Quebec’s three largest labour unions have formed a common front in advance of next year’s negotiations – and also in advance of the October election.
Updates from April, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
In a twist to the story I blogged earlier Sunday, it transpires that the victim of the van attack Saturday night was packing a gun. That puts another light on the incident.
Blork
Aha! Hence the qualification in my comment: “Agree completely on the last point (permanent suspension of driver’s license if you use a vehicle as a weapon — barring self-defence).”
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Kate
The city is promising to complete its water main works on Notre‑Dame West faster than originally planned to help restaurant owners save their terrasse season – and just in time for Grand Prix weekend, as noted here.
It’s unfortunate that the work has intersected with the pandemic so’s to hit restaurants with a double whammy, but the work has already been delayed three times, and there will never be a good moment to dig up the street outside a row of restaurants.
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Kate
The Journal tells the story of Éva Circé‑Côté, a pioneer of the public library idea in Montreal. To understand Montreal, and Quebec, you need to deeply grasp how tight a control the Catholic church had until the 1960s. Libraries were patrolled closely, the church not wishing to enable access to ideas that might undermine religious faith. Circé‑Côté wanted to make more secular books available from the public library so, in 1932, they sacked her.
When the Grande bibliothèque was preparing to open in 2005 and the city was closing down its big library on Sherbrooke near Lafontaine Park, they held a series of book giveaways. It meant waiting in line, then being given twenty minutes to dash through the stacks and pick ten volumes of any kind, and then be shooed out. It was an interesting exercise, but it was also eye‑opening to see the rows and rows of volumes representing “The Catholic view on x” where x was any topic you could think of. Nobody wanted these books – they were the most spurned category, even more than the shelves of outdated computer manuals. But the library had been obliged to give them house room for decades.
Religion also comes into Le Devoir’s recent piece on patriote Jean‑Olivier Chénier, denied a burial in consecrated ground for many years. It’s part of a series examining the history of French North America.
This week, Radio-Canada looked back on the opening of the metro’s yellow line just in time for the inauguration of Expo 67. If you needed a single piece of evidence to show how closely the Catholic church’s control touched modern‑day Montreal, consider the naming of the artificial island created for the World’s Fair: Île Notre‑Dame. I mean, who else would you name it for?
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Kate
A man was shot in Tétreaultville Saturday evening and was taken to hospital in serious condition. There have been no arrests.
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Kate
A man was arrested late Saturday after allegedly using his van to mow down another man with whom he had had a dispute.
I was reprimanded recently on Twitter for writing a headline that read “Pedestrian killed by truck in Rosemont” (my interlocutor pointed out it was the driver, not the truck) but look at TVA’s head here: “Altercation : une camionnette percute volontairement un piéton.” But a van doesn’t have a will.
Anyone proven to have used a vehicle as a weapon needs to lose their drivers permit forever. Fight me.
Blork
Agree completely on the last point (permanent suspension of driver’s license if you use a vehicle as a weapon — barring self-defence).
But I roll my eyes at the Twitter reprimand. That kind of thing is just stupid. Sure, people can dislike motor vehicles and the people who drive them, but insisting on using loaded and diversional language just to reinforce their bias is just stupid.
If a man is killed by a piano that accidentally falls from a crane, no one says “man killed by crane operator.” If a man is killed by a runaway train, no one says “man killed by train engineer who fell out of moving train.” If a man is killed by having a poorly-made brick wall fall on them, no one says “man killed by bricklayer.”
But if a man is killed by a truck we’re supposed to say “man killed by truck driver?” How does that differentiate from a truck driver who is two kilometres from his truck when he beats a man to death with a stick? According to your reprimander both stories would get the same headline. So much for clarity of information.
Blork
BTW, I’m only referring to how we talk about these things in headlines and in conversation. Responsibility for those things is a separate issue. It’s not the job of headlines or conversation to ascribe that responsibility because we don’t actually know at first glance if that crane operator, train driver, bricklayer, or truck driver is responsible, legally or otherwise. That’s why we do investigations and have hearings instead of letting Twitter decide.
bumper carz
“If a man is killed by a piano that accidentally falls from a crane…”
Imagine living in a city where hundreds of thousands of pianos were dangling. Millions even… at rush hour.
Could it ever be a truly safe place? A place where one would want to walk around?
dhomas
@Blork In your last example, where the truck driver kills someone with a stick, your headline wouldn’t say “man killed by stick”, right? The stick is an extension of that individual. I think the same can be applied to a motor vehicle, or anything else that can be used as a weapon. Ex: “the shooter gunned down his victim at X place”. The same logic can be applied to the truck driver. “Pedestrian killed by motorist” would be a perfectly descriptive headline.
Blork
@dhomas, you’re really stretching things. If a person kills someone with a stick, or with a gun, it is almost certain that the person set out to intentionally harm or kill the person with that weapon. But when a truck driver (or car driver for that matter) gets behind the wheel to make a delivery or whatever, they are not setting out to harm or kill someone. It goes to intention.
In the rare cases where someone deliberately harms or kills someone with a vehicle then the wording can be different. But even then it’s only when it’s known that the driver did it intentionally.
Anything else is a rush to judgment. It’s not a rush to judgement in the case of a gun or a stick because there really isn’t any other explanation.
John B
To kill someone with a car or truck you have to be actually using the car or truck. In this story it was definitely the driver that did the attempted killing, not the vehicle. The driver looked at the person, aimed, and used the vehicle as a tool to attempt to kill. In other incidents of death and injury resulting from collisions between vehicles and pedestrians or cyclists, it’s often the driver that makes the choice to speed, to run the red, to roll through the stop, to not check their blind spot, etc. A car can’t (yet) do any of that on its own, therefore it is the driver doing the killing, not the vehicle.
In any of the other examples, (hanging pianos that fall, falling bricks, abandoned moving trains), yes there is blame to be given, but they are all things that can happen without someone at at the controls directing the deadly event to happen. That’s not the case with most motor vehicle “accidents,” in fact the only time it would be the case is if someone parked a car on a hill and left it in neutral, kind of like the Lac-Megantic train.
Blork
John, there’s two different stories here. The main story is the one you’re talking about, where someone deliberately used their car as a weapon. That’s not what I’m referring to. I’m talking about the second story; the one Kate mentions where she was reprimanded on Twitter by referring to a separate incident that was an accident. Everything I say above is in reference to that second story.
WRT your second paragraph, my point is that until there is an investigation, it isn’t fair to ascribe blame to the vehicle operator. There are many other possibilities. Maybe the victim deliberately ran in front of the vehicle in an act of suicide. Maybe the vehicle operator had passed out due to a heart attack or other medical crisis. Maybe someone dropped a rock on the vehicle from above and shattered the windshield, obscuring the driver’s vision. Maybe the victim ran out from behind a parked car without looking. Maybe vandals removed a stop sign and the driver blew through an intersection legitimately believing they had the right of way. Need I go on?
Are you seriously saying that all drivers should immediately be held responsible for all collisions? What else, should we skip the bother of the investigation and just hang the driver on the spot?
John B
> Are you seriously saying that all drivers should immediately be held responsible for all collisions?
No. If something completely out of the driver’s control causes the collision, and the driver was driving responsibly and defensively for the conditions, then of course they shouldn’t be held responsible.
The thing is, most of the time that’s not the case. Someone runs a stop sign or something and the headline says “Pedestrian killed by car” instead of “Pedestrian killed by driver not following the rules of the road” It contributes to the narrative that drivers are not responsible for maintaining control of their vehicle and operating it in a safe manner, which is used to “justify” needless death and injury.
Rewriting headlines in a way to normalize the idea that drivers are responsible for their vehicles is a way to change perception of who is welcome to use our streets. We don’t have to auto-blame the drivers, but we shouldn’t make it sound as if cars are somehow autonomously getting into collisions.
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