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7 Just Completely Wild Things That Actually Happened In Quebec That Sound Made-Up
Only Quebecers will believe this stuff actually took place.
November 21, 2020, 12:06 PM
Miguel Legault | FlickrIsabel Poulin | Dreamstime
Being the Canadian city with the most rageful drivers, the best food in Canada and the ever-present existence of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), there's bound to be some friction — which means there's been no shortage of news coming out of Montreal.
Amid a divisive relationship between anglophones and francophones, crumbling infrastructure and questionable climate action, compiling some of the wildest Montreal stories in history was no small feat.
We've rounded up seven of the most notable Montreal events of the last several years.
How many #MTLMoments do you remember from this list of absurdities?
That time students rocked the city in protest of rising tuition fees
Why It's A Wild #MTLMoment: In 2012, students and teachers from Quebec universities united by the thousands for a six-month-long series of protests against tuition fee increases — the longest student strike in their histories.
This resulted in numerous arrests and general chaos in Montreal. Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent as a result of the protests, compensating for police overtime hours in Montreal.
That time spelunkers found a 15,000- year-old cave in Saint-Leonard
Why It's A Wild #MTLMoment: The Saint-Leonard cavern, located under Parc Pie XII, was the focus of news in 2017 when spelunkers discovered a 250-metre long addition to another cave in the same area.
The pre-existing cavern had been discovered in 1812, but spelunkers had a hunch that there was more to be found. Boy, were they right!
That time massive Montreal flooding wiped people out downtown
Why It's A Wild #MTLMoment: Infamous videos of people being washed away by massive flooding in downtown Montreal circulated on the internet in 2013.
In Quebec's rendition of America's Funniest Home Videos, a video of a woman being washed away by flooding on Rue McTavish garnered over 400,000 views on YouTube.
That time Pauline Marois almost got assassinated during her victory speech
Benoît Levac | Wikimedia Commons
Why It's A Wild #MTLMoment: Pauline Marois, one of Quebec's most controversial, short-lived premiers, stirred the pot in the province when she was elected in 2012.
In light of her plans for a French-language crackdown and her views on secularism, she was almost assassinated during her victory speech at Métropolis in downtown Montreal, now known as M Telus.
Marois was whisked away by police and the shooter, Richard Henry Bain, was tackled and arrested. He ended up killing a stage technician at the venue.
That time Quebec shut down due to a massive 1998 ice storm
Deb | Wikimedia Commons
Why It's A Wild #MTLMoment: Most Montreal millennials were young when a severe ice storm hit Quebec in January 1998. However, you might still remember having no power for several weeks and having to stay with family or in a local school gymnasium while the province dealt with the crisis.
Fun fact: Over 10,000 Canadian Forces personnel were deployed to help with the storm in Quebec, and over 15,000 total in Canada — the largest deployment of the Canadian military since the Korean War in the 1950s.
That time Montrealer Luka Magnotta was the subject of a worldwide manhunt
Why It's A Wild #MTLMoment: If you haven't seen Don't F**k with Cats on Netflix or you lived under a rock in 2012, you might not know about Montreal's most recent infamous criminal, Luka Magnotta.
Magnotta made world news when he became the prime suspect of a worldwide manhunt for the murder and dismemberment of Jin Lun, a then-Concordia University student. Magnotta was later found in an internet café in Germany while looking himself up on a computer.
Apparently, the Boulevard Décarie apartment where the gory events took place is currently occupied.
That time Denis Coderre dumped billions of litres of sewage into a Montreal river
Otto Dusbaba | Dreamstime
Why It's A Wild #MTLMoment: Ex-Montreal mayor, Denis Coderre, followed through with a number of controversial plans for the city before being voted out of his mayoral seat.
He effectively dumped eight billion litres of raw sewage into the Saint-Lawrence River in 2015 despite warnings from Environment Canada, Canada's infrastructure minister at the time and a petition with over 55,000 signatures.
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