Updates from May, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 17:32 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

    The blue line extension is inching closer and closer to cancellation. I’d like to see an accounting how much money has already been spent and can’t be recouped if the project is axed.

     
    • dhomas 18:42 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      Real estate prices will not get any cheaper. Do it now, build some condos above the édicules to recoup costs. This needs to happen.

    • MattG 21:36 on 2021-05-13 Permalink

      We can always cancel the REM de l’est.

  • Kate 14:44 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

    The city’s first history festival will open on Friday. A lot of the events are online only.

     
    • CE 15:07 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      For students or people with an office job who have to spend most of the day at home looking at a screen and doing Zoom calls, is the idea of spending another couple hours doing the same thing at an online “festival” appealing at all?

      My job requires me to use a computer for maybe 30 minutes a day and the idea of sitting down to a zoom panel or presentation sounds like torture, even for a topic that interests me. Has there been much uptake for these online events that are replacing what would otherwise be an IRL gathering?

    • Kate 15:35 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      Good question, CE. I haven’t seen anything on your question, but it may be some time before anyone crunches the server logs of a festival and writes a report, if ever.

      The point may be more to keep festivals alive and prove to the grant-giving bodies that they’re still producing content, even if they keep it quiet that almost nobody is watching.

      Although that wouldn’t explain this specific festival, which has never existed before. Maybe some of its material can be used by teachers to support online classes, at least.

    • Daisy 16:12 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      I agree, CE. I really have to limit my non-work screen time these days. At the end of the workday what makes me feel good is to do something more tangible, like go for a walk or cook or knit or read a (paper) book, not do yet another online thing.

    • Kevin 16:15 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      I spend 4 hours a week on video calls with friends. This is a vast improvement over pre-pandemic, where I just wouldn’t see these people at all because we’re scattered hither and yon.
      But being able to see people I like without an extra hour or so of commuting? Priceless.

  • Kate 14:08 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

    A small urban forest with a walkway will be added to the Place des Festivals.

     
    • EmilyG 14:12 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      Sounds nice. Maybe when I’m sitting beneath the trees, they’ll block out the sight of some of those damn condo towers that have spring up everywhere in the area.

      I think that I shall never see
      A condo lovely as a tree.

    • Blork 14:58 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      Nice! As the article says, it will replace Domtar park which was lost to condo development recently. However, I don’t think it will have quite the same sense of urban respite as Domtar had. That wee park was unknown to many, even though it was right there in full view. The fact that it had a low fence around it with only a couple of entry points kept people from casually drifting through. Many people likely thought it was not open to the public.

      The new space seems much more open, so it will have many more people passing through. That’s great from an “access” point of view but bad for anyone seeking a quiet respite.

      But I love the foot bridge!

  • Kate 14:02 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

    A study of the blue collar workers in Montreal North found that white workers get all the desirable tasks and everyone else has to do the dirty work. A situation where workers of colour find it impossible to rise in the ranks has come about, and the union is only mentioned in passing.

    Update: La Presse then talked to the union’s own expert, who confirmed the study’s findings, even to the existence of separate white and black tables in the workers’ cafeteria.

     
    • Jack 14:36 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

      « On rencontre encore, incroyablement, des manifestations de racisme direct, dans lesquelles on vise une personne ou un groupe de personnes de manière ouverte et avouée », a décrit M. Soares dans son rapport. « Une employée col bleu a été traitée de “sale N…” Remember this is taking place in Montreal North, let that sink in.

    • dwgs 08:19 on 2021-05-13 Permalink

      I’m a pro labour union member but even I think it’s about time to go all ‘Reagan with the air traffic controllers’ with them. There’s a lot of rot there. Of course if anyone actually tried to put the screws to them the city would be brought to it’s knees.

  • Kate 13:57 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

    The city has created a charter of construction sites intending to make construction less onerous for the surrounding community.

     
    • Kate 09:37 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

      It’s still not clear whether there will be an inquiry into the death two years ago of a young Black man who, unable to get attention in the ER of the Jewish General, went to a friend’s place and died of untreated peritonitis. There’s a discrepancy that has to be explained between his triage assessment (“Priority 3, which means he should have been seen within 30 minutes”) and the hospital’s subsequent failure to do anything for him for 4 hours, so that he left to find a place where he could lie down.

       
      • Kate 09:26 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

        A gym in Lasalle was firebombed Tuesday night.

         
        • Kate 09:24 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

          Nobody is happy that the Canadiens played this week with no Quebec-born player dressed for the game. François Legault and Valérie Plante have weighed in, and Serge Savard is hinting that it’s some evil plot by Marc Bergevin to neglect Quebec’s junior hockey.

          In an ideal world Bergevin could recruit local boys and win the cup. As it stands, he’s been able to do neither. Could anybody do both at the same time?

           
          • dwgs 09:45 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            Oh ffs. Not that I want to defend present management but for those who care check out the graphic here, https://twitter.com/HabsGifs/status/1392208901328752643/photo/1

          • Patrick 09:53 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            This piece by Martin Leclerc on Radio-Canada website explains that it’s not a Canadiens specific issue, but a generalized situation in the NHL : https://ici.radio-canada.ca/sports/1792208/chronique-martin-leclerc-hockey-joueurs-quebecois-canadien-lnh-declin-developpement

            Also, other provincial hockey programs have been getting their act together while we let private interest from junior leagues decide how to develop hockey talents in Québec.

          • JS 10:34 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            I never understood sports nationalism, referring to the professional athletes hired to play the local arena as “us”, “our” team, etc, or even why anyone would actually care who wins or loses as long as there’s lots of action and skill on display. Maybe in the old days it was like the Olympics are supposed to be, where sports teams were actually drawn from the local population and perforce there was a direct connection between the players and the fans, but hasn’t it degenerated into red vs black checkers? It’s so pretentious.

          • Kate 12:01 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            Likewise, I think it’s time we stop playing national anthems before games. What does singing ‘O Canada’ mean when your team comes from a dozen countries, and the game has nothing to do with nationalism?

          • Meezly 12:17 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            I’m no sports fan but hasn’t this been common knowledge for decades? that big league sports is a huge private enterprise and any sense of nationalism or idea of a ‘home team’ is entirely fabricated. The NHL is American and every hockey team has players from all over the world. I know that sports fans are very emotionally invested in the games so I guess this overrides any sense of rational thinking.

          • CE 13:11 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            I wonder how many Nevada boys are playing for the Golden Knights.

          • dwgs 13:37 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            Right. Not a room full of sports fans. Patrick, by the time the kids get to major junior the winnowing has already been largely done. They just take the best of the Midget AAA kids and make what they can of them. A lot more kids these days are opting for the prep school followed by college route because they see it as a safer way to go. Unless you’re drafted in the first two rounds (top 40 kids from ON/QC border to the maritimes) the Q can be a real crapshoot.

          • Josh 14:00 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            CE: Your point is absolutely fair, but part of the thinking in expanding to some of these places has been to expand the game. Everyone makes fun of the Arizona Coyotes for their lack of fan support, deservedly so to some extent. But Gary Bettman and the other powers that run the league would point to Auston Matthews, captain of the Leafs and one of the top 3 or 5 stars in the game. He’s from Arizona, and he and his parents have both made the point that he likely would not have ended up playing hockey if not for the existence of a team in his state when he was young.

            You see the same phenomenon with Canadian basketball. Canadian basketball is at an all-time high right now in terms of player development. Multiple Canadians go in the NBA draft each year now, and many people argue that is a direct result of the existence of the Toronto Raptors.

          • Josh 14:04 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            Oh, Kate: On the anthem point, the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA ceased playing the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the current NBA season. They made the change quietly, without any fanfare. But when it started gaining notice, the NBA issued a decree that every team must play the anthem(s) before each game.

            https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966350329/dallas-mavericks-stop-playing-national-anthem-before-games

          • Kate 17:18 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            Josh: Interesting, and thanks for the story. I really do not get it. Did the tradition start during one of the world wars and then just keep going, I wonder?

            Some years ago friends dragged me to a performance of some Gilbert and Sullivan thing by one of the traditional operetta groups (which may no longer exist, I don’t know – Montreal West Operatic Society, maybe?) and I was surprised to find the audience all stood and sang O Canada before the curtain rose. I’ve even read of the anthem being done before movie showings, during World War II.

            So maybe the tradition has gradually withered away except for sports?

          • Josh 18:37 on 2021-05-12 Permalink

            Kate: A USA Today piece that I found (but can’t link to because of weird internet issues at the moment) says that the practice was first documented during the US Civil War, and then became more popular toward then end of World War I. It says it truly took off though, with the advent of public address/sound systems in stadiums, which happened to coincide roughly with World War II.

            It adds that there was a time that it was played at the start of all kinds of events – movies, theatre spectacles and so on. It was really cemented in (North/American) sports during the Vietnam War, when Americans started getting a lot weirder about imposed/enforced patriotism.

        • Kate 08:59 on 2021-05-12 Permalink | Reply  

          Radio-Canada asks whether the low river level this spring causes problems and considers the effects on boating, the river ecology and, incredibly, the effect on companies that bottle water – people who profit from seizing and selling the common good.

           
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