Two members of the Shafia family are to go straight to trial for the murders of four female family members.
Updates from December, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Power failures have affected parts of Quebec, including 100,000 Montreal customers.
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Quebec’s doing some busywork about the homeless that, I can guarantee you, will change nothing, although it will assure a nice living for the people writing the endless studies and plans d’action.
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Locked-out Journal de Montréal workers picketed its printing plant in Mirabel last night, delaying delivery of the paper, as also reported here by the lock-outés themselves in Rue Frontenac. Tweets are claiming success: the Journal has not reached Montreal this morning.
RF also reports on a Gazette union critiquing an editorial in that paper which, by implication, supports Journal owner Pierre-Karl Péladeau against the lock-outés. This is the editorial in question.
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Just as the city prepares to sign a whopping metro car contract with the Bombardier-Alstom consortium, a Chinese engineering firm has sent in a mise en demeure demanding to be allowed to quote on the contract too. They’re claiming to be able to do it much more cheaply – but their cars would have steel wheels.
In other transit news, Laval is refusing to remit its share to the STM, still bent out of shape that its residents have to pay more for a pass than those in Longueuil, a longstanding grievance that ignores the disparity in price between its three stations built in the ’00s vs the one station built on the south shore in 1966.
Also, the city has decided to support a demand for a Canada-wide transit plan as described on the website of the Canadian Urban Transit Association, the basic idea being to get more federal money to build and sustain transit systems.
Also today, a look at more sustainable bus options that may be available to the STM in future.
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Just as the city is lowering the speed limit on residential streets in several boroughs, as a first step on phasing it in across the island, it’s also cutting the number of actual signs that indicate the speed. Lasalle mayor Manon Barbe claims it’s an attempt to cut back on visual pollution but those plain black and white speed signs are about as neutral as it gets.
Also, quoting the Gazette version quoting Barbe’s explanation of the borough-by-borough process: “First, [each] borough must submit to (the provincial government) a plan … showing which streets will be subject to the new regulation. The five boroughs have submitted their plan, received approval, and a tabled a motion [...]” it occurs to me, how much does all this bureaucratic paper shuffling end up costing the taxpayer?