Véronique Manceau was found guilty of first-degree murder Saturday in the sordid killing in 2021 of Jimmy Methot. How it was reported at the time.
Updates from April, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Note: From time to time this blog will have to take note of local news connected with the situation in the Middle East. Commenting will not be available on this topic.
Students set up an indefinite pro-Palestinian encampment on the McGill campus Saturday.
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Kate
It made me sigh to see Robert Libman holding forth on how French is not in decline then turn to Le Devoir to read that French is sinking while English triumphs.
But it’s not as if a language has a will in itself. It can’t triumph. Nobody is pitting one language against another like a boxing match. The choice of one over the other is a collective impulse.
bob
It is the ressentiment behind nationalism. It is for narcissistic people who need to blame something for their feelings of inferiority. Generation after generation has been fed lines about past glories, and past treachery, and an imagined place in the sun. “You are on the threshold of greatness, but these impurities are holding you back.”
steph
Why does Quebec Nationalism HAVE TO be based on french monoculture?
Robert H
La question linguistique is simply a chronic part of life in Quebec, and it will never be entirely settled, but fated to succeeding cycles of heating-up and cooling-down. I believe this on going tension is the inevitable result of two languages coexisting in such a profound imbalance of proportion. Two groups have existential concerns, and even see their dilemmas through contrasting lenses: francophones feel beleaguered on this side of the Atlantic, and English speakers feel their very birthright as full citizens of Quebec is being challenged. And there is a limit even among anglophones and allophones supportive of the French Fact beyond which they risk crossing a line to self-abnegation. En fin de compte, la sauvegarde de la langue française en Amérique du Nord devra être un acte de volonté collective de la part des Québécois, c’est-à-dire des Québécois francophones.
FKA Orr
We could be the Switzerland of North America if the majority ethnic group would stop acting like Texas and Alabama are their minority-relation governing role models.
Meezly
This made me think of the cool drone footage of all the people gathered on McGill campus that was shared on FB. Some guy with a QC family name made a comment that was something like “Must be nice for an English university to have so much green space.”
Perhaps it was just an offhand comment, yet it was so telling. Many others like him who can’t even enjoy a rare cosmic event without making it about their perceived inequality and victimhood.
Meezly
oops I forgot to mention that the people were gathered at McGill to watch the eclipse!
Ian
U de M has tons of green space. Concordia’s downtown campus has none.. Weird flex.
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Kate
The federal agency that was going to reorganize access to the Old Port has abandoned the plan.
DeWolf
They were only planning to spend $50 million and can’t cough up $10 to $15 million more? Clearly the Old Port is not seen as a priority.
It’s a shame that one of Montreal’s most significant public spaces is run like a third-rate suburban amusement park.
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Kate
A worker died in an accident in the Port of Montreal Friday, so the CNESST is looking into the circumstances and it’s also being investigated by police.
The CP item in La Presse also notes that Sunday is a commemorative day for people killed on the job. Flags are at half mast this weekend outside the FTQ headquarters on Crémazie with the banner shown below. The article says the total number was for 2023 though, not this year.
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Kate
The STM says that free transit for the 65+ contingent has been positive, increasing the use of transit by 15% to 20% in that age group.
Chris
At a cost of $40 million per year.
dhomas
My mother-in-law registered for the free transit and is loving it. She would rarely take transit in the past, but now likes to get use out of her new Opus. It’s working to incentivize her, in any case.
I wonder if it ACTUALLY costs $40M (even though so far, it has only cost the city $17.5M, as per the article). I mean, they can easily track this since the Opus cards are registered. The data is available for every transaction that is not billed. But more than that, is it really lost revenue? Take the example of my mother-in-law. She never would have taken public transit if it wasn’t free. So, the STM aren’t losing any revenue; they never would have gotten it in the first place.
I’m happy they are doing it and I’m happy to subsidize public transit with an extra $40M. But I’m also a stickler for detailed data. I’d like to see after a year if the “lost” revenue actually adds up to $40M. That’s over 10.5M individual tickets at 3.75$/ticket.
Kate
Some of the social benefits are real but hard to put a pricetag on. If free transit means more older people are getting out of the house, staying more active, socializing more, this means lower health care costs for them over time, an important factor given our aging population. But you can’t meter it.
jeather
I would bet some of it is lost revenue — people who would have paid for transit now using it for free (especially combined with free transit for kids, so they can bring their grandkids places), but I suspect some is just added usage in off-peak times.
Ephraim
I wonder how much it has saved in insurance payments and could we get the SAAQ to add money in to it as a way to keep some of these drivers off the road?
Uatu
Yes a lot of these folks are unable to drive so taking public transit to doctor appointments etc. might even save the health care system from unnecessary er visits
SMD
My 65+ neighbour called me yesterday to tell me that thanks to her free bus pass she’s going downtown for walks three times a week now; it is doing her a world of good.
Chris
Yup, all good points/stories. But transit money is not infinite and there are tradeoffs. That $40 million could also buy about 40 new buses, which in 4 years would replace the 155 buses they are retiring.
dhomas
So, it’s the City of Montreal providing those extra $40M. My point is that I don’t think it actually costs $40M to provide this service. This is $40M the STM would not have gotten otherwise and would never have gone towards new buses. The STM is coming out ahead on this one, I would say.
Blork
The $40 million has to be almost entirely opportunity cost. What other costs could there be, besides a small setup for registering users or whatever? If 34,000 people swapped their $97 a month Opus cards for the free one it would add up to about $40 million. But are these real numbers? How many of those 34,000 are swapping a paid card for a free one, versus taking a free card instead of not using the system at all? Plus, given that many (most?) 65+ people are retired, how many buy a monthly pass anyway, instead of just individual fares for occasional use?
I suspect that $40 million is a number that showed up in a report somewhere as some kind of projection and people have run with it and made it “truth.”
Even if it’s realistic, it’s still opportunity cost and not cash layout, so it’s not a true “cost” in terms of “expense.” And given that public transit is supposed to be a public good and not a for-profit enterprise, opportunity cost should not weigh heavily in the discussion or decision process.
Uatu
Just say that public transport will help save the French language and culture since there’s apparently no problem with allocating 603million dollars for that lol
Meezly 10:54 on 2024-04-28 Permalink
Wow, sordid indeed. The Gazette gave a fairly detailed account of how the crime went down. Don’t get addicted to crack, people!
GC 12:28 on 2024-04-28 Permalink
I somehow do not remember reading about this back in 2021, though I would think the details would have made it stick.
The original article also mentions a minor being involved. Kind of makes me wonder if it was a son of Manceau (Manceaux? The different articles seem to be inconsistent…), but of course the press can’t get specific about that. No mention of him in the CTV article, either, which makes me wonder what kind of a sentence he got.
It really highlights how long it can take from arrest (September 15, 2021) to sentencing (April, 2024), though…
Kate 12:58 on 2024-04-28 Permalink
I blogged the story at the time, although what was described then was quite different from how it was reported from the trial.
I also blogged a piece from January 2023 about the sentencing of the minor involved in the killing. Of course they’re not named.
GC 12:28 on 2024-04-29 Permalink
Thanks, Kate. I guess I don’t always click through on the murder stories.
I did try searching this blog for “Lachine” yesterday, but that popped up more than a few hits. The first link from your reply came up, but I didn’t not get–or at least notice–the second one.