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What you're looking here at are a series of photos that were taken in the basement of The Bay. What you're seeing in #1 is the edge of the slab of prestressed concrete that underlies de Maisonneuve Blvd.
The slab is City property, not the Bay's, according to my sources.
You'll see in the others various angles of the famous crack that runs most of the length of the slab, between Union and Aylmer. It is clearly a fresh crack, with relatively fragile fragments of concrete hanging down from the fissure.
You'll also see some of the jacks that City workers installed last weekend to prop up the slab.
It was disingenuous of Mayor Tremblay to announce that henceforth, the city would be demanding inspection reports from the 45 owners of 61 privately owned structures adjacent to public infrastructure
It makes sense for the city to demand such inspections, but given the failure of this and past administrations to have taken care of business on their own turf, this sudden concern smacks of opportunism and demagogy.
Tremblay, in attempting to deflect criticism away from the failure of his administration onto the private sector, is demonstrating why he's not known as a good crisis manager or a good mayor. Once again, he's forgotten where the buck stops.
Who pays his salary, anyway?
Seems Canada’s doctors want to have their cake and eat it too. The Canadian Medical Association’s 4,000 members complain there are too few doctors...they want the federal and provincial government to find ways to recruit more doctors...this, according to an on-line poll of the membership carried out this time last year and released at this week’s CMA convention.
But at the same time they don’t want pharmacists or nurse practitioners invading their prescription-writing turf.
That’s just plain silly, especially here in Quebec, where the Charest government has told the College of pharmacists it wants them to deal with a sizeable share of the prescription-refill business. The RAMQ drug insurance program already pays pharmacists a dispensing fee.
Quebec’s thinking is that pharmacists are already the frontline healthcare advisors for people without family doctors who don’t want to spend hours waiting in Emergency, so why not let them refill a prescription for a recurring problem?
This allergy doctors have to letting others in on prescribing isn’t their only disconnect. For example, why is it that the College of Physicians here in Quebec blames the med schools for failing to recycle more foreign-trained doctors, while the med schools and the health ministry both say it’s a doc block?
I say get over it, healer. Delegate. Let the nurses and the pharmacists pick up some of the load. Nobody gave you guys exclusive access to medical knowledge.
I was speaking to an Ottawa security type this past weekend, as protesters were preparing to meet George W. Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderone as they flew into the capital for the so-called three amigos summit in Montebello.
He said they’d been briefed on several scenarios, beginning with the possibility that someone might try to climb the airport security fence as Air Force One lands. “Our instructions are to warn the protester about the possible consequences, then move out of the way. Don’t try to apprehend the person, because we’re exposing ourselves to injury. US Marines and secret service personnel will take over.”
Same thing if protesters try to block the motorcade. “Our orders are to just stand back. The motorcade will not stop.”
Translate that to mean get out of the field of fire and let the Americans deal with any outbreaks of democracy.
I’m all in favour of summoning the water cannons and the pepper spray to dispel unruly protesters, but since when did we shoot people for climbing an airport fence or running over them because they want to block a motorcade? Frankly, this Montebello Security and Prosperity Initiative summit reeks of in-your-face, rub-in-in, we’ve-got-ours-so-screw-you capitalism. We didn’t elect this, we didn’t vote for this, Parliament didn’t approve this and most Canadians don’t want this.
Those who support this week’s political/industrial love-in forget that a Canadian court ruled that those protesting have the right to protest and the right to be seen protesting by those they’re protesting. That has meet transmuted to mean closed-circuit television images of what’s going on outside.
If there’s one thing Canadians distrust about Stephen Harper, it’s the fact that he stands so close to George W. Bush on so many issues. There’s no sense that he’ll push back on anything, be it to demand what the CIA has on Maher Arar or to resist the pressure to ensure our powerful neighbours have all the oil and water we can send them. The only reason the Harper Tories won’t pay a political price for this week’s orgy of antidemocratic excess is that Canadians distrust his opposition even more. That should not be construed as licence to proceed with any of the initiatives pursued in the Chateau’s cozy confines.
McGill philosopher Charles Taylor and and Universite de Montreal sociologist/historian Gerard Bouchard are the co-presidents of the Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles (CCPARDC), or I guess the consultative commission the accommodation practices in connection with cultural differences. They begin their 17-city tour Sept. 10 to measure Quebec’s attitudes toward immigrants and cultural minorities — what we in the media have reduced to “the reasonable accommodation hearings.”
As I said yesterday, I believe PQ leader Pauline Marois and ADQ leader Mario Dumont are both out there busily pandering to french-speaking Quebec’s latent xenophobia. Marois, with her “don’t afraid to be intolerant” and her latest policy declaration that Quebec should take total control of immigration, and Mario Dumont, with his comments about Quebec having reached its capacity to assimilate new immigrants without risking the creation of ethnic and linguistic ghettos. For an English translation of what Dumont actually said, go to yesterday's Raging Duff.
The Commission’s website, which has been up and running since yesterday morning, begins by asking this question:
How would you characterize the recent controversy surrounding reasonable accommodations? Of the more than 3,000 respondents so far, 11 percent agreed it is a serious crisis that will be very difficult to overcome.
An overwhelming majority, 74 percent, agreed that it is “a major debate that will provide the opportunity to make adjustments?
An artificial crisis blown up by the media? 15 percent said yes.
There’s also a 22-question quiz that measures attitudes to specific questions:
1/ Should we allow for religious reasons a child to eat something other than the regular menu in a daycare or school cafeteria?
You can agree or disagree either completely or with some conditions applying.
2/ Should we permit special efforts from teachers and classmates to help immigrant children who speak neither French nor English?
3/ Exempt kids from optional courses that might run counter to certain tenets of their religion?
4/ Exempt students from compulsory courses for the same reason?
5/ Change exam schedules when they conflict with religious holidays/
6/ Install frosted glass in school pool or gymnasium windows so that girls in bathing suits or sports attire can’t be seen by anyone of the male gender?
7/ If conditions permit, should we allow the official designation of a prayer area in a university?
8/ Should businesses be forced to adopt a protocol to accommodate employees with particular familial demands, such as young children or a chronically ill parent.
9/ Should businesses be required to permit pregnant women time off for medical reasons?
10/ Should businesses be required to permit paid days off for religious holidays other than statutory holidays such as Easter and Christmas?
11/ Should we outlaw Christian prayers at the outset of municipal council meetings?
12/ How about removing the crucifix from the wall of the Quebec National Assembly?
13/ Should we outlaw Christmas decorations in the workplace because they might offend certain religious beliefs?
14/ How about those same Christmas decorations in public spaces, such as schools, hospitals and other public buildings?
15/ Should immigrant parents have the right to communicate with school authorities in a language other than English or French?
16/ Should we allow the wearing of the hijab in our schools?
17/ Should we permit SQ officers to wear turbans?
18/ Should we allow the wearing of the hijab in sporting events as long as it doesn’t give a player an advantage or pose a danger to the player or others?
19/ Should we make the effort to ensure that cultural communities are more prominently represented in school textbooks?
20/ Should universities allow the creation of student associations solely for members of specific religions?
21/Should we allow the wearing of the Sikh ceremonial dagger, the kirpan, as long as it’s wrapped and worn beneath clothing?
22/ Should our schools program separate swimming lessons for boys and girls for religious reasons?
McGill philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist/historian Gerard Bouchard begin their 17-city tour Sept. 10 to hear out Quebec’s attitudes toward reasonable accommodation. Their hearings are the result of the Charest government’s desperate pre-election move to head off the Herouxville phenomenon before it got out of control.
But they risk turning into an even bigger political headache for this minority government.
In 2006, Quebec welcomed just under 45 000 new immigrants. That number could increase by 30 percent within three years, to 60,000, according to the government’s latest five-year plan.
PQ leader Pauline Marois and ADQ leader Mario Dumont are both out there busily pandering to french-speaking Quebec’s latent xenophobia. Marois, with her “don’t afraid to be intolerant” and her latest policy declaration, that Quebec should take total control of immigration, is way, way off what the late René Lévesque used to preach to his caucus.
As for Mario Dumont, you can judge for yourself where he stands.
La Presse columnist and blogger Patrick Lagacé invited ADQ leader Mario Dumont to his home for a webchat last weekend — and that’s where Dumont’s comments about Quebec having reached its capacity to assimilate new immigrants first emerged.
Lagacé asked Dumont whether Quebec needed new immigrants.
Dumont replied: If you’re looking at it in terms of the labour force, from a purely economic standpoint, yes. With the ageing of the population, we’d need more. But if you look at it from the standpoint of a balanced society, I don’t think you ever want more immigration than capacity to welcome and integrate them linguistically, socially, economically. Because the result of accelerated immigration is that you create ghettos and you have no more integration. You’ll solve the short-term labour problems, but you’ll have a labour force where everyone speaks another language and lives apart in their ghetto. You’re going to solve production problems, but as I see it, you’re not going to build a happy society.
Lagacé asks Dumont if Quebec has already surpassed its ability to integrate new immigrants.
Dumont’s reply: the government stepped up immigration several years ago...in my view, we’re at our capacity. What was clumsy on ther government’s part was to cut budgets and financial aid to organizations that immigrate and françize at the same time as the increased the number of immigrants.
Sounds to me like a perfect xenophobic storm — and it risks sweeping this government out of power.
Rewards totalling $20,000 are now being offered for the safe return of nine-year-old Cederika Provencher, last seen at 8 p.m. Tuesday evening. The Trois-Rivieres girl’s bike was found next to a dumpster a kilometre and a half from her home...the SQ has taken over the case and police are only now hazarding the opinion that Cedrika Provencher was kidnapped.
Police have learned this: in the days preceding Cederika’s disappearance, someone was attempting to enlist the help of local kids in helping to find a small black dog. Cederika reportedly was seen immediately prior to her disappearance asking if people had seen a small black dog. A red minivan was mentioned in connection with what is sounding more and more like a missing-dog scam. Another hint that she may have been kidnapped: One witness reported hearing a little girl scream and a car speed away.
The SQ has sent the volunteer searchers home. They say they need experts in searching. But what are they doing to alert the province, the country? Was her photo broadcast on LCN, on Radio-Canada? Not yet. Was her description and that of any suspect vehicle given to broadcasters and flashed on highway info crawls? No. In fact, the cops blundered so badly on this one, I doubt we’ll ever know the full extent of what they knew and when they knew it, because covering your sorry ass is a large part of bureaucratic survival in Quebec.
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