Tag Archives: Quebec

In what is being touted as a world-first, the province of Quebec has launched an official registry to track acts of homophobia. With funding from the Quebec Justice Department, the campaign is being administered by Montreal’s gay helpline, Gai Écoute. Gai Écoute’s anonymous and confidential Registre des actes homophobes will document complaints ranging from name-calling in schools to psychological harassment …

Just in case you’ve momentarily forgotten to envy Canada, Zack Ford at Think Progress tips us to this: Quebec government will spend $7 million over the next five years on programs aimed at fighting bullying and discrimination against gays and lesbians. Justice minister Jean-Marc Fournier said money will be shared among agencies working to protect the rights of gays, lesbians, …

Montreal’s Divers/Cite climaxed yesterday with an all day street party called La Grande Danse, which was headlined by the red-hot Freemasons. This clip was shot quite early in the day while opener DJ Danny Verde was spinning and before it got super-packed. I’m told about attendance at the party peaked at around 40,000.

Club flyers, bar rags, Divers/Cite guides, etc etc. Embiggen for a closer look. In the upper left is my VIQ pass, which Divers/Cite co-founder Suzanne Girard told me stood for Very Important Queer, Queen, or Quebecois, my choice.

Saturday began with a trip to the “24-hour hipster joint and poutine mecca,” La Banquise, where my able homo-guide ordered us the traditional version of Montreal’s specialty seen several posts below this one. From there we went to Parc Lafontaine in the Le Plateau-Mont Royal borough, where we lounged on the grass and scarfed our fries and curds. Lafontaine seems …

This is for the purists who dissed yesterday’s poutine post.

Yesterday my able homo-guide started our excursion at the famous St. Viateur Bagels in Montreal’s hipster-heavy Mile End, home to many of the city’s artists, musicians, and writers. Think Billyburg, but with slightly fewer sleeve tattoos. The bagels aren’t very New York-y, more like unsalted warm pretzels, therefore I liked them. After bagels, Daniel rented me an orange electric scooter …

Today’s excursion included a trip to the top of Montreal’s namesake. More on today in tomorrow’s recap. I hope to see some of you local homos tonight at Gotha at 9pm!

Yesterday my able homo-guide from Touisme Montreal and I picked up a couple of Bixi bikes and made an all-day excursion across the enormous Jacques Cartier Bridge over the St. Lawrence and down onto Île Sainte-Hélène in the middle of the river, where we toured Parc Jean-Drapeau. There we circled the Biosphere from the 1967 World’s Fair and rode the …

Montreal has a fantastic public bike system called Bixi (bike-taxi), in which you can swipe a credit card and take a bike for free for up to 30 minutes. Longer rides start at $1.50/hour and are very reasonable thereafter. You can return to the bike to any of the numerous docking stands around town, making them perfect for short one-way …

Tonight my able homo-guide to Montreal treated me to dinner in Old Montreal at Garde Manger, a highly-regarded place recently made more famous because of a reality show starring its owner, which is now running on the Food Network in Canada. I recommend the halibut. And the scallops. And the bartender. Definitely the bartender.

The bathroom in my Montreal hotel room has a square toilet. OK, then.

A couple of days after I get back from Netroots Nation, I’ll be making my Canadia debut when Tourisme Montréal brings me up to cover Divers/Cité, the 18th annual gay pride arts, music, and party festival. Eighteen and going strong. All together different! Divers/Cité is an event whose mission is to present an arts and music festival that illustrates and …

Montreal Pride has launched a “Queer Of The Year” contest in which the winner gets a week in Montreal, a shopping spree, and their very own float in the parade. Details at the link and in the video clip below. You don’t have be Canadian to win and you’ve got until July 22nd to enter.

Several of you have written to point us to this amazing lip-sync video made by students at L’Université du Québec à Montréal. It’s all done in just one take and according to the YouTube notes, the entire production took just over two hours.

A Quebec provincial judge has ruled against a group of Christian parents who were outraged that their children were being taught about all of the world’s major religions as well as aboriginal Canadian faiths. Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-Guy Dubois dismissed a bid by parents in Drummondville, Que., who said the course on ethics and religious culture introduced across the …

Early this month, a $400K donation to Toronto Pride by the Canadian federal government was criticized by conservatives, resulting in the disciplining of a member of parliament who posed with drag queens during a check presentation ceremony. Now the feds say they have no money for Divers/Cite, Montreal’s giant gay arts week. An Industry Canada spokeswoman says there are just …

Lead by openly gay Andre Boisclair, yesterday the Parti Quebecois suffered a huge setback in Quebec’s provincial elections, winning only 36 out of 125 seats. This means that the long-festering Quebec separatist movement will not get another referendum anytime soon. One of the things I don’t miss about living in South Florida was having to endure incessant news babble about …