Anti-vaxxers marched Saturday afternoon claiming to be in support of the unvaccinated healthcare workers who will not be allowed to work as of October 15.
Nor should they be. But we’d all be well advised not to get acutely ill anytime soon. It’s bound to be a shitshow.
Denis Coderre is talking about covering part of the Decarie autoroute and the Ville-Marie and putting green space on top.
“des installations sportives extérieures” More rodeos, then?
My money would be on the installation of more baseball diamonds. He did a lot of that during his last mandate, whether people wanted them or not
Just the recently covered, and rather short, part of the Ville Marie cost almost 150 million dollars. Decarie is about 50 times as long, so that will be prohibitively expensive. (And also a federal and provincial decision and not a municipal as is becoming a usual pattern with the election promises Coderre blurts out.)
It would be great to reunite the split NDG, but there are certainly better uses of that amount of money.
The part of Ville Marie that was covered was about 175 meters, and it cost 150M. He isn’t proposing to cover all of Decarie, just the part from Queen-Mary to Côte-Saint-Catherine, which is about 800 meters. So the 700 million price tag isn’t that far off.
That being said, this seems like a last-minute campaign-style idea that he just threw together to steal some of Projet Montreal’s approach. I think it would be a good project, but I doubt it would get ever get done with him as mayor.
Yeah. Let’s busy the REM de l’Est, instead.
@GC – you forgot the clowns. Rodeos with clowns. This is Montreal, after all.
Queen Mary to Côte Ste-Catherine is a pretty grim stretch. I know, because I lived there for a few years as a kid. Granted, you have the Snowdon Deli, but there’s not much else livening up the area. There are at least three service stations, some vaguely industrial stuff, and a row of abysmal gray brick buildings on the east side from Édouard-Montpetit to Côte Ste-Catherine. Nothing that needs a vastly expensive park plunked down in front of it.
@ kate, perhaps that makes it a good option then? Once that section is covered there would be massive potential for redevelopment with little NIMBY pressure.
Wheras the parts that are less bad by definition dont need to be covered as much to be tolerable.
I would love to see all our open trench highways covered, of course. That said, it’s the jurisdiction of the MTQ, and therefore the provincial government. Instead putting pressure on the province to correct past mistakes like these, I would prefer the provincial government take any money they might allocate to these projects and instead preemptively address mistakes they are about to make, like burying the REM de l’Est.
Those trenches have been there for years and it would take the same effort to fix them later. We have the opportunity to “fix” the REM before it happens.
Queen Mary to Cote St Catherine has a number of restaurants and some stores, not just the Snowdon Deli. It’s not amazing, but it’s picked up in the past 10 years. And it’s near a lot of residential areas, so I can see a park being pretty successful in theory — though what will they do with the actually quite congested service road and the crossings?
It seems a bit like the stupid park they built in the middle of the Bonaventure – who wants to hang out sandwiched between traffic? (Besides this guy, of course https://goo.gl/maps/YhKCrBGQs7Pg3qW17)
Can anyone around Griffintown comment on the use of that park? Whenever I’ve gone by in someone’s car–which is even less often during the Pandemic–there’s been people at the outdoor gym there. I’m sure it’s also more pleasant to walk through than going under the old elevated highway. But do locals actually sit there, picnic there, etc.? Or is just to use the gym, walk their dogs, get through as fast as possible?
Oh, JaneyB, how could I forget? Of course, the clowns…
Construction of the REM downtown has become even more of a thorn in the side of downtown merchants now that the banners put up to semi-hide it have been taken down.
A teenager got away from two policewomen and the headline says Teen sought – but in accordance with laws about minors, his face is obscured. Other photos show he’s a skinny white guy, but no face.
TVA goes even further, smearing out not only the kid’s face, but the cops as well, in a piece implicitly blaming the cops for fumbling the capture.
I know I kvetch about this kind of thing, but here’s a piece about a collective of Syrian women making food (some of it is available on Lufa, I notice) and how great it is that they’re doing a cookbook. But there’s no mention of the title of the cookbook, nor is there any link to where it can be bought.
Yes, we can always Google. But while journalists complain that their industry is in decline, many of them still want to carry on as if their work is not really on the internet, but floating serenely somewhere above it. It’s not working.
I have tried a few of their things on Lufa, and I have — sadly — been disappointed with all of it. (Though Lufa is sometimes slightly hit or miss.)
Good to know. I hadn’t tried any, because Lahmajoune Villeray is in my neighbourhood and they’re my go‑to for Syrian food, but I’d considered trying the Filles stuff.
A Quebec writer has published a book theorizing that the indigenous group with the most claim on Montreal is the Anishinaabe. Roland Viau thinks that after Jacques Cartier’s crew arrived, either the inhabitants died of European contagions, or they fled westward, possibly explaining why there was no longer any permanent village here when Champlain showed up a century later.
It’s not clear to me why it’s such a hot potato to determine whether the Mohawk, the Huron, the Anishinaabe or some other specific group have a theoretical claim on the island of Montreal. This whole continent was occupied – lightly and sustainably – by many indigenous groups before the Europeans came. There’s no way to be sure what happened on this island between 1535 and 1642 and it doesn’t matter now. What matters is how we behave, as a country, toward the indigenous groups that have survived what Europeans put them through.
I’m not sure if it doesn’t matter now. And I suppose that if non-Indigenous people want to learn more about the Indigenous history of Montreal, they can consult Indigenous groups. Many Indigenous groups have ways of recording/remembering their own history.
The online course “Indigenous Canada” on Coursera, talks a bit about the Indigenous history of Montreal.
Tracing ownership is a pretty “speak white” system. It seems like a lame distraction from the fact that it obviously wasn’t white europeans.
We need to know who to make the cheque to…
@Kate still no news from Michael Black? He would usually have something to add on these stories…
dhomas, I’ve sent Michael Black two brief emails, one in June and one last month, to the only address I have for him. They don’t bounce but he hasn’t replied. The last time he commented here was February 9 of this year.
He had made earlier references to a fairly serious illness, but nothing in his last few comments suggests he thought he was about to be hospitalized again. (Not that he was necessarily going to mention that here.)
All I really know about him is that he used to volunteer for the Fringe Festival, but whether the current organizers would know anything about him, I couldn’t say. I’ve dropped a line to them, or at least an address that’s probably associated with them, and will see what I can find out.
I’ve never knowingly met Michael Black.
Update: Seems he posted on his own page as recently as August.
Thanks, Kate. I’m glad to see he’s still around (hopefully), even if he’s not posting here.
dhomas, I looked back and I don’t think anyone here was rude or offensive. People sometimes just move on.
The Bell Centre was jam packed Saturday evening for a Ricky Martin/Enrique Iglesias show, the first big spectacle since the pandemic, and something of an experiment even now.
The Journal tells us that merchants downtown were thrilled about the return of a crowd.
La Presse has found a sly way to remind us that, when he was out of office, Denis Coderre worked promoting both the REM de l’Est and the baseball group by telling us he’s promising not to go on promoting them if elected.
“But it is my nature”, said the Scorpion to…
He also worked for the CDPQ (indirectly?) by having a board seat on Eurostar (the semi-private rail operator running services through the Channel Tunnel between London and Paris/Brussel, in which the CDPQ has a big stake). He’s not shown on the website anymore, but the wayback machine shows he was on it on Jan 2021:
Max 19:49 on 2021-10-10 Permalink
Fuck every last one of these bullshit-consuming retards. The media really ought to publicize these demos in advance better. Then perhaps some of the more rational, normal-thinking of us might show up with balloons full of piss, paint, vomit or worse to lob at them. Being an anti-social cunt should come with consequences.
Ephraim 22:13 on 2021-10-10 Permalink
As they say, COVID is airborne, but it’s spread by assholes
Max 23:04 on 2021-10-10 Permalink
Ignorant fucking abnormals. Put them all to death before their stupid selfish disease spreads.
Daisy 08:37 on 2021-10-11 Permalink
Max, that sounds an awful lot like hate speech. (With a misogynistic slur for good measure.)
Janet 08:47 on 2021-10-11 Permalink
Spewing bile might make Max feel better but it adds nothing to a “rational, normal-thinking” discussion.
jeather 10:37 on 2021-10-11 Permalink
I actually happened to see them setting up for the march. I first saw a sign saying something like “We hate Legault” and got curious, then read the other signs (from across the street) and nope.
Still betting the number of people fired will be a lot lower than threatened.
dhomas 11:50 on 2021-10-11 Permalink
You know, I’m known to have an outburst every now and again (see below, re: Dubé). But this seems excessive. As much as I am against pretty much everything these guys stand for (except maybe their anti-Legault sentiments ;p), I don’t think it’s productive to resort to name-calling. We’ll never change people’s minds by being aggressive to them. It’s difficult, but eventually we’ll have to find some kind of solution to this problem. And yelling at it won’t work.
Someone else here has said something like this, but in this case, maybe it makes some sense to make these people, who work in our healthcare system, work exclusively in COVID wards. They will see first-hand how real the disease is, and maybe that will change their perspective. It probably wouldn’t be ethical to do this, though, to people who are known to be unvaccinated.
Tee Owe 14:33 on 2021-10-11 Permalink
I would guess that many of the anti-vaxxers have actually been vaccinated (polio, MMR, yellow fever to go to Phuket, HPV for their kids, flu maybe) – could be worthwhile to engage them on that level? As I see it, not all of them are against vaccination per se, their problem is with Covid vaccines and their imposition on society – and there may be a valid point for discussion there. For the record, I am double-jabbed, got my flu jab today, and I see vaccination as our way out of this mess – I also find it annoying that there are people who hold that effort back. But I agree with dhomas, we need to find a meeting point, not hurl insults at each other.
Kate 18:49 on 2021-10-11 Permalink
I haven’t met many anti-vaxxers, having sensible friends, but I encountered one woman this summer who was bragging that she wouldn’t be vaccinated. I raised with her the points that vaccination is not a new idea (she thought it was ‘too experimental’), that vaccination was the reason we no longer fear smallpox or polio, and that for certain injuries one’s always given a tetanus booster as a precaution, but I could see it was fruitless to argue.
I know there are people who won’t give their kids MMR or other childhood vaccinations. Is anyone determined enough not to receive, or allow their kid to receive, a tetanus shot, after particular kinds of injury?
Max 22:53 on 2021-10-11 Permalink
For your viewing pleasure, crackers galore.
https://i.imgur.com/wYyq0yA.jpg
I fail to understand how anyone can be tolerant of these retards and their ignorant views. They’re putting every last one of you and your loved ones at risk of death (or long Covid, which sounds to me like it could be even worse) for the sake of their own small-minded misinformed irrational selfish self-interest.
Fuck every single last one of them. These people are the rock-bottom scum of our society. Whether it’s violence, extermination, or throwing their asses in jail, I’m 100% behind whatever measures it takes to put these dumb fucks in their place. They don’t deserve to be part of civilized society.
ant6n 05:09 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Well, one argument I hear is that vaccination against (for example) polio makes sense because the disease is truly dangerous and the vaccine works 100%, but covid is less dangerous (kills only a few old people or fat ppl) and the vaccine protection is only N%, where N is assumed by the person to be some pretty small number. And given how the covid vaccine uses mRNA technology where we don’t know the long term effects, the dangers to a young, healthy person is smaller without the vaccine. Also, natural teas and vitamins will make your body so strong that corona won’t effect u. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I didn’t like the argument, because when I pointed out that also young people can get it with bad results, as experienced by me personally, I was getting fat shamed.
Tee Owe 08:20 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Ant6n – the fact that the Covid vaccines all came from ‘a lab’ whereas the others are ‘from your doctor’ may contribute to suspicion. Also, the scientific community have been super-accurate with numbers about efficacy, which as you point out are always less than 100% – incidentally, also true for polio vaccine, where 2 shots or doses give ‘above 90% protection’ IOW less than 100%. I like Kate’s point about tetanus shots – how many people remember that you need 5 jabs for immunity (Wikipedia). And who would refuse a rables vaccine if bitten by a dog that was foaming at the mouth? But I’m preaching to the choir. There’s a recent study from France, of over 22 million people – Covid vaccination significantly reduced disease severity and deaths in people over 50
https://www.epi-phare.fr/rapports-detudes-et-publications/impact-vaccination-covid-octobre-2021/
These facts need to get around more
jeather 10:07 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Do these people not know that most cases of polio were, indeed, asymptomatic, and only in about 1 in 200 did it affect the nervous system? (I think post-polio also includes some asymptomatic cases but am not sure.) And two shots of the polio vaccine are not 100% effective, and of course the initial vaccines — which people took! — were less effective still.
ant6n 12:01 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Yeah I think it’s best not to tell them that otherwise they won’t vaccinate their kids at all…
jeather 12:17 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
The “only 1 in 200 people who got polio had neurological or muscular symptoms at all” fact seems relevant though.
EmilyG 15:15 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
A bit upsetting that a slur keeps getting permitted on this blog.