Ape Rifle

Is North America’s love affair with large, gas-guzzling vehicles finally fizzling out? GM suddenly seems to think so, much to the detriment of workers at one of its truck-producing Canadian plants. The story has dominated Canadian airwaves over the past week, rich in the intrigue of corporate betrayal and linked as it is to the media darling of the moment: high oil prices. Old vs. New Economy, Jobs vs. the Environment, Labour vs. Capital- no familiar framing of the issue has been left dormant. 

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this whole affair is the perception that the North American collapse in truck sales came out of nowhere. You would figure that a major global corporation such as GM would have at least a few strategists looking beyond the next quarter. Sure, trucks are much more profitable to sell than small cars, but even your average layman would be hard pressed not to notice the economic and geo-political storms gathering over the industry. GM should have been all over this years ago, not days ago.

But then again, blaming GM is the easy way out. In recent years, the national governments of North America have been notoriously unwilling to put any real pressure on the automobile industry to clean up its act or reduce the size and fuel consumption of its vehicles. Freedom has meant twenty miles per gallon, and forward-looking energy policy reduced to developing the oil sands in Alberta, and developing them quickly at all cost. It’s not hard to see how car manufacturers could get so complacent in such a permissive and supportive environment. Gaz-guzzling had protection from the very top.

With governments and manufacturers mired in their do-nothing myopia, it’s refreshing to see change come from those so often labelled as least willing to alter their behaviour: the consumer (or as known outside of government and academic circles, ‘normal people’). The consumer, in fact, has been a convenient straw man for interests opposed to any real progress on environmental and energy issues: environmentalism is too expensive, the average consumer isn’t willing to pay for it, the reasoning went. Well, this ‘consumer’ in North America has apparently turned the tables: wasting energy is now expensive, and people are no longer willing (or even able) to pay for it.  

North America is built around the automobile, its societies and economies dependent on the gas pump to get anything done. Perhaps this, alongside government complicity, gave GM comfort that its trucks and the like could rule the roads for a while yet. But the error in this logic is that while North Americans can’t go ten minutes without driving, they can easily do so in a vehicle other than a souped-up pickup truck or a Cadillac Escalade. How many SUVs and pickup trucks in your average urban area are necessities to the driver? Probably not many. How many of those drivers could get the exact same utility out of a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle? Probably quite a few. It’s strange that ‘utility’ is one of components of the SUV acronym, since to a large proportion of their current owners they are effectively useless. Unlike oil, demand for large vehicles is rather more elastic. The era of the Soccer Mom Monster Truck is likely in its welcome twilight.

At least in North America, that is. 

Parliament Hill
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

With springtime this year returns a particular type of seasonal frenzy: the Montreal Canadiens, darlings of the city and local media obsession, are in the NHL playoffs. In a place where the terms ‘hockey’ and ‘civic pride’ are often interchangeable, Montrealers have responded in a flurry of excitement and anticipation. Even the police, traditionally wary of such times thanks to infamous hockey-fueled riots (see 1955, 1986 and 1993), have made their peace with the fans by sporting Canadiens flags on their cruisers. Just like many taxis, and a decent percentage of vehicles in the city.

The Canadiens in the playoffs aren’t just the talk of the town: they are the town. Social calendars revolve around game nights, and the landscape is noticeably more bleu, blanc et rouge. The acoustics inside the Bell Centre, the team’s arena, are rarely below a deafening roar. Beer is still unbelievably overpriced, the in-game light-and-sound show designed for suffers of attention deficit disorder is as ingratiating as ever- but no one cares. Attention is focused on the drama playing out on the ice. The goalie of the Boston Bruins, who have the current misfortune of being on the wrong end of Montreal fans’ energy, equated his appearance at Montreal’s temple of hockey with being like a gladiator. Thankfully, these days you only get killed by the media and jeers as opposed to your opponent’s blade.

Worship of the Canadiens is perhaps so strong because of hockey’s power of unification. In a city so traditionally divided by linguistics and political allegiances, here is something that everyone can get behind with no questions asked. The storied history of the team has provided common legends for all Montrealers to consider their own- English, French or otherwise. This year’s crop of players have a particularly Russian flavour. Much more so than the vapid corporate nonsense of the Olympics, here’s an example of the power of sport and spectacle to transcend societal divisions. Rich? Poor? Federalist? Separatist? Doctor? Truck Driver? All are glued to a screen or their seats, ready to burst forth in celebration or, alternatively, in brutal cursing of the referee. It takes quite the stodgy curmudgeon not to get caught up in this hockey fever.

It has been oft argued that nationalism has replaced Catholicism as Quebec’s dominant religion, but to this I would add that hockey is equally carrying the weight of spirituality in this post-Christian society. And if the Canadiens are the deity of choice in these parts, then this is the holy season. And what is fueling this faith? The belief that, in a league hijacked by marketing and American sunbelt cities with indifferent fans, hockey’s ultimate prize might just return to its true home.

There is no getting around it: Montreal in early spring is a messy place. The thick blanket of white that smothers the city during the dark winter months pulls back to reveal a wide variety of discarded trash, soaking on wet sidewalks and covered in the residual rock salt of de-icing efforts. The roadways are battered and cracked, the mud of construction sites and vacant lots leaking out onto them and into cavernous potholes. Many street corners remain lakes over which pedestrians must jump, and snowbanks decay into an attractive shade of brown or exhaust black. The temperature rises, to be sure, but people remain weary and slightly on edge, not yet convinced that blinding snowfalls are a things of the past. In this part of the world, winter often says goodbye with a massive spring blizzard. How considerate.

Needless to say, at this time of year the city does not look its best. A massive proportion of Montreal’s built environment now dates from the mid-20th century, when concrete was king and grey and brown were de rigueur. Soggy weather brings out the worst aspects of this discarded architectural style, sucking the colour out of the landscape and leaving a residue of marred roads and brutal buildings. Thankfully, the passage of time brings forth a blast of sunlight and a return to the world of colour.

Passing by the street corner pictured above, I couldn’t help but read a scene full of meaning. On a superficial level, the billboard is typical in that it reflects the impossible fantasies of salvation through real estate, in which gorgeous conceptual renditions never quite match the resulting physical structure. Reality has that annoying habit of being slightly messier.

On a more symbolic level, this image spoke to me as a declaration of springtime and renewal, not only in terms of weather but for this particular corner of the city. It has long been populated by concrete, decay and idles spaces devoid of activity outside of the summer Jazz Festival onslaught. As neighbourhoods go, this one around Place-des-Arts (a major performing arts complex) has excelled as a void, a complete hole between busier and more lively parts of the city’s core. Urban change at its scarring worst, one could say.

Montreal is trying to change all this. Having re-baptized the area as the Quartier des Spectacles, the city has revved up some ambitious renewal plans of the usual kind, in which North American cities have nowhere else to turn but permanent spectacle, tourism and nebulous ‘cultural’ industries. A long neglected urban splace has thus sprouted colourful fencing and construction sites, including the condominium tower above. With a minimal amount of fanfare, chunks of the city are changing drastically. Like winter begrudgingly giving way to spring, this bleak landscape of empty lots and bunker bank towers could regain both colour and, more importantly, some vitality.

But as with spring, there is always the possibility of that massive blizzard rolling in to spoil the fun. A prolonged economic mess in North America, a political flare-up at the provincial level of the kind that ravages Montreal’s optimism, a development approach that transforms all space into playgrounds for the wealthy- the sources of weariness are many. But as it is with the arrival of every spring, hope springs forth; amidst the dirty snow and mangled infrastructure, people sense the sun is truly and finally coming. Hopefully, the same can be said for the fortunes of this fair city.

Parking on rue Roy, Plateau-Mont-Royal, Montreal

Montreal, Quebec

McGill University’s New Music Building…or the headquarters of a sinister organization?