Mayor Plante says that VSMPE mayor Giuliana Fumagalli should resign after a comptroller’s report of behaviour violating the city’s code of conduct. Plante can’t fire an elected official but she’s blunt here in telling Fumagalli she’s unfit for the job.
Updates from July, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
I’ve seen a lot of pieces lately, local and international, trying to pin down and define populism. Here’s a beautiful little capsule example: the CSDM offered to do a count of its teachers who wear religious signifiers, but the CAQ, in the person of Simon Jolin-Barrette, said no. I can say confidently that research, hard facts and information are not populist, whereas coasting along on received ideas, hoary prejudices and small-town xenophobia are hallmarks of the style.
Sidelights I’ve seen lately:
BBC says China is separating Muslim kids from their parents in Xinjiang. Many of the parents have been jailed, and the children herded into huge thought camps. Echoes here of Canada’s residential schools for first nations kids, the U.S.’s border lockups, and the general idea that some cultures can and should be exterminated by fiat.
Boris Johnson, who’s set to become prime minister of the UK, says he’ll force all immigrants to learn English. Speakers of various Celtic languages are having at him on Twitter – don’t cross the Celts, Boris.
A photo of CAQ education minister François Roberge alongside Malala Yousafzai has also made the rounds on Twitter today, people rushing to point out that the young Nobel prize winner and champion of education for women would not be permitted to take a teaching job in the CAQ’s Quebec. This story has also reached the BBC.
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Kate
Julius Grey is going to challenge the PREM system that has the tendency to allocate doctors away from Montreal. He’s got an uphill battle with the pro-rest-of-Quebec CAQ in power.
Kevin
The PREM System is based on the idea that hospitals are reserved for the people who live in the immediate vicinity of the hospital.
That courts have ruled that actually doing that is forbidden, but the bureaucrats do not care.
Blueeyes
This has been a stop gap attempt since 2002 (guy with heart attack sent to a closed ER) to attempt to deliver physicians to unserviced areas (usually rural). unfortunately more regulation actually has not improved things except in a few spots. It actually leads to a drain of physicians out of the province. PREMs are required to work in a region and has little to do with hospitals however. PEMs are needed for hospital privileges. PREMs assume the urban centres are sufficiently staffed. Montreal has been suffering for years with inadequate family physician numbers. On another note access in the office would be improved if the AMPs were removed as a requirement- a promise the government said it would do with the famous deal with the FMOQ to allow the physicians 10-15 years in practice to decrease work in hospitals so they can work more in their offices…
Kevin
@Blueeyes
When I say hospitals penalize an area, it is because the bureaucrats who allot PREMs look at the total number of doctors working in their bizarrely contorted regions, including those who have PEMs for specific hospitals, and award accordingly.Honestly, I don’t know how anyone came up with such a stupid system unless their goal was to drive doctors out of Medicare.
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Kate
The city’s not happy with the deployment of Jump bikes and the lack of respect for the few rules imposed on it. Can’t the city get with the program already? This is Uber, this is meant to be disruptive, we’re meant to embrace the profitable chaos!
Le Devoir, meantime, checked out how Paris is faring with this wave of new electric bikes and scooters.
Blork
To be precise, the _illusion_ of profitable chaos. Hardly any of these companies make any actual money.
Spi
Frankly Montrealers and tourist aren’t civilized enough for this to be a done in an orderly fashion.
Faiz Imam
Unlike the first phase of cities, Montreal actually put laws in place before the launch, laws that Uber claimed to accept.
As the article says, they have the power to inflict thousands in fines per infraction. But it remains to be seen if they actually will.
Seems to me that if we make it painful enough, uber will build in proper storage etiquette inside the app. Ideally we would want them to pass on the fines to the user, which should definitely make sure they store them right.
But on the other hand, this is a sign we need better bike infrastructure. Most people are not malicious, but they have limited patience. If they get to their destination and there is no proper place to park, they will be lazy. Not to let uber off the hook, but this is also a signal of places where the city could use more parking spaces.
While they are at it, maybe put in some charging ports too? (see what i did there?)
Ephraim
Faiz…. you are a dreamer…. people can’t manage to put carts back in the corrals at the supermarkets.
Faiz Imam
Actually, grocery stores and airports that use a Deposit system report a very high rate of return.
If you use either positive or negative reinforcement to encourage certain behavior, people will respond.
Daniel
I wonder how long before Montreal has a similar situation to this? https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/21/cycle-hire-firms-urged-to-help-clear-dumped-bikes-from-canals?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Kate
Outremont has adopted its new parking fees bylaw, despite protests from some residents. I think it’s distasteful for CBC to characterize these protesters as a peanut gallery even though I think Outremont is right and there’s no reason people should be allowed to leave vehicles on public streets forever for free. Protest is not a joke and people are entitled to speak up and make their views heard.
Tim
There are some humorous references to peanuts in the CBC article, so the title works for me. 140 dollars per year for residents and 100 dollars a month for people who work, but don’t live, in Outremont seem like fair prices. As a resident, I was happy to learn that residents can get up to 50 free passes a year for guests. IMO, it has all been well thought out.
Blork
While I agree that CBC should take all protests seriously — even bougies ones — the protesters were sort of asking for it by (literally) throwing peanuts at the mayor. IOW, they were a self-proclaimed peanut gallery (after the mayor referred to them that way.) 360 degrees of silliness.
Kate
OK granted, I didn’t read the whole text, which I always should.
Peanuts. Feh.
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Kate
No sooner does the blue line extension get a shot of cash, than news comes of a landowner not happy at all with an expropriation order for a building he owns on Jean-Talon at Lacordaire where the STM wants to put a new metro station.
Merchants on Jean-Talon East are nervous about the coming construction zone, but hopeful that the arrival of the metro will eventually do them some good. I’d counsel them not to get too excited: for a brief time I was transiting through d’Iberville metro fairly often, and I don’t recall that part of Jean-Talon being especially lively.
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Kate
A lot of cheap artists’ studios have been lost here over the last couple of decades, but finally the city has put some money into a building on Bellechasse where some 150 artists have studio space.
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Kate
The list of driving challenges for a hot July weekend. The Gazette promises headaches.
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Kate
A young man was stabbed downtown Thursday night, non-fatally, no arrests.
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