While the NHL withdraws from the U.S. in a desperate move to save the hockey season, rumour has it three players on the Canadiens have tested positive. They need to bite the bullet and shut it down.
Updates from July, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A woman found unconscious on Ste-Catherine in Westmount overnight has died, and police think she was probably hit by a vehicle.
A man was stabbed on Jeanne-Mance near Sherbrooke on Sunday afternoon. He isn’t dead.
Tim S.
Just outside of Alexis Nihon. There should be plenty of security cameras in that area.
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Kate
The Journal must have sent out all their summer stagiaires to check out every hand sanitizer dispenser in the metro to be able to report that more than a third of them don’t work for various reasons including vandalism.
Azrhey
also, is it just me, or the hand sanitizer in the metro smell bad, something fierce? Like rotten meat, or day old spilled beer or something… it is vile!
After a couple of times I’ve taken to bring my own because, that thing gives me a headache!
Kate
Oof. I haven’t been in the metro since the shit hit the fan. Occasional bus rides only. Thanks for warning us!
MarcG
Ethyl alcohol smells like strong booze (because that’s what it is) unless you scent it, and some people don’t like it. I’m not sure if that’s what’s happening here, just throwing it out there.
EmilyG
I have some sanitizer that maybe is scented, because it smells like cabbage. eeewwwww.
Dhomas
I took the metro yesterday and didn’t even see any hand sanitizer dispensers. I carry my own little bottle, so maybe I wasn’t looking very hard for them.
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Kate
A follower of the blog’s Twitter feed tells me the mayor is in hospital for a minor operation, from where she posted an Instagram. It’s not in the news (yet).
Dominic
That was me! Still strange its barely been reported. Hope she is okay!
Kate
Not a peep in the regular media. Thanks for the tip, Dominic.
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Kate
Anyone following local Twitter feeds and other sources will be aware that a wave of anonymous sex misconduct allegations has been rippling through Quebec, displacing, among others, the head of Ubisoft and others in its management. I’m already seeing people online (not from here) advising each other to shun Ubisoft products.
steph
what’s the instagram account?
Kate
I didn’t mention an instagram account in this post. If you mean the mayor’s instagram account, it’s linked in the post about that topic.
EmilyG
There is an Instagram account about local sex misconduct allegations: https://www.instagram.com/victims_voices_montreal/
Kate
Thanks, EmilyG.
EmilyG
Also, on Facebook there’s a list of potential aggressors.
Some famous names on there.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=104036198055270&id=104007051391518&__tn__=-RKate
That’s a very long list.
So far, the only person I’ve seen deny the implied accusation is Julien Villeneuve – Anarchopanda. I don’t know him personally, but I’ve been following his Twitter feed and other writings for years, ever since he became prominent in the student protests of 2012. For what it’s worth – and it may be worth nothing, since I’m a nobody myself – I have always had the impression he’s an honourable guy.
But I realize two things: a list like this has to generally be believed, because false accusations are extremely rare, and you cannot always understand from a person’s artistic or literary output how he behaves in sexual situations.
Alison Cummins
> “you cannot always understand from a person’s artistic or literary output
> how he behaves in sexual situations”Very pertinent observation. Jian Ghomeshi’s on-air politics were very pro-woman. His off-air behaviour… didn’t match.
So I can easily accept that someone has different personalities and behaviours depending on the condition of their genitals. They might not notice when they are abusing someone: they might “just assume that if [person they are abusing] wanted anything, it was their responsibility to try to get it.” Or they might notice, and that might be thrilling in the moment even if not congruent with who they think of as their real self.
No excuses.
• You can’t trust even the nicest guy not to be a dick. Not that all men are dicks when aroused, but you can’t take it as a given. Pay attention, trust your gut and don’t blame yourself for misreading.
• Just because something is making you happy it doesn’t mean your partner is happy. You genuinely might not think you need it, but practicing explicit consent will make your sex life better. (It will definitely make it more consensual.)
• A warning to people who know X personally to be a really nice/fair/progressive person: unless X is into you sexually, your opinion that they couldn’t possibly be an abuser counts zilch. Unfortunately.
EmilyG
Oddly, Jian Ghomeshi is on the Facebook list, and I thought it was a Quebec-specific list.
Unless he’s moved out of Ontario?Kate
Alison, that’s quite the core dump. Do you mind if I edit it?
Alison Cummins
Kate, please do.
Kate
EmilyG, you’re not the only person to notice Ghomeshi on there. I would doubt he’s moved here, but have heard nothing about it either way.
[I’ve edited Alison’s comment.]
EmilyG
I got curious, and looked him up. He has some sort of new podcast this year, but it’s not well-known, I didn’t know about it before today, and I don’t know if it says anywhere where he’s doing it from. (Probably Ontario?)
So it’s pretty odd that he’d be on a Quebec list unless there’s more that isn’t known.Michael Black
But just beause there’s a list doesn’t mean all that much. We don’t see accusers linked to the the accused. Do we know who is actually keeping the list? What’s the criteria for being on the list? Even when there is legit complaint, it can cover a wide territory, someone being touched to something more blatant. The fact that Ghomeshi is on the list may be an indicator of the list rather than that he’s now in Quebed. It would be easy to add names of people already known, rather than new accusations from people actually affected.
What kind of world do we want? Where mob rules? If cop behaviour is bad, them deciding certain people are criminal by the way they look, then isn’t there something wrong with this list, ignoring rules but assuming they are all guilty because there name is here?
People talk about laws that protect criminals. But they are actually there to protect the innocent. If cops could be certain, there’d be no reason for judges etc. But we can’t trust them. This list (not whatever complaints are behind the list) is as bad as a cop swearing at me, or thinking it’s okay to illegally search me or threaten to beat me up because they’ve already decided I am a criminal bevause of the way I look.
Kate
Michael Black, you ask the key question. Where does virtue lie? It’s a principle in our jurisprudence that a person shouldn’t be anonymously accused. One purpose of a trial is to bring the accused to face his accusers in court. Another principle is that no one should be condemned without an examination of the evidence. Both principles are being openly flouted here and those, like you, who say there should be limits on this trial and condemnation by social media are likely to be accused of siding with the status quo, which has enabled abusers.
Good people, virtuous people, are signalling their assent to this new kind of conviction by public pillory. Careers will be ended by this, there will be suicides and other bad outcomes, and will society be improved?
Blork
If the troublesome people at Ubisoft have already left, then there’s no point in boycotting Ubisoft. All you’re doing then is punishing the victims (i.e., the employees who were the victims of this bad behaviour).
Kate
Blork, isn’t there an argument that part of the problem is structural, is embedded in the culture of the company? Something along the lines of systemic racism?
MarcG
I don’t think it’s fair to compare the people who contributed to and compiled this list to cops. The police are listened to and trusted; the reason this list exists is because victims are not. Women have kept lists of the names of abusers in the community in bathrooms before, now it’s just gone digital like everything else. @Kate: Will society be improved? If it means that there are fewer cases of sexual abuse because people know they’ll be held accountable, I would say yes.
Blork
It could be argued that the problem is embedded in the culture of the company, but we don’t actually know that. More likely the problem is embedded in a few of the higher offices, and those people have been removed, and it’s quite likely the remaining execs are both relieved they’re gone and anxious to turn the page and make it a better company.
After all, the main point of a boycott is to force change in a company. But if the company has already forced its change, then why boycott? Thousands of people work at Ubisoft, and hardly any of them are greasy executives, especially now that the worst offenders have left.
Kate
Blork, in a way you’re demonstrating the weakness of this new form of justice. No, it may not be fair that Ubisoft and its workers will take a hit from this incident. The people I know online are not going to follow this story in fine detail – what they learned is “shun Ubisoft” and that idea is now out there, fair or not.
Since there’s no formal trial, a person or a business cannot clear their name. The smirch remains forever.
(I say this as someone who still can’t bring herself to buy a South African wine, after years of boycotting them in my frabjous youth. Some things stick, fair or not.)
Blork
I still have a distaste for Granny Smith apples, for the same reason.
I was asking rhetorically I suppose. My biggest lament for the times we live in is the shallowness of the public’s thinking and actions. (Some will dispute that, to which I say just because YOU think things through doesn’t mean other people do.)
There’s a lot of talk about cancel culture happening right now and I’m very torn on the issue. On the one hand I like that people are aware and engaged, if that’s what it really is. But there’s a fine line between that and mobs with pitchforks.
I have no problem calling out and boycotting companies who engage in practices that I strongly disagree with. Nestle is one of them. Protesting and boycotting a company over it’s business practices can send a strong message, and if the company changes its practices then the protesting and boycotting can end.
I’m not so sure the same applies when the distasteful practices are entirely internal. A company can have slimy management and 90% of the employees are not even aware of it (whereas 100% of the employees of Nestle are aware of their business practices). Even then, the purpose of a protest and boycott is to signal your disapproval and presumably your call for change. So when change happens, the protest ends.
All this depends on people understanding WTF they are thinking and doing, and that’s where it all falls apart. The norms and practices of social media have merged into mainstream culture, at least among younger people, so things like boycotting and protesting are now mostly about expressing indigence and signalling virtue than they are about the hard work of forcing change.
OK I’ll shut up now. :-/
steph
The instagram account has taken down their posts 🙁 . I hope they return.
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Kate
The cost of parking in a couple of large indoor lots downtown has been reduced to encourage people to shop.
At the beginning of this lockdown, we were told it was best to stick close to home and not circulate from one part of town to another frivolously. I never heard this contravened, but it must have been at some point, mustn’t it?
Douglas 10:02 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
They are creating a bubble in Toronto and Edmonton. They already voted to continue.
The shutdowns are over, deaths are down, we aren’t going back to suffocating our economy.
Kate 10:09 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
Douglas, I suggest you look at what’s happening in the United States after they chose not to “suffocate their economy”: “The WHO reported another record single-day number of COVID-19 cases on Sunday […] The United States is home to more than one-quarter of the daily total of new cases.”
This is not a model we should be following. The only reason we’re doing better is that Canadians are less devoted to the idea of “live free or die”. Americans will die. That is their right. But we don’t need to import that here.
Uatu 10:34 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
Yep. Even the smallest action like a covid+ idiot teen attending a party because they didn’t want to be left out results in more stores spending$$ on disinfection, more$$ for testing or shutting down businesses altogether. We made it through the great depression so we can do it again. @ Douglas: I’m glad you didn’t use the “putting food on the table” metaphor because it’s getting tiresome
Su 11:16 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
Given what is now known about post”recovery” lingering effects of Covid, the players union should be resisting reopening I would think. https://www.healthcentral.com/article/long-term-effects-coronavirus…even in mild cases there may be lung damage.
Ephraim 14:18 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
We also don’t know if there will be latency, like there is with so many other viruses, like HPV, Polio, ChickenPox, etc.
EmilyG 15:04 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
They should shut it down. The economy is less important than people’s lives and health.
Douglas 08:30 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
3 players test positive before going into a bubble and the whole covid police lose their minds completely.
These players are tested multiple times a week and they are in a bubble.
And this needs repeating again. You can’t starve someone for 4 months and tell them they can’t put food on the table. And when they ask you how they will feed their families (thousands of blue collar people work for the NHL) you shrug your shoulders.
The last time we handed our economy over to people that should never have had control over it, we nearly bankrupted ourselves. It took common sense to finally get it back.
Kate 09:18 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
Uatu, he’s done it now.
Douglas, you’re trying to sound rational, but you’re coming across like a kid who’s insisting on what he wants in the face of reality. Yes, it would be nice if everyone’s life hadn’t been upset and it would also be nice if this was over, but it has happened and it is not over, and it isn’t going to solve anything to pretend everything is “normal” again because it may never quite be “normal” again, ever. Studies are showing that people infected with Covid lose their immunity after three months and some people may suffer from prolonged effects. Society is going to have to readjust itself around this new reality.
Read this again and take it in. You can’t make it go away by wishing. Stop being childish.
Ephraim 13:17 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
What’s the minimum salary of an NHL player? $650K. And they are only opening TWO cities, no fans, so employment is minimal…. we aren’t talking starvation here. Frankly, this is Canada, not the US, people still have healthcare, there are multiple government programs in place (i’m on one of them) and there are agencies to help. Yes, times are tough, but starving? Chicken Little… Canada will survive this as well… and strong for it in the end.
Uatu 13:49 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
What Ephraim said. And I also know someone who is on the cerb and guess what, THEY ACTUALLY HAVE FOOD ON THE TABLE. Ahem. Sorry but I had to get that off my chest.
Ephraim 14:20 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
I’m on the CERB. And legally, I’m not actually allowed to trade, yet, by government order. I’m not eligible for EI. I’m not covered by any other program. And no one is going to hire me when I don’t know how long I am going to be available. And I’m not starving at all. Kept up all my payments, my property tax, my mortgage, my credit cards. Haven’t dipped into my RRSP or TFSA at all… or even used my savings (and kept enough to pay for the income tax, since it’s not deducted. I am doing things that I normally don’t do, like doing my mom’s shopping, because she’s wasn’t allowed out, except for medical appointments. And I’ve been taking her to medical appointments because it’s safer than her using transport adapté at the moment.
Kate 20:49 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
I too am on the CERB although administered via EI. I had a day job till mid-March but they closed down. It’s the kind of job which, with some employers, could be done from home, but not with this one. Have to be on the spot to respond to requests and these were not people who liked writing emails or texts. Don’t know whether they’ll start up again, or when. Still eating, though.