Globe and Mail dwells on the security concerns at the Grand Prix and La Presse also on security issues and the Gazette on how the event has not sold out. The sole remaining Bloc MP on the island calls the event un eldorado des proxenètes.
Credit for the OMG ONOZ graphic goes to this guy.
The Gazette says the Charest Liberals won’t be intimidated while Le Devoir opines they’re afraid of the student vote.
The Gazette and Charest are owned by the same group of companies. I call conflict of interest.
A 44th consecutive evening demo picked up the pace as casserole demos resumed in various neighbourhoods. There was one arrest.
Malheureusement, peu de médias ont parlé de la chaîne humaine pour protester contre la ferneture de la cinérobothèque de l’ONF, due aux coupures du gouvernement fédéral dans la culture. Plusieurs cinéastes, profs et étudiants en cinéma, les gens de l’Ecole de la Montagne rouge et de citoyens se sont mobilisés! A voir: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNra4MXCExo&feature=youtu.be&fb_source=message
Aussi, de nombreuses photos sur la page Facebook du MSSO (Mouvement spontané pour la survie de l’ONF).
Aussi, le même soir: chaîne humaine pour protester contre la fermeture de la cinérobothèque de l’ONF. Des cinéastes, des profs et des étudiants en cinéma, les gens de l’Ecole de la Montagne Rouge et de citoyens se sont mobilisés pour dénoncer la décision de l’ONF, due aux coupures dans la culture du gouvernement fédéral. A voir: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNra4MXCExo&feature=youtu.be&fb_source=message
A little featurette about the Biodome with photos, as it reaches its 20th anniversary.
Meanwhile, some quick repairs are being done on the concrete esplanade that encircles the Olympic stadium.
Globe and Mail have a photo of the Norman Bethune statue near Concordia, which has become a temporary memorial for Lin Jun, and more on Lin’s family. There’s talk about a fund to help the family travel and cover the expenses of bringing their son’s body home – I’ll post details when they’re made public.
Photos above by @ant6n, with thanks. If you click on them you can see a larger version.
I don’t live in the neighbourhood and no longer work nearby, but the news that Park Avenue is being dug up AGAIN between Mount Royal and Laurier made me headclutch and how.
Yep, down to 2 lanes from Mont-Royal to Laurier as of yesterday, completely. I’ve lost track but I think this is the 7th time that strip has been dug up.
What’s the issue now? Termites?
I’m just glad farmers don’t work like road crews or we’d all starve to death.
I think many people don’t realize how much of a challenge it is to do this kind of work while maintaining some lanes operational for cars. Sure, it’s not as complicated as work being done on bridges, but it still needs a lot of planning and it can’t be done all at once. Notice how the road has been dug up many times, but different parts each time. Would it have been a rural road, they would simply have done the work all at once in a few months.
It’s hard, but it could be worse if it were done another way.
While this is certainly true to some extent, it doesn’t explain why the project that was supposed to end last autumn is still going, with no end in sight. I live in the neighbourhood, so I get to see the progress of work every day. I have seen crews dig up the exact same stretches over and over again since work began in 2010. I can understand digging out one side of the street at a time; I can understand that infrastructure needs to be done separately from resurfacing; I understand that there are constraints of weather and scheduling… but to dig up the same damn road 7 times makes no sense at all… and they still haven’t begun phases 8 or 9 according to the city’s info page (dates adjusted, of course) of the project. Foot-dragging? Contract-padding? Exchanges of brown envelopes? A Louisbourg (Tony Accurso) project? You betcha!
Reports of a body found in Rosemont made me realize the Lin Jun killing was so “beyond usual evil” that nobody gave him a homicide count. I noted homicide #7 on April 22 so it seems Lin Jun was #8 and if this Rosemont story is declared a homicide it will be #9.
I seem to recall that Lin Jun was number 11, but I could be wrong.
Yes the SPVM said it in a press conference #11
A blogger on Forget The Box suggests that the casseroles and other peaceful demonstrations constitute a new festival – but without corporate sponsorship, who will take it seriously?
Also, despite yesterday’s reports, Juste pour rire is not going to do a benefit show for the student groups, although Gilbert Rozon’s twin sisters seem to be involved in doing some kind of comedy event for that purpose.
The JdeM says the STM will have heightened security for Grand Prix weekend.
As announced recently the central city administration is giving more money to the boroughs but also returning to some centralization of key municipal services like snow and garbage removal. But Richard Bergeron says the change of funding doesn’t actually leave the boroughs better off and that a new rule about letting the boroughs keep the revenue from selling city property is going to result in a fire sale.
Does that mean that old people can again walk on the sidewalks in the winter in the plateau. Last year’s cleaning effort at the end was shameful.
The boroughs don’t seem to ever think ahead.
Yes, it was just terrible at the end when there was no snow.
selling city properties just to get money is a bad idea. it always ends up being sold for too cheap, but then if the citty needs it back, it has to purchase it for too expensive. there are city properties that are now not very valuable, but with some development of the surrounding infrastructure, and proper development rights they could be worth much more.
The Canadiens let assistant coaches Randy Cunneyworth and Randy Ladouceur go barely 24 hours after rehiring Michel Therrien as head coach.
The JdeM has Therrien saying the right thing about hiring more Quebec players.
A wave of suspicious packages from the “Forces armées révolutionnaires du Québec” landed in the mailboxes of various high-profile people and organizations Wednesday morning, but analysis of some has found nothing more noxious than sodium bicarbonate.
The Gazette notes that the name “Forces armées révolutionnaires du Québec” suggests one used in the 1960s by some part of the FLQ but those folks must be pretty antique by now and any connection must be merely a notional one.
What message does sodium bicarbonate imply? “Here, use this for your indigestion”?
Let me just get the the typical responses out of the way:
MAFIA! TV! HOLLYWOOD! CHAREST! SYRIA! ISRAEL! POLICE BRUTALITY!
The message is: We are angry and have no means to express this anger except by scare tactics. That and your fridge smells.
Well put.
Place this in your freezer so your ice cubes don’t take on that freezer “taste.” :P
Speaking of terrorist hoaxes; what’s going on with Metro bombers? I have not seen a thing in the news about them since they bailed out. Weren’t they supposed to be in court at the end of May?
@ Bill: They all made bail and have court dates scheduled, but I don’t know any more.
Some people have more time than sense. A terrorism hoax charge essentially ruins your life. You can’t travel. You’ll have trouble finding a job. Do you really need to work at La Belle Province for the rest of your life?
@Ephraim – I have to admit that I was sobered by the mugshots that were published in the Gazette. These kids did a terrible thing to themselves as much as anyone else. They have seriously screwed up their lives with one horribly bad decision. I think a lot of people (especially here) have sympathy for them because they agree with their cause but what if it was PETA, or the Bus drivers union or any one of the groups in Montreal that could be pissed off about something on any given day in this city? Would you still sympathize?
If we let shutting down the metro become an acceptable form of protest we may as well seal the system up and tell everyone to buy cars.
You guys talk as if somebody died. Nobody died. Nobody was hurt. Nothing was damaged. Crocodile tears shed by partisan reactionary partisans.
It was a dumb prank that a decent judge will sentence with probation, community service, fine etc. And even if the courts convict and sentence them to jail time, they’ll be let off with good behaviour and the promise of a clean record. Then again, I still have a naïve faith in our legal system.
It’s true. Nobody died. Nobody was hurt. Some people were late for work.
Yes, it was a large-scale and effective prank. They need to get some kind of punishment, along Hamza’s lines. They don’t deserve to have their lives ruined.
I don’t think it was a prank. It was an operation meant to bring attention to a cause. All mass evacuations are dangerous. Fire in occupied tunnels is dangerous. There are many laws on the books that will send you to jail for endangering the lives of others. I’m sure they have done all the jail time they will do. We have people walking around this town that have decapitated strangers and murdered their own children.
So someone has to die in order for an event to be called a terrorist act? Wow. That’s news to me!
@bill binns, there was no fire. There were smoke bombs, they don’t have flame.
@marc, how can it be called terrorism? No threats were made. No lives were in danger and it can’t have been too frightening, because afterwards we heard about annoyance and irritation but no panic. We should be careful not to stretch the definition of terrorism till it snaps.
I have looked for and been unable to find a description of the devices. There are surely ways to make smoke bombs that do not burn but I imagine they would be more complicated to make and harder to use. Regular old smoke bombs from a fireworks store most certainly do have a flame that burns like a jet close to the device. Easily enough to start a grease fire on the tracks.
Yes, but they didn’t.
It was mischief, not terrorism. from the pictures I’ve seen I’m pretty sure they were made with KNO3 (Potassium Nitrate) and baking soda – chemical reaction, no flames. http://shafaqna.com/english/media/k2/galleries/2708/1.jpg <<< link to photo from metro, not how to make a smoke bomb.
It’s definitely beyond pranking, as it had political intent – but calling it terrorism is going too far. Vandalism & mischief seems more appropriate. If we throw around the term terrorism too lightly, it loses meaning; a smoke bomb is not a pipe bomb. All said, though, that was a very, very stupid thing for those kids to do – so lightweight they can’t be called political martyrs, so serious they get federal records. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“grease fire on the tracks” lol, good one.
From the george W bush guide to terrorism: 9/11? Terrorism. 7/7? Terrorism. Four kids throwing a smoke bomb into metro stations? Mehhhhh
Il est déplorable de vous lire en train de banaliser l’incident impliquant les bombes fumigènes dans le métro de Montréal. Soit dit en passant, les chefs d’accusation qui pèsent contre ces jeunes ne les accusent pas de terrorisme en soi. Informez-vous svp.
I think they should have been charged for causing an environmental disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people had to use cars and diesel-fume spewing buses that day instead. Think of the smog!
“Yes, but they didn’t.”
So, “it might have been dangerous, it might have started a fire, but as it went, it didn’t” is a valid legal defence now? Depending on the type of device used, Kate (perhaps you know more about the specifics?), there could have been a fire, there could have been a bigger incident, there could have been danger to the public, and there are laws that keep those risks in check. These people violated those laws.
If you want to give them a slap on the wrist, you have to give that same slap on the wrist to everyone who thinks it might be fun to mess with public infrastructure and services.
Josh, you’re coming close to libelling me by implying I “know more” about the smoke bomb incidents.
My confidence that the perpetrators of these incidents did not intend real harm is this: they actually could have raised much bigger hell had they wanted to, but they did not. They limited themselves to a statement.
@Josh
You can only punish people for what they do and in some very obvious cases what they intended to do. For example if you shoot somebody else and miss, you may be charged with attempted murder, whereas if you punch somebody in the face you cannot be punished for attempted murder based on the assumption that the person might have glass bones (unless they actually do, and it can be shown that you knew that).
In the same vein you cannot punish people for attempted arson if they used smoke bombs that are based on a chemical reaction that doesn’t result in a fire.
To me, what you said Kate, ruled out any possibility that the device could have turned into anything dangerous. You implied that there was just no way anything truly scary could have come from what they did. That’s ludicrous, frankly. If I misread it, sorry.
A detached foot found on the ground in NDG Wednesday morning caused a police cordon and a fuss until it was determined to be made of plastic.
Montreal police say the body parts mailed to Vancouver are those of Lin Jun and they’ve been put in charge of investigating them.
(I suppose everyone watching this story has been wondering a couple of things, which are a) was there only the one victim and b) who is going to find the head.)
The parents and other relatives of Lin Jun (his name is still being given in both orders, some media calling him Lin Jun and some vice versa) have arrived in town but are not talking to the media.
Details on the psychological background of Luka Magnotta and descriptions of videos he posted while on the run round out today’s coverage. Till now, anyway.
Susana Machado 23:57 on 2012/06/06 Permalink
Grand Prix went all right in Bahrain where they had actual riots and police shooting protestors and all. I am not worried.
Ephraim 05:05 on 2012/06/07 Permalink
A lot of hotels are hurting because of the student demos. Employees are on-call and not getting any work on a month where normally they would be working full-time. The Grand Prix is usually the big bright spot, a time with good occupancy, nice tips, etc. And of course all the culminates in their paying income taxes….
Michel 09:00 on 2012/06/07 Permalink
Heard about Mourani’s comments, and I have to ask: Was she incorrect? I mean, this must be one of the busiest, if not the busiest, weeks for prostitutes and their pimps. Isn’t there an amazing amount of pollution (air, noise, visual) also? Seriously, we normally have to plan our kid’s b-day party on the non-GP weekend, but screwed up the dates this year. Granted, that’s a minor example, but the inconvenience is there.
So yeah, the GP week caters to fat rich white men, but how dare Mourani say out loud what everyone already knows?
qatzelok 09:48 on 2012/06/07 Permalink
Yes, Michel, but in a world run by commerce and banks, we’re all supposed to lie for them, and sanctify any money-making activity. Low-lifes watching cars go around in circles is treated like a visit from the messiah. “Oh come let us adore them.”