A vigil was held Monday for Elisapie Pootoogook, who died last week in the construction site overlooking Cabot Square. The only political leader who made an appearance was Ghislain Picard, regional chief of the Quebec and Labrador First Nations, who addressed the crowd in Innu.
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Kate
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Kate
Militant vegans invaded Au Pied de Cochon on Saturday evening, not to object to the low wages offered to cooks there, but to protest the consumption of meat.
Bert
Who’s next? Joe Beef? Eggsspectation? Mon Petit Poulet? Lucille’s Oyster Dive?
Ephraim
So, does that mean that militant carnivores are free to invade vegan restaurants to protest the lack of consumption of meat?
MarcG
Factory-style farming is evil whether it’s animals or soybeans.
Raymond Lutz
Hmm… this makes news but not actions in support with Wet’suwet’en ? Is there a media blackout? https://mtlcounterinfo.org/train-tracks-blocked-in-solidarity-with-wetsuweten-land-defenders/
DavidH
@Bert, I believe they did Joe Beef a couple years ago already. Around the same time they crazy-glued Manitoba’s door locks.
Kate
Raymond Lutz, I simply had not seen that story, so thank you for posting it.
My main beef with those vegans is why they pick on locally run independents that, if anything, probably support the most humane forms of meat production. You never hear about them invading McDonald’s or Burger King.
MarcG: You may be right in theory, but the planet has to produce a certain minimum number of calories per person or people will starve. And a lot of folks can’t afford locally grown organic produce, even if they wanted to.
MarcG
Just saying that if part of their beef (ha) is environmental they should take a look at their own plate.
MarcG
Veganism is a religious belief/conspiracy theory that proposes a simple explanation and solution to the world’s problems: if everyone just stopped eating meat things would be fine. Vegans are “saved”. If they targeted McDo that would at least indicate a recognition of the larger problem of capitalism. Problematic but interesting book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6396542-the-vegetarian-myth.
Meezly
I have great respect for people who make genuine efforts to have less environmental impact and be a role model for others, but invading a popular restaurant like that just reaffirms the stereotype of the over-zealous vegan activist.
I understand this is an attempt at a publicity stunt, but if they’re really devoted to convincing people to convert to veganism, wouldn’t they find a more rational and strategic approach that doesn’t make them look crazed and ridiculous?
Kevin
Meezly
I don’t think they’re trying to convert anybody. Events like this an example of demonstrating fealty and purity.Ephraim
I don’t like when the Salvation Army proselytes and I don’t like it when Vegans do, either. We don’t need 10K people doing 100% the right thing, we need 1M people doing it to the best of their abilities (80% to 90% of the way, if you believe in Pareto’s principal).
I’m not telling them to eat meat or put honey in their coffee. They are free to do as they wish. Even though using agave syrup is essentially replacing animal derived honey with plant based sweeter and fossil fuels to transport it around the world. So, which is dirtier, using fossil fuels to move agave or using the work of the bee, who freely chooses to make honey in surplus? (Or as one vegan said to me… enslaving bees)
Chris
>but the planet has to produce a certain minimum number of calories per person or people will starve.
Kate, are you suggesting we couldn’t produce those calories without meat?
>And a lot of folks can’t afford locally grown organic produce, even if they wanted to
Let’s not conflate organic vs not, and meat vs vegetarian, but I happened upon this story yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/nov/22/mens-meat-heavy-diets-cause-40-more-climate-emissions-than-womens-study-finds
Supposedly, this impression that some have, that a vegetarian diet is more expensive, is not true, at least in Western countries. (Organic is usually more expensive, both meat and plants.)
>…wouldn’t they find a more rational and strategic approach that doesn’t make them look crazed and ridiculous?
Meezly, alas, rational argument is not the best way to convince humans of things. If it were, so many of our problems would not exist. 🙂
Food production causes 1/3 of GHGs! An average US family emits more GHGs from the meat they eat than from owning two cars. I don’t think most people realize this. It certainly gets less news coverage than automobile pollution. But none of it matters, people are in deep denial, unwilling to change their diets, their transportation, or anything non-trivial. The result is that a tiny sliver of people turn to desperation and we get things like vegans invading restaurants, people blocking rail lines, and David Suzuki talking about blowing up pipelines. 🙁
Kate
Chris, MarcG said “Factory-style farming is evil whether it’s animals or soybeans” and I responded that “You may be right in theory, but the planet has to produce a certain minimum number of calories per person or people will starve.” I didn’t say anything about meat, I meant that we are forced to do factory-style farming in order to feed the billions on this planet.
In any case, a good vegetarian diet is bound to be more expensive than one based on cheap meat products.
Mark Côté
“Factory-style farming is evil whether it’s animals or soybeans.”
Mass farming monocultures are not environmentally great, for sure. But can you really compare fields of soybeans to cages of battery hens? Those are morally equivalent for you? Not to mention that, as Chris says, the GHGs from the latter are always going to exceed the former, including the fact that you need fields of soybeans to feed masses of animals (far more soybeans are grown for animal feed than for direct human food).
Ian
Experimentally as a (very poor) university student I became strictly vegetarian for a couple of years, mostly in an effort to reduce my grocery spending. Suffice to say that dried chickpeas, lentils and rice go a really long way and supplementing that with tomato paste and fresh vegetables is actually healthy, full protein, and a very simple to make food that can be transformed remarkably depending on what spicing you use. Supplement with soups for variety and bread to feel full and you’re good to go.
Considering how many vegetarians there are in India and China (for instance) there are a wealth of vegetarian food traditions to draw on that are very healthy and inexpensive. You don’t have to buy expensive, overpackaged, heavily processed fake meat to have a balanced diet.
That said, militant vegans are often reactionary ding-dongs and life is too short to entertain the concerns of reactionary ding-dongs.
MarcG
Mark: My point is that the problem is not what food we are growing but how we grow it. If a vegetable monoculture (grown for humans) destroys the habitat of an animal or insect species, it may be less viscerally horrible than factory hens, but are they morally different? If the runoff from fertilizer destroys coral reefs? If a tomato farm takes advantage of the desperate situation of its employees? How do these compare to an animal farmer using rotational grazing and other methods to limit environmental impact and improve the living conditions of the creatures? A vegan world without radical changes to the economy wouldn’t be much different from how it is now.
Mark Côté
Perhaps, though I stand by my point that, overall, far fewer plants would have to be grown to support a vegan world. But aside from that, yes, it is hard to imagine a vegan world with our current economic system, for a variety of reasons.
walkerp
MarcG, I broadly agree with you that the scale of our system in general is the fundamental problem. However, meat production itself is just vastly less efficient than vegetable production. We are clear-cutting the rain forest to make grazing land for beef to get hamburgers to McDonald’s when we already have enough soy production as is to feed the world. Meat is basically a luxury item that is being overconsumed.
A vegetarian diet is far cheaper than a meat-based diet, at every level of the production and consumption chain.
Kate
Meat production is, at least in the United States, notoriously heavily subsidized. That’s why meat stays relatively affordable. I don’t know how much federal subsidy goes to meat in Canada.
I would also suggest that when someone ponders their diet to the extent of becoming vegetarian they often (if not always) become more sensitized to quality, so they may not be satisfied with the cheapest food in the store. Eating a good-quality veg diet is going to be more expensive than the basic North American omnivore diet, I’m certain of it.
Ian
I guess it depends what you call good quality veg… I managed it for a couple of years no problem, just shopping at regular grocery stores. I certainly wasn’t buying organic raddichio buds or whatever but even just rice & beans, some frozen mixed veg, fresh spinach and sautéed field mushrooms makes a simple, enjoyable, and very inexpensive meal.
MarcG
I also ate a cheapass diet of whatever-veg-was-on-sale, rice, canned legumes, bulk cheese, nuts, and day-old bread in my vegetarian 20s for $15/week. The person’s age, income, and maybe generation (90s kids are more likely to want to appear poor?) plays a role for sure. I’m not veg anymore but I spend a shitload more money on food now because I can afford to try and support local organic agriculture.
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Kate
A Journal writer explored the storage space of St Joseph’s Oratory although the headline’s promise of fabulous treasures mostly falls down at old plaster and wood statues and a sainted molar. Although the writer describes lavish calices, ciboires and tabernacles, not forgetting hosties, there are no photos of these oft-sacré’d objets.
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Kate
Police want you to know that they’ve made some arrests and seized some weapons in raids recently.
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Kate
McGill has failed to read the room, and has abruptly shut down its French intensive program without warning. Given the recent gaffe by Air Canada’s Michael Rousseau, to end a French language program mostly aimed at executives seems like a uniquely inept move.
Uatu
Typical McGill. Not enough money for this but plenty of money to put up an air-conditioned tent in the lower campus field for graduation and then replant sod to fix the crushed turf afterwards. Every summer. Such a waste of water and money.
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Kate
Many Montreal grade school kids have seen “temporary” modular classrooms become a permanent feature of their schools. And while some of these modulars are set to be removed soon, giving kids some schoolyard space back, the expected increase in immigration in 2022 will probably mean more kids entering school again soon.
It seems not so long ago that the low birth rate meant schools were being turned into condos and offices all over the city. Short-term thinking.
Mark Côté
Any push for more foreign workers will affect the English school boards as well (the article is only talking about the French school “service centre”), since you’re allowed to send your kids to English school if you are here on a temporary work permit. That’s been the leading cause of growth in English schools in the last few years.
Kate
Mark Côté, under Bill 96, kids of temporary workers will only be allowed English for 3 years. Then it’s conjugating être forever.
Mark Côté
Oh huh I didn’t know that. Although in my experience, within 3 years it seems that most parents either move back to their country of origin or, even more commonly, apply for permanent residency, at which point they have to start sending their kids to a French school.
Also I totally lolled at your conjugation comment; my daughter is at an immersion EMSB school and right in the midst of conjugation hell. There’s no escaping it here.
Ian
If it makes you feel any better I sent my daughter to a CSDM school and she’s still in conjugation hell too 😀
There are a few people like me that just sent their kids to French school so they would for sure learn French despite being eligible for school in English, but the majority of the Anglo parents are from abroad or married to a Francophone.
With Bill 96 I’m going to send her to an English high school though, so she (and her hypothetical children) can go to English CEGEP if they want. At least she will (hypothetically) be able to fluently conjugate être.
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Kate
François Legault posted a message on Facebook about the sadness of the death of Thomas Trudel, but was poked by Marwah Rizqy and reminded to edit the text to mention Jannai Dopwell‑Bailey too.
A march was held on Saturday to commemorate Thomas Trudel.
Hamza
If this how hard he’s blowing on the dog-whistle now, how ugly will it get when the actual election rolls around?
Hockey indeed.
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Kate
Le Devoir has a big feature Monday about the 81 Quebecers killed by police over the last 20 years, and an analysis showing that visible minorities and Indigenous people are more likely to die under police bullets.
There’s even an interactive feature showing all the victims, where you can sort them by category, although some of these… Would Noam Cohen be an Arab? Farshad Mohammadi is also listed as an Arab, although he was Iranian, and Iranians are not Arabs.
dhomas
Having spent some time in Iran, I can say that Persians do NOT appreciate being called Arabs one bit.
Blork
…but that doesn’t mean there are no Arabs living in Iran. Not all Iranians are Persian.
Kate
OK, but even if Mohammadi was Arab – which who knows – I have strong doubts that Noam Cohen was.
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Kate
Quebec has approved a replacement for the new Île-aux-Tourtes bridge which doesn’t include a reserved bus lane or room for a REM track (although there’s currently no plan to extend the REM to Vaudreuil).
Ian
That was kind of the excuse for putting the Ste Anne station north of the 40 though, the idea being that when the new bridge was built it would be easier to integrate if an extension was desired later on. So much for that.
Max
At least the replacement bridge is getting a bike path. That’s something to celebrate. I’m still annoyed that the highway 30 bridges over the St. Lawrence and the Beauharnois Canal didn’t get one.
carswell
@Max You can add the Rockland overpass to your list of annoying bridges. Recently rebuilt and still as bike and pedestrian hostile as ever. The refurbishment was a joint TMR and VdeM project and, reportedly, the proposal to add a bike lane was vetoed by Montreal. And the new UdeM MIL campus has been designed expressly not to accommodate through bike traffic; they expect cyclists to dismount and push their vehicles from Thérèse-Lavoie-Roux Ave. on the Outremont side all the way through the campus and over the “footbridge” (wide enough to drive a truck or two down) to Beaumont Ave. in Parc Ex.
So for cyclists, despite millions of dollars in infrastructure investment, things stand now as they have for decades (I first biked over the dangerous overpass in 1978): between Park Ave. and Wilderton/Canora, there is no safe north-south passage for cyclists (and Wilderton south of Jean-Talon doesn’t really feel safe). Actually, at the Jean-Talon level, there are no north-south bike paths or lanes at all between St-Dominique St., a block east of St-Laurent, and Victoria Ave., the last major street before Décarie. Of course, much of that stretch abuts poor neighbourhoods so no big deal, right? /s
This is a conscious decision by the city of Montreal. As is the refusal to provide any safe passage across Décarie north of Duquette (which crossing few know about and which isn’t really connected to the rest of the network). Google Maps shows Édouard-Montpetit across Décarie as a “bike-freindly road;” having come close to losing my life twice at the intersection in the last couple of years through no fault of my own, I beg to differ.
The upshot? The cycling infrastructure is still piecemeal, not thought through, not a serious option for many commuters/serious cyclists. (Yes, there are more bike paths and lanes but there are also many many many more cars than there used to be; to be honest, I feel less safe biking today than I did in the ’70s and ’80s.) And connections to poor neighbourhoods are not a priority, especially if they would lead to rich neighbourhoods.
jeather
Google Maps shows Édouard-Montpetit across Décarie as a “bike-friendly road;”
I suppose, as compared with any other crossing in the area, maybe. But that’s a bar so low you need a backhoe.Ian
“the new UdeM MIL campus has been designed expressly not to accommodate through bike traffic; they expect cyclists to dismount and push their vehicles from Thérèse-Lavoie-Roux Ave. on the Outremont side all the way through the campus and over the “footbridge” (wide enough to drive a truck or two down) to Beaumont Ave. in Parc Ex.”
There’s a bike path the entire length of Thérèse-Lavoie-Roux on both sides, with raised beds under the bridge and on the straightaways AND it’s an enforced 30 zone with crosswalks and stop signs, I’m not sure how much more bike friendly you expected the campus to be… Frankly I think the whole campus should be strictly pedestrianized but that’s a whole other discussion.
carswell
@Ian TLR runs east-west. I am obviously talking about north-south (as in Rockland overpass), about getting to the other side of the tracks. If there’s a N-S path around, it’s not clearly marked (or wasn’t early last summer, the last time I was on campus), is unknown to any Parc Ex or Outremont cyclists I know (a half dozen?) and isn’t displayed on Google Maps or the CycleMap iPhone app. A Google Streetview “ride” down TLR shows a fence running the entire length. So please enlighten us all and describe the route you propose. (Extra points if you can do so without the patronizing attitude.)
carswell
Also, per Maps and CycleMap, none of the bike paths/lanes around the campus connect with the rest of the city’s bike path system (see “piecemeal” above). Admittedly, Outremont is full of “bike-friendly roads” but they aren’t marked for cycling in any way. You have to know what route to take to reach the rest of the network.
carswell
Query re the Île-aux-Tourtes bridge: Might one of the reasons no REM lane is planned be the light-rail system’s capacity for expansion, i.e. that once up and running at planned capacity, it couldn’t handle the extra traffic? I seem to recall limited expandability has been one of the knocks against the REM — or at least the Deux-Montagnes line — back in the public hearing phase.
Ian
The TLR path connects south on Hutchison to Beaubien, where it connects to both the Van Horne bike path and the Saint-Urbain bike path via Clark. I’m not trying to quibble in any case, I used to work on Goyer and had to bike through that area every day. I got doored a couple of times on Bates. I always found Wilderton the best for going north but took a winding path through Outremont to avoid traffic going south until I could get to the long north-south alleys.
You’re probably right about the REM capacity. There isn’t a lot about the REM that doesn’t seem short-sighted.
carswell
Sorry — really! — but I don’t follow you. Where is this Van Horne bike path? Not shown on any of the four maps I just looked at. (I think of VH as one of the most bike-unfriendly roads in the city and would never take it unless forced to.) But my main point was that there is no safe north-south bike route between Wilderton in the west and Park Ave. in the east, and I’m still not seeing how that’s wrong.
Ian
I mean the path along the Van Horne rail line, I forget its official name 🙂
But yes you are right, you need to go a long way in each direction to get to a north-south bike path. Like I said, I ride the alleys. The Bellechasse bike path (for instance) is a fun ride but I question its utility, especially as that part of town already has the St Zo path and the train path. It seems weird connecting north-south has been neglected while other areas have lengthy networks already in place with more paths going in.
It’s worth noting that these paths are going in without any actual traffic engineering studies – one of my friends is very active in the PSC cycling community and since she got hit by a car on her regular ride she has been actively trying to get them to redo the new bike paths based on some actual traffic flow studies as they are less safe than the old ones. Council admitted that path was implemented without studies. I suspect it’s mostly just political decisions being made based on expediency and easy wins, for the sake of optics.
carswell
Ah ha. I’ve heard it called the CPR path. Google Maps and the EXO bike path map don’t give it a name. It’s not exactly clear what CycleMap is labelling but they may have it down as the Parc linéaire du Réseau-Vert.
Ian
“Parc linéaire du Réseau-Vert”
catchy 😀
Orr
@Max: IIRC at the time of construction I saw quotes that Vélo-Quebec was consulted about a bike path and signed off on “OK for no bikepath on A30 bridge” which I didn’t understand then and I don’t understand now.
As for a safe and/or efficient way across the railroad tracks at the Rockland overpass, there isn’t one. A safe efficient active transport/cycling route from the north/west arrives here via boul. Graham and then there are zero safe efficient routes to traverse Outremont starting with no safe efficient way to get across the train tracks and up to the piste cyclable chemin de la Cote Ste-Catherine. Recent Rockland Overpass rebuilt same as before remains as dangerous as it ever was.
Does the “Parc linéaire du Réseau-Vert” still have the mud holes? I hope they finally filled them in.
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