Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Tuition increase just the tip of the iceberg

As the fall semester fast approaches from the horizon for students, some will be getting a wake-up call when they go to pay their tuition.

You see, in addition to the $100 a year tuition increase (which works out to $50 a semester, $10 a course or $3 a credit), universities are continuing to pack on administrative fees — taxes on tuition to pay for things that used to be included free.

At my alma mater, Concordia University, some of the new fees include a “Copyright fee” and a “Technology Infrastructure Fee”, even though the latter, at $4 per credit or $60 a semester, doesn’t include access to things like the formerly-free campus-wide wireless network — now they make you pay for that, which is pissing off some students.

Concordia’s list of “miscellaneous fees” is always good for a laugh, and was the butt of jokes at the Concordia Student Union back when it was controlled by the radical left. There’s a fee to apply, a fee to confirm attendance, a fee for the required student ID card, a fee to graduate, and a fee to mail your degree, among many others.

But while students make fun of these fees and protest against them, the number of student association fees (which the students themselves approve) has gone up considerably in the past few years. In 2000, there were 10 of these fees. Now the number has doubled. The newest fee, to be added in the winter, will support the “Sustainability Action Fund”. This isn’t to be confused with the entirely separate fee to run Sustainable Concordia, or for groups like the CSU or the Quebec Public Interest Research Group. In all, these student-managed fees account for between $8 and $12 per credit, which works out to $240 to $360 per year. (And that doesn’t include the student-managed health and dental plan, which is another $200 per year)

While some of these fees are opt-outable (most notably the health plan), most aren’t.

So before student groups start complaining about how their constituents are being nickel-and-dimed to death, perhaps they should start looking in their own backyard.

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More security through obscurity in Quebec highway infrastructure

Must we continue this cat-and-mouse game? First the government wouldn’t tell us which overpasses were part of the 135 they considered unsafe-but-still-safe. Then they published the list. Now they’re refusing to publish inspection and repair reports for those bridges and overpasses.

The reasons are vague and legal-sounding, but about half seem to do with giving out trade secrets of private corporations.

I’m not interested in how Pavage Connerie Jean-Luc drills its core samples. I want to know what’s wrong with these structures and what was fixed about them. What about the law prevents the government from giving us this information?

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Damn kids

In a display of cojones even I couldn’t match, The Gazette today says the reason we have less crime in this country is because we have fewer black people, because even though most black people don’t commit crimes, most crimes are committed by black people. Cut out the black menace, and we have fewer crimes.

It’s an outrageous claim that will no doubt lead to someone’s immediate firing and numerous complaints with the Quebec human rights tribunal.

Oh, wait… it’s not black people. It’s young people. They’re the cause of all this crime.

Well then, that kind of discrimination and blatant offensive generalization is perfectly acceptable.

Say it with me now folks: Correlation is not causation.

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The Gazette: a tabloid?

The Gazette is asking its readers about moving toward more tabloid sections.

There’s precedent for this. Lots of serious papers are considering the move to tabloid format, mostly because of the perception that tabloids are easier to manage on public transit (where you can’t get the Internet cheaply) and due to the success of other papers like the free dailies which are in the tabloid format.

In a survey given to select readers, Montreal’s only English daily asked about theoretically changing its daily Arts & Life section from the current broadsheet to a tabloid format, and about whether people would prefer shorter, “easier to read” articles. It doesn’t look like they’re going to become another Journal de Montréal, but it still got readers riled up. Most of the responses fell into one of the following:

  • Tabloids are easier to read on the move.
  • Tabloids are junk, yellow journalism and I’ll cancel my subscription if you switch
  • I don’t care about the format, as long as the quality doesn’t suffer (all of these responses recall the Gazette’s “words matter” motto)
  • I hate the Sunday paper, lumping three sections into one and putting classifieds in the middle of a two-page feature story in sports.
  • Put the staples back into my TV Times!

Currently, only three sections during the week are tabloids at the Gazette: Sunday Sports, Books (Saturday) and West Island (Thursday), and the first two of these date only from the February 2006 redesign.

We’ll see what they’ll do. What do you think? Should the paper be of a smaller format? Should the stories be shorter?

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Bad driving, meet bad ad placement

Dangerous driving is the topic du jour in today’s letters section. One picks up on something I completely missed in Friday’s paper:

Fast driving

This article (whose deck says “Panel blames ‘fast car’ ads”) is paired with this ad, which says in absolutely atrocious grammar: “Action speaks louder than words” and “1-100km in 4.7 sec top speed: 240km over 1G of lateral force. Toyota powertrain.” I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but I think it’s talking about how fast the car goes (or more accurately, how fast it accelerates).

The letter shoots the letter by blaming The Gazette for running it. In fact, it’s the car companies who should be shot for encouraging dangerous driving.

And whoever wrote that ad should be fired.

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Private members (hehe)

I saw an ad today for public consultation concerning Quebec’s new gun law (you know, the one that doesn’t actually restrict the sale or ownership of guns). I went onto the Quebec government website to check it out, and started looking at the private members’ bills that have been introduced. Each has its story, and each is a political stunt that has no chance of passing.

Bill 190 (Stéphane Bergeron, PQ, Verchères) is the antidote to the Mont Orford problem. You’ll remember last year the government caused a ruckus with Bill 23, which says (PDF) it enlarges the park, but really reduces it by putting allowing some to be sold into private hands. Though the government said in May it was not going to sell the area, the bill still passed, and Bergeron wants it repealed.

Bill 191 (Daniel Turp, PQ, Mercier) is a proposed constitution for Quebec. Turp announced his bill in April, on the 25th anniversary of the 1982 Canadian constitution. It’s a shortened version of this old draft and includes provisions for a head of state (a Quebec president he called it in the earlier draft), Quebec citizenship, fixed dates for elections, the usual freedom guarantees, and a lot of sentences that end with “as provided for by law”. It doesn’t explicitly say that Quebec would be its own country, but this is definitely a step toward that goal. The bill hasn’t gotten much media coverage, except for an article in Le Devoir and a blog post from Jim Duff.

Bill 192 (Jean-François Therrien, ADQ, Terrebonne) is the “damn transit strikes shouldn’t affect me” law in response to the STM maintenance workers’ strike. It would guarantee 80% of regular service in case of a transit strike instead of the apparently vastly inadequate 60% of service we got in the last one. Like other private members’ bills, its language, though brief, is open to interpretation. It says “at all times”, which suggests that there wouldn’t be periods of inactivity, but maybe one in every five buses and metro trains would be pulled off the road.

Bill 193 (François Benjamin, ADQ, Berthier) is part “dub films in Québécois French”, part … I have no idea. Read it yourself. The preamble suggests it would limit English showings to be equal to or less than French showings of the same film, but I can’t find anything in the actual language to confirm this. Either way, it puts pressure on the small guys who want to show their films here. Unless it’s dubbed in French, or it’s an “art-house” film, it wouldn’t have permission to be shown here.

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Boys will be boys

Cecil Humphries, the principal of Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School (my alma mater) is getting raked over the coals over comments he made that bullying is a “conflict” which is a “natural occurrence”.

It’s not an isolated case. Schools everywhere consider bullying to be not their problem, and as long as nobody dies they freely ignore the psychological trauma inflicted on these kids. And the government, which cuts education funding every time they can find a new gimmick to throw money at for votes, isn’t helping anything.

But seriously, don’t deny it exists.

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Just call me Paula

PQ leader-in-waiting Pauline Marois has a campaign press release opinion piece in today’s Gazette, which I’m sure she wrote herself. In English.

How exactly is this not a waste of time and space? Does Marois really think Gazette readers will vote for the PQ in a general election, to say nothing about supporting her in a party leadership “race”?

Nevertheless, she makes her point:

First of all, the population isn’t ready to reopen a debate on the whole issue of Quebec sovereignty, nor does it want to get locked in a sterile discussion concerning the date, time, hour or mechanics of a referendum.

Holy crap. You mean voting against separation in two massive referendums has actually sunk in?

Marois goes on to make two demands recommendations for the future: promote sovereignty like it’s a Virgin Mobile cellphone plan to gain popular support before putting it to another vote, and start updating their social democratic platform (read: swing more toward the centre-right like the Liberals and ADQ).

Well, good luck with that.

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Anastasia’s Law wouldn’t have helped Anastasia

Anastasia De Sousa’s parents at least seem happy about a new gun control bill passed in the National Assembly. It would restrict people from carrying guns onto public transit (people could carry guns onto public transit?) and oblige authority figures all over the place to report people with guns to the police.

In other words, it would do absolutely nothing to prevent the exact same situation from happening again. Kimveer Gill used a car to get to Dawson, and by the time anyone saw him with a gun there, he has already begun firing on students.

The Gazette’s James Mennie (among others) rightly criticizes the bill for having no teeth. In a sense, it’s hard to blame premier Jean Charest, since gun control is a federal jurisdiction. But they called it Anastasia’s Law, trotted out her family, and pretended like this will do something to stop gun violence (though they admitted it wouldn’t have stopped De Sousa’s murder).

Only time will tell if this makes a difference.

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Teacher is a poo-poo head

Freda Lewkowicz has some thoughts in today’s paper about the St. Thomas Burn Book situation, and rightly points out that the problem is not with Facebook or the Internet, but with students’ attitudes toward teachers.

She theorizes about some of the causes of this behaviour. One potential cause, the negative impression teachers give by striking, should be discounted entirely. While I never experienced a teacher strike, I and my fellow students were actually largely supportive of teachers’ salary and other demands. At least, those of us mature enough to understand labour politics beyond “Yay! A strike! No school today!”

The problem is that elementary and high schools have become more and more like mommy. It makes sense: during the school year, teachers see students more than their parents do. So that natural teenage rebellion that is usually aimed at their parents also portions out some of its rage toward authority figures such as teachers.

But that’s not the end of the story. Students are not sufficiently disciplined today. Part of it is because of the stereotypical overbearing parent blaming the school for everything that goes wrong. Part of it is the schools’ “boys will be boys” attitude that condones bullying, vandalism, rudeness and other anti-social behaviour. And part of it is just that some kids out there are stupid and mean.

Everyone, teachers and parents, need to make it clear that this type of behaviour is not tolerated.

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Doug Camilli advocates MURDER

From today’s column:

A way to get the ratings for American Idol up again: In Manila, Romy Baligula was singing in a karaoke bar when another customer, Robilito Ortega, yelled that Romy was out of tune. Romy kept singing, so Robilito pulled out his gun and shot him dead.

Oh Doug, just be glad they don’t do that when newspaper columnists miss their funny mark.

… and I’ll be glad that self-important bloggers are also exempt, for now.

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Separation anxiety

Ashley Watson in Quebec City says that most Quebecers favour separation, despite the horrible showing of the PQ in the last election.

I don’t think we’ll ever get the issue of public support for separation settled until we put it to some sort of province-wide vote. Have everyone weigh in on that issue and only that issue. And then do it again 15 years later just to confirm the results.

If only we did that, then the issue would be solved to everyone’s satisfaction.