After all, it seems Gilles Duceppe may not have broken government rules over paying a party apparatchik with public funds. Le Devoir is contradicting the La Presse report here, and Projet J charts the difference in the papers’ interpretation of what happened.
In other Bloc news, party VP Vivian Barbot has quit.
Contrary to recent reports citing about half the sum, GÉNIeau got $13.3 million as a result of the broken water meters contract with the city. I’m not sure it helps to say that each meter cost $350,000, because damages are usually paid for unilaterally broken contracts, and even if those meters were installed, are they even operating now?
Clémence Umugwaneza is still missing from her Ahuntsic-Cartierville home after stepping out for a walk with nothing but an iPod – no money, bus pass or ID. Her family is making efforts to find anyone who may have seen her on the evening of January 11 or later.
Description and pix of the new symphony hall on Arch Daily.
You can, for a short time, watch Dimanche by Patrick Doyon, one of the two animated NFB shorts up for Academy Awards. The other is Wild Life.
Thank you for posting these links!
I haven’t followed this case because it’s been a question of international law, mostly, but it’s general local news now that Léon Mugesera is on his way back to Rwanda, having exhausted all possible legal leverage for staying in Canada. He leaves a wife and five kids here.
And not a fuck was given.
I can’t believe he was ever given sanctuary here.
I find I’m able to hold two ideas in my head simultaneously: Mugesera may well be guilty of genocide, but I still don’t want Canada complicit in shipping a man away to be tortured, if indeed that’s what happens to him, as the UN fears.
Some shopkeepers on Mont-Royal are planning to help pay for street parking when people buy things in their stores, starting next month.
Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar gets the best foreign language film Academy Award nomination.
A transport truck tipped over Tuesday morning on the Metropolitan, the glass panels it was transporting scattering around. Traffic was a big mess and may still be.
The Pointe-à-Callière history museum is getting a new wing which is meant to be ready in time for a show about the Etruscans in June. There will also be a show about the Samurai.
… and its another Dan Hanganu building. Man, he seems to get everything. For better or for worse, he’s remade a lot of the city in his industrial style.
Guy Hébert was named the city’s new director-general Monday evening. OpenFile answers the question what does a city director-general do? Vision Montreal thinks the $300K salary for the position is too high.
Shawn 21:50 on 2012/01/24 Permalink
It’s unlikely that le Devoir gets the last word on this, obviously. But it gets more interesting: if Duceppe could have been as certain as Le Devoir suggests that he did nothing wrong, why abruptly retire from active life, again, over it?
Chantal Hebert’s TO Star column suggests that he knew elements within the PQ did this to him, and he didn’t have the belly for that fight.
Kate 08:56 on 2012/01/25 Permalink
La Presse is sticking to its story.
Steamboat Willie 08:56 on 2012/01/25 Permalink
One of those other articles on Barbot had some interesting biographical info on her. Can’t remember which though because I read them all just like you.
Shawn 11:03 on 2012/01/25 Permalink
What’s bizarre about the Le Devoir story imo is that it’s not an op-ed piece, but rather, a news story which has as its lead a categorical rejection of the charges, without attribution. It’s the journalists and the paper, I assume, which are dismissing the charges on Duceppe’s behalf, rather than stating in the lead that it’s Bloquistes who are doing so. Anyone else find that lead weird?
Robert J 14:01 on 2012/01/25 Permalink
The level of funding of the Bloc was just so low for so long, and its very nature ensured that party leaders had little incentive to bend the rules because no one was running for government or the executive, so I was surprised to see the allegations, and frankly not surprised to see them rejected.
No matter what your political angle, you have to admit that the bloc was a highly democratic machine, precisely because it could never have formed the government. The power-hungry machinations of other opposition parties were less present even when the bloc was briefly official opposition, because the best Duceppe could hope for was to make the government dissolve.
Shawn 22:27 on 2012/01/25 Permalink
Robert, I don’t understand the logic that simply because the Bloc could never form a government, that are somehow unlikely to bend the rules to advance the separatist cause.
Jack 00:13 on 2012/01/26 Permalink
One of the great things about Le Devoir is the fact that their is no pretense to objectivity. I find that refreshing,the best example is Antoine Robitaille, their Quebec City reporter. His politics are transparent and when you read his copy you know where he stands.I find it more messed up to see Bernard Drainville and Christine St. Pierre’s objectivity at Radio Canada. The Drainville-Boisclair interview when Drainville was negotiating with Boisclair which riding he was going to get is my all time favorite.Le Devoir will defend Duceppe.