La Presse’s Mayssa Ferah traces the life story of recently murdered Christopher Shawn Jean Vilsaint, who at age 27 was already worrying the police with his ease in unifying gang members of varied allegiances.
“Il est le fils de Steve André Vilsaint, alias Scarface” – that’s how you begin a lurid novel of underworld violence.
And once again, I’m puzzled why gangs here adhere to the old red and blue factionalism that originated in Los Angeles.
Aéroports de Montréal is not happy that St‑Hubert airport adopted the name Montreal Metropolitan Airport earlier this year. So unhappy that they’re suing.
So when is the „metropolitan Airport“ gonna have some international flights?
Anton, under current rules, never. YUL has an exclusivity agreement with Transport Canada that bans international scheduled commercial flights at YHU. This article and others noted it over a year ago when the Porter expansion was announced, and I don’t think they have gotten TC to change its mind.
Taylor C. Noakes tells about Montreal’s first student strike when Jewish kids from Aberdeen School occupied St Louis Square in 1913.
Thanks for posting. And I think the Aberdeen Strike may have been both the first student strike as well as the first strike protesting antisemitism in Canadian history. Though please let me know if I’m wrong
Great article, a glimpse into the past and a link to the present, with lots of context. I knew about the schmata business as the start of the union movement in Montreal but I didn’t realize the kids were involved.
At the same time in Hamilton Ontario my Sicilian grandmother and many of her contemporaries worked in the needletrade as children, my nonna left grade 6 to work a sewing machine. They too were treated like vermin in school, while their parents built the labour movement in their own workplaces in the steel mills.
Superior Court has turned down McGill’s request to force the eviction of the pro‑Palestinian encampment on its front lawn.
H. John, who kindly advises me on legal matters, points out that what McGill wants is what’s called a provisional or preliminary injunction, or injonction interlocutoire, which is requested when action is desired immediately, rather than waiting on a court decision that might take months. The court would have to accept that immediate action is justified, and in the McGill case, he cites Julius Grey in the Globe and Mail: “It’s not enough to allege that something is urgent or that something is dangerous. You have to prove it, and there was no evidence.”
A new report finds there are anglicisms and vulgarity on the radio in Quebec. Maybe it’s because this is how people speak?
I’m sure there’ll be a study showing that it’s all the fault of out of province McGill and Concordia students lol
I saw a comment recently that said francophones can use all the anglicismes they want because it’s part of the language and there’s too much to stop, but if anyone else does it needs to be stamped out with full court press condemnation. I think about it often.
My favourite so far this year is all the kids in Quebec City screaming three English words when police show up to shut down their rowdiness.
But Les Québécois love their anglicisms, especially their profanity, goddammit! Just listen to radio shows and watch TV en français and you will encounter in mainstream programming a few fucks and bullshits, etc. It’s inevitable.
What’s more, many of the measures taken by Leader-sans-peur et son équipe will have the certainely unintended effect of enhancing the desirability of English, lending it the allure of forbidden fruit and rebellion. It’s already hip, cool, sophisticated, and happening among Québécois (The French too!) to drop a bit of English into their speech. French is so boring, so duty-bound, no fun. Soyez branché et parler the English way! You down?
I can’t listen to french radio stations in the car. They drop f-bombs like nobody’s business. It’s not a big deal to say “fuck” in French, but to my anglo kids, it’s like the end of the world.
dhomas… your kids object to f-bombs?
When I was a kid it was our parents who objected to f‑bombs. How times have changed!
Kids delight in scolding their parents 😉
My 3 kids are still pretty young, all under 10 years old. My wife and I never use any profanity in the house when the kids are around. They object to swear words, at least when we’re around. We may have overcorrected, though. They still regularly chide me for using “the ‘S’ word”. To them, that’s the word “stupid”. They do enjoy scolding us, though, as Ian pointed out. 😀
When I was 10 my Dad, fed up with my swearing, started up a “swear jar” – if one of us swore in the house we would have to pay 25 cents to their jar, which went to the other person at the end of the month. He rescinded this within a week when he was already in for 20 bucks to my 50 cents.
20 bucks was a fortune to a kid in those days, too.
It would have been, but he never paid up haha
A pro-Israel rally was held Tuesday morning downtown with plenty of police presence. Radio‑Canada emphasizes the participants have little hope of peace.
In related news, some at the pro‑Palestinian encampment at UQAM are accused of stealing fencing from a nearby renovation site on a university building, although the article goes on to say there’s no proof the thieves were part of that group. It then tacks on that the McGill encampment also incorporates stolen materials.
A man was shot dead in Ahuntsic on Tuesday evening. La Presse says he was in his 20s and mixed up with street gangs; TVA specifies he was Christopher Shawn Jean Vilsaint, a rapper known as Dirty S.
Chris 09:21 on 2024-05-16 Permalink
>And once again, I’m puzzled why gangs here adhere to the old red and blue factionalism that originated in Los Angeles.
I’d guess from the influence of all the anglicisms and vulgarity on the radio/television. 🙂
Ian 10:27 on 2024-05-16 Permalink
The Hells originated in California too and yet here we are.