Updates from June, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • 21:53 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    The Quebec Liberals won the byelection in LaFontaine, on the eastern tip of Montreal island, but there’s a tight race in Argenteuil with the PQ ahead. Tweets are suggesting this would be a signal loss to the PLC because it’s been Liberal since 1966, including a 15-year stint by Claude Ryan.

    Fagstein tweets that it was a 25% voter turnout in Argenteuil, 20% in LaFontaine. And here I’d been hoping that heightened political hijinks would motivate people to express their preference – anti-demo types are wont to say “why demonstrate, you should vote instead” but so few people trouble to vote. (Some recent thoughts on this worldwide trend from George Monbiot in the Guardian.)

    Update: Fagstein now says it was a 42.36% turnout in Argenteuil – not stellar, but not as bad. He also says: “Standings now: PLQ 64, PQ 47, CAQ 9, Others 4, Vacant 1. Government majority is 3 votes (2 with Liberal speaker)”

     

    • Hamza 03:34 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      ‘PLQ 64, PQ 47, CAQ 9, Others 4, Vacant 1′

      #fail

    • Hamza 03:50 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Anybody ever read ‘All the President’s Men?’

      Or maybe you saw

      How about The National Post ?

      Maybe you just prefer the gazette…

    • Ephraim 06:11 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      It’s a bi-election and summer, by-elections are notorious for low turnouts as our summer elections. Same reason it’s stupid to have a strike in the summer, everyone is thinking about vacation, sitting on terrasses, balconville, etc. The last thing we care about is politics.

    • Hamza 06:20 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Ephraim – i don’t know you but I do reckon you can do first grade addition?

    • Kate 08:07 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Hamza: explain?

    • DC 08:29 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Looking at the last five by-elections, 42% seems to be in the middle of the pack: turnout was 54.56% in Bonaventure, 5/12/11; 57.65% in Kamouraska-Témiscouata, 29/11/10; 21.65% in Saint-Laurent, 9/13/10; 29.25% in Vachon, 5/7/10; 30.23% in Rousseau, 21/9/09.

    • Ephraim 09:35 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      DC, Saint-Laurent traditionally has low voter turnout, no matter what the season.

      How many of those by-elections were in the summer months? June is pretty far out for a by-election. It’s the reason we don’t usually have summer elections in Canada, mostly spring and fall.

    • david 13:55 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      I believe that Hamza is pointing out that the cited numbers add up to something greater than 100%. 125% to be precise.

    • desa 14:50 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      those are the number of seats, not percentages.

    • Hamza 17:13 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      From the way fagstein tweeted, it appeared to be percentages. Anyway, let justice take its course

  • 21:43 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    The Journal’s got one of its classic shock exposés on psychological seminars being offered to health ministry workers.

     

  • 21:23 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    After launching its A380 Paris-Montreal flight with fanfare in spring 2011, Air France has decided to discontinue the service this autumn, since there’s not enough demand.

     

    • Alison Cummins 05:07 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Hah – a good thing too. I took it in the fall of 2010 when my beloved won us tickets on a promotional flight, and it was the most uncomfortable flight I’ve ever endured.

    • Ephraim 06:09 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Odd, when AF flies two to three flights a day and the A380 flight is the most expensive, I wonder why people fill the other flight first.

    • Benoit 09:16 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Actually, Air France will not discountinue the flight: they will maintain it, but will be using a smaller plane (boeing 777 or Airbus A340).

    • Jack 15:58 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      @ Allison ,How come?

  • 21:20 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    The Journal has a report on bad tenants as a springboard for a sidebar promoting the return of security deposits.

     

    • Ephraim 06:34 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      In the end, something needs to be done to increase the number of apartments on the market. So many people are reluctant to rent because of past abuse.

    • Bill Binns 06:53 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      We often hear stories about bad landlords and they are surely out there but they are outnumbered 10,000 to 1 by bad tenants. I spent a few years doing some property management in Florida and it is not something I would ever consider doing again. There are people who travel from apartment to apartment, pay whatever is required to get in the door and never pay another dime. They know the system and simply squat until the day you have finally jumped through all the government hoops to get the cops there to evict them. This is not just a problem of poor people and crappy apartments either. It happens at all levels right up to apartments that cost $5000 or more a month.

      In the early days of email, I came very close to getting in some legal trouble for ciculating a list of the deadbeats to some of the other property managers in town. I had crossed some old law about blacklisting.

      In Florida, if you knew what you were doing and had some luck, you could get these people out in 4 months. I have heard it can take years here.

    • Ian 08:51 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      So your unsubstantiated 10k to 1 number is based on your experience as a property manager in another country, where you admit to having broken the law in your capacity as a property manager? Nice. As a tenant in this city over the last 20 years I’m always impressed if an owner even keeps up basic structural repairs. In my current apartment, for instance, I pay almost 1500 a month and my front steps that eh landlord swore up and down would be replaced last summer are literally rotting off the building. I’ve had a city inspector come by on my own dime, and the landlord is still dragging his heels. …and of course they raised the rent this year, claiming rising insurance and property taxes.

    • Ephraim 09:32 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Ian, it cuts both ways. I’ve been a tenant and a landlord and I’ll tell you, I don’t want to be a landlord under Quebec’s Rental Board ever again. It can take a long time to get someone out who isn’t paying their rent and the recourse is trying to run after them for 30 years.

      I worked at an office where a landlord finally caught up to the tenant and presented us with garnishment paperwork. We had no choice but to garnish his wages… and so he quit, so we lost a good employee and two weeks later the landlord lost his money again.

      My parents used to rent out a bachelor apartment for $50 to $100 a month! I think they got stiffed on it at least a dozen times. At one point, they just gave up renting it out. (They figured if the rent was low enough they would get paid and it would cover partial costs, empty or full it basically was part of the house, didn’t seem to work out that way).

      (Have you asked to deposit your rent at the rental board? That way it is recorded that you paid your rent, but the landlord can’t collect it until he shows the repairs were done.)

    • qatzelok 10:49 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Landlords can be really awful, and it’s sort of degrading to have your space “owned” by another person who often callously looks at you (and your space) as “revenue.” Likewise, it’s infantile to give your rent to “an adult” who then is expected to “take care” of your place for you.

      I’m glad to live in a housing coop. If only we could all live without tenants or landlords. But to do this, we need to relearn “sharing” which has almost been eradicated by capital. It’s the landlords who are responsible for the current unequal and infantilizing system of property ownership.

    • Ian 11:28 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      I’d love to get into a co-op, truth be told. Those waiting lists are a bitch.

    • Jack 16:00 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      I’m with you Ian and I own a triplex.

  • 16:51 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    A student was stopped on the highway to Chicoutimi, arrested on the way to his sister’s funeral so he could be charged in connection with student demonstrations.

     

    • Ephraim 17:22 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      They could have waited a day or two. Just for the sake of common decency.

    • Bill Binns 18:31 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      It’s not clear from the article (or Google’s horrible translation of it) if he had been hiding and they picked him up on the way to the funeral because they knew he would be there. Either way, he is suspected of throwing bags of bricks on the tracks of the metro as well as pulling the emergency brakes. I’m fine with him being arrested regardless of where he was going.

    • Ian 18:44 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      True, I’m of two minds about this. You want to be a revolutionary? Suck it up. The cops used to catch bikers at biker funerals and nobody felt sorry for them. That I sympathise with the student movement doesn’t change the fact that there were criminal acts committed.

    • Kate 19:51 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I’d have more sympathy for the situation if they were that efficient at stopping real crooks. It’s a coup de théâtre, nothing more. Look at us, we’re hard guys.

    • cheese 21:24 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Catching real criminals is hard and potentially dangerous. Much better to shake up some snot-nosed punk students and get lots of overtime pay and media attention. Makes perfect sense… sorta.

    • Bill Binns 06:33 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Yes, I’m sure if someone wandered over from the Ritz in an Armani suit and tossed a bag of bricks on the metro tracks he would be totally ignored. Somehow, this huge anti-student conspiracy being perpetrated by the rich has managed to recruit the bluest of the blue collars, the Police.

    • Ian 08:45 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      I’m not sure what handbook you’re reading from, Bill, but the police have never been on the side of any union but their own.

    • Christian 09:14 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      @Ian @Bill We even let convicted killers out of prison to attend the funerals of their flesh and blood, so no, I cannot understand this. Sad…

    • Ian 11:29 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      That is a good point, actually…

  • 15:17 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    The city’s public consultation bureau is talking about urban agriculture this week, with people coming from different boroughs to compare ways and means. There’s a website where you can find out more.

     

    • Hamza 15:25 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Why not

    • Steve Paesani 15:47 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I’m all for it in so long as those currently working to provide food to the city are considered fairly while taking into account the trend of localizing agriculture to typically non agricultural areas using aqua and hydroponic techniques.
      In shot they need be given fair notice.
      PS. a perfect spot is where the old Franciscan church used to be on Dorchester. “Feeding the city”. Rather appropriate. :)

    • Kate 19:34 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Steve Paesani, I’d be a little concerned about that area being too close to the highway. (Of course from certain perspectives, in this city everything we do is close to a highway.)

    • Ian 08:56 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      I’ve read that your really shouldn’t eat anything grown directly in the soil anywhere in the city of Montreal (especially plants like tomatoes that absorb a lot of water) as lead leaches from asphalt over time and has essentially contaminated everything. Bucket gardening is the way to go.

    • Steve Paesani 07:06 on 2012/06/18 Permalink

      aquaponics and hydroponics are use in areas of non arable land.
      chicago has an in city aquaponics facility:http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-25/news/ct-x-c-fish-farming-0525-20110525_1_meatpacking-plant-farming-aquaponic

  • 14:42 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    La Presse’s Alain Dubuc dissects the recent Quebec change of heart on Bixi – Montreal, having been led to believe it would have to sell off the international side of the Bixi operation, found out last week Quebec didn’t intend that at all – as emblematic of the problems Montreal has with its mayor, the municipal affairs minister, and its “bombe ambulante” of an auditor-general.

     

    • Clément 14:56 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I know it’s a weird day when I agree with Alain Dubuc…

      He makes two good points:

      Montréal needs better leadership. Tremblay lacks decisiveness and needs to be more assertive when dealing with the prov. government, especially when dealing with the likes of Lessard…
      He also suggests a “ministère de la métropole” and I think it’s long overdue. Montréal accounts for more than half of the province’s economy, yet the best we as a counterpart is Laurent Lessard, whose experience in municipal government is being the mayor of Thetford Mines…

      I think the current Bixi confusion is symptomatic of the place of Montréal in this province. However, elections are won (and lost) outside the 514. Most ridings in Montréal always vote the same way. Furthermore, a candidate outside Montréal will likely get more votes by putting down Montréal.

  • 09:43 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    Following from the previous story about a café being damaged by a car, here’s a coffee blogger’s account of visiting six Montreal espresso joints in a walking tour.

    The information may be useful, but I’m always slightly annoyed by the “growth of the Montreal coffee scene” angle taken here. The Gazette had a piece last month that also bowed to the “finally a good coffee scene” notion – how wonderful that we’ve finally been enlightened by coffee culture from elsewhere, etc. etc.

    But it’s just not true and we had a lively discussion about this here a couple of months ago – the existence of good coffee here from at least the 1950s is well attested and we can claim to be one of the best coffee cities on the continent.

    We may have growth of new, trendy coffee bars à la Seattle, but it doesn’t mean people couldn’t get a good shot here before three years ago.

     

    • Jack 11:55 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Word of warning, Bruno’s Sports Bar, corner of Drolet and Beaubien. One time I asked one of the owners why his espresso was so good……..35 minutes later the explanation was over. Talk about passion…

    • Kate 12:16 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      That’s one I’ve never been in, have to check it out. Being an Italian café is promising but isn’t always a guarantee – I tried the espresso recently at the Café Cosenza on Jarry and it was meh, but once I got inside I saw the place’s raison d’être was the VLTs, not the coffee.

      Since you’re a neighbour, Jack, I’ll mention Café Vito, which has opened in the front half of the laundromat at the corner of Drolet and Villeray. Very nice coffee.

    • jeather 12:21 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Does Cafe Vito do anything but coffee? I’m thinking of heading there at lunch one day as I work fairly nearby.

    • Kate 12:59 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Just ices and coffee. He might have a few croissants in the morning but I don’t think there’s room to set up e.g. a sandwich station. It’s really tiny.

      Vito used to work at Olimpico, which is a lot bigger but except for morning croissants and a few odds and ends like biscotti, not a place to go to eat. Sort of like that.

    • Jack 13:27 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Thanks Kate, I’ll try it but Caffe della Via (Castelnau-Henri Julien) is hard to walk past, plus the owners have really been involved in our community, traffic calming on Castelnau and they also are mainly responsible for our St Jean celebrations, concert, food, kids stuff etc..

    • Kate 13:30 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Oh yes, you’re right. Della Via is a nice place. I didn’t know they were the people doing the St-Jean stuff.

      I’m rather fond of the Sorbetto a few blocks east – eight kinds of sherbet and decent coffee also. But he closes in October and doesn’t reopen till May.

    • Clément 13:35 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Hey Kate, we need a post about best gelatos, sorbets, etc. It’s summer!

    • Kate 13:40 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      There are bound to be some reports on the subject soon – I’ll look out for them and make a post.

    • jeather 13:55 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I don’t mind eating lunch then heading for coffee, I just wanted to know if I would have to do that.

    • Kate 14:10 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I think you might. I’ll be going to Vito’s sometime soon and if I’m mistaken about his intentions to offer more substantial food, I’ll drop you a line. But the logo just says “gelato” and that seems to be his plan, at least for summertime.

    • Michel 14:39 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I know it’s not a café, but any opinions on Madame Villeray. Nice place to go for a drink, or is it packed with the madding crowd?

    • jeather 14:45 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I will never complain about a place that serves (good) coffee and gelato. I’ll have to see when I can get there.

    • Kate 14:56 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Michel, I’ve only been in once and it seemed a bit noisy. But I’ve seen people sitting around there casually in the afternoon, reading or even seemingly working on papers and stuff. So I think it depends on the time of day there.

    • david 14:01 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Vito is a great guy as well, if that counts for anything.
      And Kate did you seriously go to the Cosenza for a coffee? You do know that’s Rizzuto HQ, right?

    • Kate 22:07 on 2012/06/17 Permalink

      david – I missed this earlier – is the present Cosenza still a Rizzuto joint? There was a previous one, some distance further east on Jarry in a strip mall, which by all reports was, but that address is a clothes shop now.

      The present one seemed like a sleepy neighbourhood bar with most of the patrons intent on their VLTs.

    • Kate 13:48 on 2012/06/25 Permalink

      I’m back here to take note, in case anyone does a search, that Cafe Vito definitely does panini, so you can eat there – croissants and similar things, panini and various kinds of gelati.

  • 08:45 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    A driver went right through the window of a café on St-Denis near 4 this morning. (One of my neighbourhood cafés, too, such a nice little place.)

     

    • Bill Binns 09:11 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Better 4 in the morning than 4 in the afternoon.

    • cheese 09:12 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Good thing it wasn’t one of those dangerous cyclists that run red lights, that could have really caused some damage. Oh wait…

      Sorry to make light of bad news, hope the cafe returns soon and is better than ever.

    • Kate 09:13 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      @Bill Binns: God yes. It’s a small place but there are always half a dozen folks there in the afternoon, it’s a pleasant spot to read the papers and have a good coffee, in a neighbourhood not overly provided with good espresso places. Where the car went in is, alas, where they have their roasting machine, but at least no one was hurt (even the driver wasn’t too badly hurt, according to the story).

    • Anto 10:15 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I had a scary feeling it was the Café In :(

    • Michel 11:25 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Isn’t this also the café where a patron was stabbed a couple years ago?

    • Kate 11:57 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Nope. That was Aux Derniers Humains, at the corner of Bélanger. The Café In is a metro stop north of there, at the corner of Liège.

    • Michel 14:38 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Thanks.

    • qatzelok 14:21 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      Truth be told, St-Denis north of Sherbrooke kind of sucks because of the high volume of traffic. This makes it impossible to cross from one side to the other when you want to.

      I realize that Laval commuters take precedence over livability (I mean, we’re killing ourselves with smog and pollution so we can keep feeding the car industry), but it still seems like St-Denis could be made a lot better by removing lanes of traffic and widening the sidewalks to accommodate cycle lanes and a wider pedestrian area.

      Detroit used to have lots of wide boulevards with shops like this. Now, it just has the wide boulevards.

  • 08:35 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    A big globalist forum is taking place Monday in Montreal and police are already lined up as CLAC is expected to demonstrate.

     

    • Matt 08:41 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I used to love your blog Kate. Now its nothing but protest related posts (and you are clearly biased towards one side). This place is no longer fun and it really saddens me. I know this is a Montreal blog and all of this is happening in Montreal – but is there nothing else going on in the city anymore?

    • ant6n 08:48 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      @Matt
      Don’t shoot the messenger

    • Kate 08:52 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      This is current news. How should I have reported this? “Vicious anarchists are expected to congregate outside the Forum of the Americas, which is meeting to work out how much benefit they can benevolently bring to the habitually lazy, feckless denizens of their respective countries. Luckily the manly, tireless SPVM police will thwart the anarchists’ evil intentions and show the world Montreal is prepared to repress any and all dissent” ?

      In the last few days I’ve linked to stories about ethnic neighbourhoods, the Lafontaine Park zoo, Euro 2012 fans in town and concerns about the state of the sewers. I was about to link to further stories about urban agriculture and Bixi.

      I can’t help the fact that we’re in a season of demonstrations and that those are the biggest news.

    • Ephraim 09:00 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      @Kate – Your post was fine. Don’t worry about it.

    • Kate 09:06 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Incidentally, and even though I promised a few days ago to try not to bring my own opinions to the blog because it was making people angry:

      I NEVER EVER EVER PROMISED THIS BLOG WAS GOING TO BE UNBIASED.

      EVER.

      I am not a journalist with the modern journalist’s implied “balanced” position. I try to look at what is happening in this town from day to day, but I’ve lived here all my life, including doing this blog for more than ten years, and I think I am capable of looking at trends and commenting on where I see things going.

      If you want, you can go to Google News and plug in “Montreal” and get a list of current stories. It’s easy to do.

    • Mark 09:06 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I think this is further evidence that providing no extra commentary won’t make people think you’re running an “unbiased” blog. Indeed I don’t think a truly unbiased news source is even possible; I think the best we can do is attempt to make our biases known.

      A few weeks ago I was looking around for international coverage of the unrest here, and I found myself on the Wikipedia’s list of France’s newspapers. What immediately struck me is that their political affiliation–insofar as you can represent such a thing in one dimension–was given for each. The list of Canadian newspapers has no such labels. Now I know this is the Wikipedia and there is no guarantee of consistency across similar pages, but reading more about the French papers indicated that they do indeed have open biases. My opinion is that, Canadian news outlets have biases as well but that we are supposed to believe that we as a country are past thay sort of thing. I think most people know this too, implicitly or explicitly, but still the illusion of official objectivity persists.

    • cheese 09:10 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Personally I think Kate’s commentary is excellent, generally really helpful and that is the main reason I read this blog. Perhaps not totally unbiased but she never intended this blog to be unbiased. Odd that this particular post which is very spartan and does not seem to take sides at all is the one which spurred the comment.

      Keep up the great work Kate!

    • Kate 09:15 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Thank you, cheese.

      I would also like to add: if someone feels there should be a Montreal news blog done from a right-wing bias, I say: go for it! I’d like you to show us how it should be done.

    • Bill Binns 09:33 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Kate, most bloggers have some axe to grind or some political slant to push or they wouldn’t have bothered to start a blog in the first place. It’s really your professional tone and writing skills that made me think of you as an unbiased journalist for a time. Of all the people who express opinions here, I don’t see why you should be excluded. Let your lefty flag fly!

    • Steve Quilliam 10:48 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      I don’t want to sound to negative here but i’m also a little tired of the protest related articles or blogs. I don’t care about the bias or unbias part as i am well capable of forming my own opinion on whatever is going on but at one point….

      Just like LCN which i had to stop watching (fairly easy since i dont have a TV at home only at work). It gets a little crazy when they send 3 or 4 journalists in the middle of the ”hopefully upcoming possible” action and, suddenly, there’s one fist thrown and it becomes the news of the day. They are pushing/encouraging the little anti-capitalist idiots to do something bad in order for them to have something relevant to show on the news.

      There was ten times (if not hundred times) more people for Francofolies and yet the medias are almost completely silent. There was thousands of people on Mont-Royal street this week end and a complete black out from our medias. There is also no coverage of Festival mondial de la bière, or hardly, and i’m pretty sure thousands of people showed up.

      What i’m saying is that some medias are focusing to much on what might happen and making a big story out of nothing. This blog focused to much on this for a while, in my own opinion, but it is the prerogative of the blogger. Other small but interesting stories, like both coffee article this morning or the ethnic neighborhood related post are what this blog is all about.

      So, i like this blog very much and despite the numerous protest related post i still refer this blog to my american friends with pleasure. I like it when i can find good Montreal articles in english for them to be able to read what is going on in Montreal and i think Kate is the best ressource for that so i simply thank her fro providing this ”service” !

    • Blork 10:53 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Kate, I think you’re doing a great job as-is and there’s no need to change anything. And your comment that you never promised to be unbiased is bang-on.

      And for what it’s worth, as others have said, every media outlet has a bias. The ‘implied “balanced” position,’ as you put it, is a journalistic standard in which journalists are compelled to present both sides of a story, and if they don’t do so it affects their credibility *as journalists.* That doesn’t mean they are unbiased. After all, say what you want about journalists, but they are human beings, not robots. Being unbiased is only a problem if you claim to be unbiased while you are not.

    • Kate 11:00 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Blork, Bill Binns, cheese: thanks for the support.

      Steve Quilliam: I say again, demonstrations are the order of the day. I ‘ve been trying to do one demo entry a day summarizing what has happened, but Grand Prix weekend was so crazy it demanded more attention and now this CLAC demo is separate news, because it’s not really part of the overall student protest picture (which isn’t to say there’ll be no crossover between the participants).

      It also doesn’t help your problem with the blog that the demo entries tend to provoke a lot of discussions. Maybe you could use the Toggle Comment Threads link at the top of the page to turn off all the comments and just skim the posts?

    • Jack 11:51 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      Kate , one more time keep doing what you do! Naturally some people will be pissed but who cares.

    • JaneyB 17:48 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

      I also enjoy Kate’s witty and often sage commentary. I also like the way she referees commentors – a good thing because it is her blog, after all. Be as ‘biased’ as you like Kate. How can anyone be neutral about their city anyway?

      The many protest entries here lately are a very welcome antidote to the MSM coverage. I am just stunned at the brazen disinformation that they are generating on the topic. Thanks to all the local bloggers and Twitterers who spend their free time getting the word out. I think it was here that I learned of the blog “Translating the printemps érable” (now: http://www.quebecprotest.com). Fabulous!!

  • 08:23 on 2012/06/11 Permalink | Reply  

    Wired comes to Montreal for a demo and interviews Anarchopanda.

     

    • Clément 08:56 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      “The panda is an anarchist, and in Quebec, everything we are doing right now – including hugging an anarchist panda in a crowded street – is illegal.”

      No matter where you stand on the issue, I’m tired of news reports which are factually incorrect.

    • Clément 09:08 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      @Kate: It wasn’t a comment on your post. You just linked to it and made a neutral comment. You did fine as far as I’m concerned.

      No my issue is with the media (on either side) getting their story from only one source and not bothering to check. Trust me, when the National Post reports on Sangria drinking students, I’m just as annoyed.

      I actually subscribe to Wired (both in print and online), so I guess it disappoints me ever more. I expect biased news from the National Post or JdM or LCN, but not from “not-so-traditional” media.

    • Kate 09:09 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      It’s a Wired story, but if Wired writes about our demonstrations that in itself becomes news.

      By the way, I thought that intro was an oblique way of saying that the demonstration had been declared illegal under Bill 78 so everything being done at that point was technically illegal. A bit silly, but possibly technically true?

    • Clément 09:35 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

      @Kate: Yes, I would guess that’s probably their thinking. Since the demo is illegal, then being there is technically illegal.

      But then again, hugging a furry mascot is as legal or illegal as breathing, talking on the phone or drinking water. I understand their reasoning, their position, but saying that the specific act of hugging a panda is illegal is a bit dishonest.

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