A brawl at Henri-Bourassa led to a release of tear gas and the eventual closure of the entire eastern orange line from Berri-UQÀM up to Montmorency for an hour during the evening rush.
Updates from December, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
The city wants to reopen the grounds of the Botanical Garden, but Quebec says no due to the risk of gatherings happening there.
JP
Hmm…it’s a pretty big gated space…I feel fairly confident that gatherings can be avoided/prevented while still letting people go there. Just shows how out of touch the government is. Schools can stay open…30-35 kids in a classroom, but no, let’s not let citizens go for a walk in a vast park for their physical and mental well-being…
I saw a MtlBlog fluff piece on Facebook today about “things to do if the pandemic is affecting your mood lately” sponsored by the Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux….They write “…There are still tons of ways to stay active and get those endorphins pumping. From skiing or fat-tire biking to winter hikes or learning a new ice skating trick, the options are practically endless.” Such hypocrites. And, I don’t even own the equipment to do any of that.
If they’re so concerned about gatherings, they should’ve seen the lineups in front of the entrances of Carrefour Laval last weekend. No social distancing; people were mostly wearing masks. Lots of socializing, gathering. Saw a group of teenagers who didn’t seem like they lived together get out of the same van.
Yes, I went to Carrefour Laval last week…judge away.
dhomas
Here’s an anecdote from my experience. I had to go get a part for my car at a local scrapyard recently. It’s a pretty big space with rows and rows of damaged cars raised up with no wheels (like literally over a thousand cars, if I had to estimate). As I was looking through the rows for my car model, I saw people who had apparently organized to meet here as they were sitting together on some old car parts and drinking beer… They couldn’t meet anywhere else, so they congregated here. There’s a 3$ entrance fee, so it’s not quite public. If people are willing to get together in such an aesthetically unpleasant place as a scrapyard, I can only imagine it would be worse in a place like the botanical gardens.
Michael Black
I had a dream last night that the neighbor was moving (he is, but in the spring) and was having a basement sale (but somehow the basement is the size of a warehouse). Lots of really neat stuff.
Then suddenly, oops, I realize nobody is wearing masks, or keeping distance (to be fair, neither was I), and the dream ends.
That’s at least the second time I’ve dreamed of being out and then remembered the pandemic.
Raymond Lutz
This is so stupid. Covid-19 is an indoor disease. Outdoors, the mostly turbulent airflows dilute virion charges. What A Summer Of COVID-19 Taught Scientists About Indoor vs. Outdoor Transmission.
I’m appalled at most governments incoherent responses (and Qanon type movement emergences, linked to the former)… This doesn’t bode well for the coming climate change induced societal collapse.
Spi
@dhomas hits it on the head, the concern isn’t that too many strangers will bump up against each other, it’s that too many people will use it as a space to gather with people they know.
Kate
I can see the pro and con, but the gardens adjoin Maisonneuve Park, so if someone wants a walk or a run in a parklike setting they have a big park right there.
Chris
JP: and good luck buying any such equipment. Just like bikes in the spring, skis and the like are selling out fast.
-
Kate
The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof asks about Pornhub, a massive internet site whose parent company Mindgeek is headquartered in Montreal: “Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?”
Update: It doesn’t take long for a New York Times op-ed to get a response. Justin Trudeau says Canadian authorities are working on stamping out any exploitation of minors found on material circulated by PornHub.
Second update: PornHub defends itself, saying it makes a huge effort not to allow material showing sexual abuse of minors on its servers.
Chris
Says the NYT, cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Talk about exploitation and assault.
Kate
Chris, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
JaneyB
Kristof’s articles are always first-rate. This one was front-page of the NYT today. Good to know the government is on it.
dmdiem
“Prohibit downloads”. Ha! He might as well have said “I don’t know how to internet”.
The answer is the same as it ever was. Go after the people who hurt kids. Uploaded to pornhub? Good. You just confessed to a crime and provided evidence. Book ‘em.
I wonder what the real agenda is here. My skepticism radar goes off any time someone says, “why won’t someone think of the children!”
dhomas
Only verified users being able to upload is a good idea, though. That way, if you upload something questionable, you can be tracked and found. Right now, it seems you can upload quite anonymously.
And prohibiting downloads is not going to completely fix things, but it makes it harder for the casual user to download and re-upload. I believe the issue they have is that there is a “download this video” button on PH. You don’t have to jump through any hoops to get it. It’s way too easy.
I think Machine Learning and AI can help in this situation. Instead of “fingerprinting” a video, which can be easily bypassed by editing the video’s length or speed or aspect ratio (you see this on YouTube sometimes, to avoid being automatically flagged by copyright owners), use AI to automatically ban any videos that recognize a victim’s face. This is definitely within the realm of possibility for any company that is serious about helping victims of sexual abuse.
Chris
Kate, moral preening from the NYT strikes me as the teapot calling the kettle black. I confess I only read your summary and not the article though. Just tried now, but it’s paywalled. I assumed it’s one of those “pron is evil. wah. wah.” articles, but I can see as far as the title, which has the word “children” so maybe it’s more about minors? (At least 1200 children were killed in Iraq, thanks in part to the NYT manufacturing consent.)
Bill Binns
This idea that platform owners are responsible for everything their users post will be the end of the internet. Europe is a few steps further down that road and China shows us where the road will eventually lead. I don’t remember anyone ever suggesting that Bell Telephone should have been held responsible for criminals committing crimes with their network.
Kevin
Bill Binns
No, but phone companies are capable of telling the cops exactly who paid for a phone when authorities show up with a warrant.If a website isn’t going to track its users, then it is responsible for what it hosts.
Ephraim
Doesn’t anyone get tired of the morality police going after every damn thing… Let them fucking wank to what they want, just put up a warning, a way to get it removed and be done with it.
JaneyB
@Ephraim – You need to read the article. It’s not about how the viewer experiences the content; it’s about coerced content being uploaded, particularly that of coerced children and the effect of that violation on their lives.
dhomas
I had the same reaction as Ephraim. Until I read the article. I thought it was going to be some US prudish article. But the complaints made are valid, if a little sensationalist (“Canada, how can you allow this?”). But something CAN be done. But a company won’t make that kind of investment unless they are forced to. People won’t boycott Pornhub because they won’t stop watching porn. So, it needs to be legislated, IMO. The technology exists to make it a reality (as I mentioned above).
Ephraim
@JaneyB – I understand that. That’s why there needs to be a complaint button and liability on the uploader, with a tracking system. If you don’t do something about it once you have been told of the abuse, and you don’t track the uploader, you have a liability.
In fact, tracking the uploader fully will likely have more of an effect than anything else. But the removal system needs to be robust. Do you know what it takes to get revenge porn removed? Upload a picture of yourself, fully nude. It’s stupid. Go after the uploader… for the most part, people are just wanking to the standard stuff.
-
Kate
The city’s blue collar workers have their eye on December 15 to begin pressure tactics toward a new contract. I venture to suggest that the impact of these will depend completely on how the weather goes in the meantime.
-
Kate
A small travel agency (we still have those?) was firebombed overnight in NDG.
Bill Binns
I assume most remaining travel agencies are fronts for money laundering operations. The fact that they are getting attention from the local arson team seems to back that up.
Tim S.
Apartments above. Not cool. I wish the police (and media) would treat these incidents according to their potential collateral damage, and not just as underworld folks doing their thing.
dwgs
Also, Sport Au Gus to the left, a great family owned business. That travel agency is a weird thing. They only opened about a year ago. The space was renovated (nicely) and then sat unopened for at least a couple of months. During normal times I go to Gus at least once a week for skate sharpening and I never once saw a client in the travel agency.
J
@Bill I remember a lot of niche travel agencies from when I’ve visited some random travel and recreation expo. From medical tourism (dental, plastic surgeries) to themed tour groups, you name it. I personally know one small agency that used to fly a few dozen kids every summer back to Eastern Europe to visit their grandparents. Lots of travel needs not catered for by the likes of Expedia.
Ephraim
@Tim S. What are the police supposed to do about this? In order to actually do something about this, they need to have open communications with the public… but they can’t get us to trust or respect them… and you don’t pass information to those who you distrust and don’t respect. Especially in NDG, where you have anglophones, people of colour, etc.
Using their own report… 0.72% are first nations, 4.27% are ethnic minorities and 8.05% are visible minorities. Leaving 86.96% of the force being… And in the higher ranks, it’s 90.66%. With about a third of the force being women.
Of the 4562, just 1428 have anything beyond high school… with 1 member of the police force having a doctorate, 66 with masters and 395 with Bachelors…. leaving everyone else on short programs, certificates or “majors”.
Of the 98880 crimes reported, 51642 of them were crimes against property (or 52%) and of those, 23879 of those were petty larceny (ie under $5000). A crime that the police basically fill out forms for.
Just for fun… 6 people were arrested in 2019 for prostitution an entire waste of time and money. For one thing, by law it’s not really illegal… solicitation for the purposes of sex is what’s actually illegal… so do it via the net, phone or text and not in public where you can be heard. But really, how much effort has to go into actually trying to arrest someone for prostitution… is it really worth the money? Frankly, we should just make it legal and tax them properly while testing for STDs, which is the part that costs us the most money anyway.
And there is plenty more to object to in this annual report. They claim 50K calls to 514-280-2222 as non-emergency calls… I’ve tried to call that number… they don’t answer. There are 525600 minutes in a year. So 50K calls is less than 6 an hour. It’s 3.5% of the total of all calls. But most of the calls go to 911, because, well… they don’t answer the other number. So the number is useless.
New category in 2019, online reports. They got 10K of them. Thefts, mostly, though over 2K are lost items. And just 1.2K of them are bicycles (remember, if you don’t report it… it didn’t happen. So at 1.2K bicycle theft isn’t really a big problem… there were 4.3K car thefts. Unless they are including bicycle thefts in petty larceny, whereupon, there is none, because it’s not broken down to show it.
https://rapportspvm2019.ca/rapport/SPVM%20Stats_2019_ANG_FINAL.pdf
Ephraim
Forgot to add, as of 2016, Montreal is 2.5% aboriginal. 34.2% visible minority.
-
Kate
Bill Brownstein writes a paean to CJAD as the station marks its 75 years.
Uatu
Yeah and it sounds like it’s 75yrs old
Jebediah Pallendrome
^^^ ba-ba-ba-booooom!
dhomas 09:45 on 2020-12-05 Permalink
Where are people getting tear gas? Last week it was Galeries d’Anjou, this week it’s in the metro. What gives?
dwgs 10:21 on 2020-12-05 Permalink
Probably not tear gas, bear spray. Some young people carry it as an offensive weapon.
Brett 15:48 on 2020-12-05 Permalink
Isn’t that illegal?
dwgs 18:03 on 2020-12-05 Permalink
Uh, yeah.