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  • Kate 19:35 on 2021-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

    Denis Coderre has recruited TV host Jean Airoldi to run for a councillor’s seat in Verdun. On Twitter, a keen observer of the local scene noted that Airoldi, on TV (the clip’s included), said “Sincèrement je suis pas équipé. Si vous pensez faire une entrevue avec moi pour savoir ce que je veux faire, on n’est pas là.”

    Coderre is grasping at straws. Yes, he may dominate the city if he picks people simply for name recognition, but what kind of city will it be, by 2025?

    Meantime, Valérie Plante is challenging the federal parties to do more to squelch the flow of illegal firearms across the border.

    (Speaking of politics and ignorance, Wilfrid Laurier (!) posted a clip showing the Bloc’s Yves‑François Blanchet completely nonplussed by a journalist’s request that he clarify what he meant by saying Quebec City’s planned “troisième lien” would have environmental benefits. Some politicians don’t even have the decency to improvise plausible bullshit any more, and Blanchet falls back on going tight-lipped, trying to make it look as if the question is a rude one. But in this case it definitely wasn’t. Props to Catsmeat Potter on Twitter for pointing this one out.)

    Update: The relatively minor Ralliement Montréal party has recruited actress Patricia Tulasne to run in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Who’s next? Ricardo?

     

    • Kate 12:28 on 2021-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

      Like Toula Drimonis in her CultMTL piece I’ve been watching each Journal de Montréal columnist weigh in, one by one, on the “shocking, shocking scandal” of Will Prosper running for mayor of Montreal North.

      Only, as Toula points out, Prosper was never charged with any crime, let alone convicted. And, as she also says, it’s up to the voters in that borough to have their say. Nothing formally disqualifies Prosper from his candidacy or from serving as mayor if he’s elected.

       

      • MarcG 12:33 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        Here’s an article from Yves Engler article about Prosper, Coderre, and Haiti. https://yvesengler.com/2021/08/20/is-denis-coderre-fit-to-run-for-mayor-of-montreal/

      • Kate 13:25 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        Really something. Buried in there was the fact that Sue Montgomery wrote a column in 2006 against Coderre. (Engler says “another municipal politician, Sue Montgomery, penned a Montreal Gazette column…” but I’m pretty sure that, at that point, Montgomery wasn’t a politician yet, so no conflict of interest was involved. She was a Gazette writer for a long time before going into politics.)

      • walkerp 14:06 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        The image of the 5 Journal “columnists” including the two worst of the dog whistlers, it is all just so clear and out there the racism. Imagine Bock-Cote actually stepping foot in Montreal Nord, but suddenly he cares about the people there.

      • Yves Engler 15:53 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        Kate is correct. Montgomery was gazette columnist then

      • Kate 17:41 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        Thanks, Yves.

        Do you think there’s been a vendetta against Montgomery in her borough because of the article, or am I seeing things that aren’t there?

      • Chris 09:25 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        >…was never charged with any crime, let alone convicted

        That’s the old standard. Now, if a sufficiently large twitter mob says you’re guilty, you’re cancelled.

      • MarcG 11:56 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        Here’s the Gazette article for anyone interested.

      • Kate 12:40 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        MarcG, that link is not working, but I can’t fix it because I can’t tell what you’re trying to link to.

      • MarcG 13:34 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        I guess you need to be logged into BanQ to gain access. Does this work? You should be redirected to the login page and then afterwards be redirected to the article.

      • Meezly 18:26 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        Pretty disgusting and pathetic smear campaign. Municipal politics is ugly but this is pretty low. The Plante admin has their flaws but they are by far the lesser of the evils we have in terms of our depressing choices.

    • Kate 11:52 on 2021-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

      CBC says there are reports of lots of wasps around resto terrasses but to leave them be, because they have a role in the ecosystem.

      The last time we had this problem, a few summers ago, I was working near the Croissanterie Figaro, and what they did was put out a dish of jam on a table a couple of yards away from their terrasse. This seemed to keep the wasps happily engaged at a distance from the customers.

       

      • Thomas 12:00 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        The weekend before last I attempted to brunch on a terrasse on Ontario in Hochelaga, and the wasps were completely out of control. We tried the jam trick, but to no avail. The table next to us left 75% of their food untouched and fled for the hills as quickly as they could.

        On a side note, there’s currently a giant wasps’ nest in the tree right outside my front door in Ahuntsic, so that’s nice…

      • Kate 13:27 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        Yikes. Can you call the borough about it?

      • walkerp 14:08 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        They are annoying but mostly harmless. As the article says, they are important species in our increasingly damaged and dying ecosystem. Let them live and just don’t freak out. If my 8-year old can do that, you can too. So much fear of nature is learned behaviours by parents.

      • MarcG 14:36 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        A friend and I sat on a log at summer camp one year that had a wasps nest in it and got swarmed. I was stung in my hand and it swelled up like crazy. I’ve only recently retrained myself not to run and hide when I see one, but I still go inside at lunchtime if they’re around just because they’re annoying. Here’s an article singing their praises: https://newint.org/features/2020/12/07/wasp-biodiversity-why-i-matter.

      • ant6n 18:02 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        Picnic areas in Lafontaine Park are crazy too. And the playground. Get out a little fruit squeeze thingy for kids and you’re suddenly swarmed by five of them.

      • JP 09:23 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        I was on a patio downtown last week, and the bees kept swarming us (and our food). One flew into my friend’s oyster shell and died in it….she got replacement oysters.

        We subsequently requested to go inside, even though I really didn’t want to. Luckily, it was an early dinner, so there weren’t too many people in the dining room.

        I get that they’re part of the ecosystem, so I know we just have to adapt around them, but it was a little frustrating nonetheless. I kept getting asked if it I was allergic, but I’ve never been bitten, so how would I know…

      • Chris 09:29 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        >a dish of jam on a table a couple of yards away

        Isn’t that basically like putting out seeds for birds and nuts for squrillels? (Something that there’s actually a bylaw against.)

      • Kate 09:38 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        In theory, the jam should attract wasps away from diners, but as Thomas notes above, it doesn’t always work. I don’t think there’s any bylaw against baiting wasps with jam.

    • Kate 11:05 on 2021-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

      An inquiry into the killing of Pierre Coriolan by police comes up with the same sad song we hear every time: police need more crisis training so they have more confidence in de-escalating tense situations, rather than reaching for their gun.

       

      • Jeff 11:27 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        At what point do we give up on “police training”?

      • Kate 11:32 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        This is why people talk about defunding the police. We’ve given police forces break after break, yet they still make fatal mistakes. So, let’s take some of the vast sums we allot to policing, and put them instead to crisis teams led by social workers, community resources and so on.

        But politically it can be made to sound dangerously radical, so we trudge on, watching cops reach for their revolvers.

        In a way, defunding is simply an acknowledgment that policing as a mindset is flawed and may not be flexible enough to change.

      • Jeff 14:23 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        imagine having a social worker and a police officer arrive at the scene of a crisis. the cop would be there for safety, but the social worker would be in charge. i wonder if something like that would work

      • Kate 14:33 on 2021-08-24 Permalink

        They’re about to try something like this downtown, but the odd part is, I’m almost sure things like this have been proposed and promised before. I will look it up, but it seems a fairly obvious step when the problem isn’t actual crime, but people who are behaving antisocially in public places, possibly because of mental illness or drug addiction, or even simple socioeconomic desperation.

        It’s nearly 20 years I’ve been doing this blog and I’ve seen certain themes go round and round, but nothing so often as “let’s reform the police from within” which comes up over and over again but then we see nothing has changed.

      • Chris 09:33 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        Jeff, and when the social worker is attacked, then what? The cop will counter attack, and be in the news all the same, with people calling for their heads all the same. I don’t disagree with your proposal, but it will only help a little I suspect.

        BTW when do you hit 20 years Kate?

      • Kate 09:39 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        The original version of this blog started in late November 2001. I’ve updated it almost every day since that time. Took a few days off for a death in the family, couple of other days here and there, but otherwise, it’s always updated.

      • MarcG 11:28 on 2021-08-25 Permalink

        Chris: There isn’t a lot of data on the subject since these programs are new, but here’s a quote “Still, the limited available evidence suggests co-responder team programs may be effective in crisis de-escalation. For example, in their quasi-experimental examination of incidents managed by a co-responder team in Quebec, Canada, Blais, and colleagues (2020) found CFS involving the team to be associated with fewer incidents of police use of force. Specifically, force was used in only 4.2% of incidents involving the co-
        responder team compared to 12.1% of similar incidents handled by regular patrol units.” ref

    • Kate 11:03 on 2021-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

      Two people were stabbed in a park in Lasalle overnight, and there’s been an arrest. Nobody is expected to die.

       

      • Kate 09:06 on 2021-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

        Gunshots were heard overnight near the MUHC hospital. No victims turned up; only the Gazette notes minor injury to a policewoman.

        CTV has a curious update. Police were at the hospital to deliver a patient, and heard bangs, but they haven’t found evidence that any ammunition was fired. Hospital staff were baffled by the “code silver” that was called, because nobody had experienced one before.

         

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