The Tories gave the bum’s rush to Erin O’Toole on Wednesday. I won’t miss him, but I have mixed feelings. I prefer the Conservatives to have a weak and bumbling nebbish at the top. It’s when they get mean barracudas like Mulroney or Harper that we have to attache nos tuques.
Updates from February, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
Media are nodding to Black History Month: Radio-Canada profiles Frantz Saintellemy of the Université de Montréal, the first Black university chancellor in Quebec. CBC is going big on the Black Changemakers theme all across Canada. Locally they interview sports coach Jamil Springer and Anglo rights leader and onetime politician Marlene Jennings as well as a kids’ feature about a girl championing natural Black hair. CBC promises more pieces on Black people of influence throughout the month.
Metro looks briefly at the programming for Black History Month and at several notable Black historical figures and the paucity of Black figures in the city’s toponymy.
-
Kate
The milder weather is more pleasant but it’s going to mean snow starting Thursday evening into Friday. Not sure “up to” 15 cm is fairly called a heavy snowfall, not in these parts. That’s six inches, or – as we’d say in my trade – 36 picas. Un cocktail météo, the mayor calls it.
-
Kate
Longueuil folks, enjoy the company of your deer friends in Michel-Chartrand park this summer, because your city is going to slaughter 60 of the 70 animals there this fall.
Blork
Sad, but necessary. The park is a wreck (due to overpopulation of deer and huge swaths of tree death from Asian Ash Borer).
Ten years ago, there was about a 75% chance of seeing a deer or two when I’d walk through the park. Now there is a 100% chance of seeing deer, and about a 75% chance of seeing about 20 so close you can just about touch them. One day last week I saw three pods in three different spots, and each pod had 10-15 deer in it.
They eat all the young tree growth, so there’s no regeneration happening at all. The forest looks dead.
SMD
The venison will be given to local food banks.
Kate
I wondered about that, SMD. Would the meat from animals like this be considered safe to eat?
Anyway, Longueuil still has to get past Anne-France Goldwater.
-
Kate
Tuesday night a regular commenter made an offensive remark, then doubled down and reiterated that they had meant to offend. I’ve removed this person’s two comments and pruned the thread to remove or edit a few responses which would otherwise now be missing context, and hope that’s OK with the writers.
I’m grateful to those who alerted me to the comment, which I hadn’t noticed immediately because it was posted just after I’d shut down for the night.
I haven’t invoked the actual banhammer but have asked the commenter to take a break.
Bruno
Great job.
MetaTalk alumni.walkerp
Thanks for the vigilance, Kate. Crappy part of the job. I also appreciate the transparency. Happy to have missed the entire thing but also builds confidence that you share what goes on in the background.
-
Kate
Police are reminding the populace to be careful about online purchases after a man was stabbed while trying to sell an iPad. The item is vague on safe places to do such exchanges, but Tuesday’s Global piece on this incident names only police station 20, on Ste‑Catherine near Bishop, and station 46 in Anjou. The pages for these stations on the SPVM site say nothing about this option, though.
It wasn’t so long ago that there were a couple of incidents in my neighbourhood where guys trying to sell phones via online platforms, and taking measures to do the exchange in public, were nonetheless stabbed in the neck by a guy who was later arrested.
-
Kate
The city is adding a line to tax accounts this year but it’s not going to change the total. The “taxe relative aux dettes ancienne ville” is simply the part of the total that goes to servicing old debts lingering from before the city merger of 2002.
-
Kate
Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce mayor Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, a nurse by profession, pitched in and helped vaccinate people this week.
-
Kate
Residents of Tétreaultville are concerned about the effects of the REM on their buildings, already plagued by cracks and fissures. La Presse’s Henri Ouellette-Vézina reveals the emptiness of REM promises here without explicit editorializing. One of only two CAQ MNAs on the island, Richard Campeau, is quoted: “Je vous assure que CDPQ Infra est bien au fait des enjeux de sol que l’on a dans Tétreaultville et y portera une attention particulière” and the CDPQ-Infra spokeswoman says blandly, “en cas de besoin, des mécanismes de dédommagement seront appliqués auprès des citoyens touchés.”
-
Kate
Shots were heard Tuesday evening in an alley in Little Italy, but no victims have turned up.
Thomas 17:59 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
I was going to say, we should be careful what we wish for. We’ll be crying for O’Toole to come back once we’ve come to terms with a Pierre Poilievre government based on trucker law.
John B 18:00 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
He seemed like a pretty middle-ish, almost palatable, conservative, to the point where a lot of their election promises last election were to the left of the Liberals. With him out there’s a real chance of someone much more Trumpish coming in.
walkerp 18:12 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
Yes, it is worrisome. I don’t know if Canada can generate an individual with the same media history as Trump, but the model is in place. The frightening thing about the Trump model is that the wealthy and big business will hold their nose and support a Conservative party, even with a lunatic at the helm, because they know ultimately he won’t threaten their wealth. As much as the Liberals are awful, we do have an advantage against Trump tactics here in that generally most big money is okay with them.
Orr 18:14 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
The popular fear is Trumpism, but if you’ve been paying attention the real risk at this moment in history is Orban-ism.
Dominique Anglade should pull a Reverse-Charest and take over the federal conservatives. That party needs someone to counterbalance the CPC’s current western-Canadian-Oil-Party / inmates-running-the-asylum / right-wing-dictatorship tendencies.
Thomas 18:30 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
I fear the membership of the Conservative party has too much power to cede control to a Black, Francophone Quebec woman lol…
It’s funny to think that Maxime Bernier led for 11 out of 12 ballots against Andrew Scheer and only lost the leadership because he wouldn’t give in on his libertarian opinions relative to dairy prices. Had he won, he probably would have remained a normal, run of the mill Tory; and as that rare Quebecer to be popular in the West, he might even have elected a government at some point. Now we have to pray to God that he never does
Kevin 20:50 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
At some point parties will relearn that Canadians need time to warm up to political leaders.
Dominic 22:49 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
Canadians are *generally* more liberal, if you combine the Liberals, the NDP, and the Greens, thats a pretty wide swath of the population. Far right parties in a 5 party system are going to have some trouble getting seats (see PPC) at least in the short term.
dhomas 08:00 on 2022-02-03 Permalink
I agree with Thomas that Maxime Bernier probably could have led the CPC to better results, and possibly even victory. (I disagree with the praying to God part, though. ). I ran some numbers on federal elections yesterday. It’s almost always better to run a candidate from Quebec. In modern times (the past ~54 years or so), Canada has had 4 PMs from Quebec, 2 from Ontario, and 1 from Alberta. But that’s only part of it: in those years, a Quebecer has won the federal election 12 times, an Ontarian 4 times, and an Albertan 1 time.
Time spent in office:
Quebec: 41 years
Ontario: 12 years
Alberta: 1 year
Maxime Bernier could have been next in line. I’m thankful he was not chosen to lead the CPC, even more so now that we’ve seen his true colours.
(Numbers are approximate, Wikipedia math, and exclude non-elected, appointed PMs)
Meezly 10:19 on 2022-02-03 Permalink
“Social conservative and anti-abortion activists celebrated O’Toole’s decisive defeat. O’Toole’s efforts to drag the party to the centre on social issues — the party suppressed debate on abortion during the last Conservative policy convention, for example — alienated some Conservative ground troops.”
Was he really that weak and bumbling? I haven’t paying much attention but he seemed to be trying to bring the conservative party to the 21st century, or the late 20th at best! I heard that the ones who voted to oust him were essentially from the party’s religious faction, frustrated by unanimous adoption of the ban on conversion therapy before Christmas.
Bob R 11:34 on 2022-02-03 Permalink
What I write here is not about what is right and what is wrong, but about what is going to happen. The Conservatives had the highest number of votes nationwide in the last Federal election (5.74M vs 5.56M for the Liberals). The far right CPP got 0 seats on 0.84M of the votes). Where, exactly, does a Conservative Party to the right of O’Toole think it is going to get its votes? Thin air? Forget defying politics – it defies mathematics.
So I see fertile ground for a schism on the right.
Thomas 12:58 on 2022-02-03 Permalink
It’s because O’Toole was the candidate of the hard-right against Peter MacKay, so the hardcore base of the party felt betrayed when he tried to move the party to the centre after winning the leadership. The poor dears
JaneyB 14:36 on 2022-02-03 Permalink
Quebeckers will not vote for a non-Quebecker who heads a federal party eg: Layton was from Hudson so he stood a chance. For the CPC, Mulroney had a chance. Let’s hope anti-carbon tax Pierre Poilievre is too annoying even for Quebec conservatives.
Myles 18:39 on 2022-02-03 Permalink
Poilievre is from Alberta and has never lived in Quebec.
Thomas 18:43 on 2022-02-03 Permalink
Pierre Poilievre is from Alberta and is currently occupying the Ottawa area. With a few of his pals… 😉
(in all seriousness, I believe he moved to Ottawa to work for Stockwell Day and fell in love with the place such that he never left)