An anonymous reader sent me three links: Tuesday’s story about the eviction of 200 elderly people in downtown Montreal, which I wasn’t sure I’d post till seeing this other story of renoviction by the same guy from 2019. It’s offset by a CultMTL story about the guy distributing toys, which now strikes me as on the order of Mike Ward getting into the media for distributing little wooden boxes to the homeless, just as news breaks that Jérémie Gabriel is about to sue him in civil court in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling that Ward did not breach the limits of free speech.
Updates from February, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The car used in her work by Mayor Plante was stolen last week in Ahuntsic. The model, a hybrid 2018 Toyota Highlander, is prized by car thieves in Quebec: this report says it’s unlikely that they even knew it was the mayor’s ride.
Ian
The Highlander isn’t just a car, it’s an SUV. Seems a bit hypocritical of Plante to own an SUV… or to have owned, I should say.
Kate
It’s a hybrid, and I don’t know whether she would technically even own it. Wouldn’t the package offered to the mayor include a vehicle and driver?
I suppose ideally the mayor would walk everywhere, or at least take the metro, but I would imagine that there are at least some days when she needs to get from one engagement to another within a relatively short time. (Or there would have been, pre‑pandemically.) Note that the car was stolen from where her driver lives, which means it wasn’t even in her possession at the time.
I don’t know enough about cars to surmise whether an SUV like that might be more adaptable to whatever security measures a big city mayor needs.
dhomas
It would be difficult for the mayor to get a vehicle that won’t piss someone off. People in her position generally need large-ish vehicles, like an SUV. We unfortunately still live in a very car-centric society, with infrastructure to match. So, she needs a vehicle. If she chose something completely “green” but stayed in the SUV genre, she would be looking at a Tesla Model X or Model Y. At which point she would get criticised for spending too much taxpayer money on luxury vehicles. It’s lose-lose.
Christopher
The mayor doesn’t own the car, the city does, and I’d be curious how much of a say she had in what was actually procured. One of the big lessons from reading Daniel Sanger’s book is how strict bureaucratic protocols are within the government and how much effort it takes for politicians to change them. The car was outfitted with police lights so there are probably other requirements that prevented the city from buying an electric Kia Soul (for example).
dhomas
I own the Kia Soul EV. The backseat is very small. It’s fine for my three kids, but would be quite cramped for adults. The Highlander is a 7-passenger vehicle. The only EVs capable of 7 passengers right now are the Tesla Model X and Y. A hybrid vehicle seems like the only sensible compromise.
Orr
The fact is there are very few full-size cars on the market anymore.Highlander hybrid seems a good compromise between having back seat sized for adult humans and at the same time avoiding the typical US car company’s megasized SUVs.
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Kate
François Legault has backed down and cancelled the planned tax on the unvaccinated.
Update: Legault is also expected to announce further lightening of pandemic measures Tuesday including the reopening of gyms on February 14.
Another update: La Presse says the tax is being cancelled to maintain social peace.
Kevin
Backed down on the vax tax, backed down on vaccination mandates…
The only thing he doesn’t back down on is punishing the people that Quebecer is mad at.jeather
I admit that I am surprised he cancelled the tax so quickly. I was sure he would just let it die quietly instead. I wonder why.
Chris
I don’t think he “backed down”. They were both ploys, and were never actually going to be done.
It succeed in diverting attention, and caused a bump in vaccinations. A good political success really.
I for one am happy Revenue Quebec won’t be getting access to health records, and this is a win for universal health care too, avoiding a slippery slope precedent.
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Kate
Shots were fired in Ahuntsic and Bellerive overnight, at cars and houses, but no victims have turned up.
Also, a man was stabbed in Anjou Monday when meeting someone to sell “an object” off an “online selling platform.” Sometimes the cageyness of modern reporting gets tedious: if he was selling a phone via Kijiji, why not tell us? And yet you don’t tell us whether “the object” was stolen during the attack. Update: Global says it was an iPad sold over Kijiji.
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Kate
Toula Drimonis tears a strip off the Ottawa protest.
Kevin
A person named Noelle has been listening to the convoy internet CB channel, and now I just pity these protesters. They don’t understand anything about anything.
https://twitter.com/Noellenarwhal/status/1488172479721918464
MarcG
Thanks Kevin, that’s gold.
GC
Thanks for that Drimonis piece.
Meezly 10:42 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
Are you deliberately withholding the name of “the guy” to make readers click on link to find out?
Cuz it worked!
So you’re saying this Z***v guy was likely trying to offset his guilt from derailing tenants’ lives by donating toys to kiddos?
“What he doesn’t know is that to a columnist who has been writing for the better part of this year about politics, language tension and COVID failures, interviewing him for such a feel-good story feels like a breath of much-needed fresh air.”
I’ve been totally on board with Toula Drimonis’ political pieces, so quite surprised she didn’t do her due diligence in making the connection that he happens to be a big time renovicter. Or she knew but chose not to taint the Z***v feel good piece, which would be hard to believe.
Kate 11:25 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
I suppose over the years I’ve tended to be careful not to include certain people’s names so’s to avoid turning up on Google searches. And yes, I think someone like that will occasionally try to offset assholishness with a gesture. Note the point in Toula’s story that he “found” a lot of toys in a basement, you know?
Yes, I was surprised Toula was so uncritical in that piece too.
MarcG 16:05 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
@Kate: Why do you try to avoid showing up in search results?
Kate 17:40 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
MarcG, there are a few known litigious people around whose names I will not mention, by habit, but it has stretched to being wary of the names of anyone who’s proven themselves to be notably predatory. For example, this guy, and the guy who organized that Sunwing debacle, to hint at two recent people in the news. They do not need to find my blog when ego-googling (as I’m sure they do – or have their people do).
Unlike the media, I haven’t got deep pockets for lawyers if anything were to hit the fan.