The body of Navdeep Gohtra, the only suspect in last week’s murder in Park Extension, was fished out of the Back River Wednesday morning, where it was found in the basin of the hydroelectric dam.
So now their two kids have neither parent, and at some point they will come to understand their father killed their mother. I’m not a squishy sentimentalist but you’ve got to feel for the situation they’re now in.
St-Hubert BBQ has backed away from giving the Canadiens the cold shoulder over Logan Mailloux.
Of course they did.
Yeah, but they might change their tune if Logan Mailloux is caught singing karaoke maskless with hundreds of hacidim while standing on a controversial bike path.
Too bad. In just a few weeks the Habs went from a gritty team that came close to winning the Stanley Cup to happy home for sex offenders.
Yeah the sponsors want credit for saying it matters but not to have to do anything.
Basically the same thing the Habs did.
Yep
Covid cases are again on the rise in Quebec as the delta variant takes hold. On the positive side, vaccination levels also continue to rise. You can even get vaccinated at La Ronde now.
The important part will be hospitalizations and deaths staying low. If this does become endemic, as seems likely (honestly as seemed likely from the beginning), it’ll spread for a long time, but vaccinations should keep severe cases low and reduce the likelihood of more variants of concern emerging.
The real worry is that it keeps mutating because anti-vaxxers keep it alive to the point that a new version comes around against which the vaccine is less or not effective.
The official Rt is 0.98, which is climbing….
For those wondering, Ro is at the pandemic start, after it’s called Rt.
From everything I’ve read, it’s seems very unlikely, maybe even impossible, for a variant to render vaccines completely ineffective, due to the fact that there’s only so far that a coronavirus can mutate (it can’t become a totally new virus), and because the biggest danger is from it being novel, which is no longer the case for anyone vaccinated (or who previously contacted covid). We might see a little loss of effectiveness but probably no real increase in the severity of symptoms in the vaccinated population.
24 Heures’ Florence Sara G. Ferraris has a series on walks in Montreal: nature walks outside of Mount Royal park, riverside walks, rediscovering the city’s industrial past.
Two things bug me about this CTV piece on Milano closing Mondays because of a labour shortage. One is trivial: the store is not called Milano’s.
The other is the implication that CERB caused people to shirk work. CERB allowed people to remove themselves from sites of possible contagion at the worst of the pandemic. Given the option to protect themselves by locking down, many people took it, and the trend to blame them for not being good little worker bees (which we’ve even seen here in comments on the blog) while putting their health on the line for low-paid jobs is one that I despise, since it usually comes from people who were able to comfortably isolate at home while complaining about other people not putting themselves at risk.
Milano management clearly knows they make the lowest sales on the day after the weekend, so let them close on Mondays. Their customers will adapt.
Completely agree with you. That line of argument is classic corporate welfare hypocrisy. If businesses paid and protected their employees better, which is how it is supposed to work in the fantasy world of free market, then the employees would come to work.
But even that argument is not relevant as the uncertainty and small amount of the CERB is not enough to stop people from working. Most people want to work, just not at a shit job.
Yeah, I was starting to listen to a story on the radio about Milano closing, and I got disgusted and turned the radio off after I started hearing the CERB being blamed.
If 2K (taxable) a month is more alluring than the pay for a job, something needs to change. People will work if the pay and conditions are decent/safe and if it looks like they can move up in some way and make more money. Dead-end work where people are constantly reminded that they’re disposable will get the loyalty it deserves. No surprise.
“For the first time in its history” (in the hed) seems a bit histrionic. Sometimes places adjust their hours. I have to assume they ran the numbers and concluded it wasn’t worth paying people $50/hour to work the cash.
At any rate, I’m betting Monday sales represented far less than 1/7th of their weekly receipts.
There was a big call during the pandemic from various factions for a Just Recovery Plan, aka Just Transition, Resilient Recovery, Green Recovery, etc. because the pandemic revealed so many critical flaws in our economic infrastructures. The pandemic was a great opportunity for so many countries for a do-over and revamp, but what the hell happened to that? It all seems so half-assed. Maybe other countries like New Zealand or Iceland have had a better go of it. I know that some MPs have been trying to push Trudeau for a better just recovery plan.
>…concluded it wasn’t worth paying people $50/hour to work the cash.
They’ll earn 0$ an hour when all the cashes are converted to self-checkout machines.
@Chris – Contrary to popular belief, self-checkout isn’t about replacing people, it’s about scarce resources and an unloved job. In fact, it’s almost an abusive job, as we require them to stand all day, when in most Scandinavian countries, they are seated. But basically, supermarkets, just like fast food, have trouble hiring enough people to fill these jobs. As they automate, they move people into customer service.
Long term, even the self-checkout should disappear as we move to RFID tags and RFID checkout as costs go down. Basically no UPC, you just put everything down and it reads the tags.
Even longer term, we may eventually be able to shop, pack and walk out with it and just pay at the door as we leave. No scanning at all. (And they are going to have to get a lot more ingenious to shoplift, especially expensive items, which might use active RFID, so even putting it into something to shield it, could trigger alarms.)
I’m with Ephraim! People who are against self checkouts ( barring accessibility exceptions, older people, etc. ) sound to me like they would have refused to get electricity installed 150 years ago to save candle-makers jobs!
Some jobs are are going the way of the dodo, and I am ok with that.
I mean farriers still exist, but they are a niche thing, instead of having one on every corner.
also that is why i am rabid proponent of UBI.
But that is another can of worms we will burn when we get to it 😉
Everyone’s passing around this letter from Geoff Molson about Logan Mailloux and what the team intends to do.
At any rate, Mailloux won’t be going to the team’s training camp this fall.
This might just be theatre, but if so at least it’s the right kind of theatre.
If legit, it seems like a mashup of restorative justice and “go stand in the corner.” And I’m OK with that.
It’s a joke. I’m really glad I am not a Habs fan as this would be very hard for me to stomach.
They are a cultural touchstone and the right move here could have sent signals through hockey culture in Quebec and Canada for real change. Instead they doubled down on the message that even the littlest bit of boy talent is more important than any woman’s life or values, that women are simply either stepping stones or blockers for men to live their lives. And then followed it up with this fake PR bullshit.
This team is not run by leaders.
The city is cutting its road repair budget by $100M, saying boroughs need to do more in looking after local streets.
How are they measuring? That’s always the same question. Without a way to quantitate it, how can you tell if they are or aren’t doing a good job?
Well, you can’t have a control city, can you? And you can’t go by complaints, because there are a lot of people out there who complain incessantly – let the roads go to shit, they complain, fix the roads, they complain about orange cones.
The Canadiens risk losing major local sponsors over the Logan Mailloux affair.
Wow. I’m surprised. Those are serious sponsors – St-Hubert, la Cage, Jean-Coutu, and Desjardins Group. All that’s missing is Molson and Hydro-Quebec. This affair may not be over yet.
A man who vandalized several vehicles then attempted to flee the scene in a stolen police car ran into a wall, took off on foot and then was caught and arrested, all in a few minutes downtown Tuesday evening.
Only thing missing is the Benny Hill theme song.
I offer this as a public service. https://bennyhillifier.com/
A march in favour of civil peace Tuesday was led by a family that lost their son to a shooting early this month.
Police are bound to be letting us know when they arrest anyone in connection with firearms, as they did in the three cases mentioned here recently. It’s good PR for them but it does prove they’re working on the issue.
QMI’s Bureau d’enquête found out that the criteria for being made head of the BAnQ were downgraded recently at the behest of Quebec’s executive council. Normally you’d need a master’s degree at a minimum to have a hope at that job, but they changed the rules so that Marie Grégoire, who has only a B.A. in communications, could be awarded the position.
Too bad it’s not an *official* Bureau d’enquête, and would have power to rectify this. Corruption is going to corrupt, business as usual. The public opinion might sway for a few days, but then everyone just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(If she had been a chroniqueuse for the J de M, we would probably never heard about this…)
The CAQ seems to think this is a figurehead position, so they want one of their own in place, in case they want to make changes. I assume they do – run the archives and the library more like a business, perhaps.
In the past we’ve had – as I summarized a little while ago – Lise Bissonnette, generally considered a good choice although she wasn’t an archivist, Guy Berthiaume, who is an archivist, and Jean-Louis Roy, described by Wikipedia as historian, journalist and diplomat, onetime editor of Le Devoir. All three are people with cultural oomph and I don’t recall a sense that any of them was a partisan choice.
Well, the CAQ will do what the CAQ will do. As you say, mare, everyone just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
For Quebec, this is becoming something of a petite noirceur.
Sue Montgomery plans to fight her suspension as mayor of Côte-des-Neiges–NDG.
Radio-Canada has created a detailed vaccination map showing the levels of Covid vaccination in the city. Same info presented in English.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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.
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.
@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/
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.
Is Mailloux’s potential actually that great, that it was worth it?
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.
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.
To be clear, I don’t disagree with the people who think it was a terrible choice to pick him, it was.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Ah yes. Thank you, Josh. That explains so much.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Just stfu you insufferable twatwaffle.
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.
Lack of a criminal record is a place to start, but is no guarantee of a person’s character.
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.
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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