Category Archives: In the news

| Slow News Day, West Island

Pointe Claire Village IS the West Island

The Gazette released the results of their West Island icon poll today. The story attached to the results online mentions concerns some people had about the northern half being completely left out, and reporter Max Harrold, to his credit, takes full responsibility. (Of course, had nominations been open to the public this might have been avoided, and the story that made the paper doesn’t talk about this.)

Old Pointe Claire (or the Pointe Claire Village) won with about 1/4 of the vote, narrowly beating Hudson Village (which, as I and Kate McDonnell pointed out, isn’t even on the West Island).

| Media, Slow News Day

Can someone score Le Devoir some Police tickets?

Le Devoir is whining this morning about not being given free tickets to see The Police.

The article, which makes both Le Devoir and Gillett Entertainment Group look kind of petty, goes over Gillett’s excuses for denying them passes:

Excuse #1: They don’t have enough tickets to give away to “all the media”. Le Devoir sees right through this bull, noting that their photographer (also refused access) doesn’t take up a seat, and the rest of the media didn’t seem to have any problems getting as many tickets as they needed.

Excuse #2: Le Devoir doesn’t have a high enough circulation to make it worthwhile. Also BS. The paper’s circulation is in the six digits and rising, which clearly makes it a powerhouse worthy of the same treatment as the other newspapers and other media.

Excuse #3: Le Devoir doesn’t list when tickets for concerts go on sale. Or, to quote Gillett’s flak: “The other papers are easier to do business with.” This sounds more plausible. Le Devoir is a small paper (small as in size, not circulation or importance), and probably doesn’t have the space nor the lack of shame to give concert promoters free ad space.

Thankfully, Le Devoir isn’t taking this blackmail lying down. If staying independent means they can’t go to the Police concert, they’re not going to the Police concert.

And what do they lose, anyway? I don’t care about what Le Devoir thinks about a concert the day after, and anyone who likes The Police that much was probably at the concert and doesn’t need to read about it the next day.

Maybe, instead of sending journalists to see musicians everyone’s already familiar with, they can find some new people to talk about. It’s not like our city is lacking in talent.

UPDATE: Not a peep from the media concerning Le Devoir’s shunning. So much for media solidarity. The Gazette, the Journal and La Presse all had plenty of coverage of the concert (kinda pointless since nobody who doesn’t already have tickets can see it now), and none made mention of their colleague’s foible (OK, it got one mention — see Kate’s comment below). I guess this is what the mainstream media has come to. Since, when referring to each other’s scoops, they use terms like “a Montreal newspaper” (what are we, idiots?), I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

UPDATE 2: “Vive le Devoir libre!”

| In the news, Montreal

Barouf! Barouf! Barouf is on fire!

Fire on St. Denis

A fire broke out this evening around 7 p.m. at Rachel and St. Denis, above, among other things, L’Barouf. Fifteen people had to flee their homes and will probably remain homeless for a while (which suggests local news outlets won’t use my headline above). Plenty of pictures on Flickr from users wjpbennett (including the one above) and jusmobile.

UPDATE: The owner of Le Continental, also destroyed in the fire, vows to rebuild. As do the owners of L’Barouf.

| Media, Slow News Day

PEI’s license plates say more about the media than PEI

Ken Meaney, CanWest’s sole reporter east of Quebec City, has an article this weekend about new PEI license plates.

Actually, not exactly. The article is about anonymous comments left on the Charlottetown Guardian website about PEI’s license plates being available in French.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that any discussion of things like gun control, abortion, gay rights, religion, vegetarianism, immigration, and — in Canada — language rights on an open Internet forum is going to bring out people with strong opinions on the subject. Some of those people will have reasoned arguments and will listen to other points of view. Most will not.

The comments (and especially those of a second copy of the story posted the same day the previous one got national attention) mostly fall into the latter category, and quickly degenerate into Quebec-bashing, making rather outrageous claims about its language laws (Businesses are not allowed to have bilingual signs, people are not allowed to speak English in public, the Canadian government isn’t protecting the English language)

And yet somehow an entire article was written on this story and its 30 comments. One that wasn’t written about the original release of the new plates in April, which generated 76 comments on the Guardian’s website. But that one couldn’t easily be exploited with a stupid story to prod the populace with the language debate.

Is there no real news happening in PEI?

(Side note: The Guardian’s logo has the worst kerning I’ve ever seen)

UPDATE: The Gazette has a short editorial about the issue Tuesday. It theorizes that anonymous commenters on web forums might not represent the moderate views of the populace.

| In the news, Montreal

Quebec’s at-risk overpasses, bridges and ramps

After pressure from truckers, the Quebec Transport Department has finally decided to release the list of 135 overpasses it considers “at-risk” (but not “unsafe”) and is prohibiting overloaded trucks from taking them. The complete list is in PDF form on their website.

It contains eight overpasses on the Island of Montreal:

At-risk overpasses in Montreal

I’ve plotted them on Google Maps. Click the image above to see in detail. They are:

  • An overpass (the department isn’t clear which one) on Highway 520 South over itself (?) leading to the airport
  • Côte-Vertu Blvd. over Highway 13
  • Tellier Street over Highway 25, a few blocks north of the tunnel
  • Monette Street over Highway 138 in LaSalle (this counts as two separate overpasses, one for each direction of the 138)
  • Gouin Blvd. over Highway 19 (Papineau)
  • Bleury Street over Highway 720, beside the Palais des Congrès
  • The exit ramp from Highway 13 northbound to Highway 40 over Saint-François Road

UPDATE: I’ve added the rest of the 135 overpasses.

Quebec’s at-risk overpasses

I desperately need something more productive to do with my time.

| In the news, Montreal

Balconies

One of my worst nightmares: A balcony collapsed yesterday on Mackay St., causing minor injuries to a man who was on it.

I’ve always been nervous about balconies, especially those which showed any sort of movement when you walk on them or whose railings seemed inadequate to prevent an accidental fall. Montreal has plenty of these cheap wooden balconies whose floorboards are so old and rotten that they sag slightly when you step on them. Fortunately, there’s usually more structure underneath that actually supports your weight, so there’s very little chance of it collapsing.

Last month I moved into my first apartment with a balcony (in fact it has two: a private one in front and a shared one in back). The construction seems solid (at least on the front one – the back balconies are being replaced this summer), but there’s always that thought at the back of my mind. One of the screws that holds the railing to the balcony has come out in the centre. This can either be because the railing has bowed about an inch upwards, or because the balcony has sagged slightly down.

But at least it doesn’t shake.

The worst balcony collapse in recent history happened in Chicago in 2003, killing 13 people. The balcony was poorly constructed, much larger than it was supposed to be, and was overloaded.

Some signs of serious trouble on a balcony include:

  • Rotting structural supports (the important vertical posts that hold the balcony up)
  • Loose attachment to the building
  • Rusted joints
  • Wood that is soft and spongy
  • Falling blocks of concrete
  • Exposed steel bars (especially if they’re rusting)

If you’re unsure, have a professional structural engineer take a look.

And be sure not to get one from Transport Quebec.

| Media, Slow News Day

Harry who?

Hey, did you know there’s a new Harry Potter book coming out? There’s only been about 12,000 news stories in the past week about it. Why is The Man trying to suppress this earth-shattering news story?

Or more non-sarcastically, WHO THE F&#K CARES?

OK, a new book is being released. And it’s Harry Potter, which is a very popular series. And it’s the last one of the series. This deserves some news coverage. Maybe even a story on the front page of the arts section one day.

But a 14-day Harry Potter Countdown? With stupid trivia like this? On A3? Does the Vancouver Province have nothing better to do with its time than put this together? And do the other papers have no better wire stories to feature? Zimbabwe’s populace is going to starve to death (that gets a 50-word brief in the world section), but gosh darnit, we have to talk about the hype over whether a fictional character is going to die in a book.

| Business, In the news

It’s supply and demand, stupid

Every time gasoline prices rise by one per cent or more, we get the SUV-driving public’s arms up in the air complaining, and opportunistic politicians climbing over themselves to do something about it.

So I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that the Quebec government is considering price caps on gasoline prices. Sure, artificially limiting the price of gas will only encourage consumption and that can only be bad for the environment, but then the gas-guzzling public doesn’t care about the environment when maintaining it inconveniences them.

This news is especially funny considering what’s going on in Zimbabwe. There, ruling moron Robert Mugabe, trying to control his country’s 9,000 per cent inflation due to his idiotic economic policies, has simply decreed that the price of everything in his country be cut in half.

As anyone with half a brain will tell you, when you force someone to sell stuff at less than they bought it for, they’ll stop selling it. So now gas stations are dry as the country continues its economic freefall.

Hopefully at some point the Quebec government will learn that copying Zimbabwean economic policy is an idiotic thing to do. Even if that means it’ll please the idiots.

| In the news, Media, Montreal

Not a victory for smokers’ rights

Sandra-Ann Fowler, the tenant who took her landlord to the Régie du logement over her right to smoke in her apartment (and therefore subject her landlord’s family to traces of second-hand smoke) has won her case.

CTV’s Brian Britt calls it a “victory for smokers’ rights advocates”, and a spokesperson for a smokers’ rights group seems to back him up.

Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true. The ruling stated that because a ban on smoking was not in the lease, Fowler has the right to smoke, even though the application form said smokers were not allowed.

In fact, the ruling apparently suggested that bans on smoking are in fact legal if they are in the lease.

I’d hardly call that a victory. She got off on a technicality, that’s all.

| In the news

Knowing when to laugh

I’m always a bit taken aback when people in serious jobs like police officers and ambulance technicians act in unserious ways. It’s hard to remember sometimes that they’re regular people with regular jobs, and they have to laugh and smile too, even when they deal with unpleasantness.

Police officers nowadays are even expressly putting themselves out there on a social level, so that people can feel more comfortable going to them. They want to be positive role models to troubled teens instead of evil authority figures to be hated.

But there is a limit to this humanity. For example, if you’re treating someone during a medical emergency, it’s best not to laugh about it in front of his niece.

Though they deny laughing during the call, the health board is taking steps to re-educate ambulance technicians on their conduct in these situations.

| In the news, Media

If wishes were Facebook groups…

Cassandra Szklarski of Canadian Press has an article this week summarizing the “controversy” surrounding CBC’s Facebook experiment, the Great Canadian Wish List.

To recap, it’s an experiment where Facebook users vote for their greatest wish for Canada’s future.

Simple enough. The “problem” is that the top five wishes are all divisive political positions (in order: outlaw abortion; keep abortion legal; a “spiritual revival”; ban same-sex marriage; and lower tuition fees).

Elaine Corden of The Tyee explains her frustrations with the results, saying that they represent positions that aren’t held by the majority. And, of course, they represent politics she doesn’t agree with.

There’s no arguing that this experiment didn’t reach a majority of Canadians. It didn’t even reach a majority of Canadian Facebook users, despite the CBC’s valiant attempts to publicize it. So like a U.S. presidential primary, when the turnout is low, it’s usually the hard-core extremists who show up instead of the silent majority, and the “special interest groups” take over the debate. This is precisely what happened here.

A key sentence in the CP piece comes from CBC reporter Mike Wise:

We stepped out into an area where, because it was on Facebook, it was beyond the reach of the CBC journalistic policy so it was edgier stuff that we had no control of. However, I think we should get some marks for trying something different.”

Trying something different. Yes. That’s what the CBC did. It got people talking, it got thousands of Canadians energized, and it had a result the CBC didn’t predict and couldn’t control. This is something the CBC should be praised for. Even if it had been a complete failure (and I don’t think it has been), at least they should get marks for trying. Media is changing, and the only way to adapt is to take risks.

I’m not letting the Mother Corp completely off the hook. This is still just another one of their un-thought-out gimmicks to get people’s attention, a sinkhole to throw money into instead of spending it on quality programming. And I still haven’t seen how they’ll deal with presenting both sides of the abortion debate on TV.

But the criticism of this experiment based mainly on the fact that its results were so political is just silly.

The complete list of top 30 Canadian wishes.

Similar thoughts from Mathew Ingram and Tod Maffin.

| Business, In the news

Today kids, we’ll be learning about beavers and how much money they’ll make me

It’s official: The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan is buying Bell Canada for $51.7 billion.

(I wish my pension plan had that kind of cash to throw around. Sadly, my union is still in negotiations with Fagstein WorldMedia Ltd. and it doesn’t look good.)

It has the advantage of being a Canadian offer (though with minority American interests), and yet not being a takeover by a rival telecommunications firm. So we’ll still have all this competition with a whopping three providers.

I’m sure with this new owner, Bell will concentrate on providing quality customer service, even if that extra mile might interfere with their bottom line in the short term.

Right.