McGill, which for a fancy university has trouble making smart decisions, has evicted some students from residence on short notice for breaking Covid rules.
Updates from January, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A judge has given the homeless a break from the curfew, but only until February 5.
H. John
Lionel Carmant, Minister for Health and Social Services, tweeted this morning that the government will not appeal and “Le gouvernement modifiera le décret afin d’exempter les personnes en situation d’itinérance du couvre-feu.”
Kate
Thanks, H. John.
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Kate
The plan for a REM station at the airport is still in limbo as governments pass the hot potato.
Matt G
Come on, guys. That airport spur was key to the REM. I can’t imagine them letting that tunnel lead so close yet so far to destination. It’s already pretty stupid that the link to Dorval VIA station is not part of the plan and that a ghost station already exists below the terminal building. How many times can they screw this one up?
Daniel D
I lose track of this pantomime. Did the CDPQ originally agree to fund the spur, or is that funding still in place and it’s now purely a dispute between the airport and governments?
Matt makes a good point: It was already beyond lunacy the airport didn’t have a rail connection to downtown given the history of this thing. We’re now heading to one step beyond lunacy it seems.
Also, going back long before the time I arrived in Montreal, wasn’t one of the reasons Mirabel failed due to a lack of a rail link?
Clee
Trudeau doesn’t want to pay for Trudeau airport anymore?
david49
They’ll tunnel it, likely to Dorval circle, then let it sit for a few years until air traffic rebounds sufficiently for the airport authority to contribute their share.
ant6n
As I understand it, the station was supposed to be part of the REM (i.e. paid by CDPQ, Quebec, Feds). Then CDPQInfra proposed a very barebones design that the airport deemed inadquate. So CDPQInfra said “build it yourself then”, so they got the expensive station off their books. There´s been a bunch of these schemes to shove off costs outside the REM. Because really, CDPQInfra is supposedly taking on the risks, that`s why their getting a higher share of the profits as part of the REM contract (/s). I also guess the airport station won’t be part of the assets of the REM, so CDPQInfra will still maintain their 51% controlling ownership stake, without having to pay for this particular cost overrun.
I do wonder, if the airport has to pay for the station, whether the airport will actually own it. And then I wonder, wether the REM will have to pay infrastructure access fees to have trains stop there. I kind of doubt it.
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Kate
Two men, one of them a cop, were injured Monday evening in a brawl in the SQDC outlet on Queen Mary. A man who had attacked a store employee then a policeman was subdued by a blow from another policeman’s baton. The BEI is investigating.
Update: Tuesday morning, it’s reported that three men were knocked out in this cannabis store incident, including two cops. The effort to subdue the instigator with a baton was unsuccessful, according to this piece, but he ended up unconscious somehow. A CP report mentions pepper spray. At least no shots were fired.
walkerp
He should have ordered the indica.
qatzelok
“There were no Hacidim involved, so I don’t see why this is even news.”
(This blog is approaching 50% Hacidim content.)
Kate
qatzelok, I begin to think you have a masochistic desire to get banned.
Bill Binns
I didn’t think Montreal cops carried batons. Seems like we would be hearing a lot more baton news if they all had them. I’m a fan though. Nice non-lethal alternative to guns. Probably safer than Tasers too.
Tee Owe
Somebody should invent a cannabis spray 🙂
Kate
Bill Binns, they don’t often get mentioned, but I gather SPVM cops have an extensible baton, as mentioned in this story from two years ago: “le policier frappe l’homme avec son bâton télescopique.”
Bill Binns
@Kate – Ah, well that explains why the baton “failed to subdue”. It’s like whacking someone with a car antenna. Hard to believe now but the cops where I grew up were issued these little leather pouches filled with sand (in addition to the hickory club). Not a lot of “cop shoots unarmed man” stories back then but lots of mugshots with eyes swollen closed.
dwgs
Bill those are called saps or blackjacks, they were also sometimes filled with lead shot. Hit someone at the base of the skull with one and you knock them out instantly. Nasty. And the batons are not like hitting someone with a car antenna. If you get hit with one in the side of the knee you are going down and staying down.
CE
Would the cops hit the person with the bag of sand or throw the sand in their eyes? I’ve seen Montreal cops carrying billy clubs on their belts before. I’ve been on the receiving end of one before, not fun.
I found it interesting and unsettling to see cops in the US holding clubs that looked like big pieces of wood at BLM protests. The optics of it seemed weird to me.
Kate
A sock-shaped leather bag filled with dense sand has the advantage that it sort of wraps to the shape of head and conveys all your force to your victim. Same if you put lead shot in there. I don’t know whether they’re legal, but it’s hard to make a leather bag and a few handfuls of sand illegal.
walkerp 22:40 on 2021-01-26 Permalink
Worth reading the article; it is a complicated situation. That being said, both parties here suck. The kids are entitled and clearly come from privileged situations; they will survive. On the other hand, McGill is clearly terrible. Bad policy, bad implementation of the policy. Instead of setting up proper support system it’s just compliance and punishment. You need to put a system in place that makes it easy for young people like this to do the right thing and to give them support when they start to err. Their parents are paying enough for it.
This is health policy, not protestant ethics. You kick those kids out and you risk more community spread.
Joey 12:25 on 2021-01-27 Permalink
Regardless of who’s right or wrong, this is a terrible situaiton to be in for a unviersity that prides itself on the all-in out-of-province student experience.