I wrote some brief notes on the Vieux-Rosemont byelection on OpenFile yesterday.
The Rosemont paper says that by 6 pm, only 19% of eligible voters had cast a vote.
Updates from April, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kahnawake Mohawks narrowly voted down a proposed casino plan in a referendum on Saturday, the third time the idea has been presented to them in one form or another since 1993.
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Short text and graphic video of an altercation between a pedestrian and a cabbie late Saturday, after which the cabbie runs deliberately right over the guy.
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ant6n
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Kate
I can’t say I’ve seen footage of that, but if it turns up I’ll post it.
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Feels like I’m writing an entry for the 1902 weblog: a horse spooked on Notre-Dame on Saturday afternoon and took a caleche customer on a wild ride. Someone should follow this up and let us know if the horse is OK.
Going further back in time, the Patrimoine, histoire et multimédia blog has notes on the visit of le seul véritable, l’original et superlativement incroyable Oscar to Montreal in 1882.
He liked Mount Royal!
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To be honest, folks, I’d rather be writing about another topic, but Drew Nelles on Maisonneuve has a thoughtful piece on the student strikes that’s worth reading.
Students demonstrated again Saturday night. I was out and saw more police than students: a “special” bus filled with extra cops on Sherbrooke near the Main, every metro train with a detachment of police in green visibility vests.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is learning about practical politics the hard way: reports say CLASSE is no longer so pleased with him and may be about to replace him with someone else – but I’m not sure the media will necessarily be getting the straight story out of this very diverse group.
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mdblog
“The Charest government’s cynical refusal to negotiate with CLASSE…”
Wasn’t it Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois who said that he had a mandate to demand and not to negotiate?
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Antonio
The New York Times Sunday Review has an all too relevant piece on The Imperiled Promise of College.
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Hamza
sorry but when commenters can start linking their text to other stories , it starts getting just a littttlllleeee confusing. no offense intended.
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Kate
Yes, I’ll be honest, I have some theoretical ideas about what education is for and universities are for, but Antonio, I’m not too interested in having a full-blown debate about that on this blog. It’s not a Montreal issue, or even a Quebec issue, particularly.
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Raoul
You could say its a local issue. We have many of the same programs as every other university on the planet, though it could be argued some of those programs are training people for careers that dont exist *here*.
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qatzelok
Once again, two posters have reduced university to a Trade School, and have quoted a mediocre New York Times article, rather than looking at the bigger picture of civilization. Lots of well-trained engineers are currently destroying the planet for Monsanto and Exxon. That’s now what university is for. And you can criticize Philosophy and Sociology all you want… Once the engineers and MBAs have destroyed your planet, you’ll be needing lots of priests and social workers.
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Alex L
You got it right Kate. I can confirm the medias didn’t understand what was happening with the spokespeople at the CLASSE. Someone presented its candidature to be the third spokesperson; after debates that person’s candidature was rejected mainly over fears of losing the woman-man parity (Jeanne Reynolds and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois) that is in place right now.
@mdblog: GND and JR do have mandates to negociate, but not over tuition fees.
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Antonio
The Globe and Mail has published an opinion by Margaret Wente in which she declares that Quebec’s University Students are in for a Shock.
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Kate
Yeah, Wente, who’s a writer, mocks the kids doing arts degrees. Entirely typical of the boomer “I’ve got mine” attitude.
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Item in the Guardian UK about our student protests – the same photo made the front page of Le Monde but not in any form I can link here. The BBC also noted the more extreme side of this week’s protests.
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Nick
For Le Monde, I found a version of it here, though I am not sure what relation this text has to the story that had a frontpage headline a few days ago (“Le ‘printemps érable’ des étudiants québécois”)
There’s also this:
http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2012/04/25/apres-douze-semaines-de-greve-les-negociations-s-ouvrent-avec-les-etudiants-quebecois_1691003_3222.html -
Kate
Thank you, Nick. Excellent links.
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Kate
The story is also in Paris Match.
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Nice interview with Tommy Kulczyk of Sun Youth – video and text.
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I wonder why the English Premier League game between Newcastle and Wigan is trending so hard in Montreal just now.
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Bert
Hooliganism?
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erydan
It’s a good excuse to go to the pub on a Saturday morning?
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Kate
Hmm, Wigan demolished Newcastle, too.
According to English football traditions I’m meant to support Wigan, but I have a hard time actually caring about it.
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I’m over on OpenFile this morning with news bulletins and some more thoughtful stuff. Back soon!
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A demo is taking place downtown against Friday’s offer from the Charest government. Although initially described as peaceful, it later heated up a bit and was declared illegal.
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Antonio
André Pratte, editor-in-chief of La Presse and one of Quebec’s most lucid and intelligent commentators, writes about the dangers of normalizing violence and exploiting it.
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Raoul
I think all public property dammage should be tacked on to the tuition increase. Thatll teach them not to damage public property while they’re still not contributing for it’s upkeep. We all pay for that.
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Antonio
@Raoul: that’s wishful thinking. I think that the bozos who get arrested get a fine of $400 or so, but that’s a drop in the bucket.
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Hamza
to beat a dead horse (so to speak) , only very confused people use the term violence when inanimate objects are damaged.
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Marc
@ Hamza: So vandalizing property that doesn’t belong to you, irrespective of what it is, you’re cool with that?
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ant6n
@Marc
that’s a bit binary don’t you think? Either you’re ‘cool’ with property damage; or you have to denounce the ‘violence’, blame the students, and ask for more tuition hikes. -
Anto
@Antonio: André Pratte’s “editorials” are most often a rehash of PLQ press releases.
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Steph
Most of the people are being arrested for not dispersing/attending an illegal march, not for criminal activity & vandalism. Lets not get get washed up by the PR campaign against the students and the quota of arrests the SPVM is making. It’s like the photos in Le Journal that show bandana covered faces in a cloud of billowing smoke; that smoke is not burning vandalism but tear gas, the bandanas are not to hide their identity but to help you breath in that tear gas.
What’s the point of a protest march if your opponents simply have to decry it ‘illegal’ and everyone packs up and goes home? Pilots go on strike – illegal. Canada Post employees go on strike – illegal. Nurses go on strike – illegal. Even Montreal cops have gone on illegal strikes. -
Antonio
@Hamza, this might help you (though I’m not optimistic):
World English Dictionary
violence (ˈvaɪələns)
— n
1. the exercise or an instance of physical force, usually effecting or intended to effect injuries, destruction, etc
2. powerful, untamed, or devastating force: the violence of the sea
3. great strength of feeling, as in language, etc; fervour
4. an unjust, unwarranted, or unlawful display of force, esp such as tends to overawe or intimidate
5. do violence to
a. to inflict harm upon; damage or violate: they did violence to the prisoners
b. to distort or twist the sense or intention of: the reporters did violence to my speech
[C13: via Old French from Latin violentia impetuosity, from violentus violent ] -
Hamza
No , it’s not binary, it’s making the point that there are a lot of very sick or very confused people who seem to have no problem with students and supporters being physically injured in the midst of legitimate protest, but can’t resist shouting if a bank’s [insured] windows get broken or the Apple store has paint thrown on it .
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qatzelok
@ Raoul “I think all public property dammage should be tacked on to the tuition increase.”
If environmental damage is tacked onto the price of gasoline and cars, they will practically disappear from our roads. Until this happens, talking about “making vandals pay” is just empty polemic. -
mdblog
@qatzelok What the fuck are you on about? Are the demonstrations about tuition increases or are they about every last god damn thing that is wrong with the world? Yes, environmental destruction is bad. Yes, capitalism is a far from a perfectly fair system. Yes, in a perfect world we could all get top-notch educations for free.
How about the students put their energies toward constructively solving some of these problems instead of marching in the street whining about how unfair life is?
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ant6n
@mdblog
What the fuck are you talking about?
qatzelok (in his/her spirited words) was merely saying that asking students as a whole pay for the damage caused by some protestors is unreasonable, invoking a comparison that attempting to show that all sorts of public costs are not internalized to the groups that cause them. How do you go from that to claiming that the students protest against environmental damage?! -
Antonio
Though I don’t agree with qatzelok’s analogy, I think he’s right that society subsidizes the automobile way too much, and the subsidy includes but isn’t limited to all the environmental damage caused by cars, which we don’t factor into the cost though we should. We need to wean people off of cars and into public transit.
Well, here’s an (admittedly imperfect) analogy…we’ve got too many BA’s and not enough skilled workers making decent money to keep funding our social programs with their taxes; let’s stop subsidizing an arts degree for every Jane, Jill, and Barbara, and selectively subsidize courses of study whose graduates the economy actually needs and will pay for. This way, fewer cars on the road and fewer self-righteous arts grads with no marketable skills and poor job prospects. Better environment and economy and less pollution all around.
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Raoul
Im with antonio on his last comments. Not only that, youll get better service at your local coffeehouse/gasstation/restaurant. I stopped counting the number of retarded managers i had to put with that had no business skill except, you guessed it, an arts degree. (not that i mind the EI, but still…)
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mdblog
@qatzelok I missed your point entirely. Just frustrated that these students are wasting their collective energy asking for a handout. If only they would protest FOR solutions instead of empty whining about problems. My sincere apologies.
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Kate
Raoul, please don’t throw around the word “retarded” like that – it’s not acceptable here.
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Raoul
Kate, with all the expletives ive read in other comments, you wanna give me shit for a word like “retarded”? you know im not talking about the special olympics. but wtv, the thought police has spoken.
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Josh
Oh for crying out loud, Raoul. I’ve butt heads with Kate a bunch of times, but it *is* her blog and she’s clearly welcome to set the rules she likes. It’s not thought police for someone to dictate the terms of use for their own blog.
If you don’t like it, no one’s stopping you from making your own blog.
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Alex L
@mdblog: students have been protesting for solutions for months now, and not only over tuition fees. I guess it all depends on where you get your information.
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Kate
Is using “retarded” offensive? (Metafilter says yes).
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Guardian UK has a detailed interview with Grimes plus a segue into notes on other current acts from this city. (Music player feature doesn’t work here, though.)
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A taxi-sharing system working via smartphones will be launched in June.
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Stefan
I think this has an enormous potential. Collective Transport, on demand. Would this work also with mini-buses? They could be pretty well filled, instead of waiting for regular (or even not so regular) half-empty/overfull buses.
Note that in ‘developing’ countries such shared transport works already pretty well, and without any electronic devices …
Access also does not have to be only via smartphone, but could be by telephone, internet, or sign on for a regular work-week. Sharing the vehicle should make it much cheaper than a regular taxi fare, and also cheaper than owning a car, e.g. to drive alone in a car in from the suburbs to downtown. -
cheese
Similar to a developing country, I was in Kiev in a few years ago and there were a number of private mini buses in operation. Presumably because the gov’t provided transport was not sufficient. The buses I used would wait outside a metro station until enough people had boarded, then go do its route. I think you had to tell the driver when it was your stop, but I’m sure they would remember regulars. Worked ok and was surprisingly cheap but then it was Kiev not Montreal.
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Was there ever anything about that police car accelerating through a small group of protestors on wednesday or thursday or so? It looked pretty bad on tv, although everybody was able to jump (barely) out of the way.