The NHL season isn’t over, but the numbers say the Canadiens won’t make it into the playoffs following their poor showing in the first half of the season.
Updates from March, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Restaurant owners on Notre-Dame in Sud-Ouest are angry that there will be water main work done on their street soon, delaying their terrasse season, but borough mayor Benoit Dorais points out that the water main, a hundred years old, is in very poor condition and the work has already been postponed three times at the restaurateurs’ request.
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Kate
The second trial in the killing of musician Cédric Gagnon ended Friday in a guilty verdict for fellow musician Raymond Muller. Gruesomely, Muller is alleged to have bludgeoned his friend with a bass guitar, then cut up the body and distributed it into various public garbage cans. No trace of Gagnon was ever found.
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Kate
It may be a Montreal story… or it may not. La Presse has a remarkable tale Friday about a trial held in absolute secrecy. The person involved is said to have been a police informant, so that the usual public revelation of their identity and the details of the case could endanger them.
The news only came out because the person was convicted, appealed the conviction, and the appeals court only then found out that such a trial had taken place. Yves Boisvert comments on the sheer departure from judicial norms involved. And Simon Jolin‑Barrette wants to know more.
Update: CBC says some members of the legal community feel this trial violated fundamental principles of justice.
On thinking about it: wouldn’t the defendant (or their lawyers) have understood that the secrecy, carried out presumably for their benefit, would be broken if the verdict was appealed? They went to a lot of trouble to keep this thing on the down low, only to risk having it become known, as it has been, when taken to appeal.
dhomas
I suppose it comes down to risk/reward. The defendant may think it’s worth the risk for potentially being free. Also, if they go to prison, the other prisoners will then know who they are, which might put their life in even greater danger.
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Kate
In 2016, Côte-des-Neiges-NDG passed a bylaw restricting fast food outlets to only a few streets. The Supreme Court has dismissed a challenge by McDonald’s, St‑Hubert, A&W and others, so the bylaw stands.
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Kate
Anjou borough wanted to donate a piece of land for the construction of a shelter for abused women, but has been blocked by the city, whose representative says it’s not Anjou’s place to make plans of this kind.
Bert
At least the city can make plans for its public transport. /s
Great work to all to get things back on track here.
dhomas
I live in Anjou. I trust Maire Miranda about as far as I can throw him. There always seems to be some kind of agenda with him. Sometimes, it seems like corruption (like the Golf Métropolitain, where he sold large swaths of green space that Montreal wanted to turn into a park), sometimes it seems like a personal vendetta against the mayor (ex: he’s constantly criticizing the city centre’s snow removal policy and goes out of his way to make sure snow removal operations in Anjou begin before the surrounding boroughs).
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Kate
Eater looks at how restaurants are responding to the plan to remove the mask mandate as of April 15. Short take: they’re happy, but have they considered that some clientele may stay away if they feel they’d be at risk?
Blork
Some of them have probably considered it, but I expect they are less concerned with specific customers as they are with overall numbers. And I suspect the level of overall COVID denial (in all its forms) is so high that most restaurants will do well. Until the next lockdown that is…
Kevin
I don’t think there’s any point to wearing a mask inside a bar or restaurant if you’re a customer. It’s pretty evident that the latest variants of Covid are spread through the air, and not really by droplets, even if the province disagrees.
Which is why I’m not going to any restaurants unless I can sit outside.
qatzelok
“Until the next lockdown…”
I’m not sure if we should be normalizing the government’s ability to lock down the population. This was a special situation, and not a new way of governing.
Chris
>…some clientele may stay away if they feel they’d be at risk?
Those people are already staying away (like Kevin).
Anyway, there’s basically already no mask mandate, you only have to wear it for the first 5 metres, until you get to your seat. It’s comical security theatre by now.
DeWolf
The only country that still seems intent on pursuing a lockdown strategy is China, and it’s not going well. Despite the uptick of cases in Europe, I haven’t heard any rumblings about further restrictions. South Korea is also going through a huge surge that still hasn’t peaked and the government there has announced that most restrictions will soon be dropped. Hong Kong is also loosening restrictions despite very high daily case numbers and a horrible wave of deaths that stemmed from a low vaccination rate among the elderly.
One of the worst periods of the Spanish flu pandemic was in 1920 — the third year — but by then society seemed to have moved on, and there were no attempts to control it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/opinion/covid-pandemic-end.html
We seem to be going through a similar phase in this pandemic.
It’s worth noting that the flu pandemic ended after the waves of 1920, but of course the flu never went away and there have been a succession of pandemics since 1920 that have killed millions of people: 1957-58, 1968-69, 2009-10.
jeather
Honestly the mask mandate in restaurants specifically doesn’t feel nearly as necessary as a vaccine passport. Anyone laying bets on when they will start reintroducing restrictions?
Kevin
jeather
After the election.
We’re at 50% more in hospital than Ontario and this year have averaged 25 dead per day. Those numbers will have to double before anyone notices.
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Kate
Environment demonstrations may be back, with a major one planned Friday afternoon, starting at the Cartier monument.
The demonstration was also about solidarity with the First Nations although the participants should have realized it weakens rather than strengthens a demonstration if it’s deemed to have more than one purpose.
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Kate
TVA has a report on people shooting up in Papineau metro, including video, noting that there are also problems at other downtown stations. But the item also says the STM is aware of the issue and that patrols go around with naloxone in case of overdose.
In tangential news, more than one Quebec resident dies every day because of opioid use.
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Kate
Pierre Bruneau, who’s been TVA’s news anchor for 46 years, has announced he will be retiring in June.
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Kate
People who bought into a Lachine condo development have been put off for two years now as the project has stalled. Global somewhat buries the lede here, but there it is: “The person behind the project was Paolo Catania…”
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Kate
While the Supreme Court wrestles with the question whether consecutive life sentences are cruel and unusual punishment, another killer has been denied escorted outings from prison. Gilles Pimparé and another man were convicted of the 1969 killing of two teenagers, whose bodies they threw off the Jacques-Cartier bridge. This 2017 Radio‑Canada piece gives a bit more of the background but I can’t see any account of whether Normand Guérin has ever been granted any freedom from prison, which he was seeking that year.
Ephraim
Makes me wonder if they have psychopathy and if that is a consideration. Society’s chance of reforming anyone in prison is almost nil if they have psychopathy. There are many effective members of society with psychopathy; car salesmen come to mind, but it’s a lot more difficult to tell if the reform is working because they can switch off their empathy.
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Kate
François Legault has caught Covid.
DeWolf
The second Omicron wave is here. Anyone who didn’t get it the first time around will probably get it now.
I got it a couple of weeks ago, almost exactly two months after my third dose. For me, it was a pretty run-of-the-mill cold that cleared up in a few days, but it seems to affect everyone differently. I know vaxxed-and-boosted people who had more severe symptoms that lasted for 10 days or more.
My advice for everyone right now: get your monthly quota of rapid tests and make sure you always have five day’s worth of food in the fridge just in case you get sick and need to isolate. And if you feel the slightest cold symptoms, even if it’s just a scratchy throat, take a test and stay home – even if the test result is negative. I tested negative on the first day of my symptoms but then positive a day later.
Chris
>I tested negative on the first day of my symptoms but then positive a day later.
Which is typical, because the false negative rate for home tests is very high until day 3 of symptoms.
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Kate
Gilbert Rozon – no, he hasn’t gone away yet – is claiming to be the victim of premeditated character assassination by Julie Snyder and Pénélope McQuade. He’s suing them for defamation.
And he still thinks he’s quite the charmer. “J’aime beaucoup la gent féminine, j’ai toujours été entourée dans mes bureaux de femmes, énormément de femmes.”
Update: Snyder and McQuade won’t be able to appeal their case claiming that Rozon is trying to hush them up.
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Kate
The Gazette helpfully lists the Montreal-area neighbourhoods with a sizable anglophone population – and what houses cost there.
DeWolf
It’s not in Montreal, but I’ve always been curious about Shawville, which is the most anglophone place in Quebec: 88% of the population speaks English as a first language and 67% are unilingual – ie, unable to speak French. The OQLF’s nightmare.
John B
I had a renoviction scare a few months ago, (now resolved, or at least delayed for a while), and was looking at homes pretty much anywhere in Quebec. There are some beautiful homes in Shawville for less than the price of a 1-bedroom condo in Montreal.
CE
I know a couple people from Shawville. My impression of the town is that the border between Quebec and Ontario was drawn a little too far east in that area. Although, it’s a weird part of the country because nearby, there are some majority francophone towns on the Ontario side.
An OQLF inspector was famously run out of Shawville back in the 90s. I think many residents are still proud of the incident.
carswell
Had heard of Shawville but it had never really registered. Thank dawg for Wikipedia.
Located about 75 km (50 mi) west of Gatineau on the north shore of the Outaouais River. Named after James Shaw, who promised to donate 0.8 ha to the community, a bargain ticket to semi-immortality. One of the only Quebec municipalities without a Catholic church.
DeWolf
Wakefield is another place that is surprisingly anglo, to the point where shopkeepers weren’t able to serve francophone customers in French. Chelsea is just down the road but more bilingual in a kind of west end Montreal or Brome County way.
Kevin
DeWolf
When did that happen?
I was in Chelsea/Wakefield last Labour Day and found the vast majority of restaurant and store staff were francophones — even the guy who had set up a kiosk for jewelry on a sidewalk near the river.DeWolf
Last time I was there was in February 2019, so it’s been a few years. Chelsea was definitely more francophone, but bilingual in the sense that there seemed to be a pretty even split among customers in the various cafés and restaurants I visited. In Wakefield, I was in three different businesses that were run by unilingual anglos, which I found surprising. And most places greeted me in English right off the bat, no “Bonjour hi” or anything.
Looking at the census, Wakefield is about 75% anglo, about 35% unilingual anglo. I was there in the winter, so I’m sure in the summer businesses need more help and most of the people they’d hire would be francophones.
Mark
Lots of people from Ottawa and surrounding areas in Eastern Ontario have cottages in that part of Quebec, so many in fact that when they shut the interprovincial bridge at the start of the pandemic, it became a bit of an issue, as those folks who couldn’t go check on their places, make repairs, etc. So a fair bit of the English heard in that neck of the woods is from seasonal cottage owners.
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