If they can watch you, they will: Cadillac Fairview is accused of making video recordings of shoppers in its malls, with Galeries d’Anjou and Carrefour Laval (although not, oddly, Fairview) mentioned in the Montreal area as well as others across Canada. In theory the images have not been stored.
Updates from October, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Seeing many reports on social and regular media that people have gone out trick‑or‑treating despite the pandemic, and have also found ways to distribute treats in a distanced way.
JaneyB
The weather was nice and the mood was very good in my neighbourhood. Normally, it is a real festival but of course, not this year. I saw all sorts of elaborate methods of getting the candy to the kids: swinging or lowering pails, chutes, distanced tables with dressed-up human. It was nicely light-hearted. I think everyone was grateful that the weather at least was good. All our practise at obstacle dodging has made a very inventive citizenry 🙂
Kevin
I had 150 to 175 kids, which is fewer than normal.
I attached a child’s sled to my steps and tumbled the candy down that. About half would bounce out at the bottom so I had t added pleasure of seeing kids scramble for it
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Kate
Already coping with the same pandemic downturn that’s afflicting everyone, Chinatown’s businesses are facing a wave of vandalism and robberies, and police are finally recognizing that the area is particularly vulnerable at the moment.
Update: There are some pieces Sunday about a small movement to address the racism issue and bring people back to Chinatown – except, with no restaurants open, one major raison d’être of the area isn’t available.
What kind of yahoos think that people living here and operating businesses here have anything to do with COVID-19? I know, I know, racist yahoos don’t think.
I miss going to C-town, but I’m not willing to ride the 55 bus for a long trip there and back again for takeout.
ant6n
I hope L2 (the upstairs bubble tea place) will survive. Been going there since 2005.
MarcG
My wife took me there on one of our first dates for the sweet hot buns (or some combination of terms like that which were funny at the time). I remember looking over the shoulders of a coulple of young ladies playing some kind of video arcade game where there object was to strip a woman naked. There’s a nice view onto the main drag from the front windows.
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Kate
Eighty-three people found at an illegal warehouse party in the shmatte district are facing fines of close to $5,000 each.
jeather
This is why “all Canadians need to further decrease their contacts by 25%” makes me angry. I don’t need to do that. I don’t think I even can do that. The people who go to 100 person parties need to decrease their contacts by 95%, and maybe that averages over the entire population to 25%, but writing it like that is very misleading.
Kevin
The next step is to round ‘em up and dump them on an island.
steph
It’s a strange coincidence that it was 83 people fined last week at the Chelsea Airbnb party and 83 people AGAIN at this party.
Kate
jeather: I know what you mean. The only people I’ve been physically close to in weeks are the 2 guys at the fruiterie, and (by chance) a couple of their other customers. Everyone in masks. There’s nothing else to decrease.
GC
Me, too. It hard to reduce your social gatherings by 25% if they are already at zero. Do I need to go shopping for groceries 25% less often? Find a time of the day to do it that is 25% less busy?
EmilyG
I also haven’t had any close contacts. I live alone and I’m not in any “bubbles.”
It’s almost like dividing by zero.dmdiem
Same here. I live alone and recently I’ve even been ordering all my groceries online. Maybe we should all start a club and then never meet.
JaneyB
‘Could’ face a fine. No, let’s make that ‘will’ face a fine. I would like to see some hard ball here. Like others, I cannot divide 1 person by 25% either. It’s been 8 months of this already. I would like to see real punishment of these dedicated scofflaws and so strong that all their friends start to live in fear. Why are we tip-toeing around these people?
Chris
All this is also how many environmentalists feel when the population is told “we need to reduce our carbon footprint by x”. They think: I already don’t have a car, I already bike everywhere, I’m already vegan, I already have no children, etc. And they see others out there driving to McDonalds to eat a burger in disposable packaging.
Both scenarios are lessons in human psychology. Those that shoulder a burden more are jealous/angry at those that don’t.
Well, it’s not required by law to bike everywhere, be vegan, etc., and so people don’t, even if it would be better for us all collectively. Likewise, it’s not required to buy your groceries online, to have zero close contacts, to live alone, to have no bubble, etc., and so people don’t.
The people going to these parties are the environmental equivalent of people who buy Hummers. But at least the former gets you into trouble.
walkerp
Yes, a bit of virtue signalling here. Obviously, the reduce by 25% does not apply to you if you already are limiting your social contacts to an extreme point.
jeather
I am not virtue signaling here. I live alone, I have few options to see people, I am able to work from home, I would love to see people again. I am saying that “all Canadians must reduce their contacts by 25%” is a bad stance to take, because the people who are doing their best (given their work and childcare options) will think “oh it is me who is acting poorly” when no, it is the people having various parties and secret clubs etc who are the problem. And the employers in some industries. If you want the overall level of contacts to go down by 25%, it is much easier and more effective to go for the large groups.
GC
Indeed. Maybe it’s an implied “25% ON AVERAGE”, but some of us have a lot more work to do than that.
And, like JaneyB, I’m a bit weary of all the stories about people being warned. It’s been eight months. Enough warnings have been had. Appealing to people’s good natures also isn’t working, or it would have worked already.
MarcG
My mother’s comment was that if she reduced her contacts my Dad would have to move out of the house.
GC
HA
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Kate
La Presse interviews Valérie Plante; François Cardinal’s view is that Plante sees Montreal purely in terms of its livability on a neighbourhood level, not so much as a major economic hub. The paper even got a piece from Laurent Blanchard, who was interim mayor briefly in 2013, and who sees Plante mostly as the anti-car mayor, a woman who pounced on the pandemic as a pretext to install bike paths and pedestrian streets.
Tim S.
I don’t know where to start with Cardinal’s column. Maybe simply with the observation that in a capitalist system, I thought governments were supposed to get out of the way and let private enterprise create economic growth? Or that he clearly doesn’t understand the division of powers between municipalities, provinces and the feds?
Ant6n
nice if livability is on the Agenda. It was lacking in governance for a long time.
Su
I guess Francois Cardinal and La Presse would rather the libertarian think tank Montreal Economic Institute should be running our city. Best that the citizens have no say in how the Hub is run.
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Kate
Covid numbers in the city have reached an “uncomfortable plateau” in the words of Dr Mylène Drouin, with about 250 new cases a day.
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Kate
Downtown coworking space Anticafé was closed by police, then reopened midweek, then police forced it to close again. Coworking spaces are allowed to open with 25% of seats filled, but police seem to take the view that if it looks like a café or restaurant, it oughtn’t to be open for business.
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Kate
A new book by journalists Félix Séguin and Eric Thibault tells tales of the mob, including details about deadly hits in recent years, sketched out in this piece. The writers also made a documentary about Séguin’s friendship with Andrew Scoppa, who was murdered a year ago.
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Kate
The man shot dead by police on Thursday was Sheffield Matthews. He was 41. Sue Montgomery is now squabbling with the police brotherhood, whose spokesman maintains that police have an obligation to neutralize threats.
steph
Fuck the police, the police brotherhood and the blue wall of silence. ACAB.
Ephraim
Doublespeak: Neutralize threats – kill people
No, they don’t have an obligation to neutralize threats, they have an obligation to de-escalate threats. Being a police officer isn’t a licence to kill. Maybe we need an automatic investigation by a third party and suspension until completed in order to make them realize that anytime they use deadly force, it’s going to have a LOT of costs. And that investigation should be required to be done by the SQ.walkerp
Yes, fuck the police. They are totally out of control and their policies are designed to protect them and harm citizens, especially citizens of colour.
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Kate
Teacher Vincent Ouellette has been suspended after students finally succeeded in having his racism taken seriously. The service centre of the north end school is going to review its code of ethics and not a minute too soon.
Uatu
Pfft… Service center. Sounds ridiculous. What’s going to happen? Are they going to take this teacher into the shop for repairs like a broken down Buick?
EmilyG 20:23 on 2020-11-01 Permalink
They were trying to see the age and gender of shoppers?
People tend to think that I look male, and a lot younger than I am, so I probably skewed their data.
Seriously, though, this isn’t cool.