere $6,800 on a $1.3 million-evaluated property, as noted in its tax bill which is marked compensations immeubles exempt
   One can see the fate of each application by toggling through its decisions on the jugements.qc.ca site.
   Many places do not appear to have such exemptions, such as the Royal Legion, Mount Royal Tennis Club and others. But that doesn't mean that they don't hurt the bottom line.
   Take for example, the Royal Montreal Curling Club at 1850 De Maisonneuve W.
   It's an urban treasure. It's 1,500 square metre property is evaluated at almost two million dollars and pays $63,000 annually in taxes to the city.
    Let's say the owners wanted to demolish it it to build a tower.
   The Chateau Latour across the street, built in 1992, brings in $147,000 per year at just two thirds the same footprint size.
   If one were to demolish the curling club and replace it with a similar structure, it could come at the cost of a lovely building with great history but it would also bring good things, it would densify the downtown area, increase commerce to local shops and businesses and presumably raise the vacancy rate and lower rents as a result. It's win-win-win, although only quaint heritage loses.
   And of course, it would bring another $100,000 to city coffers per year.
   Same goes for the 1875-built 560 square metre Montreal Racket Club, which is a club that you cannot get in so it's hard to get sentimental about. It's in prime real estate at 396 de la Concorde and pays $69,000 in annual taxes. Knocking it down would surely allow for a structure that pays much more into the city coffers
   Sentimentally clinging onto older structures is a fine thing to do but let's be aware of the dollar costs involved when making that commitment.
***
   The other component of this urban utopia is in watching how cities spend.
   Bureaucracies are famous for their stupefying waste and great secrecy and normal people are too busy living their lives to watch over how ever penny is spent. (Cue the old jokes about how many ethnic basketball associations are getting cash this year from the NDG borough).
   But we need to get vigilant, so the good guys win and the poor people benefit instead of the crooks.
   Do we really need all that late-winter snow clearing when the snow is going to melt anyway?
   Can't we just replace those $20,000-a-year traffic lights with stop signs?
   Isn't it time to replace the 11-minutes-of-work-for-$35-an-hour zamboni driver with a self-driving ice cleaning machine?
   These are the questions we need to start asking. While data is flowing more than ever, bureaucrats are still secretive and will often hide behind access-to-information. Neighbourhood newspapers are dead and mainstream news outlets send their reduced staffs to press conferences rather than get in-depth on nuts-and-bolts issues like municipal spending.
   **
   So the time is now to internalize a collective consciousness of how the city is funded and managed. Le'ts do the legwork to get the information and become aware that this is our money that they are spending. With every step towards that consciousness we come closer to living in an urban utopia where the poor are less poor and all receive better services. 

 The subject seeking counsel would sit on the first of three of high-backed black chairs pushed against a dark wood paneled wall in my father Colin Gravenor's gloomy-lit office at 1430 Chomedey.
   My father, sitting behind a massive wood desk near a buzzing electric typewriter, would wheel his chair closer and loudly describe the problem.
   "You see Pat Walsh, here, Pat got in trouble for going to Central Station and looking for women with their legs crossed. He'd masturbate under his raincoat whenever he saw a woman kicking out the top leg."
   Walsh would sit silently throughout this non-judgmental, open discussion of his woes, while my father vowed some sort of societal rehabilitation while furiously typing unsolicited letters offering help for subjects ranging from urban renewal to curing leukemia.
   He would eventually give Pat $2 to hand-deliver the hastily-typed missives, a similar sum which he offered to fellow frequent visitor George Greenford, a younger and intensely-talkative, nattily-clad 30-year-old with delusions of marrying Sam  Steinberg's daughter.
***
   Not all of those who sat in that chair was down-and-out.
   One who occasionally occupied the seat seeking free assistance was Jerry Shears a scrappy Jewish-Montrealer who became lightweight boxing champ in 1947 and went on to head various Canadian boxing committees.
   The political infighting in those committees could be ferocious and Shears sought input from my father on how to wrestle rivals and government onside.
  Writing letters under fake names was my father's favourite tactics, although some recipients might have identified the paper and typewriter font rather quickly.
  My father's other strategies might have been more diabolical. My friend Patrick Gelinas insists that Colin had his father's photography business burned down after failing to repay a debt. That alleged incident took place before I was born and I saw no such incendiary streak in my father.
***
   "This is is Jerry Shears and he is here because he has been pushed out of his position at the Canadian Boxing Federation. His problem was that he was too nice."
   Shears sat silently, looking stressed.
   The ritual left an impression that Shears was a failure.
   But in fact Shears was a successful insurance broker and left such an impressive legacy that his hometown of St. Laurent named a park after him following his death in 2010.
   Unfair though appearances may be, the ritual presented the 52-year-old Shears as a man desperate for help from my father, aged 67 in 1977.
   The tiny splinters of light that fought their way through the wooden window shutters of that first-floor office facing Chomedey Street did not flatter those who sat in it.
 ***
   Others who put their ego on hold to solicit assistance from Colin Gravenor included animal-lover Bill Short who enjoyed media attention as much as anybody, as witnessed in a 1965 La Presse article explaining how Short's German shepherd Silver was earning him $15,000 a year in TV and film appearances. In his golden years he became a media-friendly advocate for elderly owning dogs.
   My father, Short and myself assembled at the downstairs Dilallo's burger place on De Maisonneuve one day in around 1988.
   The elderly Short aimed to launch a neighbourhood newspaper on the South Shore full of crosswords and other such easy-to-obtain content.
   The notion seemed a little random, as if he announced he was going to launch a pop singing career.
   Midway through lunch Short exited for the adjacent depanneur and openly sucked back a beer from a paper bag while standing on the sidewalk. He returned to the table and carried on. My father didn't comment on the display of desperate speed drinking.

   What could be a more perfect Montreal baseball experience than to smack a towering homer right towards the cross on Mount Royal?
   For decades anybody who feels inclined can grab a glove and head over to Jeanne Mance Park at Park and Mount Royal to join in on a weekend afternoon softball game and maybe crack a drive that challenges the mountain gods.
   The vibe is friendly and people from all backgrounds, ages and competences enjoy a brotherhood on the diamond.
   But this year the City of Montreal has advised the players that they're probably going to shut down the field, for this year at least.
   Renovations of the adjoining tennis courts will require equipment to be stored somewhere and that somewhere likely is on the field of dreams that the boys of spring, summer and fall flock to for their softball fix.
   Translator David Smith has been coming to the games since 1987, a time when he had dreadlocks to his knees. He is the most senior of the regular participants.
   Others include a newly-arrived Somali stingy with his swings, several athletic-looking Latinos who favour leggings under their shorts, a beefy bartender-turned TV ad salesman and translator David Homel who has been coming since around 1990 and says that the outings are his form of social media.
   Smith feels that it would be a shame for the games to be cancelled all summer just because construction equipment needs a place to get planted.
   Another adjacent diamond could likely accommodate some of the action but it's often occupied with more official games and doesn't quite have the same magical allure.
   So Smith and other players are meeting with authorities to see if some other arrangement can be worked out so that the summertime of softball fun won't be washed out.
   "This is a major concern for the wonderful community that has developed over the years at and around the baseball diamond," he told Coolopolis on a sunny good Friday afternoon which saw a trio of games get played on the field.
 

   A man at the centre of a high-profile Montreal apparent gay love triangle murder claims that the official story is untrue.

Berube seen in about 2010

A police officer shot an unarmed James Drummond Ross dead on Pine Ave. in Oct. 1967, not 29-year-old cameraman Mike Jenkins, who was convicted of the crime, an eyewitness tells Coolopolis.
   Jim Drummond Ross 36, was shot dead in front of Henry Berube, 20, on October 12, 1967 on the sidewalk in front of 1569 Pine Ave, next to the Montreal General Hospital.
   Mike Jenkins was charged and convicted.

See:  How a splashy, hushed-up gay lovers triangle murder changed history

   Jenkins, according to the testimony, was jealous that Ross had stolen his young lover Berube.
   But Berube, reached at his home in rural Ontario, a father of two, says that he has never been homosexual, that he had never met Drummond prior to the shooting and that Jenkins was not even at the scene of the crime.
   In an unusual twist, authorities detained Berube for five and a half months  at Bordeaux Prison with the intention of charging him with accessory to murder.
   "How can I be an accessory to murder if I was just a bystander on the street? They twisted everything around," said Berube.
   Authorities later reported that Berube was detained because they feared he would not testify as a witness in the case.
   Berube, however, says that he was jailed because he told investigators that he saw a police officer shoot Drummond.
   Berube, now 70, says that he was a student at Dawson and had finished his shift at La Popina restaurant at Place Ville Marie when he attempted to hitchhike back home during a bus strike.
   He was living with his father on Paul Pau Street deep in the east end. Getting back would be a major challenge, so he walked up the hill to see if it might help him get a ride.

 I was walking and hitching at the same time, suddenly this vehicle pulls up and Ross was coming out of this archway in a convertible. And he just passed me and he stopped and I thought, 'well here's a chance to get a ride.' 

   Berbube said that while he was getting ready to hop in the convertible shots rang out. Berube says he thought the sound of gunfire was a noise made by the car motor.

  When I was approaching  that's when he got shot. When I turned around I saw the cop with the rifle. The officer was about 10 feet away. He shot him twice in the chest. Drummond got out of his car and started staggering then he blew his head off. I was terrified.
  He aimed it at me so I ducked behind a car and he shot the tire on the car and the bumper came down and split the top of my knee and left it wide open. I couldn't move anywhere and these other cop cars came and they weren't plainsclothesmen, they were narcotics division and homicide showed up and they took me down to the station and questioned me. I must have bee there for 12 hours of questioning before they took me up to the hospital.There was a pool of blood on the floor.

Berube says prison was no party.

I didn't have a trial and I was confined in deadlock, so couldn't go out for exercise. The guy in the cell helped me get letters out. I sent one to The Gazette and another newspaper but they fabricated my story just to sell newspapers. They didn't tell the whole truth. So I decided to write to John Diefenbaker because he was the best criminal lawyer in Canada. I got him to come to see me in Bordeaux. He ordered me released right away. The warden and five guards lost their jobs. I never received an apology or compensation. In fact the cops were still trying to kill me in Montreal.
 Diefenbaker said that I could go to Ottawa with him. I was escorted by RCMP officers to Ottawa. I told Diefenbaker that I just wanted to get away from the public and hide. I couldn't trust anybody. So I headed to Victoria island and lived off the land  for two years before going back to Toronto. I didn't want to go back to Montreal. 

    Berube lost his job, his schooling and his any hope he had of settling in Montreal with his father.
    He said he knew Jenkins casually, once having visited him as him as he worked as a cameraman on a soap opera. He says he as no idea what become of Jenkins, who'd be about 80 if still alive now. Berube said that Jenkins did not appear to be gay.
   Berube had no idea why police would shoot Drummond, who had taught at McGill and had no apparent criminal dealings. Berube said that an acquaintance later approached him lounging in front of the church at University and St. Catherine and suggested that Drummond had been using university facilities to whip up drugs, possibly LSD, and this activity might have offended cops, who Berube says that he has no idea if that story is true.
   The Montreal police night squad, which handled the affair, gained a reputation for their unconventional policing methods and were disbanded in early 1976.
   Berube's claims fly in the face of much of the testimony at the time, as a man named Raymond Bucnanan, also 29 and living at 1180 Drummond, said that Jenkins confessed the murder to him. Police report that Berube was entering Ross's home when shot. A neighbour also described the shooting in a way inconsistent with Berube's version.A man named James Elkin was cited in an article and might also have some knowledge of the incident.
   If anybody still alive has any insight into the affair please feel free to contact coolopolis at megaforce@gmail.com.

   What sane person would want to live with screaming hockey fans and rock concert scalpers outside their window?
   Many wondered just that when condos at the Bell Centre went on sale.
   But not only were the units snapped up quickly, they sold at a price far higher than others in the area.
   The difference between those units and others in nearby Griffintown or at Mountain and Dorch?
   The Bell Centre is connected to the underground city, Montreal's downtown pedestrian network.
    Condo shoppers have voted with their dollars and they want a home that permits them to stroll to their cubicle at Place Ville Marie without donning a sweater, jacket, raincoat or long undies.
    Red lights, smog, slush, icy sidewalks, puddles, cold winds, rain, snow and sleet be damned!
    People want to walk in climate-controlled, safely to one's destinations past countless shiny boutiques en route.
   Now that consumers have proven that they want to live downtown connected to the underground city, expect the floodgates to open.
***
     So where will the next tunnels migrate? Presumably the tunnels are already headed under St. Antoine Street in the upcoming development across from the Bell Centre, so that will likely expand the ant farm south.  

The showers in the Canadiens Towers aren't its big attraction

    But the those who know the invisible mood borders of downtown understand why Peel and St. Catherine is not only downtown's signature intersection, but it's also a border from the smaller structures to the west to the big boys east.
   Peel and St. Catherine is where the underground city needs its grand entrance.
   One would be able to enter around the recently-closed HMV record shop at the southeast corner.
   The tunnel would slip diagonally to another famous structure, the Sun Life building, which really needs to be represented in this tunneltastic undertaking.
    The tunnel from the Sun Life would go diagonally to Central Station, with another foot tunnel going east to the building across Metcalfe and then onto Place Ville Marie.
     For years the underground city was plagued by a lack of connection under St. Catherine Street. It's time to get another one going as well and Peel and St. Catherine would be just the place to do it.
     Expanding such networks would come cost for construction, maintenance and security surveillance but those expenses could be more than compensated by increased revenues from residential construction, thereby increasing the residential density of the downtown area.
    ***
  Another oft-overlooked underground tunnel network has been a cash cow, not for Montreal but for
Westmount, as the Alexis Nihon / Westmount Square network has recognized from the start that home dwellers want to get in on the tunnel action.
   That tunnel system now travels from Green all the way to the southeast corner of Atwater and St. Catherine. Now a major new project is slated at the site of the former Children's Hospital and yeah, that's just a stone's toss away from a tunnel at Cabot Square.
   Extending that tunnel under Cabot Square to the development would create another substantial underground city.
    The old Montreal Forum will inevitably be demolished or redesigned and another tower at the southwest corner of St. Catherine and Atwater would give some impressive critical mass to that area and the building at that stands where the Seville Theatre long thrilled moviegoers, could also be connected to the underground.
  The area has become a hub of activity, as all those rebel kids of Bill 101 have jammed Dawson College CEGEP to finally get an English education.
  Increased development at Atwater and St. Catherine is a cause all can support, as it would rejuvenate the long-beleaguered stretch of St. Catherine to Guy, where street commerce has long suffered from a lack of population density on the western edge of the strip.
 ***
   Construction at St. Lawrence and De Maisonneuve is also inevitable, as the southwest corner is already being built. A project has long been slated for the St. Lawrence metro station but has yet to happen. Those projects, when they materialize, could get hooked up with the Place des Arts tunnel system. The massive, sprawling and dubious Jeanne Mance public housing project, which - unless redesigned - remains an obstacle to further tunnel development to the east of the Main.
***
And finally the Vendome metro superhospital has become a sort of tiny newborn tunnel network but it has yet to make that push
beyond its narrow facility. The nearby busy intersection of De Maisonneuve and Decarie offers considerable potential for office or condo tower or commercial development, as thousands of staffers would love a way to live nearby. That in turn could be linked into a new network of tunnels.

    We have all had a starstruck moment.

    What the heck? Bradley Cooper? On the same sidewalk as me, walking right towards me?  Am I seeing things? A movie star right in front of me acting like a normal person?  Here he comes! Look cool. Don't stare. Let's see if he looks over, let's see if he notices me.   Oh ....my ....god ... Bradley ...Muthafucken Cooper!... Just! Looked! At! Me!!! I think he smiled a little. Holy Mother of Christ! Bradley Cooper just walked me me on St. Catherine and Drummond and smiled at me as I looked at him! Holy crap! Get the phone out fast!!! Maybe I can snap a pic of him walking away so people will believe I saw him! 

      The moment you encounter a famous celebrity the information enters the amygdala, shoots over to the brain stem, pushes faster than competing information transmitted on neurons into the frontal lobe and almost instantly burns into a long-term memory that pushes out other less important memories, such as the moment a child was born or your first kiss as a teen.
   Celebrity-spotting memories are so powerful that they can even be contagious. Someone told me that he saw a minor Canadian celebrity musician named Bruce Cockburn having coffee on the Main a few years ago. I'm don't know or care about Bruce Cockburn but my brain mused over the incident so many times that it has now become a personal memory, difficult to separate from my own real memories.
    Our brains are getting better. We commit fewer crimes. We buy fewer lottery tickets. We get high on drugs and booze less. We don't do horoscopes.
   But the celebrity obsession wrinkle, surely a remnant of our days as polytheists, is still roaring strong.
***
   The possibility of celebrity encounters is part of what makes a city exciting.
   In a recent film on Netflix a child moves from Brooklyn to small town Washington state and tells his new friends. "Brooklyn is neat, You see famous people there."
    The big five world cultural capitals, London, Paris, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles have long lured people with the magic dust of encountering celebrities.
    Montreal? Not so much. European tourists would occasionally stand outside of Leonard Cohen's house in hopes of spotting the sombre musician.
   But alas Montreal comes up short in the celebrity siting department.
   Admittedly someone from France or Trois Pistoles might be impressed to spot Coeur de Pirate or France D'Amour eating chocolate cake in a restaurant, but such sightings would fly right over the heads of many less sensitive to the francophone mileu.
   And until Quebec artists start performing in English for world audiences (next week, I think. - Chimples), it will remain that way.
   Comedian Denis Leary told me in a phone interview that he has come to Montreal many times but knows nothing about the city because he stays in his hotel room. Imagine if he had come out to Crescent and milled around the Golden Square Mile? Dozens of happy, excited memories would have been created and passed on just by him walking around like a normal person.
***
   Celebrities don't even have to be particularly well-known or admirable for it to be exciting. Screw up Corey Haim stumbled around the West End for a while before he died of drug-related causes.
    Was his presence, pathetic though it may have been, a value added? Hell to the yes. Everybody who crossed paths with him recalls it well.
    The Great Antonio was more of a welfare recipient than a legit celebrity but all who spotted him as he sat in his various spots around town remembers ever detail of their encounters.
   I once saw actor Wallace Shawn walking down Crescent and said "hey it's a nice day, ain't it?" and he looked at me said dreamily, "I.... wouldn't.... know."
   I haven't seen all that many celebs around Montreal. Pierre Trudeau sure. Mulroney nope. Bradley Cooper? Hell no. Peter Gabriel at a party. Ben Kingsley at the Jello Bar but me too busy checking out the chicks, although my pal Bernard Deneeve went and chatted with him.
   Genie Bouchard, nope, but other family members saw her around.
   My wife once saw that cute little funny NDG comedian actor guy (whose name I forget now that he moved to Toronto) buying cat food on Monkland.
***
    As with everything, however, the 20 percent wreck everything, as the Pareto rule dictates. Celebrities don't want to mingle because sure 80 percent of people who spot them will be cool with them but other 20 percent will be pests.*
   So maybe we can make Montreal a place where we respect celebrities and don't invade their space too much.
   Heck yeah, that'll be our trademark, put up the public awareness posters in bus shelters now, so when it's -22 C and you're waiting for the bus you'll read a sign reminding you not to pester Beyonce if she shows up to stand next to you.
    Celebs come to town around this time of year with the Grand Prix and various movie shootings but imagine if we devoted that $100 million lights-on-the-bridge budget to beefing up our celeb spotting clout?
    A little razzle dazzle could go a long way to making Montreal a primo place to attract celeb-watchers from around the world. Try these on for size:

Mom! I just saw Kellis buying a milkshake at Orange Julep.
Honey am I mistaken or that Pit Bull behind us in line at the depanneur?
You'll never guess who helped me shovel out my car this morning? Clint Eastwood!

  Even reading those examples got you tingling. Don't deny it. .
  So someone please, text Danny De Vito. Give him flight money, a hotel room and $800 to get him walking down De Maisonneuve for a few hours. So many delightful memories will sprout from this that all of our problems will seem smaller because that's the way our brains work.

*(Sometimes even minor celebrities can be pests, as people waited to congratuate a musician named David J. at a recent show I attended and an aging musician named Lewis Furey so dominated his time with chatter that many others just gave up and left).