The city is worrying about the half tame raccoons at the lookout, which have become fat and greedy and too dependent on human handouts. But the one thing that isn’t a concern is rabies, although raccoons can transmit a form of distemper that’s dangerous to dogs.
Anyway, getting caught feeding the raccoons can net you a fine.
Used to be if you heard sirens you wondered if there could be a fire nearby. These days you wonder if maybe a march is coming your way.
Some thoughts from Le Devoir’s Jean Dion on what Marc Bergevin brings to a tough job with the Habs – but I’m mostly amused by the first comment: “Cet individu a certainement de très grandes qualités pour ce sport mais au niveau du français cela fait un peu “Joe the plumber”. Le CH gagne mais on ne peut en dire autant pour la représentation et l’amélioration du français pour le Québec populaire.”
Can’t win.
I am a bit confused as to what Dion is saying. Is he suggesting that Bergevin’s French is of a working-class variety? Or that it betrays a more general lack of intelligence on Bergevin’s part?
If it’s the former, then Dion is being a classist jerk, and if it’s the latter… well, how could the Canadians be “winning” by hiring a dunce?
Er, Canadiens. Forgive me that one.
It’s a comment, not Jean Dion, saying that Bergevin’s French is low-class and isn’t going to do anything for proper French usage among the people of Quebec.
Huh. Okay then. I thought the complaint about Cunneyworth was that he couldn’t communicate with the fans in French. I thought that was the issue. I didn’t realize that the issue went any deeper than that.
Have you ever lived in Quebec, Josh? There’s a complicated relationship between class and spoken language here that I don’t think is duplicated in English in the rest of North America, although something like it may operate in England. Different people would have different expectations of a person doing the Habs GM job. Some people would be offended if Bergevin sounded too Radio-Canada and snooty, whereas the commenter thought he sounded too casual – hence my comment that you can’t win.
@ Kate: “Can’t win.”
Who are you talking about here? The subtext is that you are talking about Anglo Money, trying to keep Francophone schmoes happy. This is slightly colonial – like when Monty Burns shrugs.
No, I wasn’t talking about Anglo money, I was talking about the impossibility in Quebec of pitching the specific class implications of your accent in French in such a way to keep everybody happy, if you’re in a mission-critical job like GM of the Habs. For once, anglos and money don’t come into it.
“Have you ever lived in Quebec, Josh?”
I’m a fluent trilingual Anglo who’s lived his whole life here and I have no clue what relationship there is between accent and class.
Though I do grasp the difference between “parisiene” and “quebecoi”, any further granularity just boils down to “french”
You either haven’t been paying attention or you’re remarkably innocent, then. There is a reason you don’t see many doctors and lawyers with accents from any of the Southwest bouroughs, much as you would not expect to see an English banker with a Cockney accent. Working class, innit.
That’s not to say working class people (either in England or in Quebec) don’t become doctors, lawyers, and bankers. But in becoming a doctor, lawyer, or banker, most of those people will lose their working class accent.
Faiz are you kidding? Listen to the Radio Canada TV announcers, the only place French speakers talk like that is in Outremont salons.Kate you are dead right when it comes to language in Quebec you can not win.
The class issue around French language usage in Quebec is incessant. I’m an Anglo transplant and that’s clearly one of the raging undercurrents here. Whenever you hear discussions in the French-language media here about ‘the state of the French language’, it’s mostly about class. A lot of the defensiveness of Quebecois around English I think is caused by rawness from internal debates between the about the ‘quality of Quebec French’ eg: pride of patrimony versus the view of Quebec a second-rate France full of working-class linguistic improvisers that needs to be re-educated to international standards. Imagine growing up hearing Quebec Franco elites and English-Canada criticizing the way you do things, the way you speak etc…if that doesn’t feed Quebec nationalism, I don’t know what would. I never saw this when I lived in English-Canada but now that I’m here, wow, I totally see the problem.
Yep. Another angle with Bergevin is that although he was born in Montreal, he spent his hockey career playing for U.S. teams then working for the Chicago Blackhawks, so chances are he hasn’t actually spoken a lot of French in his working life – that too will have affected his speaking style.
@Faiz: The relationship between class and the way one speaks is something that exists all over the world. Not strictly a Quebec thing.
But I did live there for a decade, yeah.
M. Bergevin is a Ville Emard kid and he speaks like one. Speaking as a father of two hockey playing kids I can say I don’t hear too much Outremont French in the arenas.
All problems in Quebec could be solved if Quebec’s education system recognized two dialects of French and taught classes in both ;)
CLASSE is proposing taxing the banks to pay for free tuition.
Piece from CP analyzes the actual numbers about tuition hikes and their potential effects, finding – as many articles have – that there are many socioeconomic variables that make it difficult to produce any firm statements on either side of the spectrum of opinion.
The Globe & Mail has a piece defending young people’s grievances – the boomers may remember the phrase “generation gap” but the gap the present generation sees is an economic one, not the one of attitudes that faced the hippies.
And what of the people who are neither boomers nor fresh-faced kids, Coupland’s classic Generation X, who get squeezed from both sides?
Us Gen Xers went to school paying about $300 less than tuition is now (while earning under $6 an hour) then moved to where we could find a job, then came back when the government was so desperate for skilled workers it offered us 5 years with reduced income taxes.
And now we wondering why people can’t be bothered to save $50 a paycheque for their own education.
“And what of the people who are neither boomers nor fresh-faced kids, Coupland’s classic Generation X, who get squeezed from both sides?”
THANK YOU!
Rather, for their ‘children’s’ education. Hasty typing there.
Actually, Kevin, you’re right. A lot of people are paying for education from their own paycheque. Not everyone gets paid for by their family.
Anyway, think of it this way: Quebec needs a more educated populace. We’re facing rough times, competition from places where people can live much more cheaply than here, so we need to have knowledge, confidence and attitude to make this place thrive.
Support the students. They’re the ones who’ll be paying for your old age pension.
@Kate: they won’t be able to pay our old age pension if they are underemployed serving up lattes at Starbucks or making proposals to their creditors to avoid bankruptcy like Sophie in the Raymond Chabot advert who has an MA but couldn’t find a job “in her field.” These are caricatures but you get the idea.
If government/taxpayers are to completely subsidize post-secondary education then goverment/taxpayers should get to call the shots to some extent and divert people away from the fields where there is a glut of graduates and low job prospects and towards fields where people can be gainfully employed and help get us out of the “rough times,” which you acknowledge.
You can’t have your cake and eat it, too…beggars can’t be choosers, etc., etc.
Stephen Harper and the rather successful (as-of-late) right-wing movement in Canada want us all to believe that we are islands . We must only care for ourselves, our huge suburban homes and our paycheque’s bottom line.
Obviously, because if the rich suburbanites can live on their own, why can’t the rest of us unwashed commies? Because it’s not like the conservatives ever had to use the roads, Medicare, public schools, public transit, tax benefits, public daycare, public services, highways (etc.)
In Quebec, unlike say, suburban Ontario or Alberta, we haven’t forgotten that we’re all in this together. So let’s stay together (crooned in a smoothly Obamaesque manner).
Honestly, now they want everything for free. These students lose more of the little support they had every hour. The word “student” has become a dirty word that commands no respect amongst the tax paying citizens in this province. How many “students” are actually protesting anyway? Seems to be a bit of a lark for many of the ones mucking about downtown in the evenings.
I would also like to know why no one seems to be talking about how it is business as usual at all the english educational institutes. Too much of a hot potato?
Maureen, I can’t do better than what Hamza wrote right above you, and ask you to have a ponder of it.
Education isn’t a toy, a thing a spoiled child wants for free. Everyone who is lifted out of ignorance is a benefit to the society around them.
That also applies to your idée fixe about education, Antonio. Most people who come out of school with general arts degrees don’t necessarily find themselves five years later working in a field directly connected to their studies, but their studies make them more fit to do any kind of work. Why else do you think a degree is a baseline requirement for most jobs, even when you can’t draw a direct line between the activity of the job and the content of most university arts courses?
@maureen
English universities probably have too many international students, and the issue doesn’t concern them. Also, there might be some difference between the French and English cultures (anglo saxon protestant hard work and shut up attitude and whatnot). The ROC doesn’t really understand Quebec students, either.
On the other hand, McGill had a 3-day strike(!)
@Kate: once again, there is no such thing as a “general arts degree.” There are arts degrees in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, economics, political science, etc., but not one “general arts degree.” The boycotters’ display of immaturity and irresponsibility notwithstanding, university is not high school. University degrees have become “baseline requirements” for most jobs simply because we churn out an overabundance of BA holders. It’s a matter of supply, and there is too much of it. That’s the perverse effect of churning out too many BA’s, i.e. that employers require such degrees for the most menial positions. We have so cheapened the value of the BA that you dare refer to the figment of your imagination which you refer to as a “general arts degree.” Arts degrees are specialized academic training and should only be accessible to highly motivated students who care to become the custodians of that specific body of knowledge.
@antonio – “general arts degree” is a pretty common term, and for all your faux-outrage, everyone knows that this is not an actual degree. Your dramatic antics are unbecoming of the seriousness you attempt to attribute to your arguments.
@ant6n – “anglo saxon protestant hard work and shut up attitude and whatnot” I’ve seen before yet somehow everyone forgets a mere decade ago Concordia students were the ones in trouble for being “too political”. Your point that most students at Concordia and McGill are international (or out of province) has a lot of bearing here though – it’s hard to get worked up about the future of a province you don’t plan to stay in, where tuitions are already a sweet deal compared to back home. I got degrees from both Concordia and McGill and very few of my alumni that weren’t from here are still here, unless they married a local. But once and for all, let’ s stop calling this an “anglo saxon” thing. Not everyone from outside Quebec is anglo saxon; the whole french vs. english thing has very little traction outside of la belle province to the extent that it’s rarely on anyone’s radar unless specifically talking about Quebec. That the two major english speaking universities have a student population that isn’t from Quebec should hardly be surprising given the quality and affordability of being educated at either institution in a continent of anglos & allophones (a term used only in Quebec) save Quebec and a few small areas throughout Canada.
Antonio, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois of CLASSE is studying for a “Baccalauréat en histoire, culture et société” at UQÀM. Is that not a general enough arts degree to make my point? There are all kinds of programs in liberal arts around the place, both at CEGEP (the Dawson program is well thought of, on the English side) and at university level.
@Ian
“it’s hard to get worked up about the future of a province you don’t plan to stay in, where tuitions are already a sweet deal compared to back home.”
Tuition in Canada isn’t cheap. It’s probably more expensive than close to anywhere in the world – except the States, and even then only fancy universities. International tuition is getting close to 20K per year (which is more expensive than State schools in the States). I’d say most international students are willing to pay that because of the prestige of having a North American degree. So international students don’t care about the hikes, because it literally doesn’t concern them – they pay a different rate, and it’s 10 times more. Even worse, the striking Quebec students sometimes say that international students should just pay more to subsidise the locals. Given that we pay so much, and that the rates increase like crazy (doubling like every 7/8 years, or hiking a 1000$ on some years just like that), the sympathy and understanding for local students is low.
If education were a right, in law, there would also be responsabilities. Ive never taken a basic law class that didnt put the two together.
If the governments’ going to pay for most or all of someone’s education, its not unreasonable for them to steer students towards professions that will enable them to pay that back in income taxes and hopefully contribute to other peoples’ education in the process.
If everyone were to invoke their right to an education and half of them decided to pursue fields that didnt lead to a decent tax bracket, how could we expect them to support a new generation of students?
We cant make the same mistake as the boomers. They voted themselves more rights than they could afford and we’ll be paying for it long after we’ve buried the last of them.
@Kate
No, I meant to write children.
*I* paid my own way through school. My children won’t have to because of a commonplace thing called an RESP.
Simply put, two levels of government are offering free money to anyone with the foresight to set aside some cash.
The only reason parents should not be helping their children get educations is because they are jerks.
And as I’ve said repeatedly — the plan due to be implemented by the government is a progressive plan that provides free tuition for anyone earning under $65,000 a year. Really poor people will actually get *paid* to go to school.
Those people marching in the streets are elitists who want to make sure rich people don’t have to pay for their education.
@Kevin
Poor people get support from the government to pay their studies, but aren’t those mostly loans?
Kevin: and if parents don’t pay because they can’t, or because they have other reasons (religion is one that comes to mind) not to wish to see their kids get a formal education?
Kevin, you payed your way through school? Elementary and secondary included? Or did you leech off us taxpayers for that?
@ant6n
The plan offered by Charest and Beauchamp last Friday (the one rejected by CLASSE/FEUQ/FECQ) actually pays poor people and their families to go to school. Substantial bursaries and tax credits, then loans (Luc Godbout of University of Sherbrooke has explained this very well in several appearances on Rad-Can, and Thursday in a lecture at CEGEP Sherbrooke that convinced those students to end their boycott.)
If it had been in place when I was a student I’d have actually been making money by being in class. Not just offsetting my tuition fees — but paying my tuition and living expenses as well. So I may not have had to put up with cockroaches :/
@Kate
I don’t see what religion has to do with this. If your parents refuse to let you live at home and go to school, you do what I did — save your coin, move out, bust your ass. Except now you’ll be in better financial shape.
@Chris Taxpayers who cannot spell the word “paid” and think this debate is about elementary and secondary school education are not paying any attention. Crawl back under your rock, or start reading and educate yourself.
Kevin, I think my English is pretty good for my second language. But thanks for reminding me how silly ad hominem attacks are.
Driving a cab is a very risky occupation, with homicide levels twice that of police, according to StatsCan. The recent incident between Guercy Edmond and his three out-of-control passengers has revived discussions about what could be done to make the job less dangerous.
Quel Avenir continues with its thoughts on how to pay for public transit, examining the notion of making the biggest polluters pay, as part of a carbon market arrangement.
Ikea is starting work to enlarge its building in Saint-Laurent, which will make it the biggest Ikea in North America. I just go flønk thinking about it.
That should be “flönk.” Swedish uses the “ö” while Danish and Norwegian use the “ø.”
I kind of remember that Ikea was somewhere in or near downtown Montreal before moving to Canvendish. Does anyone know where it was?
It was in Alexis Nihon, either where the Canadian Tire or Winners is today, although the warehouse was somewhere in either Lachine or Lasalle.
Sorry, I was bitten by a møøse and didn’t type that correctly.
Yes, I go flönk just thinking about it.
(And I do remember the initial Ikea at Alexis-Nihon, in the west end of the mall.)
We must be disproportionally large IKEA shoppers around here. Not only will we have the biggest IKEA in North America, but we’ll be one of the few (perhaps only?) cities with *two* IKEA stores in the region. (The second one being in Boucherville, which for some Montrealers is closer than the VSL one.)
We must be. Everyone I know has Billy bookcases. I can construct one in about 15 minutes.
@Blork: I wouldn’t be sure of that. Toronto and Vancouver regions also have multiple locations. Toronto has four, Vancouver has two. Even in the US (which in general was late to the Ikea craze), Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, DC, Philadelphia and New York all have multiple suburban locations.
The Irish Mafia, aka the West End Gang, have branched out into graffiti removal and are benefiting from some nice municipal contracts, according to La Presse.
The Globe and Mail asks how unusual is the immigration department’s treatment of Lord Black and answers “very”. But the paper is hedging its bets by saying he deserves a second chance – after all, it never hurts to cosy up to a man who, if the dice shake that way, could be your boss sometime in the future.
The Globe and Mail and National Post are now officially one, other Globe editorial today, ” Harper Government has had a good first year “.
Now? The Globe told everyone to vote for Harper last year…
The alt-weekly Hour Community is being shuttered by Communications Voir after this week’s issue.
Hour itself was founded as a competitor to the Mirror almost 20 years ago but was pared back to the current format a year ago. I have to admit I was surprised to see a printed copy somewhere recently – I had thought it was a web-only production, so poorly was it distributed.
And no a fuck was given.
Alternative Weeklies ……..man that was a decade ago, they became corporate publi-sacs.
At least, Jack. The Mirror started with high ideals but soon began running escort service ads in the back.
I agree but it wasn’t the advertising in the back pages, it was the advertising in the Front, Features and Review sections that killed them.
I think the Mirror was, and still is, pretty decent. Okay, the multi-page advertisements masquerading as articles were pretty uncool but on the whole I can’t complain about Mirror’s content. Their columnists were/are pretty good!
Also, c’mon Kate, the escort ads made the perfect backdrop for Sasha. I always loved that her column was in there among them.
Several donors to Vision Montreal have to pay fines because they gave to the party despite not living in the city.
makes sense. why should people who dont live here get to influence our local politics? Its the same thing with direct foreign investment, you cant expect a multinational to care about its impact on the community like local companies do/have to.
Sure. It’s not a surprising law – there’s a logic to it.
The STM is buying seven cute little buses to be used on less well-travelled routes, starting with the 715 route through Old Montreal.
It should be noted that these buses are 100% electric, which explains their high cost.
Its a decent first step, given the plan to be fully electrify the fleet(or was it hybridize?) by 2025
They should decorate them in such a way that tourists gravitate towards them.
from the article:
> 5,9 millions $ à DesignLine USA – $5.9M/7 = $849000 per
from the stm: http://www.stm.info/english/en-bref/a-toutsurlastm.htm#q12
> A bus costs $500000 on average, and 50% of the cost is subsidized by the government of Quebec.
Of course another consideration is maintenance. (Looking at you, federal government).
ant6n 19:00 on 2012/05/03 Permalink
cue comparison to students in 3 .. 2 .. 1 …
Antonio 20:37 on 2012/05/03 Permalink
…still waiting…awkward
MB 03:32 on 2012/05/04 Permalink
Indecent of those raccoons, not even to cover themselves during tonight’s protest.