Ah, the CAQ. This week they refused to charge a fair price to companies extracting water from Quebec – we get $2.50 per million litres while Italy gets $2,000 and Denmark $10,000! – created an “affordable housing” program that helps fund private developers who will be free to rent their publicly subsidized constructions out at market rates, and now it comes out that three of their MNAs donate to anti-abortion centres.
Updates from February, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The teenager stabbed Tuesday in Pointe Claire has died of his injuries.
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Kate
Hey folks, our “covid is a sham” commenters Pierre-Luc, Ted, Phil from Frelighsburg and several other aliases – only posting mockeries about Covid – turn out to be all the same guy, posting from the same IP and parroting the same “freedom convoy” bullshit.
I’m deep-sixing the IP.
Kevin
I’d say I hardly knew him, but that would be a lie…
Robert H
Ha! Votre détecteur d’marde est intact. Brava et bon débarras!
dhomas
I’m ok with people having opinions that diverge from my own. I actually appreciate debating with people who think differently than I do. I have my convictions, but I don’t want to live in an echo chamber.
That said, when the same person/entity starts posting under multiple aliases, I draw a line. This contributes to what is, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems we have today: (social) media manipulation. It was on a small scale on the blog, but I completely agree with shutting it down here and in all forms.Bob R
dhomas – It’s nice you like talking with people who have opinions which diverge from your own. But whether or not covid19 exists is no more a matter of opinion than at what temperature water freezes.
Chris
Bob, literally 2 of the 3 comments Kate linked to acknowledge that covid exists.
Bob R
Chris – perhaps you did not notice I was addressing user named “dhomas”, directly above?
dhomas
@Bob R The opinions expressed by these now-confirmed trolls were not exactly negating the existence of COVID19, but rather what our response to it should be. This is absolutely a matter of opinion and a topic that can be debated. But we should not allow for bots to start shaping our media. Whether it’s an entity that is trying to convince us that COVID doesn’t exist or an entity that is trying to convince us that we should be in lockdown for another 24 months, I don’t care. They need to be shut down.
dwgs
@dhomas +1
Kate
There’s debate and then there’s trolling. That person was trolling, trying to own the libs.
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Kate
A mother of a student at St‑Laurent High School says everybody knew about an abusive basketball coach, although not that he was (allegedly) also sexually assaulting students.
We see this over and over. Sports coaches are allowed to be as abusive as they like, it’s part of the culture, so long as it gets results. But then it goes too far, or someone pushes back, and too often the abuse also turns out to have a sexual element as well.
I have no suggestions how we fix that, except that maybe parents with sporty kids oughtn’t to push them so hard.
Tee Owe
Hi Kate – pushing is not abusing – encouraging a kid to realize their talent can be done in a positive way – yes, pushing, but way different from abuse – goes for coaches as well as parents – bottom line, there are good coaches and there are abusers. We (all of us) need to look past results as the only measure of success.
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Kate
A woman and her son are accusing six SPVM officers of racial profiling over an incident last year in which police followed the son, searched his vehicle and accused him of illegal possession of a weapon, which he didn’t have.*
A second SPVM racial profiling story is in the news Thursday: Errol Burke, a man in his 50s, 5’7″, was arrested, cuffed and thrown to the ground by police looking for a 6’1″ teenager. The cops in this story have been suspended for what CTV calls a record – a stunning 30 days without pay. The incident took place in 2017.
*Note to writer: “damages” is what is paid in restitution after a court order. “Damage” is otherwise not pluralized.
steph
“Emotional damages” gets a pass in my book. Millions of hits on google as well.
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Kate
Urbanist Gérard Beaudet says the ARTM report on the REM de l’Est contained no surprises so why are people acting like it’s such a shocker?
Robert H
«Comment peut-on justifier les conséquences fâcheuses du projet du REM sur les finances de la Société de transport de Montréal et, par conséquent, sur les services offerts ?»
Ç’est pas encore trop tard. Maintenant, il est temps d’annuler le projet REM de l’Est avant que la première pelletée de terre ne soit retournée. Dépensez tout cet argent plutôt sur le prolongement de la ligne bleue ET la ligne verte.
dhomas
Oui! There is no need for the REM de l’est! Just extend the Green line (underground) beyond Honoré-Beaugrand.
qatzelok
And the Blue Line West to Lachine. And start a Pink Line. And tramways on… There is no lack of possibly excellent mass transit projects. It’s the “get out of your car” projects that seem somehow… blocked.
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Kate
Despite a recent Superior Court ruling, dear Simon Jolin-Barrette says judges do not need to be bilingual and he’s thinking of enshrining that in law. The item adds “A Laval University political science professor thinks Wednesday’s motion is more about politics than language.”
André Pratte thinks the withdrawal of funding for the enlargement of Dawson College is political.
Of course it is. The CAQ knows it can’t go wrong taking a dig at the use of English. It’s almost as safe and popular a move as taking a dig at immigrants.
Ian
The Dawson funding “scandal” is especially infuriating in that Dawson literally can’t increase its enrollment regardless of funding, enrollment numbers are capped by the Ministry of Education. When Bill 96 goes through enrollment at English language CEGEPs will be even more stringently controlled.
For the government to conflate funding classroom expansions with expanding enrollment is disingenuous at best, as they control enrollment rates AND school funding.
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Kate
Bundles of supposed paper waste from Montreal turn up in Asia contaminated with unrecyclable garbage. I haven’t watched the Enquête piece yet, but the CBC summary tells you enough.
nau
In the other thread, Blork was asking (likely rhetorically) whether anywhere did recycling properly. If we’re being strict about “properly”, probably not. But it’s really not hard to do better than Montreal. In the ’90s, Vancouver was already collecting paper separately from everything else (and collecting newspaper separate from other paper). Now, it also collects glass separately in a grey box (but no longer has a separate newspaper collection, apparently, I’m guessing because it’s collapsed as a waste stream). Visiting Japan once, I noted they had numerous categories that they streamed different waste materials into, although one stream was all the stuff they would incinerate (not paper, however), which hardly counts as recycling. They were clearly much better at recycling small household metal items beyond the cans, lids and foil we do.
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Kate
Our new medical overlord Luc Boileau dropped a bombshell Wednesday, saying that more than 2 million Quebecers have had Covid since the beginning of December, and that is why we must stop worrying and learn to love the virus.
Alain Vadeboncœur, who usually writes for l’Actualité, posted a piece in response asking how Boileau got this number, but concluding that if it is true, then the virus really has thinned out to the point where many of us are infected without knowing it.
Update: Footnotes from the news: Prince Charles has caught Covid a second time and Governor-General Mary Simon also has it. (Francophone media are rather more prone to running items on the royal family, something I’ve noticed for a long time but can’t account for.)
MarcG
Waiting for Me Mom & Morgentaler to drop their new single Everybody’s Got COVID
Joey
Now imagine if more than 42% of Quebecers had received their third dose (which, it seems, is the one – based on its recency, I gather – that makes Omicron effectively little more than a nuisance). Data here and as of January 30: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccination-coverage/.
If only the government would make concrete plans to extend the vaccine passport to cover booster doses and automatically pre-booked appointments for another booster six months after a person’s last shot. The sooner we conclude that for the foreseeable future we’re going to need everyone to have a recent-ish booster dose, the better.
Bert
Joey, not sure what you mean by the third shot extending to vaccine passport. A third shot is displayed in the passport, of course if you have it. If you mean that the third being required where passports are required e.g big-box stores and the like, then that is another way to interpret it.
mare
Remember that they stopped doing general population PCR tests? Instead they tested Heath Care Workers hospital patients (and probably some other groups) *every couple of days*, whether they had symptoms or not. (Anecdata: I had 5 (!) PCR tests during my 2 weeks of being admitted, presumably all negative.)
If, over 2 months, 25 or even 30% of those people tested positive, which is not an outrageous percentage, and you apply that to Québec’s total population it’s easy to extrapolate that 20% of us has had an infection with SARS-CoV-2 (Omicron or Delta) during those months. (Percentage corrected down because HCWs have a higher infection risk, they don’t work from home, travel more and due to lower socioeconomic status (we don’t pay them a lot) live in more crowded environments.)Still, that 20% leaves an enormous quantity of people who haven’t been infected yet, so Omicron still has a nice pool of fresh victims to replicate in. Slowly but steadily, until it has also reached most people who shouldn’t get infected.
Getting out of this will be hard, both physically and mentally. There’s a big split in society: Why did we go to all that trouble staying home when suddenly everything is declared fine and can be opened now? Versus: Why did we get restricted so much when nothing happened (hospitals are still standing; and I don’t know anybody who had serious Covid.) and we can open up so fast now?
Joey
@Bert, sorry for being unclear. What I meant was that the passport definition of “adequately protected” should mean three+ doses for all those who are eligible (basically everyone 12+). I’m sure there is some way to program it so that those who got their second dose late and are not yet eligible for the booster can be temporarily considered “adequately protected” (maybe on the condition they book an appointment). I think a lot of people who are vaccine hesitant won’t get their booster until their employer mandates it or their ability to enjoy daily life requires it.
Joey
@mare of the remaining 80%, many had COVID but either never got a rapid or PCR test or got a positive rapid test, and many more were exposed but never tested because of rapid test scarcity, lack of or mild symptoms, or both.
Kevin
@mare
A study out of Qatar indicates that Omicron doesn’t need a pool of fresh victims, because of all the variants, it provides the least protection against reinfection.
In other words, if you got Omicron, you’ve got almost a 50-50 chance of getting sick with Covid (even Omicron!) again.
The usual caveats about studies apply.Joey
@kevin yeah my impression is that, while Omicron infection doesn’t create the same kind of immunity benefits as previous variants, the vaccines most certainly do – if you’ve had a dose recently. Again, anecdata, but the Omicron wave hit our household – one person tested positive with the most minor sniffles, one tested negative with a classic January cold and one person tested negative and felt nothing. The three of us will never be able to say with certainty whether we had COVID, so the two million infected figure at least doesn’t contradict our lived experience (not that it would be necessarily wrong if it did). The feeling around here is that (a) we’ll probably have more COVIDesque episodes going forward and (b) the level to which we have curtailed social behaviour in the last two years and especially recently doesn’t *feel like* it matches our own risk assessment. We’re not COVID deniers or truthers and we are extremely pro-vaxx, but it still feels like we are responding as if the only options are March 2020 panic or breathe-on-purpose-in-peoples’-faces.
steph
The restrictions were put in place to protect vulnerable people- not the healthy. There’s no place for healthy people’s Anecdata in the discussion.
dmdiem
Protection against omicron due to previous variant infection or vaccination is low. Which is why we see equally high levels of omicron infection in populations with high levels of previous infection or vaccination, versus populations of low levels of previous infection or vaccinations. In addition, populations with high levels of previous infection or vaccination showed lower levels of death compared to populations with low levels of previous infection or vaccination.
In other words… previous infection or vaccination does not provide protection against omicron infection. It does, however, provide good protection against death from omicron.
Conversely, Infection from omicron provides excellent protection against all previous variants. We can see this by the fact that omicron has completely outcompeted all other variants with no new outbreaks of previous variants in populations that were exposed to omicron.
To put it another way… omicron is vaccinating the planet.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus is your friend.
Joey
@dmdiem vaccination doesn’t just protect against death – even if it’s negligible at stopping infection, it’s all good news from there, no? You’re as likely to get COVID if you’re up to date on your vaccine, but you’ll have milder symptoms, very small chance of hospitalization and basically no chance of death (exceptions of course for more vulnerable populations).
And @steph the restrictions were put in place to protect the healthcare system – vulnerable people are, as ever, left to their own devices when not politicially expedient to showcase the collateral benefits they get, protectionwise.
j2
Re: booster for passport, I’m delaying my third because a positive PCR test (plus antigen tests) in late December and science (well Canada and CDC and not Quebec) say 3 months will produce a better protection outcome.
(I still have not recovered 100%. December I ran 12k and a 5’34”/km pace, best I’ve done since is 6’20” on a 5k and my heart rate is about 10-15bpm higher. Basically slower and worse than when I first started running 14 months ago. The extreme cold has definitely limited activity though, but more than it would have when I had clean lungs.)Chris
>What I meant was that the passport definition of “adequately protected” should mean three+ doses for all those who are eligible (basically everyone 12+).
In addition to what j2 said, last I checked, for younger age groups the risk of heart issues from a booster is actually estimated to be worse than the risk of covid.
dmdiem
@Joey… As far as I know, the UK is the only country that has a symptom tracking system in place. I haven’t dug into that data so I can’t really say if being vaccinated reduces symptoms of omicron. Sorry. I just don’t know.
Pierre-Luc
25% of all Quebecers had covid and only a tiny fraction got sick. Omicron is so scary!
Tim S.
Chris: that kind of statement is really, really irresponsible without a reference.
Chris
Tim S., sure, here you go:
https://podcast.apple.com/ca/podcast/this-week-in-virology/id300973784?i=1000545396455 (especially around 44 minutes in)
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy/96635If you are a healthy young male, IMHO *mandating* a third dose for participation in society (the topic I was replying about) is a step too far. Having two doses will very likely keep a young person out of hospital, and thus not burden the rest of society much, and so further health choices should really side more to individual choice.
Tim S.
Thanks Chris. I don’t have time to listen to a 44 minute + podcast, but I’ll note that your second link says nothing about the risk of heart conditions from vaccines.
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Kate
A man was shot dead Wednesday evening in a residential garage in Lasalle. The victim was known to police. Second homicide of the year.
Update: Radio-Canada names the victim as Domenico Macri and says he was “proche de la mafia montréalaise.”
maggie rose 01:34 on 2022-02-11 Permalink
…and I was having such a nice late evening, Kate. Is it my imagination that the pandemic has shone so much light on the CAQ that we are witnessing their awful governing style (greed) so much more clearly now?
dhomas 06:22 on 2022-02-11 Permalink
PHAQ these guys! (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!)
qatzelok 10:58 on 2022-02-11 Permalink
I think a lot of older suburbanites vote for Maurice Duplessis-Pierre Trudeau avatars out of fear of dying.
By bringing back the 50s or 70s, they feel “young again.”
CE 11:43 on 2022-02-11 Permalink
Cool theory.