A new report says the Lakeshore Hospital ER is dangerous and horrible for patients and needs not only physical renovations but a change in attitudes and culture.
Updates from June, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Around 19,000 cyclists are expected in Friday night’s Tour la nuit, and 17,000 are signed up for Sunday’s Tour de l’île. I remember when the night ride was the smaller event. Item includes maps of the routes.
Meezly
For the first time in years, the event is happening in the east end at Parc Maisonneuve instead of the Plateau. So we’re not going – we live on the Plateau and don’t have a car – it’s just too far for kids to bike out there and back on top of doing the course.
It’s great as this allows residents who live further out east a better chance to participate, but I hope that they’ll at least alternate between east and west each year!
Blork
Meezly, to be precise, alternating between the Plateau and Parc Maisonneuve would be alternating between east and center, not east and west. 😉
Meezly
When it was held annually at Parc Jeanne-Mance, it was technically west. But yes, it was more of a central spot to converge.
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Kate
There are power outages here and there on the island because of the heat and the forest fires north of town.
jeather
My mother is currently in her third outage in three days.
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Kate
If you call the city’s 311 service from today you will be asked to attest in good faith that you have acquired rights as an English speaker before the phone tree lets you proceed in English.
Oh, and the city has a new French language commissar.
Boy, this is going to be fun.
dhomas
You can all probably test this for yourselves, but I took a recording of the message, for fun:
https://file.io/1xHYnXeJFILNsteph
Does 911 also have the 40-second message asking you to attest in good faith?
Are these labyrinth laws in the making?
Daniel
Oh, it seems to be gone, dhomas.
At any rate, delightful. And yet I went to the Quebec-dot-ca site, clicked English, and wasn’t interrogated. An oversight, I’m sure.
I also tried to sign up for more French classes under the new, expanded access. But it wants a piece of paperwork that I, having immigrated 10+ years ago and being now a citizen for several years, never thought I’d need again. I tried!
Shawn Goldwater
Oh that’s interesting if they took it down. Even funnier.
dhomas
That’s really strange that the file disappeared. I had set it to expire in 4 weeks. I’m any case, here it is again on another filesharing service:
https://we.tl/t-k7gg3QjPFLCE
Since there is the option to be served in English if you qualify, are government workers who interact with the public required to be bilingual? If not, what happens when someone with acquired rights requests service in English but the person serving them simply doesn’t speak the language?
Ephraim
My favourite, calling RQ to discuss GST. Employee refused to speak in English. Call CRA, tell them that contract with Quebec is in violation, won’t give me service in English. Revenu Quebec calls back to apologize and help in English. Anything to do with GST… service in English with a smile, it’s part of the federal contract
Margaret
Daniel, I also went to sign up for the free francization courses offered by the Q govt this morning. The institution I contacted replied that I needed to go on the Francization page. I wrote back (all of this in French, btw) that it was this page that told me to apply with them. They wrote back and said I was right…they weren’t quite up to speed on the program yet. As it happens, I would have to go to St Jean sur Richelieu to sign up for my ONLINE courses. Not close to home at all for someone who wants to do remote learning…And then, if I do end up successful in my francization, do I still qualify as an Anglo for whatever gets tossed our way?
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Kate
A major fire is burning Thursday morning on Laurier near St‑Urbain.
shawn
I think it’s out now, Amazing to see firetrucks still coming from as far as Verdun and this huge encampment of fireguys sprawled out like they are having a day at the beach. And still not too hot or tired to be jerks! Or one anyway, sitting in the shade of the truck at the car wash, who conspicuously eyed the rear end of woman walking by with her male companion and the shared his estimation with a colleague (who to his credit appeared not to care). Send that jerk up the ladder if he still has the energy for that.
Anyway, the fire got under the roof of the building above carpet store – who must have severe water damage, poor chap. And I saw why it took them so long, in the intense dry heat. They would spray water into the charred top of the structure, wait, and then it would start to smoke again, from under the roof. On and on it went, like that.
Spi
La Presse is reporting that the fire originated from the 3rd floor rear balcony, pretty good odds that someone’s bbq or cigarettes started this fire.
Shawn Goldwater
Yes that’s exactly what it liked like to me too, standing behind it in the alley.
It started very early in the morning. Could someone have been out there BBQing at that hour?
There was also stuff on the balcony. Could the morning sun have ignited something?
That’s one my fears, that I will do something stupid and cause a fire that impacts everyone.
I tried calling the fellow who owns the carpet store on the ground floor. He was not answering, not surprisingly. I am worried about them.
Kate
Dried moss in plant pots can smoulder for awhile. If someone put their smoke out in a pot before going to bed late, it could’ve done this.
shawn, you told me about that carpet shop on Mastodon. I was curious because I own one nice rug and it has a hole in it from moths, and I wanted to get it repaired. I was going to bring it there sometime this summer – maybe not, now.
Shawn Goldwater
He certainly cleaned rugs great. Don’t know if he repaired them. Boy I hope they are okay.
Shawn Goldwater
Oh I see from his website that they do carpet repairs. He’s a third generation carpet guy.
Spi
@Shawn, depends what kind of bbq’ing one is doing, if one is doing an American styled slow cook/smoking then they could be starting several hours before they intend to actually be serving food.
Either case, I hope that person had liability insurance because that’s insurances are going to be after them if they indeed are the source of the fire.
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Kate
Quebec is cracking down on illegal taxis, although La Presse puts that phrase in scare quotes. Quebec wants to enforce a law that forbids soliciting customers, which has been happening at the airport.
Ephraim
Have the vice department do it. They are supposed to be arresting people for solicitation anyway 😀
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Kate
There were eight suspicious car fires overnight, in two locations.
Metro writes a tidy police blotter, listing the fires, an assault, and a discharge of a firearm.
A man was severely beaten in the Orange Julep parking lot on Wednesday night.
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Kate
Quebec’s new language law came into effect Thursday – as the CBC says here:
The provisions require employees of most front-facing government agencies to serve clients in French unless those clients have acquired English-language rights or are new immigrants who arrived to the province within the last six months. The acquired rights include that an English speaker be allowed to be educated in English because of their family’s anglophone history.
Does anyone know what the mechanism is for demonstrating one’s anglophone family history?
Anton
Can u get some sort of badge to wear?
Kate
I could dig out my old anarchy badge, that has an A on it.
Kevin
There isn’t any mechanism. The CAQ has refused to write anything into law, and multiple ministers (Eric Girard, Legault, and Jean-Francois Roberge https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/we-are-counting-on-good-faith-minister-says-of-anglos-seeking-services-in-english ) have said that employees will have to accept declarations from the public on the assumption that we are making that claim in good faith.
Joey
That second sentence is, just, yikes. If your rights are based on your ancestry, i.e., the lineage that preceded your birth, how is that ‘acquired,’ which presumably is distinct from ‘inherent’ – I googled ‘acquired rights’ but only found references to construction – “The recognised right to maintain a construction or use in compliance before the coming into force of a new law or regulation” – I suppose you could bend that into a certain shape to be relevant here.
Anyway, previously CBC reported that provincial agencies were supposed to provide services in English in the following cases:
The person is eligible to go to an English-language school.
The person is Indigenous.
The person has a history of communicating with the institution in question in English prior to May 13, 2021.
The person receives services outside of Quebec.
The person is a new immigrant to Canada who arrived in Quebec within the previous six months and is learning French.Ian
Perhaps some kind of “A”, embroidered in a bright colour so as to be easily identified. Maybe in scarlet.
Kate
Joey, that’s the thing. Both my parents went to school in English in Montreal and so did I. But I have no documents to prove this and I don’t know whether anyone has kept records from people studying in schools of a defunct school board in the 20th century. Surely someone has them, if you need to present these documents to get your kids into English school now? But I don’t have kids, so I’ve never had to figure that out.
dhomas
I had to get a “Déclaration d’admissibilité à l’enseignement en Anglais” for my kids to be allowed to attend English school. In Montreal, the EMSB has inherited the records of the majority of the defunct school boards (at least for the CECM and the PSBGM). Not sure if they would be able to get that information in your name, as the certificates I have are in my children’s names. But if you went to school (in English) after 1977, there is probably an existing certificate in your name kicking around somewhere at the EMSB.
Joey
@dhomas it makes a certain amount of sense that you would need ‘proof’ of eligibility for something like enrolling your child in English school. It makes no sense that you would need to carry that proof on you (or have it registered in some provincial IT system) to, say, renew your driver’s license. It’s sweet and all that the minister says not to worry and that all bureaucrats will be deferential and use good judgment – how long until we start hearing stories other kinds of bureaucrats demanding papers from ‘historic’ anglos? Then how much longer until the whole concept is scrapped and the provincial bureaucracy moves to French-only?
Kate
I’ve emailed the EMSB to find out how to get documentation. If they still have my old report cards I’d be amazed. I even gave them a few details on my parents’ schools.
Orr
The woman in our condo building who tears down any sign or notice containing any trace of English is very happy today, telling anyone and everyone how this is finally going to force the english speakers to leave Quebec, which tbh is something she’s been saying since Legault was first elected. But today she’s positively jubilant.
Kate
I wonder what percentage of Quebec residents would like to see that happen.
Ephraim
@Orr – She would have supported the Nuremburg laws too
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