Tourisme Montréal is predicting a busy tourism year, although La Presse says that fallout from the Huawei affair is cutting down the influx of Chinese visitors.
Updates from January, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A Montreal priest has been found guilty of sexually abusing an altar boy for three years; he won’t be sentenced till March.
Meantime, another Montreal priest wants parents to pull their kids out of the government sex ed classes and teach them from a book he has prepared.
There’s a good satire source right now called Le Revoir, but it’s only available via Facebook and it seems to only be headlines and pictures. If you’re on FB it’s worth following. They just posted a dead-on piece linking those two stories.
Ephraim
Didn’t a Catholic Private School already lose a battle over teaching the Ethics course that went all the way up to the Supreme Court? Do they really need the legal costs of this? They can use the money to pay compensation to all those who have been abused by the Catholic church…. the Duplesis orphans still haven’t seen an apology or money, not to mention all those children abused. Seems to me that some of the priests could use a course on ethics.
Chris
Ephraim, are you thinking of Loyola High School v. Quebec? LHS won that in 2015.
“Could use a course on ethics?” Yeah, they could start right at the beginning: lying is wrong. The church is based on a lie. God is a lie. The gospels are a lie. Even the very existence of Jesus is likely a lie. When your starting point is pathological lying, I don’t expect a whole lot of ethical behaviour to follow.
The church has stood in the way of so much: heliocentrism, women’s suffrage, birth control, tampons, divorce, same-sex relations, civil partnerships, interfaith partnerships, abortion, blasphemy, sex outside marriage, masturbation, children outside wedlock, etc. All to defend their lies. There’s really no need to listen to any of their crap.
At least they’ve given up on seriously opposing being criticized. So Le Revoir and I won’t get burned at the stake. 🙂
Tim S.
Chris, I’m not going to get too deep into your claims, but I just feel I ought to point out that claiming ‘God is a lie’ has exactly as much factual basis as saying ‘God is truth.’
Ephraim
Hmm, it wasn’t a “total” victory, they can teach Catholicism but had to also teach respectfully and unbiased about other religions and ethics. The school wanted to be exempt from teaching the course but instead still had to, just that it wasn’t blocked from teaching Catholicism.
But without getting into the whole question of the validity of religion or even the existence of a higher being, the point here is that it’s a little ironic for the Catholic church to tell people these things when it can’t manage to get it’s “management” to be ethical enough to actually follow the same rules.
Chris
Tim S., how do you figure?
There was a horrible bus crash in Ottawa today. Or was there? *I* say it was a cloaked alien ship projecting a hologram and telepathically implanting memories into bystanders.
Is that a lie? I mean, it’s *possible*, right? Can you *prove* it false?
If that’s the kind of thing you mean, then, yes, of course I grant that it’s *possible* Yahweh or/and other gods exists. Duh.
But that level of uselessly pedantry gets us nowhere. It makes words like true, false, real, and unreal useless. We have to trust our eyes and ears and cameras and microphones (to a large extent). You’ve heard of Occam’s razor, yes?
If one makes a claim, then one needs to present evidence. If one makes a *huge* claim, then one needs *huge* evidence. If none is offered, then one’s claim is rejected.
When I say “god is a lie” I mean it like “the alien spaceship theory of the Ottawa bus crash” is a lie. i.e. it’s theoretically possible, but there’s just no credible evidence for it, and it fails Occam’s razor.
Or perhaps you have compelling evidence for the existence of Yahweh, that no one else on Earth has yet presented?
Kate
Chris, the initial story was about priests, but it’s about how an organization which has harboured and protected practitioners of sexual abuse against children still has the gall, at this late date, to claim the authority to ordain moral education for them. The existence of God is neither here nor there.
jeather, I don’t lightly delete items, so no, this comment isn’t going anywhere.
jeather
Can you just delete the really boring anti-religion stuff? It’s getting so old.
Vaguely related you might want to note that they are doing a consultation on fees in public schools. (I keep ranting about how paying for supervision over lunchtime is wrong, now I got to say it somewhere that might matter.) http://www.education.gouv.qc.ca/en/parents-and-guardians/references/consultation-on-school-fees/
Chris
hmmm, so much for not getting burned at the stake. 🙂 🙂
My last paragraph did indeed veer off-topic, sorry about that. I’ll endevour to stay better on-topic.
My other comments, I think, were on-topic. I agree it’s galling for them to ‘claim the authority to ordain moral education’. In support of that position, I argued that they are liars and that they have pushed against truth and justice on so many past occasions. Tim disagreed with my definition of “lie” and I tried to clarify it.
jeather, I too sometime find some comments here old and repetitive, but that doesn’t mean I call for their erasure. Instead, I try to learn from others’ views, or I just ignore them.
jeather
Chris, feel free to ignore my comments, then. I find your reflexive “ha ha religion is so stupid” boring and off-topic. (Your first comment was mostly free of that.)
Fair enough, Kate.
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Kate
The Gazette offers crib notes on ice thickness and safety. But how do you tell how thick the river ice is at any given spot?
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Kate
Trudeau airport is no more immune from drones than any other. There are new laws about drone operation, but who will enforce them? And will rogue drone operators give a damn?
What I don’t understand is the motivation for using drones, or laser devices, to interfere with airport operations. Presumably these people are not holding the airport to ransom, so is the kick really that you could provoke a serious accident?
Roman
DJI Spark is only 250g. Many birds weigh more than that.
qatzelok
Drones are the perfect little weapon for small informal gangs. Inexpensive, easy to make yourself, and you don’t have to take credit for the aftermath, nor do you need to be near the target. What will technology invent for gangs next?
Joey
Anomie.
Roman
Well there are many weapons like Molotov cocktails, knifes, guns, which no matter how regulated are still easily accessible.
A drone can be easily made by buying cheap parts from China and assembling it using YouTube instructions.
Forcing good citizens to register does nothing to stop that.
It’s like asking people to register kitchen knifes.
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Kate
The city is raking it in from Denver-booting vehicles: nearly a million bucks in unpaid fines were captured last year.
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Kate
Montreal’s Conseil régional de l’environnement is hoping to appeal to Quebec to stop the Royalmount project, based on the chaos it’s expected to bring to the 40 and 15 highways nearby. Good observation here from urbanist Jean-Claude Marsan, who notes that Montreal would have to cope with the mess from the project while only TMR would reap the benefits. Whether Quebec has any interest in intervening is not made clear.
Patrick
Shouldn’t the Agglomeration Council have some say in a matter like this?
carswell
IANAL, Patrick, but I don’t think the project falls within the agglo council’s purview. See section 19 infra of the Act Respecting the Exercise of Certain Municipal Powers in Certain Urban Agglomerations.
JaneyB
Could Montreal just seal off the entries to the streets that allow the Royalmount project? If Mo-west and Westmount can play obstructive access games, why can’t Montreal? The project might have fewer advocates if all traffic had to go through TMR proper. This mall project is such a bad idea.
EmilyG 22:10 on 2019-01-10 Permalink
I wonder if any of the tourists who came here last summer, and complained about staying in very uncomfortable, un-airconditioned AirBNBs during the heat wave, will be back.
Ephraim 08:19 on 2019-01-11 Permalink
@EmilyG – I wonder if they will learn anything about the underground economy? Or do you think that bottom dollar is all they care about? You saved money… but ruined your vacation. It must be AirBnBs fault… right?
@Kate – From my experience, dealing with Chinese visitors can be quite difficult. They are best suited to the big hotels as they tend to “pack” rooms and can be loud versus our culture of hushed tones in shared spaces. They also tend to prefer modern and new versus antique and old-world charm.
PS: Packing rooms is not just illegal, it’s dangerous. The hotel is responsible for knowing how many people are in a room in the case of an emergency. The fire department when told that there are 2 people in a room… stop looking after they find 2….
EmilyG 16:58 on 2019-01-11 Permalink
Eh, I have no horse in the AirBNB race.
Ephraim 20:20 on 2019-01-11 Permalink
@EmilyG – More of a general comment…. but something you learn as you get older and the mattress can make or break your vacation.