Cops are seeking these five wanted men in connection with gang‑type murders around town, but three of the five are described as being out of the country.
Meantime, the car thought to have been used by the killers of Bobby the Greek was found destroyed by fire in Rivière‑des‑Prairies.
Journal Métro starts up fast with a one‑pager laying out the main candidates and the point‑form platforms of the two main parties in the election campaign.
The cool things about municipal elections is that you don’t have to vote for 1 party. I looked up each of the candidates I know are running in my borough and gave them a once-over. The guy Transition has running for Verdun borough mayor has a computer programming background and I can’t find any info about his politics or any experience that would point to him being good at the job, while Projet’s candidate is an ex-elementary school teacher who has been a councellor for the past 4 years and talks a good game about school zone safety and I’ve seen the results those initiatives in the neighbourhood myself. Projet’s “Conseiller de ville” for my district ran for the CAQ in a previous provincial election and focusses her attention on Nun’s Island so she gets a pass from me, and the Transition guy studies urban noise pollution which is important to me. Etc, etc.
Does anyone have a Montreal Municipal Government For Dummies document I could read? I’m curious how decisions actually get made.
I don’t think there’s anything like a flow chart. If you’re into your local borough, you’d have to go to council sessions, take note of issues that matter to you, communicate with your councillor and borough mayor about the issues, and if you’re into the city issues do the same with city hall council sessions.
The city has various committees, and again, if a specific issue is of interest, you’d need to find out who the chair of the relevant committee is, follow what they’re saying and communicate with them.
Communicating with these people may or may not get you anywhere.
I can tell you, I emailed my councillor about relatively minor issues nearby, and they were attended to. I emailed the councillor of the adjoining borough section (the boundary is close to where I live) about an issue nearby, and it was also looked after. I was fairly impressed by this.
I’ve heard people complain about civic level issues like this, and when I’ve asked whether they sent a complaint via the city website or emailed their councillor, was met with blank incomprehension and a faint mockery, like how would that do any good? But sometimes it works. Cynicism can be a comfortable pose but too much of it is damaging to the society we live in.
Yeah, the 311 app is surprisingly effective for reporting and repairing potholes or streetlights.
Works well when they skip garbage pickup too.
I found this diagram that lays out the structure of the municipal government.
Excellent find, MarcG.
It’s not made entirely clear that most of the people in the diagram are unelected civil servants.
Thanks, MarcG.
Dr Balfour Mount, who introduced the idea of palliative care to Canada, has died in the unit named in his honour at the Royal Vic. He was 86.
There’s a lot here about how great and kind Mount was, but almost a footnote mentioning that he opposed medical aid in dying. A piece in The Walrus from 2019 expands on the history and on Mount’s religious beliefs that made him insist people stick it out till the bitter end.
The fear that MAID would turn into “just let them die instead of treat them” was not unfounded.
I know several people who chose not to suffer in awful and tremendous misery with impending death through their terrible illnesses and used the MAID option. I also plan to use it if/when the time comes and I am in the same position. It is true and genuine mercy and relief from completely needless end-of-life suffering.
I have nothing against MAID, and I think it’s good that people can choose it. However, there are medical professionals who essentially say “they should just choose to die” and don’t give proper treatment, or who push it on people who do not want it.
As the Canada Post strike continues, Elections Quebec is to allow other methods for the distribution of voter cards: other delivery methods, volunteers, or the distribution of more general information by print or media that encourages voters to go online and check that they’re registered correctly.
(Prediction: If the voter turnout is even lower than usual, the Canada Post union will be one of the factors blamed.)
CBC tried to discern the facts about bike lanes and promises being made about their future.
Projet has fewer election posters up than its competition because of trouble in the printing process.
Is Elections QC comprised of unionized employees? Shouldn’t they put more pressure on the feds instead of finding other methods?
The elections authorities have to hold themselves very neutral about everything. They may be unionized but it would be within the framework of general public service and they wouldn’t be seen putting pressure on anyone.
It will take a bit longer than a month to sort out Canada Post’s issues. Meanwhile, quick solutions need to be found for voter registration. Normally I wouldn’t support any plan that undermines the postal union, but elections are a special case.
This special case underlines how important Canada Post is.
Undermining the postal union isn’t exactly neutral. It can be argued that the postal service is a defining feature of modern democracy. And what steph said.
How is this undermining the postal union? Canada Post isn’t employing management or scabs to deliver the mail, they’re just not providing any service (except a few minor things like government cheques). If the STM is on strike and I take a bixi or taxi, is that undermining the transit union? If Meteo workers are on strike so I go to IGA, is that undermining the grocery store union? The whole point of a strike is to get people not to use that company’s services to make the company suffer through shared pain (and to gain sympathy). Finding alternatives is what the union wants! Make the company worry that customers will permanently leave them if it doesn’t settle quickly, because they will seek out alternatives that they may soon discover are better than the original.
Going to the competition isn’t crossing a picket line.
If DHL employees were being hired to replace CP workers on their routes, that would be scabs. While CP workers are on strike, anything that undermines CP supports them. Boycotting CP is a valid tactic to support the union.
>anything that undermines CP supports them [the strikers]
Anything? Like switching all my remaining letters to electronic?
Maybe that works against a private corporation, but CP is basically the federal government. If we just do like Denmark and just end letter delivery entirely, how does that help those workers?
ooh you got me!
I also forgot to specifically mention a bunch of other things I thought would be naturally excluded:
Tickling them helpless (in any manner)
Filling all the sorting stations with quick dry cement
or glue
or candy floss
or sewage
Turning back time and uninventing writing
Creating a powerful golem that becomes hilariously uncontrollable
Make parcels cursèd through magicks
or devouring time
or invoking eternal chaos
Meditating so powerfully humanity achieves universal consciousness
Inventing a new TikTok dance that makes people think mail isn’t cool
convincing Legault mail is Islamic so he bans it
This is a fun game, I bet you can think of even more made up scenarios to ‘argue’ about.
Yikes, get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?
Aww I thought you wanted to play reductio ad absurdum 🙁
The Danish/Swedish model reflects a very different reality than CP, even a technocrat neoliberal like Carney wouldnt go that far. I suspect he’s angling for PPP with a substantially less protected workforce.
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