The city has considerable powers to act on behalf of tenants when landlords let their properties become dirty or dangerous, but it hardly ever does.
Updates from May, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Guercy Edmond was let out on bail Wednesday and allowed to work under certain conditions. Edmond says that during the incident he was in fear of his life (text and video).
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Students, protesting for the ninth night running, paid a visit to Jean Charest on Wednesday evening in Westmount. The demo remained peaceful.
Oh, and you might as well enjoy Harry Potter et la Grève générale illimitée (featuring Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge as Line Beauchamp, if you follow me) before it’s yanked from Youtube.
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Ian
Of course it remained peaceful. The cops would never deploy tear gas and percussion grenades in Westmount, it might disturb somebody important.
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Kate
ha ha yes.
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Kevin
Peaceful except for one protester smashing a CTV camera
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People who like to plane-spot have a new place to do it in Dorval.
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Quel Avenir’s Monday blogger Jean-Claude Poitras has some interesting points – I like his observation that there are three superb churches along Saint-Alexandre yet all are surrounded by open-air parking lots (although, on the other hand, the churches probably need the revenue).
I’m less keen on the urge Poitras expresses to create an iconic symbol for the city. I suspect it’s subconscious Eiffel Tower envy although he namechecks Sydney and Bilbao. The urge for that kind of structure is, at heart, branding.
QA’s other recent pieces have tackled the transit funding issue from various angles: make drivers pay for the distance they drive, make businesses chip in, and – for argument’s sake – what would happen if users had to pay a lot more.
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Rogers announced today the closure of a number of media properties including Branchez-Vous, a longtime fixture on the Quebec internet scene. Mixed reactions. Showbizz.net is also going away.
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Another piece in the Guardian UK considers the student strike as part of a wider trend and also within the tradition of dissent in Quebec.
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Raoul
lets talk about workers’ economics for a change. How about a piece on employers who “gave raises” last week, right before minimum went up this week? i know more than a few who have been fornicated in such a manner.
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Martin
I heard that thought a lot: “In the painful tumult of daily protests, an entire generation of Québécois youth is learning a political lesson no class would ever teach: violence underlies all of society’s inequalities, and power doesn’t yield an inch without a fight.”
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Antonio
Former PQ Premier Lucien Bouchard, together with other personalities, has signed a letter urging Quebecers to support the government in the tuition hike dispute.
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ant6n
There was a larger bit on CBC news tonight, where Bouchard was interviewed as well. He wasn’t quoted giving any good reason for the hikes, but said that the government should stay firm because it is its responsibility to maintain order.
One thing he said about the hikes is that universities are underfunded, lacking 600 million or so, and that we need those to stay competitive as a province. The point that this hike doesn’t improve the funding for universities because it merely shifts tax contributions to user fees naturally didn’t get raised by the CBC. -
qatzelok
@ Antonio: “Former PQ Premier Lucien Bouchard, together with other personalities, has signed a letter urging Quebecers to support the government in the tuition hike dispute.”
Where does he find the time,with all the Fracking-is-Safe speeches he gives for oily cash?
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The new $20 bill design has been unveiled. Not crazy about how it looks kind of torn, what do folks think?
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mdblog
We’ll get used to it.
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Anto
I’d say it’s a good argument for e-currency.
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Marc
Better pics of it are on BoC’s flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bankofcanada/
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paul
The monument is a pretty poor choice as an image, it may be inspiring in person – but the photo doesn’t do it justice as an animal or landscape would IMHO
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walkerp
LOL! The Queen looks like an ent!
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Robert J
Looks like a Pokemon card. But then our money has been ugly for a long time. I prefer greenbacks as far as the esthetic goes.
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Kate
I wonder whether the Canadian mint has designs with Charles on them ready in case. Or if they’d admit it if they did.
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ant6n
I wonder wether this uber-hard-to-conterfeit bill will actually result in more fraud initially, because you can give people any vaguely similar bill if they don’t know it yet.
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qatzelok
The image of the Vimy Ridge War Memorial looks like a World Trade Center-inspired tombstone design. Which is appropriate for a Bankster aesthetic.
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Back in 2009, apparently Line Beauchamp ate breakfast with some Liberal Party supporters. La Presse’s Vincent Marissal dissects the implications.
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Anto
So there you have it, CLASSE. There’s an exception to Beauchamp’s rule not to meet with people who use violence: she’ll have breakfast with you if you bring her 3000$.
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Hamza
after all the shouting and conserva-hype , this story illuminates the primary issue perfectly.
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Cabbies have been demonstrating Wednesday morning in support of Edmond Guercy, the taxi driver shown in video clips from early Sunday, driving deliberately over a man after an altercation on the Main. (His name turns up in other stories as Guercy Edmond, being one of those Haitian names that could work either way.) He’s up for bail sometime today; cabbies feel he’s a victim in the story, not the aggressor.
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ant6n
Ok, so if the weapon wasn’t a car, but a shotgun, which ‘accidentally’ went off, would people feel sympathetic to this guy? I feel that people do not realize that cars are dangerous weapons, because we’ve so accustomed to that danger (which is strange in our danger-obsessed society).
I’m not saying that these guys weren’t being hooligans, and I’m not saying that being a cabbie isn’t a tough job; but shooting a man with a car should really be hard to excuse.
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jeather
Given how many people are sympathetic to shooters, I’d say yes, there would still be an outpouring of sympathy had he shot the guy and not run him over, especially from other cab drivers.
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walkerp
I hate cars and want them off the road, but frankly I am kind of on the cabbie’s side here. That’s a tough job with little remuneration and the dude was threatened by a mob of drunken idiots, initiated by one who didn’t respect his rules. I do not think he intended to run the guy over, but was just trying to get out of the situation. And even if he did intend to run him over, them’s the breaks. Don’t initiate a fight with a dude with a weapon unless you intend to suffer the consequences of that weapon.
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fred
does anyone actually know how the argument started? what made those clowns attack the cab? if they were just trying to bolt without paying, they wouldn’t have stuck around to kick his car, would they?
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ant6n
I’m on nobody’s side. But the thing is that the issue is not one of “what would you do?”, but rather one of “what should one have done?”. Even these guys were being hooligans, I don’t think it’s reasonable to attack an unarmed person with a heavy weapon and claim it’s self defense. The cabbie kept driving around in circles, from the video it seems that there would’ve been many times where he could’ve escaped.
The act of driving in circles around people like this, essentially driving towards people, is basically wielding guns in peoples faces. Just because people are so used to driving (slow or fast) towards people, doesn’t make the claim of ‘accidents’ any less farfetched.
Overall, I think that the charge of assault with a weapon, seems pretty reasonable; the justice system will probably come up with a more reasonable interpretation of the situation than any of us.
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paul
I honestly can’t decide who is at fault in this situation, but I do agree with Ant6n that the lack of consequence for killing people with a vehicle is shocking (even if it was accidental). I don’t feel that losing your license and a small fine is an appropriate punishment.
I recently read in the Atlantic when vehicles were first introduced in amass scale to our roadways (90 years ago), drivers would be charged with “technical manslaughter”. The auto lobby promoted laws to restrict pedestrian use of the street and give primacy to cars. The idea of “jaywalking” – a concept that had not really existed prior to 1920 – was enshrined in law.
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Kate
I haven’t seen any account of what the initial altercation was about.
I agree with ant6n. The cabbie had the opportunity to leave the scene, instead of which he hung around, endangering others with his car (you’ll see a regular car and another taxi moving hastily away from the area, their drivers likely having sensed a bad situation) before looping back and riding over the guy. Looking at the video I can’t say he deliberately knocked the guy down, but I think it can fairly be said he was acting dangerously with a vehicle and didn’t much care about the consequences.
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walkerp
Yeah, legally speaking probably everybody involved should be facing the courts.
I do agree that the cabbie should have just fled, but I get incensed over the righteousness and victimization stance that people who initiate these things always take when they get out of hand. Once you start breaking rules, you no longer have the right to assume that even bigger rules aren’t going to get broken.
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Steph
In one of the videos you hear that the cab had hit a lamppost. In the beginning of the other video you see the front of his car is already damaged, and not the kind from hitting people. I assume there was some sort of accident beforehand and in that situation you can’t just ‘flee’ the scene. Making the decision to flee is an easy one to make in hindsight. Knowing which way to turn and flee when someone is jumping on your car is also easier to make from a birds eye view.
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Raoul
having worked night-shift quite a few years, i can attest that there are quite a few drunken customers that are worth the jail-term for mowing them down w/ a car. (but i’d only do with a nice car).
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Kate
Raoul, I only hope you’re making a lame attempt to be funny, because it’s too damn easy to kill people with cars. That’s why I won’t 100% buy that the cabbie just panicked. He panicked with 3000 lbs of steel, that’s always going to be a serious matter no matter what the circumstances are.
The CP story says there were allegations of a racially charged encounter with three intoxicated clients but I suspect it’s going to be difficult if not impossible to get a clear version of what happened in that taxicab before the incident we see on video.
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Steph
More info about what happened beforehand – Thee customers left the cab over a dispute of the price. He was allegedly punched by one of the passengers punched the taxi driver, taxi driver allegedly responded by trying to run them over but instead hit a lamppost, then people started filming. The taxi driver is now out on bail and he can continue driving his taxi – but can’t pick up customers on St-Laurent street at night.
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buffalo bill
I haven’t been reading this site very long, I like it though. I’ve noticed that the moderator(s?) always side against business, or entrepreneurs, even in this case of a black cabbie being attacked by skinheads. Is this a formally-socialist site?
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Kate
Yes, we start every morning with a rousing chorus of the Internationale.
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Chris
And after that, we sing Solidarity Forever! (Kate, can only you add URLs?)
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Leon Trotsky
This is a test. Solidarity Forever
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Kate
Chris, I just posted that link in a non-logged-in persona and it worked fine. You just have to use ordinary html syntax – not markdown or reddit style.
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Raoul
what else would you have me say? the whole situation is ridiculous.
A) the cabbie should know better than let himself be dragged into a fight, on the main, on the weekend, at night. What was he thinking??
B) the partygoers… seriously, youre out till 4 am, im assuming they had enough money to make it to last call, but they argued over 4-5$ for a ride, cmon.
C) running them down with a car. idk, sounds like something basil fawlty would do. This guy doesnt belong in the service industry period.
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Tuesday saw a student demo for the eighth evening in a row, and a rather more vigorous May Day march that ended with 95 arrests (108 arrests according to another report).
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Antonio
Sandy White, the law student at ULaval, is back and she is urging students to wake up because Quebec is broke.
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mdblog
Thanks for the link Antonio. At the end of the day, WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, which is a rather conservative (small “c”, a la medicare, transcontinental rail road, David Orchard) sentiment that we’d all be good to keep in mind – student revolutionaries included.
No dogs has a good post up today on the student strike and its wider implications for Quebec society:
http://nodogsoranglophones.blogspot.ca/2012/05/quebecs-higher-education-nightmare.html -
Kate
If Quebec’s broke, they just have to send a few more ministers to have breakfast with the mob, and we’ll be all set up.
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mdblog
Actually Kate, I think that all we need is more language inspectors and some new laws to really give them “teeth” and Quebec will be restored. ;-)
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The Habs have named Marc Bergevin their new general manager. He’s been assistant GM in Chicago, but comes from Montreal originally, and presumably speaks French.
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Jack
He is a kid from the Pointe St Charles, who was noticed when as an eight year old he was placed on a line with a tall skinny kid named Mario……. Lemieux.
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Raoul 06:18 on 2012/05/03 Permalink
it takes a license or diploma to do almost anything these days – one thinks there would be such a license to charge rent on property, so that slumlords would have a public record to lookup before signing anything.
of the 3 apartments ive had this year: the first had a pest problem (nothing was done). the second had pests and mold, and hydro theft to the tune of 500-600$ for 60 days….we talk to the landlords, we take pictures, file complaints, nothing ever gets done. im beginning to think we’d have done future tenants a favor by burning those places down. the city and the regie aint doing jack about it thats for sure.
Kate 08:40 on 2012/05/03 Permalink
Wouldn’t that be cool? Landlord school – you’d have to take courses in relevant law, repairs and maintenance. It’ll never happen, though: our governments are too much in awe of the ownership of property.
Charles 09:12 on 2012/05/03 Permalink
I think those landlords know fully what they are suppose to do. I still think pressing criminal charges against landlords who knowingly let their tenants live in health damaging situations should make them think twice…
Jack 10:41 on 2012/05/03 Permalink
Kate I wish I would have gone to Landlord school, man I would never have bought.I would have stayed in my cool 6-1/2 in Petite Patrie and fought every hike.My wife and I remember how cool it was just handing over a cheque, no worries.Something else to consider, almost all owner residents at one point were tenants, I was for twenty years, and I know the difference between being a decent human being and being a prick.
Raoul 05:32 on 2012/05/04 Permalink
youd think the some of these landlords would care about the resale value. I know alot of landlords complain about not getting paid, but the solution is being a better judge of character, not making decent tenants suffer because of the lousy ones.
in any case once they start down that road you start to lose all your good tenants, and what was one or two bad apples becomes a building full of them because they were in a rush to fill leases.
Some landlord seem to think their tennants dont talk to eachother either. it didnt take alot of deducing to find out that while we were paying twice as much as usual on hydro on the 2nd floor, the 1st floor residents were not getting a hydro bill at all. But rather than quietly rectifying the situation (as id hoped), he chose to ripoff the outside staircase leading to the hydro counters. You’d think if an ounce of that energy had been applied in the right place i wouldnt have felt the need to have my lease rescinded.