Since players resumed training, 26 NHL players have tested positive for Covid. It still isn’t decided whether the league will attempt to play matches this summer or, as in 1919, call it off.
Updates from June, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
The contract has been signed to take down the old Champlain bridge. It will be winter 2024 before it’s totally gone.
-
Kate
Wearing a mask will be mandatory on public transit in Quebec starting soon.
Chris
Wow. Draconian. Didn’t think they’d go that far.
Dhomas
They should make them mandatory in malls and stores, too. It’s immensely frustrating to see others with no masks while I’m wearing mine. I’m not doing it to protect myself; I’m doing it to prevent spreading the virus to others should I have it and not know it yet. It would be nice if others would have the same courtesy towards me.
Chris
So is that the new rule? One can’t do anything that might have the slightness possibility of negative consequence on anyone else? Because I see people smoking in parks, worsening my asthma. I see people driving cars, killing the planet. I see people over-consuming purchasing useless crap, killing the planet. Those actions hurt others. They get to carry on with that why? But one can’t take a bus in one’s natural state?
Kate
Chris, your tendency to push points to the extreme is showing again.
Right here, right now, we have a specific proven problem which we can help by wearing a bit of cloth over the face. It’s easy to do. Are you saying that because we don’t all live like selfless saints that we should not bother to take any means that might improve the general lot?
walkerp
Yes, Chris, this is all about you.
What we are seeing is this incredible immaturity among grown people who cannot be told no. They are so stunted in their social growth that they cannot conceive of anything that might hinder them from doing whatever they want now as having any value. It is literally the mentality of a toddler and anybody who has parented recognizes it right away.
Imagine raging about your “freedom” during WWII because you couldn’t buy any sugar.
I must blame poor education, the culture of consumerism and individualism of the post-war years and finally accelerated by social media quite recently.
Matthew H
No, one can’t take a bus in one’s natural state. One is required to wear pants, for obvious hygenic reasons. Similarly, during an unprecedented global pandemic which has killed half a million people, one is now also required to wear a mask. Get over it.
qatzelok
I’m not sure that it’s really helpful to wear a mask AFTER a virus has circulated and done its thing.
Perhaps this is the same social dynamic as media viewers shaming people into wearing bike helmets a few years ago – because you know better because you’re so media addicted..
DeWolf
A couple of months ago, I was optimistic that people would wear masks voluntarily with enough encouragement, but I was wrong. People are being weirdly bullheaded about this, and perhaps some of the responses in this thread explain why. At this point I think it’s necessary to make them mandatory – and not just in public transit, but also in any indoor public space.
Many other places have made them mandatory in all public spaces, including outdoors, which I think is extreme and unenforceable. But requiring them indoors seems like a no-brainer.
Mark Côté
“AFTER a virus has circulated and done its thing”
I feel like making a Stephen-Hawking-style bet and take someone up on this. Either the virus is actually done and I’ll happily pay out some sum of money, or I’ll be able to console myself with some extra money once the virus sweeps through again.
DeWolf
The virus hasn’t stopped circulating. We are still seeing 30 new cases a day in Montreal. That’s not many compared to before, but it still means there is potential for an outbreak at any time.
Kevin
And as the province makes masks mandatory on the bus, it stops making them mandatory for dentists.
The decision-makers have no sense.
MarcG
My friend who worked in the ER told me to wear a bike helmet because she’d seen the difference it makes up close and personal. Not everything is a conspiracy.
MarcG
I would also like to say that what I read in Chris’ comments is not that this law is unjust and trampling his freedom, but that if we really, truly cared about people’s well-being, we would outlaw a ton of other stuff as well and start cleaning up our mess.
Ephraim
Apparently, people don’t think too much about the second coming… Chicken-Pox is also Shingles. Polio has post-polio syndrome… you just don’t know what a dormant version of this looks like and how it will come back. That’s a good enough reason to wear a mask.
JaneyB
Indoor masks are a no-brainer for a while. In countries with dense sidewalk activity, outdoors too. This is not a hardship.
Was in Angrignon mall a couple of days ago. It was mostly empty. All the stores have the disinfectant protocol, number of customers, and shut changing rooms. I would say about 80% of women were wearing masks and about 30% of the men (almost entirely 20 year olds and seniors, sadly few between). Frustrating behaviour on the guy side here. Is it that much of a burden to think of others for a few months…
Ian
Consider how many people on this blog think advocating for wearing bike helmets is a conspiracy to prevent bicycling I’m not surprised there’s a strong “masks are a conspiracy” contingent here, too.
GC
I find your sample interesting, JaneyB. In my (very limited) anecdotal experience, it was definitely women who were more likely to be masked. The four times I’ve been on the metro, however, it seemed to be the opposite with the age groups. Those in the 30-50 range were wearing most of the masks and it was the younger/older set who seemed lacking.
Orr
>>>Consider how many people on this blog think advocating for wearing bike helmets is a conspiracy to prevent bicycling…
Let’s look at some science!
“Bicycle helmet laws reduce the amount of cycling and hence at least part of the reduction is attributable to reduced exposure to accidents.”
-
Kate
Quebec’s labour minister says CERB is bad for business because people won’t work if they’re not threatened with hunger and homelessness. It’s odd that Jean Boulet can’t see the other side of the coin, which is that if you starve the populace, they won’t be in any position to stimulate the economy. CERB’s all about keeping the economy simmering, not so much about “spoiling” the lazy worker.
Myles
Maybe if employers offered a decent salary, people would be more inclined to work. It’s not like $2000 a month is extravagant.
Blork
We live in a highly developed country in the 21st century. You’d think that “avoid starvation” shouldn’t be the primary reason to get out of bed each morning.
Michael Black
This has a certain spin, and it’s already come up in other provinces.
It portrays people as being lazy and wanting to stay home. Yet there is the real possibility of getting sick, and for some people, even dying. That seems more like the reason than “because they are paid better to stay home.” Maybe it applies to some, but not likely all.
Again, the government wants people to take precautions, but then it’s not a switch to turn on and off. it expects people to turn around when it wants it.
People stayed home because things shut down. It will take effort to change them back, especially given “fear” was driving the shutdown. Every bus I’ve seen in three months has been empty enough that it looks empty (but maybe it is different elsewhere.). Some of it is people stayed home but some of it is that they don’t want to be close to other people, so they use other means of getting around. That won’t change on a dime either.
Propaganda works both ways, you can get the populace to follow, but then you have to make effort to have them follow in another direction.
Ephraim
So, where am I supposed to find this magic job that will let me go back to my business once it returns? Who wants to hire me for a month or two, knowing that I own a business that’s COVID affected and that I may quit at any time? Could I go back to teaching and then just QUIT?
JaneyB
Well, Boulet is not thinking clearly. I’m spending that money here in QC, helping keep the economy humming in some small way while my job is temporarily suspended. And more to the point: How different is that from the 40% salary subsidy that cultural companies (eg: Ubisoft) get from the provincial govt in normal times?
And @Myles is right – it’s poorly paid, high risk jobs that are having trouble finding people and that’s despite the very modest CERB payment option. Employers are used to telling jobseekers to retrain at their own expense and make themselves more attractive. Well, in covid times, those employers need to change their business model and safety protocols to make themselves more attractive than 2000K a month. Really, that shouldn’t be too hard.
-
Kate
Serious accidents involving construction cranes are on the rise in Quebec, but who on earth could have foreseen this, after the authorities cut down on obligatory training for crane operators – a change which even led to a wildcat crane operator walkout two years ago?
-
Kate
CTV looked into why police arrive at mental health calls – sometimes with fatal results. The basic answer: 911 dispatchers are trained to call in the cops.
Ephraim
How could we help the situation… make half the cops social workers or…. just a wild thought, have cops wearing cameras, so that they can go over the interaction with a social worker who will teach them how they could have improved the interaction. But no… cameras are bad… we couldn’t possibly do that.
JaneyB
We definitely need cop-social worker units. We have other hybrids like nurse-practioners. This definitely needs to happen.
-
Kate
St Patrick’s church, right downtown, was raking in $300,000 a year on parking fees from its space facing Lagauchetière.
Challenged by the city to pay property tax on that space, the church took the issue to Superior Court, where the ruling went in its favour. But now that HEC is putting up a huge building in that area, the church won’t be renting out parking any more.
(A curious point about that church – the main front door faces south onto the parking lot, but is never used. It’s the back of the church that faces René-Lévesque, and visitors only use the side doors.)
Patrick
Well, not quite never. My mother’s funeral was held in St. Patrick’s some years ago, and we followed the coffin out the main doors. But I don’t know what happens in a regular Sunday.
Kate
Ah OK. I guess it is used on ceremonial occasions. I’ve never been on a regular Sunday, but I’ve occasionally stepped inside to look around, and I think the last time I was ever at a mass (besides a couple of funerals) was when my folks inveigled me into going with them to Christmas mass there years ago. The “front” door was never open.
MarcG
I was supposed to meet my now-partner at St Patrick’s for our first date. She was sick and I sat through the service wondering where she was. Beautiful place. I went in and out the side door on the SW side.
Chris
I sure hope the city appeals.
“si un stationnement «sert au moins en partie à l’exercice du culte public», il peut bénéficier d’une exemption de toutes ses taxes foncières.” What insane reasoning. I’m sure Scientology is happy. Just hold one religious service and leave the building vacant 364 other days a year. It was partially used for religious purposes, so hey no taxes at all!
Churches should pay the same taxes as other businesses. Just because they’re selling lies and not trinkets shouldn’t get them any exemption.
Ian
Unless the law that makes churches tax exempt gets changed, if the city appeals this case it’s just throwing good money after bad.
-
Kate
An STM bus driver was seriously injured Monday morning in Montreal North in a collision with a truck. Photos show how badly the front of the bus was damaged.
-
Kate
The monument to Dollard des Ormeaux in Lafontaine Park was graffiti’d up with the word ASSACIN overnight in an anticolonialist gesture.
Chris
I almost (not really) wish someone would do similar to Gandi’s bust, to see how the media and twitterverse would react differently.
The National Post has a defence of Gandi, with points like:
“[His] racist views reflected the staid British education and values of the time in which he was raised”
“… put them in context of the period and the systems in which he was raised”I agree with those points! I don’t get why they *don’t* get applied to des Ormeaux, Mcdonald, McGill, etc. who’s world **centuries earlier** was unimaginably different from ours.
-
Kate
Restaurants in town are seeing different recoveries, some with better success than others – but wouldn’t this always be true?
-
Kate
A counter-petition is circulating to keep the name of Lionel-Groulx for the crossover metro station.
jeather
I’ve been betting that we will rename things based on not-good anglos, but only anglos, and I continue to believe this is true. (Stop renaming things after people at all, that would be easier. I don’t object to Oscar Peterson as a name for LG station, but I really think we need to just use geographical features for a bit.)
Michael Black
That’s okay from a mainstream perspective, but where does it leave under represented people?
If they were left out in the first place, then now they’d not have a chance. It might even seem a bit deliberate (not from you), close the door before new names can come in.
I think it’s way more important to make change than tear down statues. Yes, some of those statues directly affect some people, but a lot of this seems to come from third parties outraged, rather than people raging because they are affected.
James Streer in Winnipeg is named after James Ross, I think just because the family had enough clout. But he was also chief justice in the Red River government (aka the provisional government). And the son of a Syilx woman. That’s way more important than pulling down a statue. Aunt Jemima’s street was renamed to Elgin (I assume after the Lord), and she had self-esteem issues. Imagine being ashamed that her mother was Syilx.
This Metro station name is somewhat different since it’s both a pulling down of an old name, but also putting up an under represented person.
But renaiming, or naming, is just a tiny part of what needs to be done, and other things are way more important.
-
Kate
Blue tags identifying public trees with their species, age and social benefits will be appearing around town this summer.
Dhomas
THAT’S what those are! I saw one of those signs on a tree as I drove down the street and I thought it might be one those “treated for ash borer” signs. Now I know. (I was going to swing by on my bike later to investigate, but maybe I’ll just see it next time)
Ephraim
Wow… now even the trees need name tags.
Kate
Ephraim, in the botanical garden arboretum the trees have species tags, and I don’t mind that – it’s informative. These blue tags are a little more intrusive, but still educational.
-
Kate
TVA describes the brief career and pathetic death of a petty criminal of Laval who sounds like a minor character in a series.
walkerp
“Connus comme « les frères Denis », les deux hommes accumulent les crimes depuis leur adolescence, sans toutefois faire preuve d’une grande ingéniosité.”
Ouch.
Kate
I also liked “lorsqu’ils entendent les noms […], la grande majorité des policiers lavallois lèvent instinctivement les yeux au ciel.”
-
Kate
Two commercial buildings were apparently set on fire overnight, one in Ahuntsic and the other in St-Michel.
mare 21:00 on 2020-06-29 Permalink
Wow, 26 out of 250? So team sports appear to more dangerous than we thought. Or the kind of people who are playing in the NHL are not very risk averse.
Kevin 23:56 on 2020-06-29 Permalink
Never forget- in October 2018 Carey Price was the only person in Quebec with the flu.
He’s also had the flu in Oct. 2016 and had it again this past February, so obviously hockey players have terrible immune systems and will never get vaccinations
Kate 09:34 on 2020-06-30 Permalink
Price said last week he wouldn’t take the risk, but the latest news I find says he’s on his way here to join the team after all.
MarcG 10:34 on 2020-06-30 Permalink
Possibly similar to the reason it’s common in meat packing plants – cold environment + close quarters?
Josh 15:47 on 2020-06-30 Permalink
MarcG: Same thing, more or less, is happening in baseball, basketball and certain college football quarters in the US, too.
Alison Cummins 17:10 on 2020-06-30 Permalink
Cold environment, close quarters and lots of yelling.
Uatu 17:49 on 2020-06-30 Permalink
And sweaty locker rooms. They had trouble dealing with the mumps a couple of years ago
MarcG 10:42 on 2020-07-01 Permalink
I think the word you’re looking for is “moist”