A man died in a work accident Saturday in Rivière‑des‑Prairies. Nobody’s getting graphic, but when you read he got stuck in a machine used to blow insulation and that they needed rescue experts from the fire department to extract him, you kind of don’t want the details.
Updates from December, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
La Presse spent a day with the police who keep an eye on heavy trucks on the city’s roads. Philipple Teisceira‑Lessard cites this number: 79 deaths annually in Quebec that can be blamed on big vehicles, which only constitute 4% of traffic. (But that depends where. While waiting for a bus recently I was looking up at the Met, where one vehicle out of every 3 or 4 is an 18‑wheeler or tanker truck or other big rig.)
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Kate
The cost of refurbishing the Hôtel de Ville continues to climb, now reaching $188.1 million and likely to keep rising till it’s done.
Michael
For $188M we could build a brand new commercial office building. What the hell?
Kate
Well, it wouldn’t be the same having a brand new commercial office building instead of the Hôtel de Ville.
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing even in the 1920s to rebuild to the footprint of the original building from the 1870s which had been gutted by fire, but they did, and now 21st‑century construction guys are trying to make sense of it. In 2120 they may be cursing that decision similarly, but they’ll turn the artificial intelligence robots loose on it and fix it up anyway.
Don’t forget, the building includes the balcony from which Charles de Gaulle said “Vive le Québec libre!” which practically makes it a shrine.
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Kate
Here we go. The new CAQ housing minister wants to rely on the private sector to provide “affordable” housing. “Venant moi-même du milieu de l’immobilier…”
Uatu
Well there was such great success with privately run old folks homes during the pandemic that it’s worth repeating, right?
Kate
What I want is for Mme Duranceau to explain how she plans to motivate the private sector to do anything that limits its access to profit.
Tux
May I just say har-dee-fucking-har to the idea that the private sector would ever do anything to make housing MORE affordable. A former high school classmate who’s now a realtor posted about some 700-800k condos going up on Somerled on FB and I commented how NDG used to be a place where a middle class family could live affordably and how sad it is that you basically have to have a couple of high six figure incomes to live there now. He said “actually this is a great price for the area”. I’m sure that absolutely tone-deaf response is what anyone in the biz would say/think. Sustainable community building obviously, OBVIOUSLY, does not enter into how the real estate business works. That’s the government’s job by DEFINITION. FFS.
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Kate
The first big snowfall of the season has brought us 30 cm of snow. So much snow has collected on the bare branches of the trees that a big soft silence envelops my whole street.
Montreal Weather Records tweets: “With a 2-day snowfall of 29.2cm, Dec 16-17 were Montreal’s snowiest 2 days in more than 2 years, since Feb 7, 2020.”
Snow clearance will be starting soon. The city wants to reduce the klaxon noise traditionally used to roust out drivers who haven’t moved their cars.
Robert H
I’m not crazy about shoveling and it’s hard to get around, but I love the overall effect. On a sunny day, especially, it’s beautiful, as if a great white velvet blanket has been thrown over the city. All the city noise muffled and the dirt covered, a snowfall can bring an initial aesthetic treat that almost makes you forget about the mess that follows.
Ian
Snow is Montreal’s little black dress.
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Kate
Alert readers will have noticed there’s been little news from inside COP15, but now all I see is indications that an agreement has not been reached even as the end of the meeting approaches.
La Presse’s man spent a day at the meeting to show how slowly it grinds and how difficult it is to attain some kind of consensus.
JaneyB
The problem is that they are allowed to leave. They should all be locked in the building until they reach an agreement, with a limited amount of amenities and surrounded by the garbage they generate during their containment. No photo ops. If it takes months, so be it. Poor Steven Guilbeault. This must be beyond exasperating for him.
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Kate
The president of an organization given millions to provide shelter for the homeless in Hochelaga‑Maisonneuve has stepped down, alleging that some of the funds have been misused by the founders of the group – a couple described as Mennonite pastors.
Ian 22:19 on 2022-12-18 Permalink
Ugh how awful.
I worked night shift at a place that did metal recycling and one of the workers on day shift got his pantleg hauled into the copper chipper, he got stuck at the thigh. I’m really glad I missed that, apparently he only stopped screaming when he went into shock from blood loss. Of course he died. Just 19, like me at the time.
These little memento mori moments are important, especially if you work around machinery – it’s very easy to lose focus and end up mangled.