Evenko is threatening to hold Osheaga somewhere else if the city carries out its plan to re-green St Helen’s Island. But Evenko boss Nick Farkas is wrong when he says the island was “built for Expo 67 and part of its vocation is to be a park and an event space” – St Helen’s Island is not man-made and was a park for years before the world’s fair.
Minutes after the news broke on Twitter, Pierre Karl Péladeau tweeted that his organization could take over and deliver a better show.
Ghislain Picard, chief of the Assembly of Quebec and Labrador First Nations, has been named chairman of the board at the McCord Museum, to start in June. It’s the first time an indigenous person has taken the role.
I heard an interview with Picard on CBC this morning. It’ll be interesting to see how the McCord evolves under his direction. Their day camp programs have been closed during the pandemic, but I remember having signed my kid up for a First Nations themed art camp, but disappointed to see that the counselors were non-Indigenous.
The Grand Prix has been cancelled for the second straight year.
Update: See in comment below: it’s not definitively cancelled yet.
Looking at this cancellation and this other threat, I can’t help but think that both Dumontier and Evenko are more than happy to return favours and provide ammunition to Denis Coderre for the upcoming campaign.
I don’t see this being a big political issue. Who is going to be furious that they cancelled the GP? Not the usual group of tourism interests. Not fans.
Let’s be able to go out and see a movie again before inviting the world to come visit.
I agree, it shouldn’t be a political issue. But I suspect Coderre and Perez will turn it into one.
UPDATE: ” A previous version of this story stated that the Canadian Grand Prix is cancelled, based on a report by Radio-Canada. In fact, Radio-Canada is now reporting the race’s future is uncertain and Montreal public health is recommending that it not take place.
Apr 15, 2021 2:57 PM ET
The last thing Coderre should want to talk about is auto racing
Thank you, Jonathan.
The city has announced plans for more than 3500 social housing units.
Both facing Covid outbreaks, Canada Post and the STM have brought Covid testing units into their facilities.
In other pandemic news, CBC lists the people who can now be vaccinated because they have a chronic condition. The AstraZeneca vaccine, now offered to those 55 and up, is finding few takers. Doses of all vaccines risk going to waste before they can be used.
So reading that last story, it actually sounds like people are doing their jobs well. A few hundreds – not thousands – of doses are left over, and the vaccination centre found people with a certain priority to give them to. Otherwise, the government may have shifted vaccines to another region, where they likely would have been given. It doesn’t seem like there’s much wastage, and the people in charge are on the ball and working hard. And as far as I can tell, as someone who refuses to give clicks to the JdeM, the Astrazeneca rollout is a glass half-empty/half-full situation, depending on whether you’re motivated to spread despair or hope.
The decision to restrict the AZ vaccine to those 55 and older is really to blame here. First of all, there are only so many Montrealers above 55 who haven’t been vaccinated (and will accept the AZ vaccine when they can get an mRNA vaccine via the pre-existing channels). Second, the messaging on the AZ vaccine from Health Canada and the provincial governments has created a totally unnecessary stigma around it. The odds of getting a blood clot from the AZ vaccine are MUCH lower than from ordinary safe medications (like birth control) and MUCH MUCH lower than getting one from COVID-19. Relocating doses outside Mtl will help but I suspect there’s an expansion of eligibility for all vaccines, including AZ for those of us below 55, on its way.
We’re lucky that the vast majority of vaccines ordered by Canada just so happen to be Pfizer and Moderna. Countries relying heavily on AZ and J&J now have to deal with a public that is (understandably) confused and frightened by all this regulatory back-and-forth. It may delay vaccination efforts quite significantly in Europe and other parts of the world.
I’m not sure what the right course of action should have been, but preemptively suspending vaccines while letting social media misinformation and fear-mongering politicians like Doug Ford run unchecked probably wasn’t the best strategy.
DeWolf, it’s the news that is hungry and looking to scare people. But let’s assume that you are in a country where you need vaccines and are way down the list… like in Africa or South America. Say you have 10 blood-clot incidents per million…. you warn people, you give them the information to be preemptive. But even so, you are expecting now 11 deaths per million for your vaccination program instead of the 1 death per million. So, let’s see how that stands up… let’s use the country with the lowest death rate in South America… Venezuela. They have had 64 deaths per million. Suriname, second lowest has a death rate of 311 per million. So, which is the greater good, 11 deaths per million or 64 deaths per million. But the vaccination has a secondary effect as well, it lowers the incidence of hospitalizations. In the worst hit country in South America, the death rate is 1694 per million. So a vaccine, even if it kills 11 per million, saves 1683 lives per million.
So many people don’t do the math. I have a friend who kept on harping about the adverse reactions to vaccination for COVID. Sure, but it’s still lower than the adverse reactions from getting COVID by a giant measure… and saves hundred, if not thousands of lives per million.
As a male in my 30s, I wish they would make the AZ vaccine available to those who want to self-select to go get a dose. Needles in arms.
Let us sign up for one giant AZ general population waiting list and text me an address to show up at if there are unused expiring doses.
Goat, that’s exactly what I was thinking when I was there on Monday. I qualify because of a 1966 birthday and it was great to get the shot and be back on the street in 30 minutes but also depressing to see the dozens of employees sitting around with nothing to do when they could be vaccinating thousands more people per day.
Just got AZ without appointment, plenty of (over 55) people here in Drummondville did the math, great to see those long (but fast) lines!
The MAC is going to move its operations to Place Ville Marie for a couple of years while its building gets extensively renovated.
Another death that won’t be widely reported on the Anglo side, singer Michel Louvain died Wednesday at 83.
He was a really big deal here, but most anglos, I bet, don’t know his work. I admit I don’t – I recognize the name but that’s all.
Margaret Black 07:05 on 2021-04-16 Permalink
As festivals grows, are the Expo Islands supposed to give more and more ground to these events, which require spaced stage venues for reasons of sound and crowd security? After having lost so many of St Helen’s Island’s trees to the Amphitheatre, and man-made Ile Notre Dame’s surface area to the Grand Prix, does more park land have to be sacrificed?
Tim F 07:52 on 2021-04-16 Permalink
There would be no love lost for me if Evenko were to drop out of Osheaga, but PKP is the “How do you do, fellow kids?” of pop culture.
Jonathan 09:28 on 2021-04-16 Permalink
Good riddance is all I have to say. If PJD thought that people on the South Shore were NIMBY-arseholes, then let’s see what’s in store in Laval or elsewhere.
qatzelok 21:34 on 2021-04-16 Permalink
I can’t think of any park in Laval large enough to hold Osheaga.
But there are lots of world-class parking lots there that could hold it.