Police are putting on a show, getting people to cross tricky intersections holding a sign saying REGARDEZ‑MOI followed by a picture showing that person dead from a vehicle accident.
This is supposed to admonish drivers about paying attention. Is this likely to help, or will it distract drivers as they navigate a tricky intersection?
Bits and pieces of the original La Ronde rides are strewn around on the site, and it’s implied to be a shame – but who expects Texan operators to give a damn about the history of La Ronde as part of Expo 67? They don’t care.
Mario Dumont is wailing that the state of the Olympic stadium is a shame for Montreal – but to whom? Nobody outside the city gives a damn. Here’s an extensive photo essay about sad Olympic installations around the world – no mention of us. The recent Guardian piece on Athens considering dismantling its stadium roof had me waiting for some reference to us – but nope.
Nobody cares.
The stadium has been a lemon from the day it was conceived. It’s not suited to our climate and requires tens of millions of dollars in annual maintenance. It’s a horrible place to watch any event because the spectators are just too far away from the field.
I understand that it’s a challenge to demolish post-tensioned concrete, but it’s not impossible, and even the Olympic-board-provided figure is about the same amount as the cost of the major maintenance job the stadium needs in order not to collapse.
How much money do we really need to sink into an item that just looks pretty and has no real use?
I still kinda like it.
According to François Legault, the new tuition law will keep anglos out, thus protecting French. Critics continue to weigh in on the blow to business, the city’s creative talent, and Canadian national unity.
CTV quotes Legault: “Having a lot of English-speaking foreign students in Quebec has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages when it comes to the long-term survival of the French language.” Evidently students from other provinces count as foreigners to Papa Legault.
Not even dogwhistling anymore, just openly calling non-francophones “foreigners”.
Who knew the decision to keep Joelle Boutin out of cabinet would have such major repercussions.
Legault «said taking these steps was not an easy decision to make, but it is necessary as having so many anglophone students in Quebec threatens the survival of the French language.»
1. I’m pretty sure it WAS an easy decision.
2. I don’t believe that anglophone students in Quebec threaten the survival of French. That doesn’t even pass the sniff test.
To paraphrase Jasper (Michael Caine) in the movie Children of Men, “every time a politician is in trouble something blows up”. In Quebec’s case it’s to remind the québécois of the eeeevvilll English sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. And the caq really needs everyone to get distracted from their election loss to the pq because of the tunnel debacle, the raise they gave themselves and yet claim they’re poor to the common front, the failure of the private retirement homes to handle the pandemic, the mess of the education system, the doctor shortage, the nursing shortage etc. Yeah Legault take out that old baba yaga mask and make scary noises. Yawn.
Siren alerts will be tested Wednesday morning in neighbourhoods adjoining potentially hazardous industries.
A big pro-Palestine protest was held downtown Tuesday evening. More video at this X link.
Common Front public sector unions have voted 95% in favour of strike action. François Legault is talking about a strike at Halloween but the unions are denying any such plan.
It’s ridiculous for a variety of reasons but most especially because there haven’t been any strike dates set yet.
It’s obviously a ploy to make it look like the Common Front is planning to spoil a popular holiday. (Which isn’t a holiday at all, but you know what I mean.)
Why would a public sector strike have any bearing on Halloween?
Don’t kids do Halloween fun stuff at school? If you’re talking a massive public sector walkout at Halloween you’re more or less implying that this won’t be happening. Anyway, it’s a date everyone knows, and Legault has now pinned the idea to it in some way.
Not, as Ian points out, that any strike dates have been set.
“The commies want to take hallowe’en from your kids”
It’s no big secret, the “front commun” has said there will probably be a couple of one or two-day strikes in December affecting all public sector workers, and if that doesn’t work, a full general strike may be necessary.
Full disclosure, I am a public sector worker – and I assure you no Hallowe’en strike is in the works. We were told maybe November …at the earliest.
Legault just comes off like a poor chess player with this false declaration.
If the government offer 9% over 5 years, why is Legault saying it`s a ”reasonable 13%”?
Legault is the kind of guy that shows up to a chess tournament with a set of checkers.
My kids would be thrilled to have no school on Halloween.
It is not only anglo commentators that have spoken against the CAQ’s plan to double tuition rates for students coming to Quebec’s English‑language universities from the rest of Canada – yet sparing those from France and Belgium. Stéphanie Grammond in La Presse, academic Martin Lefebvre in Le Devoir (who ledes with his genealogy back to 1618 and his sovereignist credentials) both wrote against it this week.
Can anyone explain to me why the Parti Québécois government did not, in the fine flush of 1970s and 1980s nationalism, seize the assets of the English‑language universities and make them teach only in French? It would have hurt, but it would have taken the bandage off at once.
By “taken the bandage off at once”, do you mean “completely destroyed the institutions”?
Because a University is not the buildings it holds classes in. It’s the faculty.
It’s the continuous culture that exists within each school, and each department. Both would be destroyed.
> Because a University is not the buildings it holds classes in.
Maybe not, but you can’t have classes without a place to hold them.
They could have given the universities three years to get their faculty up to speed to teach in French, then tested them, and fired the ones that washed out. And proceeded from there.
That’s a good question, Kate. These English universities inject a lot of money into the province. Was it possible the PQ weren’t willing to impact Quebec’s economy at the time to score points in the culture war between French and English? Could also be the fact that the CAQ has a more extreme brand of ethno-nationalism. It’s not simply about language anymore. The purity of the nation is the ultimate goal – anything else is worth sacrificing.
>They could have given the universities three years to get their faculty up to speed to teach in French, then tested them, and fired the ones that washed out.
It will be an interesting day, when the CAQ government takes over Montreal City Weblog, fires its hithertoo exclusively English speaking owner, and replaces them with an exclusively French-speaking owner.
Je pourrais écrire le blogue en français exclusivement, si ça deviendrait nécessaire. Certains diront peut-être qu’il manque de respect d’écrire le blog en anglais, mais pour l’instant, je vais continuer de le faire.
Kate – One word… tenure
Another word: solidarity amongst academics. The faculty of our French-language universities and research institutions would have gone on strike. Then the scandal would have spread throughout the US and the rest of the world – McGill especially has a very high profile. Universities are probably the most international institutions that exist other than the UN and the Vatican. They interact continually to preserve quality (conferences, program reviews) and through their graduate programs.
I think there are two main factors: knowing what fights you can win, and thinking a fight isn’t necessary because of demographics.
In 1973 the PQ won 6 seats, down from 7 the previous term, and the Liberals had more than 100 seats. In 1976 the PQ put separation on the backburner and promised good government, and I think they were a little surprised when they ended up with a majority. They certainly flubbed their first piece of legislation about languages, which is why it had to be withdrawn and resubmitted as Bill 101.
PQ leaders have said often enough that they wanted to provoke legal challenges in order to boost support for separation, but they probably thought that forcibly seizing assets would have generated too much ill will.
The ethnic nationalists also believed (wrongly) that language laws would inevitably lead to the anglo community withering on the vine and disappearing. From the the late 50s through the 1970s *most* areas of Montreal city had seen a gradual increase in francophones, as the traditional demarcation of St. Laurent was shifting. More francophones were moving into Cote des Neiges, Ahuntsic, Outremont, TMR, and the Université de Montreal was growing in numbers and reputation. The perception was that Anglos were retreating from urban Montreal to the newly-developing areas of the West Island.
> One word… tenure
Thing about revolutions is you can break with contracts made by the previous regime. Nationalize private industry, discontinue tenure for academics who do not fall into line, etc.
If you read the comments on any of the articles cited above (not to mention the various social media discussions), the decision is clearly appealing to the CAQ/PQ base. Unfortunately, these opinion pieces are yelling into the void.
Just like Bill 21, Quebec’s masses have shown that they are fine with targeting minorities; visible, linguistic, religious…Who is next??
All of this just because the caq broke an election promise to build a tunnel for cars. Sigh.
I think the answer is that Levesque wanted to negotiate a new version of federalism, and barring that wanted to create a fundamentally progressive social democracy in a renewed Quebec. And in both of those cases waging any kind of overtly anti-Anglo campaign would have been self-defeating.
Over the decades, the movement has been co-opted by ethno-nationalists, who traded in creating a new country for waging a petty campaign against all minorities. And it’s been tolerated by the Fed because no one’s advocating separation or constitutional negotiations any longer.
That’s one of the saddest things how the independence movement has almost utterly abandoned its progressive values.
… to the extent that it’s hard to find any truly progressive groups that aren’t ethnonationalists.
I first visited Montreal in 86 for a protest, with my bus ride provided by the IWW affiliated Young Socialists. I was surprised that even the anarchists were QC separatists.
The perception is that you get what you pay for. Among students from the rest of Canada, and among francophone students in Quebec, it will appear that an education is English is twice as valuable as one in French. This policy may result in an increase in francophones studying in English.
@Ian Doesn’t that make sense? It’s easier to build an ideal country from scratch than it is working with something that already exists.
That’s certainly what the Spartacists claim but even with those high ideals the element of separation by linguistic identity wasn’t hidden. The perception was that if you speak English you’re probably not progressive, whereas the French as a subjugated people are more naturally inclined to progressive ideals.
Utter horseshit of course, but hey. In the end I got kicked out of YS for being a Trotskyite 😀
SPVM police did a lot of overtime this summer on Grand Prix week. The Journal suggests that the organizers ought to be chipping in to support the event’s security needs.
Incidentally, this is the sort of thing I mean when I’ve said that you cannot have major sports events without public funds going into supporting them.
Police expected a summer with significant armed violence, but – as it turned out – such incidents are down by 25% compared to 2022.
Maybe we can have a big, big conversation about it.
The strife in Palestine spills over everywhere. The EMSB put out a recent Facebook message featuring the flag of Israel and speaking only about loss of life there, with no mention of the crisis in Gaza. Some parents were not happy.
The map shown in this piece shows that Gaza is a little smaller than the island of Montreal.
I wonder why that 24heures piece doesn’t flesh things out to show that Israel is a little bigger than the state of New Jersey.
I don’t think we have as clear a mental reference here for the size of New Jersey as we do for the island of Montreal.
Ian 08:13 on 2023-10-18 Permalink
Maybe this is a problem we can solve with clowns?
Spi 09:24 on 2023-10-18 Permalink
Frankly I think they’ve misidentified the problem from the start, from what I’ve noticed on the road (while driving/walking/cycling) is that drivers are the most distracted and inattentive while stopped. Going on their phones, fidgeting with the GPS, messing around with the radio/music, just oblivious to what’s going on around.
When it takes 5-7 seconds for the first car at a light to get going after the light turns green you can be certain they weren’t paying attention and certainly unaware of their surroundings.
DisgruntledGoat 10:26 on 2023-10-18 Permalink
I think campaigns like this are totally useless and target the symptoms rather than the root cause.
If you want to keep pedestrians safe, the way forward is more and more traffic calming measures.
Bring on the curb extensions and speed humps. Really don’t give a shit that people driving in from Laval or Brossard twice a week for work and once for leisure will write op-eds about it.
Ian 10:32 on 2023-10-18 Permalink
Why not just ticket bad drivers? Why the song and dance? It seems like a waste of effort.
Reminds me of last year when there were clowns dressed as cops warning people not to bike in pedestrian-only zones during street closures.
It’s like when there’s big poetic ad campaigns with fancy graphics and rhyming text admonishing people not to litter when we know what will work: a sign that says no littering, $250 fine … and actually fine people 250 bucks.
Or sending around the city crews to empty trash cans more regularly … but I digress.
Kevin 10:49 on 2023-10-18 Permalink
Montreal police need to recreate a traffic enforcement division and have several roving groups of cops stationed at random intersections. 2 shifts so they cover morning and evening rush hour. Just have the cops walk around dressed like beggars and they knock on windows, flash their badges, and ticket people holding phones. Give them speedy licence readers (I don’t care about the car registration in this hypothetical case) so the process is done in under a minute, just like a parking ticket.
It’ll earn money for the city and actually make the roads safer.
steph 11:07 on 2023-10-18 Permalink
If cops ticketed properly, people would stop breaking the rules and the extra ticket income would dry up. They keep quotas to maximize profits.
Ephraim 11:38 on 2023-10-18 Permalink
If you ask me, to make crosswalks safer, we need to move them a bit further away from the corner. So, not right on the corner, but indented about 1/2 a meter. It will also help to keep cyclists out and a further distance in for the cars. And the other side of this, at certain intersections, we need to stop the pedestrian light and let cars turn right, protected. So they also know that they don’t have to inch in to finally get a car or two around the corner. Some crosswalks would be better as a scramble than with a cross with traffic… St-Catherine at Guy, for me, would be better as a protected scramble.
Ian 18:35 on 2023-10-19 Permalink
@steph you win the cui bono award of the day. Makes perfect sense to my cynical, suspicious mind in regards to cops.