This is Montreal – Details, episodes & analysis

This is Montreal off this week, so we're bringing you an episode of the podcast This is Ottawa. At the Canadian War Museum, you can find an imposing black armoured car that once belonged to none other than Adolf Hitler. Host Robyn Bresnahan looks at how the car ended up in Ottawa after a stop in Montreal, and how the museum balances public interest with critics who say it “glamourizes Nazism.”

Some Montrealers are looking for the perfect gift for someone on their list, but it won't be brand new with the tags still on. It will be from the thrift shop. Whether it's economic or environmental concerns or just the thrill of the hunt, we'll hear what's driving interest in thrifting and why one expert cautions that thrifting alone won't solve overconsumption.

After 7 years as mayor, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante has decided she’s not going to run again. As recently as a month ago, Plante had said she would seek a third mandate. So what is prompting this decision now? CBC reporter Matt Lapierre joins Ainslie MacLellan to break down Plante’s surprise announcement, and political scientists Dónal Gill and Katherine Sullivan look at how it fits into a wider trend of political burnout, including amongst women. With research by Carla Désir.

When the forecast calls for torrential rain, some Montreal residents hold their breath. Ainslie MacLellan visits one street in Saint-Laurent where homes have flooded multiple times in recent years by sewer back up during heavy rain, and finds out how climate change, infrastructure choices and our transformation of the natural landscape have created the perfect storm.

New name, same must-listen podcast. Dive into the Montreal stories you’re curious about and the issues you want to understand. Host Ainslie MacLellan explores the complexities of our colourful, vibrant and sometimes frustrating, but always interesting city.

June is Pride Month, especially in the U.S. Montreal’s Pride festivities are in August, but this wasn’t always the case. We’ll hear from Montrealers who had a hand in organizing Pride at various times in its history and hear how, in each era, the 2SLGBTQ+ community channeled political and social struggle into the movement of protest and celebration that we know today.

From Verdun to Rosemont to NDG, it seems like wild turkeys have been popping up all over Montreal in recent years. They’ve spurred a lot of curiosity and even delight from Montrealers, but we have seen some human-turkey conflict arise. We’ll hear about what life is like for a big bird in the big city, and how we can get along without ruffling any feathers.

Ribbed like a pumpkin, but with a spiderweb exterior like a cantaloupe, the Montreal melon was a wildly popular fruit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It graced the dining tables of the finest U.S. hotels and was literally fit for a king. It was cultivated by local producers, particularly in Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, but it all but vanished by the 1950s. We’ll hear about efforts to revive the Montreal melon, and why some say it’s overdue for a comeback.

As we heard last week, it’s not always easy to find spaces to plant trees in a city. That’s where tiny forests come in. What started in Japan has become a worldwide movement to plant densely-packed pockets of vegetation in cities, including Montreal. CBC reporter Ben Shingler shares his documentary.

Big ice storms, pests, drought: there are lots of threats facing urban trees. In a special two-part episode, one Montrealer asks how the city is making sure our trees can withstand climate change…and won’t take out power lines when they fall. And a Pincourt school bus driver asks what’s happening with all the trees being cut down for the new Île-aux-Tourtes bridge?