Quebec has just announced that, as of November 15, it’s removing the mask mandate in high schools and permitting dancing and karaoke in bars. Quebec’s also withdrawing the recommendation to allow people to work from home where possible.
There were 490 new cases of Covid in Quebec on Tuesday and six more deaths, but that’s the cost of doing business.
For the second time in recent days, there was a murderous attack in the McGill ghetto. A man was found in bad shape early Tuesday and is in critical condition, and police are questioning a suspect.
Update: In that TVA piece, it now says the man’s condition was not due to an assault, but because he fell, and police accept that no crime was committed and no charges will be laid.
Coderre’s team just had to delete a bunch of prepared tweets about the crime apocalypse that is Montreal today.
Paul Wells reviews Daniel Sanger’s book on Projet Montréal with the headline All the good politicians are in Montreal.
Denis Coderre continues to maintain he’s not hiding anything while hiding things. As said in this CultMTL piece, “It’s reasonable to expect a mayoral candidate, especially one who disappeared from municipal politics into the private sector for four years, to prove that they have no conflicts of interest.” In La Presse, Michel C. Auger echoes the same idea and Patrick Lagacé – avowedly not a big fan – points out the flaw in Coderre’s response.
He claims he has “des ententes de confidentialité”. He also says he will divulge the information if/when he is elected. Will those NDAs stop being valid after the election? If he can release the info after the election, what’s stopping him from doing it now?
Seems to me that Coderre would rather keep details of his last few years private, and probably suspects he’s going to lose. If he pulls out a win, it won’t be because of or despite his decision not to disclose this information. If he felt it could push him over the top, he’d release his returns – but he doesn’t, so he won’t. The downside of revealing all that info if he’s going back to the private sector far outeweighs in his mind the benefit of playing along…
@Joey that’s my thinking, as well. He’s lying when he says he has confidentiality issues. He’s really just looking out for his best interests in the event he needs to return to the private sector. That’s fine, everyone looks out for themselves, but don’t lie about it. We’re not dumb.
There’s a difference between willingly violating an NDA and complying with laws that require you to disclose conflict on interests should he win, both might get you a list of who’s been employing him over the past 4 years but are very different propositions legally.
Fair point, Spi. My bias was showing. Your conclusion makes the most sense.
In the future when applying for jobs, I’ll just fill gaps in my CV with “2017-2019: NDA” so I don’t have to admit what I did or didn’t do…
@ Spi, Coderre’s legal obligation would only be to disclose current conflict of interests (company he owns etc.), and not the list of who’s been employing him. So the fact that he is elected wouldn’t affect the NDAs.
@spi except that Coderre is, as usual, full of it. From La Presse today:
“Le PDG de Cogir assure par ailleurs qu’il n’a fait signer aucune entente de confidentialité à M. Coderre. L’ancien maire a pourtant affirmé lors d’entrevues, en réponse à des questions sur les mandats qu’il a occupés, qu’il ne pouvait pas nommer l’ensemble de ses clients parce qu’il avait signé de telles ententes.”
@Cadichon a conflict of interest can persist through time even though you have no present dealings and attachments to it. It might be subject to interpretation but I assume there’s a lawyer/bureaucrate who’s job is to handle this.
I suspect it is bullshit that NDAs prevent Coderre from revealing a working relationships. NDAs are meant to prevent disclosure or use of corporate secrets. Having signed many NDAs, I have never seen disclosure of the relationship itself part of the corporate secrets, especially if Corderre would be almost certainly dealing with 3rd parties who would then be made aware of such a business relationship.
Coderre should have anticipated such questions would arise and it is symbolic of his surprisingly shambolic campaign that he had no better answer than to hide behind a made-up legality — which he would then break (trust him in Trump-like style) if elected.
Prices at the SAQ are going up and dairy products are expected to get much more expensive soon. Time to hold that wine and cheese now, we’ll be down to kale and lentils and cold water soon enough.
Cheese had already gone up quite a bit even pre Covid, some great unpasturized Quebec cheeses I used to buy in the $50/kg range went to high $60s, Quebec cheddar that used to be $20/kg is now $30/kg. I’m scared to see what the new prices are going to be like. It’s a rare splurge now as opposed to what used to be an almost weekly purchase.
The city spent millions on a building in Park Ex to claw it back from developers, but no money is forthcoming to convert it into social housing, as intended. This CBC piece describes a complete failure of the three levels of government to orchestrate their efforts to provide housing, and amounts of financial support that fall very short of big promises of new residential units.
I have a feeling one of the problems is Quebec’s tendency to be stubborn and intransigent faced with taking cash from Ottawa, especially if there are any strings attached. This has been a problem with health care forever and probably spills over here as well. I wish they could just grow up and, if needed help is at hand, take it. It isn’t doing anyone any good if the cash is there but Quebec’s being fussy about the terms.
When the feds got out of affordable housing in the late 90s, Québec stepped in and created its own program, called AccèsLogis, still active to this day. A whole ecosystem of financing and NGOs evolved around this program and became quite efficient, especially during the housing crisis of the early 2000s. When the feds resumed financing affordable housing under Harper, money was simply handed out to provinces with very few strings attached and Québec used it to finance its own program. The difference under Trudeau is that, while the government is not spending much more on housing, it is keen on creating these broad coast to coast programs, which so far have not proven to be working very well. That may be fine in provinces where there was no provincial program to begin with, but doesn’t make much sense in Québec.
La Presse has discovered the surprising fact that there are 4500 fewer students in Montreal schools this year than last, while numbers in off-island schools continue to grow. This runs against a projection assuming a little growth in city numbers, rather than an exodus, as it’s described here.
4,500 fewer students in French-run schools. So that’s about 12,000 francophones who have decided Montreal isn’t where they want to live. That’s what’s causing the decline in French in Montreal.
Meanwhile the JdeM is flipping out over the head of Air Canada being scheduled to give a speech to a private group and he’s not planning to speak in French.
jeather 15:59 on 2021-11-02 Permalink
Not going to mandate anything for schools, and an announcement will come soon about the HCW mandate, but very few new first doses were given since Oct 15. Dr Arruda “isn’t an expert” but thinks that outbreaks in schools are about contacts and not ventilation.
This bodes ill.
Kevin 18:31 on 2021-11-02 Permalink
Two schools closed today in the Townships.
steph 08:41 on 2021-11-03 Permalink
I don’t understand the WFH recommendation withdrawl. It reduces waste of time and resourses – why wouldn’t the government want this?
Kevin 09:48 on 2021-11-03 Permalink
@steph
Destination Centre-Ville and the Montreal Chamber of Commerce are going to lose a lot of influence as downtown businesses adapt to the new reality of remote work, and they have no good rationale about 300,000 people should resume commuting and return to the office (come for the slam poetry! murals! clowns!) so they’re barking for the status quo ante.
And when the provincial election campaign gets underway next year, it’s going to be terrible for the CAQ — which has made the economy one of their two main platforms — if hundreds of companies close or move out of downtown Montreal.
Kate 11:17 on 2021-11-03 Permalink
Kevin’s not kidding. The Chamber of Commerce is trying to lure people downtown, including with slam poetry – which they think will appeal to the young worker, although it feels very 1990s to me.