A regular reader has pointed out to me a petition on the National Assembly website for Quebec to fund the Pink Line.
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Kate
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Kate
Not Montreal, but this is a Canadian news piece and it’s rubbed me the wrong way. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have barely moved in when they start issuing orders, demanding nobody photograph them. “As yet, there is no information on what will happen if the warnings are not heeded,” says this piece.
You’re telling me they want to promote a business called Sussex Royal and make their own living, using their high profiles to flog whatever junk that’s going to be, but issue threats over what the Canadian media can do? No, we don’t need that.
Em
While not a legal expert, I’m pretty sure there’s no law against photographing them, since they’re newsworthy and, since they’re out in public, have no reasonable expectation of privacy. The laws may be different in Britain (I don’t know) and if so I guess their threat would only apply to UK media (who are actually the ones publishing these photos, Canadian outlets aren’t).
This article lays out when journalists can and can’t photograph: https://j-source.ca/article/can-you-take-a-picture-a-look-at-your-right-to-photograph-in-canada/
You can’t take a photo of a random person that has nothing to do with a news event and commercially publish it without their consent, however.
“According to a 1998 Supreme Court of Canada ruling, publishing a photo of a private individual may violate his or her privacy if the individual is not personally in the news and was not photographed as part of a crowd at a public event like a demonstration or sporting event. In that case the court awarded $2,000 in damages to a young woman who was photographed sitting on a doorstep and the photo used as an illustration of a story that had nothing to do with her personally.”
DuraLex
This is a Wikipedia entry on the case, known as Aubry v. Vice-Versa.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubry_v_%C3%89ditions_Vice-Versa_IncSpi
It’s easy to be high and judgemental of public figures who have chosen to walk away from the spotlight when you’re not the one with photographers pointing telephoto lenses at the windows of your house.
It’s one thing to be photographed by passerby’s and other residents, it’s another thing to have paparazzi hiding in the bushes and profiting from your image.
Blork
Aubry v. Vice-Versa is the case that pretty much killed street photography in Canada.
That said, I sympathize with Mr. Windsor on this one, give the history with his mother and all. But I hate that street photography and paparazzi are lumped together in this context.
JoeNotCharles
Absolutely justified.
Here’s an arresting visual guide to how much bullshit Meghan Markle put up with from the media: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-double-standards-royal
And a more academic piece about the racism involved: https://www.vox.com/first-person/2020/1/17/21070351/meghan-markle-prince-harry-leaving-royal-family-uk-racism
Kevin
They’re telling the British media vultures, the assholes that hacked Harry’s phone and continually badmouth Meghan with racist articles, to fuck off.
They aren’t threatening Canadian media.
Kate
Kevin, you’re not telling me no Canadian photographer would want to make a few thousand bucks by selling photos to a Murdoch paper?
The UK has different laws from ours. The royal escapees may have to learn the hard way that they’re not in a cosy bubble of UK law if they’re actually living in Canada.
(I’d be willing to bet they’ll be living in California by the end of the year, and good riddance. We don’t need the diplomatic problem.)
Douglas
Hopefully they will just disappear to LA where they belong and leave us Canadians alone.
Kate
All I was saying is that I did not like the tone of Harry trying to lay down the law when he’s pretty much been given refuge in Canada.
JaneyB
@JoeNotCharles – thanks for those links. I have never followed the royals and I had no idea how weirdly she’d been treated. No wonder they want to get out. The Murdoch empire is a scourge on humanity. I hope we have laws to protect people from that kind of invasive chronicling, no matter how posh they are. At least they won’t have to see the headlines on news stands everywhere they walk.
Kevin
Kate,
Any photographer working in Canada should know the laws in their jurisdiction.Publishing those photos would have been illegal here in Quebec.
In several other provinces, including BC, people can sue for breaches of privacy, and these photos likely qualify.The photos were published in the UK, and the media groups in the UK got a lawyer’s letter.
John B
My understanding of Aubry vs. Vice-Versa is that it was Quebec’s Droit de l’image laws that made it so she won – and so street photography and paparazzi is essentially illegal in Quebec. The rest of Canada has laws closer to the USA or UK, although there are some privacy laws that haven’t been challenged in court yet so we won’t know how they would be interpreted.
Kate
Aubry vs. Vice-Versa has also not yet been challenged in the era of Instagram and Snapchat.
Kevin, that’s as may be. My point is, they seem to want their cake and eat it too. Benefit from their fame and notoriety to launch a brand, but have everyone keep away when they say so. If I see a single Canadian prosecuted because Harry says so…
John B: That’s ironic, that Harry and Meghan would be better protected legally here in Quebec, and probably ignored more also. But you’ll notice they’re not installing themselves in St-Sauveur.
Chris
and CCTV, and dashcams, and smartphones, and Google Glass, etc., etc.
Blork
And the web in general. The Aubry v Éditions Vice-Versa case was decided in 1998, but the event that sparked it was from 1987, long before the web was a thing, and back when the concept of “publishing” was very different than it is now.
Kevin
Kate
I believe they’ve trademarked their identity, so not only are they allowed their privacy, they’re probably required to enforce their privacy with legal letters. They’re living brands and have to treat their image the same way Tim Hortons does.They’re not the first celebs to do this, and they certainly won’t be the last.
GC
It doesn’t seem like they moved on a whim, so I assume they did a bit of discreet research on both privacy and tax laws before they picked a destination. They shouldn’t go about making vague threats that go beyond existing privacy laws, but that Global story is very ambiguous about what was actually said. The article seems very poorly written from that perspective. A stern warning. Presumably they didn’t literally say “we’re issuing a stern warning”, so what did they say? If there was a press release, why not quote from that?
Also, taking photos of someone walking through a public park vs. aiming a camera into the windows of their residence are two very different things and shouldn’t be lumped together.
JP
@Kate RE “I’d be willing to bet they’ll be living in California by the end of the year, and good riddance. We don’t need the diplomatic problem.”
You called it Kate. They’re in LA now. https://people.com/royals/meghan-markle-and-prince-harry-have-left-canada-and-are-now-settled-in-the-l-a-area/
It didn’t even take until the end of the year!
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Kate
Ensemble Montreal may be about to set a trap for Valérie Plante by insisting the city agree to a definition of antisemitism that excludes any criticism whatsoever of Israel’s policies and actions as a political state. Plante could be put in a position where she would be damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t agree.
What I dislike seeing is someone like Lionel Perez using this issue for political showboating. Antisemitism is serious and indications show it’s on the rise in North America and elsewhere. Its effects are nefarious and it’s disrespectful to the seriousness and risk of the situation if people with power use it as a cheap leverage ploy.
Ephraim
Sorry, but they are right. If you want to talk about antisemitism here in Montreal…. than talk about it here in Montreal… and kept out of the politics of other countries. We don’t need to be in the politics of other countries, be it Israel, Kashmir, the Ukraine, Lebanon, Northern Ireland or Moldovia… etc. I hold very little esteem for politicians who make comments about other countries without actually understanding them at all, not on the surface and not on the underlying issues. Heck, most of the time they don’t even know the history. Like the Americans not understanding that Iran holds animosity against them because of their involvement in bring the Shah to power or the Chileans with Pinochet.
This is city government, leave the International stuff to the national government… just shut up and deal with the problems we have in the city.
Kate
Then the mayor should neither agree nor disagree, and say that such a definition is outside the scope of municipal government. But Ephraim, my point is that Perez has calculated that no matter how Plante reacts, he can make her look bad in the eyes of some voters, which has been his only tactic since he became Ensemble’s interim leader. That his technique ends up making Ensemble look cranky and small‑minded doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.
Raymond Lutz
eh, the trick worked against Jeremy Corbyn, let’s try it here against Valérie Plante! We “slaughtered” Jeremy Corbyn, says Israel lobbyist
Ephraim
Kate… the mayor just needs to say that it’s outside her scope as mayor. But she also needs to tell her members to shut up and keep their personal politics to themselves. But to be honest, members of the party have already opened up their mouths about the subject on their own facebook pages. They know SFA about the subject…. but it makes them sound antisemitic, because they hold double standards.
I’m trying to remember the name of the study, but basically they have shown that people just straight out lie about their antisemitism and that in spite of Jews being such a small percentage of the population that this hatred runs deep in many different tropes. And that a different standard is really in place.Kate
Raymond Lutz, exactly. Exactly!
Chris
Ephraim, if she says it’s outside municipal scope and doesn’t agree to the definition, she’ll be branded an anti-Semite for sure.
But also, municipalities often pass motions outside their own scope. ex: Calgary passed a motion condemning Quebec’s Law 21. What if, analogously, Montreal wanted to condemn Israel’s ‘Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law’ (5763) as racist? Perhaps agreeing to some dubious definition of “anti-Semitism” would have a chilling effect.
Michael Black
Anti-semitism is a real thing. One word: Auschwitz. Liberated on this day 75 years ago. A great day, except diminished by the actual Holocaust. The other day in the paper Jack Jebwab wrote of tye courage of the survivors.
Somewhere along the way things became highly divisive. I don’t know if that was always the case, buried by not hearing from individuals, or something amplified by the internet.
To see things only as binary makes for great knock down fights. But it mostly leaves out the in between, and lots of people. It avoids solutions because the grey area isn’t heard, , isn’t folded into the outcome along with the two binary sides.
This may not be a good thing, but it’s hardly an inter-party squabble. To see it that way is to ignore anti-semitism. I wouod argue that some of the anti-Israel side is anti-Semitic, along the lines of when Israel was launched and the Arabs vowed to drive the Israelis into the sea. When people take sides, they can get carried away, and the cause isn’t just by people who think Israel is a bully.
Of course it’s okay to criticize Isreal, but make sure it is about criticism and not about Jewish people in general.
But this is an ongoing them. The country wouldn’t have collapsed if the Conservatives won the last election. The infrastructure limits how far a ruling party can waver something. But by demonizing the Conservatives the middle area gets lost.
Marie-Josée Parent wasn’t forced out in an interparty squabble. To see it in that binary fashion is to ignore the cousins, who are concerned about pretendians.
Not everything is class warfare. Too often groups are left out in decision making, but decisions aren’t always made to “get rid of the riff-raff”.
I’m sure it goes on. But lots of things come along which aren’t about toppling “the other side”.
The loudest voices are the two binaries, and identifying with either side just reinforces all that.
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Kate
The report of an expert on voting systems says the CAQ’s Bill 39, supposed to reform voting in Quebec by introducing some aspects of proportional representation, will have as an effect (and hardly likely to be unintended) of reducing the influence of Montreal voters.
More on this Wednesday morning from Radio-Canada, who lays it out: Montreal will be losing 3 seats to other parts of Quebec. Gerrymandering in plain sight.
David100
Given Legault’s low level of popularity in Montreal, it’s quite remarkable to read just how popular he is provincewide. He knows what he’s doing, no doubts there.
Ian
Gerrymandering is nothing new, this is just part of it. If Legault could make it legal that only one vote per square kilometer was allowed, he would do it.
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Kate
The English Montreal School Board has come to terms with the need to close three schools in the east end, including two that the Quebec government had already removed from its management.
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Kate
Public transit use in the urban area climbed by 4% between 2013 and 2018, an increase that’s the smallest in 20 years. This covers the period when Denis Coderre cut the STM’s funding, so what a surprise.
The ARTM’s report Tuesday also shows the overwhelming predominance of the car as the means of getting around.
La Presse also examines the promised changes in suburban transit, to better serve parts of the agglomeration most addicted to the automobile – including the long promised ideal of a streamlined fare system.
Filp
Between 2013 and 2018, public transit growth was slow, yes. However, much of that stat comes from a slump around the middle of that range, followed by strong growth in the past few years. Coderre did a number to the stm, and the weak economy at the time didn’t help either. I think this headline is a bit pessimistic
Martin 22:35 on 2020-01-21 Permalink
Should do a GoFundMe or a Patreon for it!
Dhomas 08:31 on 2020-01-22 Permalink
This provincial government doesn’t give two s**ts about Montreal, so I’m pretty sure such a petition will not work. Nevertheless, I signed it anyway. I refused to be silenced by a government that is hostile towards its biggest city and largest economic contributor.