The Lasalle man who verbally attacked three people in a car and told them to go back to India will face hate crime charges. TVA buries a second lede in the last sentence, saying the man was also involved in an assault on someone else in the neighbourhood.
Updates from September, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Two west-end seniors’ homes have been put under trusteeship after deaths from Strep A and allegations of abuse.
Diane M Ellison
I have personal experience with Floralies Lasalle, and the poor service trend continues. It does not appear to have improved since they were bought by Maison Vivalto (Oct 2019) . https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1693272/coronavirus-residence-chsld-floralies-lasalle-montreal-morts-covid-19
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Kate
A woman was stabbed Thursday evening in the McGill ghetto, and a man has been arrested.
The location of the attack, and even the age gap between the woman and her attacker, are reminiscent of the killing of Romane Bonnier almost a year ago. Fortunately, this time the attack was not fatal.
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Kate
A bad fire Thursday evening in Verdun left one young man injured and put four households into the street.
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Kate
The ARTM’s revision of transit fares in the metropolitan area was supposed to make things simpler and more seamless, but, going by these anecdotes collected by La Presse, some have become both more complicated and more expensive, and there are passengers having to juggle two Opus cards to get around.
The ARTM is blaming the technical limits of the Opus card.
Thomas
It was previously necessary to have more than one OPUS card as well in certain circumstances. I remember hearing crazy stories of people having to go to different parts of a station (Longueuil metro I think it was) to find different machines to load different fares onto different cards.
We were ahead of the game with OPUS, while lots of other places were still using magstripe cards and paper tickets, but now it’s starting to get a long in the tooth and its limitations are ever more apparent.
But I still think the simplified fare structure is better overall. Hundreds of different fares have been cut down to dozens, making it way simpler to travel across the region.
Thomas
Now that I think about it, I used to have to juggle 2 OPUS cards.
I had some kind of subscription situation with the old AMT commuter trains, and my card was locked down to them such that I couldn’t load any other fares onto it.
And then a few years later when I used to take my bike on the St Jerome train to go for bike rides on the P’tit train du nord, I needed a separate card for those fares as well, because OPUS couldn’t handle having local zone 1 tickets for Montreal as well as zone 7 tickets for St Jerome on the same card.
Joey
@Thomas we may have been ahead of the game compared to some cities, but these limitations were easily forseeable when Opus was introduced. Why they went with an Opus product that is basically not upgradeable is beyond me. As for the fare changes, the kinds of nonsense being described in La Presse (e.g., a student staying in zone C has to buy a pass for zones A/B/C, meaning she’s paying 80% more than previously) should have been anticipated. The ARTM’s attitude is that all the edge cases don’t matter – that’s crazy! We’re supposed to be inducing ridership…
steph
This anecdote in LaPress stupifies me. If she stays in zone C, she should be able to use every mode of transportation available in that area with just an zone C pass. This is a legitimate aberration.
Thomas
I’m not sure why they got rid of the “Tous modes C” fare — that is the crux of the issue and I haven’t seen it properly explained anywhere.
DeWolf
I hope somebody more technically minded can confirm this, but I’m under the impression that the Opus is a smart RFID card like any other (eg it’s not technically different than an Oyster card, or your contactless Visa card, etc.). Therefore you can’t blame the actual card for anything – the problem is the horrible software that the ARTM commissioned to interface with the card. Somebody made a choice back when Opus was being rolled out that it would not allow for stored value, unlike almost every other smart transit card in the world, which means it cannot hold multiple types of passes, tickets or cash value at the same time. Instead this smart card is being treated like a dumb magnetic strip card that can only do one thing.
So when the ARTM blames Opus’ technical limitations, they’re actually just failing to admit their own failing: they commissioned some very bad software and for some reason they are unable to fix it.
Am I correct?
DeWolf
Also, the response of the ARTM spokesperson is outrageous. She is blaming transit users who *just want to get around* for having “atypical” and “unusual” travel patterns.
Clearly the ARTM thinks the only valid transit user is somebody who commutes between their home and office and rush hour, and everybody else doesn’t matter.
Transit use in Greater Montreal is only going to decline as long as this is the agency in charge.
Thomas
@DeWolf
1. I don’t think the ARTM even existed as an agency when OPUS was rolled out, so that makes it easier for them to defer blame 😉
2. The thing with having stored value and multiple types of fares on the card, is that we would need a “tap in, tap out” type of system to ensure the correct fare is deducted. Right now we only “tap in” at the beginning of our journeys, which can create an ambiguity as to which fare to deduct when multiple fare types are present on the card.
3. More generally, I’m so glad people made a stink about the REM de l’Est and that the galaxy brains at the ARTM are now in charge of the project 🙂
DeWolf
Regarding your second point – I think Montreal would definitely benefit from a tap-in/tap-out system on trains to enable distance-based fares, which would remove the inequities that come from somebody paying extra just to travel one or two stops across the river to Montreal. But it’s not essential to having the card contain multiple types of tickets or passes, or even cash value. That’s just a software problem.
Just for example, the Compass card in Vancouver allows you to load cash value to pay for individual fares. But if you add a pass, it won’t deduct any cash value until your pass has expired. The Opus is incapable of doing that, even though in theory it should be possible.
Thomas
I see your point about having cash value vs “tickets” on a card, and the broader integration into the world of contactless payments. However,
1. I’m almost certain I’ve had individual fares (“tickets”) as well as a pass on my OPUS card at the same time, and it only used the pass for as long as it was valid. But they would have all been STM or zone 1 fares so there was no ambiguity.
2. I’m pretty sure I had to tap out when I took the SkyTrain in Vancouver a couple of years ago.
3. I noticed contactless payment readers on some buses back in 2019 (not sure if they’ve been activated, I haven’t been on a bus in a while), so there is presumably something cooking at the STM at least.
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Kate
Dominique Anglade is urging the accusers of Win Butler to file formal complaints as radio stations pull Arcade Fire off playlists and ticket refunds are requested for concerts on the band’s new tour.
Meantime, the Alouettes have let Christophe Normand go after he was accused of luring adolescents.
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Kate
A community centre in Centre-Sud has been renamed Le Centre Yvon Deschamps. Deschamps has been involved in supporting the centre, but he’s still alive at 87. Even though a building like this is not a street or square, isn’t there a general policy against naming things for living people?
Daisy
Universities are always naming buildings for living donors.
Kate
True enough.
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Kate
SPVM cops are acting as school crossing guards in some parts of town which, as TVA points out, means they’re not available to do police work.
Ephraim
The SPVM does police work? Is that between beatings of POC?
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Kate
Fifty years ago, a fire at the Blue Bird café killed 37 people. A commemoration will be held Thursday on Phillips Square.
I’m hoping the memorial installed ten years ago was preserved in the renovation of the square.
Janet
According to the Wikipedia entry on the Blue Bird Café. “As of May 2022 the memorial has been installed at the south side of Phillips Square following the renovation of the square.”
Kate
Thank you!
H. John 00:37 on 2022-09-02 Permalink
Charged or not charged? CTV isn’t very clear.
https://tinyurl.com/n8u9fv8y
They write:
“Montreal police say they arrested the suspect Thursday morning and that the case has been referred to Quebec’s prosecution office, the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), for review.
The man has not been formally charged.”
And then, in the same article “The man was released from custody and is due back in court in November.”
I’m guessing the November date refers to the restraining order. And, from the CTV article, I’m guessing the assault was against their reporter, Stephane Giroux.
Offences often referred to as Hate Crimes, police refer to as Hate-Motivated or Bias-Motivated Crime.
Investigations involving these crimes are complex.
In order for police to lay a Hate-Motivated or Bias-Motivated criminal charge, there are two things that must first occur:
1 A criminal offence must have occurred (e.g. an assault, damage to property, uttering threats etc.).
2 Hate or Bias toward a victim must have motivated the criminal offence (e.g. because of the victim’s race, nationality, ethnic original, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation etc.).
What is the difference between Hate-Motivated crime and other crime? The potential penalty. If convicted of a criminal offence and it is proven to be motivated by hate or bias, higher penalties may be imposed by the judge during sentencing.
Kate 13:49 on 2022-09-02 Permalink
Thanks for the clarifications, H. John.
It’s difficult to establish a person’s motivations for anything.
Blork 18:49 on 2022-09-02 Permalink
There’s also the consideration that sometimes a person who yells at another person is just an asshole. And who knows why they’re an asshole? Tragic life filled with poverty and abuse? Mental instability mixed with poverty and terrible family situation? Can’t hold a job because he’s an asshole and doesn’t have the emotional maturity to realize HE’S the problem? The list goes on.
But if all they do is yell at people, do we really need to be bringing up hate crimes? Personally, I’d rather dedicate the anti-hate crime rhetoric and actions towards the people who very deliberately and in an organized manner commit those crimes, not just some arse who’s had a shitty life and takes it out on whoever crosses his path. The former might actually be effective, but the latter just seems like theatre.