Updates from April, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 23:42 on 2024-04-11 Permalink | Reply  

    If it’s true that 95% of the cases that come to a nurse practitioner clinic don’t need to see a doctor, then it’s good news that people waiting to get a doctor will now be sent to nurses instead.

    Can we be sure of this or is it a politically convenient fiction? And is the next round of news stories going to be that it’s become difficult to see a nurse practitioner?

    And would Christian Dubé be pleased to be told that he couldn’t have a doctor, but could see a nurse instead?

    I mean no shade to nurse practitioners. I know it’s a valuable role. I’m not so sure about the CAQ using them to patch up holes in the Quebec medical system.

     

    • carswell 07:33 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      A modest proposal: Instead of giving politicians — especially ministers and, ahem, members of their family (see Legault’s mother or Boubou’s late wife for that matter) — access to gold-plated medical care, force them to rely only on the worst services available to to the general public.

      As long as large portions of the populace have to wait up to seven years to get a general practitioner, no politician is allowed to have a general practitioner. All politicians, irrespective of rank, are prohibited from being moved to the top of the waiting lists. Ban politicians from using the private system too (actually, let’s ban the private system altogether.) Etcetera.

      I can guarantee that politicians’ focus on solving the health care crisis would immediately become laser-like and solutions would be put in place far faster than will happen otherwise if they happen at all.

    • dwgs 09:22 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Our GP retired several years ago. After a wait of three years or so we were contacted by a NP, who invited us to become her patients. I was hesitant at first but decided to agree and I’m very happy with the decision. She’s far better and more involved than our GP ever was.
      I second Carswell’s proposal.

    • Ian 10:46 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      @carswell a similar intiative was undertaken at one place I worked where corporate decided VPs and lower management would not have a separate bathroom than the other employees – to ensure that all bathrooms were equally well-kept and laid out. Nicest bathrooms anywhere I ever worked.

  • Kate 09:59 on 2024-04-11 Permalink | Reply  

    A wild turkey was spotted and photographed in the Mile End this week.

     

    • Ian 10:04 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      I’ve been seeing wild turkeys around Mile End since covid. For a while one was roosting on my friend’s porch now and then, on Waverly near Bernard.

      In Ste Anne I see groups of wild turkeys along Morgan quite frequently.

      They are remarkably unconcerned about people or cars.

    • jeather 10:39 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      I’ve seen comments about one in St-Henri too.

    • Uatu 10:41 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      One-a-wild – a- tourkey sooprise comin’ up!

    • Kate 10:42 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      Thank you, Uatu!

    • Ian 13:33 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      I’m loving how relevant the Looney Tunes quotes have been recently 😀

    • nau 14:46 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      There was one in Verdun along the Canal de l’aqueduc near Jolicoeur bridge last week.

    • Michael 17:40 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      Poor thing just wants some food. I’d bring it to some big park in Senneville or something.

    • Ian 21:58 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      I suspect there’s good pickings along the rail lines toward champ des possibles and this is just community overflow. There’s rabbits out that way too, and lots of skunks & groundhogs.

      In other exciting wildlife news there have been opossum sightings in petit-patrie aka mile ex if your city boundaries are defined by real estate spin.

    • Kate 23:11 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      I saw a dead opossum last year up St‑Laurent near Liège, but have yet to see a live one. I don’t have any idea whether they’re active by day or night, or anything about them.

      Do they pose any hazard to cats? Or carry diseases that can be dangerous to our pets?

    • carswell 07:41 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Opossums are nocturnal and naturally rabies-resistant. They are generally shy and wary animals and will avoid encounters with creatures their own size or larger, tending to attack only when threatened and cornered.

    • Ian 08:47 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      @Kate you sure it was dead? They’re famous for that 😀

    • Kate 09:13 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Two guys were looking at a dead animal beside the sidewalk and surmising it was a huge rat. I stopped to look and it was obviously a very dead opossum. The traffic along there is fierce.

      carswell, it’s good to know they don’t carry rabies.

    • dwgs 09:24 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Wild turkeys have become a not uncommon site in NDG near the commuter rail tracks.

    • Blork 09:29 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Opossums are fascinating animals. They eat ticks! Too bad they’re so darn ugly.

    • Ian 10:38 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Hey now that’s no way to talk about North America’s only native marsupial 😀
      They don’t just eat ticks, they eat about their own body weight in ticks every year. Ugly or not, I’d rather live with opossums than ticks, thank you!

    • Ian 11:18 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      …of course I may be biased by this account I follow on bluesky:
      https://bsky.app/profile/possumeveryhour.io
      They’re awfully cute IMO

    • Janet 14:40 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      I like that one hanging on the window screen!

    • Nicole 15:23 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      There’s often a wild turkey on Nuns’ Island that the residents have named Gaston/ne

    • Ian 19:23 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Again I raise the question, does anyone here know how to identify wild turkeys by gender from a distance?

    • jeather 19:55 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Presumably other wild turkeys can do it.

      Google suggests that there are multiple ways — males have spurs on their legs, a beard, and generally fan their tails. (There’s also some detail about feathers that seems not doable from a distance.) They also tend to be more colourful.

  • Kate 09:17 on 2024-04-11 Permalink | Reply  

    Police are carrying out searches all over town looking for evidence concerning the February murder of a gangster’s brother.

    The bit in the CTV piece, citing Daniel Renaud saying that two recent shootings indicate “we’re seeing a reorganization of organized crime in Montreal” is a notion I’ve seen over and over in our media, especially since the decline of the Rizzutos. It’s almost as much of a chorus as “the team now has an opportunity to rebuild for next season” after the Canadiens crash and burn again.

     

    • PatrickC 12:40 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      Picking up on the last sentence, can someone explain to a person who doesn’t follow sports closely why the Habs haven’t done better? Is there one main reason (money?), or a lot of little ones?

    • Kate 13:32 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      The short answer is that U.S. teams have a lot more money. I’m sure there are other factors.

    • Tim S. 18:39 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      I have no idea about the mafia, but about the Habs: They made some bad decisions in the 1990s. Then they spent 20 years making short-term fixes and hoping it would work (and it almost did, a couple of times). Now they’ve decided to take the time to develop a new generation of young players. So far, the results are mildly promising on an individual level, but even in a best case scenario it’ll be another 2-3 years before they’re particularly good again.

    • Joey 22:17 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

      And it’s not because they’re cheap, they’re badly managed.

    • dwgs 09:26 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

      Tim pretty much nailed it. This is the first management team that I have had any faith in. They’ll have another couple years of growing pains but things are starting to get interesting.

  • Kate 09:12 on 2024-04-11 Permalink | Reply  

    Onetime police chief Philippe Pichet is having his moment in front of the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) about his dismissal from the top cop position. Valérie Plante testified Wednesday, denying that the decision was hers.

     

    • Kate 09:10 on 2024-04-11 Permalink | Reply  

      The English Montreal School Board is going to try to have Bill 21, aka la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État, challenged at the Supreme Court. The Supremes may or may not agree to hear it, of course – and politically it would be a scorching hot potato should they declare it unconstitutional.

      Update: Simon Jolin-Barrette says Ottawa should mind its own business. Has the minister forgotten that Quebec is still a part of Canada?

       

      • Ian 10:07 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

        I guess it’s a chance to see if the notwithstanding clause trumps all.

        Given what pathetic chickenshits the federal politicians have been in this matter I have my doubts, it’s a long shot for sure.

      • Kate 13:36 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

        My money is on the Supremes declining to hear it.

      • H. John 19:14 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

        @Ian I think the question may be not whether the “notwithstanding clause trumps all” but instead whether the court deals with the issue of preemptive use of the clause.

        Some people argue that the clause was intended to be used only after a law had been challenged in court, a decision had been rendered striking down a law, and then legislatures could decide whether or not to override the court.

        @Kate I think waiting to read the factum from the appellants (to see on what basis they’re launching the appeal), and, far more importantly, seeing who chooses to join the case as an intervenor would be useful before putting your money on the table.

      • Ian 20:50 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

        Good point, H. John. The pre-emptive use is truly problematic, and Legault seems to be deploying it by default here as in other cases.

      • Kate 23:13 on 2024-04-11 Permalink

        H. John, good warning.

        Does the court weigh the possible political impact of its rulings – or even of agreeing to make a ruling – or is it committed to the pure legal logic of the words on the page?

      • H. John 14:21 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

        In cases where appeal is not of right, that is where the court has to decide whether or not to hear a case, the SCC only hears cases that it considers to be of public importance and to have national significance.

        “As many as 600 applications for leave to appeal are filed each year and the Supreme Court of Canada grants only approximately 80 of them each year.”

        https://www.scc-csc.ca/unrep-nonrep/app-dem/guide-eng.aspx

        I think it’s safe to say the court weighs what it says, or won’t say, very carefully.

        An example of it choosing not to answer would be one of the four questions the federal government sent to them as part of the Reference re Same-Sex Marriage [2004] 3 SCR 698. The question concerned Quebec’s civil code:

        “4.    Is the opposite‑sex requirement for marriage for civil purposes, as established by the common law and set out for Quebec in section 5 of the Federal Law–Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1, consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

        In the unique circumstances of this reference, the Court should exercise its discretion not to answer Question 4.  First, the federal government has stated its intention to address the issue of same-sex marriage legislatively regardless of the Court’s opinion on this question.  As a result of decisions by lower courts, the common law definition of marriage in five provinces and one territory no longer imports an opposite-sex requirement and the same is true of s. 5 of the Federal Law–Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1.  The government has clearly accepted these decisions and adopted this position as its own.  Second, the parties in  the previous litigation, and other same-sex couples, have relied upon the finality of the decisions and have acquired rights which are entitled to protection.  Finally, an answer to Question 4 has the potential to undermine the government’s stated  goal of achieving uniformity in respect of civil marriage across Canada.  While uniformity would be achieved if the answer were “no”, a “yes” answer would, by contrast, throw the law into confusion.  The lower courts’ decisions in the matters giving rise to this reference are binding in their respective provinces.  They would be cast into doubt by an advisory opinion which expressed a contrary view, even though it could not overturn them.  These circumstances, weighed against the hypothetical benefit Parliament might derive from an answer, indicate that the Court should decline to answer Question 4.”

        https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2196/index.do

        Two books dealing with the court’s decision making process are available at the BAnQ:

        “The Transformation of the Supreme Court of Canada: an empirical examination” – Songer, Donald
        Law, ideology, and collegiality: judicial behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada” – Songer, Donald

      • Kate 14:44 on 2024-04-12 Permalink

        H. John, as always, I appreciate your legal contributions here. You’ve been educating me for quite some time!

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