The Parks Canada camping event held by the Lachine Canal was the site of a protest Saturday in which other tents were erected nearby to underline the economic disparity between those permitted to pitch a tent in the city and those forbidden.
But the Parks Canada people eventually extended help to the protesters and, if this story is to be believed, they will all gather around the same campfire this evening.
A CBC podcast called Uncover on the popular podcast theme of historical murders looks at killings in the Montreal gay community in the 1990s – starting with the shocking murder of Joe Rose in 1989. I haven’t listened to it, only read the article about it so far.
This isn’t a regular post, but a question.
I thought Canada had laws against advertising prescription drugs, but I keep getting this drug pushed at me on Twitter, both in French and English:
I looked it up. It’s a drug used to treat multiple sclerosis.
I don’t have MS, and I haven’t had any reason to read up on it. Even when I looked it up, I used a private browsing window on a non‑habitual browser, so’s not to leave tracks. So I don’t know why I would be targeted by a Twitter algorithm.
If anyone knows about the law on this, or anything else relevant, I’d be interested to hear about it.
The law allows advertising, but you cannot mention both the name of the drug and what it does. That’s why you got those Viagra and Cialis ads where they displayed the name (which everyone knows) but only vaguely alluded to what it does, or get ads with “talk to your doctor about high blood pressure or go to livingwithhighbp dot ca, there are solutions” without mentioning what. The idea is that companies have free speech rights, but not entirely, and there’s a government interest in preventing full direct advertising and instead getting you to talk to your doctor, not demand drugs of your doctor.
I think you’re allowed to advertise certain prescription medications (e.g. schedule a) with restrictions to consumers (Ie just the name of the drug with a message to consult your doctor). In Canada, the PAAB regulates healthcare advertising https://www.paab.ca/
Oh yes, PAAB. I worked briefly for an agency that did some pharma work, and PAAB was like an evil god that had to be propitiated.
Thanks, JP and Nicholas.
If I can shed some additional light: Canada has one of the highest — if not the highest — per capita levels of MS in the world. So while this does not appear to be targeted advertising — or well-targeted, at any rate — the drug company could do worse.
I also had to chuckle because I have seen this ad too. But I do have MS! So I just figured my browser was on to me. (Although this drug is not appropriate for me, as it happens.)
Can’t comment on advertising regulations but yes, Canada has THE Highest per capita level of MS in the world – a dubious record – Canada also punches above its weight as regards MS research – chapeau!
Weird. (Sorry to hear that, Daniel.)
Are there any theories about why this is?
“Multiple sclerosis (MS) is more common among people who live in countries with temperate climates, such as the northern United States, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and southeastern Australia, than among those living in warmer zones.” More info: multiplesclerosisnewstoday.com/risk-factors-for-multiple-sclerosis/climate/
There are. Living farther from the equator seems to track with a higher risk (so countries such as Denmark and Norway also have above-average levels.) Probably related to less exposure to sunlight and therefore lower Vitamin D levels.
But! Of course it’s not quite that simple. Exposure to a common virus (Epstein-Barr) is also thought to play a key role. I think basically a few things have to line up and science is still sorting out in what order and to what degree these and other factors matter.
And in my case, I lived in a sunny, warm climate before age 18, which statistically “shouldn’t” make me at increased risk for developing MS. And yet here we are. Because of course even an “average” risk isn’t zero.
Don’t you remember the ads for Yasmin. All those smiling ladies. Cialis, with them buying expensive headphones for their son. Viagra’s “Good Morning” singing men and women. If you didn’t know what the drug was for, you would think they are all anti depressants
If you’re young and Black and you get shot in Montreal North, you’re likely to be treated more like a suspect than a victim by police, and afterwards, you may be shunned by friends and family who feel that you attract trouble. And you may never see any victim compensation either. Good piece by La Presse’s Mayssa Ferah.
A thirty-year veteran of the STM has been named its director‑general, taking over from Luc Tremblay. Both articles, which read quite similarly, consider the challenge she faces to rebuild ridership and secure better funding for transit.
If they want me to ride again they can do something to help contain covid.
Residents of Rivière-des-Prairies may finally get a break from the stink coming from the Sanimax facility. The CMM is instituting a new rule saying you can’t store dead animals outdoors – an idea you might expect to have been enshrined in law in, say, 1830. Sanimax is not happy.
There are other stories this week about city residents and their concerns. TMR is trying to build a school in a park, which is not universally popular, St‑Lambert wants to remove a swimming pool and build a daycare in another park, which also doesn’t have unanimous support, and people living in Dorval are mad about more planes going over at night. All three of these stories spin off in some way from population densification and we will see more of them.
One man was killed and three other people were injured Friday morning at an industrial lab in Dorval.
As the construction holiday begins, the outbound tunnel and the Pie‑IX bridge are closed. It’s not mentioned here but the Jacques‑Cartier will be closed Saturday evening for the fireworks.
There are no fireworks this Saturday nor next.
Thanks, Kevin.
There’s no fireworks, but the sign on the side of the 132 said “pont jaques cartier ferme samedi 20h00”
In vaccine news, kids as young as 6 months will be able to get the Covid vaccine starting Monday.
Meantime, Canada is short of monkeypox vaccine as the global outbreak (not being called a pandemic yet) continues to grow.
Booked our infant immediately. Got an appointment next Tuesday.
Christopher Curtis has an excellent piece Friday on the arrest of Sacha-Wilky Merazil last weekend.
A man was shot late Thursday in Ahuntsic but his life is not in danger.
Early Friday, shots were fired at an Italian café in Lasalle. The café was closed and the only damage was to the window. Thank goodness there was no damage to the espresso machine.
This story has been percolating through local news all week: comic Philippe Bond was accused of sexual predation by podcaster Thomas Levac. He denied the accusations, but was immediately accused of sexual assault by eight women. Now Bond has announced he’s stepping away from public life. And there’s commentary.
As a bad anglo I admit I’d never heard of either guy till this week, but it’s a big story so there you go.
He on the 2020 anonamous Facebook list, multiple times.
Following quickly after the announcement about Mont‑Royal station, now Place‑des‑Arts station also has elevators.
This isn’t a concern for tomorrow, but the question’s already being asked what will become of the city’s 310 service stations once gasoline‑powered cars are phased out? Empty lots filled with contaminated soil doesn’t sound appealing, although since moving to Villeray I’ve seen several small gas stations demolished and condos constructed on their sites, so dealing with this can’t be impossible.
You know the new park on Mont-Royal avenue, la place des Fleurs-de-Macadam, is located where there was a service station?
Yes, I knew that. It’s a good use of the space.
I thought that legally you can’t sell contaminated land in Quebec. In any case, they dig up all the land, ship it to Ontario and put in uncontaminated soil and rock instead. But we will still need some space for fast chargers… and Couche Tard/Circle K is already discussing this and testing it in Norway https://corpo.couche-tard.com/en/circle-k-loves-norway-were-ready/
Fast chargers are places people want to spend 15 to 45 mins. Contemporary gas stations are not places you want to spend much time.
And since electricity supply can be built almost anywhere, I’m much more interested in agreements with fast food chains and coffee shops.
I’ve used fast chargers at the on route stations on the 401 and they are wonderful.
There is an enormous opportunity to created commercial spaces where people will spend a half hour. But I am not confident that gas station companies will pull it off.
Also, you have to mention that fast chargers are not how most people will charge their cars. In normal daily use people will use slow chargers on the street or in their private area.
Ultimately a decade from now the only places fast chargers would really get used is along major highways.
Dense neighbourhoods will need a lot more level two chargers before we have fast chargers that are *really* fast (like, fill your battery in 10 minutes fast – there was a piece about some nascent charging tech in the Times this week). And much better enforcement of EV-only parking.
Doesn’t seem like much of a problem. For one thing, the phase out will be gradual. We know they can re-purpose the land after (an expensive) cleanup. Plus, as others have pointed out, there will still be a need for fast-charging stations, which will likely evolve to be even faster. For all we know, 20 years from now a full charge will be doable in five or ten minutes.
Montreal’s ‘soil’ consists of very fractured rock and can’t really be decontaminated other than by a very time consuming and expensive process similar to fracking where they inject water under high pressure in the cracks and catch the escaping contaminants. I haven’t seen that done when they build condos on plots that were previously gas stations. What they do is let the plot lay fallow for a few years and let it off-gas ‘naturally’ and then dig up the top 5 metres (yay, parking basement!) and pour a cube with concrete walls and floor and some sort of membrane to keep the spills out. The fumes are still there though, looming in the shadows, and eventually they will make it into that basement. However, since it’s a parking basement now, it’ll be very hard to distinguish between the old and the new contaminated air.
A cold case squad created in 2018 by the SQ has not succeeded in solving a single murder. But there’s a twist in the story, as the writer compares this result to U.S. successes using DNA databases: a man described as a “criminologist who is also a former police officer” complains of “Canadian hand‑wringing over privacy” – hand‑wringing which from another angle is reasonable respect for the privacy of the individual.
Because your third cousin did a crime is no reason for your DNA to be dragged into a cold case, although I do realize that by uploading one’s DNA to such databases one risks getting police thumbprints all over it.
Stats Can says that 70% of homicides are cleared. Which is the right term for it. You can’t really lay charges if the person who committed the crime commits suicide for example. But also Police can label a murder as “drugs”, “settling of accounts” or even “gangs” and basically not solve it, but clear it.
This is where we get into the territory of lies, damn lies and statistics. So 68% of homicides are solved/cleared within one week of the incident. Then a further 26% are solved between 8 and 364 days… and then they say 6% take more than a year… and yet only 70% are cleared…. I think we may be running into Marcellus’ speech in Hamlet… the numbers just don’t add up.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2021001/article/00017-eng.htm
The only “good” thing about this, from the perspective of solve rates, is because this is Canada, 4 out of 5 solved homicides… knew their killer. The numbers in the US are MUCH darker especially with missing people. Oh… and Canada’s “Cabot Cove” is Thunder Bay with a rate of 6.35 per 100K population.
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