Bixi will have a new fare structure this season, with the monthly fee going down while the seasonal fee increases, but only by $2. The season is expected to start on April 15.
Updates from February, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The Lachine museum has given a Cree headdress back to the Aanischaaukamikw cultural institute in Eeyou Istchee as a gesture of reconciliation. The Gazette version of the story has a picture of the intricately beaded piece, which it dates to 1850.
The Wikipedia entry on Oujé-Bougoumou has an interesting photo of the Aanischaaukamikw institute, which is constructed in a form derived from the traditional longhouse.
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Kate
Another sentencing story today – 5½ years for a stalker and kidnapper of two Montreal women – and this one has a picture of the convicted man.
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Kate
The Journal has some dramatic photos of the collapsed brick façade of a triplex in eastern Ville‑Marie.
I don’t have a media link yet, but on Facebook I see from Christine Gosselin that the façade of St‑Esprit church on Masson has become unstable, so emergency work is being done and that section of the street is blocked off to traffic. Posting this partly as relevant to our recent discussion of the state of church buildings in town.
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Kate
Claude Julien and Kirk Muller have been fired by the Canadiens after a promising start to the short NHL season collapsed in a sequence of losses.
walkerp
I don’t follow hockey at all, but at this point, as a pro sports fan of other sports, there is something wrong with ownership here, right? They don’t fire him in all the past crap seasons but now just when the team is finally having a good season, they fire him during a very minor hiccup in their momentum?
Kate
I think there’s kind of a “last straw” feeling about it, this time around, from the little I’m picking up about it.
This season is so short that once momentum is lost, there isn’t much room to turn it around.
Mark
Every team wants to win the cup every year, but with the salary cap in place, there are seasons to load up on superstars and go for it, seasons to rebuild, and seasons that fall somewhere in the middle of all that.
The Habs have 2 superstars on expensive contracts (Price and Weber) who are getting older and their performance is expected to drop. So they have a window to win the cup in the next 1-2 years before they have to restructure part of the team (Price and Weber account for 20% of their total salary cap). It doesn’t mean that they can’t win in 5 years, it just means it won’t happen with whatever plan the GM (Bergevin) put in place.
This season, the GM loaded up some pretty expensive additions (Anderson, Toffoli), so it’s clear he wanted to make a run this year. The season isn’t going poorly, but Julien was a pretty conservative coach and playing a defensive style that I don’t think Bergevin appreciated anymore, not with the new players. Bergevin is also trying to save his job too. He’s been in place in 2012 and at some point, you have to get results.
That’s just my 0.02, put me on RDS. 🙂
Kate
Thanks for the analysis, Mark.
walkerp
Thanks, I appreciate the analysis. The point about the conservative style is particularly helpful.
Kevin
I have long argued that the Canadiens’s owners view their hockey team as just one part of a well-diversified portfolio that includes promoting concerts, real estate, and more. Putting bums in the seats is more important, especially with long seasons, than putting in the very hard effort to possibly win the Cup. It’s worked well for most of the past 3 decades.
Joey
An NHL coach is only as good as his starting goalie, and Carey Price has been a dud this year.
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Kate
A white man has been named Quebec’s first minister for the fight against racism.
Bill Binns
We will never beat racism until every job has rigidly enforced skin color requirements.
Daniel
Oh, Bill Binns. You dickens! I see the point you’ve made obliquely. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the first person in this post have some lived experience in the subject.
Joey
“Benoit Charette est actuellement ministre de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques” – guess it’s just simpler to have one person responsible for all the files the ruling party doesn’t care about. Maybe they can make him minister for Montreal as well.
Chris
>…have some lived experience in the subject
First, do you know he doesn’t? I didn’t RTFA, but for all we know maybe he lived in Asia or elsewhere for a stint and did experience racism. You shouldn’t assume anything about someone’s lived experience just because of their skin colour or sex.
Second, maybe he’s got excellent book-experience. Perhaps he has a PhD or something in race studies.
I think Kate’s summary is quite unfortunate. What’s important is what’s in his brain, what stances he holds, what positions he espouses, etc. You know, the content of his character, not the colour of his skin. Reducing his qualifications (or not) to “white man” is not productive. If we want to reach a world where your skin colour is as irrelevant as your hair colour, this is not how to do it.
If he’s a shit candidate, let’s tar him for the right reasons.
Bert
Benoit Charette goes from fighting against change to fighting for change. #WishyWashy /s
David Senik
Bill Binns, no judgment on you but your reply smacks of racist sentiment and deserves to be called out as such.
Chris, it’s possible to judge the man based on his experience and character while also acknowledging that the selection of someone from the dominant culture to represent minorities is a poor one.
Benoit
Does his skin colour make Benoit Charette less qualified? That just perpetuates racism imo. We should be beyond that – and that’s where my kids’ generation is at. They (and their classmates) don’t seem to care at all about someone’s skin colour. It’s a non-factor to them, it’s just their “normal”. People have different skin tones, and that’s it. Next subject?
By the way, Benoit Charette’s wife and kids are “visible minorities”, it that stuff is important to you.
Meezly
@Benoit. using the reverse racism argument actually perpetuates racism.
In some ways, I see Benoit Charette as a step forward for a party such as the CAQ. At least it’s an improvement to appointing a white former cop as the Minister of Indigenous Affairs!
With Charette, his wife is of Haitian origin and he has biracial children. Apparently, he won a human rights case where his family was denied rental accommodation because of their skin colour. So at least he has had some direct experience with racial discrimination.
It will be interesting to see how much change Charette can do and I’m curious to hear his personal take on systemic racism in Quebec.
MarcG
His whiteness doesn’t make him less qualified but it does make him privileged. I imagine there are plenty of qualified people for this job and they chose him.
Blork
Just tossing in one of those patented Blork Issue Digests, because it beats workin’
If you appoint a POC to the racism portfolio, it could appear to some that you are essentially (pardon the term, please, but it works) “ghettoizing” the issue. As in, “let the POCs worry about POC problems.”
on the other hand, if you give that portfolio to a white person, then it seems like some kind of neo-colonialism at work. Also, this parallel for perspective: imagine putting a man in charge of the sexism portfolio.
Personally, I think the “lived experience” argument trumps everything else by an order of magnitude.
But then it all comes down to whether or not there is a POC in the government who is qualified for the job. Qualifications being roughly: (1) part of the government, (2) interested in the job, (3) not an idiot — that’s the hardest one when choosing from people who fit qualification number 1. (I admit I have no idea what kind of rainbow we have in government right now… Traditionally it’s been white as snow. Are there many POCs to choose from at the moment?)
So to these eyes, Benoit Charette doesn’t seem like a particularly good candidate, but are there any POCs in the government who want the job? (Considering the “ghettoization” argument can also come from a POC’s point of view, along the lines of “FFS, I want to run [SOME OTHER PORTFOLIO] but why do they always throw the racism job at me?”)
Kate
Good thoughts, Blork.
I wasn’t editorializing, by the way. It’s simply a fact that the candidate is a white guy, with the upsides and downsides Blork outlines. I think what they need on this is a committee, with a range of people from different backgrounds, and maybe that will happen.
walkerp
It’s not skin colour you idiots, it’s culture and background (often indicated by skin colour). Of course it makes a difference if the person is of a race that has been discriminated against. They will have deep experience to help them understand the issue and push for solutions that will help make real change.
Also like maybe since every other position of power is pretty much filled by a white person, one has to wonder why all the sudden freaking out about discrimation pops up now. FOH.
GC
According to Wikipedia, there are five visible minority CAQ members in the current government. Given the small pool to choose from, it’s possible he might actually be the best qualified. They can’t exactly hand pick someone to be an elected member of the government. Agreed that it’s not a great look, but hopefully he will at least consult with different ethnic groups.
Of course the cynical part of me is more in line with what Joey said.
EmilyG
Maybe one of the important things (to Legault anyway) is that this guy denies the existence of systemic racism.
Dhomas
I’m not generally one for singling people out, but… Bill Binns, you’ve got to stop! I read this blog daily and I don’t think you’ve posted since getting spanked with that “chef’s kiss” comment from the Camara case. It’s making you look bad that you just can’t seem to help but make some snide, somewhat racist comment every time the issue of race is discussed.
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Kate
A man convicted of sexual aggressions against five women was sentenced to a year in prison this week. Patrick Raymond’s thing was to speak to women, then grab their ass and call them names. His lawyer basically says here that Raymond is not crazy, just stupid.
MarcG
Tons of photos of Camara but they can’t find a single one of this guy where it would be useful information?
Jack
With MarcG
DeWolf 20:00 on 2021-02-24 Permalink
The big news here is that they’ve replaced the $1 flat fee for electric bikes with a metered rate of 10 cents per minute, which will make them a lot more expensive for any trip longer than 10 minutes. I suppose this will earn Bixi a bit more money while also keeping the electric bikes in heavier circulation, since there were times last summer when people were clearly using them for long joyrides.
Another big change is the replacement of the flat one-way fare with a metered rate, which will make things cheaper for casual users who don’t have a membership.
JS 23:59 on 2021-02-24 Permalink
Lol I was one of those joyriders. I used to use them to go up Camilien Houde, to test them out on super-steep inclines, and to check out the residential neighbourhoods up the hills. I find them less impressive on flat ground.
DeWolf 08:25 on 2021-02-25 Permalink
Me too. They are amazing on hills. On several occasions I biked from St-Henri to Mile End via Westmount and the mountain, which would have been torture on a regular bike.
I also tended to max out the 45 minutes in order to get as much value from that extra dollar…