Wild turkeys in the news: a turkey boarded an STM bus in Baie‑D’Urfé sometime last year, but the video made it to Tiktok this week after the news about a Louiseville resident taking down a fierce turkey with a slingshot.
Updates from March, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
What was it like being stuck for two hours in the REM in the middle of the bridge Wednesday night? Not much fun, according to this account.
Ian
Well it’s a good thing nobody ever uses public transit in bad weather /s
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Kate
François Legault says the federal government’s intention to challenge Quebec’s secularity bill, aka Bill 21, to the Supreme Court, amounts to a lack of respect for Quebecers.
Don’t we arrive at our laws by a gradual process of challenge, defense and debate? The secularity bill may be Legault’s pet project, but now that it’s been upheld by the Quebec Court of Appeal, it seems inevitable that the Supremes will be asked to rule on it. This isn’t disrespect – if anything, it’s the reverse.
Ian
Yes but that gradual process is considered Quebec bashing by Legault. The CAQ does not like having to explain its decisions or engage in debate. Their entire weltanschauung is “us vs them”.
Kevin
The Appeals Court and the Superior Court took great pains to say Bill 21 is legal, but that morality wasn’t for them to decide.
bob
The Appeals Court and the Superior Court did not say that. They said that is was constitutional because of the use of the Notwithstanding Clause, which is a clause that allows illegal laws to remain in force. In particular, they said that the argument that the law is discriminatory against Muslim women in particular was not valid because the law is discriminatory against all Muslims. They said that this law can stand is because of the Notwithstanding Clause, and that this clause is a political issue.
Bill 21 amounts to a lack of respect for fundamental values written into Quebec’s own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and CAQ sits there with 70% 0f the seats in the National Assembly despite winning only 37% of a 66% voter turnout, because that’s democracy, representative of the real, white, Catholic Quebec.
Said Guillaume Rousseau, “a victory for those who support Quebec’s liberty, Quebec’s autonomy” – the sentiment of a true bigot, who does not include Muslims or Sikhs of Jews, to be part of Quebec, much like CAQ in general.
The CAQ mentalité is racist opportunism. They are a racist party that appeals to racists so they can keep power for a corrupt class of resentful bougie whiners who make sure their kids learn English as a mother tongue in private schools where retrograde initiatives like Bill 21 don’t apply.
Meezly
I’ve been reading through the Appeal Court decision and in no way do they “uphold” Law 21. However, I would agree with Kevin that the Appeal Court took great pains to say that Bill 21 is legal and exempt from judicial review, but they also state that their powers are limited, if not entirely exempt, thanks to the seemingly all-powerful notwithstanding clause.
However, they do make a point that the clause is not immutable, reminding us the importance of “public backlash and the reaction of citizens can also act as a bulwark against the use of notwithstanding clauses.”
“In the same vein, the power of the electorate should not be understated: the democratic rights enshrined in s. 3 of the Canadian Charter, whether exercised federally or provincially, are not subject to s. 33 of the Canadian Charter. As a result, the electorate holds the ultimate power to defeat any government that has used (or abused) the override power conferred on it by this constitutional provision or the equivalent provision of the Quebec Charter”
Interestingly, the court seemed to make a dig at how the Act (aka Bill 21) had been pushed (see 415). So a bit of bias managed to sneak into their decision!
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Kate
Some stories from the justice category:
Frank Cao, convicted of killing a woman in her car on Nuns’ Island in 2020, will serve at least 16 years in prison. The puzzling thing is that Cao apparently did not know Shao Jing Lu, so his motive is a mystery, as a prosecutor says here.
A man was arrested by the SQ and charged with defrauding his victims of $600,000.
A man was arrested on Thursday and charged with a homicide on the bike path in Montreal North last month.
Tony Accurso has served a sixth of his sentence and will be released from prison soon. He still denies involvement in any corruption schemes, and hopes to get involved in new real estate deals soon.
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Kate
Three cases of measles have been noted in Montreal and Laval. Public health is concerned to get more people vaccinated before spring break – but that’s next week.
jeather
Note that if you were born in the 70s in Quebec you only had one measles dose which was the standard at the time. (Later the schedule went to two, before they assume you had actual measles.)
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Kate
The SQDC has started selling cannabis‑infused poutine sauce. And yet we can’t have gummies?
Mark Côté
Well the law says they can’t sell anything that appeals to children, and I guess most children aren’t going to whip up a batch of poutine on their own. I guess I gotta thank that law for the hilarity and unpredictability of the edibles section at the SQDC… never thought I’d see THC-infused ramen.
Also funny/annoying: the equivalent grams of cannabis is based on the weight of the product, not the actual mg of cannabinoids… so that 5 mg of THC in the ramen counts as like 7 g of dried cannabis in terms of how much you’re allowed to buy and possess at once.
Kate
I was thinking that poutine is something you’d eat after getting the munchies.
Ian
Trying to make sense of this is pointless. Order from out out of province or make your own.
DeWolf
You have to admit, the cannabis-infused instant noodles is a stroke of genius.
Ian
Call me old-fashioned but I like to keep my drugs and my soup separate.
MarcG
Kids used to mix magic mushrooms into ramen, there is precedent.
Ian
Space Jello was more common in my circles, but I see your point 😀
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Kate
CBC has a good, detailed piece Friday on what police cost overruns are paying for, even as their budget continues to rise.
And yet, the police Équipe de concertation communautaire is set to shut down next month from lack of funding?
Ian
I actually posted this link on page 2, thinking nobody would appreciate my constant carping about the city overspending on cops.
I think this passage is the most on-point:
“Although Montreal does have fewer officers today per capita than it did a decade ago, it still has more officers per capita than cities like Vancouver and Edmonton, which have higher rates of severe crime, according to data from Statistics Canada.
Massimiliano Mulone, associate professor in the department of criminology at the Université de Montréal, thinks Montreal’s police force is far from understaffed.
However, the amount of overtime and the number of tasks they take on, from responding to calls involving mental health to homelessness, might cause fatigue and stress, he says, making them feel there is a need for an even larger police force.”
This is the whole point to defunding the police – not that we should not have any police at all, but that we are inflating the police budget to make them do things that would be better performed by other community services – basically losing money on worse services.
Also, this:
“(Mulone) says there are other ways to roll back spending, such as stopping the practice of having highly paid officers do some forms of administrative work or direct traffic.”Well, duh.
Kate
Ian, that is so well put I want to call it out:
This is the whole point to defunding the police – not that we should not have any police at all, but that we are inflating the police budget to make them do things that would be better performed by other community services – basically losing money on worse services.
jeather
If anyone ran for mayor on this, I would vote for them in a heartbeat. I am beyond unimpressed with Plante on this topic.
Joey
@kate that’s why “defund the police” is a terrible slogan
bob
Overtime is the contemporary form of police corruption. It is part of a larger trend. As old-time corruption becomes more difficult, stuff like plain extortion, the corrupt slip into legal forms of fraud and abuse, and in the case of police continent-wide that has been excessive overtime and hyper-defensive unions. It was formerly a small-ish percentage of police employees who put in for the excessive overtime, skewing the numbers, but it has become widespread, because it is not seen as obviously fraudulent or corrupt (if it is seen at all), and police get away with everything because no one polices the police.
I don’t have data at hand, but the last time I looked there was an association between the highest amounts of fraudulent overtime (employees claiming to have worked 70, 80, 90 hour weeks) and things like complaints for excessive force and other misbehaviour.
In line with the “defunding” sentiment, and mirroring what Ted Rutland said in the atricle, here’s a recent quote from the Comptroller of New York City, whose police overspent their overtime budget by 93% (about $1 billion over) in 2022: “If New York City had unlimited cash, it would be lovely to allow teachers unlimited overtime to stay after school to help every kid learn to read or pay social workers unlimited overtime to help counsel New Yorkers struggling with mental illness. But other agencies aren’t allowed to show total disregard for their overtime budget, and we can’t afford for the NYPD to do so year after year.” But, of course, they do, and so does the SPVM.
Ian
I’m not even allowed to have a substitute teacher if I’m sick for a day. There are no “budget overruns” for most public workers. I get the argument that police are an essential service – but not all of their services are essential, and as Mulone pointed out, not all police work falls within essential services either.
If we actually had social workers doing sociall work (for instance) it would probably even lead to a reduction in crime.
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Kate
The story leading all media Friday is the death of Brian Mulroney at 84. Even his political opponents are trying to say something nice about the man who was prime minister from 1984 to 1993. La Presse has gone all out with columns about his influence, one dossier on his background and another on his initial election as prime minister, plus more. Le Devoir looks at the scandals that came to haunt him. The Journal looks at international coverage.
On CBC radio Friday morning they had some guy claiming to speak for “the Irish community” in Montreal – whatever that is – and saying Mulroney made us all proud, and so on. For myself, I think the moment Mulroney bust out into “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” with Ronald Reagan was the worst moment of political cringe I hope ever to experience.
Ian
NAFTA, GST, and a legacy of neoliberalism…
Though to be fair the first time I came to Montreal when I was 16 was to protest a visit by Reagan so I guess in some indirect way I should thank Mulroney for getting me to fall in love with Montreal and move here 3 years later.
Kevin
I will forever remember him as the guy who killed Katimavik
walkerp
Lots of issues with Mulroney for sure but man compare him to the Conservative party leadership today and it is night and day in terms of competence.
Kate
walkerp, it may be ironic, but I prefer the Conservatives to be a bunch of bumbling idiots rather than a couple of barracudas like Mulroney and Harper.
Joey
Hard to imagine a Conservative politician in 2024 being a global political leader on issues like environmental protection or apartheid. Don’t see a lot of bumbling idiots, unfortunately…
CE
It must be a generational thing that I associate killing Katimavik with Stephen Harper. I very vividly remember when Heritage Minister James Moore said it was “one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made.”
Joey
@CE your memory is correct, but that doesn’t mean @Kevin is wrong. From the Canadian Encyclopedia:
Katimavik was a youth service program founded by the social activist and author Jacques Hébert in 1977 and funded by the federal government. It replaced, to some extent, the defunct Company of Young Canadians, but unlike its predecessor it maintained a low political profile and remained, by and large, out of the public eye. In the winter of 1986 the Mulroney government moved to cancel Katimavik, which precipitated a 21-day fast by Hébert – who was by then a senator – in the Senate lobby. The program survived, but in 2012 the Harper Conservative government withdrew funding, effectively ending Katimavik after three and a half decades.
Kevin
Oh yeah, Chretien brought it back to have Harper kill it again.
Conservatives really hate the idea of Canadians getting to know other Canadians.
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Kate
Weekend notes from CityCrunch, CultMTL and Sarah’s Weekend List also all looking at Nuit Blanche; notes from Radio‑Canada on the High Lights festival; cultural activities for spring break.
CultMTL also lists establishments along the Main planning to stay open all night for Nuit Blanche.
The weekend is set to warm up as we say goodbye to February.
walkerp 11:02 on 2024-03-02 Permalink
At least his or her bus arrived.
Ian 12:47 on 2024-03-02 Permalink
That’s something I’d like explained to me – how do you tell turkey males from females?
I’ve seen online guides that say male chest feathers are white and black but females are brown and black – but it’s not like it’s an obvious thing to see from a distance. Any other clues?