I looked over my list of Members of Parliament in Montreal from the last election. Every one of the 18 incumbents is running again, and with the exception of a couple of ridings, we’re unlikely to see any change in the federal political landscape locally. The election won’t be won or lost in this city. My list is here.
CBC has notes on the somewhat complicated method for voting by mail.
Metro suggests some lesser known parks in the east end, while C’est toi ma ville looks at the remaining wooded areas on the island.
Sylvain Villemaire, a onetime teacher, arranged to bring an eight-year-old girl from Africa to Montreal with promises of an education and a better life. Instead, he made her his sex slave. He was sentenced to 18 years this week, a record for such an offence. Given time served, he will be in prison for 13 years and may be declared a dangerous offender.
Good, because f@$k that guy.
What have they done to find the people who helped him, the accomplices. I mean, you can’t get paperwork that easily. And why was no followup done with the girl?
I know you’re supposed to maintain some objectivity as a judge, but I wonder how horrified he must have been and how this might have influenced his sentence. It probably didn’t help that Villemaire had the arrogance to represent himself.
People digging for dirt on Will Prosper found that, twenty years ago, he was disciplined for looking something up on an RCMP computer when he was employed by that force. The real question here – who set QMI onto this story – is not addressed.
Quoting Ted Rutland again, “Ensemble Montreal wants us to be outraged that Will Prosper used his power in a different career 20 years ago to help out his friends? Your leader used his power as mayor – the same position he’s now running for – 5 years ago to get his son out of trouble with the police.”
A man was arrested Wednesday evening after gunshots were heard in RDP, but no victims turned up. This brief piece also says “The 22-year-old man was not injured, but police deemed it necessary to transport him to a hospital, even though he was not injured” which is odd, and half the story is merely a summary of recent shootings and police response.
There’s also a very brief report of a stabbing downtown very early Thursday.
The police doing everything they can to bolster Coderre’s fear-and-panic crime message.
On a related note, Christine Black’s racist dog whistling against Will Prosper is pretty incredible to witness.
Not clear in that article, but probably taken to hospital for drugs, drink, or mental health. They recovered a firearm.
Like, some of us need to give our heads a shake. If any one of your friends showed up at a party with a pistol, and then shot it off, this would be a major life event and this person would be out, and you’d probably call the cops.
But when it’s some haitian or whatever up in Montreal North, it’s considered to be racist when the media even reports an arrest.
I mean, come on.
What are you on about again, David##? What does the last paragraph in your comment have to do with the story? It’s a complete non-sequitur.
The SPVM are creating a response team for downtown crises, to be available as of September.
As I read this I felt a sense of déjà vu. In the past, the SPVM has promised, among other things, to train its officers in crisis management techniques. We see announcements like this, but we rarely see stories assessing how successful the idea was. Following that announcement, almost two years ago, how many individual cops received the training, and how often do they feel they were able to put these skills to use on live calls? Would the public not want to read about that?
The city has outlawed 36 pesticides including glyphosate. Stores will not be allowed to sell these products as of next year.
That’s something at least, but the real ban needs to be done by the federal government. Glyphosate aka Roundup is still allowed in agriculture and Health Canada has deemed a certain amount of it is safe (!), while Roundup has been banned in more forward-thinking countries for at least two years now.
Also, I wonder how easily people will still be able to buy the products online.
From what I’ve been reading, without Glysophate we’d be in middle of another Dust Bowl because it’s eliminated centuries-old farming practices and allows more crop cover to fight erosion.
We’ve become amazingly good at detecting traces of everything, but just because you can find it doesn’t mean that it’s dangerous at that level.
@Kevin, what are your sources? If you’re reading the Bayer website, they’re singing the praises of glysophate while settling a giant lawsuit that has linked the use of Roundup to cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The “centuries-old farming practices” you refer to was based on the tradition of eliminating the indigenous deep-rooted grass and the bison herds that prevented topsoil erosion in the first place. These were our early steps towards the disruption and loss of biodiversity in the New World.
There is scientific evidence that Roundup has contributed to further rapid loss of biodiversity – it is a very efficient means to eliminate weeds, which we know is really just unwanted native plants,
Stay away from golf courses if they still use Roundup because the whole area as a result is one giant carcinogenic field
@meezly
On this issue? Statements from the EPA, the WHO, European Food Safety, and other organizations. Sylvain Charlebois. Dr. Sarah Taber. Articles about no-till farming.
The very first thing to do whenever anyone tells you something causes cancer is to ask how much of that substance and over what period of exposure.
I’d also want to know what kind of cancer, because cancer is a big scary word that covers more than 120 conditions with varying degrees of severity and treatment. If you live long enough, you’ll get cancer. Cancer is what kills us* because we’ve survived everything else.
*as a species
@Kevin
The very first thing to do whenever anyone denies that a commonly used commercial product causes cancer or health risks is to ask if there is a monetary motivation behind it.
Here is a July 2021 investigative report on glyphosate:
https://usrtk.org/pesticides/new-analysis-glyphosate-studies/
@meezly
You’re trying to be clever but you missed my point.
DOSAGE.
Thank you and have a nice day.
@Kevin, I admit I may have been trying to be clever and if I did miss your point, it’s probably due to the fact that I don’t understand why you’re so focused on dosage.
Dosage or limited exposure of glysophate in our food products might be low enough to be deemed ‘safe’ but that does not mean that it’s safe for farmers or people who are repeatedly exposed to Roundup in the agriculture/horticultural industry.
As I’ve tried to point out, even if a certain amount of glysophate is considered safe, the ‘research’ that’s been done on DOSAGE is being questioned. And something that is considered safe for general consumers can still have environmental consequences, not just for biodiversity but in our soil and water supply.
The real issue at stake is transparency when it comes to corporate-sponsored evidence considered by public bodies in determining the safety of chemicals and how complicit these public bodies are with the pesticide/herbicide industry.
@meezly
I care about dosage because it’s so crucial when it comes to exposure-related illnesses.
Coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are listed as cancer-causing substances.
So are Alcohol. Hot water. Wood dust and leather dust.
So yeah, let the impartial experts decide how much is safe.
As far as I know Glysophate is toxic to bees – losing them will do way more harm to our future than the cancers you are arguing about
ant6n 19:19 on 2021-08-19 Permalink
Well perhaps some Quebecers can overcome their fear of Jagmeet? Or perhaps the Block makes a comeback?
Kate 20:50 on 2021-08-19 Permalink
I don’t know that Quebec’s afraid of Jagmeet, it’s just that the NDP has slipped back to being largely irrelevant, as it mostly has been in living memory. Jagmeet’s probably a fine fellow, but he hasn’t exactly succeeded in getting a stirring message across.
Even so, I’d probably vote for Nima Machouf or Alexandre Boulerice, but as I live in Papineau, it’s a dead cert that any other candidates here will be steamrollered by Justin.
The Bloc does have 32 seats, which is pretty good for a one-note party. They’ll probably regain most of those seats but I don’t predict a swell of extra love for them this time around.
Blork 21:15 on 2021-08-19 Permalink
I have a feeling Quebec’s not afraid of Jagmeet but they are afraid of his turban. And given that these days it all comes down to “identity,” your average Quebecker just cannot identify themselves as someone who gets behind a guy in a turban. It’s not the ethnicity, and it’s not even the religion; it’s the visibility of the religion.