Mount-Royal MP Anthony Housefather showed significant courage and loyalty to his constituents in defying the Liberal whip and voting against Bill C-13, an odious piece of legislation that will have a serious and harmful impact to Quebec’s English-speaking communities. While Housefather was the sole dissenting vote in Parliament on C-13, he stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of thousands of voters. Many Quebecers were angered by their own weak-kneed MPs who could not muster the strength to stand up in defiance of their Liberal Party, a party displaying values that are anything but liberal.
C-13, a federal bill, references Bill 96 and by extension Bill 101, both, Quebec’s language legislation. It removes decades of symmetry in defining and balancing the needs of Canada’s linguistic minorities. Sadly, it speaks to shoring up votes in Quebec at the expense of the principles of Canada’s Official Languages Act, to protect and sustain English and French, from coast to coast.
Housefather should be commended for doing what he, and undoubtedly a large majority of those he represents, believes is the right thing. He stands proudly and defiantly for his principles and values and for that he has my respect and admiration.
This opinion piece was published 25 years ago today. I’m sharing it again with you as a reminder of the resiliency, creativity and determination of individual citizens and community leaders. Our community remains as strong, if not more so, able to meet the challenges that come our way. I encourage you to step up and volunteer your time, in any way you can, to make your city even stronger in the future.
GJN
The Power of Community
An editorial by Glenn J. Nashen
January 29, 1998
The Ice Storm of ‘98 will be remembered by all in our region for a very long time. The wrath of Mother Nature evoked the worst fears and anxieties many of us have ever faced in our lives. As unbelievable as it was, we likened the experience to media coverage we have seen of Beirut or Sarajevo. Who could have imagined that a metropolitan region of millions of people could be brought so close to the brink of disaster? It is astounding to think that in our very own city we were actually deprived of electricity, drinking water, radio stations, and cash from automatic tellers while roads, highways, bridges, railways and runways were shut down bringing all forms of transportation to a halt. The widespread destruction of countless thousands of mature trees and the debris strewn about our streets was a horrifying sight. Just a month ago could you have imagined lineups at your local grocer for bread and bottled water, searching for a gas station that had gas, let alone abandoning your house to bring your family to a shelter, sleeping in army cots, 200 in a room?
Yet, despite the pain, anguish and hardship that everyone faced, their was a strong will to pull through this madness – together. Neighbour helped neighbour. Stranger helped stranger. There were no barriers of language, of politics, of religion. We all pulled through as one strong community.
My reflection and review of the emergency management in Cote Saint-Luc, probably not dissimilar from many smaller cities and towns, is one of great admiration and appreciation for the hundreds of individuals that performed with the spirit and dedication of an Olympic team. We overcame the odds of disaster, comforted hundreds in dire situations and returned the community to a sense of normalcy.
In normal times the City Councillors are preoccupied with policy, lawmaking and steering the community toward the future. Civil servants are busy with their departmental responsibilities while firefighters train and practice and wait for the alarm to sound. Police officers patrol and enforce the law and public works crews fill their shifts maintaining parks, roads, sidewalks and city infrastructure. The schools are busy with students, synagogues are readying for prayer and parties and health care providers are visiting with the elderly, sick, injured and needy.
But just a few weeks ago the normal ceased to be. All of a sudden a crisis situation developed which required otherwise busy people to come together and offer a coordinated, integrated and rapid solution to help those in our community who found themselves suddenly in desperate need. Local politicos, city staff, blue collars, emergency crews and health care professionals blended with community institutions and organizations to respond swiftly to the crisis and to assist our residents.
Within hours the Municipal Emergency Operations Committee was convened at Cote Saint-Luc City Hall to coordinate information, services, personnel, equipment and supplies. This was to be the first meeting of twice daily gatherings of community leaders and professionals. The first of four shelters was set up at the onset so that no resident would have to spend even one night in the dark, cold confines of a powerless home. Almost miraculously food and bedding was arranged so that residents would be as comfortable as possible at Hotel City Hall.
Daytime shifts for firefighters and public works crews turned into endless hours as workers cast aside their own personal emergencies in order to safeguard the residents of our city. Unprecedented in the twenty-eight years of the Montreal Urban Community, its police service was put into emergency operations and each and every officer was called in for assignment. Neighbourhood policing was put to the ultimate test and passed with flying colours. Squads of officers on commandeered MUCTC buses traveled from building to building evacuating cold and frightened apartment dwellers and delivered them with care and compassion to the care-givers at the shelters.
Years of training and preparation was clearly evident as Cote Saint-Luc’s all-volunteer Emergency Medical Services sprang into action. No more than a phone call or beep on one’s pager was needed to activate dozens of loyal and eager volunteers who manned first responder squads around the clock helping with everything from emergency 911 calls to building evacuations, shelter rounds to patrolling the streets for residents in distress. When their vehicle broke down willing volunteers found the nearest ambulance for hire in Brockville, Ontario and scrambled to bring it back to Cote Saint-Luc. When their second vehicle quit on them, they did it once again.
Without urging, both the Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem Synagogue (the Baily Shul) and Bialik High School answered the call for assistance and prepared to receive large numbers of residents. The organization and level of care at these institutions is more than commendable. They opened and operated kosher shelters for 7 to 9 days under extremely difficult conditions, caring and comforting hundreds. They closed their doors to nobody. From seniors residences to NDG residents anyone in need found welcome and warm refuge in Cote Saint-Luc. Strangely enough, a woman who gave birth four days earlier by C-section was transferred from St. Mary’s Hospital, by ambulance, to the Baily Shul. Tender and understanding volunteers provided the new mother with a private room and all the attention she would require.
People gave of their time and talents selflessly and generously. Boxes loaded with food, clothing and personal hygiene products were donated so that no one seeking refuge should be without any basic requirements. When a senior citizen at Baily was spotted without socks it took one phone call and just a few minutes before a kind neighbour showed up with a package of six new pairs of socks. A Muslim family observing Ramadan was given special treatment at City Hall so that the family could have a “privileged” sleeping and praying area and a small fridge to store their specially prepared meat. When Helen Steele of Texas saw what was happening here on CNN she packed a sleeping bag and boarded the first flight to Dorval, and upon arrival asked an RCMP officer where she might be able to help. She took a taxi to Cote Saint-Luc City Hall and worked for 6 days straight in whatever capacity she could.
A couple of residents cooked up steaks and barbeque chickens for our EMS volunteers who had been living on pizza for seven days. Many families welcomed others into their homes only to leave together to another home and yet another. Shoppers shared cases of water and packages of batteries with complete strangers at the checkout. One shoveled the next walkway and another salted the driveway across the street. Le Mercaz prepared bags of food for those returning home from shelters and many, many more benevolent individuals and organizations assisted in vital areas.
In the final analysis, we can be mighty proud of what our neighbours did to brighten the lives of so many in the dark. Through meticulous and sophisticated planning for all kinds of disasters by city officials to improvisation to ensure that every special need was looked after, we are incredibly fortunate to have extra special staff, kindhearted volunteers and wonderful neighbours in our community.
I hope that we all learned something positive and rewarding from such a terrible experience and that the social fabric of our community, and indeed our entire province, will be more closely knit and tighter than ever before. After all, our future depends on it. We may have lost electricity but we never lost the power of community.
Glenn J. Nashen is a City Councillor in Cote Saint-Luc and an Emergency Medical Technician. He chairs the Emergency Services Advisory Committee and attended a course for elected officials at the Canadian Emergency Preparedness College. During the Ice Storm, Nashen was appointed as Information Officer for the City and assisted in the coordination of emergency shelters and volunteers.
This is a sobering reflection more than two decades after the municipal forced mergers by one of the key political players. The Montreal Gazette’s newest columnist, Westmount Mayor Peter Trent, was and still is an intellectual thought leader on municipal structures and the city system within provincial and federal government.
What’s your thought looking back on the forced mergers and for many of us, demergers of our cities? Are you better off? Why?
At least the demerged cities have control over 100 per cent of their local spending. The trade-off (so far) is to have no control over regional costs managed by the agglomeration council.
Quebec’s Minister Responsible for the French Language, Simon Jolin-Barrette, recently stated he is considering changes to the Charter of the French Language that may cause some municipalities, including Côte-St-Luc, to lose the right to offer services to residents in English.
Jolin-Barrette’s trial balloon sounds a lot like the Parti Québécois’s 2013 Bill 14, which among other measures sought to revoke bilingual status from dozens of municipalities. At that time, the Association of Suburban Municipalities launched a campaign to convince the opposition parties — including the Coalition Avenir Québec — to stop the bill. CAQ Leader François Legault and his language critic, Nathalie Roy, agreed with us. The CAQ insisted at the time that a municipality’s bilingual status was permanent, unless it chose to give it up. Its position showed respect for the English-speaking community and municipal autonomy.
When the Charter of the French Language was originally adopted in 1977, there was strong opposition from many quarters, particularly from within Quebec’s non-francophone communities. To try to mitigate the fears of these communities, the law provided exemptions for certain municipalities, hospitals, educational and other institutions that served a majority of persons whose language was not French.
Bilingual status for municipalities was meant to be permanent. It gives a municipality the right to erect public signage and issue communications in English. French communication is, of course, mandatory.
Although we aren’t fighting the existing law, it is worth considering how unusual it is in the context of a liberal democracy. Originally, the law set the threshold for bilingual status as 50 per cent non-francophone. It was later amended to 50 per cent anglophone, using the narrowest definition possible. You could live in English, speak to your children in English, and have gone to English school. But if when you were a child you spoke to your immigrant parents in Yiddish, or Italian, then the government says you are not English-speaking when it comes to a municipality or borough being eligible for bilingual status.
Contrast these types of rules with other states, who are either silent on the issue, or else force municipalities to serve people in the minority language. Finland, for example requires municipalities to deliver services in Swedish, too, once the Swedish community makes up at least eight per cent of the population. But in Quebec, not only does the government fail to support the minority English-speaking community, but it creates obstacles to prevent municipalities from offering, say, tax bills in English.
Despite all this, I am not asking the government to change these rules. I am merely asking it to maintain the status quo and allow municipalities with bilingual status to decide for themselves whether to offer services in English.
Bilingual status is fundamental to the character of our municipality and a testament of the historical presence of both the English- and French-speaking communities. Should the CAQ government seek to remove bilingual status from any borough or city, we will strongly oppose it, as it would be an attack on our fundamental rights and autonomy. It would also create unnecessary uncertainty, debate and division.
It has been a long year and I’d rather not waste any energy fighting the government during the pandemic. We spent so much time in 2013 defending our bilingual status, I can’t believe we may have to do it again.
I urge Premier Legault — who has shown leadership and compassion during this pandemic — to call off the language hard-liners and let cities like Côte-St-Luc do their jobs. Let us help get life back to normal for all Quebecers.
It’s time to end the obsession over the use of the English language in Quebec and accept that English-speakers are a legitimate part of Quebec’s past, present, and future.
Mitchell Brownstein has served as mayor of the City of Côte-St-Luc since March 2016 and previously practised as an immigration attorney for 25 years.
This is an excellent, reasonable and respectful opinion piece by Cote Saint-Luc Mayor Mitchell Brownstein. I completely agree with his point of view on bilingual status of municipalities. The CAQ government should continue to focus its attention on safeguarding Quebecers during (and after) the pandemic and stop pandering to nationalists by pretending that eroding the English language and weakening the English-speaking community somehow protects and strengthens the French language.
Harold Cammy (right) with McDonald’s entrepreneur and philanthropist Pierre Brunet at surprise retirement party, Dec. 2018
Much has been said about Harold Cammy who takes his retirement after serving the city of Cote Saint-Luc for a remarkable 45 years. I’ve known Harold for most of my life and he has known my family for just as long. My reminiscence here is upon Harold, the character, as there’s not much I can add to the long list of accomplishments and achievements which can be read at some of the links below.
We have the ability to be “kind” to people, to be “responsive” to people, to “support and assist” people because that is what a City and its staff should be doing. Making someone’s day just a little bit better…a little more enjoyable.
It doesn’t take a great effort to be kind and helpful…it just takes a little empathy, compassion and understanding of human behaviour.
“People will not always remember all the good things you do for them, but they will always remember how you made them feel about themselves”.
Harold and Beverly Cammy
We can learn a lot from Harold’s wise words. They are prophetic and introspective, philosophical and visionary. He lead his career, and obviously leads his life by these words. Many of us would be better off if we walked in Harold’s direction.
Indeed, whenever I would come across Harold during my many years as a City Councillor there was always a positive, cheery exchange. Always smiling, he would have the uncanny knack of making you feel important in his world, and invariably you’d walk away being a bit happier yourself.
A people-person by nature, Harold wouldn’t forget to ask how the family was doing, usually by name. ‘How’s George?’, he’d ask about my father. ‘Send him my regards,’ he’d say. ‘Say hello to Judy,’ my wife.
I was most always on the receiving end of peppy one-liners, a quick joke, a greeting or a comment from Harold. I’m sure he had plenty of reason to be gloomy or dreary over the years, but he chose the path of positive reinforcement: A firm handshake, eye-to-eye contact and a warm smile. He chose kindness and compassion. He chose to be charitable and he brought us all along. He was and is a real Mensch.
I salute Harold not only for his praiseworthy efforts for the residents of Cote Saint-Luc over these past 45 years, but for his kinder, gentler and humbler ways. This unpretentious career professional touched more lives than we can imagine. We’re all lucky to have benefited from his generosity of spirit and his acts of kindness.
Judy and I wish you a wonderful retirement, Harold, and many years of good health and continued happiness for you, Beverly and Lacey. I will always remember how you made me feel.
Thomas D’Arcy McGee, a Father of Confederation, may be turning over in his grave knowing that his namesake riding went from having almost the highest voter turnout in the 2014 general elections (at 72%) to almost the lowest in the province in last week’s election (at about 46.5%).
D’Arcy McGee riding also changed dramatically with the boundary shifting from its traditional Decarie eastern extremity all the way to Cote des Neiges. And despite the huge growth of 40,000 voters to 55,000 this time around, voter turnout dropped dismally from 29,000 to 25,000.
Much went wrong, to be sure. Political pundits and armchair analysts will be drilling through the numbers and issues and faux pas for a very long time. There will be no shortage of theories to understand why English-speaking voters simply stayed home in huge numbers this time around. Poll clerks have reported that ballot boxes stayed quiet throughout the day in the West End and West Island. Tumbleweeds were rolling at my voting station at the Cote Saint-Luc Aquatic and Community Centre. Not a single person was lined up at any of the tables neatly arranged for the masses who never showed up. Apparently the scene was similar throughout the day and throughout the area.
The Liberal brand was evidently on trial in this normally red riding neighbourhood. The smartly Photoshopped posters of Philippe Couillard sporting the lackluster pitch-line, “To make life easier for Quebecers,” didn’t hit the mark, at all.
So what went right?
We have re-elected our incumbent Liberal Member of the National Assembly, David Birnbaum, who deservedly garnered an impressive 74% of the vote compared to the Quebec Solidaire candidate, Jean-Claude Kumuyange at just over 7% and the CAQ’s Melodie Cohen at 6%.
D’Arcy McGee MNA David Birnbaum speaks to a group of supporters at the Gelber Conference Centre
The individual makes the difference, locally.
The affable and eloquent Birnbaum is very close to his constituents and obviously appreciated at a rate that far outstrips the voters’ feelings about his party. David is very present in his constituency and cares deeply about his constituents. He is engaged in the key files of importance to the riding and very willingly representing his electors concerns in Quebec City.
While he moves from the government side where he served in high positions with great distinction to the opposition benches I am confident that David will adapt quickly to his new role and continue to represent us with determination and exuberance.
It’s always easier to be negative and to look to blame and shame. We’ve read many articles and opinions pointing fingers in the last week. You won’t hear a negative word from the mouth of David Birnbaum as he is a class act, an intellect and peace-maker, highly skilled at choosing the right words to make a convincing argument. As a new era in Quebec politics begin, I’m thankful that we have David to represent us.
I wish much success to David Birnbaum, and to the interim Liberal leader Pierre Arcand (a very fine gentleman and tremendous MNA and Minister).
Let’s hope that the old referendum turmoil stays way behind us and that our new premier is true to his election-night words of uniting all Quebecers. I extend my wishes for good governance, wise judgment, fair representation and abundant tolerance to our new Premier, Francois Legault, and to the new government.
Quebec is indeed a magnificent place and we must remain united, generous and tolerant to our fellow citizens and new arrivals and hopeful that our lives will indeed be made easier. Happy thanksgiving to all.
D’Arcy McGee MNA David Birnbaum was a real sport golfing in his Expos T-Shirt, seen here at the ACC for lunch, with my dad, George and me
Anthony is an extraordinary advocate for his constituency and is outspoken in his staunch support for Israel. In this excellent letter he sets the record straight for those who believe that he and the liberal government have wavered in showing Canada’s steadfast support for Israel. Of course, one can easily point to a single incident, event or vote and criticize. But life, and politics, is far from that simple.
I wholeheartedly continue to support Anthony Housefather as an extraordinary, young leader who is sure to rise among the ranks. He is the right man to push our government when necessary, whether on Israel or on a number of other major issues.
His intelligence shines through in his speeches and writings. If you have not met him I strongly encourage you to do so at one of the many events he addresses or in connecting by email or social media.
Anthony Housefather, MP, in the Hall of Honour, in the Parliament of Canada
My record on Israel
Anthony Housefather
I need to respond to the letter from Nathan Rosensheim published in the Suburban on July 4th, claiming the Canadian Government did not support Israel and that I was not a forceful advocate for Israel within the Government.
To say these claims are false would be a huge understatement. I have always been and will continue to be a huge supporter of Israel and since I was first elected I have been one of the foremost advocates on behalf of support for Israel and action on causes important to my constituents and Canada’s Jewish community. Let’s look at the overall record since October 2015.
Since the Liberal Government was elected in October 2015, Canada has one of the best voting records at the UN on defending Israel. We have voted no on 54 of the 62 resolutions at the General Assembly which singled out Israel over this time. No country other than the US and some small islands have a record similar to ours. Our record on voting against resolutions on Israel is far better than Australia and the UK and other European countries. It is also better in percentage terms of no votes than any previous Canadian Government, including the ten years of the Harper administration.
Our Government also supported the first anti-BDS motion to be adopted by the House of Commons. We adopted a Bill recognizing May as Jewish Heritage Month. We just signed an enhanced Canada/US free trade agreement at the Gelber Centre in the Mount Royal riding. We doubled security infrastructure funding to help secure Jewish and other institutions that are subject to potential hate crimes. As well, the Prime Minister committed to apologizing in the House of Commons for our record on Jewish refugees prior to and during the Second World War and in particular for Canada’s shameful refusal of the SS St. Louis in 1939. No other Canadian Government has ever done this and it is something I have been calling for since I have been elected.
Finally, in June the Government supported a motion in the House of Commons condemning the current regime in Iran, including for the statements made by its Supreme Leader calling for the eradication of Israel. In case anyone questions my support for Israel and my readiness to speak out in support of Israel in the House of Commons, I suggest you watch my speech on the Iran motion at https://www.facebook.com/anthonyhousefather/videos/1982973521743727/
I spend a significant percentage of my time advocating for issues of interest to the Jewish community. There have been a small number of times I have been disappointed, such as with the recent statement on Gaza and in that case my colleague Michael Levitt and I released our own statement. But I have worked very hard within the Government to ensure our position on Jewish and Israeli issues is as strong as possible and most of the time I have succeeded. I truly believe if you look at the facts above the number of actions we have taken in support of Israel and issues related to Canada’s Jewish community over the last 2.5 years is equal to or better than any other Canadian Government in history and I am happy to defend my actions to my constituents anytime.
These French-only warning signs are actually dangerous for highway motorists not proficient in the French language. When approaching these massive electronic billboards and not immediately recognizing ominous words like “cahouteuse” or “aquaplanage” Without mastery of French you wouldn’t know whether to pull off the road or to call 911 for an urgent translation! I’ve made numerous demands for bilingual warnings and their inaction speaks volumes, in any language. They don’t care if you don’t understand.
A year after National Assembly petition, provincial government still has not responded to safety concerns.
HAROLD STAVISS, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE
RUTH KOVAC, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE
Published on: March 14, 2018
Bonjour-Hi.
One year ago, on March 14, 2017, a petition we spearheaded was tabled in the National Assembly by David Birnbaum, the MNA for D’Arcy-McGee. The petition, which was just short of 7,000 signatories, requested the Ministère des Transports du Quebec (MTQ) and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communicatons to take the necessary steps so that all traffic signs and electronic alerts or messages dealing with public safety or health be in both French and English, when no symbol or pictogram exists.
The request was made in view of the fact that the second paragraph of Section 22 of the Charter of the French Language clearly states that: “In the case of traffic signs, the French inscription may be complemented or replaced by symbols or pictographs, and another language may be used where no symbol or pictograph exists that satisfies the requirements of health or public safety.”
Traffic signage, as well as electronic alerts or messages, such as “Respectez les feux de voies,” “Risque d’acquaplanage,” “Allumez vos phares” and “Ralentir” deal solely with public safety — everyone’s safety regardless of language — so why have the ministries abstained, and why are they continuing to abstain, from applying the second paragraph of Section 22 of the Charter?
Since the petition was deposited in the National Assembly, there has not been a single change dealing with public safety on any highway signage in and around the Island of Montreal — not one — and we highly doubt that any changes have taken place anywhere in the province. Where there is no pictogram, every single highway sign dealing with safety is still only in French. There has been no increase whatsoever in any pictograms dealing with the safety issue. In fact, about six weeks ago, while driving from Dorval to Montreal, there was an electronic sign advising motorists that there was fog in the area. I think we would all agree that a fog advisory is a safety issue and not merely information. So where was the English?
We are frustrated and taken aback that absolutely nothing has been done to improve the highway signage and messages as regards public safety since last March. In fact, nothing has been done since we initially communicated with the MTQ well over three years ago. The responses and excuses given then are the same responses and excuses given today. In a nutshell, our concerns were not even addressed; they were just simply ignored and swept under the rug, apparently in the hope that we will just go away.
It is very evident indeed that the Transport and Communications ministries and the Quebec Liberal Party are happy to see the least amount of English possible. So such being the case, if pictograms are feasible, great, let’s see those unilingual French safety signs converted into pictograms. If not, then the province should do the responsible thing, make the bold move and implement bilingual highway signage when it is a matter of safety. Is there really a belief that English signage dealing with everyone’s safety will threaten the French language? As Emmanuel Macron, the president of France said, “defending the French language does not mean refusing to speak other languages.”
It is interesting to note that on many highways in Ontario (and most probably other provinces as well), signage, whether for safety or information purposes, is in both English and French. It is very sad indeed that in Quebec, language still trumps safety. What a shame!
A majority Liberal government is in power, with a newly appointed minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, but it continues to treat the English language as non-existent or as a disease. Our concerns have nothing to do with language, they have all to do with everyone’s safety.
Harold Staviss is a Montreal attorney and Ruth Kovac is a Côte-St-Luc city councillor.
The following is a letter to the editor to the Suburban from District 6 resident Leslie Satenstein, my most notable commentor on this blog. Leslie makes the point that municipalities have a responsibility to safeguard the environment through strategic traffic planning (while ensuring pedestrian and motorist safety, no doubt).
I have written extensively about Fleet Road in this blog. Search “Fleet”.
For what seems a century, or at least since 1985 when I moved to Cote Saint Luc, I have had the annoyance and been angered at the number of Hampstead stop signs along VanHorne/Fleet.
Bringing a car to a “stop sign” emits brake pad and tire dust, Average acceleration of a vehicle from a stop sign consumes a quarter of a teaspoon of gasoline per vehicle.
Given the stop signs are for each direction, you can be assure that daily, several tens of gallons of spent gasoline are emitted into the air. We know the importance of fresh air. In this short strip of the route to the borders of Cote Saint Luc, Hampstead’s contribution is one of being a major co-polluter. I call Hampstead’s lack of a remedy, shameful.
One could say, “Big deal, Hampstead’s pollution is the cost of living in CSL” and Cote Saint Luc should cover any remedy costs. That is a consideration for cost sharing.
I look at the luxury homes built on either side of the stop signs, and you will note “the owners can’t use the front of the house, and they cannot leave open, a window for fresh air”. For the residents of those homes, use of the front of the house is limited to receive mail and the Suburban, and to provide access to the car garage, nothing more.
In my high-school years, I lived at a similar intersection. The tire-dust that would settle on the front stoop, on the front window ledges was substantial. Daily, if you swiped your hands across a “early morning cleaned” surface, you would find you palm coated with black tire-dust. During periods of bumper-to-bumper traffic, the smell of spent fuel was horrific.
Mayor Steinberg prides himself on technology. When is Hampstead going to invest, as did Town of Mount-Royal, on installing synchronized traffic lights. A vehicle that travels at a fixed speed and does not brake and accelerate emits much much less combined pollution.
I would be very very interested to know the health claims made by the and former residents living in proximity to those intersections. Start from the year 1985.
Emergencies come in all shapes and sizes. In Quebec, unpredictable weather is a fact of life that can have devastating effects on people and property. Then there are the man-made ones such as gas leaks, chemical spills, terror attacks and child abductions.
You’re either prepared for emergencies or you’re not. Simply put, we are not. At least, not as well as we could be.
Canadians currently receive emergency warnings through every major medium except cellphones. That might seem like a small piece of the puzzle, but cellphone alerts have become increasingly necessary to emergency preparedness in an age when so many people are cutting the cords of traditional media.
Today, 85 per cent of Canadian households have mobile phones while just under a third have cable subscriptions. Even without those figures, all you have to do is spend some time on a bus or in a coffee shop and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone not glued to their phone, tablet or laptop.
This points to the necessity of expanding public alerts to include cellphones, particularly with unpredictable weather patterns and natural disasters on the rise. Emergency management officials always point to early warning systems (EWS) as the best way to prevent loss of life. It’s not difficult to imagine how an alert on your cellphone in a time of emergency could save you, your family and friends or even total strangers.
It’s worth noting that Canada is not alone on this. At a May 24 meeting in Mexico, the United Nations Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction focused on the need to shift from managing disasters to managing the risks of disaster. That included not only making EWS more effective and efficient but also coordinating government and telecom efforts to ensure alerts are universal.
In April, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced it was giving telecom companies “approximately 12 months” to implement cellphone emergency alerting systems. My initial thoughts were: “It’s about time and I’ll believe it when I see it.” You see, we’ve been down this road before with the CRTC.
In 2004, the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence issued what was to be the first of many recommendations to establish a national public alerting system. In 2007, the committee adduced evidence from the CRTC’s Scott Hutton that a system featuring interruptive television alerts would be in place by 2009. He repeatedly undertook that if an alert system was not in place on a voluntary basis by 2009, the CRTC would take the necessary steps to put one in place.
But that deadline passed and Canadians had to wait another six years before the CRTC compelled broadcasters to create a national alert system. Even then, some broadcasters dragged their feet on meeting the deadline, and Bell Canada and others were still not fully compliant for several months.
Hence my skepticism about the CRTC’s latest pronouncement. Littered with the seeds of delay and obfuscation, it began with a supposedly firm deadline of next April 6, but then goes on to say that a number of kinks would need to be worked out before emergency alerts can begin. Then it ends by stating that “the Commission expects that this new capability will be available in approximately 12 months.”
Talk about a soft deadline.
The thing is, this isn’t exactly new technology. Smartphones have been in widespread use for more than a decade. The U.S. has had a cellphone alert system in place since 2013 as part of a matrix of alerting technology (cellphones, sirens, TV, radio).
I commend the CRTC for finally calling on telecom providers to get on board with cellphone alerts, but I’d sleep a little better if Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly put the full weight of her office behind the initiative too. Canadians lives may well depend on it.
Colin Kenny is former chair of the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.
Walking into Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem as part of the Maccabiah Games opening ceremony is very special for any athlete. Following your national flag, hearing the roar of the crowd, feeling the excitement of your fellow athletes who are sharing the moment with you, all combine to create a sense of exhilaration. Having experienced this before, in 2017 this feeling was not new to me. What was new, was that when I walked into the stadium this time, our Prime Minister’s video was playing on the big screen in the stadium and when he saluted the Canadian team, he mentioned me by name and wished me luck as his friend and colleague. As the stadium announcer said as we walked by, “that’s some pressure on Anthony with the Prime Minister singling him out.” As far as anyone seemed to know, I was the first Member of Parliament to seriously compete at the Maccabiah Games and I knew that not only were my friends and family and teammates paying attention to how I performed, but so were many others.
While the pressure was on, my enhanced visibility also gave me an incredible opportunity. Maccabiah always allows you to make many friends and have incredible conversations with people from around the world who are competing. But this time, lots more people approached me. Ordinary Israelis who saw me on the street in Tel Aviv, expatriate Canadians living in Israel, athletes and their families from many countries who wanted to better understand Canadian politics and policies. Many of their questions involved Canada’s position with respect to Israel.
I was pleased to let them know that I am one of a record 7 Jewish Liberal Members of the Canadian Parliament. All of us were elected for the first time in October 2015, when our leader Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister.
Prior to 2015 many Israelis had become aware that Canada under our former Prime Minister Stephen Harper had become perhaps Israel’s closest international ally. While I had a number of disagreements with our former Prime Minister on domestic policy, I strongly favoured his support for the Jewish state. So did many other Liberals. And as we had promised in the 2015 election campaign, we have shown uncompromising support for the State of Israel since our election.
Our government has maintained Canada’s votes at the United Nations. We join Israel, the United States, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands as the only countries to consistently oppose the unfair and systematic anti-Israel resolutions brought before the General Assembly each year. We have led the opposition to the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian State at international forums. We have adopted a Parliamentary resolution condemning the BDS movement and those groups in Canada supporting BDS. We have worked to enhance the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. Prime Minister Trudeau has visited Auschwitz and I was privileged to be part of the audience at the Montreal island’s largest synagogue last Yom Kippur as he spoke to over 2000 people about that experience and his visit to Israel for Shimon Peres’s funeral, on Kol Nidre night. In Canada, like the United States, support for Israel has become a bipartisan consensus supported by both Liberals and Conservatives. I strongly believe Israel should not be an election issue in our country. Jewish Canadians should be able to vote on other issues, with the firm knowledge that whichever of our country’s major parties wins the election, Canada will be firmly in Israel’s corner. Having had the privilege of meeting a number of members of Israel’s foreign service during this trip and others, I know that the Israeli Government is very pleased with its relationship with Canada. I will work hard, as will many of my colleagues, to continue to enhance this vital link.
When talking to fellow athletes and family members from other countries, I know their experience is very different. Whether it comes to security for the local Jewish community or the relationship between their nations and Israel, they have a very different life experience from me and my country’s Jewish community. I look forward to working as part of the World Jewish Congress’s International Conference of Jewish Parliamentarians to help Jewish communities in other countries advance these causes. Relationships I developed at these Games will be very helpful in this regard.
(Courtesy Anthony Housefather)
In the end, these Games were very successful. I trained really hard and I won five medals in swimming. Going home with these medals gave me a great sense of accomplishment and national pride. But the relationships I made during these Games were equally, if not more important. I know many of them will last a lifetime.
—
Anthony Housefather is a Canadian Member of Parliament, representing the Mount Royal riding on the island of Montreal. He is also Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights
Published in The Suburban, Mar 22, 2017
I want to express my gratitude to the Cote Des Neiges/NDG Borough Council, the Cote Saint-Luc City Council, The Town of Mount Royal town council and the Hampstead town council for their leadership on this important issue opposing the proposed electoral map changes. I join with them and our MNAs Pierre Arcand and David Birnbaum on a matter that negatively impacts the population I represent at the federal level as well as other minority communities in Quebec.
The Director General of Elections has produced a map that unfairly penalizes everyone living on the island of Montreal by eliminating a riding on the island while preserving rural ridings with much smaller populations. This means that a vote on the island is worth less than a vote in other parts of the province. The situation is exacerbated by the choice of ridings they are eliminating. The decision to eliminate the provincial riding of Mont-Royal effectively makes the most diverse riding in the province disappear. Its merger with Outremont creates a riding of almost 57,000 voters, approximately twice the population of the smallest rural riding. More importantly it disproportionately and negatively impacts English speaking cultural communities including but not limited to the Filipino and Bangladeshi communities who wielded important influence in Mont-Royal and now are split between D’Arcy McGee and the newly created Mont-Royal/Outremont riding. Perversely the size of the territory added to D’Arcy McGee now also makes that riding one of the most heavily populated ridings in the province and negatively impacts the Jewish community and the entire English speaking community whose voices are diluted by the added territory. This is not even to address the unfair split of the Hassidic community between the new Mont-Royal-Outremont and Mercier ridings and the unfair split of the Greek community in Laval.
Why natural communities, especially minority language and cultural communities were so disregarded in the new map proposed by the Quebec Director General of Elections is puzzling and somewhat shocking and I want to join my voice to those of my own constituents and others who are denouncing this in the strongest terms. As there appears to be no means other than a court challenge to undo the perverse and negative effects of the electoral map I want to congratulate Beryl Wajsman the editor of the Suburban newspaper who has been raising funds for such a challenge. I pledge to make a personal financial contribution to any such challenge and ask those who can afford to do so to join me in doing so. Our voices are not lost if we join together to fight.
Anthony Housefather,MP
N
Thank you to our ever-present Member of Parliament for taking a strong position and effectively communicating (as he always does) right across the region.
As a city councillor in Côte Saint-Luc, I always appreciate opportunities to work together with other elected officials in neighbouring municipalities. Such was the case on March 21 when the borough of Côte des Neiges-NDG spearheaded an energizing public meeting at their Community Centre to protest the senseless decision arrived by the Quebec Electoral Representation Commission. This unelected body, which answers to absolutely nobody, inexplicably reversed its February 7, 2017 second report on the electoral map that proposed to maintain the Mont Royal, Outremont and D’Arcy McGee ridings without any change. When the next provincial election takes place in October 2018, Mont Royal and Outremont will be merged and D’Arcy McGee unnecessarily larger in size.
Dida Berku and Ruth Kovac join other political leaders at the event.
Snowdon Councillor Marvin Rotrand and Suburban Newspaper editor Beryl Wajsman led the charge, first with a press conference and then with this impressive public meeting. Rotrand was joined at the head table by Borough Mayor Russell Copeman, Hampstead Mayor William Steinberg, TMR Councillor Erin Kennedy (representing Mayor Philippe Roy), CSL Councillor Ruth Kovac (representing Mayor Mitchell Brownstein) and Outremont Councillor Mindy Pollak (representing Mayor Marie Cinq Mars) English Montreal School Board Chairman Angela Mancini spoke, with Vice Chair Sylvia Lo Bianco, Commissioner Julien Feldman and Parent Commissioner Joanne Charron in attendance. Allan J. Levine, Dida Berku and I were the other CSL councillors on hand. I saw several of my constituents.
If the Electoral Map had been adopted by Members of the National Assembly, I am certain that the passion and clear facts set out at this meeting would have resulted in an about face. Regrettably, there is nothing elected officials seem to be able to do. In fact, Mont Royal and Outremont are represented by cabinet ministers Pierre Arcand and Helene David. One of them will have to find a new place to run or retire.
I spoke to lawyer Peter Villani after the meeting and we both agreed that the Electoral Representation Commission still has an opportunity to correct this terrible wrong, admit it made a mistake and allow the status quo to prevail.
It was standing room only at the event.
The room was packed, something which elated fireball Rotrand. “The large attendance we witnessed speaks to the public interest in opposing the loss of representation that our communities will suffer if the map decreed by the Electoral Representation Commission stands,” he said. “The meeting essentially came together in a very short time so I believe the turnout reflects a broad consensus in our part of the island.”
Now unless the Commission shows some class, this decision will have to be fought in court and initiated by citizens. Ideally, an injunction can be sought. Wajsman has taken the lead by collecting funds for an eventual contestation and former NDG-Lachine Liberal Member of Parliament Marlene Jennings stepped forward to set up a blue ribbon panel. Jennings was chosen by the Quebec English School Boards Association to do the same when the provincial government tried to push through Bill 86 – aimed at abolishing elected school commissioners. The government backed off and they did so because they answer to the public; the Electoral Representation Commission simply marches to the beat of its own drum.
Each of the boroughs and municipal councils in the area has or will soon adopt a motion in opposition to the electoral map. All feel that the Commission’s map will mean a serious loss of representation for their citizens, lacks respect for natural communities and does not provide the effective representation that the electoral law indicates must be the basis of any final decision.
The mayors have shared a legal decision written last September by Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens, Dean of the University of Montreal Law School, which indicated that the Commission’s proposal of 2015 to merge Mont Royal and Outremont and change D’Arcy McGee was highly questionable. As the Commission’s final decision has reverted to the 2015 plan, the mayors feel the Commission’s proposal will not stand up to a legal challenge.
“We are strongly concerned about the diminished political weight of the island of Montreal,” said Copeman, a former Liberal MNA for NDG. “Our political weight has been reduced in every riding redistribution since 1992 which merged Westmount and Saint-Louis. We have lost four ridings over the decades.
“The merger of Mont-Royal and Outremont creates a very large riding which is expected to see robust demographic growth over the next five years which we anticipate will take it over the legal maximum number of voters allowed by the electoral law.”
The Commission proposes to maintain 125 electoral ridings in the National Assembly with the average number of voters being 48,952 per riding. The electoral law allows ridings to be as much as 25 percent more or less than the average, a maximum of 61,190 or a minimum of 36,714 voters. This legal disparity of up to 24,476 voters or up to a 69 percent legal difference of voters per riding gives some voters in Quebec far more power than others.
While the mayors believe such a disparity in number of voters per riding should only be allowed in the rarest cases, there are many examples in the map of small ridings in the 37,000 to 40,000 range while many others approach the upper limits. Ridings like Duplessis, Dubuc, Rousseau, Megantic and Nicolet-Betancour all have far fewer voters than Montreal ridings such as Nelligan, Saint Laurent, Robert Baldwin or the new D’Arcy McGee or merged Mont Royal – Outremont which have between 55,000 and 59,000 voters each.
“Worse of all is that the Commission proposes six ridings that are exceptions to the law beyond the Iles de la Madeleine, the only exception the law actually permits,” says Mayor Brownstein. “These ridings including Abitibi-Est, Abitibi Ouest, Bonaventure, Gaspe, René Levesque and Ungava have between 26.8 and 44 percent fewer voters than the electoral map average and are below the legal minimum of voters. How do we explain to voters that D’Arcy McGee will now have boundaries that will no longer resemble its historic territory and have 56,245 voters while Gaspe, a riding that will have fewer voters in 2018 than at the 2014 elections, will have a Member of the National Assembly with only 30,048 electors?”
The mayors note that the new map cuts the large Filipino community that had real clout in Mont Royal in half with a large part of the community residing west of Côte des Neiges Road shifted to D’Arcy McGee. The large Orthodox Jewish community in the former Outremont riding is also diluted with those living east of Hutchinson moved into Mercier.
Councillor Kovac presented a strong statement from Mayor Brownstein at the public meeting. Natural communities should be kept together in order to give minority groups a stronger voice,” she said. And yet helping natural communities is not what has happened in the commission’s report. We have the worst of both worlds – they are removing representation from the island of Montreal, making ridings bigger, and breaking apart natural communities. Maybe we don’t need the exact same strict equality rules as they have in the United States. But can we at least apply the same fairness as they have Macedonia, or Yemen, or Belarus?
“When you increase the size of a riding like D’Arcy McGee, you weaken the voice of its natural communities. Allophones, Anglophones, Italian, Filipino, Jewish communities and others will no longer have as strong representation as they did when the riding of D’Arcy McGee was of a reasonable size. Further Mount Royal brought one more vote to the National Assembly for these communities and other minority communities. As the largest city in Quebec continues to grow its voice should not be weakened. It’s up to Quebecers to raise our voices, open their wallets, and help challenge in court decisions that hurt our community. I sincerely hope the Commission reverses its decision without the need for a legal challenge.”
N
I agree completely with my esteemed colleague and friend Cllr. Mike Cohen in this excellent resume of this past week’s meeting over local electoral reform. We must not remain silent in the face of this injustice to our linguistic and cultural communities. Thank you to our local elected officials for speaking up on our behalf, spearheaded by Cllr. Marvin Rotrand and supported by editor Beryl Wajsman.
As we continue to dig out from the biggest snow storm the Montreal area has seen in years, I would like to applaud the work done by the City of Côte Saint-Luc`s Public Works Department.
I have received a great deal of kind comments from residents in regards to how well we handled the snow clearing. In fact, most of the Montreal media praised the work we did on the main roads. Please understand that this is a very difficult task and I was among the motorists on the Thursday morning stuck trying to get past the underpass on Cavendish. It was unavoidable and inconvenient, but later in the day all cleared up
“It was an emotional day for many residents,” Public Works Director Beatrice Newman reported to city council. “Please help us help your residents understand why things appear to be a certain way while in the background, the city is working fervently to provide safe passage-ways in the city.”
The light on Guelph Road broke Thursday morning and stayed green. This meant that Westminster stayed on a red light. Traffic began to build up, employees rushed to help traffic. Public Security directed traffic and electricians worked on determining and fixing the light. “Things like this happens when there are drastic changes in weather,” Ms. Newman said.
Cavendish Boulevard was congested, southbound. Our snow removal operations provided clear roads for our residents, but unfortunately once they hit CSL Road and Cavendish, they were faced with congestion. NDG kept their side of Cavendish at one lane. Therefore, our three lanes had to squeeze into their one lane. “Et voilà, major traffic accumulation on Cavendish and CSL,” Ms. Newman explained.
Fleet was at one lane from our city right through Hampstead. The objective at first is to clear the road with one lane for access. Then approximately 24 hours later, the blowing began. “We cannot start our operations earlier in the morning or traffic issues would be inevitable,” said Ms. Newman. “Only one lane would still be available in this case. We must consider the safety concerns first. This was not a regular snow storm. This was a blizzard with white out conditions, dangerous road conditions and more. We must have patience. Close to 40 centimeters fell and the process to remove it all will not be quick, we must work efficientlyand safely.”
We had five teams working all day Thursday, five sidewalk cleaners, five loader/blowers, five 10 wheelers, five walkers and two salt trucks remained to follow the contractors as they salted the roads once the contractor blew the snow. Once snow falls on the asphalt we secure it with abrasives.
Our snow dump after the storm.
Two teams worked at the municipal buildings and one worked on our special calls such as snow blown accidentally on personal walkways, emptying public garbage, etc. One employee was stationed at the snow dump on Marc Chagall in District 2, which now looks like an Olympic ski hill.
The balance of the areas around Yavne, Merton and Maimonides schools were done on Friday.
We are working hard to do our best in operations and customer service.
“In Public Security, our agents have seen their call volume go up by a factor of 2.5,” explained Public Safety Director Jordy Reichson. “Our agents have responded with professionalism and tact despite trying circumstances, horrible road conditions and lots and lots of snow. They have always kept the safety of our residents at the forefront and I have been impressed by their ingenuity and dedication.
“Our Dispatch Centre has been flooded with calls and complaints about everything from traffic to snow removal to cars blocking driveways. Despite being screamed and sworn at, they have maintained their composure and professionalism.”
Mr. Reichson noted that while we did not activate our emergency plan, we kept it close at hand. We ensured that our evacuation routes remained as accessible as possible and were prepared to activate elements of the plan as required. “Despite what some residents have posted online, our response has been as strong and efficient as it can be,” he said. “ This was not just another storm, but rather an opportunity for our employees to shine and from what I have seen, all have risen to the occasion.
I’ve said it many times before on this blog. Leave the clocks alone! We’re back on Daylight Savings Time where it should be. All the time.
Meanwhile, thanks to Joel Goldenberg who came across this Washington Examiner article published earlier this week that says what I’ve been saying for years: Don’t touch that clock. Actually, this piece argues from the perspective of staying on standard time, all the time. But what it really means, to me, is just pick one, only one, and leave it be.
Studies “have found that the time change interrupts sleep cycles, causing fatigue, lack of productivity and sadness,” the article added. Even worse, medical studies showed that daylight saving time also can lead to death. “Other studies show that the number of heart attacks spikes in the days following the March time change, and after the November time change, the frequency of heart attacks decreases,” the article reads.
So come on Canada. Let’s stay on DST.
Do you agree with me? Please share your comments here.
Search Daylight Savings Time to see my blog posts on this subject.
Nashen Notes 
Recent Comments