Has Christian Dubé ever actually met any doctors? His new bill meant to “link doctors’ remuneration to performance indicators with the aim of having them treat more patients” will probably drive more of them either out of Quebec or at least into private practice.
Updates from May, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Three teenagers have been arrested for shooting at an unnamed bar on Mont‑Royal earlier this week. Although young, they’re all 18 or 19, so I hope they get a glimpse of the world of pain when you FAFO.
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Kate
In another “is this really news?” piece Thursday, some Montreal intersections are described as dangerous for kids walking to and from school.
Another account of the report from CTV.
Blork
While it might seem like simply stating the obvious, I don’t mind there being an argument in the mainstream press about the need for traffic calming measures. Many people still seem to think that any such roadworks are just tax-wasting fetish projects for cyclists. No, there’s much more to residential street roadwork projects than putting in bike paths. Say it loud!
Joey
I found it somewhat newsworthy that they got someone to admit, on the record, that city traffic engineers and roadway designers don’t give a shit about pedestrians:
« Pour un ingénieur – et nous sommes des ingénieurs –, la mesure du succès, c’était quel volume de trafic vous réussissez à déplacer, et à quelle vitesse. Plus de volume, et plus de vitesse, c’était positif. » Les gens croient souvent que les ingénieurs ont pensé à la sécurité des citoyens. « Mais ce n’est pas le cas du tout. Au mieux, ils vont mettre un virage à gauche protégé à une intersection, dit-il. Ce que notre outil vient dire, c’est : “Cette rue, ou cette intersection, présente un risque mortel pour les piétons, notamment les enfants qui vont à l’école.” »
dhomas
Some people repeat a lie often enough that it becomes the truth. I say we keep repeating this truth (“streets need to be safer!”) enough so people start to take notice.
Meezly
It does seem that it’s mostly up to citizens to either complain or put pressure for better safety measures at intersections.
Case in point, it was only a few years ago that the city added a pedestrian signal at St-Urbain and Villeneuve to allow pedestrians more time to cross east-west first before the traffic light turned green. Yet, students from two elementary schools (Bancroft and St-Enfant Jesus) have been using that intersection for decades and decades.
I assume parents and the school may have been complaining for years, as the previous time allowing pedestrians to cross didn’t seem sufficient enough, ie. seemed like an afterthought.
Kate
Good point, Joey.
Another thing that reveals that the city knows a given intersection is not safe for schoolkids is placing a crossing guard there at morning, noon and around 3 pm.
Nicholas
Couldn’t agree more with everything here. And also St Enfant Jesus school lol
Mark Côté
Royal West Academy has been trying to get authorities to improve the safety of the crossing near the school on Westminster for a while, but everyone seems to throw up their hands and say nothing can be done. A kid was actually hit by a car earlier this school year, and another was “brushed” by a car. It’s totally crazy there with the train crossing and all the traffic headed down to the 20, further exacerbated by the forever road work on Sherbrooke that makes drivers ultra-impatient. It’s brutal.
Ian
“Brushed” by a car is such a passive euphemism, like curry-combing a pony instead of almost running somebody over. My kid used to go to the school at bernard and st-urbain, and th crossing guards there were at both st urbain and a block over at waverly… even though there was already a traffic light at st urbain. I assure you, it was needed. Aggressive drivers but also a bike path. I have seen lots of drivers getting chewed out for tunring aggressively, but also lots of bicyclists thinking that not only stop signs but crossing guards don’t apply to them.
I have often wonderd if making St Viateur one way going west an Bernard one way going east between Parc and St Urbain would helpsolve this, much like switching the Mile End north-south street directions at St Joseph helped slow & diminish traffic on residential streets.
Joey
I’ve often thought that making the Mile-End cross-streets one-way would help calm traffic, but I gather the security services, who seem to have effective veto power, abhor one-way streets. There was a session at the Rialto this week to discuss pedestrian safety after the incident at Bernard/Parc last year, and the gist of it seemed to be that pedestrians need to continue to assume the burden of ensuring their own safety.
Ian
To be fair that incident involved a commercial vehicle turning right onto Bernard from Parc, which is a whole other set of problems – especially on Bernard between Parc and Durocher. There are a lot of double parked and cowboy delivery vehicles around there, I’m amazed that a) the cops don’t do anything about it and that b) mroe people don’t get run over, especially with all the kids. I mean yeah yeah, mixed neighbourhood, but it’s pretty egregious.
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Kate
Despite the lesson of La Tulipe from last year – in which a venerable music hall was shut down by one irate neighbour who didn’t like the noise – complaints continue. The Blue Dog on St‑Laurent, in this case – co‑run by Sergio Da Silva of Turbo Haüs – received a warning at 7:30 pm after a sound check. Other establishments nearby on the Main have also been warned over noise.
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Kate
Is it news that very young women are hassled in the street and on public transit? If news, it isn’t a novelty.
Ian
As I’ve mentioned before, my daughters started getting catcalled and followed as soon as they started to grow breasts. I know it’s not as bad here as some places, but we still have a long ways to go.
Kate
That tallies with my experience from 12 years old onward. It’s nothing new.
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Kate
24heures has a nice little photo essay showing Lafontaine Park in the past when people boated on the lake, and cars were allowed on its perimeter path.
Brings to mind this NFB video from 1947.
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Kate
More Thursday about the poor condition of our metro stations; CTV provides a map; Le Devoir considers the cost and effort involved in renovations.
EmilyG
The video on CTV also touches on accessibility. Yes, more stations need elevators. But I wonder if they can even get to the point to consider more elevators, when sometimes even escalators don’t work.
Also, the escalators at Cote-Vertu squeak really loudly and it’s annoying. I wish that could be fixed. I think Cote-Vertu was on the map of stations needing repairs.Ephraim
I’m wondering how many of these have stand-alone edicules that could be renovated and funded in other ways. For example, the edicule for de l’Église (https://maps.app.goo.gl/XenTsvrjwh3Evq9N6) is a two-story grey concrete building that doesn’t really fit in with its surroundings and feels a bit out of place on the corner. Could it be reimagined as a three- or four-story building (depending on zoning—the building across the street is already three stories), with shops on the ground floor and apartments above, so that it could generate revenue? I could see a mid-range, more upscale grocery store moving in, taking advantage of the foot traffic—something less like a full grocery store and more focused on fresh fruit, milk, vegetables, and prepared meals, similar to Super PA. That would create income for a space that currently doesn’t have any, bring more consistency to the streetscape, and, in the long term, the revenue could be used to help maintain the station.
Mozai 00:13 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
If I’m “connected” to a family doctor, but that doctor has so many “connections” that the waiting time for a consultation goes from six weeks to six months…
Uatu 08:51 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
This is basically a “look, me be doing stuff” action because it doesn’t do anything IRL
dhomas 09:36 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
You’re missing a third outcome. You’ve listed:
1) Drive doctors out of Quebec
2) Drive doctors into private practice
But there is also
3) Drive doctors to give shittier service.
If more patients “treated” equals more money, then they might want to process as many patients as possible in as little time as possible. Looks like the kind of strategy managers use in call centres. It also looks like the (further?) enshittification of our healthcare system.
walkerp 09:41 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
Blame everybody but themselves.
Kate 10:09 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
And 3A) Drive doctors to give shittier service and then burn out.
Ephraim 10:10 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
You know what would fix the problem…. a discount on your tax bill if you don’t have a family doctor…. If it costs the government money, they will find a fix to the problem. Of course, I still think they are doing it all wrong. Set up and give all the doctors a free billing and reservation system and then start having the software remind doctors to do check-ups on older patients proactively to lower the costs to the system. Follow through on vaccination schedules, etc. If people see the doctor more often, it will cost less in the long run and people will live longer and pay into the system more taxes.
Joey 12:19 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
From my limited health policy work, which never focused on physician funding models (but it’s unavoidable in all discussions), I’d argue that both a fee-for-service model and a capitation model (and a hybrid, as well) are reasonable, depending on the context and the objectives. What’s not feasible is expecting a dry lemon to produce more juice just because you’re squeezing it differently.
In La Presse today, Paul Journet writes about the premier’s decades-long desire to attach KPIs to physician funding. It won’t solve the problem of inadequate doctors or beds, but at least everybody will be pissed off!
jeather 15:05 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
They want to block new doctors from working in the private sector and do whatever weird thing this is — but have they mentioned the revolving door of doctors who switch back and forth multiple times a year? Or do they not want to block that because it is, after all, convenient for them to be able to pay for private knee replacements etc.
Joey 17:19 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
Not sure that issue, which is significant, is relevant to this week’s news, which is about family physicians and, more broadly, about Legault’s diminishing commitment to ensure that all Quebeckers are attached to a clinic (it was supposed to be a doctor) before the next election. As Mozai first pointed out (at least in this thread), it doesn’t help to be on a clinic’s roster if they have no appointments and, critically, no capacity for urgent care. Especially when the clinic drops you because you had the nerve to take an appointment at another clinic rather than… do nothing? Go to the ER? Die?
jeather 19:24 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
I know it’s primarily specialists with the revolving door, but is it exclusively? (Also, waiting for a specialist often leads to seeing your GP if you have one a lot more to deal with what they can.)
But mostly I think it’s interesting that they are mostly threatening GPs and not specialists.
Kevin 20:07 on 2025-05-09 Permalink
The problem is not only are there not enough GPs, but that this government forces GPs to spend at least 20% of their work hours not dealing with their own patients.