City council has appointed a new Speaker, Suzie Miron, to replace Cathy Wong, who was named in June to a new role combatting racism and protecting French; I also seem to recall Wong was about to go on maternity leave at that point.
Updates from August, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A couple of independent councillors suggested to the city that it should contemplate mail-in ballots for next year’s election, but a body called the Commission de la présidence du conseil says there are better ways, such as extending polling days to allow for social distancing, and bringing mobile polls to seniors’ residences.
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Kate
Facing calls to defund the police, here as elsewhere, the police brotherhood says it wouldn’t like that at all.
Ephraim
Sure, if I was them, being accountable and having others who are actually trained to do interventions are the last thing I would want. I mean, we may discover that they aren’t really as needed.
Max
> we may discover that they aren’t really as needed
Certainly we don’t need them making $60/hr in overtime pay for manually operating traffic lights, as they’re wont to do.
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Kate
Mayor Plante is pressing for a special law mandating the completion of the blue line to Anjou. The CAQ has been playing games with the city, suggesting that their failure to pass Bill 61 means the extension will never be completed now.
As it stands, if the project went full steam ahead it still wouldn’t open before 2026.
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Kate
Pierre Coriolan was shot dead by SPVM police in June 2017. Since that time, the city has spent $190,601 defending the six cops involved, while Coriolan’s family has only received $5,000 to cover legal fees. This item also goes on to say that both the Quebec government and the Police Brotherhood provided additional lawyering for the police side too.
There were accounts in February of the coroner’s inquest, but I don’t see anything yet about a report. Seems a little odd that it took nearly 3 years to get to the inquest stage, but I could be mistaken about that.
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Kate
City council is sitting Monday for the first time since June, and will face the looming issue of how to make ends meet during a pandemic.
jeather
Apparently you can save lots of money but just expropriating properties instead of buying them, so they’ve got that going for them.
Ian
I hope this doesn’t cut into the street clowns budget.
Douglas
Expropriating them for free. Meaning literally stealing properties from homeowners. Where is the outrage.
Dhomas
@Douglas it might be semantics, but none of those expropriated properties had houses built on them, so it’s a stretch to call them “homeowners”. Also, I’m glad this was brought to light as we will hopefully see some resolution now. From what I read, the fonctionnaires that performed the expropriations would have nothing to gain from them (i.e. it doesn’t smell like corruption). Let’s hope this exercise allows the municipal government to realize their mistake and put in place some checks and balances going forward.
walkerp
Wait until they start being allowed to expropriate clowns without approval.
Joking aside, at this point we have swung so far towards private property in these neoliberal times that I am almost okay with the city having this power.
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Kate
People who have attended Latin dance events held throughout August should get tested for Covid.
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Kate
Several demonstrations were held Sunday to demand permanent residency for migrants who’ve worked throughout the pandemic, not only for specific healthcare workers as currently offered by the feds.
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Kate
Linda Gyulai, in one of her demonstrations of relentless forensic analysis of city records, shows that when city hall started allowing its fonctionnaires to expropriate properties without needing approval from the city’s executive committee – a change made during Denis Coderre’s administration – property seizures jumped 580%.
Tim
Stealing people’s land without even telling them? It is stories like this that feed anti-government conspiracy theorists. What kind of world are the bureaucrats who did this living in?
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Kate
The Journal says police are finding that shootings (both with and without victims) have become more common in residential areas, particularly in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Montreal North and Rivière-des-Prairies, since the beginning of the pandemic, although police couldn’t provide numbers for comparison from 2019. “Normally” there would presumably be about the same number of incidents, but with a significant proportion taking place downtown.
Far be it from me to query the SPVM, but after doing this blog for nearly 2 decades, I’ve noticed there are always rumbles in the north end (I’d add Anjou and St-Léonard to the list) – that hardly seems new. The headline “près des maisons” (“près de chez vous” on TVA) seems chosen to sow alarm and clicks.
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Kate
Two young men stabbed each other overnight in Ahuntsic, and one is in critical condition.
Update: The more seriously injured young man has died of his wounds, making him the year’s 14th homicide.
Further update: Ahmed Raza, who turned 18 only four months ago, was charged on Tuesday with murder in the first degree of Aly Abdelaziz, who was 19.
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