Montreal City Weblog

Kate 11:14 on 2025-04-09 Permalink Reply  

• MarcG 11:44 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  The mother’s statement “we all have stress in our life” leaves a real sour taste in the mouth after reading about the horrors the guy’s been through. Something to think about the next time a friend says to you “I’m so tired all of the time” or “Life has been so hard lately” and you respond with “Yeah we’re all tired and everyone’s life is hard” – maybe you don’t know the whole story. Obviously she is hurting and she raises a good point about support needed for the parents and kids involved that seems to be lacking.

• Nicholas 12:27 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  If a friend almost killed my child, and did kill two of my child’s friends, I probably wouldn’t have much empathy either, especially if I felt there was little support for us. We can all feel empathy for those involved in a tragedy, and you should expect that from your friends in a normal situation like described, but it’s a little much to demand empathy from one victim while seemingly lacking it towards her.

  I would add that I haven’t seen in this case if there were any signs before this happened, but pilots would be immediately put on leave with even minor things, and when we put people in charge of multi-ton hunks of metal with huge engines, we should consider whether psychological issues should lead to a loss of that privilege.

• Meezly 14:22 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  “We all have a past, we all have stress in our life” really does beg the question… Is being a victim of war and abuse an excuse to inflict trauma on others? According to one psychiatrist, St-Armand was aware that he was crashing his bus into the daycare at some level. Gave me the chills when I read that. The mother not being particularly empathetic towards St-Amand is completely understandable, at least for me, after her child was nearly killed by him.

• jeather 15:14 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  Yeah I can’t blame one of the parents involved for not being sympathetic, or for being dismissive, or for many other unkind but understandable responses. That’s why we do an impartial (ish) justice system instead of letting the victims and their families mete out justice.

• Blork 19:02 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  I think the question isn’t “Is being a victim of war and abuse an excuse to inflict trauma on others?;” it’s “Can being a victim of war and abuse cause a person to have a psychological breakdown to the extent that they are not fully aware of, or in control of, what they are doing?”

  If you’ve ever witnessed a total psychological breakdown — I don’t just mean being sad and crying, I mean a break with reality — then you know that even if at some level there is awareness, it is nothing compared to the break from reality that is washing over it.

  By comparison, look at when people simply fly into an angry rage, or become obsessed with proving that someone on the the internet is wrong, and see the kind of stupid things they do and their lack of judgement. Now multiply that by 1000.

• Major Annoyance 20:17 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  Yikes. I empathize with the poor man’s horrible experiences, but isn’t the question here how he managed to score a public-facing job driving a 10-ton machine while mentally ill? Is psychosis usually an episodic thing?

• jeather 21:21 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  On thinking about it, I think it was wrong of the journalist to feature that quote from the parent, it was cruel to use. The stuff about how the families are not getting as much or enough support was the important part, not what various parents of children there do or don’t feel for Ny St-Armand.

• Nicholas 22:04 on 2025-04-09 Permalink

  If the journalist hadn’t used that quote, we probably would not be talking about if the mother and her child, and all the other victims and family, have been getting the support they need. Maybe it will shame someone with power into acting. Certainly nothing else has. (And this has nothing to do with what punishment or support Ny St-Armand should get.)

• MarcG 08:08 on 2025-04-10 Permalink

  Something that came to mind reflecting on the story and my own comment above is that workers are often forgotten. Some of the daycare employees are presumably deeply affected by this as well. I don’t know if this is related to the fact that it involves children and we’re quick to focus on them and their parents, leaving everyone else in the shadows, or if it’s a general problem where workers in our society are simply not valued.

  In regards to questions about mental illness, many conditions are very complex and don’t always show on the surface. People can become very good at masking their feelings from themselves and others in order to get by, and there can be episodic breakdowns of that coping mechanism. Not to make everything about the current POTUS but he’s clearly in the DSM somewhere and a lifelong masker-of-feelings, and he’s also driving a 10-ton machine.