Tag Archives: Marvin-Rotrand

| Media, Montreal

Rotrand: Whiner or critic?

Marvin Rotrand

Marvin Rotrand

Marvin Rotrand, a perennial city councillor from Snowdon who won re-election under the Union Montreal banner on Sunday, gave an interesting quote to audio podcaster Adam Bemma:

“When the media refuses to publicize what a political party says when it holds press conferences to publicize its programs, I don’t think democracy is well served.”

The media hasn’t, of course, “refused” to publicize party platforms. But they did focus more on scandal than vision.

So, is Rotrand’s comment a justified criticism of the media’s coverage of the campaign, or is it whining by a politician annoyed that the party’s carefully-planned manipulation of the media failed because there was a message out there they couldn’t control?

Discuss.

| In the news, Montreal, Public transit

Hybrid buses coming

The STM board of directors have approved a plan to buy new hybrid buses from NovaBus and run them on some routes next year.

The list of routes (66, 80, 103, 105, 162, 165, 166, 535) seems a bit biased toward Cote-des-Neiges and NDG (only one of the routes doesn’t travel through that borough), which also happens to be the home of Tremblayite Snowdon city councillor and STM vice-chair Marvin Rotrand. But we probably shouldn’t read too much into that.

Instead, let us celebrate the awarding of a new contract to NovaBus, a company that loves to create lemons when experimenting with new designs for buses, confident that because they’re the only Quebec company in the business, gross incompetence won’t stop the customer from coming back for more.