It’s going to be a cold weekend, so an extra shelter is opening at the downtown YMCA to try to get everyone inside. It’s expected to go down to –21° on Friday night, and –19° Saturday, making for one of the chillier Nuits Blanches we’ve seen.
Updates from February, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A vigil and march were held downtown on Friday evening to mark one year of war in Ukraine.
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Kate
The city will be holding a consultation on the governance of Ville‑Marie which has been administered since 2007 under a unique system whereby the city mayor is not only automatically borough mayor, but also directly appoints two of its five councillors.
In Le Devoir’s account Jeanne Corriveau recaps how this came about after a spat between Gérald Tremblay and then borough mayor Benoît Labonté. Tremblay asked Quebec to revise the law specifying the governance of that one borough, which they did, giving Tremblay his revenge on Labonté by abolishing his role. Quebec didn’t seem fazed at how this reduced the democratic participation of the borough’s residents, a situation in effect for 16 years and counting
DeWolf
Finally. I’m disappointed it took PM this long to even attempt to fix the mistake.
Kate
They’ll still have to petition Quebec to change it again and that’s not necessarily going to be a piece of cake.
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Kate
A puppet show on the schedule of the Pointe Claire kids’ library is in the news because one of the puppets is a crude caricature of a Black person. Joel DeBellefeuille of the Coalition Rouge is in La Presse with strong words against the show.
Beaconsfield has already cancelled the performance planned there.
The irony is that the puppeteer who created L’incroyable secret de Barbe Noire is Franck Sylvestre, originally from Martinique, who’s Black himself.
qatzelok
The Simpsons characters were also very uncomplimentary to working class people, and their faces and hands were extremely distorted and non-attractive. Homer Simpson (like Fred Flinstone) was depicted as being stupid and ideological.
Is any fictional representation okay? They’re always distorted.
Ephraim
Meanwhile, Desjardins ads in French has no diversity at all, unless you count sticking a token PoC in the background. They have more 2SLGBTQIA+ representation then PoC. But so do most ads in French. BMO, which has a black rep in English has a blonde in French. If ads are a mirror of society, it’s very ethnocentric
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Kate
Le Devoir’s Jeanne Corriveau accompanied the trio called EMIC, Équipe métro d’intervention et de concertation, who move through the system and talk with the homeless people they find.
A police officer, a special constable, and a social worker make sure these folks don’t don’t lie down to sleep or hang out on the platforms – these are the hard lines they draw – and direct them to resources for help they need. But the point is made that there are no bathrooms in the metro (except for Snowdon, which I didn’t know) which limits the usefulness of the metro as a shelter.
Tux
Snowdon has been my metro for years. There’s a public bathroom there? First I’ve heard of it. There are bathrooms throughout the system as far as I know, but only for employees.
Kate
There would have to be an employee bathroom in the space behind the ticket booth. You occasionally see a bus driver bust out of the bus into a metro station, obviously in need of the facilities.
The only station I’m aware of that had bathrooms intended for public use is Jean‑Drapeau, which has bathrooms directly accessible from the platforms. I don’t know how long they were available after Expo 67 closed, but I don’t think it was long before they were permanently locked.
Basically, you can’t pay anyone enough to deal with the biohazards of cleaning public bathrooms in the metro.
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Kate
After a row of longtime businesses facing Émilie‑Gamelin square was emptied out, the developer is cutting its condo tower project in half following news stories about the area being on the skids.
Faiz imam
The good news for anyone who cares about the area is there is now more time and another chance to push for the 2nd tower to have more social infrastructure, especially various elements that were initially promised then cancelled.
Ephraim
It’s actually a shame, they need more housing in the area. Hmm, I wonder if the city could buy 25% of the development for family social housing and therefore skew the neighbourhood in that direction to have more families.
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Kate
Pierre Ny St-Amand, accused of driving that bus into a daycare, has been declared fit to stand trial after a psych evaluation. His lawyer has asked that he also have a second assessment over whether he could be declared criminally responsible.
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Kate
Weekend activity lists from Metro, CultMTL, Sarah’s weekend list, CityCrunch, not forgetting that Saturday is Nuit Blanche.
Next week’s also the student relâche (for some, see Kevin’s comment below). Ideas for that, from La Presse, the Gazette, Véro, TVA, the official tourism site.
Mark Côté
Lovely to see weather reports saying “risk of frostbite” for our all-night festival…
Kevin
For students at French boards. EMSB and off-island are March 6, and some Cegeps start their break on March 13
Kate
Thanks for the deets, Kevin.
Joey
Is there any reason why the boards don’t align their calendars?
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Kate
The class action suit against the SPVM for racial profiling ends Friday, but La Presse has just revealed that the force has its own preliminary studies which the Ligue des Noirs had not been told about.
The data – which La Presse’s writer has apparently seen – say that a Black person is four times more likely to be stopped by police than a white person, while an Arabic-looking person is twice as likely to be stopped. The researchers say they don’t use the expression “racial profiling” because they were not inquiring into motives.
The article also cites previous police chief Sylvain Caron: “On n’a pas de policiers racistes. On a des policiers qui sont des citoyens et qui ont des biais.” I see.
mare
“And people of colour often drive really old cars that have issues. Or they drive cars that are much too expensive.” #nobias
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Kate
Concordia University is still in the news about changes to Loyola campus but no article has been specific. This item even cites one of the honchos as saying “we don’t have any projects to submit.”
I sense a PR exercise here, the university going through the dog and pony show of soliciting public opinion, but with definite plans it will reveal later, tailoring the story to make it sound like they’re responding to public ideas.
There’s a mention of a survey in the final sentence of the article, but typically for mainstream media, no link. Why would you even mention it and not give a link? (I can’t find it myself or I’d give it here.)
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Kate
Another business in St-Laurent was firebombed overnight.
shawn
Wow. Thanks for keeping track of these!
Kate
They’re also on a layer of the 2023 incident map.
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Kate
Francophones arriving via Roxham Road are now being sent to Ontario where they can’t get services in French. But doesn’t Quebec want these folks? Why aren’t they making more efforts to bring the desired francophones here?
jeather
Florida and Texas fly them to NY, NY buses them to Quebec, Quebec shunts them off to Ontario. And we know Legault doesn’t want asylum seekers, he wants francophone immigrants who will earn at least 50,000 a year, he’s said as much.
Kate
Not all asylum seekers are illiterate peasants, and if he thinks they all are, he’s an idiot.
jeather
Yes, but we don’t accept the educational qualifications of immigrants who are well educated and are easily able to prove this so it’s rather a moot point.
mare
Keep in mind that roughly 30% of asylum seekers are not getting asylum status and are deported again. Legault doesn’t want to spent money to support them while their cases are processed, which can take long.
The acceptance percentage from many ‘francophone’ countries is actually higher, but a lot of those are probably selected by the UNHCR in their region, and arrive with status by plane. (And, believe it or not, a debt to Canada for the incurred costs*.)
The asylum seekers that travel via Roxham road and aren’t from this continent, often came via Central and South America, because getting a North-American visa is hard. Canada has one of the highest acceptance rates in the world so it’s a ‘popular’ destination and many claimants spent all their savings to get here, via difficult, dangerous and expensive routes.
The US’s acceptance rate is only 40%. And the circumstances while waiting are worse, the processing time is longer, and the total number of accepted claimants is lower than Canada’s, so if I were an asylum seeker I would travel a bit further too.
(Numbers 2021)
Sources:
https://www.worlddata.info/america/canada/asylum.php
https://www.worlddata.info/america/usa/asylum.php(And interest through my mother who worked with refugees in the Netherlands.)
Ephraim
But, Mare, you forgot… if rejected, you have to sign an IOU for the plane to take you back, so you are much worse off. (They often call in the embassy to sign as guarantor of the debt)
JaneyB
@mare and @Ephraim – This is an eye-opener. I thought I was fairly informed about refugees but I did not know any of that. Thanks!
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Kate
A parcel containing cannabis and cell phones fell into the back yard of a man living in the northern part of Montreal, presumably a lost drone delivery to Bordeaux Jail.
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