Curfew: Mayor concerned about homeless
The mayor is concerned that the homeless and the street workers who look after them be spared by the new curfew law. It would be futile to fine a homeless person for breaking curfew, but we’ve seen that the illogic of fining homeless people who have no money has never held police back from doing it.
Bill Binns 10:53 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Yes of course she is. She’s going to show up at a press conference one of these days with a face tattoo to more closely identify with her favorite slice of the demographic.
If I get caught outside after curfew I guess I can quickly try to act as if I was rooting around in the gutter looking for cigarette butts.
walkerp 11:01 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Just a dick response even for you, Bill Binns.
Michael Black 11:07 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
But they clarified it, dogs can be walked past curfew, just stay 1Km from home.
But I haven’t routinely carried ID in forty years, so unless being with a dog gives protection, I could see getting arrested.
Though, Pokey gkes to bed pretty early now that he’s a senior dog.
EmilyG 11:21 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Bill, people who do have homes can be inside them during curfew hours.
It appears you were triggered once again by the mention of homeless people, and the implication that they somehow might have special privileges.
Josh 11:56 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Thirding what walkerp and EmilyG have said. New depths, Bill.
Bill Binns 11:59 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
@Emily “might have special privileges”?? Might? The article is about the mayor imploring everyone to respect the rules and then seconds later saying “well except for these people over here”.
We well know that these people have a place to sleep at night because if they didn’t we would be finding frozen corpses on the street every morning. In fact, when was the last time we heard of a homeless person freezing to death in this city that has deadly temperatures for 5 months a year? I’m sure it’s happened but I don’t ever recall hearing about a single case.
Michael Black 12:33 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
My friend Helen used to sleep out, she was glad to have two sleeping bags. She never said anything about the coldest days. She made use of day shelters, but never said why she stayed out at night. She seemed overly optimistic for her situation, but she didn’t panhandle, do drugs and was intelligent.
People did die in winter, one change is that the shelters put more effort into getting people inside on the coldest nights, including a shuttle to go looking for them.
If more people are outside this winter, either because they lost their “home” or are suddenly avoiding shelters, there may be deaths if it gets cold enough, peoole not prepared or skilled to live in the cold.
There is no privilege to sleeping outside. It’s no adventure. Everyone would want to be inside, but on their terms. Most of us wouldn’t be happy in an institutional setting, either. They are trying to find a place to sleep, or walking around to keep warmer. They aren’t likely to be spreading the virus, compared to privilege out looking for a good time. The homeless have a need to be out after curfew, just like those going to a job.
Don’t cancel Bill, I don’t see his comments as evil, just coming from a different place.
steph 12:47 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Let me just copy paste a post by Jaggi Singh on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/JaggiMontreal/posts/10157581339641176?fbclid=IwAR3Mi61rlX5m-BKtQgkVFtS55k_mR2e0xbvtY3HW_QJTS7jnbEhet4dMJWo
No curfews, no police, no snitching! More social solidarity, mutual aid, and massive public funding.
“Stricter” public health pandemic guidelines in Quebec make a lot of sense, and would have made a lot of sense back in November. But, effective public health prioritizes providing material resources, particularly to marginalized populations, but really to all who have limited incomes. It also means substantive and significant increases in resources and funding to key sectors like health and education (pay increases; smaller classrooms; free laptops/tablets for every kid in school in Quebec; expenditures to improve ventilation in schools and workplaces; etc).
But, authoritarian approaches — like increased policing, encouraging snitching, and blanket curfews — are not rooted in actually improving public health, and are rarely actually advocated by public health experts on the frontlines. Authoritarian and paternalistic approaches also backfire in working class communities, where we don’t like being condescended to, particularly by cops and discredited politicians (or petty neighborhood snitches). These cop-centered approaches are antithetical to collective solidarity and health, and end up promoting communities that turn on each other, rather than punching up and attacking structural reasons for the failure of our pandemic response.
A blanket curfew, if that’s what Quebec Premier François Legault announces tomorrow, will reinforce the constant seeking of scapegoats, usually by blaming other members of society, and the continued reliance on cops. Meanwhile the truly pernicious actors in our society — primarily unapologetic capitalists and their greed — get a get-out-of-jail free card.
The virus does not act differently at night, and there are plenty of reasons to be out after 8 or 9pm without in any way compromising collective public health goals, and without being harassed by cops demanding to know what exactly you are doing and with who. Getting out of the house, spontaneously, at any hour, is a harm reduction strategy, particularly in crowded households which exist disproportionately in poor and immigrant neighborhoods.
As others have pointed out, particularly grassroots frontline community workers and activists, the curfew will have horrible implications for the homeless, for people in distress, even for undocumented people since police will definitely feel enabled to demand people’s personal information in the context of the curfew, including undocumented workers. This means more potential detentions and deportations.
Seemingly more mundane (but still important to our mental health): what about walks, exercise, dog walking or all the other things we do, and have done safely, after 8pm? True to Legault’s management of the pandemic, the curfew is authoritarian and meant to scare people, not to actually improve our collective health, and in reality something that will worsen public health, including the pandemic response, in tangible ways. It’s also something that makes no sense to the cosmopolitan reality of urban areas like Montreal (which is also true to the Legault brand).
There is a left, progressive, pro-science position that both advocates for taking the pandemic and public health measures seriously, and refuses to pander to unnecessary and counterproductive authoritarian measures that end up centering cops, and not solid public health policy. Such a position needs to continue to take up more space publicly, and uncompromisingly oppose curfews and cops while promoting effective pandemic responses that create long-term social justice and solidarity.
DeWolf 13:05 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Thanks for sharing that, Steph. I agree completely.
DeWolf 13:11 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
On the topic of the curfew, I wonder how it will impact testing given that testing sites are currently open until 8pm, and they’ll now have to close earlier. I also wonder if it will slow down vaccinations.
I also worry it will have a very big impact on people in isolation being able to have groceries delivered. I’ve been trying to order groceries for the past couple of days and it’s virtually impossible – all supermarket delivery slots are full for the next week. The curfew will only make the situation worse now that all grocery stores and deps must close at 7:30pm.
jeather 13:39 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Testing would be medical care, surely, and thus exempt?
Michael Black 13:43 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Ordering groceries was an issue in the early spring, but it became relatively open later. Maybe there’s panic ordering now, or it’s hangover from the holidays.
david44 15:20 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Of course Jaggi has this line that enforcement of a pandemic-related curfew is racist and imperialist. It’s also highly on-brand for him to rail against “snitching.’ You have to appreciate a guy who concedes that his form of brazen criminality-as-activism is, yeah, straight up criminality. Lesser ‘activists’ would argue semantics or talk about proportionality or the history of change. Jaggi says fuck that noise, I’m a stone cold criminal in the eyes of a society that should be abolished/up-ended/whatever. Aux lendemains qui chantent, Jaggi, aux lendemains qui chantent.
EmilyG 15:32 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Here is an article that could be useful. A list of acceptable reasons you could be outside when it’s during curfew hours.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/acceptable-reasons-to-circulate-curfew-1.5864577?cmp=rss
Michael Black 15:55 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
I notice a lot of that list implies a car. But that’s “normal”.
MarcG 18:08 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
@david: Your comment would be a lot more interesting if you provided rebuttals to his points rather than simply saying “jaggi bad man”.
DeWolf 19:45 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
As far as I can tell, the only thing Jaggi Singh has ever been convicted of is tearing down a fence outside the infamous G20 summit in Toronto. And he plead guilty.
Bill Binns 20:35 on 2021-01-07 Permalink
Nothing like a thousand word quote from an anarchist to change hearts and minds . At least it wasn’t Banksy again.
DeWolf 13:43 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
Why do libertarians have so much disdain for anarchists? Is it because they value freedoms beyond the ones that allow you to make money?
Mark Côté 14:52 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
DeWolf: The disdain runs both ways, as people like Murray Rothbard co-opted the term from old-school anarchists—one of the many instances of the right taking ideas from the left and twisting them to their own purposes. To quote Rothbard, “One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over…”
MarcG 15:16 on 2021-01-08 Permalink
The real question here is why do people on the right feel no shame in admitting that they have trouble reading anything longer than a meme.