99.5% of the workers at the Port of Montreal have rejected the latest contract offer from the Maritime Employers Association.
The CSN is making moves to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Laval.
Strike action is likely to be happening at SAQ stores soon.
Meantime, the strike by the 1600 teaching assistants at McGill has ended.
Two incidents Monday, one in Dorval and the other in Rosemont, involved suspects crashing into police cars. There have been a lot of incidents of car thieves attacking police in recent weeks.
In tangential news, TVA is reporting an incident from the weekend in which a driver at the wheel of a BMW without plates fled from police who had drawn their guns. The vehicle surged onto the downtown sidewalk as the driver fled.
The OQLF says that bonjour-hi is on the rise in Montreal, and complaints about lack of service in French are surging. Same CP story as Radio‑Canada in English.
And Bernard Drainville is pondering punishments for students who speak English in class.
That will certainly work to make teenagers love French.
I enjoyed how the article leads in with “la possibilité de pénaliser les élèves qui ne parlent pas français en classe” but quickly drops the pretense and starts banging on about English. How quickly ethnonationalism descends into targetted suppression.
That said, I sent my kid to French school and they were forbidden from speaking any language other than French in the school … that was CSDM. I would be surprised if it were different in Vaudreuil, but then again lots of things surprise me.
Ian, what happened if someone disobeyed and spoke some language other than French?
Was the rule just for the classroom or was it in the whole building and grounds? I remember a story about the difficulty some families had when siblings were punished for speaking together in their home language in the schoolyard.
Anglo here who sent his kids to French school (by choice). Yes, they were punished for speaking anything but French in the schoolyard, the halls, the bathrooms…
It’s always amusing when reactionaries discover something that’s been happening under their noses for decades.
The number of anglophones in Vaudreuil-Dorion has been growing immensely this century, going from 13% of the city’s population to 22%.
All those kids who grew up in the West Island in the 70s, 80s, and 90s moved further west to have families.
Why is everyone upset about being greeted in French and Norwegian? /s
I think in Norwegian it’s Hej (though pronounced the same, also in Danish and Swedish) – nice comment!
I worked as a service de garde yard monitor many years ago in Rosemont and we were supposed to ensure that the kids spoke french in the playground. Currently, my child goes to french primary school and they don’t seem to enforce it there anymore. Personally, I’m all for enforcing french without being too aggressive and draconian about it as some kids will default to their english gang and they can fall behind in their accent and idiomatic usage of french.
@jeather: “That will certainly work to make teenagers love French.”
You say “love it” as if French was an ancient tribal dance kept alive to amuse the authenticy-shopping colonist. The idea is to get people *to speak it* not just love French like they do in some swamps in Louisiana.
Don’t forget that English became a global language through major punishments to other languages and civilizations.
I say “love” not “use” that because the article specifically quotes Drainville as saying that: de les inciter pas juste à parler, mais à aimer le français, à avoir le goût de l’apprendre et à le parler au quotidien
I’m not saying it’s a bad rule (or a good rule; I don’t have the knowledge here), I’m saying that losing marks for speaking in English in science class is not a rule that is designed to make teenagers love French.
Old meets new: AI spam on the Quebec language debate.
My older daughter went to an EMSB school and it was required that all the children speak French in the playground and no other language as the yard monitors were CSDM and the CSDM was not allowed to ask their workers to speak any language other than French, and many of them felt that if the children were speaking their own languages they might be speaking behind the monitors’ backs. They were given detention for speaking any language other than French. In an English school.
This was part of the reason I sent my younger daughter to a French school, so that it would at least make sense – and she would actually learn French in school instead of just being punished for not speaking it.
This is not a metaphor, but could be.
@qatzi Let me remind you about Haiti, Algeria, etc. None of those people spoke French because they were interested in learning fun new languages.
Sorry for the typos, I was just emerging from a lovely nap.
@Kate to answer your question it was just a reprimand in the French school, it was a pretty progressive school that only used punitive measures as a last resort. The tension between French and Englsih was lower there than in the English school I found, as so many of the kids were not Canadian, so studying in French – kind of a “we’re all in the same boat” vibe so they actually seemed to have fun with it, like enforcing rules of a game. Lots of Ubisoft workers’ kids and American kids. Of course that is the genteel and well-heeled version of what Mile End has turned into, mileage may vary in more gritty parts of town.
Did a light proofread just now.
It’s kind of a weird but typical metaphor – being punished for speaking English at recess in an English‑language school.
Maybe it wasn’t obvious but I was trying to point out that the comment from giriş appears to be spam (name links to some kind of gambling thing on Twitter)
OK, I can deep six that comment.
After three pepper spray incidents in the metro last week, the STM has had to admit that it’s hard to control a substance that’s legal to buy. Incidents have been gradually on the rise for a decade.
I’ve been under the impression that it’s illegal to buy or sell pepper already anywhere in the country. Anyone got any idea whether that’s the case?
It’s illegal to carry it to use as a weapon, including self defence so intent matters. MEC sells bear spray and that’s totally legal on the trails. Amazon calls it dog spray, but I don’t know if anyone would believe that in the city unless you’re a mailman in a sitcom.
It’s like protecting yourself in your home… they would expect that if you have kids you might have a baseball bat, but you better not have a sock over it (in case the thief grabs it, they get the sock, you still have the bat) and you better have children in the home. Now… a fire extinguisher, that everyone has a reason to have one in their home and you can use it to spray someone or hit someone. That is coincidental… a bat, pepper spray or bear spray might not. But wasp nest spray, that might be needed even in the city.
It’s always easier to explain a hammer than a knife … but basically yeah if you stab someone with a pen, that pen is now a weapon and you get charged with assault with a weapon.
Item for Ian: there’s a clown festival starting this Thursday.
Oh boy! All our problems will be solved! 😀
Is the National Assembly in recess?
I’d sooner have Pierrot than Legault.
La Presse has a dossier Monday on how Quebec’s emergency rooms are more overwhelmed than before Covid, despite political promises. Christian Dubé says things will improve in 2025 and I’m sure the reanimated Canadiens will win the Stanley Cup next season too.
A brawl on a city bus in Hochelaga on Sunday evening sent one man to hospital. That seems to be the entire police blotter for the weekend, except for a torched car.
Update: and a second torched car item.
Never look for chametz in your car with a candle.. 😀 (Those who know, know. All others… sorry!)
With my kids and their snacks my car is FULL of chametz haha … I’m looking forward to the bonfire tonight but I don’t think I’ll park in it.
I was going to slide a “gut yontif” in here somewhere, but it looks like we’ve already got one.
@Ian – Car is safe, it’s too late after 11:42AM anyway. 😀
פשוט המזל שלי
Here I am with such an opportunity and stuck with this car full of crumbs 😀
They will buy them back next Tuesday night
Nah it’s just shagetz, I should just vaccum my car 😉
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