Denis Coderre was reported recently to owe thousands to Revenu Québec. Now we find out he also owes the feds, for a grand total of nearly $400K.
I don’t think Coderre had much chance of heading the Quebec Liberals, but this evidence of personal mismanagement will probably sign and seal it.
Christophe Folla, who founded the Groupe Sutton real estate company, has pleaded guilty to ordering nine fires to be set to damage his competitors. He’s already been sentenced to five years – and he’s already 71 years old. Did anyone think to ask him what kind of company he was keeping, that he knew guys prepared to torch buildings for him?
Quebec has refused to fund additional warming centres for the homeless.
Later, the city will be blamed for not doing more.
Mélanie Dupont has become the first woman to head the SPVM’s major crimes unit. Dupont is quoted as particularly concerned about crimes against women, but it displeases me to see her quoted saying “Tous les dossiers, c’est une mère, la sœur de quelqu’un.” Men’s lives have value in themselves; women’s, in that they’re of value to someone else. Even coming from a woman.
Agree. That expression has always bugged me for the same reasons too.
By the same token, look at the commonly used “crimes against women” or “violence against women”. Why are “men” almost always omitted when this phrase is used?
“Most terms used to describe the types of violence women experience hide the everyday reality for many women throughout the world that the perpetrators of this violence against women, and indeed even against other men, are men.
Gender‑neutral language is continually used; for example, family violence, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, violence in the home, sexual assault, and community‑based violence. Each of these terms masks the reality that the overwhelming majority of these forms of violence are gendered, that is, they are perpetrated by men upon women. Even when the issue is gendered by referring to violence against women, the gender of the perpetrator is often omitted.”
From the White Ribbon Campaign, the largest global male‑led movement to stop men’s violence against women.
By the same token, look at the commonly used “crimes against women” or “violence against women”. Why are “men” almost always omitted when this phrase is used?
The reasons women are assaulted or murdered tend to be different from men, in the broadest sense. Looking at the homicide numbers: a fair number of the men who get killed are involved in gang activity, while there’s only one woman that’s been killed here recently in connection with gangs, and it was because she was the wife and daughter‑in‑law of gangsters.
Women get killed because of domestic strife, and often the attacks are by their partner or recent ex‑partner. A few men get killed for that kind of reason but it’s not prevalent.
So I do think it’s worth examining crimes against women as a different social phenomenon. But I think we still need to understand, as a society, that their lives were of value because they were living human beings, first, and not primarily because of their family relationships to men.
I’ve seen much, much more use of femicide for murders of women (especially if it is by someone they know), I think as a way to distinguish it as a specific thing.
Canadian Architect has praise for a new building facing the Old Port.
This building doesn’t yet exist. I wish Canadian Architect had made it clear that we’re looking at renderings and their descriptions are of a hypothetical building.
The site is fenced off and it seems construction will begin soon.
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/de-la-commune-saint-gabriel-5-etages/9075
As homeless encampments grow around town, CBC finds that the official response to them is uneven, depending on the borough’s policies and land ownership rather than a city‑wide approach.
CBC also notes that Quebec doesn’t keep count of deaths among the homeless.
The Canora and Édouard-Montpetit REM stations are expected to open in fall 2025, so CDN‑NDG borough plans to hold consultations over reordering roads and adding new bike paths. The STM also plans to add a new bus route, although there are no details yet.
Another report on how French is in retreat in retail settings means we’ll see more fun before Christmas.
Qu’ils mangent de la brioche !
La Presse reports that Bell Media is bringing all its news services into one place – CTV Montreal, CJAD, Noovo Info, and others. Whether everyone will work in both languages, or whether television journalists will also report on radio, is not clear, and there have been no layoffs – yet.
La Presse also reported recently about some management layoffs at Quebecor.
There has already been some overlap in that sense…CTV reporters have been doing radio on CJAD ever since the station laid off all its news reporters.
I wasn’t aware of that, Em. Thanks.
Unionized workers massed outside the ARTM’s offices Tuesday in favour of keeping adapted transit a public system.
I hadn’t even been aware that privatization was on the cards.
24heures has a sort of city report card, looking at what’s going badly here vs what’s going well.
Here’s a lesson in manufacturing consent. Current news item on several media platforms reads New poll suggests Legault even less popular than Trudeau. Note the assumption that Justin Trudeau is so deeply unpopular that his low status is taken as a given.
The CBC had a whopper the other day with “Everyone agrees Canada should spend more on defence. How do we pay for it?”
Is it manufacturing consent if his net approval rating (percentage who approve minus the percentage who disapprove) has been negative since February 2021? (https://angusreid.org/trudeau-tracker/)
On the other hand, a new poll suggests that Trudeau is even more popular than Legault.
Joey, I’d venture a guess there’s actual dislike for a politician sometimes, but there’s also weariness. People are weary of their memory of the Covid years and Justin Trudeau makes a handy target for this weariness, maybe because he’s so un‑flashy. His government has been so quiet about the things they’ve actually done, all this time. I think if Trudeau truly wanted to turn the tide against the dislike of him, he’d do more to show people what his government has been able to do, but he doesn’t do that. So we go on living in a peaceful, reasonably prosperous place, while the rest of the world blows things up, yet we still feel hard done by and blame the prime minister. It’s ridiculous.
The electorate will probably turn against Trudeau if only for a desire for change, but if a Trudeau can’t fix a problem like the housing crisis, do we really think a Poilievre can?
Trudeau, Legault and Plante have all collected their share of opprobrium because of their ill luck in piloting things through the weird period of Covid and its ongoing fallout. Plante is opting out, and I don’t blame her. It remains to be seen what the others will do.
There are many reasons some of us don’t like Trudeau. Out of respect for the usual parameters of the blog, I’ll just point out that he lost the popular vote in 2019 (pre-Covid) and 2021 but is still PM because our electoral system is weird and arguably dysfunctional.
>Note the assumption that Justin Trudeau is so deeply unpopular…
Assumption? It’s fact, supported by scientific polling.
Chris, this is tongue-in-cheek right?! “Scientific” polling is not a thing.
I’ve been annoyed for some years now by the casual use of “we” in journalism. “Why do we love Game of Thrones,” etc.? And how about announcers saying things like “here’s the weather for your Tuesday”? I’m sure this is all about creating a sense of intimacy or relatedness, but I hate it.
walkerp, sure it is. Are you quibbling with the name? it’s a wisely used term.
Blork nailed it – glass half full vs glass half empty
There are basically two types of polls, open polling (ie a self selected group who decide to answer a question) or a “scientific” poll which aims to do it randomly, but needs to be prefaced with margin of error rates and data to show how wide it is.
For example, if you are going to use a poll of 1000 Canadians, So, you would need 220 Francophones and of those, 28 of them would need to be from outside of Quebec. You would need 230 people from Quebec and 32 of them would need to be anglophones and of those, 5 need to be from outside of the Métropolitain area. And to get into specifics, of those in Montreal, you would need 19-21 Christians, 2-3 Jews, 3-5 who follow other religions and 5-6 with no religious affiliation. And you would nee 3-4 of them to be left handed.
And… you would have to do this RANDOMLY. And each time you didn’t match those statistics, the error level goes up. In fact, there is an error level associated with doing the poll by telephone, as it presupposes that people OWN a phone. And only 90% of Canadians own a mobile phone. And if you use landline phone numbers, you introduce the error of the household being older, because younger people generally don’t have landlines.
I’ve done so many statistics courses and I can tell you that almost everyone who uses statistics… LIES! From the police calling their statistics “Crime Statistics” when in fact they are “Reported Crime Statistics” and from Polls that just often omit the error levels. We have 338 federal districts… if you poll 1000 people, you have to magically get 2.96 people from each riding and call them representative. You can’t expect to know how a riding will vote by looking at what 3 people will vote. Statistically the error level is over +-3%… 95% of the time. In other words, the actual results are off by up to 6% with it being absolute nonsense once in every 20 tries. But that error level is only… if the population is almost evenly split. The minute the polling shows more polarization, the higher the error level.
Basically, yes, it’s scientific, because there are numbers behind it. But it’s only as reliable as those doing it and making assumptions, especially considering that we vote in ridings and not nationally.
Yep, the old “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Made me chuckle. Today I listened to a farming podcast, this one on the business side, like money, deductions, capital gains, inheritance, family pay, etc. and they came out with this one…. Ask an accountant “what is 2 + 2?” The answer should be “what do you want it to be?”
Right. I certainly wasn’t saying polling is perfect, but every reputable poll shows Trudeau is very unpopular. It’s as close to a fact as we can get. If that’s not good enough for you, then you’re basically saying we have no facts about public opinion at all.
CE: The lobbyists at the Business Council of Canada know best how to cover the costs of doubling our military spending: austerity cuts! Amazing read of their most recent policy report here: https://www.readthemaple.com/business-lobby-wants-austerity-to-help-pay-for-military-spending/.
Ask the British about how well they did under austerity cuts… let’s not do that.
Let’s remember the binary choice between Conservatives and Liberals is … Trudeaus choice! He killed a pluralist democracy for Canada, because he wanted to stay in power — and he successfully stayed in power. He kept up a harmful system, against his own promises, for his own desire to stay in power – liberals would pound a conservative politician for this, but Trudeau somehow gets a pass.
The inevitability of a binary choice in Canadian Politics is the actual “manufactured consent” permeating all of Canadian media.
This actually concerns me. Because Legault seems to actually worry about his approval ratings and I don’t want him to do anything drastic to try and get them back up. Since his base and I don’t tend to share many values, I’m probably not going to like it.
I haven’t forgotten about Trudeau’s broken promise, anton. The Conservatives shouldn’t cry too loudly about it, though, because the same broken system helps them to get into and keep power. Neither of the two major parties have a good incentive to make changes because it would only reduce their influence.
Some big cultural names have signed a letter to the premier protesting the plan to build a large hydro substation on the Grande bibliothèque block.
CTV heads this as Hydro-Quebec downtown installation met with backlash but this isn’t fresh news. I blogged pieces from May, June and September for starters.
Adding a new piece from La Presse, in which they examine five examples of functional buildings hidden in various ways in cities, including the STM’s Tower Street graystone.
The ARTM’s new chief has been sternly warned by Quebec to reduce costs and present regular accounts.
The CAQ is on a cost reduction rampage. Unrelated to ARTM, it has just made an unexpected cut to CEGEP funds to buy library books. So we won’t be able to get health care or catch a bus, and students won’t have access to recent literature…
CEGEPs have had a LOT of cuts. Continuing ediucation has had its funding reduced, several are no longer able to offer night classes. There has been a hiring freeze on all non-teaching jobs (so support staff, admin, facilities, security).
Not to mention all the English CEGEP teachers that no longer have jobs because of bill 96 (like basically all second language teachers besides French, for instance) but that’s just ethnonationalism, not funding.
Dawson and Vanier colleges are under investigation by the ministry over whether they’re making students feel safe in the context of the war in Palestine.
This is quite a can of worms as now there’s precedent to investigate Islamophobia in the CEGEP system… Most CEGEPs have a Hillel on campus, for example, and Hillel is openly Zionist.
I sincerely doubt that the Ministry would investigate that though, as it could also create a precedent to call Bill 21 out for what it is.
I confess to some schadenfreude seeing cancel culture, safetyism, and safe spaces flip around to bite the Left.
Do you have stats on how often it actually affected people on the right vs left (it’s “cancel culture” if a teacher is fired for teaching about slavery, or if a library bans books about same sex penguin couples, even if the right calls it something else), or is this just vibes based?
Chris, do you have any evidence those things you mention have occurred in CEGEPs?
It is not clear what is even prompting these investigations, other than a TVA report. Neither Dawson nor Vanier report receiving complaints from students or having even been contacted by the Minister’s office.
SMD, your link got eaten. Can you post it again, please?
Chris, you see Israel and Palestine as Right vs Left? Interesting take. Is it the colonialism or the ethnic cleansing that you see as right and left “sides”? Is it the religion? Or is it some some facet of the colonial regional history from Rome to Britain to modern Israel? I’d love to hear you elaborate on this.
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