Every winter is bad in its own way, but I didn’t think this one was epic until reading that roofs have collapsed in various towns outside Montreal. CBC has notes on early warning signs of structural trouble.
Updates from February, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Does anyone really understand the CAQ obsession with getting four-year-olds into formal classrooms? Other parties are pushing back and talking about the cost and the shortage of teachers.
Even though the CAQ just made a point of cutting school taxes, it’s promising 250 new classes for next year.
I recall François Legault being obsessed three years ago with the idea of making kids sit in school from 9 to 5, and having school be obligatory till age 18, “to reduce the province’s high dropout rate.” At the time it sounded like lunacy to me, and it still does. Does anyone see any sense in it?
Kevin
Schools are overcrowded.
School taxes will be reduced in many places.
So the money and space will come from where?Maybe they think the government will save money because daycares have a ten-child cap per class at that age, while schools will have a 17-kid cap.
But it won’t be mandatory, so…
I don’t know why every government dicks around with education this much in this province.
Kate
Kevin, they really all do, and that’s why I think there should still be school commissions. There has to be a layer of stability between the contrasting theories of changing governments and the actual education delivered in the classroom.
Joey
I assume there are three possible motivating forces:
1. As Kevin points out, you could imagine a higher educator-child ratio in four-year-old kindergarten than in CPEs, which would save the government money. Keep in mind that in this scenario parents are left to their own devices during the summer (CPEs are open year-round).
2. When talking about this, Legault often discusses the importance of identifying kids who need extra resources at a young age. I wonder if there are personal stories that have had disproportionate influence on his thinking. I don’t see why you couldn’t invest these resources in CPEs, though.
3. Legault-as-candidate needed to come up with family-oriented policies to distinguish himself from the other parties and settled on this – educational attainment has been part of his rhetoric for years, as is common among rightist politicians (investment in schooling is good because it leads to economic growth). Now he’s premier and, like his stance on immigration, he’s got to put up or shut up.
Nine-to-five schooling makes sense if only because those are work hours – most kids find themselves inside a school for at least eight hours day because their parents are working. The fact that the first chunk and the last chunk (multiple hours a day, typically) are in the form of mildly supervised childcare seems to be a bit of a waste, no? Not that play/recess/fun isn’t important – it’s incredibly important – but the distinction between school and service de garde seems needlessly formal.
jeather
I don’t see how pre-k solves a problem that daycare doesn’t. It’s not cheaper for families — daycare runs all day, schools you need to pay for before and/or after school care, as well as lunch supervision. Daycare has fewer days off than schools do. More funding for CPEs seems to solve the problems just as well. Identifying kids who need extra resources is great — but are those resources available? (Hint: no.)
Joey
@jeather it’s cheaper for government, since you need about half as many teachers (17:1 ratio vs. 10:1, or whatever the numbers are). Of course there are significant costs in having to build the infrastructure since so many schools are beyond capacity.
jeather
But if your kid is in daycare, why would you switch out to a pre-k? Are there a lot of kids who aren’t in daycare but whose parents would like them in pre-k?
Kevin
I had one child who went to daycare until kindergarten.
The other child did pre-K at age 4, then kindergarten.
The amount of ‘education’ in pre-K is minimal. I’m talking two hours a day of formal, structured education.
And that includes children getting remedial scissors training.No, I’m not joking. That’s an actual example used by a pre-K teacher.
Joey
@jeather I assume Legault’s long term plan is for CPEs to end earlier and school to start with pre-K.
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Kate
Quebec City has said it’s preparing to store government data on privately owned, contracted servers, including Amazon’s. Meantime, Quebec has offered to handwave the cost of connecting Amazon’s massive server farm in Varennes to Hydro-Quebec – a mere $2-million lagniappe for the U.S. giant. This is against the backdrop of New York City giving Amazon the breeze because it demanded so many tax breaks and other incentives.
Chris
Also in the news: “Amazon paid no federal taxes on $11.2 billion in profits last year”, Washington Post.
JaneyB
Did not know about the private, foreign server plan. That’s just outrageous. Our govt has more confidence in Amazon’s security than its own?
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Kate
Global talks to one of the cooks at Méli-Mélo about her family members in Haiti as violent protests continue there. A hundred Quebec tourists were evacuated and arrived back in Montreal Saturday, while Canada held back on deportations; there was a small demonstration of support for the Haitian people at the consulate Saturday.
A group of Victoriaville students got back to town from Haiti on Sunday, and some Alberta missionaries were also flown out, although I hope no government money paid for that. Wealthy white people travelling to tell poor black people to accept the will of God just sticks in my craw.
Bill Binns
“although I hope no government money paid for that. Wealthy white people travelling to tell poor black people to accept the will of God just sticks in my craw.”
Agreed but I feel the same way about anyone dumb enough to go to Haiti on vacation. One Caribbean island is much like the rest and one could always go to the other side of that very same island that oddly seems to be able to keep up some appearance of civilization and a functional government. Instead, these adventurous “tourists” just had to visit the country that should have a burning tire on it’s flag.
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Kate
The Anglican church that used to be called St James and is now St Jax is hosting a circus show. The faithful sit still while a bishop shinnies down a rope and administers Communion. Well, no. Too bad – it might go viral.
GC
HA. I’d pay to see that! Do the Anglican even take Communion?
Kate
From things I’ve read, I understand that they do. They have a different philosophical attitude towards it than Roman Catholics, but they still do some form of bread and wine.
Tim S
Almost all Christians have some form of communion, but it’s only Catholics and Orthodox that believe in Transubstantiation – that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ. The rest have either a symbolic or spiritual interpretation of the bread and wine.
GC
Since I am ostensibly Anglican, I should possibly know that but I’ve never been practicing. I just know that it never seems to come up at the funerals for the Anglican side of my family, but it does for the Catholic side. (In which case the priest usually lets it know in uncertain terms not to come up for it if you’re not actually Catholic…)
dwgs
Lapsed Anglican here, yes they do communion.
Ian
Worth noting Anglicans are still Catholic with a few notable differences from Roman Catholics like the Queen or King of England is the head of the Church, not the Pope, and they allow divorce. In fact an Anglican priest can marry and still become a Roman Catholic priest – but only a lay priest, they aren’t allowed to give communion. My mother married an Anglican priest who returned to the Roman Catholic Church later in life.
Blork
Also, Anglicans don’t genuflect or cross themselves. And statistically speaking, the priests are less rapey.
Tim
@Ian: other differences include: no belief in purgatory, female ministers are accepted in the Anglican faith, no confession, no focus around Mary as exists in Catholicism, ministers can marry…
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Kate
The Centre d’histoire piece this weekend takes us to the corner of Pie-IX and Adam. The church in the background seems to be Très Saint Nom de Jésus although apparently the spires were different then. It’s not St. Aloysius, although the item says the school shown (boarded up in modern Streetview) had that name at the time, and was built in 1921 for the Irish community. (My father went to that school for several years.)
Tim F
My father, too. He even wanted to name me Aloysius. (Mom vetoed.)
Kate
The only school friend I can recall my dad mentioning by name was called Teixeira. Not very Irish. There were some francophone kids in the school too, presumably from families who saw some advantage to their kid in learning English.
St Aloysius church was demolished years ago and the school became a French school some time back.
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Kate
This winter’s potholes are worse even than usual so guys who repair damage to cars are staying busy.
Roman
I didn’t know it could get worse.
Raymond Lutz
@Roman, I guess you’re ironical, but yes, it will get worse with climate Armageddon: the more we have flood & flash-freeze cycles, the worse are our infrastructure degradation. Liquid water go into any small cracks (capillarity effect) and frozen water swell in volume and detach everything with a great force. But this creates repair jobs! Broken cars and broken roads = business opportunity! Climate change is good! Bring it on. 😎
Ed Hawco 19:39 on 2019-02-18 Permalink
It’s certainly not a new thing. Every second or third winter there’s a rash of roof collapses. It happens when a large snowfall is followed by rain. The snow acts as a sponge and traps much of the rain, creating a situation where there is literally tons of wet snow on the roof. My house has a flat roof, so I’m very cognizant of the issue.