Orchestra conductor Boris Brott, artistic director of the Orchestre classique de Montréal, was killed Tuesday in a hit‑and‑run in Hamilton. Brott, a native of Montreal, came from a well‑known musical family. He was 78.
Updates from April, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
I haven’t wanted to get all angryphone about Bill 96, but I can’t ignore the odd business about the PLQ pushing for the bill to force English‑speaking CEGEP students to pass three non‑language courses in French, but now backing off and saying they were wrong.
Do these people not know that in many university courses in Montreal, it’s accepted that you can write your papers in either language? (Although I don’t know how much that tolerance extends down to CEGEP level.) A lot of people can have good comprehension of their second language and an ability to work in it and write texts and emails, but would find it much more difficult to write at length to an academic standard. Of course tolerance is not what laws like Bill 96 are about.
Also, on Tuesday, Philippe Mercure in La Presse had a piece titled Le colère des anglos which is actually more about the PLQ’s difficulty in trying to keep anglo votes while enlarging its appeal to francophones. However, Joseph Facal didn’t read past the headline and took it to mean La Presse was getting too tender‑hearted about the blokes.
Update: Of course Martineau and Bock-Côté are all riled up Wednesday about the anglos. What would they write about if they didn’t have us? I’m not linking – we all know where they are.
I’m particularly miffed about Bock-Côté’s headline “Nos anglos…”. I’m not your anglo, Mathieu.
Tim S.
So, the issue is with the term “to pass.” Quebec university admissions are based in the R score, which is formula that, among other things, assesses the student’s grade compared to the class average. So a student on or below the class average has a lower R score, which affects admission to university programs. So if a student’s French hinders their performance compared to other students, even if they pass it still drags down their R score and hurts their chances of getting into a competitive program.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, plenty of people, including Quebec francophones, study in their second, or even third and fourth language, and are mostly better off for it. But the way the R score is designed you can’t just wave away some lower grades as ‘a learning experience’ on an application letter. There are many good ideas about how to promote bilingualism in CEGEPs, such as exchange programs or joint offerings between CEGEPs, but the version in Bill 96 looks like it’s just set up to punish anglo students.
jeather
Although this isn’t the major concern, English Cegeps are now capped — which has its own problems, because they get fined if they go above the cap but if they go below the cap, the cap is permanently reduced, so best of luck with counting acceptances — and if 3 of the classes must now be taught in French, that’s so many teachers who will lose their jobs.
Kate
the version in Bill 96 looks like it’s just set up to punish anglo students
It plays well in the regions.
Kevin
Regarding the amendment as it currently stands, there are multiple streams of French-level education currently taught at English boards, and the kids who do level 3, 4 or 5 in high school (at least half their courses are in French) should have no problem with this requirement. It’s the kids who do basic French who won’t be able, and the teachers who will have to rewrite their curriculum.
Regarding the amendment as it was proposed, I think it demonstrates how little the Liberals know about their base. Insert meme of open-mouthed anglos looking to Libs turning their head and gawking at Quebec nationalists.
As for the zealot-columnists, their brains are still struggling to understand how someone can speak French and not be a separatist.
JaneyB
@Tim S – Excellent point about the ‘R score’. There really, really needs to be a lawsuit against the R score.
Ian
It’s rather depressing that the party that proclaims itself the staunchest allies of the historically English-speaking population of Quebec is so miserably incompetent that it tables legislation even more punitive to English-language education than the ostensible Nationalists. I’m not of the “if voting could change anything it would be made illegal” camp but I’m starting to feel like as far as Anglo rights go there aren’t any viable options.
The one thing a lot of people aren’t mentioning about Bill 96 though is that in certain parts of Montreal Francophones go to English CEGEP because it’s closest. At Abbott we have tons of students from Vaudreuil and Rigaud (for instance) that haven’t done a day of school in English but don’t want to take a 2.5 hour each way public transit ride to a downtown French CEGEP, as the one French West Island CEGEP has a limited number of prgrammes. My classes are often up to 25% Francophone students.
jeather
There is going to be a “priority” for anglophones (presumably = those with eligibility, not just those who came from English high schools, but who knows) into English Cegeps which is going to be another fun thing to work out. Do all anglophones have to get places before anyone else? Can you have a cutoff for anglophones in any given program, then start again with other groups?
On the one hand, of course this is terrible for those students who can’t get into English schooling because they don’t count as anglophone; on the other hand, it’s not exactly fair that anglos can’t get post-secondary schooling in English because the government won’t authorize more spaces and they’re filled up by other people.
Kate
jeather, you remind me that I must look up how I establish that I’m an historic anglo. I don’t need it now, but when I get old and infirm I might actually want to assert my right to health care in English. My dad lost his French when he got quite old and it’s possible the same thing will happen to me.
jeather
Might be able to get it with your permanent code? That’s what’s easiest to prove your kids have the right to English education. Not sure when they showed up, though.
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Kate
Literature professor Karim Larose is working on a collective memory piece about St‑Hubert Street and the lives lived and worked around it, and he’s collecting images and recollections.
It’s too bad the work’s being done on Facebook but I suppose it’s a way to reach people, even if it partially blocks non‑users. (At some point, community and cultural groups are going to wonder why on earth they chose to do their PR on a semi‑closed, proprietary platform when the entire internet is open to all.)
It’s also odd that La Presse categorized the piece about this project under Immobilier.
Daniel
When I worked at an online news outlet, word once came down that any story that might conceivably/kind of/sort of have a claim to a real estate angle should be billed as such because ads were sold by “path” (the online equivalent of a newspaper section) and the real estate path was a prized one for advertisers and thus represented more money for the outlet.
As newsroom staffers, we received very little (next to no) direction about anything regarding advertising and this was ultimately left to our discretion, but this does stand out in my mind.
(In this case, I guess it’s about a neighbourhood/place, so…. there’s a tenuous connection to the real estate market [shrug])
Kate
Daniel, that’s interesting, because allegations have been made on this blog that journalists are encouraged to bias their stories not to outrage big advertisers (notably car companies), but this has been countered by other claimants saying editorial is completely separate from advertising and not influenced by it. This is the first time I’ve seen an indication of how the issue is not so clear as it might seem.
Daniel
And to flesh out my thought: The other direction that we received based on advertising was “please use video! we need more video views!” Because video ads brought higher prices than other kinds. My experience with this was 10 years ago and you can still see it (auto)playing out today!
Was that advertising interference in the newsroom? I don’t think it’s what most people mean by that. I didn’t feel like I was selling out my news principles. Mmmmaybe if there were two stories and one had video and one didn’t, I might be more inclined to play up the story with video? Maybe.
From my print newspaper days, the only ad/newsroom issue that I remember was “adjacency.” If a plane crashed, the story couldn’t be next to an airline ad, to use an extreme example.
OK, story time is over. Thanks for indulging me!
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Kate
Seems a bit early to make the decision but the Canada Day parade has been cancelled due to Covid.
The man who organized that parade for many years with little support from officialdom, Dr Roopnarine Singh, died last month in Ontario.
DeWolf
There’s a Canada Day parade? (smirk emoji)
Kate
See, that’s why Singh thought it should continue – that smirk.
It was unfashionable to support Canada for a long time because Quebec nationalism, and it’s unfashionable now because genocide against Indigenous people. But Singh, who came here from Trinidad, saw at least something to approve of and celebrate.
Shelley
Unbelievable how Quebec continues to live with its head in the sand, trying to squash the celebration of the amazing country it belongs too. Oh and yes, llest us not forget ALL of the federal money that quebecers profit from every day. Like what….hmmm transfer payments from other provinces, even though those other provinces economies have tanked, all of the wuebecers who profit every year from “Chomage” and Covid payments (living at home with their parents and just choosing not to work). And ohhhh I could go on and on. Oh yes, and the language police, the PQ….I’d love to know how much money has been spent on these separatist parties with homelessness increasing and our hospitals on their knees. Quebec IS beautiful….until you look at its politics. Two words: Selfish and unrealistic.
Kevin
Shelley
I have never seen anyone complaining about transfer payments who understands how they work, and you continue the trend.walkerp
Yes and not really sure what this has to do with the parade
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Kate
The new Insectarium has opened. Photos from the Journal, tweet from the Mayor.
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Kate
Quebec has stopped the work on the Ray-Mont site because it does not meet environmental standards. Noise is being considered an environmental contaminant in this case.
dhomas
Looks like the CAQ is trying to win some more votes in the East, but I’ll take it. I hope they make it so difficult for Ray-Mont that they abandon the project and the land can be repurposed for something better. Wishful thinking, I know, but I’m trying to be optimistic.
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Kate
It’s not official till 11 am, but all signs indicate that the mask mandate will be extended at least till the end of April.
Loyola High School has resumed distance learning because of a surge of Covid among both teachers and students.
Update: It’s official. Masks till at least the end of April.
(Cue another demonstration with shouts of “LI-BAR-TÉ”?)
Santé Québec marks 31 Covid deaths in Quebec in the last 24 hours.
Blork
Spotted on Instagram this morning, from Dr. Amit Arya:
WHAT WE NEEDED: Let’s learn to live with COVID, so keep society open & safe with N95 masks, ventilation upgrades, vaccine passports, 10 paid sick days & easy access to therapeutics.
WHAT WE GOT: Let’s learn to live with COVID, so let’s just ignore COVID & let everyone get infected.
And another one spotted on Instagram, this time from evolutionary biologist T. Ryan Gregory:
Be clear that “learning to live with COVID” means making changes, not doing nothing: ventilation, booster campaigns, vaccines for kids, global vaccine equity, masks in high-risk situations (mandated if necessary), more testing and reporting. Factor more than just hospitalizations, and deaths into your discussion of risks. There is also Long COVID, burnout of healthcare workers and others, reduced hospital access for everyone if they are overwhelmed with COVID patients, economic impacts of work illnesses…
Kate
Yes, Blork. People seemed to interpret “live with Covid” as “go back to 2019” but that’s naive. The game has changed.
Ephraim
Ventilation… ventilation… ventilation. If it’s your home, you can get a unit or two from Airfree, that doesn’t need filters and just “boils” the air over time. But in places with a lot of people, it means that we are going to have to learn to live with HEPA filters and more ventilation. And we should start with schools… where people seem healthy enough but are actually carriers.
Ian
I have a HEPA filter in class because I brought my own but the official position of pretty much every school is “uh no we don’t have budget”. I currently have about 10% of my students out sick with COVID symptoms.
Blork
If only the Quebec government had $3 billion to spend on ventilation in schools and whatnot.
JohnS
Just to point out that that 31 deaths includes late reports that have just come in, its not the actual number of deaths in the last 24h. Eleven of those deaths actually occurred before the 29th of March; there’s a fair amount of lag. If you check the INSPQ data looking back a couple of weeks the average number of deaths per day in March has been around 10-12 per day. Source; T Gerbet, twitter comment on the most recent data. https://twitter.com/ThomasGerbet/status/1511154639986647044?s=20&t=5rh5Lw19sc8D3IMgXJeZxA
Unfortunately the way stats get collected means we won’t know the true number of deaths from COVID on any given day until about a week or so after it happens
Meezly
This item seemed to have slipped through the news around April 1 that they quietly cancelled the pediatric hotline to set up “walk-in” type appointments for kids and to alleviate emergency wait times at children hospitals.
Not sure whether it was every communicated that this service was only temporary and merely a supplement to hospitals being overwhelmed due to Covid. It seemed many parents found this service to be very useful and were quite rightly upset that it was cancelled without much notice, probably part of the ‘back to normal’ lifting measures of the government.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hotline-montreal-pediatric-hospitals-1.6405983
Kate
Meezly, thanks for linking that story up. I noticed it but it sort of slipped my mind. It’s weird that something so effective was simply turned off. Some vaguely paranoid part of my brain auto-completed this thought with “Maybe it was too effective?”
But you know – maybe it was too effective?
DisgruntledGoat
> I have a HEPA filter in class because I brought my own
Yeah, this reminds me of all of the “extra mile” stuff that was wonderful in my primary school classes being entirely down to the individual teachers spending out of pocket or putting their own time to make things happen. It’s criminal how the education under resources teachers outside of a global pandemic, let alone when lives are at stake in a more urgent sense
EmilyG 14:02 on 2022-04-06 Permalink
He was a mentor and friend to many of my friends.
Such a sad loss.
Kate 19:19 on 2022-04-06 Permalink
There’s some reaction from his family members on CTV, and a tribute from the Gazette’s Bill Brownstein.
Tu Thanh Ha tweeted a ten-minute video which may be worth your time.