Ranting about quebec: newspark edition!

[wonko the sane?]

HEY EVERYONE! Let's celebrate because it's albertas sovereignty day! YAYYY!

Long story short: albertas new psycho premier pushed through legislation which functionally allows alberta to ignore federal laws, while at the same time curtailing internal blast back by limiting who can bring a lawsuit against it, and how long they have to actually do it.

And trudeau has said nothing yet. Maybe he's just preparing his thoughts: maybe he knows the second he says something it's either a go ahead for every province to do the same thing, or he's completely lost the quebecois vote.

 

[Pocket]

Geez. It's getting to the point where the right-wingers' version of "moving to Canada" might be... moving to Canada. Because not even the most insane Republican governors have gone as far as to declare soft secession.

 

[abates]

If only Scotland knew it was that easy.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Frankly: I am LOVING this. it's either going to be a blatant endorsement for the federal government outright failing, or the federal government blatantly endorsing quebec hypocracy. No matter what happens, respect, power, clout is lost.

Oh, and maybe the collapse of canada as a country.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Alright, so they opened a nurse practitioner practice in the east end of montreal. Registered nurses, acting independently, with the stated goal of preventing people from going to emergency rooms. It's an awesome idea, and I honestly can't believe how badly they fucked it up before it even started.

1.) It's only open during business hours. To actually take pressure off the emergency rooms, it would need to be open 24/7.
2.) It's not a walk in clinic, you have to get an appointment through 811, OR be referenced there... by the emergency room. Yeah.
3.) There's only three nurses, rather severely limiting how many people they can actually see at any given moment. At a base, they would need to match available capacity at the BIGGEST emergency room in the area. Ideally, they would want to have MORE so as to keep wait times down and have people preferentially go there first.
4.) All the people working in the clinic, including admin: are there on mandatory overtime. Which means they have LITERALLY been pulled from somewhere to work there during the overtime shifts they were forced to take anyway: eliminating man-power that would have been in a hospital or clinic somewhere else. All they've done is moved capacity around in a ******* shell game.

But hey, I'm sure legault and his caq will want to get a jump on fixing the healthcare system in this new mandate... oh, nope. His priority is ensuring there's 100% french only economic immigration by 2026 and stopping the decline of french in montreal.

But we're so far gone on competence that this kind of shit is being celebrated, because a band-aid on a bullet wound is better than nothing.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Carey Price is in the middle of something of a shit storm. See, dumbass there went and made a pro-gun (ostencibly; pro hunting rifle.) facebook posting.

He did this as his protest to bill c21, which would result in hundreds of models of hunting rifles becoming illegal, mostly to due to poor wording in previous laws and statutes oh and because those rifles are derivative of the AR family of weapons. Bill c21 is a more definitive assault rifle ban.

Now here's where the shit storm starts: The gun rights group he's associated with pushed a coupon with his protest: use the word POLY for 10% off membership... the 33rd anniversary of the polytechnic massacre (right here in montreal!) is literally today. For those who are unfamiliar, you can read about it here.

And as a consequence (and apparently the blind reaction of "shoot the messenger".) people are dog piling on carey price. Now, I hate the guy, but let's sort some stuff out. He's a ******* ignorant, uneducated sports baller. Why are we listening to his opinion about ******* anything? Second: the actual controversy isn't that carey price is completely ignorant about the history of his home town DURING HIS OWN ******* LIFETIME, it's that a gun rights group was trying to use the polytechnique massacre as a means to sell more guns.

Let's be real about who we're mad at here: and it's not the coke balloon that used to be in nets for the habs. It's the NRA wannabes that seem to think weapons of war need to be on city streets and in civilian hands... because freedom, or some stupid shit.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Two things in the ticker piqued my interest this morning:

-Monarchists in quebec feel disrespected after bill to remove oath to the king: I'm sorry if THIS is what is disrespectful to you, then you really haven't been paying attention. Maybe stop making googly eyes at a bunch of inbreds across an ocean and pay attention to the community you actually live in.

-Auditor general finds quebec schools lacked guidance during pandemic: They were also lacking in money, manpower and resources, but those were problems that existed long before the pandemic was a thing. Quebec has never, in my lifetime, taken education seriously. They aren't interested in it for the english and they outright don't want to for the french. After all, an educated populace is a hard to manipulate populace.

 

[wonko the sane?]

So there was a hit and run in montreal yesterday morning. This, in and of itself, is not uncommon. Our road network is very badly designed, sign layout is very bad, unclear and often poorly highlighted, and our drivers are assholes (yes, even me sometimes.).

The victim was a 7 year old girl, a refugee from ukraine. So she survived putins invasion but not montreals streets. And it currently seems like the driver was an 87 year old man, so probably yet another "bonne chauffeur quebecois" who needed to have his licence pulled years ago, but got away with it because of an overburndened system.

Edit: NOPE! 40 something from st-hubert who was simply in too much of a hurry to care he plowed right through a stop sign.

 

[wonko the sane?]

So, alberta is currently shouting that they're ready to overhaul their health care system WITHOUT ottawa's money... Then why are you even talking about it? Get to work, set an example and be a role model for the rest of the country. Oh, no, wait: it's TORIE shouting, so they have no intention of actually doing anything, they just want the attention.

Semi related note to the last one: a woman in amherst nova scotia died in the emergency room recently. She was in pain, was given a handful of drugs and eventually passed due to untreated internal bleeding. Bleeding caused by falling off her horse in september. The problem isn't the emergency rooms, the problem is the utter lack of primary care for the majority of the population. Bring back the GPs and the emergency rooms won't be cluster ***** anymore.

And on the lighter side of things: montreal intends to deal with the overwhelming number of abandoned storefronts on the main! Like 5 years ago when they did this the last time, they'll harass the building owners over having unrented, and unmaintained properties. Anyone want to guess what did not work last time? Yeah, harassing the building owners over the status of their properties. The vast majority are small business parcels that aren't affordable to small businesses. Between rent and taxes that are spiraling out of control: small, independent businesses are dying in montreal. Bring in rent control for commercial leases, something they have patently refused to do, reduced or eliminate taxes on small scale businesses, something ELSE they refuse to do. Until they fix the economic environment so that small businesses in montreal are actually viable, more small parcels will be closing. And since they can't even get the lead out of the pipes despite getting ******* paid to do it, I doubt they can fix the cities economy.

Oh, and BTW, the light rail line? I ******* called it again. Late and over budget.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Two things of note of late, so let's go over them one at a time.

-On christmas eve, a man died... in prison. Ha ha! You thought I was going to say a hospital! Anyway: he died at the hands of his guards in prison. Which was odd, since he made bail on the 23rd and wasn't even supposed to be in there anymore. And oh yeah, he was black. They've announced a public inquiry into his death and I can already predict what will happen: they will prove that inherent racism in the system was responsible not only for his illegal continued incarceration, but also his abuse at the hands of the guards and his death. And then legault will march onto whatever stage is available and reiterate that there is no systemic racism in quebec and consequently: nothing will change.

-the Rosemont-Maisonneuve hospital in montreal is currently undergoing some even more significant staffing strife. To the point where the overnight nurses staged a sit in and issued demands, including the threat of the larger strike. One of their demands was the resignation of the administrator because they were not only heaping on the mandatory overtime, but doing so in such a way as to make... life... untenable for the nurses. Some of them were stating they had done 3 sixteen hour shifts in four days. The quebec government has installed a mediator to help work out the problems... but it won't work. See, the problem can be solved by hiring more staff, but they can't hire more staff because the government has made such an utterly toxic and miserable work place that people don't even want to apply, and the few they are tricking into applying are not enough to overcome the rate of loss in the system. They have a LOT of work to cover to actually make the public hospital system a venue in which people WANT to work in again, but again: it won't work, they can't do it. The current crop of politicians are NOT capable of it, and all you have to do is look a their policy platform and priorities to see that.

 

[wonko the sane?]

CJAD reporter earlier that trudeau is taking the use of the not withstanding clause to court, because (apparently.) provinces like ontario and quebec are abusing it. I haven't any other sources to corroborate so far, just the blurb from one radio station.

IF it's true... holy shit ******* finally. If the court rules against the clause, it'll force a review of ALL legislation that invoked it, which will kill shit like bill 21, bill 96 and the ever so vaunted, holy to the bigots and xenophobes alike bill 101.

This is something that needed to happen 20 years ago. If you are incapable of crafting legislation that DOES NOT violate extant laws and rights: you should ever be in a position to craft legislation.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Been a while since I've written one of these. Not that there hasn't been stuff worth writing about, but when I actually got the point of doing it I would be overcome with a wave of exhaustion and apathy. Watching the people we elect consistently refuse to address the core problems for fear of disrupting a no longer functioning status quo is emotionally and mentally exhausting.

ANYWHO!

The city of montreal has recently decided what to do with the peel basin area (and HINT; it's not ******* baseball.). Formerly a mixed residential/commercial/industrial area that was long ago abandoned to slums as the businesses fled to more prosperous provinces and outsourced to the far east. They WANT to make a couple thousand housing units, with 1.1K being social housing and a further 1.1K as low cost housing. The idea being to drive DOWN the price of rents and home ownership not just in the burrow, but on the island as well. There's also talk of adding a REM (light rail.) station, making it a 15 minute city and EVEN, MAYBE, POSSIBLY, banning cars in the neighbourhood.

Stop ******* talking about it and goddamn well DO IT ALREADY! Give me the ******* gun, I'll ******* do it!

*ahem*

One of the big things the meiress has repeatedly bitched about was lowering montreal's carbon foot print, making it a green city, all that vaguely environmentally progressive political noise while never once coming up with a plan beyond "let's strip out parking spaces to make bike lanes" which only served to piss off ******* EVERYBODY. Seriously, everybody, even the cyclists because the motorists are so ******* bad that a bike lane that's separated by PAINT is a car lane.

Do it you ******* coward woman. Challenge the status quo and do something actually useful for once. Put in the rem station, demand a new subway station. Put in a thousand ******* bus stops, and make every second road deliberately bike and pedestrian only (and not in the usual montreal style of it being a regular car road, but as always so badly maintained cars can't actually use it.). to encourage people actually using their ******* feet. Cut a deal with ******* bixie and give it FREE to people who live in the neighbourhood. PLOW THE ******* ROADS PROPERLY and they will walk and cycle even in the dead of ******* winter. You are in a position to enforce actual change, be the actual vanguard of ******* change and set new standards for the construction of the new neighbourhoods in your city. And do it ******* PROPERLY for once, and suddenly everyone will be emulating your districts.

But, hahaha, no she won't. Of course she won't. She's going to hand the whole mess over to some development firm, with the promise of "oh, the contractually and legally required social and low cost housing will be done in phase 2" which will once again never ******* happen, because no one can afford to move to another neighbourhood without mass transit and consisting entirely of luxury 2 person condos.

 

[wonko the sane?]

A little while ago, a week or so I think, an SQ officer (surete quebec. The provincial police force.) was stabbed and killed while responding to a call. The individual in question was in the middle of a crisis and lashed out at the cops.

Consequently: quebec is now considering sharing mental health data with SQ, and probably end up doing so for just about every other police force as well. This is not only a horrible violation of basic privacy: it won't ******* work. Our healthcare system is in such poor goddamn shape that unless you've ALREADY had a crisis, you don't get mental health support without paying through the ******* nose. So the vast majority of data will read "No stated history" and the cops will still get attacked, stabbed and brutalized by people in crisis.

More to the point: this would involve TWO distinctly different organizations (healthcare and law enforcement.) communicating frequently and reliably when we can't even get two doctors to talk to each other, two cops to talk to each other. Communication and oversight are vastly underrated and incredibly poor in quebec and that alone is a major source of strife for the population.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Prompted by a conversation in another thread: I remembered I wanted to come in here and talk about something.

So HEY! Did you know the quebec government has banned prayer in schools?

You might immediately think "why is the school leading prayers?" and I will reply with "that's not what I said.".

They banned, as in OUTRIGHT banned, prayer in school. So if you're muslim: you need to go off school property to pray. If you want to say a quick word to and for yourself in front of a big test: NOPE! ILLEGAL! The schools are not only no longer required to make space for religious groups or activities, they are expressly forbidden from it. It also, by extension, forbids religious based extracurricular student groups from forming in the schools. As it stood before this law, schools (unless specifically labeled so, like a religious school (which are usually private institutions.)) weren't allowed to run prayers. The MRE classes USED to be able to talk about the ideological and practical differences between the various religious groups, but MRE was stripped down to ME and is being replaced with a "quebec citizenship" indoctrination course.

To those whom are thinking it: yes, it violates the canadian constitution, the quebec constitution, the UN charter of human rights and freedoms and BASIC human dignity. Because the caq are incapable of allowing people to express their individual cultures out of fear of diluting the expired, unflavoured yogurt that is quebec culture. That's right, muslim kids can't pray quietly and privately because a bunch of duck honking slowflakes are ******* offended by something they've never seen and will never get far enough away from their shit hole town of 1K people to actually witness.

 

[wonko the sane?]

So a school in montreal tried to be inclusive when celebrating mothers day, and instead called it "parents day". Let's be real here, some kids ain't got no mother, so honestly: why not do just a little something to help them feel included.

Duhaime, leader of the quebec tories almost immediately accused the school of wokeism. Because when you don't have any policy, so resort to propaganda.

 

[wonko the sane?]

So hey, do you all remember last december when that ukrainian refugee kid was done in by the driver who jumped the stop?

Well, in the intervening time: the city has patched the road, increased signage, repainted, added bollards to control traffic... and just this week the locals recorded a cop car running right through that stop. Not on call or anything, just didn't want to stop. A beautiful montreal stop where he just barely taped the brakes to make sure he wouldn't hit anything and then coasted through the turn. Perfect example of it even.

Which, really, just solidifies the concept that the road was only marginal in the problem, it's the people and the cars that are the problem.

 

[wonko the sane?]

As of june 1st, one of the new requirements of bill 96 comes into effect. This time it's small businesses being required to prove that all their employees speak french "adequately" to the provincial government.

Notable problems with this law 1.) they did not define adequate. 2.) they did not define whom is responsible for oversight. 3.) they did not define what constitutes proof.

So no one knows what exactly is expected of them, what the penalties will be, when they have to do to have this done, or even what makes up a passing mark. Is this annual? Is there going to be a cost associated with it? Does it come with some kind of certification to make the government **** off for a while? Nobody knows!

So while small businesses are struggling under taxes, out of control rents and inflation: let's just add MORE expenses and uncertainty to the mix, why not.

 

[Pale Rider]

 

[wonko the sane?]

Haven't watched it: but yes, french is dying at least in north america. When the SINGULAR bastion of the language (on the continent.) absolutely REFUSES to participate in multilingualism, and openly punishes people whom speak the language of the majority (even as a second language.) then the people and culture will walk away from the tyrants towards the everything else which is generally making more money.

Edit: watching it now. They make a great point about the elitism of speaking french. To make matters worse: the ones JUDGING you for not speaking french properly do not speak proper french themselves. When a semi automatic duck is commenting on your conjugation: you aren't incentivized to keep trying.

Edit the second: congrats on sending your kid to a french school. It's not because you don't have a reason to send them to english school (You actually do! The stats bear out that they'll have not only a better general education in an english school, but walk away with better french language skills. And OH YEAH! Lower incidence of racism.) you don't have the MEANS to send them to an english school. Your parents ain't got no papers from back when which allows you to use the english schools.

 

[Pale Rider]

Semi automatic duck?