A man fell into the Lachine Canal and drowned on Sunday afternoon. Seems he was washing his clothes in the water when he fell in, which is just odd. Both police and fire services launched boats, and his body was finally fished out.
Updates from September, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The city’s professional union is fighting a ruling that allows the constant surveillance of workers’ online activities. An arbitrator gave the practice a fairly open-ended OK last month, but the reasons given are fudgy: is it a concern about security? Or about tracking workers’ use of time? Or about the city’s reputation, which is also mentioned?
I wonder how many of these folks have been working from home, and if the surveillance follows them there via installation on a work laptop.
René
When working from home, you are connected to the office with a VPN (Virtual Private Network).
So, your internet traffic is routed to the office and then through the office internet connection.
It’s often at this point that the employee’s requests for websites are logged.
Most enterprises have blacklists in place and also produce daily/weekly/monthly usage reports.
It is a standard practice to notify employees about “improper” internet usage.
Often, “some” light personal internet usage is tolerated and this varies from company to company.
Usually, informal and formal warnings are given about improper use before leading to something more serious.
It is my understanding that an employer can use a tool such as a keyboard sniffer but only on an employer supplied equipment and also only it the employee is informed of the presence of this tool.
Doesn’t apply to every situation but that’s more or less what I’ve seen in the last 20 years.
Hope this can help.steph
Shouldn’t anyone using company time & equipment expect the employer to be watching what they do? I don’t see how this is a problem.
Kate
steph, I’d put it this way: if I’m doing my job and producing whatever you need from me, you don’t have to look over my shoulder constantly. You need to trust me. Yes, I will use the internet, and sometimes it’ll be totally to research something connected with work, and sometimes I’ll be using it to find out something like how to use a software feature which I might be expected to know, but which I haven’t used before, or which has been changed in an update, something I may not especially want you to know I’m not familiar with – but yes, sometimes I might be checking the weather or the news or some oddment I’ve been meaning to look up, or seeing if some restaurant is open for lunch, or whatever.
We should not have to work in a panopticon. You’re not going to squeeze more or better work out of me by watching me like a hawk.
Thanks for the deets, René.
steph
That’s what a smartphone (or a book) is for.
Ant6n
I’m issued a laptop for work. I usually travel a fair bit for work. I’m not going to lug around a second laptop. Ergo theres a bunch of personal stuff happening on it. If I had an office, Id have the expectation that my employer doesnt install 15 webcams and constantly records every angle of my desk and drawers. These things are all tools for work, you should check the work but not the tools.
Blork
With the possible exception of people who do a lot of travelling, this is tempest in a teapot for most home workers. After all, don’t most people have their own computers aside from the company-issued laptop? The discussion basically ends right there.
Or not. I think it’s reasonable to expect that a company-issued computer be used primarily for company work. That doesn’t justify constant surveillance, and a reasonable amount of personal low-risk usage should always be acceptable. But using the company computer primarily for work and not at all on high-risk sites is a reasonable assumption, if for no other reason that network security.
For example, where I work there’s no hard scrutiny that I’m aware of — and it’s even been stated by HR and company execs that they don’t do that, but that people should be reasonable, etc. But our parent company has a number of high security measures in place, including the VPN and constant third-party authentication (I seriously have to get a temporary access code through my phone about four times a day). It’s a very secure environment, and they don’t want people pulling in viruses and malware in their off-hours activity that could compromise that security. I think that’s entirely reasonable, and it has nothing to do with being scrutinized for “productivity.”
Until about a year ago I used my personal computer when I worked from home. Everything is network and cloud-based, so it was all seamless moving from one machine to the other. But then the security measures started, and instead of installing all that security stuff on my home machine I opted to just lug my laptop back and forth each day, which is only the smallest inconvenience. And now I work from home all the time, so at the end of the day I just unplug one Thunderbolt cable and poke a few buttons on the monitor and I switch from work machine mode to home machine mode and it takes literally seven seconds.
All that to say: if you have the kind of job that involves using a company computer you can probably afford to also have a personal computer that you can do whatever you want with.
walkerp
The clear distinction is that work-provided hardware should have the necessary software on it to protect company assets appropriate to the risk environment (so anti-virus, VPN, maybe blocking websites that could lead to lawsuits).
Actually tracking employee behaviour to ensure certain levels of productivity and behaviours does not fall under that category, is an invasion of privacy and should be actively resisted by employees and unions.
It varies depending on the OS, but you can often set up a personal account and a work account (Android does this, for instance). The problem is that many people mix those two world together and don’t like the inconvenience. If you use your work email for personal communications, for instance, then you are sort of complicit in allowing the company to track your personal life.
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Kate
The new bridge is to be lit up in rainbow colours for an hour every Sunday evening this month, although exactly how this is supposed to relaunch the economy, as mentioned, is not entirely clear.
dmdiem
Bright colourful lights attract clowns, obviously.
Ephraim
Does that mean that the bridges will be overcrowded with cops?
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Kate
Quebec reports more than 200 new Covid cases Sunday. CTV is also alleging that Quebec’s being cagey about the numbers of schools with Covid cases.
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Kate
Creative crooks have decided since Quebec is being prissy about selling edibles at the SQDC, they’ll happily offer candy, teas, baked goods and other spiked treats that the government is too puritanical to sell. The SPVM has been seizing a lot of it.
Vazken
Give the people what they want, otherwise they’ll get it from elsewhere (I hear BC sells a lot of edibles with shipping!)
Ephraim
You can get tea and fizzy drinks at the SQDC. You used to be able to get oil, but I see it’s marked us unavailable on the website, so I don’t know if that’s supply or they aren’t carrying it anymore. Not having gummies is something I understand, they attract young children. but there are things that don’t appeal to children… Pot macaron, Pot pate, pot cheese…. I’m sure they can come up with some.
Kate
Ephraim, what about the majority, I think, of people who don’t have children living in their house?
Vazken
Also, the “THINK OF THE CHILDREN” is such a dumb thing, oh no, I can’t be personally responsible and hide it from them!
walkerp
The “think of the children” argument against edibles is so stupid. It’s just the last holdover of marijuana hysteria that Canada can’t quite jettison. Are kids going to accidently drink your Vodka Spritzers or Califonia Coolers? If you learn one thing as a parent, it’s how to hide sweets from your child.
Ian
Well see that’s the thing, the CAQ minister in charge when asked this very question suggested that the kind of people that did drugs would not be capable of hiding them from their children – I heard him say as much on the radio at the time. I wish I were kidding, but the paternalistic “Daddy knows best” routine from the CAQ is pretty much their response to everything.
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Kate
Cyclists are defending the bike path along Terrebonne in NDG which was initially, let’s recall, voted for by everyone on the borough council, including those now baying for tearing it out as soon as possible.
Update: I liked this tweet: “To the politicians making a spectacle of their opposition to the bike lanes: are you really listening to the people, or are you just sticking it to Plante?”
Jebediah Pallindrome
Absolutely infuriating.
I’m not sure which is worse:
1- The people who take no interest in local affairs and couldn’t be bothered to show up to a meeting, then complain about not being consulted
2- The politicians who’re so completely spineless they’ll actually undermine their own authority by dropping everything to accommodate the people who fit the above description
Mark Côté
It’s been an extremely hot-button topic here in NDG. Snow removal and parking can get people more upset than pretty much anything else. The bike lanes supposedly removed 250 parking spots so the magnitude of the rage is particularly high with this one.
Jebediah Pallindrome
The only way around this (as far as I see it) is for each borough (and the city) to have to mail a printed newsletter to every address each month, listing every decision and concern brought before them, and advertising exactly when the meetings are and how everyone can watch from home. These would have to be written by municipal employees who would be ironically forbidden from any involvement in local politics.
Add mandatory voting for all residents and a locally-recognized electoral ‘holiday’ to guarantee an acceptable level of participation.
There’s so much money at stake, people’s lives and quality of life. Why allow so much to be left up to chance? Cities (esp. Montreal) are too important for ‘n’importe quoi’
Kevin
The sooner the Terrebonne path is gone, the better.
There was no plan for this, and the roadwork done the previous year to alter the street and sidewalks makes Terrebonne a very bad place for a bike path.Mark Côté
What about the alterations makes it bad for a bike path compared to other streets?
Jebediah Pallindrome
@Kevin –
How sure are we of this?
The city has a planning department. Staffed with professional – licensed – urban planners.
Do you actually think that the city/borough did this without the involvement of professionals?
Second guessing doctors and public health officials, sure – I get that. It’s not like they had to go to university for roughly a decade, pass a bunch of licensing exams and are constantly scrutinized by their peers.
Same thing airline pilots – if I think the airplane can fly upside down my opinion is obviously equal to the person who has spent 5,000 hours in the cockpit. It’s all relative.
Truth is highly biased towards facts.
Tim S.
The bike path was put up in a huge hurry. There was no signage warning anyone that it was coming. I actually watched city workers paint lines around cars that had only been given 24 hours to move. Terrebonne now has a few sidewalk bumpouts that basically cut off the bike path and force cyclists into the path of vehicles. Around the schools the bike path disappears completely so cyclists can enjoy the experience of weaving around school buses (for part of the day, anyways).
As a pedestrian on that street, I really like the bike path, it gives me more cover from cars, visibility at intersections and room for social distancing. As a well-thought out urban mobility project, I can see the flaws.Kevin
Jebediah
How sure? Dead certain, since the councillors who voted for this emergency plan (On Terrebonne and other streets) when it was proposed in June said it was an experiment.And if you think politicians always listen to the professionals when it comes to planning, well, our streets and water mains and sewers would be in much better shape.
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Kate
Three vehicles were involved in a crash in St-Michel Saturday night that sent five people to hospital.
A man was stabbed early Sunday in the Quartier latin, but no one has been arrested.
Saturday morning, a man was stabbed near Papineau metro and a suspect was arrested.
Another stabbing has just been reported – a young man stabbed in Anjou early Saturday evening, who’s saying nothing to police.
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