Covid is on the rise again. Readers of this blog have caught it recently, as have others I know, and the CBC reports that several summer camps have been shut down following outbreaks.
The Santé Québec site ticks up 20 more deaths over the last 24 hours. The Gazette speaks to two hospital doctors about their concerns about its impact on hospitals and the lack of data to make good decisions.
Excellent read Tuesday by Toula Drimonis on Pierre Vallières and the N-word debate. A lot of the local commentariat are protesting the CRTC ruling against Radio‑Canada, including Jean Charest, who’s making it a premise to criticize Justin Trudeau, although surely he can’t actually expect the prime minister to interfere with the CRTC. Some anglo Canadians are also calling the CRTC ruling censorship, although I’m not going to link to those – they’re easily found on Twitter.
Words like “dictator, regime and authoritarian” are used as a pretext to destroy entire nations in our day.
I wonder if these words will eventually be banned as well. (while the rich continue with the bombing of small countries – with new words)
That’s a great piece by Drimonis. Thanks for sharing, Kate.
That’s a really good article, with some interesting updates on Vallières’ points of view that most people are likely unaware of.
Author or article writes: “Vallières was inspired by the Black Panthers”
Not quite. He actually **did some time in prison and chatted extensively** with some Black Panthers.
And when the author says that the analogy between the two peoples’ oppressions is inaccurate, she hasn’t researched enough to know that. She bases her article’s narrative on her absorbed prejudices, and then tries to claim “damage” from a vocabulary she doesn’t approve of.
qatzelok, were white people from France shipped over to North America and sold into slavery? Is it an “absorbed prejudice” for me to say this? Nope. It is not. It is fact.
Doing time with people and chatting with them extensively is not in opposition to “being inspired by” them. If anything, those things go together.
“qatzelok, were white people from France shipped over to North America and sold into slavery?”
No. The Acadians were sent the other way to ethnic-cleanse them. To determine if the analogy that Valliere makes is accurate, you have to study the life conditions of both French-Canadians and African-Americans in the mid 20th Century.
So white people from France were not shipped over to North America and sold into slavery.
Some white people were displaced from indigenous lands and sent elsewhere. Yes, it was harsh. But it was not slavery.
“And when the author says that the analogy between the two peoples’ oppressions is inaccurate, she hasn’t researched enough to know that. She bases her article’s narrative on her absorbed prejudices, and then tries to claim “damage” from a vocabulary she doesn’t approve of.”
This actually describes you to a tee, qatzelok. You aren’t even trying to understand why that word is so awful and you’re reading the article from your own unwavering prejudices. All you need to do is read up on the etymology of the n-word for you to gain even an ounce of understanding. For you to compare that word with “dictator, regime and authoritarian” is so — … I could use harsher words, but I’ll stick with shallow and ignorant to just be civil.
Several countries in Africa have been bombed, coup-detat-ed, and worse in the last 20 years, but without ever using an offensive word. Isn’t that great, Meezly? Should we approve of these real, physical atrocities because they used a nice vocabulary?
(let’s talk about what ‘shallow’ means)
without ever using an offensive word
You seem to know a lot about strife in Africa, whether between religious groups or ethnic minorities. And you seem to be pretty certain this has progressed without any offensive language.
Don’t make me laugh.
A bank robber called Michael Fidanoglou, nicknamed Crazy Mike, has been paroled after 25 years behind bars.
Fidanoglou shot a bank customer during a robbery in 1998, rendering him paraplegic, among a long list of other convictions. Police also suspect him in the killing of lawyer Frank Shoofey in 1985 but he was never formally accused. The tone of Daniel Renaud’s article here is cautious, giving Fidanoglou some credit for expressing a desire to lead a law‑abiding life, but clearly prepared not to be surprised if it turns out otherwise.
Workers at the airport are being harassed by frustrated travellers over delays and other troubles.
As I pointed out a while ago, Air Canada employees aren’t even being paid enough to take this kind of abuse. (They barely make more than McDonald’s employees!)
It is illegal in Quebec to verbally harass someone and the employee can actually go to the police and register the complaint. (As a teacher, a single police complaint by a teacher about verbal harassment by a student and that student would never be allowed back into the building!) The employee has a right to work free of verbal harassment and management is supposed to step in to protect the employee. And if they don’t, the employee can ask for CNESST (or what ever extra letters of the alphabet they have added lately) to step in.
But if you have to take out your frustration, ask for a supervisor, at least they are paid well enough! Leave the poor guy working in the front lines alone. Same is true of Passport Canada, the poor front-line employees aren’t responsible for managements inability to manage.
La Presse reports that nearly 500 units of social housing in Montreal are empty and boarded up for lack of maintenance and repairs.
So Kate… do you think that a for-profit REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) that has to answer to the shareholding public each year and also each quarter would be able to allow their apartments to be empty and boarded up because of lack of maintenance and repairs?
For me, this goes back to the same problem that I have with Revenu Quebec… they don’t really have to answer to the public for all the dossiers on their desk by reporting publicly everything that they are doing and have investigative reporters question them publicly about it.
If you had to publicly report each quarter, we could ask for intervention sooner.
Among the publicly available information that should be published: Total number of apartments under administration, total number of occupied apartments, total number of waiting days for requested repairs, total estimated cost of repairs, total value of unoccupied apartments, reasons for unoccupied, number of days until they can be occupied, etc etc etc.
It’s amazing how embarrassing numbers seem to light a fire under things when you have to post them PUBLICLY for everyone to see. And that let’s us question if management is actually able to do their job.
There are people who really need these apartments, but no one to really answer for this. Not like we can fire someone for mismanagement, can we… we can just move them along in the bureaucracy… Competency isn’t a requirement to work in public service.
I’m not sure this is a mismanagement issue. Montreal’s Office municipal has been chronically underfunded for years. One reason is Montreal receives a % of the province’s total budget for HLM maintenance based on the city’s population. But Montreal has a way higher number of HLM unit / person then the rest of Quebec.
@Cadichon – I’m willing to bet that if all this data was published we would learn a LOT about it. I’m left with a long list of questions…. most of which need to be normalized as per dollar or per square metre. Is it cheaper to have the city do it, or private corporations? Are we better off subsidizing apartments or running them?
It’s not magic. Just like a car, just like a human, just like everything else, you need maintenance… the occasional check-up with the doctor, food, oil, gas, whatever it is, it’s all costs and you need to have through it all the way through. And if you aren’t going to build buildings that were “crown corporation”, then we ought to think of how we are going to do it.
I still prefer something along the lines of Habitat for Humanity, where the property is not a rental but with hours of work and maintenance, the person gains equity. I don’t think the city is particularly capable at running these apartments. The costs of unionized skilled employees and professional managers is just not the city’s forte. It just may be cheaper to let a professional run it and pay them a management fee for it. I can also be wrong… prove me wrong by publishing the numbers and showing me that the city is doing a great job… but the fact that there are empty unused dilapidated apartments… doesn’t speak well for the city’s management.
EmilyG 13:54 on 2022-07-06 Permalink
The Quebec Health Minister and Public Health Director will hold a COVID-19 briefing tomorrow (July 7th.)
Source: https://twitter.com/Snellk/status/1544685584819621888?s=20&t=3Rmu97-wtIUI2mf5EUolnA
Kate 08:13 on 2022-07-07 Permalink
Thanks, EmilyG.