Luis Miranda issued an apology on TV for his rant last week at a teenager in a borough council meeting, but Mayor Plante wants him to apologize directly to the family.
Updates from October, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Typically, a homeless person cashes their welfare cheque on the first of the month, and crooks know that they will be walking around with a wad of cash for a couple of days. An SPVM agent has set up a system where they not only get a bank account, but can also access information about benefits, jobs, health care and rehabilitation.
This makes so much sense I wonder whether it will be allowed to continue.
Maxim
agreed
this does strike me as an enormous missed opportunity to shore up their credibility for the municipality or one of the labour unions not to have taken the inside track on deploying a system like this before
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Kate
As an extra scary thrill for Halloween, the Louis‑Hippolyte‑La Fontaine tunnel will be half closed for three years starting on October 31.
Jonathan
“Les navettes RTL 61, RTL 461, exo 520, exo 521 et exo 532, qui relient les stationnements incitatifs de la Rive-Sud au terminus Radisson, à Montréal, seront notamment gratuites à compter du 17 octobre, et ce, pour les trois prochaines années.”
Wow. Even more subsidies being thrown at car-owners. Where’s the justice lens in this? I wish my tax dollars went to a reliable and frequent bus service so I can get around too.
dhomas
On the Montreal side, the “stationnement incitatif” is full by 7AM (or at least it used to be pre-pandemic, haven’t checked lately). If they’re already being fully used (provided they still are), why bother making them free? Seems like a waste of money.
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Kate
The decision to rehire Philippe Pichet and put him in charge of twenty police stations in the southwestern part of Montreal was not made by the SPVM, but enforced on them by the direct intervention of the city’s legal service. This piece strongly suggests Pichet is out of favour with the force: how could anyone imagine Pichet managing and working effectively with people who don’t want him around?
Joey
One of the things The Wire demonstrated so well was the notion that all cops hate their bosses, regardless of whether they’re good/ineffective/corrupt/etc.
Kate
Yes, but that is fiction, and writers need discord for dramatic purposes.
Joey
True, it’s fiction, but fiction based on the direct 20+ years of personal experiences of its creators, a former Baltimore police detective and a Baltimore newspaper journalist whose beat was… the police. Given that many of the characters, storylines and *actors* come directly from the creators’ real lives, it would be odd if the general characterization of the attitudes rank-and-file cops hold toward their superiors did not correspond to some reality, no? Like, if you made a TV series about city journalism, I doubt you would have a Luc Ferrandez type character drive around in an SUV, even if it created discord for dramatic purposes…
qatzelok
Also, Spiderman was contantly berated by his boss (Mr. Jameson).
This demonstrates the difficulty that superheroes have with living in the real world. Perhaps Philippe Pichet identifies with Spiderman.
dwgs
It ain’t only superheroes who struggle with reality.
Kate
dwgs, that’s in the running for blog comment of the year.
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Kate
The cost of groceries in town was up 15 percent in July compared to a year previously. (It might be an economic term, but why “for a family of four”? If groceries are up 15%, they’re up for everybody.)
thomas
Yes and no. Inflation is based on a basket of goods to match average recommended dietary requirements. So the basket of goods calculation for a child would be different than an adult of elderly person. Come to think of it, I wonder if a family of three might be more representative of the general population.
Kate
Oh true, I suppose diapers, baby food and so on would change the calculation a little.
Blork
That’s not 15% across the board though. Some things are barely up at all, while other things are almost double what they were a year ago.
Kate
It would be a 15% average. The number comes from the Montreal Diet Dispensary, and the method is explained here in Le Devoir. The total includes only food.
The Dispensary is focused on making sure pregnant women can eat properly. It dates back to 1879.
Ephraim
The biggest increase I have seen for me has been dairy. And yet two different supermarkets in the last few weeks have offered $3.99 butter (and I now have a fridge full of butter). One of the things about inflation is that it also shakes out the weak players, many who think they can profit from inflation, especially those who aren’t necessities, but impulse buys. So people might go back to FCOJ instead of the pre-mixed (which isn’t frozen, but isn’t 100 natural either, since they can freeze it – they just can’t concentrate it – and they always add orange essence/oil to it, so that it’s consistent… because if you put a brand name on it, it needs to be homogenous.) So companies that put their price up too high will find that people change brand. Have you noticed that cereal companies have lowered their prices so much that the generics are out of the business… the margins aren’t there. But if they make the boxes smaller or put up the prices… the generics start to reappear. I expect we will see a lot more “lifestyle” products disappear. Expect a shakeup in the fake milk aisle, high end cookies, even the fancier chips. They are all easier to skip or replace because of tight budgets.
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Kate
Here’s a good piece by Patrick Lagacé on how police close ranks to defend their own, even when indefensible. I hadn’t posted about the background story before because it’s set in Trois‑Rivières, but it displays a police attitude that applies everywhere.
dhomas 08:14 on 2022-10-14 Permalink
He absolutely should. He insulted the guy to his face, the least he could do is apologize to him directly.
Kate 08:30 on 2022-10-14 Permalink
Miranda is determined not to do it.
carswell 08:46 on 2022-10-14 Permalink
Don’t normally bother with comment threads but this time I did. Many of the comments on that “determined not to do it” story are something else: sexist (toward Plante), anti-immigrant (even toward Miranda), dismissive of young people. There’s even a conspiracy theory (the teen was tutored by adults and sent to the council meeting expressly to embarrass the sainted Miranda). Aie! Not even 9 a.m. and I already feel like I need another shower.