Kidmobiles and other Montreal, Canada Local Custom Tips

We were quite taken by the sight of these two young ladies, pushing what seemed hordes of tiny tots out for a stroll and some fresh air. Maybe these “public transport” style kidmobiles are commonplace where you live, but we’d never before seen anything like them. Our guess is that they all come from a local creche or childminding centre – it seemed a little improbable that these were the children of large families!

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We knew of Canada’s official policy that all official signage must be in two languages, English and French, so we were quite surprised to find that much of the official signage in Montréal is only in French. We have since learned that this apparently results from a decision taken by the Province of Québec, intended to help preserve French culture and language. OK, I can understand the concern to limit ‘cultural imperialism’ but this appears to be a question of whether Canadian laws apply nationally: that seems a Constitutional matter and somewhat beyond a VT page!

What is blindingly obvious though, is that most of the tourists visiting Montréal will be English speakers, many of whom can be expected to not understand these signs. At the least, the appeal of the tourist experience will be lessened for those people (when tourist information signs are involved) and they’re hardly likely to comply with signs carrying requests they don’t understand. Overall, I’d have thought this approach likely to be counterproductive (or even dangerous when applied to the internationally accepted “STOP” signs).

Main photo:Sign in bus
Second photo:Sign in railway station
Third photo:Sign in park
Fourth photo:”ARRÊT” for “STOP”!

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One of our “first impressions” of Montréal was of the number of flags flying: far more, it seemed, than we were accustomed to seeing at home. It may have been simply because they were different, but they certainly were colourful – the Canadian flag we knew well, but guessing which was the flag for the Province of Québec and which for the city itself was a little more difficult. So I did some homework!

The flag with the red cross is that of the City of Montréal and, although there seems to be some dissent about the origin of the cross (could it be the Cross of St George?) the other emblems are symbolic of the people with backgrounds in France, England, Scotland and Ireland.

The flag for the Province of Québec (photo 2) is known as the Fleurdelisé and dates from 1948. The white cross comes from the ancient French royal flags, while the blue background and white “fleurs-de-lis” apparently are taken from a flag carried by French-Canadian militia and symbols of purity, honouring the Virgin Mary.

And now you know too!

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One morning as we began our day's travels, I was amazed to find these piles of rubbish bags in the street. No bins, no sign of any recycling, just loose bags of undifferentiated rubbish! We had just come from Europe, where recycling is taken very seriously, as it is in Australia, and our friends in Nova Scotia also stressed the importance to us. Maybe I’m becoming “greener” with age, but it was surprising to find this in a large modern city!

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