François Cardinal is back from vacation and Quel Avenir looks at the CAQ’s ideas about the city with some very thoughtful stuff towards the end of the entry about the dangers of slashing Montreal’s structure and municipal governance too hastily and because of ideology rather than a process of analysis and deliberation.
Updates from August, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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The city’s bus drivers are in mourning for Sylvain Ferland, the driver killed in a crash Tuesday evening. According to CTV, the union has no records of any other driver being killed on the job. Ferland’s wife and sister are also transit drivers.
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Tux
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Marc
I’ve been going through that area for over 30 years. Aggressive behavior from all parties is nothing new.
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Kate
Tux, I think it’s also the physical buses. The ones we have now have a certain kind of balance and also rather touchy brakes. But I think it’s also confirmation bias. I take the bus quite often, and now and then I’ll find myself noticing a driver has a lead foot on the brake pedal and the standing passengers are lurching around as the bus stops and starts. But not all the time.
I think the fact this is the first driver anyone can remember ever being in a fatal accident on the job – and there’s no indication it was his fault – is some testament to the STM drivers being pretty good. Also I checked out the route of the 196 bus – where the accident took place, the route is all wiggly, the bus turning every couple of corners. There’s no long straightaway where a driver could’ve picked up speed.
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Tux
Maybe it is in large part the bus hardware… I never had that gut-slamming hang-on-for-dear-life feeling in any of the pre-Novabuses. At the same time, there are some drivers who know how to handle these buses because it’s not every ride that’s like that… just most of them. (I’d say 9 times out of 10 I feel like the driver is speeding up too fast and not allowing enough lead time for gentle stops)
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Bill Binns
Unless the bus outright ran a red light or stop sign (which seems unlikely for a 20+ year veteran and someone who drives the same route over and over), I simply don’t see how this could have been the busdrivers fault. How fast does a 1.5 ton BMW need to be travelling to flip over a 20 ton bus? The Gazette article said the engine of the BMW was inside the cars passenger compartment. They also quoted cops and paramedics and other bus drivers as saying they had never seen anything like it.
Both front seat passengers of the BMW with major head injuries (one of them dead). All late model BMW’s have at least dual airbags and likely side curtain bags as well. This all sounds like a very high speed crash. I would not be surprised to hear that the BMW had been travelling between 130 and 160 KPH.
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walkerp
I would not want to be a bus driver. It’s bad enough driving a regular car.
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Bill Binns
Doesn’t the bus driver wear a seatbelt? I hardly ever ride busses here but seem to remember the drivers wearing belts. If so, it’s so weird that the only person wearing a belt on a bus full of people is the one that died.
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Kate
I believe the seatbelt rule is fairly recent and I don’t recall noticing any driver wearing one, although I wasn’t checking. Now maybe that will change.
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Picture of the lynx kitten at the Biodome.
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Ian
Oh bleurgh, I think I just got diabetes, that photo’s so sweet.
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Kate
There are more nice pictures with this Journal item and this Metro item, which has others at the bottom showing the kitten with its mom.
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Bill Binns
If my wife gets wind of this I will be spending an afternoon at the Biodome.
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Metro lists some of the summer beauty spots around town.
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A piece about the revival of the Montreal Expos logo as a fashion statement is true, but it’s not new. Kristian Gravenor noticed the trend two years ago and around that time it was also mentioned in other media too.
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The current campaign hot potato is secularity, with the PQ’s Trois-Rivières candidate Djemila Benhabib challenging the party to a debate on the famous crucifix in the National Assembly, which Pauline Marois decreed would survive her crusade against religious symbols in public life (meaning no hijab and I presume no kippa, but a-OK on crucifixes).
Marois would also oust the Queen from public life in Quebec; how she’d manage without the convenient legal fiction of “the crown” is not clear. Also, would she begin the process to rename the hundreds of institutions and streets in Quebec still named after Catholic saints?
For their part, Legault and Charest are categorical: the crucifix stays.
Tuesday, two Journal bloggers came out surprisingly in support of anglophones and against too-harsh language policing. Fagstein pondered how even the most nationalist parties will court the anglo vote in a pinch.
Meanwhile, Anglo pundits on OpenFile differ over whether Gaétan Barrette’s embonpoint is a legitimate political issue. Justin Ling says no, while summarizing responses in various media; Patrick Lejtenyi says yes it is.
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Bill Binns
Marois is the worst sort of politician and she seriously creeps me out. She is a master of pandering to the stupid. “Look, there is a doodad hanging in the National Assembly!”, “OMG look, that company has hired a monoglot American as it’s CEO!”.
Somehow these things ring bells with the truck drivers and pig farmers that are her biggest fans. Those same people are strangely deaf to the issues of her 8 million dollar mansion built on public land or her worthless husband who has made a career of being well paid for flushing public money down the toilet.
The expose that the Gazette did on her and her husband a couple of years ago was the best work I have ever seen in the paper.
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david m
virtually any pq leader would be saying the same thing. anyway, while i personally don’t agree that hijabs are something the state ought to control, i don’t like the idea of churches or religious schools getting state money to brainwash people and largely support the notion of ‘prevailing norms’ in school integration (no special accommodations, no flexibility on wearing shorts for p.e. class, etc). you may not realize it, but most quebecois don’t want an atomised, multi-cultural society where multiple generations of visible minorities remain poorly integrated because of decisions made by successive generations of parents, these slaves to ignorant superstitions.
as for the anti-royalty, it’s on noone’s radar but i really really like that particular quest and i look forward to seeing progress on that front.
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walkerp
I lean towards integration myself, but I think that people should be allowed to display symbolic accoutrements of their culture, as long as they don’t get in the way of basic work and social interaction. So a turban is fine or the headscarf (whatever it’s called). It’s kind of cool actually. I like those Canada Post guys rocking the uniform with the turban.
However, Marois is basically appealing to decades-old xenophobia. It’s as bad as the anti illegal immigrant stances many right-wing parties take in the states.
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Jack
The crucifix was placed in the National Assembly seventy years after Confederation by another race baiter, Maurice Duplessis. It was placed there to insure that everyone understood who had power in the province. What I find more than sad is the three largest parties see nothing wrong with this, the most obscene of all contradictions. Marois made the announcement at a former Christian Brothers Trade school – you know, the same folks that took care of the Orphans in Newfoundland. In Ireland the Congregation of the Christian Brothers published full-page advertisements in newspapers in March 1998, apologizing to former pupils who had been ill-treated whilst in their care. This advertising campaign expressed “deep regret” on behalf of the Christian Brothers and listed telephone lines which former pupils could ring if they needed help. Maybe Pauline could have given the number out.
Identity politics are mothers milk for the PQ and I can not for the life of me understand how anyone voting for the PQ could call themselves progressive, yeah I am a progressive on everything except race.
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ant6n
I’m currently spending some time in France and see the fleur-de-lis everywhere on old castles – never knew it’s basically the symbol of the king of France. Does anybody else think its odd that all those Quebec nationalists want to get rid of the English Queen, but are really into the symbol of the French Monarchy?
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Philippe
Are you being facetious or…? As you say, she’s the English Queen.
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Kevin
“We can be secular as long as we are Roman Catholic.”
The only thing worse than politicians uttering this nonsense is people lapping it up without realizing how stupid it is.
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Ian
Christopher Hitchens told the anecdote of how during the Troubles in Ireland one of his acquaintances was stopped by one of the militia groups who wanted to know if he was Catholic or Protestant – the friend replied that he was an atheist – to which his assailants answered, “Yes, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”
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William Raillant-Clark
Ant6n and Philippe actually stumbled upon an interesting historical factoid: the fact that the English monarchy ruled with divine authority was one of the reasons the Catholic Church in Quebec sided with the crown during the revolts of the 19th century, and in turn is one of the reasons why disgust with the church featured so heavily in the Revolution tranquille. But let’s stick to discussing the upcoming election!
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walkerp
It makes sense, though, historically. Since the church and the monarchy have long been passed aside here in Quebec, the big baddie is currently the English-speaking federal government. Thus symbols of french culture and history, whatever their previous negative connections are now good while any symbols of anglo culture are bad.
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ant6n
Well, I don’t really like any symbols of monarchy, and I always thought that Quebecers, generally being in favor of a Republic, would be as well. But I guess It’s like with the secularism double standard – against monarchy, unless it’s French.
But this little symbol (fleur-de-lis) here in France did make me think what would’ve happened if New France hadn’t been conquered by the British at some point. Down in the States, the former colonies eventually revolted against the colonial power, and they got rid of the strong connection to the UK, and grew their own identity. Here in Quebec, with the baddies being the English, people never got around to being fed up with France. And now there’s this sense of belonging together with France, and using old French symbols, and being really protective of the language. Although France doesn’t care about Quebec, not then (when they left Quebec to the British), not now. Maybe I think that Quebecois should rely more on their identity, and include with that Quebecers who aren’t French, but share the Quebec identity nevertheless.
Maybe I’m just sad because three months ago, it seemed we were going to have elections that were about deciding what social values Quebec wants, a debate for everybody. Now everything just degraded into talking about divisive language laws again.
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walkerp
Well put, ant6n. I suspect that is the standard strategy here in Quebec by the big parties. The language debate is kind of like the circuses part of the bread & circuses.
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Hamza
vote Quebec Solidaire.
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Kevin
“Maybe I think that Quebecois should rely more on their identity, and include with that Quebecers who aren’t French, but share the Quebec identity nevertheless” – ant6n
That’s the rub ain’t it? For Marois and others of her linguistic divisiveness ilk, you cannot share the Quebec identity unless you are not just integrated, but fully assimilated. And part of that is because once you get an hour outside of Montreal/Qc. City, it’s pretty simple to find people who just never even see, let alone talk with people who are not white, French and (lapsed) Roman Catholic.
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Jack
It seems incredible when watching a show like “Club des Ex” on Radio Canada that all concerned simply can not figure out that Marois proposal is exclusionary and will not stand up to any court challenge.The contradiction of having a crucifix above the Chair of the Speaker in our most important democratic institution is ..normal.
TVA’s Jean Lapierre was “crucifying” Marois for having the temerity to run a candidate who would even question the legitimacy of the public display of Catholic symbols in state institutions.It is fun to see this blow up in her face, actually being out race carded by the Mayor of Saguenay. -
Philippe
@William Raillant-Clark: [citation needed] Seems unlikely the Catholic Church would have upheld the divine right of kings for a monarch that’s in effect the head of his/her own splinter church (the CoE).
@ant6n: The French Republic has feelings? I was in France a few years ago and encountered plenty of goodwill for les Québécois, and absolutely none of this nonsense that says the French can’t understand Quebec French. The fleur-de-lis has been a symbol for Quebec for over a century, and nobody is calling to replace it.
@Kevin: An hour? Try 30 minutes. How far outside of Toronto do you need to drive before you encounter equivalent circumstances? I was in CFB Greenwood (Nova Scotia) a few years back, that province looked lily white, overwhelmingly English (the French surnames are no indicator, actually the first names aren’t either), and I didn’t ask but I’m guessing the religion wasn’t exactly diverse either. What’s your point with this? I think most of rural Canada is locally homogeneous.
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ant6n
@Philippe
You sound very defensive about something, but if you are trying to make a point I don’t get it. -
Philippe
@ant6n: I’m shooting down your ideas and/or claims. It’s funny in a way, I just reread what you wrote and I went the wrong way about it. You cite the US as a nation that cut the chord with the mother country, and then go on to imply that’s something Quebec didn’t go through and therefore we’re being somehow held back by it. I should have just pointed out, you know, that the Union Jack is on the flags of Australia and NZ, same goes for a bunch of provincial flags here, we just restored the “Royal” qualifier for the army, etc. That you’d omit these flagrant counter examples is, at the very least, strange. Why is the fleur-de-lis exclusionary but not the symbols of the British monarchy? Why not complain about the Lancaster rose, the Irish shamrock, the Scottish thistle on the flag of Montreal?
In other words, you’re being disingenuous and I’m calling you out on it.
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Dhomas
@ Philippe I’m pretty sure what ant6n was getting at was that Marois wants to get rid of signs of the monarchy, here in Quebec (not in the rest of Canada, where she’d have no power as Premier). If that is the case, she should get rid of signs of all monarchies, including the French one.
It’s the same with religion; there is some kind of double-standard here. All religious symbols are now rendered illegal… except for Catholic symbols.
On this topic, wouldn’t these proposals on religion be anti-constitutional? I can see two parts (at least) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that this would go against: Freedom of Religion, and Freedom of Expression.
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Ian
This constitutional lawyer agrees with you – http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/quebecvotes2012/story/2012/08/16/quebec-votes-secular-charter-issues.html
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Philippe
@Dhomas: Ok, first, no. There is no such thing as freedom of allegiance to a monarchy. Now, it’s sort of moot since the French monarchy was erased centuries ago, and as I was saying earlier, the fleur-de-lis doesn’t exactly rhyme with the House of Bourbon in the minds of Quebecers (it rhymes with Quebec), but if Marois wanted to adorn the parliament from floor to ceiling with bas-relief of the Napoleonic eagle clawing an English lion, I don’t see how a legal argument could be constructed against it (although she might not survive it politically).
Regarding the banning of some religious signs and not others, that really depends on the constitution and charter of rights, I don’t know how the courts would decide. I know it’s been done in France and is in the works in a few other European countries (Belgium, comes to mind).
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Jack
@Phillipe, I agree with you that most rural areas have a level of homogeneity, but nothing like Quebec ethnically exists anywhere in the America’s. No other state has a population that’s overwhelming majority can be traced back to three ares of a European nation.In Nova Scotia’s rural areas you have Scots,French,Irish,Mic Mac,German,English, and African.Quebec is truly a unique ethnic environment.Thanks for responding to everybody.
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Dhomas
@Phillipe I’m not saying I agree with ant6n’s supposition that the fleur-de-lys represents French monarchy; I just wanted to clear any confusion you may have with respect to his previous statements. If we continue going back in history, someone will eventually claim that Quebec is in reality pledging allegiance to the de Medici family, since they used the fleur-de-lys first. It is, of course, clear in my mind that the fleur-de-lys represents Quebec and not the French monarchy, or anyone else.
However, I stand by my belief that these “secularist” laws are anti-constitutional. Canada is in the unique position of having Freedom of Expression, and not Freedom of Speech, as other countries have. Expression encompasses much more than Speech does. For example, wearing a hijab could be considered a form of expression.
@Ian Thanks for the link!
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Philippe
@Jack: Fair enough, but unless Kevin was implying that you find an abundance of proponents of racial purity as soon as you exit the Montreal region, I don’t see how that’s relevant. Clearly, identity politics play an overt role in Quebec that it doesn’t elsewhere in Canada, but I don’t think our particular genetic circumstances are part of the discourse. Pure laine is just a phrase, people, we don’t brown bag people at the door (there is however a French test). ;-)
@Dhomas: no argument from me, I just wanted to debunk the French monarchy link.
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Kevin
@Philippe
The point I was making was not the homogeneity of rural areas — which, incidentally, are far less homogenous across Canada than in Quebec.
The point is the lack of interaction with les autres — ever — in one’s life. Surely at some point everyone in a small town desires to go to the big city — or people from the city move to the countryside. OR even visit the countryside. Not so much in Quebec.Look, 15 years ago I spent a day in St. Jerome for work. Had to go to lunch, so my black co-worker and I walked into a casse-croute. The locals stared at us as if we had just landed a spaceship in the parking lot. Middle-aged locals saying “C’est un noir!” as if they had never seen a black man in person before, and when we ordered they had to ask where we were from because they had never heard an anglo accent.
And this was St. Jerome. Not exactly off the beaten path. There’s something dreadfully wrong with that.
(BTW Toronto suburbs extend for a good 2 hours in every direction except south. There are people who commute to downtown Toronto from Kitchener/Waterloo. )
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ant6n
@Philippe
I never called on anybody to replace the fleur-de-lys, I was merely thinking out loud. I did ask about the connection as a question, and admitted that I don’t know much about the history; you calling me disingenuous is totally uncalled for. Your tone is not very nice, and shooting down ideas by just nitpicking about doesn’t make for a good debate, and makes for weak arguments.
And it doesn’t really address any of the issues of today, in particular why we have to always drag into irrelevant or divisive ‘issues’ when there are so many real problems to tackle. Or why some Quebecers feel so strongly connected to France, when, as a French person put it to me today, the relationship is not bijective; but on the other hand treat people who grew up among them here in Quebec as enemies. -
Kate
This has been a really interesting discussion. One thing it made me think about was that while France had a revolution, Quebec didn’t – you can’t really equate the Quiet Revolution with the radical shakedown that happened in France in 1792 and onward.
The Wikipedia articles on the Quebec flag differ. The French-language one uses some roundabout language to try to justify why the use of the symbol in North America is not the same as the use in France, but equating the fleur-de-lys with the maple leaf is disingenuous. The f-d-l is a stylized heraldic device with a European history, whereas the leaf is native to Canada and had not been used in European heraldry, so it’s free of associations with any other nation or royalty.
On the English side, the story is that the white lilies represent the Virgin Mary, in which case the whole flag would be a religious statement, the blue background and the white lilies for Mary and the cross for Jesus.
This was the flag that evolved into the Quebec flag we have now, and there’s no dodging the religious content there.
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Kevin
Hey @ant6n since you’re in France — how many people are you meeting with some connection to Quebec. When I was there in June seemed every 3rd person I talked to had a family member who had emigrated to either Quebec City or Montreal.
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Philippe
@Kevin: Hahaha, guilty as charged, almost to the year! Grew up 20km from Montreal, never saw a black person in the flesh until I was 15 or 16, I’m 32 now, so that’d make it 16 or 17 years ago. I don’t see what difference it makes, though. A lot of people in Quebec don’t see Montreal as a place of leisure, so if they don’t work there they never go. When you speak of people not going to the countryside, you mean anglo Montrealers, right?
‘Surely’ is a red flag word in English, because you know whoever is using is about to pull something out of thin air and try to establish it as fact. Therefore: surely this a urban vs suburban/rural thing, though. Not everybody is interested in what Montreal has to offer, different strokes and all that.
@ant6n: I live in Greenfield Park. Here on Canada Day we have old folks flying the Union Jack. It simply so happens that for a variety of reasons those people feel a special connection to the UK. Same thing with franco Quebecers, it’s fairly easy for us to feel an affinity with France. That they “abandoned” us a few centuries ago is not something that’s taken seriously by most people, BTW.
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Jack
@ Philippe thanks a lot for the article,”Currently, there are about six million people in Quebec with ancestry that traces back to that original 2,600.” That is an awesome statistic and I think telling in terms of political discourse, for good and bad.
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Philippe
@Jack: I really don’t think it has any impact. Franco Quebecers don’t go around checking each other’s lineage for purity vis-à-vis the original 2,600. Not to belabor the fact, but there is a very specific set of circumstances that led to this that was sort of out of our hands, if you catch my drift. ;-)
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Jack
@Philippe I disagree, I think at it has enormous impact. No one goes around around checking each others genomes, but the understanding of who “nous” is , is very clear, especially the PQ’s “Nous ….a choisir”.
Let me take a shot at the PQ’s “nous” and see if you agree, first is the acceptance of one very specific historic narrative built around “survivance” and advanced by the Montreal School of Quebec historians.Second an acceptance of the decapitation theory, the idea that Quebec lost its ability to be a normal nation after the Conquest ( Paradise Lost). Third the idea of being perpetually menaced,under threat, hence the anglicization trope.Which I really believe all Quebec politicians pander to even though empirically it is ridiculous. The acceptance of not integration but assimilation, a concept never admitted to but very obvious when you read the PQ’s “Laicite” document. I know the PQ runs candidates of diverse backgrounds but they have to fully accept this construct.Lets face it the entire ethnic membership of the PQ are candidates in this election, they provide cover, and that is the worse pandering possible. When 80% of a states population can trace itself back to 2,600 settlers it has an impact. Thanks for your responses it is appreciated. -
Philippe
@Jack: I must insist: it’s the history, not the genealogical accident. The history of franco Quebecers is easily interpreted as a narrative of resistance to outside forces, as you point out, and that, I think, is what makes the identity so indissoluble to change that’s perceived as external. That’s what makes it fairly easy to label people as ‘us’ or’not us’, but it’s really the language issue that leads to that ease of recognition. Of course, race will also influence the labelling, but truthfully, a visible minority with the Quebec accent will pass the ‘us’ test for most people.
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Jack
@Phillipe, I agree that history and its telling have a profound ability to create cohesion, but “tissé serré” and “vieille souche” are very specific ethnic markers, that are reflected in the power relationships of every level of political, economic and cultural life in this state. I would also argue that the telling of Quebec history as a “narrative of resistance to outside forces” may have served a function in the 50′s and 60′s;to get rid of a 120 year history of a foreign hegemon ( The Roman Catholic Church) and to emancipate the educational,social and economic institutions so they could reflect the reality of Quebec’s French secular origin majority. Now however it is a history that is used primarily as a weapon. A way in which one ethnic component of this society can claim ownership of the entire state, which in itself is reactionary. That is why you had to qualify ,”a visible minority with the Quebec accent will pass the ‘us’ test for most people.” The fact that someone would have to take on an accent and even at that point wouldn’t fully qualify as “nous” for some folks speaks loudly.Thanks again for this conversation, It is much appreciated.
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Kevin
@Philippe “I don’t see what difference it makes, though. A lot of people in Quebec don’t see Montreal as a place of leisure, so if they don’t work there they never go.
Do you know how *utterly bizarre* this statement is?
It sounds like something you’d hear from someone in 1912, not 2012.
We live in the most mobile generation — ever. So to never even visit *the* metropolis, the second-largest French-speaking city in the world in a French province, because it’s not seen as a desireable place to go is just so fricking strange it’s beyond words.“When you speak of people not going to the countryside, you mean anglo Montrealers, right?”
Nope. Anglo Montrealers hit the Townships and Laurentians all the time. -
Philippe
@Jack: How does a homogeneous group that’s in strong majority position not monopolize the society it’s in (assuming a democratic state)? More importantly, why wouldn’t it?
It sounds from what you’re saying that you feel that simply sharing the same space should be enough to be part of the group.
@Kevin: It may sound strange to you (and certainly that’s not how I live my life), but I am of the opinion that this is actually a majority attitude on this planet. Just think of the Tea Party voters in the US, the Belgium “question”, can’t think of any more flagrant examples right now but they’re out there. Moreover… look, Quebec media, the Gazette included, is massacring Montreal in the public opinion. To read the papers, we risk our lives using the infrastructure, every official is corrupt, every cop is on the cusp of brutality at a moment’s notice.
I have a feeling you’re going to disagree about uncuriosity being the norm, so please at least come up with sources that testify that Quebecers are statistically less mobile within their own province than other Canadians within Canada, we can’t just cite anecdotes past each other, there’s no point.
Franco Quebecers travel all over Quebec all the time. I may not have gone to Montreal (except passing through) before I started university but I’d travelled it from Gatineau (all right, all right, Ottawa) to Gaspé and the Mauricie to the Townships before I hit puberty. (Please don’t spread the word that I visited Ottawa before Montreal. /shamefaced)
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Jack
@ Philippe sharing a common citizenship is usually the only criterion in advanced democratic states for full civic participation, i.e. being a Quebecois, Canadian, Montrealer etc. If the PQ wins they offer a vision of a state that does not share that most basic of principles. It also echoes some pretty frightening discourse coming out of Le Pen-Sarkozy France.
I promise not to tell anyone that you visited Ottawa, period, that would be a traumatic childhood experience that does not bear repeating. Thanks again.
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ant6n
I always find it ironic how some Quebecers talk about how they need to protect themselves being a minority within North America, but then turn around and say that within their electoral boundaries (i.e. the province) it’s fully fair and democratic to use their majority to stomp on everybody else. Sometimes that happens basically within the same paragraph.
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Philippe
@Jack: Franco Quebecer is not a citizenship, though, it’s an ethno-cultural group.
@ant6n: That’s how democracy works, though. After the last federal elections, editorials across Canada celebrated the fact that a party could have a majority in without Quebec. Yay ROC! But no such luck is likely in the near to medium term vis-à-vis de franco in Quebec, sorry.
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ant6n
No, it’s not. It’s an archaic view of democracy that doesn’t believe in minority protection, and full well accepts a dictatorship of the 51%. (or 39% in the case of Canada.)
But “that’s how it works” is a bad justification for the hypocrisy of stomping on minorities in the name of minority protection.
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City police are on the alert for any signs of gang rumbling, after the weekend’s two executions. Vincent Larouche talks about the surviving Bloods chief and what his faction might do in retaliation.
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A petition has been launched for more transparency at Jean-Talon market about what produce is local and what’s brought in from elsewhere. Marie-Claude Lortie expands on why this is important (but she doesn’t deal with one question: what would the market do in wintertime? Should the produce section just go away then? It can be convenient when you’re shopping in winter to get everything you need with one stop at Jean-Talon).
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Bill Binns
I don’t think the non-local food should be banned from the markets for just the reasons you have mentioned. I would like to see some very strict signage rules that clearly identify the the place where all of the fruits and vegetables were produced. The “real” farmers should be doing this anyway (and some do). We just need someone doing some checking to make sure nobody misrepresents what they are selling.
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Jack
«Le marché a la responsabilité de s’assurer que ce qui se trouve sur les étals soit étiqueté de façon claire, parce qu’il y a beaucoup de faussetés» That is the real problem, and the Market doesn’t have the guts to police itself.The city owns the land and buildings, but in 1993 signed a management lease giving full powers to the Corporation de Gestion des Marchés Publics de Montréal.In 2017 the lease is up and I hope a to God that the city takes the management back or at least allows some form of public participation.
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Dhomas
“what would the market do in wintertime?” This: http://www.lufa.com.
I can imagine a time when every supermarket has a farm above it. It would ensure the produce is fresh; it would keep transport costs down; plus, all that space is wasted up there anyway. -
Frédéric
There are already some farmers that sell local produce all year long at the market: beets, carrots, potatoes, squashes, apples, cranberries and canned stuff. Omer Charbonneau is one I know. When pushing local food, you somewhat have to go with the seasons.
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Jack
Nice to see the Markets Admin. getting killed in the media war.
http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/editoriaux/ariane-krol/201208/15/01-4565391-qui-seme-le-vent.php -
walkerp
Yes! Finally the media doing some good. That’s a great editorial.
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One of the victims in Tuesday evening’s bus crash was the bus driver. The story still isn’t clear but there was obviously a hell of an impact between a BMW and an STM bus.
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Oh here we go. The Journal says a public swimming pool in Ville-Émard is too accessible after hours, so although there’s been but a single drowning after hours in a public pool in years, they’re agitating for, well, some kind of change. Bigger fence?
I feel for the man, and his family, and Kate feel free to delete this if it’s not the time or place… but I have definitely noticed a decrease in driving technique quality in the STM in recent years. They speed more, they jam on the accelerator and on the brakes way too violently, like they’re driving a small car. More than once I have seen people thrown from their seats on sharp turns… is the quality of STM driving decreasing, is the training different these days, or is it just me?