The Rover’s Year-in-Review

GRAPHIC: Gabrielle Drolet

Every couple of weeks, I go through a few consecutive days that never seem to end. 

They stretch and they stretch, and all I want to do is go to bed and forget about everything. Those days, we usually end them on the sofa, Chris and I. We sigh and hold each other’s hand with a tear in our eye. When it’s been an especially hard day like those, I ask Chris: what are you most grateful for today? It’s not a question as much as it is an exercise in finding inner peace again, regulating our stress hormones or something like that. 

He takes a moment, breathes in all of the day’s hardships. What could’ve been, what is, what is yet to come. Time is suspended, silence wraps us like an embrace. Where I saw lines and tiredness on his face, I now see the shadow of a smile. This brings us back. Things aren’t so bad, right? They will get easier, right? And so on.

The Rover investigates the hard stuff, and I really think that we need to hold each other’s hand for a moment and think of all the things we’re grateful for. And to end things on a joyous note, we’re sharing our first of many end-of-year reviews. ❤️

A non-Rover news article that has stayed with us this year

Savannah: « Un fiasco » : aucun logement social dans 97 % des projets immobiliers « pour une métropole mixte » by Alexis Bataillé, for Pivot.

When Montreal passed the Reglement pour un métropole mixte (RMM), municipal politicians were talking about it like it was the silver bullet for the city’s housing woes. This report by Pivot showed that in fact, the RMM has done next to nothing to increase the affordable and social housing stock.

Marie-Pier: Les enfants du chemin Roxham, by Daphnée Hacker-B, for L’Actualité. 

Migrant students who have been separated from their families, not understanding French or English, being taught by unspecialised teachers, who literally have children’s lives in their hands. Touching and heartbreaking. 

Chris: Staff haunted by suicide at the Lakeshore Hospital ER, by Aaron Derfel, for The Montreal Gazette 

Aaron Derfel’s series on the Lakeshore Hospital was one of the best and most consequential pieces of journalism in Quebec this year. Here we have an ER where staffing shortages and systemic negligence led to an alarming rise in deaths but, until Derfel’s reporting, it largely went ignored in the public discourse. One of the highlights, to me, was a story about how hospital administrators stage-managed a visit from Premier François Legault so he wouldn’t be able to see how bad things really were. They moved patients around, cleared stretchers from hallways, turning a badly overcrowded ER into a Potemkin Village. In the end, the series triggered an interval investigation that confirmed Derfel’s most damning findings but also led to the announcement of a $16 million investment to improve the Pointe-Claire ER.

A Rover article we are most proud of

Chris: The Death of an Immigrant

Towards the end of 2022, a reader DM’d me about a missing person’s case that didn’t sit right with him. Eduardo Malpica disappeared one night after being attacked at a bar in Trois-Rivières and hadn’t been heard from in months. To hear police describe it, he was a hot-blooded Latino who abandoned his partner and their 4-year-old on a whim. But even the most cursory examination of his last confirmed sighting shows there is a strong possibility he was drugged in addition to being beaten and sent into a winter night without his coat. After having met his partner Chloé, his son Santiago and some of the people Eduardo was closest to, it became impossible to treat this like just another story. After months of working closely with Chloé, we found critical pieces of evidence overlooked by police because it contradicted their theory of a “voluntary disappearance”. Malpica’s body was found in the St Lawrence River last spring and while police are fighting to keep this case closed, Malpica’s loved ones want to see a public coroner’s inquest into his death.

Marie-Pier: Quebec’s climate refugees 

Diane Yeung’s series on Quebec’s wildfires for the way the forest industry and colonization are damaging the land and the lives of its communities. 

Savannah: “It Changed the Way I Saw Myself”

My piece on women pro-wrestlers. I went into it completely unaware of the world of wrestling, but meeting the women of the IWW and seeing them fight sent me on an emotional journey grappling with the resilience we need to navigate this world as a woman.

Our musical top 3 of 2023

Chris: My favourite album from an artist pepper sprayed by the Montreal police has to be Dave East’s Fortune Favours the Bold. The East-Harlem born rapper has a gritty style that plays well against a backdrop of soul samples, 808 clap drums and heavy bass.

Le Feu, by Bibi Club. 

A super danceable, guitar and synth-pop track by a francophone band you should check out.

In Times New Roman, Queens of the Stone Age

The kind of album you have to play at full volume when no one else is around. Fuzzy guitar riffs that sound like they’re covered in tar. Heavier than anything the band has produced in nearly 20 years but enough groove that you can move to it. 

Marie-Pier: losers, by Laye, a Montréal-born artist. This is synth pop for sad girls only. 

Shook by Algiers. Post-punk (or something that sounds like what happens when you mix Coca-Cola with Menthos). 

New blue sun by Andree 3000. Reminds me of Mother Earth’s Plantasia by Mort Garson. Plantasia was an electronic album specifically produced for plants back in 1976. Andree doesn’t credit Garson directly, but he does thank the plants in the making of his flute album. 🌱

Savannah skips this question because she’s a noob and has no idea what music came out this year.

A movie that made us shed a tear

Savannah: The Little Mermaid. The crying was surely helped along by a recent breakup, because this colourful live-action remake was really a joyous affair.

Marie-Pier: Barbie, by Greta Gerwig. It’s a treat to see Barbie and all of the Mattel characters come to life in this comedy, down to the hairstyles and clothes. My inner child was deeply satisfied. Bittersweet and smart, this is an instant classic. 

Chris: The Holdovers. A brooding but ultimately heartwarming film about loneliness, grief and redemption. The holy trinity. Plus, it’s got Paul Giamini.

Personnalité québécoise who deserves to be in the spotlight

Savannah: Emilie Nicolas, columnist at Le Devoir, podcaster. She has already been increasingly in the spotlight, but I’m a huge fan of her podcast Détours. She is a much-needed voice of reason in emotional debates around language, identity and belonging in this province. 

Chris: Rose-Aimée Automne T. Morin, columnist at La Presse, radio host. 

As columnists in Quebec’s biggest platforms play to our darkest impulses, Rose-Aimée’s work is thoughtful, warm, funny and optimistic. During one episode of her Radio-Canada program Les Idées Folles, Rose-Aimée had a panel of experts help her decide if she should have kids given how messed up the world can be. As always, it oozed with warmth, humour, tidbits of philosophy and a kind of disarming honesty that makes you feel connected to her. 

Marie-Pier: Martine Delvaux, literature prof at Université du Québec à Montréal, feminist and essayist. Her Instagram is a great exercise in grading and correcting Quebec’s white angry men’s columns. 

A Quebec political event that deserves some recognition 

Chris: Quebec’s ironworkers union donating $100,000 to the province’s striking public sector workers. 

To see members of this government’s base — blue-collar tradesmen — stand up for the future of our public schools and hospitals was a watershed moment in politics this year. Whether you agree with the strike(s) or not, it’s clear that people the CAQ could once rely on for an easy vote are recognizing the government’s utter failure to preserve some semblance of a functional healthcare and school system in Quebec. Early in December, when roughly 10 per cent of the province’s workforce was on the picket line and teachers were blocking access to commercial ports, it was a reminder that no government (even one as popular as the CAQ) should take Quebecers for granted. 

Up-and-coming journalists that you should follow

Savannah: All of The Rover’s amazing contributors.

Chris: Frédérik-Xavier Duhamel, The Globe and Mail.

FX Duhamel made the jump from La Presse to Canada’s paper of record this past year and HOLY SHIT did he turn in some great reporting. A natural-born investigator, FX’s stories uncover dysfunction in our government but also a culture of secrecy where municipal, provincial and federal bureaucrats constantly withhold crucial information from the public using the most dubious reasoning. And he’s a really nice guy.

Marie-Pier: Motaz Azaiza on X or Instagram

Jessica DeFino on Substack 

William Reymond on X 

Something that gives you hope

Chris: Young people. They’re informed, they’re politically active and they’re challenging a lot of long held beliefs I’ve had about politics. As horrible as it is to witness the deluge of war crimes coming out of Gaza and the West Bank, I’m heartened that young people refuse to accept the usual “Arabs as human shields” talking points. Regardless of where you stand on this, the push for more nuanced and critical media coverage of the invasion of Gaza is important if we want a lasting peace in the region. And that push is coming from young people, as it always has.

Savannah: independent journalism holding on, even thriving, in a time of grave uncertainty among legacy media.

A social platform that you love

Savannah: If it weren’t for Meta’s news ban, I’d say Instagram. But I’m too old for TikTok and Twitter has become unbearable so I’m left with few other options. 🫠

Marie-Pier: Instagram. There is a community for everything you’re interested in. It helped me with my back injury, or when I was pregnant. Also good for finding disgusting recipes using 7 types of cheeses in a crock pot,  and of course, all of the beautiful and wonderful memes. 

Chris: I spend too much time on Twitter. I’m not calling it the other thing. That’s stupid. But you know what’s even dumber? Still being on Twitter.

Your wish for 2024

Chris: Moral courage. 

Savannah: Community. It’s the only way we’ll get out of the messes we’re in.

Marie-Pier: I wish for love. Love as a weapon. 

---

It’s that time of year!

With 2024 just over the horizon, The Rover has launched it’s end-of-year fundraising campaign. This means that every dollar raised over the next week goes straight towards planning and executing stories of impact in the coming year. 

We have many exciting projects that we’re looking forward to producing in 2024 but we can’t do it without your help. So if you enjoy reading our stories and can get behind our mission, please consider becoming a monthly donor today!