[boringg]

Corrupt and slowly dying city without any strong industry to keep it grounded including some pretty intense language laws. I think Montreal was amazing in the 60s and has been slowly dying since.

Great to visit in the summer though!

[diego_moita]

For Americans: the description above summarizes most of the prejudices Canadians feel about Montreal. Like most prejudices they might start from a grain of truth but take it too far.

Montreal has lots of corruption[1]. Most of it is related to public construction and activities of traditional organized crime (Mafia and Camorra). But these are "lots" by the civilized Canadian standards, Montreal is still better than the overwhelming majority of the world. Besides, when it comes to Mafia/Camorra activities, Toronto is not much better. Also, when it comes to government relations with party donors, I think Alberta just does a better work of hiding corruption, it is rotten all the same.

"Without strong industry" means that Montreal lost its manufacturing sector to China and Mexico, like so many North American cities. However I'd argue that the city has managed to develop a good technology sector (particularly in software) and an active cultural industry.

"Including some pretty intense language laws" is probably the most correct sentence above. The language laws in Quebec are, IMO, very stupid. But, because Montreal is the place with most Anglophones in Quebec, the city is were the anachronism of these laws becomes more obvious.

[1] https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-most-corrupt-provinc...

[make3]

It's not slowly dying in any way and has a really strong technology sector. The corruption stuff... I've lived in Montreal all my life and have never seen or heard of anyone confronted to that in any way; I think there were some issues in the construction industry, but like it's a million times overblown

[joshl32532]

Montreal used to have really good tech scene.

But nowadays, Toronto/Waterloo/Vancouver are way ahead. Even Ottawa and Calgary is catching up.

[mechatrocity]

Aerospace and Video Games seem like 2 massive industries for the city?

[ctvo]

Montreal was also home to MindGeek, the tech company that owns the largest pornographic sites in the world. They still have offices, but moved HQ.

[betaby]

+ banking/insurance

[atdrummond]

I wasn’t too impressed during my visits for conventions there.

Love Quebec City though, even if they were burning American flags there the two times I visited on Jean Baptiste day.

[hclalpha]

Same people,under order of British gov, also went down south and burned the white house in 1812. True story.

Not the point at all.

Montréal is unique. It's the only American city with both french and english cultures living hand in hand. It's also great for novel cuisine, micro. It has 4 full seasons do you can practice almost any sports and neat mountain ranges with amazing wildlife just an hour away to the north.

[atdrummond]

Brits ultimately lost that one due to a hurricane anyway.

I’ve enjoyed many months in Quebec (I went to Med School in Vermont and went up there many times) but I never got Montreal. Totally acknowledge I might have just not have spent enough time in the right areas.

[Apocryphon]

Burning of Washington was done in retaliation of the Americans burning and looting York, the capital of Upper Canada. French Canadians, the Canadiens, lived in Lower Canada, whose capital was Quebec City. Probably not the same people.