A coalition of pet store owners are challenging a Montreal law saying the only animals they can have in their stores are rescues from shelters.
Updates from July, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A late addition to the CAQ’s secularity law protects crucifixes in and on public buildings and makes them immune to legal challenge. I keep seeing the word catho-laïcité around, and that seems particularly apposite here.
jeather
Ah yes, okay to have a cross on a your secular school but not a woman with her head covered. (I wonder, once it’s taken off — say, for repairs — can they put it back up? I assume so, because it’s not about religion in public, just Muslim women.)
Oh look, you can even ADD one: Rien dans la loi québécoise n’empêche une institution publique d’accrocher de nouveaux symboles religieux à ses murs, même si elle stipule aussi que les citoyens ont « droit à des institutions parlementaires, gouvernementales et judiciaires laïques ».
Patrick
Does this mean you can add Jewish or Muslim symbols too? I’d like to see that. Or how about one of the combo “coexist” logos?
Blork
Check out this thing I saw in Varennes this afternoon. Full 3D diorama of a torture scene, but it’s OK because it’s crucifixes. Here’s the kicker — there isn’t even a church nearby:
Uatu
There also was a crucifix at the end of Rome Blvd when the land facing the river used to be farmland. Maybe it was erected to bless the crops or mitigate floods. Who knows? It just disappeared along with a rundown barn when they turned the land into condos and a bunch of townhouses. So much for preserving la patrimoine…
Kate
Blork, it might be where it is because there’s no church nearby, to function as a kind of shrine. Or is it maybe a memorial?
Blork
Kate, a bit of digging indicates that it (or a version of it) has been there since about 1767! (Or 1774, depending on source.) And of course it is considered “patrimoine” so it is protected.
https://ville.varennes.qc.ca/portrait/patrimoine/calvaire
http://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=92899&type=bien
Kate
Maybe it’s meant to permanently mourn the coming of les Anglais!
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Kate
Saturday, the Lachine museum is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the oldest house still standing on the island of Montreal – the Maison Le Ber-Le Moyne, originally a fur-trading post then a farmhouse, then – much later – a museum. Infographic from the Journal.
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Kate
TVA says Benoit Dorais has had nine speeding tickets since 1995; Marvin Rotrand says he should step down.
ant6n
Without defending the speeding, in general it seems that progressives tend to be held to a higher standard than other politicians. It’s like if you want to make the world a better place, then your personal habits are more under scrutiny somehow.
Imagine if Coderre had those tickets, the media would probably be like “boys will be boys (*wink*)”.
Kate
I know. Lots of folks seem to agree, going by Facebook and Twitter.
I don’t think Dorais needs to step down but he could make some public point now of giving up driving. Unfortunately, in his position that would probably mean running up a bill for a chauffeur for some events – preferably not on the public dime.
Kevin
@ant6n
Coderre got bad press for getting a ticket for driving with an expired licence and we ended up having a public inquiry into police surveillance of journalists.david100
Yeah, agree exactly with Anton. Dorais should not step down, no way. But he’s obviously a menace on the road and should not drive again when he’s again eligible. He has some sort of impulse control issue maybe, or perhaps a subconscious longing to die – doesn’t belong on the road!
ant6n
@Kevin
I’d say that Coderre escalated that situation himself. Getting speeding tickets and abuse of power are not really the same thing.DavidH
The Coderre bad press was so NOT about the ticket. It was about him calling the top brass of the SPVM Marc Parent about it the next day. It made waves because just before that story broke he had disobeyed orders from a female police officer in Place des Arts metro and told her HE was the boss and calling the shots at the SPVM. That type of behavior is problematic and worth looking into.
Getting 9 tickets over the course of 23 years isn’t really public interest. It’s ironic and worth a chuckle because he’s part of the party that reduced speed limits all over Rosemont and the Plateau and made a lot of people angry doing so. Nothing to dwell on. Certainly no reason to resign.
Ephraim
Does speeding affect his ability to do his job? Not really. So what’s everyone on about?
John B
Well, it does show poor judgement, and generally we want people with good judgement running our cities.
But, the 9 tickets since 1995 thing is a bit of a red herring, that’s 1 ticket every 2.6 years, and I have always assumed that there were plenty of drivers out there that got a speeding ticket every couple of years. If that’s the case then he’s not that abnormal.
What is abnormal is 171km/h. That’s fast & dangerous. On the other hand, one of his tickets was for going 16km/h over the limit – I’d like to know more about where that happened. On any autoroute 16km/h over the limit means you’re being passed constantly, or have a line of traffic behind you if you’re in the left lane.
I feel like the general lack of speed enforcement is part of the problem. At least on autoroutes there seems to be zero enforcement until you’re going at least 30km/h over the limit, and probably higher, (I’ve never found a limit myself, but I try not to test it too much). In places around Montreal the autoroute has a limit of 70km/h, but it’s an autoroute so the traffic often goes 110 – 120. If the culture is that 40 – 50km/h over the limit is ok, then 70km/h isn’t that much of a stretch.
Ephraim
Speeding tickets are essentially random, for the most part. One of the tickets shows bad judgement. But we all do stupid things at times. Everyone. Or are you the one person who hasn’t jaywalked in Montreal?
The SQ won’t bother until you are really speeding on a highway. Under 111, you don’t even have demerit points…. And under 121, it’s just $55. At 131 you are hitting $135+ 3 demerit points. This is when they think it’s REALLY worth writing a ticket. But basically, I haven’t seen them ever bother with anything under 120.
It’s really the 70 km/h zones that are a pain… because no one, not even the police themselves follow the speed limit in 70 km/h zones.
The rates are posted at https://saaq.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/documents/publications/speeding-fines-demerit-points.pdf
Jack
Also note how Quebecor tried to create a long cycled story by waiting to publish the amount of tickets, with comments from the “opposition” already in the bag. do not think they did not have this information already.
Can someone who has some communication background help me out. If I were in Projet at the decisional level I would weigh every single article in Quebecor platforms for the last 15 years and come to an obvious conclusion. This “news” organization does everything its power to objectify , marginalize and damage our party and brand , so why do we talk to them ?
They manufacture consent ( sorry Noam ) around their commercial ( car, suburbs, pools) and ethnic ( pur-laine) concerns. They constantly damage our brand on the basis of their financial and ethnic interests. So why not simply boycott them. Why not make the story about them.
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Kate
Various media are reporting on a new skate park out by the Olympic stadium. I’m of two minds about this. Three, maybe. It’s branded – the Vans Pro Skatepark – and it’s just more concrete. But I always feel the point about real skateboarding is to tackle the cityscape as it is, not have commercial interests pouring concrete just for you. But maybe that’s a 20th-century point of view.
Uatu
It’s a place where pro/semi-pro skate boarders can practice their tricks for the pro tour that Vans sponsors. Good publicity for Vans and it means that kids don’t have to practice in empty pools like my buddy did when we were kids and he got busted by the cops
Faiz Imam
Skateboarding hasn’t been counter-culture for years. Heck it’s gonna be an Olympic sport soon.
I’m a huge fan of municipal skateparks, they are really active dynamic spaces that are full of kids and tend to be replace parking lots and other marginal spaces. I’ve heard the one in Rosemont is very popular.
I’m a huge fan of this new park, it’s a beautiful place and is built on the espanade which is a concrete wasteland with zero value. This will bring a LOT of people to a dead zone, perhaps bridge the “wall” between the park and HOMA.
Also should be pointed out that the bowl is a pretty high skill area, but that a series of smaller more beginner ramps will be built in the coming months. So the area should be open to all skill levels.
Thr vans branding is questionable, more corporstization of public space is never ideal. But this is probably one of the best uses that can be made of the espanade, which has a lot of constraints due to the parking lots underneath and the water drainage systems.
Tim F
If we were paving paradise to put up a skate park (apologies to Joni) I would be against it. As it is, it’s a concrete mess. On the other hand I do agree that skaters should be allowed to use our urban landscape as long as it’s safe for them and other passers-by.
You can have velodromes and city bike paths and mountain bike trails, so I don’t see why you can’t have both skate parks and street skateboarding.
Blork
As others have pointed out, skateparks aren’t about riding your skateboard around for transportation, it’s about doing tricks and jumps and all that. It’s comparable to Freestyle BMX bikes; yes you could ride a BMX bike to work or school, but the point of Freestyle BMX is to do crazy stunts and tricks.
Same with skate parks. Stunt skating started in the 1970s when kids in LA would sneak into people’s back yards during the day (when the residents were at work) and do stunts in the empty swimming pools (the pools were empty because of a draught). It became a sport in its own right and can be spectacular to watch. The Venice skate park in LA (Venice beach) is huge and has a very vibrant community around it.
Blork
…and it would be totally dangerous and destructive to do that kind of stuff outside of a skatepark.
Mr.Chinaski
Kate, the demand was to have a rink that would be specified to the Olympic Standards, therefore being able to hold things like Canadian Championship. This is the reason why it’s concrete, the “pool shaped” concrete will be one of the actual events in Tokyo 2020.
Kate
Thanks for the clarifications, Mr. Chinaski.
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