Ten people were arrested Thursday evening in connection with this murder in Villeray on July 20.
Updates from September, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
In another play for media attention, Ensemble is now demanding a law that people under 18 should have to wear bicycle helmets.
Derek
Why is this bad?
Kate
Because it doesn’t matter what the issue is. Ensemble is grasping for motherhood issues in its attempt to get people on side and get mentioned in the media. They have no program, no vision for the city. This could’ve been sugary drinks or the danger of cannabis edibles that look like candy or any other “think of the children” issue.
Ian
Okay sure, but why shouldn’t kids have to wear bike helmets? For that matter, why shouldn’t everyone? They do improve your chances or surviving an accident pretty dramatically. Even if there were no motorized vehicles people still fall of their bikes all the time for a plethora of reasons, and it’s super easy to bash your head. I’ve done it lots of times myself riding a bike – I biked to work all through my 20s and 30s – and yes,I do always wear a helmet.
One of my good friends took a spill on a nice flat bike path because his groceries shifted and his helmet took a solid enough hit the padding separated from the shell and the shell cracked right at the base of his skull. He was fine besides some road rash.
Tee Owe
If you compare a large enough group of people who wear helmets with an equally large group who do not, over a sufficiently long period of time, you will find fewer head injuries amongst the helmet-wearing group – conclusion – we should all wear helmets, all the time
thomas
Amsterdam does not require helmets for bike, scooters or ebikes use and it is safer than to ride than in Montreal.
DeWolf
Laws requiring all cyclists to wear helmets have been shown over and over again to suppress cycling rates, which is counterproductive in terms of public health. The proven way to improve cyclist safety is to build safe bicycle infrastructure.
If you want to avoid head injuries you should probably wear a helmet from December to March. I’ll bet anything that the simple act of walking around Montreal in the winter is far riskier than cycling responsibly without a helmet.
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/how-effective-are-bike-helmet-laws/521997/
Incidentally, helmet laws require enforcement and this seems to break down as soon as you have a lot of cyclists. BC has a provincial helmet law but the proportion of people wearing helmets in Vancouver is about the same as in Montreal because the local police don’t bother enforcing the law. And even when people are ticketed, they don’t bother paying the fine. Over a period of four years, only 16% of helmet fines were paid.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-cyclists-sitting-on-11-000-unpaid-helmet-tickets-1.1321974
Ian
Amsterdam is much smaller, very flat, has much better road maintenance, and has mild winters.
Comparing apples to oranges aside, let’s run a win/loss on this:
Without helmet laws, people are free to smear their brains across the pavement however they want. With helmet laws, people will suffer far fewer head injuries but will have to buy a helmet, of which there are many inexpensive brands at stores in every city and town or available online, same places you buy your bikes.
I’m not really seeing the big deal here, this sounds like arguing against seat belt laws.
Brett
Not quite the same as seat belts, because driving is much more dangerous than cycling. If your real concern is for reducing death by head injury, then it makes more sense to advocate for everyone, pedestrians and motorists included, to wear helmets while out and about. In fact motorists are five times more likely to die of head injuries in a collision than cyclists. Cf https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140518302731
Michael Black
But Ian’s point about safety holds, helmets aren’t just about danger from cars.
The serious accident I had on a bime was when I was about ten, a pike of branches on the road and my spokes caught on one branch. Stitches on the knee resulted.
Sewr grates not put back properly might trip up bicycles. I think I said before, someone riding their bike off a sidewalk, their front wheel came off. No seriius injury, but it could have been. Another time I pointed out to a cyclist that the bungee cords hanging off her rack were close to her spokes, I wouldn’t like the results if they caught a spoke.
It’s been years since I’ve been on a bike, but as an adult I always wore a helmet.
Traffic should be a bigger concern than helmet laws for new cyclists. Probably is, but others can point to helmet laws as a reason that people don’t ride bikes. It’s a meme, gets high travel, but few seem to question it.
Too many cyclists propagate tge memes but in practice too often seem cafeless as they cycle. Riding on and off the sidewalk through red lights and no light at night, I once saw a cyclist doing all that in sequence, is setting up for an accident. A helmet may not save them, but they have already shown that safety is not a consideration, though maybe they would say cars are dangerous. Too many never seem to grow up as cyclists, but perhaps these are actually the novice cyclists who are the ones who think helmets are a deterent from cycling.
Folk wisdom often means people don’t queztion.
Michael
Ian
Hey, if you guys think this is hilarious and don’t care about your kids enough to make them wear helmets while biking, there’s no law yet, that’s your call.
qatzelok
Australia was the first country to see mandatory helmet laws for kids and adults, and these laws have been very successful in keeping people off of bikes, and off of the roads so drivers can have them all to themselves.
Car companies are the biggest promoters of bike helmets.
Ensemble seem to have no program and no overall vision, only soundbites and hand-me-down political ideas.
qatzelok
And Ensemble’s recent soundbite shows that car companies aren’t only dangerous because of their products, but also because of the way they use their money to sway (bribe) politicians.
Kate
Ian
Yes, you’re right, bike helmets are clearly a conspiracy against bikes. We’d better make sure we release bicyclists from any safety requirements whatsoever lest it impede their desire to ride freely. Let’s lift the applicability of road laws to bicyclists too, as others have suggested here before.
Talk about reductio ad absurdum.
Ant6n
“Talk about reductio ad absurdum.”
Uh, that’s what you just did
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Kate
Some of the longtime dealers at Jean-Talon market are afraid of being shown the door. They claim they were told if they didn’t obey city recommendations their leases would be cancelled. The city may take over direct control of the markets. The mess will be heard in court next week.
Jack
That would be awesome. The “grossistes.” are not a bunch of sympathetic oh shucks folks. They have been dragged kicking and screaming at every turn. When any vision other than having car drivers served from their vehicles has been broached they have relied on intimidation and violence to make their point. I understand one thing, these folks have made a hell of a living doing what they do. I have never seen a receipt or paper trail for any of them. I have also noticed their vehicles when they drive in, they are not poor or down trodden. They simply found a very soft structure to do what they do, which is simply to be distributers for the Marche Central.
Ian
Well that’s it, really. I used to work at Marché Atwater unloading trucks in the morning and half the stuff was from the same produce distributor Provigo went to, dumped into Quebec boxes before it went on the shelf.
Of course they made way more money than the honest folks, so had way less political clout in the market. I would be very, very surprised it was different at any other “farmer’s” market in the city. I saw so many scams, that was just the surface of it…
JaneyB
@Ian. I kinda want to know more about those scams… Atwater seems mostly a rip-off to me, produce price-wise.
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Kate
Sofiane Ghazi, accused of stabbing his wife two years ago at a late stage in her pregnancy, changed his plea to guilty Thursday. His wife survived; the baby was delivered by caesarean after his attack but didn’t make it. CTV says the crown prosecutor said “Today we think of missus and her childrent” which seems a little odd. Ghazi will be sentenced later.
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Kate
The suspect in the stabbing of the 78‑year‑old woman on the metro Wednesday has been charged with attempted murder. He’s also going to be mentally assessed. The woman is no longer in danger.
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Kate
Montreal is planning to ban the herbicide glyphosate, the main component of Round-Up. François Legault is not in such a hurry for Quebec.
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Kate
Ten years of work are expected to start next year on the Ville-Marie and Viger tunnels. (Where does the V-M end and the Viger begin?)
Blork
There is a gap in the tunnel between Hotel-de-ville and St-Urbain. The part east of this gap is the Viger Tunnel. The part west of the gap is the Ville Marie Tunnel.
Kate
Merci, Blork!
Max
So, what’s the gap part called? The Ville-Marie Trench?
denpanosekai
The Ville-Marie Depressway
Ant6n
Le Quartier disparu
Mr.Chinaski
The soon-to-be extension of Palais des Congrès (especially after the closing of Place Bonaventure for expositions)
Ian
I am sure they will find some way to somehow make Chinatown smaller because of it.
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Kate
The folks who used the softball field in Jeanne-Mance park, notoriously abolished last summer, are going to court against the city to bring it back. Now that Luc Ferrandez is no longer borough mayor and parks czar, this may turn out in their favour, but it’s playing out during the uncertainty of the campaign for the new mayor of the Plateau.
CE
I know a few people who play softball at Jeanne-Mance and PM would be wise reverse course and put that field back because otherwise there are going to be a lot of determined one-issue voters showing up at the polls and the Ensemble Montreal candidate has already said he’ll bring it back.
paul
Agreed, I hope Alex Norris can see the forest from the trees here.
All their justifications for removing the field are completely hypocritical considering the variety of other safety issues that are ignored throughout the borough.Kate
Which safety issues, paul?
Meezly
Lucifer Ferrandez really screwed up in how he got the north field bulldozed without their consultation. But I’m torn now I’ve seen how people use up the park space for hanging out & picnics now that the north field is gone.
Don’t get me wrong, my kid runs around with the softball ‘orphans’ and I even donated to their cause. I believe the players prefer the north field over the south one as the afternoon sun doesn’t get in their eyes so I’m hoping if they ever do restore the north field, they could free up the south side as a trade, as it’s actually kind of nice to have the other half of the field as park space for the general public!
Ant6n
Wait there’s a second softball field in the same park but kids are still softball ‘orphans’? That sounds like a serious turf issue.
CE
From what I know from hearing my old roommate complain about it all the time, there are few issues. One is that there’s a shortage of fields so losing one made it worse. People are also upset about being lied to by Fernandez as he had told them they were only removing the field for a year while renovations were done do the tennis courts and then turned around and said they were removing it due to (mostly made up) safety concerns. I think the biggest issue is that it was the superior field. The south field is smaller, forces batters to look into the setting sun, it’s a bit hilly, and the bleachers are smaller and poorly placed. There’s also a lot of history with that field, it’s been there for a very long time so I’m sure there’s some nostalgia wrapped up in it.
I do agree that the space is being well used for hanging out and picnics. I didn’t expect that since it’s on a pretty busy intersection with no trees but I guess there was a need for more space.
Joey
@CE also, because the north field was not totally fenced in (no outfield fence), the space, especially the green space beyond the infield, was often used for lots of purposes when games were not taking place.
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Kate
The city plans to buy a lot in the new Université de Montréal campus zone for 90 units of social housing.
GC
Curious that this wasn’t done years ago, when it was known the campus was coming. I realize that was a completely different administration, but still…
Kate
GC, the need for social housing is getting more acute as the housing crisis worsens. It wasn’t even quite so bad when that piece of land was lotted out.
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Kate
There was a four-alarm fire Wednesday noontime at Bishop and de Maisonneuve, which broke out in the Monteiro restaurant on that corner. Nobody got hurt.
There was a rather scary fire around the same time in the Plateau, where a truck full of tanks of acetylene burst into flames, and another fire later in a rooming house on lower Hôtel-de-Ville.
Mohamed Amin
another fire happened in another Monteiro in Bishop Concordia ….. and mine in Saint Laurent .
you are still not interested to know the truth of those guys …….. we have been suffering their criminal activities for almost a year …… where i tried 3 times to take my life cause of them
if you want to know the truth of them WITH EVIDENT …. if you still want to save more people from being their victims , if you don’t want to destroy the future of canadian families trusting those criminal , Plz let me know
and i will show you everything WITH EVIDENTS , Mohamed Amin 5144300111
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Kate
Est Média Montréal launches a new series about the east end of the island with a description of the Port of Montreal.
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