Updates from May, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 19:53 on 2025-05-19 Permalink | Reply  

    The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste held a march Monday and issued a demand that Place du Canada be renamed Parc des Patriotes, since naming it after Canada shows a total lack of respect.

    The minister of the French language, responsible for Laïcité, Jean-François Roberge, says the Patriotes defended “la démocratie, la liberté, la laïcité, la langue française.”

    I don’t know that this is a correct view of the historical facts, but myth defeats history in this kind of thing, every time. At any rate, the Ninety‑Two Resolutions say nothing about secularism, however much Roberge would like them to.

    Another report emphasizes a revolt against monarchy on Monday.

     

    • Taylor C. Noakes 20:20 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

      Secularism? I have my doubts a party that defended traditional French Canadian lifestyles and the Catholic Church against the British Empire was in favour of state secularism… perhaps Roberge should confer with the Saint Jean Baptiste Society on that issue

      Weren’t the Patriotes first called the Parti Canadien?

      The whole point of the rebellions was to increase Canada’s autonomy from the UK, something that was accomplished in steps beginning with the rebellions and followed by Confederation.

      I’m quite certain Papineau, de Lorimier, Nelson etc would all be quite happy with Canada as an independent nation though perhaps wondering why we’re not yet a republic. They would have found ‘Place du Canada’ a perfectly acceptable place name, certainly much more than ‘Dominion Square’, and doubtless would have found all the other commemorative elements to them perhaps a little overwhelming. I never got the impression any of the Patriotes’ leaders had delusions of grandeur.

      They probably would have considered the kid cosplaying as Che Guevara a little much. How is he any different from the Freedumb Convoy Fuck Trudeau types?

    • Kate 21:14 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

      Secularism has been so retconned into Quebec values. Nobody with a sense of history could really believe it was a Quebec value before about 1960, but now it is. Now we have to believe it always was.

    • Ian 22:19 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

      I mean really. It”s like these fools expect us to forget that the Quiet Revolution was to a large extent against the interference of the Church with affairs of State & personal freedom.

      That said, to give only a couplle of examples, L-J Papineau famously studied at le Petit Séminaire de Québec. Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan was an Irish Radical & Roman Catholic who wrote extensively about the Jesuits. The Patriotes were products of their time and it was definitely not a secular era, LOL.

    • Ephraim 11:59 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

      How about Place Nelson et Brown after Wolfred Nelson, Robert Nelson and Thomas Storrow Brown? Might give a few people a history lesson. Or Place Ezekiel Hart. We really don’t have anything named after him… and in many ways, he’s really a father of Quebec’s secular democracy… instrumental in allowing non-catholics to be members of the National Assembly.

    • PatrickC 13:06 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

      The Church’s attitude toward the Patriotes was largely negative, but it’s more complicated than that. Here’s an article that explains it:
      https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/hq/1999-v5-n2-hq1058813/11386ac.pdf

    • Kate 09:09 on 2025-05-21 Permalink

      It’s more the Patriotes’ attitude to religion that I was considering. It’s difficult to put ourselves back into the state of mind of people for whom religious faith was simply what the world was and what life was about, so that some people refuse to accept that it was like that for most people in Quebec till the Quiet Revolution. (Also, that religion was the deciding factor then about what made Quebec special, rather than language.)

    • Tim S. 12:16 on 2025-05-21 Permalink

      Actually, if I recall my reading of Quebec history properly, it’s only in the mid-19thC that hardline (ultramontagne) Catholicism took root in Quebec. The religion of the Patriotes may have been of a more relaxed post-enlightenment flavour than what some of our grandparents experienced. I could be wrong, though.

    • bob 18:22 on 2025-05-21 Permalink

      Secularism, which is why the Société remains named after a saint.

  • Kate 11:13 on 2025-05-19 Permalink | Reply  

    The restaurants accorded Michelin stars are striving to handle the media frenzy while doing their usual jobs, some saying that other restaurants in town equally deserved the accolade.

     

    • Kate 11:10 on 2025-05-19 Permalink | Reply  

      The SPCA reports, sadly, that kitten season is now starting earlier and lasting longer, an effect of climate change, leading to the surrender of more cats and kittens than ever, even before the crunch of Moving Day. Nice photo of a polydactyl kitten, though.

       

      • jeather 20:16 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        A friend of mine who does kitten rescue in California says it’s a twelve month thing there.

      • Margaret 07:08 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

        The SPCA Montérégie is holding a Virtual Kitten shower to cope with the soon to be arriving wave of new little felines and their mums. They are looking for a list of donations to suit most budgets. If the drop off points are not convenient (all South Shore), I could always try to arrange pick up.

      • Kate 11:42 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

        Thank you, Margaret.

      • CE 14:34 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

        I thought I noticed a few kittens that seemed a bit old for this time of year. I guess that explains them.

      • Robert H 23:29 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

        I don’t want to be harsh and insensitive. People go through rough patches unexpectedly, and have a hard enough time providing for themselves and their children too. There have been times in my own life where money was tight, but I’ve been lucky. It would have broken my heart to give up my cat. I do feel however, that too many people acquire pets as a fashionable accessory, or because they’re bored. And, once the novelty wears off and they’re no longer amused or they need to start commuting again, they quickly discard an animal as if it were nothing more than a trinket.

    • Kate 09:28 on 2025-05-19 Permalink | Reply  

      A judge has thrown out a request to ban the McGill student union’s pro‑Palestinian policy on the technicality that the plaintiff who asked for the ban is no longer a student so can’t be affected by it – neatly sidestepping taking any side.

       

      • Taylor C. Noakes 16:02 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        It’s pretty outrageous that B’nai Brith used a McGill student as a conduit to suppress freedom of conscience and speech on a university campus. Nearly 80 percent of the students who voted on this issue supported the motion.

        What other students or student groups have access to a well-funded lobby organization that can help them attempt to overturn the democratic will of the students? The judge’s sidestep is unfortunate, but not nearly as bad as McGill’s actions throughout this whole affair.

      • H. John 18:28 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        I don’t think I’d use the phrase “neatly sidestepping taking any side.”

        The issue of “standing” isn’t a technicality, rather it’s a fundamental requirement to start a case.

        After the first judge to hear the case granted a preliminary injunction, the Court of Appeal in overturning that decision, dealt with the issues raised in this case, at length, in a thoughtful and thorough way.

        https://tinyurl.com/2stynyfe

        It mentioned in passing that they weren’t going to discuss the plaintiff’s standing, but it did strike them as worth mentioning that it should be taken into consideration if the case continued.

      • Kate 20:22 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        Thank you, H. John

    • Kate 09:06 on 2025-05-19 Permalink | Reply  

      A person with measles has been all over town and public health is giving out warnings, CBC listing the exact places they went on certain dates. TVA goes further and posts a map.

       

      • Taylor C. Noakes 16:10 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        I recognize there’s a possibility this person may not know they’re a carrier, or may not know they’re not vaccinated, but I don’t think it’s likely.

        In cases where it could be proven that an individual knowingly isn’t vaccinated and/or was spreading a communicable disease, there needs to be fines, community service, probation, prison – some kind of deterrent. Measles can kill. If it’s known than this is extreme anti-social behaviour.

        Measles was eradicated in Canada in 1998 thanks to education and strong public health measures. Now it’s a problem again because our society tolerates pseudoscience and ‘personal choice’ over what’s best for everyone. It’s revolting.

      • Daisy 16:27 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        Why don’t you think it’s likely they didn’t know? I came back from a vacation in Europe 10 years ago infected with measles and didn’t know, so I took the metro, went to work, went shopping, etc. You are contagious well before you have any symptoms. And as far as I knew, I had all my childhood vaccinations, since my parents weren’t anti-vaxxers or anything. When my mother finally found my vaccination booklet, it turned out I was indeed vaccinated for measles, but only one dose, which was normal practice at the time.

      • Chris 16:37 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        >In cases where it could be proven that an individual knowingly isn’t vaccinated […] there needs to be fines, community service, probation, prison

        It’s not illegal to be unvaccinated. We don’t fine or imprison people not breaking laws, thank god.

      • MarcG 17:06 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        Here’s an excellent video about how we eradicated smallpox.

      • Taylor C. Noakes 17:46 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        @Daisy – fair point. If this province can figure out a way to ensure everyone has access to a physician and get at least one annual visit with a GP, reviewing immunization records and ensuring they’re up to date should be a minimum requirement for patient and public health. This is exactly the kind of information that should be kept by the government in a centralized and updated database

        @Chris – granted, but maybe we need to change how we think about this? It’s perfectly normal in our society for people to be expected to take all kinds of precautions for the greater good, and these are enforced with various penalties. You can’t drive a car without taking lessons, having a license, insurance, wearing your seatbelt, and not being inebriated. You’re not supposed to cross the street against a red light or outside of a crosswalk either. We don’t send people to prison for jaywalking or not wearing a seatbelt either, but our society does employ penalties as much as incentives to encourage socially acceptable behaviour.

        Swap out ‘AIDS’ for measles and I don’t think there’d be much reasonable opposition to enforcing immunization. If Ebola was naturally occurring in Quebec I think the government would have good reason to enforce the use of Ebola vaccines. It seems so odd to me that our society seems prepared to make big exceptions on vaccines against viruses and diseases that impact the most vulnerable segments of society – the elderly, children, and the infirm – when we have ample scientific evidence proving the efficacy of mass immunization.

      • jeather 20:19 on 2025-05-19 Permalink

        It shouldn’t be illegal to be unvaccinated. It should be much harder to attend school or daycare or summer camp without vaccines, though.

        For measles, you are usually infectious four days before the rash appears, so probably most people don’t actually know what they are sick with at that point.

      • H. John 01:37 on 2025-05-20 Permalink

        Chris wrote “We don’t fine or imprison people not breaking laws, thank god.”

        @ Chris I understand the point you’re making, but unfortunately you’re wrong.

        Before we had the Charter of Rights, every Canadian thought they had the equivalent of American Miranda rights (i.e. you have the right, etc…), thanks to U.S. drama on our TVs. As long as people don’t actually understand our current system, the people who don’t do well in it, are more risk; and our ignorance is a serious problem.

        According to current estimates somewhere between 70 and 80 % of people in Canadian jails are waiting for their trial.

        So we clearly do imprison people that we think put us as risk.

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