The Gazette’s Allison Hanes spells out what Bill 15 will do to healthcare in Quebec.
Updates from October, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A worker at a Maxi store on Masson stabbed a colleague Tuesday morning, nonfatally. He didn’t use a work implement, but an eight‑inch blade he was not supposed to be carrying on the job.
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Kate
Owners of small apartment buildings in the eastern Plateau are angry to find out that their lots have been contaminated by old gas station tanks from a station that used to be adjacent to their properties, but the current owner of the gas station lot is blowing off any responsibility. It’s bound to end up in court.
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Kate
REM commuters want a fallback option to be on hand in case of system breakdowns this winter.
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Kate
Police cruisers aren’t going to be washed till next year, in order to save money, and all kinds of other little economies are being encouraged, if not enforced, in the SPVM.
Ephraim
Does that mean they will stop the current paint job as well. It’s one of the worst designs for a police car. They should be painted to be be Hi-Viz, not black and hide. The same with their uniforms. They stand in the street in traffic, children need to see them… they should be wearing Hi-Viz vests. Maybe that is the first reform we should push Plante to enact… making the police wear Hi-Viz, so we can see them, so kids can find them when they need them, so they don’t look para miliatary.
Ian
They got a budget increase nearly equivalent to the STM shortfall and they still can’t afford to do what they do? Sounds awfully fishy. Here’s a thought, not flying police helicopters over peaceful protests would save them 12k an hour. One tuition protest alone might save enough to get ALL the cruisers the fancy wash at the gas station automat.
Orr
I have the opinion that all government -owned vehicles (all of them – no exceptions at all!) should be white.
Or pink, I’d be ok with pink. With big “govt” signs on the side.Tee Owe
White with pink wheels?
Ian
Pink glitter-finish, with whitewall tires.
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Kate
It’s refreshing to see Montreal‑area mayors ganging up on Quebec over transit funding.
Orr
THere is a big cohort of young progressive mayors across QUebec.
They are doing good things.
The days when the chambre of commerce and their chosen candidate ran the cities is over.
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Kate
Not only did the REM go down Monday for two hours, there was little or no communication to passengers about the state of the situation in the trains or on social media. CDPQ Infra admitted this Tuesday but also said the breakdown wasn’t caused by the snow, really it wasn’t. They’re promising to communicate better.
jeather
After the recent orange line failure that I only didn’t get caught up in due to a luckily timed text from a friend, I check the service status when I leave work, and there was nothing there about the REM being down.
Uatu
Nobody mentioned that it was also broken down on Friday morning. Had to take a bus to downtown. At least it was sunny and wfh meant that there wasn’t a lot of traffic. Kinda worried what’ll happen during freezing rain or blizzard.
Ian
And it’s down this morning, too.
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Kate
La Presse has more details on the woman paralyzed and left on the sidewalk by police after an encounter with them last month. Reporters talk to witnesses and even, briefly, to the woman herself, who only told them she was still in hospital.
Update: La Presse says Wednesday that the three police involved in the affair were arrested and released and are now doing administrative work while an inquiry decides whether criminal charges should be made.
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Kate
Schoolbus drivers at four service centres are on strike Tuesday, keeping roughly 15,000 students away from their schools.
bumper carz
Whereas those schoolbuses are usually “keeping kids off their bikes” by making the roads extremely dangerous at the exact times that kids might need to use them to bike to or from school. I have been side-swiped by these monsters many times in my lifetime. I think most of the drivers are ex-cons or soldiers who went awol because of mental distress.
Kate
I don’t know what to make of your slanders against schoolbus drivers, qatzelok.
As discussed on this blog previously, kids used to routinely go to a school close to home, which would tend to make it easy to cycle. That’s no longer true. Kids are often shuttled quite long distances now, distances that would be hazardous and arduous for kids, hard going in winter, and impossible for kids with any kind of physical disability.
In other words, there will be schoolbuses.
jeather
It’s a weird change from the attacks on parents who drive their kids in SUVs, something which is probably riskier for the kids.
Kevin
Schools have really, really changed this century.
Even in elementary school, my kids had classmates who lived 20 or 30 km away. It’s now normal for kids off-island to attend a high school in a central borough.jeather
Kids in high school don’t take school buses, as a rule.
bumper carz
@jeather: “…parents who drive their kids in SUVs, something which is probably riskier for the kids.”
Right beside the school, yes, SUVs are more dangerous. But SUVs then jump onto highways and arterial roads – away from the hoods.
School buses lumber along dense residential streets – the exact streets that kids would need to bike on.
These mastodons are also 1950s-era vehicle design – dangerously wide boxes with lots of blindspots and a high front bumper that will drive a collision-victim under the vehicle.
Car companies love school buses because they eliminate the normal daily bike ride of children.
Ephraim
School bus drivers take a lot of abuse. From the parents, from the children and apparently now, from the public as well. It’s a damn tough job with weird hours and not great pay. They are entrusted with children of helicopter parents and kids who gang up on them. And they have to watch the kids cross the street as car drivers pass them with the flashing lights to protect the kids. It’s a damn tough job!
dhomas
@bumper carz: If you’re interested in actual statistics for school bus safety, instead of making general assumptions, the data is publicly available here:
https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/TRAN/Brief/BR10487380/br-external/FederationDesTransporteursParAutobus-10047135-e.pdfHere you can see the accident reports for all vehicles:
https://saaq.gouv.qc.ca/blob/saaq/documents/publications/bilan-routier-2022.pdfOr in greater detail here:
https://saaq.gouv.qc.ca/blob/saaq/documents/publications/bilan-routier-2022-annexes.pdfWe can see that about 1% of all school buses are involved in some form of accident yearly, on average.
The SAAQ doesn’t separate cars from SUVs in their statistics, unfortunately. But we can see that combined, about 0.43% of cars/SUVs are involved in accidents, if my calculations are correct.
Deaths involving school buses, on the other hand, are quite rare. About 0.028% deaths (only 3 deaths). Cars/SUVs were responsible for 0.0079% (392 deaths).
Critical injuries: 0.018% for school buses vs 0.14% for Cars/SUVs.
Anywho, there’s lots of data here, for anyone who is interested.
dhomas
@jeather: some high schools have school buses. Ex:
https://cssmv.gouv.qc.ca/secondaire/transport-scolaire/Kate
Thanks for all the research, dhomas.
jeather
Sorry, kids in Montreal — not those going to school on off-island suburbs — tend not to take school buses. There are some exceptions, but the EMSB, for instance, doesn’t even show it as an option.
Ian
Welcome to today’s episode, in which it becomes painfully obvious that qtzi does not have kids.
@jeather the Hassidic schools have buses. Lots of ’em, several times a day, 6 days a week. The kids don’t get summer break, either.
bob 10:46 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
Legault is just consolidating state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, like any good communist would.
Clément 13:59 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
Is there a Godwin’s law, but for communism?
Ian 18:47 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
It’s implicit.
Besides, Legault is. good old-fashioned capitalist mononcle with tendencies toward invoking ethnicity, traditionalist historicity, and culture wars. If you want to call him a dictator, fascist seems more appropriate than communist – though still an exaggeration. For now.
bob 19:45 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
How is it an exaggeration? Websters defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.” This describes the CAQ quite accurately. They exalt the Quebecois nation while officially denigrating all other cultures and eliminating the individual rights of members thereof; they are seeking to dismantle or neutralize all competing institutions (English or French) and rule society by means of an étatiste bureaucracy that answers only to the premier; the economy, justice system, and unaccountable civil service are systemically racist, and this order is maintained by a set of systemically racist and unaccountable censorial and policing entities; and the population is effectively divided into permanently unequal castes based on class, ethnicity, and race while equality of opportunity and of condition and social mobility are intentionally diminished by educational and social welfare policies, and privatization of socio-political enclosures with authority over increasingly large areas of common life, but no legal or political responsibility.
Ian 20:27 on 2023-11-01 Permalink
Well we’re still allowed to vote and they don’t have snappy uniforms
… yet