Radio-Canada has created a detailed vaccination map showing the levels of Covid vaccination in the city. Same info presented in English.
Updates from July, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Toula Drimonis encapsulates the problem with Logan Mailloux. If, institutionally, we keep turning a blind eye to actual crimes committed by young men because they’re just a kid, they made a mistake, let’s not ruin their career, then what about the victims, and what do other young men learn from this?
By all accounts, Mailloux wasn’t just acting in a drunken moment: he took pictures of a young woman performing oral sex on him, then circulated them with her identifying details. That’s not a hotheaded drunken mistake: that’s ice cold.
Justin Trudeau says the Canadiens’ selection of Mailloux shows lack of judgment as the team prepares a statement to address the issue.
Marc Bergevin should have read the room.
Ephrami
In some jurisdiction, they don’t turn a blind eye, they put them in a mentorship program that they need to graduate from that helps them get on the right path.
Blork
What a situation. The one thing Mailloux did right was try to renounce himself from the draft picks — that’s a sign that maybe he understands the gravity of what he did and is willing to take some knocks for it and to make amends. But no; he gets drafted to the Habs as a first pick. FFS!
There’s a middle ground in this. While Mailloux’s crime doesn’t warrant permanent cancellation as if he were a mass murderer or whatever, there needs to be a message that you suffer when you do stupid shit like that. Even if it’s just a year or two delay on getting your career going, that’s still a message. And that year or two is plenty of time to man-up and really come to an understanding of what you did and to maybe even do something about it, such as declaring that a percentage of your hockey income will always go towards some charity or other resource that helps victims of sexual assault. That’s how you grow up and make amends.
But no; instead he gets snapped up by the Habs in a first pick, against his wishes, and gets a “lady psychologist” thrown at him for good measure. As Drimonis says, the problem at this point isn’t even Mailloux, it’s the Habs management.
Joey
@Blork the more I think about it, the more I conclude that Mailloux’s “withdrawal” from the draft (if he truly meant to withdraw, wouldn’t he refuse to play wherever the Habs send him this fall?) was a cynical PR ploy to demonstrate some kind of remorse while actually making it acceptable for someone to draft him in the first round. It’s telling that his “apology” was rejected by the victim as insincere while his “withdrawal” continues to be heralded as exemplary of his late-arriving maturity.
Seems Bergevin hasn’t done much maturing of his own since 2010: https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/canadiens-bergevin-not-aware-blackhawks-sexual-assault-allegations/
Josh
A podcast I listened to in the wake of this made the point that the other major leagues (MLB, NFL and NBA) all have mechanisms that could have prevented this scenario. That’s to say, if he was in the NBA, and Mailloux had withdrawn from the draft, he would have had to do so formally, in a manner resulting in league regulations that would have actually prevented teams from picking him. Some very large number of players – I want to say it was in the 90s – actually did this a few days before the NBA draft. (Most were for entirely unremarkable reasons, like players who believe another year in college will benefit them when next year’s draft rolls around).
And anyone who watched the draft on Friday would have seen the very, very unhappy look on NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s face when the Habs made their pick.
All of this makes me think that by next season there will be a mechanism that ensures this doesn’t happen again.
walkerp
Is Mailloux’s potential actually that great, that it was worth it?
jeather
I think management are shocked that this one is the one who is causing trouble, because let’s be real, there are lots of problems with sexual assault by athletes and usually no one cares.
Tim S.
It seems 50/50 that he could be very, very good, or never make the NHL. See: https://www.habseyesontheprize.com/2021/7/26/22593157/logan-mailloux-draft-profile-scouting-report-montreal-canadiens-2021-nhl-draft-defenceman. I guess we’ll find out around 2026.
I’m not proud of the pick, but I think some of the blame goes to the NHL for creating a Prisoner’s Dilemma situation. Some team was going to take him.
jeather
To be clear, I don’t disagree with the people who think it was a terrible choice to pick him, it was.
walkerp
I don’t know hockey but I think it demonstrates a cultural indifference towards in the league and the Habs that they would risk this kind of PR fallout for a 50/50 chance draft pick. I suspect the NFL which is equally if not worse than the NHL, would have handled this very differently, not because they actually care, but simply because of team’s reputation and sponsor’s dollars.
Speaks very badly of the culture of the NHL and its fans, and sadly, Canada.
Tim S.
Well, many of the fans are complaining very loudly, so I wouldn’t throw them in the same basket as management. It would be nice if the backlash didn’t have to happen in the first place, but the fact that this has become a big deal is a good thing in itself.
Meezly
“If, institutionally, we keep turning a blind eye to actual crimes committed by young men because they’re just a kid, they made a mistake, let’s not ruin their career, then what about the victims, and what do other young men learn from this?”
Thanks for reaffirming this, Kate. I feel that the international attention on the Brock Turner trial and Oscar-winning movies like Promising Young Woman has helped in some way raising public awareness of institutionalized sexism.
Meezly
From the CultMtl article: “He’s only 17… he had too much to drink… he didn’t mean anything by it… his entire life shouldn’t be destroyed by one mistake… the girl is being vindictive…”
Sounds exactly like Brock Turner’s dad when he said, ‘A steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action’, because he felt his son should get probation instead of jail time for raping an unconscious woman.
Josh
walkerp: The other part in terms of his potential is that because of his off-ice problems, he was quite likely undervalued by many other teams. That’s to say, without the legal issues in Sweden, he likely would have been selected before the Canadiens picked at #31. So the Canadiens probably perceived extra value in getting a player whose hockey skills alone would warrant him being picked higher than this.
walkerp
Ah yes. Thank you, Josh. That explains so much.
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Kate
A peace march will be held in Little Burgundy on Tuesday afternoon after two recent shootings, one fatal.
There was a vigil held Monday in Park Extension to honour the woman killed last week, presumably by her husband or partner, who’s not yet been located. But the real news in this story is the toothlessness of his restraining order, when not backed up by other forms of social support for the woman and her kids.
David644
I feel bad for this family and obviously hope the piece of shit husband is sleeping with the fishes, as has been suggested. Sadly, it sound like this woman could have gone to a shelter but didn’t, she had and knew of her options, but just didn’t use them. It must be hard to believe a guy would kill his partner.
Man, but the slant of this story. You have to appreciate the hustle of these non-profits trying sell their mission. Make no mistake, here they’re trying to mobilize this tragedy for some standard nonprofit grift, using a hypothetical version of this woman’s end to put their cash plea into the public discussion. Always Be Closing.
I’d also note in passing that to criminal record checks are performed on all lawfully admitted immigrants. That does nothing where there’s no arrest record or in countries where violence against women is legal/normal, but it is a check performed during the process of legal immigration. Seems that if we really care about importing these violent men, that’s something all of us should hold in front of mind.
Kate
I feel like I just turned over a rock, here.
Blame the woman for not looking for help, check.
Imply that the only reason anyone would attend such a gathering is to stimulate donations to a non-profit, check.
Imply that we all need to look suspiciously at immigrants, check.
Nice going to get a trifecta in one comment, David.
David446
I don’t blame this poor woman, far from it. I’m saying that the non-profits are claiming that there’s this big issue that the government needs to pay them to address, namely that immigrants are coming here with violent criminal husbands and that the immigrant women intimate partners need awareness of the resources available to them to escape. These same people, however, admit that the woman in this case was aware of the resources available to her, but didn’t avail herself of them – which, again, is very understandable, as who would believe that it could really happen to you? So, they’re using a tragedy that shows the limits of their effectiveness to demonstrate the need for their services. Always Be Closing.
Anyway, it’s just the modus operandi of these organizations – they need taxpayer and donor money, they use events like this, and they get their message out through the media, as they’re doing here. I’m really just highlighting the mechanics here.
You want substance, it’s in the second part: no matter what you think about these groups or their approach, it’s obvious that we want to screen out all the violent criminal men we can before they get here and injure or kill, and this is something that our immigration system tries to do, and probably should do better. Also, going back to a debate a few days ago, the lack of screening is another very clear and salient reason why illegal immigration is pernicious and should be blocked to the maximum extent possible.
Dan
Just stfu you insufferable twatwaffle.
J
My immigration application had to contain proof that I had no criminal record from my former country’s authorities. Just so you know, I also had to pass a medical exam.
Kate
Lack of a criminal record is a place to start, but is no guarantee of a person’s character.
jeather
As we know, it takes multiple tries to leave an abusive partner, and this period is in fact the most dangerous, so it doesn’t sound like she wasn’t leaving, it sounds like she tried, didn’t get the needed support (we also know that police have a high level of domestic violence), and was murdered by her husband, probably because he figured out she was trying to leave.
ant6n
Criminal background check is part of immigration (permanent residence applicating). It’s she at the federal level so everybody immigrating gets checked.
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Kate
Lionel Perez, who must be over the moon about being declared acting mayor of CDN-NDG, got so carried away that he posted a photo of himself inside a local business without a mask on.
GC
Now I’m trying to remember if Perez made a big deal of Plante’s violation on the terrasse. It seems like the sort of thing he would have jumped on, but I can’t remember for sure.
walkerp
Is this what Plante wanted by stabbing Sue Montgomery in the front? Lionel Perez in charge of CDN-NDG? Why can no journalist explain to me what the #$%@ is really going on here?!
David644
Yeah, the mask. I was about to say something downcast about a politician like Lionel Perez, and on go on plaintively about how there just shouldn’t be an administrative tribunal that can remove a borough mayor but then again our real judges are little better, and I’m not holding out much hope.this.will be reversed. Instead I’ll glumly point out in that bad and ridiculous it is that Lionel.Perez is acting.mayor, and how he blamed the bureaucracy’s refusal to do what the elected officials tasked them with on ‘chaos within PM,’ the mayor’s office is even worse, intimating both that the bureaucracy’s obstructionism was legitimate and that Montgomery is having some sort of breakdown, or “personal crisis” as I think someone said. Unforgivable.
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Kate
Like many others, I was torn out of a lovely sleep Tuesday morning by an Amber Alert about a kidnapping. The teenaged girl has been found safe although this brief item doesn’t reveal whether the alert was instrumental in finding her.
Update: As it turns out, the young woman was kidnapped by her own brothers. Three men will be seen in court Tuesday evening and there may be news Wednesday about the charges.
EmilyG
People being woken up, or annoyed, by Amber Alerts is almost starting to be a bigger story than people going missing.
Ephrami
My phone is on DND from 10PM to 8AM. I didn’t hear it at all. But it was on my screen when I woke up.
JoeNotCharles
I supposedly have all levels of alert except “Extreme Alert” turned off on my phone, but I still got this. Does anyone else have Amber Alerts disabled, and did this still arrive? Wondering whether the settings on my phone are buggy, or if the SPVM are using the “Extreme” setting on their alerts.
Kevin
Every phone in my household went off at 6:20, including the ones on DND
Joey
I thought the point of Amber Alerts was that they couldn’t be disabled? iPhones have an optional setting to disable government alerts, but I suspect that the setting itself is disabled in Canada (it’s missing from my phone, which is affiliated with Fido).
@Ephraim, the alert buzzed loud and clear despite DND being active…
Kate
I find on my iphone there’s DND, and there’s also turning it to silent. The two things intersect but are not the same, and putting it on DND doesn’t necessarily silence it, or vice versa.
I suspect Ephraim’s phone was on both DND and silent, whereas the rest of you had only one of those things in effect.
Joey
@Kate my phone is always on silent. I think the point of gov’t-issued emergency alerts is that they override the phone’s ability not to alert you. Probably the only way to avoid them is to turn off your data and wifi.
GC
I had my phone actually turned off. The first I heard of it was when they said on the radio that the alert was over. I certainly wouldn’t have expected the phone to turn itself on, but I would have guessed it would arrive once I booted it up, like SMS. I guess that’s not the case.
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Kate
Anyone observing the REV will have seen people using powered vehicles and devices making use of the bike path, and there are few clear-cut laws about what’s allowed.
Meezly
So if I understand, electric scooters (those ones with seats) are not allowed on bike paths by law, yet they are tolerated, as long as they don’t exceed a certain speed – like around 25 km/h. Yet so many of them speed on the bike path.
I almost collided with a stupid middle-aged scooter rider on the de la Commune bike path, he was going so fast from the bridge that he couldn’t quite stay in his lane going round the curve.
Blork
@Meezly, do you mean mobility scooters (three or four wheels, usually driven by elderly or handicapped) or do you means those scooters that look sort of like a cheap Vespa but are electric? (And by “Vespa” I mean they look like a 50cc gas scooter, but a cheap-ass Japanese one, not a stylish actual Vespa.)
Regarding mobility scooters, the biggest problem with them is that they’re so slow. But people tolerate them because nobody (ok; few people) want to be “that person” who yells at a handicapped person or a grandma.
Those electric Vespa-like scooters are a whole other thing. They can go fast, and they’re pretty wide and heavy. They’re almost always ridden by very large people in my experience (people who don’t or can’t walk well but don’t want to go full-on “handicapped”). They ride those scooters on the bike paths and can be pretty hazardous because of their size and speed. When I was taking the Jacques-Cartier Bridge fairly regularly I’d see one particular big guy pretty often, and he rode it like a maniac. Probably the same guy that Meezly almost collided with. Those are not allowed on bike paths, but good luck getting any cop to give AF and go after one.
BTW, here’s some potentially useful info about electric bikes (and other things) from yer friendly neighbourhood SAAQ:
https://saaq.gouv.qc.ca/en/road-safety/modes-transportation/electric-bike/Meezly
I’m talking about those clunky, Vespa-type scooters, NOT mobility scooters. A 50cc scooter can go over 60km/h.
I can tolerate scooters on bike paths, but not when they’re excessively speeding – there are already enough dickheads on human-powered bikes on the road.
js
Real (i.e. entirely leg-powered) bicycle riders benefit being able to use pedestrian rules vs car rules depending on the immediate situation. Despite the grumblings of car drivers on the Gazette’s FB page whenever the subject comes up, normal people up to now don’t go crazy when they see a (real) cyclist go through a red light when there’s no cross-traffic any more than they would a pedestrian crossing against one. But as these toys for grownups proliferate and the kidults using them arrogate to themselves the prerogatives of cyclists they will bring down heat and unwanted scrutiny of folks moving economically and efficiently through the city.
Ephraim 09:03 on 2021-07-28 Permalink
So, if I understand that map… the ultra-orthodox aren’t getting their shots. Anyone put up a sign in Yiddish? Maybe the government should require it for in-person school, with no exceptions? Because they can’t do anything BUT in-person school because they won’t give their kids computers, for fear they will learn about the outside world.
Kate 09:06 on 2021-07-29 Permalink
Ephraim, forgive me if this is the wrong way to look at it, but what if a group of non-ultra-orthodox Jewish leaders – rabbis and so on – went to talk to the Haredim and reason with them? Would that do any good? Or do the ultra guys sort of think they’re the only serious Jews and that the others are not taking it seriously enough?
jeather 15:41 on 2021-07-29 Permalink
Right, they see the rest of us as bad Jews. (There would be no argument that I am Jewish, and of course I don’t follow the rules, but there are people who do follow how they interpret the rules and the Haredi just don’t think that counts. There is some interesting internal discussion among more liberal Jews about what this means but it is out of scope.)