There’s been talk before about the future of Silo No 5 that has gone nowhere, but now the various stakeholders announce they’re looking for a project suitable for the massive site.
Updates from February, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A woman was found stabbed to death in her east-end apartment Friday morning. It’s the second homicide in the city this year.
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Kate
The old top honcho of SNC-Lavalin has pleaded guilty in the MUHC corruption trial.
Mark Côté
But just to one count of “breach of trust”. The fraud, conspiracy, and forgery charges were all withdrawn.
Tim S.
So I was reading the story on CBC, and came across this passage, about the sentence (house arrest, community service, 200,000$ fine).
“Rouleau said Duhaime wasn’t considered to be one of the key actors in the bribery scandal, and those who are questioning the severity of the sentence should look at it from Duhaime’s perspective.
“I don’t believe he’s walking out of here laughing and thinking that this is a good day for him. I think quite the contrary.” ”
On first read, I assumed that Rouleau was the defence lawyer. Nope, he was the spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office. Sigh.Jack
OK I get this , he approved a $22 million dollar bribe. He stays home (a million plus home) for 20 months and watches TV, thats what I do now. I didn’t know that was a sentence. I guess I’ll have more street cred now…cool.
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Kate
Rima Elkouri on François Legault’s denial of Islamophobia in Quebec.
(I do wish the gay rights movement had not introduced “phobia” as the term of choice for characterizing bias, prejudice, dislike, hatred. Homophobia, an expression that came out of the idea that people fear homosexuality because of latent impulses in themselves, doesn’t really stretch. People don’t dislike Islam because they have dreams where they want to worship Allah. But that barn door was closed long ago.)
Mark Côté
I didn’t realize that’s where “homophobia” originated specifically (though I have heard that thought separately). These days I think all these “-phobia” terms are meant to indicate that the fear is irrational or extreme, i.e. the textbook definition of a phobia–though whether it is productive to use a specific psychological term here is debatable.
Jack
GND had a great response to Legault, he went to Legault’s FB page after he commemorated the massacre of six Quebeckers at a Mosque while praying, and copy pasted some of the comments. Another thing to remember there’s no racism here either.
https://twitter.com/gnadeaudubois?lang=enDavid
That’s not the origin of homophobia.
See origin of the term:
Mark Côté
Interesting, but that Wikipedia article still backs up Kate’s claim that the definition doesn’t stretch: it says that the first time “homophobia” was used in print was to refer to “heterosexual men’s fear that others might think they are gay”. I don’t think Islamophobes are afraid of being mistaken as Muslims–although it seems some *are* afraid of Shariah law being adopted here.
TC
Interesting. Perhaps it is because attaching “phobia” to a bias became an easy way to identify and define prejudice. As originally used, I think it is accurate. As used nowadays, maybe not so much. If someone may be uncomfortable around gay people, or discussions of gay sex, or whatever, as a gay man I do not automatically think they hate gays. It’s just odd and uncomfortable for them, like it was for me growing up. People change, I know I did.
qatzelok
Yes, but homosexuality is perfectly natural, while text-based religions are artificially-imposed behaviorism. So it might be a good idea to fear the straight-jacket of organized religion, while homsexuality isn’t going to dissappear – get used to it.
Apples and (plastic) oranges.
Hamza
@qatzelok ‘text-based religions are artificially-imposed behaviorism’
So’s government and the legal system.
Why do hard atheists think this is a good time to take cheap shots?
qatzelok
Because in our time, the most important news is the attack on nature.
Whatever do you mean by “cheap?”
Kate
Religion is a human-created phenomenon, qatzelok. Or did you think it was imposed from outside by aliens?
qatzelok, you’re obsessing on my blog again. I deleted one irrelevant comment this week and will be deleting more when you attempt to turn any discussion toward your idées fixes.
Chris
Kate, the term “Islamophobia” is certainly well-entrenched, but such terms can and do change over time. The consensus replacement term (to my knowledge) is ‘anti-Muslim bigotry’. It’s only 1 more syllable. Most importantly, it separates Islam and Muslim. The former being an ideology well-deserving of criticism, and the second being a human being. Fortunately, most Muslims ignore most of (the worst parts of) Islam.
Mark, the nonsense fear of Sharia law actually coming here is silly of course, but at least Sharia law is something that is in fact undesirable, whereas homosexuality is indeed perfectly natural (and exists in other species besides us homo sapiens). It’s rational to not want Sharia, it’s irrational to not want homosexuality.
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Kate
A water main break on l’Acadie closed the streets Friday.
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Kate
The STM is going to equip pushers on metro platforms with yellow vests at busy stations during rush hours. A pusher (押し屋 oshiya) makes sure people don’t slow down operations by hesitating to join an overcrowded car.
Ian
Cleary the solution to bad STM service is to make driving a private vehicle more expensive and inconvenient!
…did I do that right?
nau
Assuming your intention is to make up for the recent dearth of posts by Bill Binns, yes.
Blork
Well, the TVA article gives them a wider scope of responsibilities (“pour qu’ils interviennent rapidement en cas d’incidents comme des portes bloquées ou encore une personne malade”). If we get to the point that we need full-on pushers on a regular basis then that’s early retirement for me. The only thing worse that being packed into a subway car like a sardine is being overpacked into a subway car.
I find it dehumanizing and also dangerous. Many people suffer from anxiety and/or panic attacks, and WTF happens when you’re on a moving subway and the person next to you starts hyperventilating and freaking out because they feel trapped with no way to escape? Also, we’re people, not canned fish.
EmilyG
I am one of those people who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks, and I am often that person hyperventilating and freaking out. So I’m not at all keen on this idea of “pushers.”
There’s also the fact that sometimes I’ll wait for the next bus or metro if the current one is too crowded, and I don’t know if the employees would consider that “acceptable” behaviour.
Also I sometimes need to sit down in the metro, and I probably won’t board a metro car that doesn’t even have room to sit on the floor (which is against the rules, but sometimes I end up having to do it.)
If only they could run the metros more often so there’d be less cramming. Having people crammed in also contributes to spreading sickness, as it’s more difficult to cover your mouth when you cough.DeWolf
Are they really pushers? I don’t see anything in the TVA article that describes them as such. Sounds like they will simply be keeping order and preventing people from blocking the doors, which is the opposite of involuntarily pushing people onto overcrowded trains.
Also, pushers disappeared in Tokyo along the 1980s boom. There are still station attendants but they don’t push people onto the trains, and the trains aren’t even that crowded anymore.
ant6n
I had the impression these are the opposite of pushers, trying to prevent you from getting onto the metro, and making you walk down to the end of the platform etc.
Kate
I think the guards are meant to encourage people to move further into the train and not cluster around the doors, among other things, since that’s been blamed for the sardine effect, which is sometimes fierce on the orange line coming down from MoMo at rush hour. A few times this week I’ve been so compressed I’ve had my face in someone else’s hood or backpack and been unable to take out my phone, but at the same time unworried I can’t reach a handhold because I’m so tightly packed in by bodies that if the train suddenly stopped I wouldn’t fall over.
I just shut my eyes for awhile, but then I’m fortunate not to mind too much.
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Kate
Eighty-one dogs are on the city’s potentially dangerous list. And now it will cost $465 to have your dog evaluated by an expert if it’s accused of an attack.
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Kate
The collapse of Téo Taxi has repercussions beyond the layoff of drivers: some older cabbies were renting their permits to Téo as well.
QMI is pushing hard on the angle of public money poured into Téo. Considering how Bombardier soaks up corporate welfare, this is small beans.
Brett
The Provincial Government pumped money into Téo in an attempt to placate the Taxi medallion holders who were irate at seeing the value of their taxi medallions fall in price due to competition from Uber. By keeping Téo afloat and more importantly visible, the Government was hoping to push the idea that “One taxi, two systems” could exist by showing that a regulated company duly following the rules could hold against an American startup that didn’t bother following any of the byzantine regulations. Sadly, precisely because officials impose far too many rules and regulations on the taxi industry, even Téo taxi couldn’t survive, even despite all the mostly free publicity from mainstream media and the Government money. Now that Téo is gone, I think we’re going to start seeing a repeat of the Taxi driver protests of 2016.
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Kate
La Presse enumerates the many roadwork sites and other construction projects that will immobilize the city throughout 2019.
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Kate
Whether having residents speak up on the redevelopment of old industrial land in Lachine will actually affect planning I don’t know, but they’re being invited to express their thoughts later this month.
I find it interesting that the general idea is “quartier mixte” because I’m afraid we’ve forgotten how to create those. Think about the fundamental core of this city where commercial streets are interspersed with residential ones. That all grew up before the dominance of the car. Now neither politicians nor developers expect people to walk to get their groceries, eat out, shop for clothes, get their hair cut – even though thousands of Montrealers do this every day (even in January weather). Nobody would put up stores and services without lots of parking, and masses of parking distort the pattern. As a pedestrian I flinch from going to the Marché Central or even to Ikea, where getting to the front door of any store means traversing acres of asphalt and dodging vehicles whose drivers are not looking out for people on foot. It’s hostile. It’s not “mixte.”
Daniel
It’s nice to read I’m not the only one who finds Ikea Hostile when going there without a car.
Patrick
It’s not only about the car. In the old days, I believe, lots could at least sometimes be developed individually, leading to a mish-mash of buildings of different styles and purposes. Now, big areas seem to be developed only as homogeneous wholes. Of course, raw land was cheaper decades ago, so the cost of entry was lower. If you want mixed development, why not divide the property into lots of various sizes and prevent one company from snapping them all up. Or is this a utopian idea?
dwgs 11:02 on 2019-02-02 Permalink
We could play a game of “What Happens First?” Choose from among the following options;
-Silo #5 repurposed
-Cavendish extension completed
-Pink line built
-Blue line extended
-‘Expos’ return…
Chris 14:27 on 2019-02-02 Permalink
hehe, nice one. If average time staying on that list in any indicator, we’ll we waiting some time for the pink line! 🙂
david100 07:13 on 2019-02-03 Permalink
So, for some reason, my phone just pushed to me an article about how the baseball league is readying an expansion to 32 teams, with one in Portland, Oregon and one in . . . yes, la ville (nord américaine) aux cent clochers, none other. Obviously, I immediately scoffed at the idea, but then I thought that maybe there’s something going on. It was pushed from like Axios, which is a very credible news source with direct links to US power people. Maybe some Bronfman type has been making the rounds in DC or NYC?
Also, I’d guess that the Cavendish extension is a pretty good bet to happen under this government. I personally don’t want it, not that I live anywhere near, but as a former Hampstead resident, I can tell you that it’s better for everyone if the people north and south of the 40 aren’t united into a single unpleasant superforce. And as NDG people know, when the north of 40 types send their people, they’re not sending their best, they’re sending cars, drugs, they’re sending teenagers, CPC voters. And some, I assume, are good people.
Kate 12:06 on 2019-02-03 Permalink
david100, I thought the problem with the Cavendish extension was that the road would essentially become a highway and funnel more traffic through Côte St-Luc and Hampstead. To get the convenience of easy access to the 40 they seem willing to live with the dirt and risk of more traffic near their cushy homes. I did not think it was about bringing in a seedier class of persons. But perhaps I’ve been mistaken.
Can you provide us with a link to that Axios story?
david100 14:41 on 2019-02-03 Permalink
Yeah, I was just sort of joking about the scum element, but only sort of. The traffic would be the number one issue over there in the event of a through road.
The Axios article isn’t a story, so much as a brief note about what’s being talked about. Here’s the link: https://www.axios.com/mlb-expansion-portland-oregon-eb1eeb39-8889-46af-b39c-480942e48703.html
Kevin 18:16 on 2019-02-03 Permalink
The Cavendish connection should have happened decades ago. And something over or under the train yard to Blue Bonnets.
100,000 anglos would vote PQ if they promised to ram that extension through.