Ray-Mont has begun paving the lot in Hochelaga for a project it doesn’t yet have all the permits for. Residents think the company wants to present the government with a fait accompli, which sounds like a solid assessment of what’s going on there.
Updates from October, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Denis Coderre would rename Place du Canada la place de la Réconciliation.
Valérie Plante would turn the old St‑Sulpice library into the Maison de la chanson francophone.
We’ve still got more than a month of this to get through.
CE
So he wants to restore the John A. MacDonald statue and then dedicate the park that its in to reconciliation??
Kate
Couldn’t make it up.
MarcG
Funnier than the déconeux story
Spi
Why not mention that he wants to put it back with a plaque explaining his role in the residential school system.
david277
“We’ve still got more than a month of this to get through.”
Old Kate is back.
ant6n
Well maybe to Coderre, reconciliation happens when first Nations finally accept colonization.
Kate
Putting back a big statue with a tiny sign saying “But he was a bad guy really” is a lousy solution.
Ephraim
@Kate – How about putting it back as an art installation, painted with native flags and colours?
(Really, it should never go back. But as I said, it’s the ghost of Drapeau and we are all going to end up paying for the ghost of the olympics baby… again.)
Cadichon
Apart from the MacDonald statue, Place du Canada also has two canons, one big machine gun and a monument to fallen soldiers. Not sure how that fits into the “reconciliation” theme.
Kate
Coderre’s probably hoping that an annual Remembrance Day ceremony won’t distract from renaming the square. Also note, he’s counting on buying some Quebec natonalist approval by abolishing the name “Place du Canada.”
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Kate
A 15-storey sightseeing tower is being constructed on the Alexandra Pier near the science centre.
Orr
I have been watching this for a while and am very interested and hope admission is free (lol) or reasonable and not just another fixture for extracting cash from tourists wallets in the style which we have been accustomed to seeing at the vieux port.
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Kate
The city could lose as much as $6.8 million over unreasonable delays at the municipal courthouse.
david277
Apparently, the Canadians have decided that crime is legal so long as there’s enough of it to slow its prosecution. Kudos.
Kate
Justice delayed is justice denied, david. It’s a long-held principle.
I was struck this week reading on the BBC site that the killer of Sarah Everard in March (she was falsely arrested and then murdered by a serving cop in the Metropolitan police – horrible story) has already been tried and sentenced. That’s 7 months from crime to punishment. Here, I’m seeing people tried for homicides years after the incident, if they’re convicted they don’t get sentenced immediately, and often they don’t even end up serving much time because of getting double credit for the time they were locked up waiting for trial.
Obviously we need more prosecutors and a more efficient court system on every level but I don’t know what it all involves besides throwing more money at it.
Kevin
We need judges and lawyers who are better at time management. Cases are always being delayed because one lawyer just isn’t ready, or hasn’t seen a document, or some cop isn’t there today – and the next date the lawyers and judges are free is weeks or months away.
So it’s time for judges to be brutal: if the prosecution isn’t ready, too bad, throw out the case.
If the prosecution hasn’t disclosed evidence, too bad, throw out the case.
If the defence has all the info but doesn’t feel prepared, too bad, we’re going ahead in 15 minutes.A judge shouldn’t need six months to render a verdict and a sentence. Juries deliver a verdict in a matter of days. Put judges into the same kind of isolation until they’ve done their job.
Judges take their time delivering sentences because they look at precedence. So don’t reinvent the wheel every time — create the easily accessible and searchable documents that show the punishments for that crime so that a judge can speed up the weighing and go ahead with the, you know, judging.
Azrhey
What Kevin said!
Our neighbours upstairs are suing their neighbours to the right for blahblahblahcondolifeblah …first court date was feb 14 2019, last court date was feb 15th 2021 final verdict will be issued march 16th 2022..3 years later! because court appointed engineer was unavailable, then some lawyer went on medical leave, then covid, then some other real estate agency joined in because one of the condos was for sale, then the judge said the last evaluation was over 15 months before so they needed a new one and the new new lawyer wasn’t comfortable in English so they needed to get it court accredited translated (that’s how I know the details they wanted me to to do the translation but I’m not nor do I want to be court accredited) finally after the last court date judge booked a sentencing for THIRTEEN MONTHS LATER!!!!
Meanwhile neither side can sell the place and they hate eachother. *rolls eyes forever*david227
So, Kevin, if you’re clocked with a hockey stick and then raped in a lane, the person who perpetrated the crime should go free if a judge grants a bunch of continuances?
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Kate
Flu shots will be made available in November. There’s particular concern this year because there was almost no flu during the Covid lockdown, so we may be more vulnerable than usual.
david277
A physician friend of mine said something interesting recently, which is that future flu vaccines may be incorporated into what’s sure to become the annual covid vaccine, with the consequence that there’s likely to be a steep and permanent drop in flu. The idea is that even if the flu vaccine is only 20% effective, the knock on effect of having 85% percent of people vaccinated against it will probably lead to such a low transmission rate that there may be no more annual flu. According to my friend.
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Kate
Small and medium-sized businesses, which will soon be obliged to enforce the use of French, are worried about the extra government paperwork they will have to do. Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it? Everyone has to put an effort into maintaining the French language, and if you have to hire a language officer for your business, that’s the sacrifice you need to make.
In fact, our universities would be wise to create language officer programs, which would teach not only language skills but also aspects of law, psychology and management, because those people will be needed.
david277
I think our universities have done enough damage to the law, psychology, and management of our country, and that we probably need more of the common sense you get from the medium-sized business owners, rather than our designated experts out of the universities, who cause so much grief for everyone else.
Kate
Starting to sound a mite populist there, david. We need more experts, and not more businesspeople putting their oar in. Business by its very nature only cares about profit – which is fine, in its place, within limits. But even then we need experts to figure out where business’s drive for profit is damaging the environment past recovery.
Mark Côté
As though universities hold more sway over our government than businesses do, and that higher education isn’t correlated with a country’s standard of living. What a comment.
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Kate
Benjamin Shingler looks at the issues in the municipal election, singling out housing as the top problem afflicting the city.
One phrase in this piece bugs me, because it isn’t otherwise written as an opinion piece. See what you think:
Their dividing lines are shaping up to be much the same as last time around, in 2017, when Plante beat out Coderre on a promise to boost funding for public transit, increase social housing and improve the city’s network of bike paths.
Coderre has promised a more balanced, business-friendly approach to help the city out of the pandemic.
Shingler doesn’t explain why he thinks Coderre’s ideas are “more balanced” and it seems like a sly attempt to make the old mayor seem more like a stable, sensible choice. Which I don’t think he is, at all, but then I’m allowed to have opinions on a blog.
DeWolf
It’s an analysis piece so a certain amount of editorializing is inevitable. But that definitely seems like a turn of phrase ripped out of Coderre’s campaign material. Balanced how?
Kevin
The key words in that sentence are “has promised”.
Shingler uses the same phraseology a few sentences later in reference to Mouvement Montreal: The unlikely partners *have promised* a more community-based approach to politics, and policies aimed at addressing the shortage of affordable housing.Kate
Maybe, but it’s difficult to discern in context in whose judgement the platform is more balanced – Coderre’s or Shingler’s.
Joey
Shingler is comparing concrete plans from Plante’s last campaign (money for transit, housing, etc.) with Coderre’s vague plans for his governing style – moderate, business-friendly. Not a particularly illuminating piece of writing (disclosure: I didn’t click through and only read what was excerpted). Compare plans with plans and attitudes with attitudes, but don’t mix the two.
david277
I think that the implication in re housing is obvious and clear on the first read: Coderre will let people build, and PM won’t. PM’s growth-killing inclusionary zoning mandate is basically a pall-bearer’s kiss, but since everyone rushed their projects through before it was implemented (with PM’s blessing, btw, so it wouldn’t be an electoral issue), there’s not obvious effect yet. This is right, and PM just has no excuse here, they’ve just blown it and been pulled somewhere they tried to resist going because they know it’s dumb, but have a very dumb activist base to keep happy.
But on the second and more charitable read, what this opinionator is saying more broadly is that PM has driven through a lot of pretty controversial stuff, if you’re some old guy in the suburbs. And a lot of it was great and transformative.
The correct plan is both massive increase in density, and the massive increase in street animation, walkability/bikeability, etc. – it’s a false choice to say one much pick between the two.
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