Police have increased their patrols in Côte St-Luc and Hampstead after antisemitic threats on social media following from the strife in Gaza.
In tangentially related news, Montreal North has sacked its youth council chairman after his participation in the anti-Zionist side of the weekend’s protests, and things he’s said, although most of what’s cited shows Zakaria Zaki Rouaghi’s contempt for police more than any cultural group.
Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve will become a vaccination site for cyclists and drivers on certain dates starting at the end of the month.
Following Quebec’s reopening outlines, hockey games may be played at the Bell Centre with a limited number of live spectators at the end of the month even while such gatherings are still banned in other provinces.
Some festivals may be back although with restrictions in the number and disposition of participants. Some health experts are calling for caution.
Caution indeed. They really need to drive home the message that it isn’t suddenly 2019 again, that even with the vaccines and reopenings people still need to take at least basic precautions and, for example, not going around speaking moistly on each other.
The Canadiens play the Leafs Thursday evening, the first time the teams have met in the playoffs in 42 years. Mayor Plante has made a bet with Toronto mayor John Tory over the outcome of the series.
There will be art installations in and around the REM system, according to a presser held Tuesday.
John Gomery, who headed the inquiry that uncovered the federal sponsorship scandal, has died. As Jonathan Montpetit tweets, the findings of that commission “profoundly altered the course of federal politics in Quebec for about 10 years.”
TVA has a calendar that attempts to clarify the stages of changes in public health directives. Text format of sequence is on CTV.
Montreal’s public health director doubts that the city can reach the level of 75% vaccination by mid-June, as suggested by François Legault. But he’s very keen to throw the province open by St-Jean.
Based on current rates of vaccination in Montreal, we should reach 75% by June 7:
If that’s not possible it’s because Montreal has a serious problem with distribution. Apparently it is virtually impossible to get a vaccine appointment in Park Ex right now, which is a problem for many of its residents who are limited in their ability to leave the neighbourhood. Montreal public health really needs to up its game.
@DeWolf all those Parc-Exers can hop on their bikes and ride down to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
or a bus, or taxi, or uber, or bixi, or ask a friend, family member, or neighbour. This meme of “limited in their ability to leave the neighbourhood” sounds like ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’ to me.
Maybe you can easily afford a taxi or Uber or can bike, but lots of people are unable to…if getting vaccinated has been made so convenient for other neighbourhoods as well as drivers (e.g. the airport site), not sure why making it more accessible to Park Ex is so objectionable.
Chris, you’re showing a lack of imagination here. There are many people in Park Ex who can’t easily leave the area because they’re working a lot of hours, or are not physically mobile, or are looking after children or other family members, or a combination of all these things, plus there are language barriers for many.
We need to make it easy for people to get vaccinated, not make it a challenge.
We don’t make voting harder because you should just figure it out — we have polling stations all over so people can walk there easily, we have early voting, etc. I don’t know what the issue is with sites in Park Ex, if they don’t have enough big sites, or they don’t have enough local pharmacists with doses, or the places that are nearby are a difficult walk or multiple bus situation — but the solution isn’t to tell them that they’re bad people for not getting vaccinated — look at the drive through vaccine clinics and the free parking at the clinics, things are set up to make it easier for car owners — the solution is to figure out what is making it harder and fix those, because having a giant pool of unvaccinated people in the middle of the city is bad for everyone, and because it’s also the right thing to do.
Well put, jeather.
While I was writing my comment, I was thinking about the single most useful thing I was told in a training session for election scrutineers: You’re there to enable people to vote, not to put up barriers. The same principle holds here, in spades.
A cyclist was killed Tuesday on Anse-à-l’Orme Road when a driver seemingly failed to take a curve properly and ran her down.
The curves on that road are pretty mild. Its notorious for West Islanders who want to test out how fast their cars can go. Long straight-aways and very little traffic makes for a sometimes dangerous road.
Infuriating and sad. They were on opposite sides of the road, and the full length of that road has very generous shoulders that are dedicated as bike lines.
So weird, and such bad luck. Given the nature of that road, the chances of someone drifting out of their lane and off the road at exactly the spot where a cyclist is coming the other way is like hitting a moving needle in a haystack.
@dominic, it’s true that the road can be dangerous for the reason you say, but in this case the driver was a young woman driving a rinky-dink hatchback. Not really the profile of a racer. More likely a mechanical failure, or maybe driver distraction.
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