We have used this space some dozen times to criticize the Plante administration’s traffic,construction and anti-car policies. We were gratified to hear her words last week that she “hears the frustration” of Montrealers over road, traffic and construction conditions and that she plans to bri…
Today, we are at an important decision point in our lives and society. We are two days after Labour Day and two weeks before the end of the CERB. We’ve written before of the urgency for all of us to get back to work and restart our society.
The sight of street thugs pulling down and decapitating the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald was stomach-turning. It was a rape of the first principle of a civilized society. We decide matters by ballot not by bully. The rule of law is paramount. If the law is bad we work to change it. But we…
Here we go again. A recent survey of Montreal’s businesses demonstrated that some 60% either required a proficiency in English or suggested it would be a benefit for certain positions. It didn’t take long for the French panic propagators to start the drumrolls of division and discord.
Oscar Peterson was an iconic Quebecer for all the best reasons. Abbé Lionel Groulx was iconic to too many for all the wrong reasons. Peterson’s music and spirit brought people together around the world. Groulx’s racist writings sowed division and discord for decades in the period known as “L…
Last week we ran a story on the 10,000 person March of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Liberties. The march was called to protest the mandatory mask regulations, the $6,000 fines that enforce them, the possibility of mandatory vaccinations and the unprecedented power that the provin…
Just as we respond with generosity and empathy in a time of natural disasters, we must respond in the same way to the disaster that has befallen Beirut and with it the nation of Lebanon. In the oped on the facing page - co-authored by former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia Pacific The H…
This was a week of numbers in which we see a troubling road ahead in our recovery. Contradictory signals are not helping. Indeed they are confusing and are doing nothing to stop the fear even as Quebec’s daily Covid infection numbers stays at record lows of just over 100 down from over 1300 …
So between Covid and Mayor Plante’s continuing reduction of parking spaces and traffic lanes, is this finally the time to allow “Right on Red” and bring Montreal in line with most other North American cities? Summer seems to be the time for experiments in this city. And we’ve seen some bad o…
The most ancient of hatreds, that against the Jews, did not go into lockdown and did not self-isolate during Covid. Just before the pandemic hit, the League for Human Rights released it’s annual survey of anti-semitic incidents for 2019. It demonstrated a doubling of incidents nationally and…
In writing “1984” George Orwell warned of government power encroaching in all areas of our lives with an all-seeing and all-knowing “Big Brother” state. Privacy rights were to be forgotten. Individual prerogative beaten into submission.
We have used this space more than once to caution about needless and punitive police ticketing during this Covid pandemic. Now the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has confirmed in a study that aside from Covid, the past few months have seen an “ugly ticketing pandemic” in the words of e…
“Israel was not created in order to disappear. Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”~ President John Fitzger…
Extraordinary sacrifices have been made to protect our health system during the Covid virus outbreak. For the first time in history, economic and social civilization was closed down. Now, for the first time in three months, extraordinary efforts are being made to restart an economy in the wo…
Despite all the caution Quebec is using in gradually restarting our economy, we know that many of you are scared. Most understand the necessity and are ready for the challenge. But everyone has a tiny speck of concern in our minds.
At this time of needed and urgent recovery, the one essential element from government — particularly at the local level which most touches us — is reason and coherence. Instead, the past week has given us dogma, confusion and incoherence. Demand better — by calls or emails or physical presen…
It took hard words and harder numbers to change us. Lockdowns are not normal. Neither is social isolation. Many of those words and numbers have been proven wrong. They are now being changed as new facts are coming to light. Now that we are beginning a social and economic reboot, we must act …
Some of the concern over re-engaging after the lockdown has to do with the numbers. Every day only the total numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are reported. And each death is tragic make no mistake. But it is also important to remember that numbers must be taken in perspective. Y…
Commerce will restart on Monday. Montreal’s numbers are coming down. We have had under 50 deaths a day from Covid all this week. The lowest numbers in almost two months. But many habits won’t change quickly if at all. Many will continue to work most of their week from home. You’re reading on…
Montreal mayor Valerie Plante decided earlier in the week to allow restaurants to open terraces without the usual exorbitantly high fees demanded by the city. Some went as high as $30,000 for the season.
We wrote last week,of all the reasons why this is the right time for a gradual reopening. And of all the things we will be changing to assure the safety and success of our societal reboot. But all the rules and comforting words can only go so far. We understand that concerns remain. Sometime…
No, these New Rules are not a replay of Bill Maher. But we are rolling out our society again. To paraphrase one of this week’s correspondents Henri Bybelezer, we are awakening and arising. And though it’s not going to be as tough as leaving a Higgins boat and landing on Omaha Beach, we are g…
Premier François Legault this week outlined a gradual plan for restoring education and business in Quebec as we report on our front page . We understand that many are still concerned. But the reality is that there is no measure that can absolutely protect anyone from catching Corona. As deva…
Despite all the caution Quebec is using in gradually restarting our economy, we know that many of you are scared. Most understand the necessity and are ready for the challenge. But everyone has some corner of concern in our minds.
Premier Legault is about to make some decisions that are the hardest for any governor to make for the governed. These decisions are now being considered throughout North America and indeed through the western world. He is about to set a timetable to reopen our society. He will be striking a …
We have been pleased to use this space to praise Premier Legault’s handling of the Covid crisis here in Quebec. He has rolled out urgent measures with resolve and conviction and less pressing ones with a gradualism that allowed all of us to properly acclimatize and not give in to panic. When…
This is a tough time. But we are a tough people. We have an obligation to steel our resolve, marshal our strength and do the most we can do with what we have now. If we don’t we’ll have nothing on the other side of all this.
There is nothing good about this Corona crisis. There is nothing good about any crisis. But as CNN’s Chris Cuomo said this week, “Hard times make tough people.”
It’s been a hard week. There is no getting around it. The constant headlines on corona, and the number of countries affected. The tough health policies put in place. And the biggest daily drops in stock markets since 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis. Sometimes we lose sight of the larger p…
The current slew of litigations filed and threatened almost makes the infighting over Bill 40 before it was passed seem like a gentle prelude. From the EMSB, to the QCGN to QESBA and to a variety of French school boards, the legal papers are flying and many law factories are gearing up for a…
What is it about February and language? That thought came to mind when the CAQ voted for a PQ motion last Thursday to expand Bill 101 into areas of federal jurisdiction and make it applicable to small companies of 25-49 employees. Now, it’s just a motion but it is still dangerous and disappo…
The railroad blockades that are plaguing the country are the wrong tactic based on wrong facts and aimed at the wrong victims. They are nothing but the result of a political exploitation of an internal and localized west coast First Nations dispute that has spilled into the national arena. I…
Day after day we all work hard, try to provide for ourselves and our families and as tired as we get in the face of rising taxes, demanding government and crumbling services, we comfort each other by repeating the mantra that we should be grateful we live in a free country. But freedom isn’t…
Monday, January 27, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. So designated by the United Nations. It was also the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
This past Monday was the United Nations’ International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was also precisely seventy-five years since the liberation of Auschwitz. The UN, at whose entrance are carved the words of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah that, “Swords shall be beaten into plowshares and nation s…
Last week, Montreal’s opposition party leader Lionel Perez held a press conference calling on the Plante administration to pull the plug on electric scooters after last year’s pilot project. He claimed that scooter users flaunt parking laws, don’t use helmets and that scooters are left anywh…
Albert Camus once wrote that, “At every corner of every street, the absurdity of life can hit anyone in the face.” No words come more to mind than these as we ponder the deaths of the victims of Ukrainian International flight 752 shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile.
As we enter the new year, we would like you to imagine some things.
A special thanks to our extended Suburban family
With this last issue of the year coming out in this special celebratory season, we thought this date called for a special sentiment. So we wanted to take this space and move away from the public issues and offer some personal thoughts.and those thoughts are aimed at you, our extended Suburba…
Almost one year ago today Montreal Executive Committee President Benoit Dorais announced that the city was considering a by-law to outlaw Public-Sac distribution. We wrote then that this was another damaging example of arrogant dogma replacing common sense in public policy. Again, instead of…
Almost exactly ten years ago we first championed the case of Bela Kosoian. A law student then and mother of two, she was manhandled by a transit cop at the Laval Montmorency metro stop because she did not have her hand on the handrail of an escalator as suggested by pictograms. She refused t…
Last week. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved Canada voting for a U.N. resolution condemning Israel. It was the first time since former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was elected that Canada has committed such an odious act. And this act came one week after some 600 rockets launched from …
This past Monday Montreal city council voted unanimously to accept the motion of council dean Marvin Rotrand calling on the SPVM to stop “unfounded and random” police checks of Montrealers. The motion arose out of a finding of an independent report that found many “arbitrary checks that disp…
Through all the pettiness and venalities of Quebec language battles through the years, Minister for the French Language Simon Jolin-Barrette’s suggestion last week to take away English services from immigrants while maintaining them for the “historic anglophone community” is a new low in nat…
As we enter Veterans’ Week we remember them all. From Vimy Ridge to Normandy. From the Korean hilltops to the sands of the Sinai. From the fetid marshes of the Balkans to the bomb-laden roads of Afghanistan. We remember the legacy of the best of us. The legacy of the bold and the brave. But …
Hearings have started at the City of Montreal on whether or not to ban Publi-Sacs or change the manner of distribution. There has been so much wrong information from those opposed to Publi-Sacs that even Projet Montréal’s councillor in charge of the process, Laurence Lavigne Lalonde, came ou…
There were no great dramas coming out of the 2019 Federal Election. But Canadians sent important signals of what they want.
At the age of 29 Conservative leader Andrew Scheer became the youngest deputy speaker of the House of Commons in the history of Canada. Justin Trudeau at 29 was putting on blackface. We open this editorial with this image not to be pejorative or sarcastic. We open with it because this electi…
“La liberté ne s’accomode pas d’une discipline qui a pour devise: chez les autres on vous apprend comment penser; chez nous, on fait mieux, on vous apprend quoi penser.” ~ Jean-Charles Harvey, rédacteur-en-chef, Le Jour
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