Three years ago, a couple of teenagers threw rocks at the coloured glass panels of Champ-de-Mars metro station, damaging the work of Marcelle Ferron so badly that it’s going to take till 2024 to complete the restoration. The STM is suing the vandals for $147,000 and possibly more if the cost of the work rises. The two young men are currently aged 21 and 22.
Updates from May, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
As heavily presaged already in the media, Quebec’s indoor mask mandate will be lifted as of May 14 except for health care settings and public transit.
Today’s Santé Québec numbers show 30 Covid deaths reported over the last 24 hours.
Kevin
There are a dozen variants circulating in Quebec right now, with the most prevalent being BA2.
Omicron and Delta aren’t even on the list anymore…
https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-19/donnees/variantsjeather
Clicsante 4th dose appointments are now open for 18+
vasi
Thanks jeather! I didn’t realize that at all.
jeather
My friend texted me, because I kept wavering about going to a walk-in clinic (apparently some are more picky). She saw it on twitter; there hasn’t been an announcement. It appears to be a very recent update.
Blork
It should come with a ruling of automatic 10 years in prison for anyone harassing someone who chooses to still wear a mask.
Kate
News item on boosters for 18 and over.
walkerp
Absolutely Blork. The crossing guard for my daughter’s school says he was getting at least one harrassing comment a day while standing out there in a mask which he is required for his job to wear. Just infuriating.
Tim S.
I knew who Marie-Mai was (is?)! Do I get points?
Tim S.
Aargh, wrong threads.
GC
Yes, thanks, jeather, I also had no idea.
Kate
Tim S., here are some points: • • • • • • • • • •
Tim S.
Thanks Kate, I’ll carry them around as proof of authenticity.
jeather
Got my 4th dose yesterday. They allowed me to choose between Pfizer and Moderna.
MarcG
My wife and I went today to get ours since she has health problems. The triage nurse made a big deal about whether I wanted Pfizer or Moderna as if it was Coke vs. Pepsi. I told her to sign me up for whatever her professional opinion thought was best. I’ve read some stuff from Science News about the difference but who the fuck am I to be making decisions about it? The nurse who jabbed me made a point of pointing at the label on the needle that said “Pfizer” and when I asked her why she did they she said that a lot of people are anxious about what exactly they’re being injected with, but then said “but it’s just a sticker, it doesn’t actually tell you what’s in it”. So much mistrust and self-doctoring going on.
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Kate
J-F Lisée is on a rant Wednesday about how some workers in modest jobs have the temerity to speak English together, since that happens to be their common language. Worse, anglo Quebecers mostly don’t watch French TV, listen to French radio, or read French books or magazines. We’re just so stubborn – what can you do with us?
I suggest all anglos “ayant droit” be obliged to sign up for weekly self-criticism sessions in which we confess how we still haven’t watched Star Académie or read Réjean Ducharme. The best ones can be televised, and Lisée can then suggest suitable punishments.
Ian
What’s really shocking to me is how many Francophone Québecois assume “Dion” instead of”Louis-Ferdinand” when I mention “Céline”. There’s not many people I know who have bothered to read many local classics like “Balconville” or “Bonheur d’occasion” in French _or_ English …
My Québecois father-in-law was shocked that I didn’t know who was the vedette du jour from Star Académie but settled down when I told him I didn’t watch the equivalent English language shows either 😀
Kevin
I’m going to start sending bags of earplugs to the crackpots so they don’t have to listen to English anymore.
Thomas
Is this a carbon copy of Jean-François Lisée’s Marie-Mai rant from a few years ago? As is often the case with mid-to-late career artists, the fans only want to hear the greatest hits. No incentive to come up with new material 😉
Avec tout le respect que je leur dois, I have a greater mastery of the French language and greater familiarity with global French-language culture (which includes, but is not limited to, Quebec) than the majority of our local francophones. And have been contributing to the defence and vitality of the French language in Quebec since I arrived here from Western Canada over 15 years ago. However I will always be counted by linguistic statistics as a vulgar anglophone, and be considered a bad anglo because I don’t find Quebec popular culture (with the highest per capita rate of vedettes in the developed world) as fascinating as I’m supposed to. Oh well
DeWolf
I like Le Devoir (its cultural coverage is great and it has some very good reporting) but the dominance of its opinion pages by dinosaurs who don’t have anything new or interesting to say is partly why I recently gave up my subscription. Lisée’s take is so stale he is using eight-year-old data to support his points!
Incidentally, I think it’s a telling sign of Lisée’s politics that instead of supporting the Amazon workers, he is castigating them for the language they speak while working. Pseudo-intellectual identitarianism above all else – that’s the PQ today, and a big reason why the lefties have all decamped to QS while the ethnonationalists found their home in the CAQ.
Maybe the Amazon workers don’t speak French because they’re too busy working for low pay for a company that doesn’t give them any benefits or support? And the government’s own French courses are often difficult to access, even if they’re free? Of course that’s a systemic problem and Lisée is only interested in blaming the naughty immigrants and big bad anglos.
Tee Owe
I guess Quebecois who travel or (God-forbid) move to another place speak to each other only in the local language – so as to not offend the locals
EmilyG
I once saw a bullshit study in a French-language local newspaper that “proved” that workplaces where everyone speaks French are more productive.
When in reality, a workplace where everyone communicates well through knowing any common language, would be likely to be more productive, I’d think.Blork
Maybe I’d watch more Quebec TV if it wasn’t wall-to-wall Véronique Cloutier all day every day on every channel.
Ephraim
And I’ll bet that he knows very little about Quebec Anglophone culture… Does he know who Sean Henry is? How about Rob Lurie? Tom Auburn? Kathy Reichs? Heather O’Neill? Frankly, I doubt he even knows who Ezekiel Hart was. April Wine? Gino Vannelli? Naomi Klein? Louise Penny?
The point is… it’s two solitudes. And it up to the government to break those two solitudes by accepting a bit of both into each other’s culture… to make each culture richer.
And incidentally, I watch La Facture, L’Epicerie, Ca Vaut La Cout, Infoman, Hussiers, Vendre ou Renover au Quebec, et Un Souper Presque Parfait…. funny… not a single program on TVA. And I’d rather go to the dentist than watch Star Academie.
GC
I Googled Cloutier, to make sure I was thinking of the correct person and one of the first hits was her (English) Wikipedia page.
“Véronique Cloutier (born December 31, 1974[1]), also known as Véro, is a popular French Canadian TV and radio personality. She is the daughter of producer and sexual abuser Guy Cloutier…”
Ouch. I’m not going to defend anything Guy might have done, but I’m not sure it’s the most important thing about his daughter.
I’m also a bad Anglo who doesn’t watch much Quebec TV, but I also don’t watch a lot of TV in general. Is that also a crime? And, when I do, it’s not shows like Star Académie–in any language.
Thomas, I also thought of the Marie-Mai rant from a few years ago. I didn’t know who she was before that and, other than seeing her pop up at the Bell Centre a few times, I haven’t learned much about her since. But, again, this isn’t so much me avoiding Quebecois culture as it is me no longer listening to the radio or seeking out pop music anywhere else.
Blork
Véro is also on the cover of 8 out of 10 Quebec magazines every month, including (you guessed it), “Véro” magazine.
Uatu
Blah blah blah…. This guilt trip again. Maybe this was relevant in the 3 channel universe of the past of old farts like Lisee, but there’s the internet now and a world of choice beyond QC. I think he should include young Quebecois who watch Anime in Japanese on crunchyroll. That’s diluting their frenchness right? In any case I’ve been thro the whole immersion thing growing up watching french tv, reading french music magazines and listening to french music and guess what- I still get shit from complete strangers for talking in English in public. Doubly so because I’m a visible minority. So fuck it. Do whatever the fuck you want. A part of me now finds it funny because me just showing up and saying Hi in English makes them turn red and lose their minds. Hahaha motherfucker. I said Hi.
walkerp
Ephriam, April Wine, Good God, man NO!
Kate
GC, that Wikipedia intro may seem a bit harsh, but the Guy Cloutier case was a big story because one of his victims was Nathalie Simard, one of Quebec’s major vedettes in the 1980s. There’s no way Véronique Cloutier can untangle her biography from her father’s.
dhomas
I gotta be honest, I had to look up some of those names you mentioned, @Ephraim.
I’m a little petty, though. I prefer to explain to people how the Patriotes were a mix of anglophones and francophones. For example, Wolfred Nelson (born in Montreal to British parents) led the Patriotes Rebellion along with his brother Robert. Wolfred later became mayor of Montreal, among other accomplishments. That green, white, and red flag doesn’t mean what you think it means, or at least it didn’t originally.JaneyB
@Kate – Interesting. I didn’t make the connection between Véro’s dad and Nathalie Simard – there are so many Cloutiers here. That was a huge story and many Anglos remember Rene Simard from his national CBC show back in the day. My, my, the QC culture scene is tight. Yes, Véro is somehow on every magazine rack, every billboard all the time.
Frank
On a la victimite aigue dans ce coin ci
GC
I was living in Ontario at the time Cloutier was sentenced and it likely wasn’t as big a story there.
Maria Julianello
Salut le monde! I am researching Gino Vannelli before he became famous and left Montreal. He played in clubs like Le Moustache, In Concert, Altitude 757 and Chez Dominique. If anyone info photos etc on those early days kindly contact me. Merci beaucoup.
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Kate
The city ombudsman reports that there’s a “humanitarian crisis” in Milton-Parc where indigenous homeless folks have been tending to congregate.
qatzelok
We’re a business-dominated society, and the fenced-off parking lot in that area (that forces groups of people onto the skinny sidewalks) shows how much businessmen care about homelessness. Zero.
Kate
Allowing access to an empty lot wouldn’t solve the problem. The ombudsman is right: there needs to be a serious, permanent place for people to live – inside. This area is where Raphaël André died of exposure and that should be warning enough.
I happened by there recently on foot. The weird thing is that the folks I saw seemed to be happy. Winter’s over, they were out in the sun, greeting their friends, making jokes, generally whooping it up. I’m not saying they’re content not to have a proper place to sleep, but talk about rising above your difficulties.
Someone needs to get onto the issue of creating a living space BUT one with common areas and arrangements for people to congregate and socialize. Our convention of putting one person in one small cell-like room and expecting them to thrive and be grateful isn’t good for anybody, but it certainly is not going to work with folks from a culture very different from our buttoned‑up, work‑oriented city life.
On the 80 bus that day, on my way down to that area, there was an indigenous couple. They were having a good time on that bus – laughing, teasing each other, loud, and absolutely unselfconscious about it. All the white people on the bus were looking very slightly pained and saying nothing. It was actually very funny.
DeWolf
Christopher Curtis wrote a great story last fall about the (largely Inuit) itinerant community around Milton/Park:
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Kate
Ricova, the recycling firm used by the city, which the inspector general recently recommended be sacked for doing a poor job and generating materials that can’t be sold, has shown itself very litigious in demanding its contracts be honoured, even to imposing its services on other municipalities.
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Kate
Martin Prud’homme, who was suspended as head of the SQ in 2019 for a possible ethics breach, and who then retired in 2021, will be announced Wednesday morning as the city’s new public security director.
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