Tag Archives: Quebec City

| Video, Web design

Ann Bourget using YouTube in Quebec City race

Ann Bourget, the leader of the renouveau municipal de Québec party and front-runner in the race for Quebec City mayor (a special election was called to replace Andrée Boucher, who died in office in August), is using a blog and YouTube videos as part of her campaign.

Using the Internet isn’t new for Bourget, who has had an online presence since at least 2005, but she’s still kind of getting used to the YouTube thing (she giggles quite a bit in her latest video).

The Internet presence is a huge improvement over the boring party website and she spends time tackling real issues by answering real questions from her website’s visitors. It’s a lesson for people who want to run a local campaign.

Her latest video, which answers a bunch of questions, starts off with the most important one: Will you bring the Nordiques back?

| Media, Opinion

People hunger for local journalism

This week in Quebec City, unions for various media outlets met to denounce the “Montrealization” of French-language media in Quebec. Much like the Torontoization of English media in Canada, it’s all about big media companies reducing “redundancy” and centralizing similar services in one location.

The problem, of course, is that eventually the disconnect between this remotely-produced journalism and the local environment becomes apparent. We start seeing “regional” newscasts instead of local ones, to save money. A story about a province-wide issue is covered by a single journalist out of a big city and then copied to regional news outlets with no local spin added.

Newspapers are being split into two categories:

  1. Major dailies, which rely mostly on wire service stories, syndicated features like comics and crosswords, and a few columnists and police report rewriters.
  2. Community papers, which produce mostly fluff from its grossly underpaid journalists

The problems of local journalism are having a backlash effect though: Former Minneapolis Star-Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer-Press employees are producing a local news website called MinnPost, which is filling the gap created when the big papers failed in their commitment to local news (via).

The site has just launched, so it’s hard to say if it’s financial model is going to work (it probably won’t), but it’s still good to see things like this. One thing I’ve learned writing this blog and covering local issues is that people are very interested in what’s going on around them.

The problem is that local journalism will never make you rich. And big media is obsessed with making itself rich. But fortunately some journalists have a higher calling.

| Media

Kicking a reporter out: Good for journalism?

Québec solidaire kicked out a Canoe reporter from a Quebec City meeting on Sunday. The reason was simple: the reporter was replacing locked-out Journal de Québec workers, and because QS is all crazy-leftist and such, they’re not about to accept a scab.

But is that an acceptable reason for kicking a journalist out of an open political meeting? Where do you draw the line between legitimate interference and scary Stephen Harper-style cherrypicking of reporters?

| Business, Media

Journal de Québec problems not hurting bottom line

A new financial report from Quebecor Media thumbs its nose at striking and locked-out Journal de Québec workers, saying that profits have exploded since the work stoppage in April.

It’s funny how giant media conglomerates are swimming in profits but still feel the need to cut cut cut journalism jobs.

And while the Journal is saving a lot of money in salaries, it’s hard to say how sustainable it is to run a newspaper without journalists. (Though no doubt Quebecor would love to find a way to make it work.)

| Media

Journal de Québec lockout: six months later

LCN has a report on the Journal de Québec strike/lockout, which is now 6 months old. Naturally, the union-says-this/employer-says-that news package doesn’t disclose the fact that TVA/LCN and the Journal are owned by the same company.

Meanwhile, workers on the picket lines were warmly received by union leaders across the country, and their strike paper MédiaMatinQuébec is still going strong with the help of enthusiastic advertising from local businesses.

UPDATE (Oct. 26): I totally missed this feature by The Gazette’s David Johnston on the lockout/strike, as well as an accompanying analysis piece on crossover reporting. Both concentrate on journalists being asked to take photos or video in addition to writing articles, which saves money but produces crappy quality of both.

| Business, In the news, Media

Legal battle costs arm, leg, kidney

Here’s an interesting story that’s been raising eyebrows today: Jean Bédard, who runs an offshore financial services company apparently called Offshore Financial Services, is being sued by the National Bank, and because he’s running out of money and the moral and financial stakes are so high, he’s decided he has no choice but to sell a kidney to pay for court costs.

He hasn’t actually sold a kidney yet. He hasn’t even really setup the procedure or figure out where he’s having it done (it’s illegal to sell organs in Canada). But that didn’t stop him from talking to Gazette freelancer Mark Cardwell and CTV’s John Grant, suggesting that only a settlement with the bank would stop him from performing this dangerous operation.

Bédard is clearly trying to use the media (and doing so effectively with a good news hook) to influence the outcome of his case. But unlike those consumer advocate segments where grandma gets reimbursed her $50 fee error, I doubt the National Bank is going to walk away from a six-figure legal case.

The legal precedent of the case is interesting. In essence, Bédard deposited a $1.5 million cashier’s cheque (which is a cheque guaranteed by a bank) into an account at another bank. He then sent some of that money overseas before the bank realized the original cheque was forged. (Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s the old overpayment scam) The bank was out $179,957.67, and sued Bédard.

What sets this case apart from other similar scams is the use of a cashier’s cheque or bank note, which is guaranteed by the issuing bank. As such, it’s usually cleared immediately and is considered as good as cash. That’s what happened in this case: the bank cleared the cheque and Bédard assumed it was genuine. The judge dismissed the case because the bank accepted the cheque (and because Bédard clearly wasn’t trying to defraud them). The bank is appealing:

“It’s not the money, it’s the principle,” said the bank’s lawyer, François Viau, a partner with the Montreal office of Gowlings, Lafleur, Henderson. “If the ruling prevails, banks would have the burden of verifying bank drafts against the issuer.”

That, he added, “defeats the very idea of a bank draft.”

That’s true. But for a bank to suggest that it shouldn’t have to verify bank drafts before releasing funds is just as silly. Either it has to be treated like a regular cheque (frozen, verified and then released) or like cash (checked for obvious signs of forgery and immediately redeemed). They can’t have it both ways.

UPDATE (Sept. 22): Letter-writer Sheryl Keeble points out that those in desperate need of a new kidney aren’t finding this funny, and that perhaps simply declaring bankruptcy would be preferable to getting third-rate doctors to harvest your organs for a few pennies.

| Business, Media

MédiaMatinQuébec: Changing the face of labour stoppages

This blog supports MediaMatinQuebec

On the occasion of MédiaMatinQuébec’s 100th edition, blogger Tetoine is encouraging bloggers to show support for the Journal de Québec employees’ alternative paper.

Since the workers at the Journal were locked out (or began striking in sympathy for locked-out workers) in April, what might seem like a simple labour disruption has truly taken on a life of its own. The workers, who wanted anything but picketing outside the offices of the paper where no one would see them, started their own paper, giving it away free.

In the months since, the Journal has been trying to use the courts to shut MédiaMatinQuébec down, claiming that it’s disloyal of striking employees to start their own paper. Quebecor lost that battle last week.

To keep the Journal running, management has been running wire copy, unedited press releases and stories from the Journal de Montréal (despite objections from the journalists writing them), and producing the paper with the help of 14 extra managers they suddenly decided to hire just before the contract expired last year. (The employees won a case last month getting four employees declared “scabs”) To show how seriously they take this matter, they also cancelled employees’ subscriptions to the Journal and banned MédiaMatinQuébec from what few stores they control.

The workers, meanwhile, have been busy. Producing a free paper every day hasn’t been easy or cheap, but they’ve been getting a lot of financial and moral support from labour unions, politicians (PQ, NDP) local businesses, fellow journalists, and of course the Quebec City reading public. They’ve handed out millions of copies, and launched a website at mediamatinquebec.com. They’ve even started stealing away advertisers.

But when it comes down to it, the only real winner in all this is Le Soleil, which is taking advantage of the strike to position itself as the Quebec City paper, and starting to recoup some of the readership it lost to the Journal after Le Soleil’s workers went on strike 10 years ago.

I don’t necessarily blindly support the workers in this case, and I certainly don’t support the Journal. But it’s hard not to be impressed with what’s been done and how they’re still going five months later. Stoppages at transit authorities and cemeteries stopped only after threats from the government. Since the populace doesn’t care much about a paper not producing original journalism, this stalemate looks like it could go on forever.

So long as organized labour keeps funding MédiaMatinQuébec and puts food on its employees’ tables.

For more details, consult this timeline of events.

| In the news

Andrée Boucher dead at 70

Andrée Boucher, mayor of Quebec City, just died of a sudden heart attack.

It’s sad, especially because Quebec City is planning its 400th birthday next year, something she was heavily involved with.

Coverage:

| Business, Media

Scabs at the Journal de Québec

The Journal de Québec have won a case before the Commission des relations du travail du Québec, which ruled today that four employees of the newspaper were illegally working as scabs during the labour conflict which has dragged on since April. The Journal was criticized by its union for a sudden increase in the number of managers just before the lockout began.

For more information on the labour conflict, you can go to MediaMatinQuebec, the website setup by the locked-out workers.

| In the news, Media, On the Net, Web design

MédiaMatinQuébec.com

Just learned that MédiaMatinQuébec, the free paper being run by locked-out workers at the Journal de Québec, has launched its website at MediaMatinQuebec.com.

And it’s already more impressive than any other Quebec media website. It’s fast, lean and easy-to-navigate.

You know, the more this conflict goes on, the more I think these workers should forget about the Journal and turn MédiaMatin into a business. Sell some more ads, rent a small office building and this could really be something.

| Business, Media

Hey hey! Bark bark! Why are we protesting in an industrial park?

Journal de Québec employees have taken to the picket lines for the first time since they went off the job in April. (Previously, they argued, the office’s remote location would not have gotten them much publicity, and they were working on the strike paper MediaMatinQuebec.)

Kevin Dougherty’s Gazette story also mentions that a major JDQ advertiser has stopped putting ads until the strike is over.

| Business, Media

Le Soleil: We don’t outsource (wink, wink)

Oh snap: Quebec City’s Le Soleil is not pulling any punches in its campaign to steal as many readers as possible from the Journal de Québec, whose workers are on the street and whose content is being generated elsewhere.

Perhaps this will make both sides realize that no matter how this goes, the real winner will be their competition.

Speaking of the workers, they’re calling a one-day boycott of the Journal a success without any evidence it was followed or made an impact.