A last-minute change in Quebec law has loosened up the old rules for sales and delivery of beer and wine.
Updates from December, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
A Superior Court ruling in the Sue Montgomery situation states that Montreal mishandled the harassment claims that led to Montgomery’s ejection from Projet. The judge says the city should never have intervened in what was essentially a borough-level issue.
Jack
“Mayor Plante’s office released a statement Monday, saying the ruling confirms the existence of an unhealthy work climate and accusing Montgomery of creating that climate. ”
“All employees of the City of Montreal must be treated with respect, civility and dignity.”
I am along time Projet supporter but this is absolute BS. Montgomery was elected, she is decisional, the City employees are not. The same thing has happened in Quebec City with Provincial Civil Servants. It’s invariably a male who feels bad when told to do their job by a female. My respect and dignity are not challenged by a female telling me what to do in a workplace.walkerp
Why is mayor Plante so unrelenting on this issue? Why is she going to bat for a civil servant who ran a fiefdom and clearly didn’t like any progressive change (and may well also not like a female boss as Jack implies above)?
Even if Montgomery had some poor leadership behaviour, it is clear from the report that the toxic work environment existed before her and that Plante (the civil servant, not the mayor) was one of the signficant players in that toxicity. Would it not have made much more sense for her to take a neutral position at least?
Any way I think of it, it’s really a bad look for mayor Plante. There is either some form of political or corruption persuasion from the civil servants union or protectors of Plante (the civil servant) or it is personal between her and Montgomery.
-
Kate
A young man was punched in the face in the metro by an unmasked passenger, with whom he hadn’t even exchanged a word. There were witnesses but no security footage.
-
Kate
Canada is seeing 6,500 new cases of Covid daily and may hit 15,000 cumulative deaths by Christmas.
Quebec is defending its decision to close restaurants, as if it’s a big scandal that they chose to go beyond the recommendations of Horacio Arruda as numbers continued to climb.
Apparently there’s been a strong rumour that schools would be declared closed for the holidays as of today, Friday, but these have been contradicted by education minister J-F Roberge.
Hospitals outside Montreal are reaching saturation point with Covid patients.
Meanwhile, retail stores are claiming there’s been hardly any transmission in stores. I just heard a story from an American online acquaintance who manages a store in a state where they’re specifically forbidden to require masks. He caught Covid, got moderately sick, but then passed it to his wife, who had some existing condition, and she is now seriously unwell.
Daisy
Regarding transmission in stores… Isn’t contact tracing failing to find the source of a large number of cases? If people are in fact getting infected through shopping, there would be no way of knowing this, since stores don’t keep logs of those who enter.
Kate
Legitimate point, Daisy. Anyway, retail hasn’t exactly got an objective viewpoint on this. While understanding their desire to open their doors wide before Christmas, we can also see the point of doing everything to reduce transmission.
EmilyG
As for contact tracing, the tracing app has sometimes not been working on iPhones, and it’s easy for people to not realize that.
EmilyG
(source for the story about iPhones: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/covid-alert-app-bug-persists-on-iphone-1.5836604?cmp=rss )
Kevin
The last day for schools is Wednesday the 16th, as was declared weeks ago. High schoolers are currently scheduled to return to their buildings on Jan. 11.
Kevin
Nova Scotia just extended its school break – Dec. 18 to Jan. 11.
mare
I expect a lockdown until Jan 8 starting next week. I hope not too many businesses and professions are deemed essential, last time that list was awfully long.
A good addition to curb the virus would be more stringent measures like a nighttime curfew, and a ban on all travel more than 500 meter from your house (in cities; in rural areas to the nearest village) that’s not 100% essential with random checks by the police, and huge fines and demerit points.
Buy your toilet paper and flour when it’s still there, people!
Max
Sorry to hear about your friend and his wife. May they both pull though ok. The concept of “specifically forbidden to require masks”… this breaks my brain more than a bit though.
The Queen E finally shut down their lobby area today. It was the last place I knew of downtown where you could comfortably chow down some takeout from 5 Guys or M4 Burritos. For a few minutes at least. Not any more.
Hang in there kiddos. The sun will be coming up over the horizon soon enough.
JP
Yeah, I mostly only stuck to the outdoors this past summer, but the Queen E lobby was the only “public”/non-home indoor space I would spend a bit of time in to either grab a bite or read a book. There were hardly any people when I went there so I felt I could maintain distance while eating and reading.
dhomas
That’s really a shame for your friend and his wife, Kate. I hope she gets better.
I’m curious to know which state they are in that doesn’t allow store owners to require masks. Sounds like it may be Florida, but I’m not sure.mare
@dhomas It might also be decreed by his corporate overlords if it’s a franchise. I know several chains forbidding masks because “it might scare away some customers”. It would certainly scare me away.
-
Kate
The city is buying two buildings for $2.1 million for conversion to affordable housing.
-
Kate
I thought we’d seen the worst 2020 could dish out, but someone has invented tourtine.
Chris
Ouf. It looks regurgitated.
Kate
It probably tastes OK, but I don’t see the point. Proper tourtière isn’t a pot pie – the filling shouldn’t have a liquidy sauce like poutine. Basically, this is a poutine en croûte.
JaneyB
How perfect lol. Now all we need is a terrible drink to wash it all down (and preferably away). Ideas?
Blork
Well, tourtière du Saguenay (AKA tourtière du lac-St-Jean) tends to be soupier than regular tourtière, with more chunky bits. But still…
Kate
Ah. I’ve never had the Lac St-Jean variation.
My dad used to bridge the two solitudes by having his tourtière with HP Sauce.
DeWolf
I was shocked the first time I had the Saguenay version. It’s quite different compared to normal tourtière.
Honestly this tourtine doesn’t sound too bad, all things considered…
Blork
They interviewed the guy on AIH tonight and now I’m thinking I want to try it.
Jorgh
The Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean version is the only tourtière (though every family has their one “authentic” recipe). The proper nomenclature for small, shallow ground pork pies with no potatoes or venison is “pâtés à la viande”. Obviously. Also, “la puck”, not “le puck”, and skipping class is “loafer un cours”, not “foxer un cours”. Montréal French is simply wrong in so many ways. (seriously though, it is a bit of a culture shock the first time around, and regardless of one’s preferred nomenclature, every one should try what the Saguenay calls a tourtière at least once in their life)
Kate
My family didn’t have a recipe, since I don’t have any French ancestry at all. My mom used to get the La Belle Fermière ones, which I don’t think exist any more, which are my baseline for how they should look.
-
Kate
Some giant shiny installations will be appearing downtown till the end of February.
-
Kate
Covid vaccinations here are to begin this weekend at the Maimonides residence in the west end, which has struggled with keeping the pandemic at bay. TVA talked to one resident about getting the shot.
As with the first wave, some CHSLDs are having a rough time.
-
Kate
QMI, who didn’t seem perturbed about Pornhub in our midst – it wasn’t a secret – till the recent New York Times piece put the cat among the pigeons, now shows us the newly constructed castle of the porno king near the Bois de Saraguay. QMI goes on to note that the house was built after the destruction of a bit of forest that the borough was unable to protect – the very forest that gave cover to the assassin of Vito Rizzuto Sr. in 2010. Quite a storied corner of town, then.
Update: La Presse says 220 trees were sacrificed to build that house.
walkerp
That little tidbit about the forest that I never would have discovered on my own is one of the many reasons this is the best Montreal website. Nice one, Kate.
Man, that forest should have been protected for environmental and heritage reasons.
And yuck what hideous taste.
Kate
walkerp, I thought the house wasn’t too much of an eyesore.
Blork
What gets me about that kind of house is the lack of imagination. They toss in all these curly things and Louis-Quatorze embellishments that do nothing other than say “oooo, fancy!” to people who don’t know much about architecture. It could have been much worse, but I’m so tired of seeing all this faux French chateau stuff whenever someone wants a building to look classy.
Kate
I suppose if it’s either this chateau stuff or a stark box, I might opt for the chateau. I mean, either way, you’re gonna get a breakfast bar.
Blork
I’ll take the stark box, which is all about light and space and modernism, over the phoney fancy any day.
And the breakfast bar. OMG how I covet the breakfast bar! (More specifically, how I covet the gigantic kitchen workspace that might as well have a few seats thrown in…)
Kate
I was amused by this, which a friend showed me online. I don’t know the source:
Blork
That’s just silly BUT LOOK AT ALL THAT COUNTER SPACE!!!!
Kate
You can get kitchen islands at Ikea for a couple of hundred bucks, Blork. Of course, you need space for one.
Jebediah Pallendrome
How long before he’s making a considerable donation to Con-U to clean up his image?
Kate
Would Concordia be able to countenance accepting it, though?
Orr
First, you make a charitable foundation,
Then the foundation makes the donation.
Easy peasy.
Reply