Updates from May, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 20:47 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

    Luc Wiseman, a producer of Tout le monde en parle, is facing charges of sex crimes against a minor and producing juvenile pornography. TVA says Guy A. Lepage has cut ties with him.

    Update: Guy A. talked extensively with Marc Cassivi about his show and his plans as the final episode of this season is about to air Sunday night. Lepage mentions an aspect of the many sexual accusations against powerful men that isn’t often discussed: the collateral damage to other careers when a big man falls.

    It’s also made clear that the pandemic has not been kind to a show like Lepage’s, which relied so much on the vibe of an engaged studio audience.

     

    • Kate 20:14 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

      Cindy Sherwin writes a dramatic account of specialists at the Vic choreographing a caesarean section on a woman with a serious case of Covid.

       

      • Meezly 14:48 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

        That was a very exciting and inspiring human interest story!

      • Kate 15:06 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

        I do love a bit of competence porn.

      • Meezly 13:57 on 2021-05-23 Permalink

        And teamwork porn 🙂

    • Kate 20:01 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

      Leafs captain John Tavares is out indefinitely with concussion after Thursday night’s collision at the Bell Centre. The teams play Game 2 on Saturday evening.

       

      • david9713 01:06 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

        Is anyone else totally checked out of the Covid-19 hockey season? Just seems a lot less compelling?

      • Kate 09:28 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

        I don’t think we would turn down a Cup if that were to happen, david∞.

      • david9713 12:47 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

        Well, yeah, I mean, let’s not get crazy. But it does seem like there’s a sort of indifference these days about the Habs. If I were less lazy I’d probably work it up into some sort of theory about the importance of group consumption, bars, etc. to the Habs’ cultural position.

      • Max 20:03 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

        I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about how the finals work out. Though I do enjoy watching the games. Here’s hoping the Habs never win a cup ever again. The inevitable rioting and property damage would be an embarrassment of international proportions. That’s how stupid us Habs fans are.

      • CE 10:07 on 2021-05-23 Permalink

        I’m definitely a fair weather Habs fan but haven’t watched a single game this year. I find that not having a crowd sucks the energy and life out of live sports, like watching someone play a sports video game. I also don’t have a cable subscription and usually only watch hockey in bars which obviously hasn’t happened in a while.

    • Kate 16:59 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

      Another Christopher Curtis piece contrasts the world of the homeless who gather around Cabot Square with the luxury condos rising in the area. But the CAQ is not too concerned with anyone making less than $56,000 a year.

       

      • Kate 16:50 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

        Christopher Curtis interviews Alex Norris about the city’s uneasy relationship with its own police force.

         

        • Meezly 18:49 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

          What North American city is not uneasy with its own police force?

        • Kate 20:08 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

          I don’t know enough about the relationship between cities, police forces and individual states vs. provinces to know. It always feels to me like the SPVM is more answerable to Quebec than it is to city hall, and I don’t know whether that kind of problem exists elsewhere.

        • Max 20:43 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

          Oh come on now. Let’s be honest about it – the SPVM is accountable to no one but their own bloody selves. Period.

        • Ant6n 08:09 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

          Can’t the city replace some personnel?

        • Kate 09:29 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

          Management, maybe. It’s notoriously difficult to move out any of the unionized force, and where would they find properly trained replacements?

        • Blork 11:15 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

          Somewhat related, although specific to the US: “How violent cops stay in law Enforcement” (The New Yorker). https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/how-violent-cops-stay-in-law-enforcement

      • Kate 13:22 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

        Transport Minister François Bonnardel says human error is to blame for the problems that have caused the closure of the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge, but the things described here – “dozens of steel rods meant to reinforce the aging structure were damaged during regular maintenance work… one was severed on April 30 and another on May 12” – sound like people working to a wrong or incomplete blueprint, or no blueprint at all.

        It’s unclear when the bridge will reopen.

         

        • Kate 09:13 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

          Bill 96 is not nearly tough enough, so there will be a march Friday afternoon to agitate for more stringent language laws.

          Update: La Presse says nearly a hundred people turned out. CTV gives us some quotes.

           

          • Uatu 10:30 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            Just waiting for Videotron Helix to eavesdrop on us to enforce at home french language use! : P

          • Kate 10:40 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            Qu’est ce que t’as dit?

          • j2 14:54 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            I’ll be curious to see the demographics on that one.

          • Kate 17:02 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            Well, the Mouvement des jeunes souverainistes is involved. But “jeunes” may be negotiable.

          • j2 17:54 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

            Was there any word on how it went?

          • Kate 19:40 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

            Nothing too startling, j2. Scant 100 people. Links are in the update.

          • j2 09:48 on 2021-05-23 Permalink

            Thanks Kate! The usual suspects, much ado etc.

          • Raymond Lutz 09:52 on 2021-05-23 Permalink

            Kate, you should work your joual : “Quess t’a dit?” ou “Kossé q’ta dit?” 😎

        • Kate 09:11 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

          The words were falling out of use to describe traffic problems, but they’re back: the closure of the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge is both a headache and a nightmare according to TVA.

          Quebec has suspended the toll on Autoroute 30 and made trains free for the moment to take pressure off the area.

           

          • qatzelok 09:19 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            Vaudreuil-Dorion: the suburb of a thousand SUVs parked in bike lanes…

          • Max 09:44 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            In addition to the Vaudreuil / Hudson train being free, this page says you can access the metro for free at Vendome, Lucien L’Allier and Cote Vertu:

            https://exo.quebec/fr/service-clientele/avis#68615051

          • Blork 10:00 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            Whereas back in my day they were just ordeals and tribulations. (And on really bad days, vexations.)

          • MarcG 10:17 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            The train to Hudson runs twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, nothing on weekends.

          • mare 10:34 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            For the first time ever (in my limited testing) the fastest route between Montreal and Ottawa* is now the QC 50. Finally a use for that road that first just lead to Mirabel airport, and the was carved through beautiful rolling hills and woodlands because “we need a highway to Gatineau that isn’t on foreign territory”.

            *if Ontario was open for non-essential traffic.

          • Max 12:13 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            While reading up on the history of Mirabel airport recently I discovered the Vaudreuil area would have been the most practical location for it. The powers that be rejected it because “too close to Ontario”. Pretend nation thinking at its finest.

            I also discovered there’s a wee little bit of the parking structure left.

          • PO 12:41 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            The provincial government’s limited comment and response thus far is absurd- this is a major and severe event.

            Highway 20, after you’ve gone west past the tip of the island, is all stoplights. Pincourt and Ile Perrot will be at a standstill for the foreseeable future, as all traffic between Vaudreuil and Montreal are being squeezed into their local roads and their only access points.

            What’s going to happen if an ambulance needs to get someone on that island to a hospital (I don’t think they have any there). How much commerce (interprovincial and between US/Canada) is being crippled? How can eny emergency services operate in these affected areas?

            I need to see a tripling of commuter rail service in both directions. Additional busses to EXO stations. Temporary expropriation of areas for commuters to park at train stations if needed.

          • Max 20:01 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

            Sainte-Anne’s rescinded the “no lefts onto the 20” restriction, easing some of the congestion in the village. And three cops have been directing traffic and manually operating the lights at the adjacent intersections. The situation’s much better than it was yesterday, but it’s clear the Galipeault / 20 / Anciens-Combattants infrastructure is nowhere near up to handling an extra 80,000 vehicles per day.

            I wonder if anyone at the MTQ is considering building support for a future westward expansion of the REM into the replacement Ile Aux Tourtres bridge?

          • DeWolf 09:59 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

            MarcG, that’s just for Hudson. The Vaudreuil train runs 12 times a day on weekdays. Of course, thats still not nearly enough.

        • Kate 08:56 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

          Notes for drivers over the long weekend.

           

          • Kate 08:49 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

            Don’t tell me Denis Coderre made a mistake in being photographed with two young men with criminal histories. Coderre must have thought the photo makes him cool.

             

            • Uatu 10:33 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              The most important thing is that they’re world class drug dealers because that’s what really counts

          • Kate 07:27 on 2021-05-21 Permalink | Reply  

            Militant Christians have been picketing the MindGeek building, hoping to get PornHub shut down.

             

            • dhomas 08:24 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              There is some kind of irony here that a Christian organization is calling out a company for pedophilia…

            • Blork 10:09 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              Well, that’s kind of a cheap shot that doesn’t really hold up as irony. For one thing, Christian organizations never condoned pedophilia, even if some of its members practiced it. Also, these Christians are protesting the whole package; underage, non-consent, and the commercialization of sex in general. (They’re also against prostitution and strip bars.)

              Personally, this Christian protest annoys me because I agree that PornHub has to be held accountable for questionable practices (under-age, consent issues), but I do not want to align myself with militant Christians!

            • JS 10:36 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              Wasn’t all this settled in the eighties when feminists and religious organizations quixotically tried to stop people from choosing how to masturbate? And doesn’t the internet render the whole question moot anyway?

            • Chris 10:41 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              I’d like to ask these protestors: where does their bible say anything against paedophilia? Nowhere! But it does say things like:

              “…kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” Numbers 31:1-18

              and it has no problem selling daughters as sex slaves:

              “if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant … If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed … If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.” Exodus 21:7-10

              Seems like Yahweh would have no problem with PornHub.

            • Kate 11:28 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              Chris, you know the Bible well for a non-believer.

              But even you must know that the principles held by the religions and churches that derive from it are not literally, line by line, based on the Old Testament.

            • dhomas 12:52 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              @Blork: I must admit, it was a bit of a cheap shot (and upon re-reading it, not as funny/clever as it seemed in my head). Plus, the group behind this movement is Evangelical and not Catholic. That said, since that report late last year, Pornhub has taken steps to stop underage and non-consensual porn. It’s not enough for these folks, though. They want Pornhub to completely shut down and are pretty much anti-porn of any kind.
              If they’re looking for a worthy cause, maybe try to get the Catholic Church to be held accountable for the pedophilia in their ranks?

              @Kate: many non-believers know the Bible quite well. I myself consider myself a non-believer, though I was brought up in a Catholic environment. I even went to a school run by priests where punishment wasn’t to write lines, but to write out books of the Bible (I wrote out quite a few myself). Some teachers had copies of the Bible handwritten by students. So, I know the Bible pretty well (or at least, I used to).

            • Chris 17:58 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              Kate, if you’ve never read them, I highly suggest reading both the bible and quran. Very interesting reads, and very relevant to our world today.

              Sure, not all evangelical christians take everything “literally, line by line”. But it’s pretty amusing to me that they are protesting something (porn, pedo, non-consent), that their god didn’t bother to call out as impermissible. How are they sure god is even against those things?

            • Kate 20:56 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              dhomas, did they ever have you write out the Song of Solomon?

              Chris, the book doesn’t say “no sex with kids” but it does rule out adultery, so I believe pedophilic acts would be included. Nobody is supposed to have sex with a person they’re not married to.

              And before you say that very young people were sometimes married off before our time – yes, they were, in all kinds of places, some ruled under the terms of those books and some not. It’s been a worldwide cultural tendency for people to marry later.

            • dhomas 21:41 on 2021-05-21 Permalink

              I never had to write out the Song of Solomon, though I remember the priests not spending much time on it as I don’t think they wanted to spend much time discussing this with teenage boys.
              I also remember reading about Moab. Moab was born of the incestuous relationship of Lot and his daughter. Lot and his family (with the exception of his wife, who turned to salt for disobeying god) were the only ones (?) spared destruction in Sodom and Gomorrah.
              From memory, the Moabites in later books of the Bible were kinda villains to the Israelites. So the morality of incest is kinda up in the air, with respect to the Bible/god’s judgment.
              TL;DR: the Bible is pretty messed up if you take it literally.

            • Kate 09:12 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

              dhomas, isn’t it that the Israelites made up a story about the incestuous origins of the Moabites to justify hating them, or something like that? These are a people with a very long history in explaining why they think other people don’t have any right to a certain bit of the Middle East, and a “yo mama” jibe is a classic.

            • dhomas 10:50 on 2021-05-22 Permalink

              I was going on memory, but after looking at Wikipedia a bit, it seems to corroborate your version. The Moabites (and Ammonites) were probably made to be the product of incest in order to make them appropriate villains. Something I’d also forgotten was that it was Lot’s daughters that got him intoxicated and essentially raped him. Maybe to show the good guy Lot as a victim and not part of the villain camp?

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