Tag Archives: Health

| Montreal

For the sake of children’s health, please bring back smoking

On the one-year anniversary of Quebec’s anti-tobacco law, we have this interesting story about local youth sporting groups losing money because of the downturn in bingo revenue. So they’re asking the government to allow smoking in bingo halls, since it’s just old people and all.

The key sentence is this:

Bingo accounts for 100 per cent of the organization’s fundraising, Beaudoin noted.

Isn’t it kind of silly for an organization to put all its fundraising eggs in one basket, especially when that basket has been on fire for a year now?

So because of this ban, fewer people are wasting their money on bingo, less alcohol is being consumed at bars, and less money is being fed into video lottery terminals. Isn’t that a good thing?

These groups will just have to find other sources of revenue. Surely these old people will find other things to waste their money on, with all they’re saving by not going to bingo, not drinking, not using VLTs and, of course, not smoking.

| Blogosphere, Business, On the Net

Hot chicks sucking fags

There are a lot of interesting pornographic websites out there (don’t ask me how I know this): porn involving pregnant women, porn involving books, glasses and all sorts of other inanimate objects you wouldn’t consider sexual.

Now a Quebec entrepreneur is filling the gap of smoking porn. It’s not actually porn, since the girls aren’t naked or anything. They’re just smoking suggestively. And you have to pay to see it.

Dominic Arpin asks the obvious question: What are they smoking? And how smoke-deprived do you have to be to pay to watch other people smoke?

| In the news

Save now for your disability!

Though the media is going all crazy over the federal budget being announced now (especially with the Liberals and NDP announcing they won’t support it), it looks like another snoozer with no tax bracket alterations, no GST cut, and only a bunch of minor fiddlings with the tax code and spending initiatives.

One change that caught my eye was the introduction of a Registered Disability Savings Plan (in the works for over a year, it seems), which helps parents save for their disabled children. The name is somewhat of a misnomer. It’s more like turning disabled children into mini-charities, and making contributions to their well-being tax-deductible.

The thing that bothers me most about it is that the government isn’t actually contributing anything to these kids. Shouldn’t services for people with disabilities be covered by the government, either through health care or other services?

And doesn’t saving for a disability just sound weird?

| Blogosphere, Video

Those lefties know their online video

Vanou points me to this video from Quebec Solidaire’s candidate in Terrebonne Jean Baril, who is frustrated that our public institutions are serving crappy cafeteria food and letting people go to McDonald’s instead of buying locally-produced (and he argues healthier) food. Le Devoir has a short story.

Meanwhile, the Bloc Pot’s Richard Lemagnifique (yes, that’s his real name) has a slightly less serious video about the benefits of hemp.

| Montreal

Logic triumphs again

1. New superhospital will have fewer beds than the hospitals its replacing. Big shots say that’s fine because despite an aging population, hospitals are more efficient and fewer beds will be needed. Also, flying monkeys will sprinkle pixie dust on patients to speed their recovery.

2. Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital has run out of beds in the ER and has 85 patients on stretchers. This news item has no relation to the previous one.