City hall opposition is getting brighter all the time, wanting a police patrol to comb young people’s web presence looking for threats of violence, and criticizing the mayor for “not having been present” after the shootings last week. They think it’s better if elected representatives grab the focus and grandstand after a story like this?
Updates from August, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
The city’s going to be putting $1 million a year modernizing 25 community gardens, a list of which is given here.
John B
I don’t have inside knowledge, but I suspect this is part of the $10 million announced earlier this year.
Kate
That’s how it’s described in the articles, John B.
John B
Somehow I missed that.
Jonathan
Oh hmm. I like the idea of a new collective garden, but the site of the new one in Villeray seems a bit problematic. This is a small public square that was previous used by some people experiencing homelessness. Residents complained and so the city removed some furniture and made it more inhospitable. Then more complaints since it obviously doesn’t solve the housing issue… and then a ‘collective garden’ project popped up, taking up some of the space. I pass by there often and can tell you this is not well taken care of since it is just a fake project to kick out marginalized folks.
It’s just sad to see that this is what ‘community efforts’ end up being. It’s just gentrification by exclusion.
Kate
This is the space Jonathan is talking about.
Wow, that used to have a sort of shady pergola over it. I’ve actually sat there a little while – in the past – to read. They’ve really messed it up, and besides, there’s barely room for half a dozen garden plots on that single lot. Thanks for pointing it out. I did a little search for “Parc Azellus‑Denis” yesterday but didn’t get around to mentioning it.
John B
In Montreal language, “collective garden” = 1 garden managed collectively by a group, where everyone shares in the work and shares in the harvest, where “community garden” = a bunch of small plots each gardened by (usually) a single household.
The city has been pushing the collective garden concept recently, and the pessimist in me thinks it’s because they can fit more gardeners per square foot, thus claiming that all those people “have garden space.” I haven’t really looked into how much demand there is for community vs collective but I also suspect there’s less demand for collective gardens. Some people in power also believe that community gardens are a privatization of public space.
I believe that both kind of gardens have a place in the community. Despite claims that Montreal has the “biggest” or “best” community garden system of any major city, that’s often selective measuring – for example community garden plots in Montreal are generally 10% the size of plots in London, England. I’m on the board of a garden in Verdun, and I’m working to get more garden space, (I think it’s possible, without turning parks into gardens, we just have to be flexible in what we allow spaces to be used for).
At the same time there’s a perennial problem where 5-10% of people who sign up to garden don’t really use the garden, so the garden board has to nag them to use the garden, and sometimes kick them out, which is no fun as a volunteer.
Back to the space, it’s not that big, and appears to be mostly shaded by the brick wall and mature-ish trees. It’s not an ideal garden space, but, if the whole are gets turned into a well-managed garden, (as opposed to just those bins), it could produce some great summer & fall vegetables for a few families – hopefully it works.
-
Kate
The remains of priest Léon Lajoie were exhumed in Kahnawake after allegations of sexual assault were made last year. He died in 1999 and will be reburied in a Jesuit graveyard up north.
-
Kate
Three people have been diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease in the east end recently, and one of them has died.
-
Kate
A code silver was called Tuesday night at the Jewish General – a warning that someone was in the building with a gun. In the event, nothing happened.
The only other time I’d heard of a code silver was a year ago when one was called at the MUHC and it turned out nobody knew what it was. In that case too, nothing happened.
The Gazette explains a code silver.
Bert
Some further code information. The codes are fairly standard. https://www.nygh.on.ca/patients-and-visitors/visitor-information/health-and-safety/emergency-codes
-
Kate
The killer of three random men last week used what’s sometimes called a ghost gun – a weapon assembled from legally acquired parts, or 3D printed. And there’s not much hope of controlling access to weapons like these.
Tim S.
Can we control the bullets, as Chris Rock once proposed? Gunpowder can’t be that easy to source.
Also, is it Géhane Kamel’s responsibility to single-handedly save the entire province? Have we no other competent officials?
-
Kate
Some response this morning to a study showing Bill 21, the secularism law, is having a devastating effect on religious minorities. I’m not sure what people think their commentary will achieve because the law is working exactly as intended. Of course people will feel bad – and so they should, some think – and of course some of them will leave.
Recently there was also a fuss because HEC ran an ad in Algeria showing a woman studying here – in hijab – and Lisée got into a snit, reducing hijab to a sign of female submission. The woman’s a real HEC student, not a model – Rima Elkouri spoke with her and found that the situation is not what Lisée claims to think.
Update, of a sort: I may have missed it, but I cannot find any mention of the study mentioned above, which was covered by CBC, CTV, Global and the Gazette, in any francophone media. It may yet turn up.
Another update: Toula Drimonis tweeted a link to a piece about the study on L’actualité.
Thursday morning: La Presse reports on the study.
CultMTL reports on the study. Toula Drimonis points out an important finding: A majority of 64.5% of Quebecers think it is important for the Supreme Court to rule on whether the law is discriminatory. If courts determine law violates the charters, support for it would drop by 18% to below the majority mark (from 63.7% to 47%).
But also: more than 30% of Quebecers equate opposition to the law with disloyalty as a Quebecer.
JaneyB
It would be nice if politicians like Lisée would consider that the Muslim world is much, much more than the banlieues of Paris. Even Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are a tiny part of that world. He needs to put down his French newspapers and go walk through some of Quebec’s science and engineering faculties. While he’s at it, he should start meditating on how Quebec will protect the declining populations of its small towns without immigrants. I assume he will be whining about burkinis soon. This is a miserable moment in Quebec history.
Chris
>reducing hijab to a sign of female submission
Fun fact: did you know the word ‘islam’ means ‘submission’?
>the Muslim world is much, much more than the banlieues of Paris
Quite right of course!
But also: it’s much, much more than the Westernized/liberalized Muslims of North America. Just take a look at the polling.
Kate
Chris, the people living here and concerned by this law are the Muslims of North America. It doesn’t affect Muslims in Pakistan or Indonesia, it affects our neighbours.
Kevin
I’m beginning to wonder if our local commentators are jealous that Iran’s revolution is just so much more domineering and controlling than what happened here, and if they see the parallels between Iranian women protesting head coverings and local protests against laws that oppress minorities.
-
Kate
La Ronde operator Six Flags is sinking into debt, meaning higher ticket prices and reduced operating hours. Metro’s writer also describes the site as run down, with some rides simply closed. Visitors are down too, rather than flocking back. Unfortunately, the city signed a deal with Six Flags till 2065.
-
Kate
The city is promising to ramp up ticketing of vehicles blocking bike paths.
DeWolf
This is the result of a pilot project that launched in May to target vehicles blocking the REV St-Denis. I’m not sure why the city needs a pilot project to enforce laws already on the books. If anything, it’s a testament to the everyday dysfunction of traffic management in this city.
Still, it’s good that the pilot project was a success and now it’s being expanded to streets that really need it. I rarely come across vehicles blocking the path on St-Denis (although apparently the city has been issuing an average of seven tickets a day just on that street), but other streets are awful. Especially Peel, where the new bike path is grade-separated. It’s higher than the roadway but lower than the sidewalk, which means that vehicles that park on it force cyclists to go over the curb to get around, which is both annoying and dangerous.
Ultimately we need more hard barriers between bike paths and the road. Cars are like an invasive species… they will eventually take over and suffocate any space to which they are given access.
Blork
It’s more than 30 years ago, but:
https://flic.kr/p/RsYxNbMatthew
@DeWolf, I was riding on a new grade-separated bike path on Ottawa street where two cars were parked. As it is a small trafficked one-way I tried to ‘reboard’ the bike path and due to the angle I approached the mini-curb I fell off my bike resulting in two fractures to my pelvis. I am still recovering 5 weeks post-accident, but you said it right: it’s dangerous!
DeWolf
@Blork, I think about that photo of yours every time I pass in front of the police station on Rachel! That’s something you still see a lot in New York but thankfully not here anymore.
@Matthew, sorry to hear about your injury. That’s exactly why there needs to be very strict enforcement, particularly on the new grade-separated paths. Any driver who is such an idiot that he thinks it’s okay to leave his car after *mounting a curb* deserves whatever fine he can get.
qatzelok
I really think the city needs some permanent **Stationnement-Montréal cops-on-bikes** to patrol the downtown and central neighborhoods 7 days a week, from 7 am to midnight.
This is also a job that I would like to do myself. (CV enclosed)
Orr
The Gazette wants retired workers to go back to work, and ticketing vehicles parked in bike paths (and handicapped parking spots) is a job that I would enjoy very much. I don’t need a salary, just give me 25% of the tickets. Can’t be a worse deal for the city than what they pay to private companies who issue parking tickets.
steph
Why not make it an app and let everyone participate at flagging and giving tickets. “sorry this vehicle has already been ticketed”
-
Kate
Montreal is getting fewer GPs than expected for the second year in a row, a blow for an area already short of doctors.
Quebec is nonetheless bragging that it has reached its target in signing people up for family medicine practices. A regular reader of this blog showed me two official letters they received, signing them up for two practices in different parts of town, and mentioning that they had a friend who also received two letters assigning them and their kids to practices in different places. They suggest that this scattershot approach is merely a way of claiming that everyone’s taken care of, leading up to the election.
jeather
It was me. Specifically, I received 2 letters on July 27 assigning me to two clinics, one in St‑Henri where I live and one in St‑Laurent where I have never lived. My friend received 2 letters on July 28 assigning her children — who have a pediatrician and have never been on the family doctor finder list — to a clinic in Rosemont, where they do not live and have never lived. (My friend and her partner did not receive letters.)
Given that they planned to find 250k people new doctors by July 31, just before the election, this seems like complete fiction; I wonder, if I call that clinic and say I was assigned to them so when can I get an appointment, what they would say.
-
Kate
Merchants along Queen Mary Road are banding together to resist new bus and taxi lanes. Although only meant to operate for three hours daily on each side, they’re feared as ruining business for all the small stores along the street.
EmilyG
I don’t drive.
And since these merchants are resisting the new bus/taxi lanes, I’m tempted to not support them.
So they’d be losing business in that way, anyway.Tim S.
Outside of some areas of the Plateau, I can think of very few parts of Montreal that have an actual parking problem, assuming healthy adults are willing to walk a block or so. I see so many crazy stunts in my neighbourhood, people turning u-turns and worse to get to a spot, or stopping in really dangerous places, when there’s plenty of free spaces around a corner and a hundred feet down.
DeWolf
There’s a city-owned surface parking lot behind the Metro supermarket on Queen Mary. It’s within a five-minute walk to pretty much every business in the area. Replace it with a multi-storey garage, ban all parking on Queen Mary, widen the sidewalks, plant more trees and install a permanent bus and taxi lane.
We need to stop treating our commercial streets like suburban strip malls where we expect customers to drive right up to the shop they’re visiting. Parking is necessary, just not on the street, and in many parts of town we already have off-street lots that are underutilized.
Same goes for St-Hubert. Half the street parking was removed, but the remaining parking makes the street feel completely overwhelmed by cars, and there are still several municipal parking lots nearby with direct connections to the plaza. Cars should really only be allowed on St-Hubert for deliveries and passenger pick-up/drop-off. It would be a much more pleasant street if that were the case.
Tux
Who parks on Queen Mary anyway? I mean, I know a lot of people do, I just can’t imagine why you would ever *plan to*. DeWolf has it right – pedestrianize Queen Mary! Boy would I love to see it come to life with terraces and booths, like the Main.
Ephraim 20:14 on 2022-08-10 Permalink
The police can hardly figure out how to boot their computer, never mind combing people’s web presence. It’s the biggest argument for the consolidation of forces… the ability to hire IT personnel who actually know what they are doing.
Kate 09:05 on 2022-08-11 Permalink
What concerns me about this is: how would they begin? Would they get lists of names from high schools? Would schools be obliged to participate and would the students, or their parents, have the right to opt out? And would the cops, as they do, focus on north‑end schools and select names that “sound Black” to focus on?
Would the cops even be able to figure out Snapchat and TikTok?
I have this image of the cops figuring something out, and then realizing the “kid” is now 23 and working for a bank.
It’s a comment on a different story, but after I wrote this I remembered this Côté cartoon.
Ephraim 10:28 on 2022-08-11 Permalink
They can’t, they don’t have the knowledge nor the know-how. It’s really a job for CSIS. And even there, I don’t know if they have the manpower. And really, the people they should be telling this to are social workers, not the police.
The thing is, we are again asking the police to do a job that isn’t theirs to do. This is (likely) caused by the lack of school counselors in the system. They are supposed to catch these problems at a young age and be able to intervene. And sometimes these interventions are small but meaningful. For example, when you have a child and the parent appears to be an absentee parents (or neglectful). They intervention might be a simple as having the parent understand their position in the child’s life and the gentle encouragement that it takes… but as difficult as actually having that child moved out of the household because of substance abuse. But combing the child’s social media isn’t going to find this
But the earlier we intervene for the welfare of the child, the sooner that we prevent something showing up later in the social media. This is a time we need social workers and counselors, not police.