A year in review: Quebec faced severe weather and powerful social movements in 2024
Here are some of the top photos of 2024 by CBC News
As Quebec left the pandemic well in its rearview mirror, it faced another 12 months of remarkable and challenging events. From severe weather disruptions to vibrant community movements, 2024 was another year to remember.
There were winter storms that downed trees and cut power, but also summer flooding that caused historic damage.
Global tensions were felt close to home as the Israel-Hamas war continued, sparking protests, demonstrations and encampments in Montreal. The unhoused set up encampments of their own, and those too were taken down and residents displaced.
Throughout the highs and lows of 2024, CBC was there, telling your stories with photos, videos and articles. Below are some of our top photos of the year.
One of the first big winter storms left more than 200,000 Quebec households in the dark and shut down Montreal's light-rail network. Violent winds and heavy rain pummeled much of the province overnight on Jan. 29.
Hydro-Québec crews were out working to get the lights back on well into the following day.
Deer overpopulation was back in the news again throughout the year, starting with the problem in Montreal's east end where city Opposition party leaders demanded action.
Deer were taking shelter in Pointe-aux-Prairies nature park — a 261-hectare park on the eastern tip of the island — with the population jumping to around 125. On the city's South Shore, Longueuil, Que., finally got the green light to cull deer in Michel-Chartrand park after years of legal delays.
Ukrainian Montrealers marched down Ste-Catherine Street in the heart of Montreal, waving Ukrainian flags and signs calling for the end to the war.
Also in February, a new Black community group in Montreal said Quebec's housing agency is putting its project in jeopardy by dragging its feet. The group had plans to develop a mixed-use affordable housing project in the city's Saint-Michel neighbourhood.
A Quebec court temporarily prohibited protests near several Jewish institutions in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough following back-to-back demonstrations outside community buildings in March.
According to an injunction granted March 6, protests were banned within 50 metres of the Federation CJA building and the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, which requested the injunction. The injunction was later extended.
April kicked off with a spring storm to remember. Hydro-Québec teams were working hard on April 1 to restore power to customers after heavy, wet snow swept through Quebec.
Around 600,000 customers were affected at one point when strong winds started gusting and heavy snow began accumulating on tree branches, causing them to hit power lines, said Hydro-Québec.
Across southern Quebec, time seemed to stop on a Monday afternoon in April as everybody looked up at the sky.
Also in April, the health authority in the Laurentians said it was investigating after Normand Meunier, who had been paralyzed in both arms and legs since 2022, sought medical assistance in dying (MAID).
He had sought the assisted death after developing a huge bedsore while lying on a stretcher in the ER during a four-day stay at the Saint-Jérôme, Que., hospital. He died at home on March 29. Later, the Quebec corner ordered an investigation as well.
At the end of April, a pro-Palestinian encampment was set up on McGill University's downtown campus. The students in the encampment were demanding McGill divest from companies with business ties to Israel.
The encampment occupied several thousand square metres on the university's large front lawn on Sherbrooke Street. It started with 20 tents and quickly grew, with many supporters showing up every day in addition to those camping there every night. The encampment would stay in place for 10 weeks.
In May, the father of one of three people killed in a brawl involving more than a dozen people in Montreal's Plateau-Mont-Royal borough said he couldn't understand how a fight could have degenerated to such an extent.
One of the victims was 15 years old. The others were 23 and 25. Police said they knew each other, but that their conflict on May 21 had nothing to do with organized crime. Jean-Marie Célestin, the father of 25-year-old victim Ulrick Peterson Célestin, said he wished the men had tried to resolve their issues without weapons.
While there may have been a lot to buzz about as summer got underway, Maggie Lamothe-Boudreau was left with a nearly empty wooden pallet that used to house hives in her field in Saint-Adrien-d'Irlande, Que. She lost four hives to thieves, loosing about 200,000 bees.
"Stealing a hive is like stealing a cow from a cattle farm … My bees are very precious to me," said Lamothe-Boudreau, owner of Rayons de Miel, about 100 kilometres south of Quebec City.
The sights and sounds of a Caribbean festival in downtown Montreal in early July were met with both cheers and heavy hearts as people celebrated the return of Carimas, embracing the festive distraction in the wake of Hurricane Beryl's path of destruction.
After months of legal battles and negotiations, McGill University closed its campus on July 10 and dismantled the pro-Palestinian encampment there. Early in the morning, a large force of local and provincial police officers, some wearing riot gear, and others on bicycles and on horseback, served two eviction notices to protesters there.
A team of private security guards hired by McGill then escorted dozens of protesters from the encampment to make way for workers in high-visibility vests who used a front loader and a backhoe to clear the tents, signs and tarps left by the protesters.
Seven people who were living in an encampment in Montreal's Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie borough were forced to find a new place to sleep after their camp was dismantled on the morning of July 17.
The encampment, which was right by train tracks near St-Laurent Boulevard and Bellechasse Street, was illegally set up on land owned by the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway. A dozen railway police officers and other CPKC employees were seen throwing lawn chairs and tarps in the trash as they demanded people pack up their things and leave.
The remnants of Hurricane Debby swept through southern Quebec, flooding streets, homes and businesses. A record-breaking 157 millimetres of rain fell on the island of Montreal during the storm. While homeowners piled debris from their homes near the curb, municipalities scrambled to haul it all away.
About 150 homes in Shawinigan, Que., were cut off from the main part of town after Hurricane Debby swept though. While the city looked to repair major damage, it set up a pontoon shuttle service.
About 55 roads were damaged, separating homes from food, water and medication. The city implemented the water shuttle service, running a 14-passenger pontoon all day.
About 50 residences and 20 businesses were affected, according to the city. Major arteries like Notre-Dame Street, René-Lévesque and de Lorimier were closed that morning. The water main break was under control by the early afternoon and a preventive boil-water advisory was put in place for the eastern half of the island of Montreal through the weekend.
A lockdown notice was issued for some residents in the Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough after a fire involving thousands of kilograms of lithium batteries at the Port of Montreal sent a plume of thick gas into the air — a cloud that could be seen from kilometres away.
Residents in sectors adjacent to the port, between Vimont Street, Hochelaga Street, Haig Avenue and the St. Lawrence River, were advised to stay indoors and close doors, windows and ventilation systems for their health and safety. Firefighters were eventually able to get the fire under control and the lockdown notice was lifted.
For years, Montreal has been trucking the food scraps from residents' brown bins more than 100 kilometres away to facilities in Ontario and Joliette, Que. Now, at long last, the city has its own composting site for residential waste.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante officially opened the facility in the borough of Saint-Laurent on Oct. 21. With the new facility now in operation, roughly 25 per cent of the city's population will be able to have its organic waste treated locally.
Two protesters climbed one of the structures of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge in the early morning of Oct. 22, triggering a police operation that shut down the bridge for nearly seven hours and caused major traffic headaches for rush-hour commuters.
The bridge, which connects Montreal's South Shore to downtown Montreal, reopened around noon. Quebec provincial police arrested three people. Nobody was injured.
As December rolled into Montreal, heavy machinery was sent to a homeless encampment on Notre-Dame Street East in the Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough to dismantle parts of it over concerns such as fire hazards and unsanitary conditions.
Quebec's Transport Ministry (MTQ) issued eviction notices to the people who had been living in tents near Morgan Park. The Quebec government owns the stretch of green space along Notre-Dame where a number of encampments has grown since the start of the pandemic.
Written by Isaac Olson