Louise Harel, who is one of the two major candidates in the November 1st Montreal mayoralty election, the other being two time mayor Gérald Tremblay, has decided that she is not comfortable enough in the language of 12 per cent of the population of Montreal, English, and the language preferred by the 20 per cent of the city that are cheerfully referred to as allophones, English, so she will not debate Mayor Tremblay on CTV Montreal.
The Montreal Gazette rolls with that news on its front page this morning informing all that the half-hour debate would have taken place Oct. 25, a week before the Nov. 1 vote, and Ms. Harel, a former Parti Quebecois minister, had been offered any combination of simultaneous translation. Not good enough.
Ms. Harel was the minister of municipal affairs who forced amalgamation in communities like Hull/Aylmer/Gatineau and in Montreal and and her track record indicates that she doesn't listen to others' opinions unless they agree with her.
She has selected out the 12 per cent anglo vote and the 20 per cent allophone vote but is crushing the incumbent among the 68 per cent of Montrealers who are francophones.
WFDS
Showing posts with label Gatineau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gatineau. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
876...Environment Canada Still Clued Out
One of the biggest purchasers of bottle water is Environment Canada.
Joe Cressy, the head of the Polaris Institute, is quoted by Glen McGregor in today's Ottawa Citizen as saying "The government of Canada has an absolutely appalling practice of spending millions of dollars on a wasteful product instead of investing in a long-term alternative, the public tap. The government of Canada is pouring money literally down the drain."
I can testify that the tap water in Ottawa is quite tasty; meme chose a Gatineau.
WFDS
Joe Cressy, the head of the Polaris Institute, is quoted by Glen McGregor in today's Ottawa Citizen as saying "The government of Canada has an absolutely appalling practice of spending millions of dollars on a wasteful product instead of investing in a long-term alternative, the public tap. The government of Canada is pouring money literally down the drain."
I can testify that the tap water in Ottawa is quite tasty; meme chose a Gatineau.
WFDS
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
808...Ottawa Citizen Public Service
The paper of record in our Canadian capital, the Ottawa Citizen, strives to not only inform and entertain the citizen's of Ottawa, Gatineau and the world through the web but also strives to serve the community.
Its level of service reached its epoch on Labour Day when the OC ran a story on the frontpage that showed all of us how to get fake identity cards, you know, fake driver's license's, health cards, whatever. They even provided, in headline form, a page capture of the service, ID Copy, and its website, id-copy.com.
A lot of underage drinkers may not have known how to get fake ID until the Ottawa Citizen did this valuable, no, invaluable service. Brings tears to my eyes.
Do I smell a Pulitzer Prize?
WFDS
Its level of service reached its epoch on Labour Day when the OC ran a story on the frontpage that showed all of us how to get fake identity cards, you know, fake driver's license's, health cards, whatever. They even provided, in headline form, a page capture of the service, ID Copy, and its website, id-copy.com.
A lot of underage drinkers may not have known how to get fake ID until the Ottawa Citizen did this valuable, no, invaluable service. Brings tears to my eyes.
Do I smell a Pulitzer Prize?
WFDS
Sunday, August 23, 2009
718...Did You Know Canada Is At War?
And in a recession?
There is also a lot of other funky stuff going down, homelessness, a bit of crime, archaic drug laws that criminalize non criminals, the lack of a CFL team in Ottawa.
All this pales of course when one thinks of la cause celebre Dany Heatley in our National Capital.
Mr. Heatley is on the front page of both of the Anglo papers in Ottawa, The Sun and The Citizen and, perhaps, I don't live in a francophone area, on the front of Le Droit.
In case you don't know, Mr. Heatley is a hockey player for the Ottawa Senators but he doesn't care for his new coach [read: boss] and has had enough of living in Ottawa, working for the Senators and wants to be transferred elsewhere. From the reaction of Joe Fan, who doesn't know better and muckty mucks like Barry McWhat'sHisName, Mayor Larry's spin doctor, one would think Mr. Heatley is some kind of devil, er, demon.
Think it through folks. First off, he is a hockey player, an entertainer. Two, have you ever had a job you di'nt like, a boss you di'nt like? This seems to be the case with Mr. Heatley.
Doesn't like his new boss, is bored with the town, wants to move.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Get a grip Ottawa. Gatineau. Eastern Ontario. Western Quebec.
WFDS
There is also a lot of other funky stuff going down, homelessness, a bit of crime, archaic drug laws that criminalize non criminals, the lack of a CFL team in Ottawa.
All this pales of course when one thinks of la cause celebre Dany Heatley in our National Capital.
Mr. Heatley is on the front page of both of the Anglo papers in Ottawa, The Sun and The Citizen and, perhaps, I don't live in a francophone area, on the front of Le Droit.
In case you don't know, Mr. Heatley is a hockey player for the Ottawa Senators but he doesn't care for his new coach [read: boss] and has had enough of living in Ottawa, working for the Senators and wants to be transferred elsewhere. From the reaction of Joe Fan, who doesn't know better and muckty mucks like Barry McWhat'sHisName, Mayor Larry's spin doctor, one would think Mr. Heatley is some kind of devil, er, demon.
Think it through folks. First off, he is a hockey player, an entertainer. Two, have you ever had a job you di'nt like, a boss you di'nt like? This seems to be the case with Mr. Heatley.
Doesn't like his new boss, is bored with the town, wants to move.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Get a grip Ottawa. Gatineau. Eastern Ontario. Western Quebec.
WFDS
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
698...Quebec Cash Grab
It did not meet the smell test in either British Columbia or Ontario but it is a nice way to grab cash so of course Quebec has decided to make their pilot project on the use of photo radar/cash machine a go.
For residents of the National Capital it is a good news/bad news story: The Ottawa Citizen, which serves Gatineau, the third largest market in Quebec, is running a story from CanWest News Service that indicates that the province has 15 of the little buggers but that none of them are in Gatineau.
Six of the Kodak's are on the Island of Montreal and the greatest in terms of potential revenue is on the Decarie Expressway at the Ville Marie Expressway where out of about 5,001 warning letters taken because of snapshots taken during the trial period fully 2,744 were taken on the southbound part of the Decarie, just past Atwater where it merges with the Ville Marie.
The speed limit on the Decarie is 70 km/hr. If you are familiar with the Decarie, driving 70 km/hr is an invitation to die.
WFDS
For residents of the National Capital it is a good news/bad news story: The Ottawa Citizen, which serves Gatineau, the third largest market in Quebec, is running a story from CanWest News Service that indicates that the province has 15 of the little buggers but that none of them are in Gatineau.
Six of the Kodak's are on the Island of Montreal and the greatest in terms of potential revenue is on the Decarie Expressway at the Ville Marie Expressway where out of about 5,001 warning letters taken because of snapshots taken during the trial period fully 2,744 were taken on the southbound part of the Decarie, just past Atwater where it merges with the Ville Marie.
The speed limit on the Decarie is 70 km/hr. If you are familiar with the Decarie, driving 70 km/hr is an invitation to die.
WFDS
Saturday, August 15, 2009
675...Breaking Into Jail
Not done often but it has now been done. Tuesday night in Gatineau, the town across the river from Ottawa, a city well known for cheap beer, strippers and cheap beer, a 20 year old man showed up at the Hull detachment on De La Carriere looking for a place to spend the night.
The sergeant on duty explained the Gatineau police are not hoteliers and referred him to community resources.
Not good enough for buddy; he left the station and proceeded to smash the windows of the station. Problem solved re sleeping indoors: the cops arrested the fool for vandalism and he appeared in court Wednesday.
Only in La Belle Province where the unthinkable happens on a regular basis.
WFDS
The sergeant on duty explained the Gatineau police are not hoteliers and referred him to community resources.
Not good enough for buddy; he left the station and proceeded to smash the windows of the station. Problem solved re sleeping indoors: the cops arrested the fool for vandalism and he appeared in court Wednesday.
Only in La Belle Province where the unthinkable happens on a regular basis.
WFDS
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
358...Liquor Stores In Ontario Set To Strike
I live on the border, a 30 minute round trip from the liquor store in La Belle Ville de Gatineau [secteur Hull] so this doesn't really affect me but if you live in the centre of the province and you are friendly with Prince Igor, Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker, you may want to make your way to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario today because tonight, at midnight, they are going to be struck.
The issue, amazingly, is money. More to the point the Union wants less part time, lower paid workers and more full time employees who get more money and more benefits.
If the 6 or 7 thousand workers strike 800 managers will attempt to take up the slack which won't be easy going into this triple holiday [Jean Baptiste, Canada Day, July 4th] period.
WFDS
The issue, amazingly, is money. More to the point the Union wants less part time, lower paid workers and more full time employees who get more money and more benefits.
If the 6 or 7 thousand workers strike 800 managers will attempt to take up the slack which won't be easy going into this triple holiday [Jean Baptiste, Canada Day, July 4th] period.
WFDS
Monday, March 9, 2009
24...Americans are smarter than we are, Part 3
At least when it comes to local TV.
To get you up to speed on this, last week CTV decided that they couldn't make money with the number one TV station, A Channel Windsor, in a market of about .25 million adults 12 plus, directly adjacent to a market of 3.8 million 12 plus, Detroit. They also claim they cannot make money with other properties including the only locally licensed stations in Wingham, London, and Pembroke, Ontario. The Pembroke station has profile as a local station, repeater and all, in Ottawa/Gatineau, the number four market in Canada with a metro of about 1.0 million adults and London is a top ten market of about 400 K, 12 plus.
E!, an arm of Global, claims it cannot make money with its Hamilton station, which has repeaters all over Ontario and is ensconced in Canada's number nine market, with a 12 plus population of over half a million, a population that makes it a top 100 market in North America and so on and so and so on.
How is this so?
How can you lose money in a business that is, to quote the first Lord Thomson of Fleet, a license to print money?
Especially when you have the only game in town in a lot of towns.
Get out your clicker and play along with me.
They get greedy, they do and try to cut costs by getting rid of local programming. Contrast what Canadian stations do to what the stations in Detroit do. Local 4 and 7WXYZ and FOX2 run like a zillion hours a day of local news and make bags of money off it and it is the same in virtually every market in the States. I ask you this: how do you make more money out of your store if you close it? And when you watch the local news it is L O C A L or localized. In a lot of respects we are such a backwards nation. If the airwaves are public and TV stations are the servants of the people isn't tons of local content the way to go?
Most stations in the US are privately owned affiliates of networks, for example, CBS has 200 plus affiliates but only owns and operates 16 sticks; they pay the affiliates to run their programming, but have to be sensitive to the wants and needs of the Heartland and Dixie and the Northwest and and and so, unlike a lot of the Toronto centric CanCon crap that we try to force fee the populace [remote please] they are market driven, driven to serve their markets.
TV and radio is about getting stories out; the fact is there are not enough stations in this country. Just look across the water from Kingston, is Watertown, New York, 90 000 people 12 plus, about 2/3 the size of Kingston but, snap: 12 commercial radio stations, 5 TV stations. Kingston, one local TV station and like six or seven local radios. Heck, good old battered steel town, Hamilton, seven times the size and yet only 1 TV station, which, because of greed, instead of dominating Hamilton and making bags of money, is trying to be everything everywhere in Ontario [remember ON TV?] and ends up being a non factor everywhere. Where are the local stories being told?
When you watch Detroit, Watertown, Buffalo local TV, you see local stories and local ads. Little guys are shut out in Canada; it is go big or fold up thy tent.
Back to my fave story: A Channel in Windsor is the number one station in Essex County, which, if cleaved off from Detroit would be the about the 110th biggest market in North America and when combined with Detroit is the 10th or 11th and they cannot figure out how to make money with the number one station in a town that size? Oy vey, what about these things called commercials? Or, infomercials?
You have to spend money to make money; there are larger on air staffs in the Motor City and that talent in Detroit is making exponentially more money than talent in Toronto. T.O. is a much bigger market, but less competitive and less money and less money and less competition means less talented talent. You have the internet; listen to Toronto radio personalities and compare them to those down the 401 in Detroit. You get what you pay for.
The big danger for Canada is that TV is a reflection of the people who are consuming it; when I watch Detroit/Seattle/Buffalo TV I see those towns reflected in the local news, which is L O C A L; when I see Canadian TV it is a reflection of Toronto and how people from the Big Smoke perceive the rest of the country.
WFDS
To get you up to speed on this, last week CTV decided that they couldn't make money with the number one TV station, A Channel Windsor, in a market of about .25 million adults 12 plus, directly adjacent to a market of 3.8 million 12 plus, Detroit. They also claim they cannot make money with other properties including the only locally licensed stations in Wingham, London, and Pembroke, Ontario. The Pembroke station has profile as a local station, repeater and all, in Ottawa/Gatineau, the number four market in Canada with a metro of about 1.0 million adults and London is a top ten market of about 400 K, 12 plus.
E!, an arm of Global, claims it cannot make money with its Hamilton station, which has repeaters all over Ontario and is ensconced in Canada's number nine market, with a 12 plus population of over half a million, a population that makes it a top 100 market in North America and so on and so and so on.
How is this so?
How can you lose money in a business that is, to quote the first Lord Thomson of Fleet, a license to print money?
Especially when you have the only game in town in a lot of towns.
Get out your clicker and play along with me.
They get greedy, they do and try to cut costs by getting rid of local programming. Contrast what Canadian stations do to what the stations in Detroit do. Local 4 and 7WXYZ and FOX2 run like a zillion hours a day of local news and make bags of money off it and it is the same in virtually every market in the States. I ask you this: how do you make more money out of your store if you close it? And when you watch the local news it is L O C A L or localized. In a lot of respects we are such a backwards nation. If the airwaves are public and TV stations are the servants of the people isn't tons of local content the way to go?
Most stations in the US are privately owned affiliates of networks, for example, CBS has 200 plus affiliates but only owns and operates 16 sticks; they pay the affiliates to run their programming, but have to be sensitive to the wants and needs of the Heartland and Dixie and the Northwest and and and so, unlike a lot of the Toronto centric CanCon crap that we try to force fee the populace [remote please] they are market driven, driven to serve their markets.
TV and radio is about getting stories out; the fact is there are not enough stations in this country. Just look across the water from Kingston, is Watertown, New York, 90 000 people 12 plus, about 2/3 the size of Kingston but, snap: 12 commercial radio stations, 5 TV stations. Kingston, one local TV station and like six or seven local radios. Heck, good old battered steel town, Hamilton, seven times the size and yet only 1 TV station, which, because of greed, instead of dominating Hamilton and making bags of money, is trying to be everything everywhere in Ontario [remember ON TV?] and ends up being a non factor everywhere. Where are the local stories being told?
When you watch Detroit, Watertown, Buffalo local TV, you see local stories and local ads. Little guys are shut out in Canada; it is go big or fold up thy tent.
Back to my fave story: A Channel in Windsor is the number one station in Essex County, which, if cleaved off from Detroit would be the about the 110th biggest market in North America and when combined with Detroit is the 10th or 11th and they cannot figure out how to make money with the number one station in a town that size? Oy vey, what about these things called commercials? Or, infomercials?
You have to spend money to make money; there are larger on air staffs in the Motor City and that talent in Detroit is making exponentially more money than talent in Toronto. T.O. is a much bigger market, but less competitive and less money and less money and less competition means less talented talent. You have the internet; listen to Toronto radio personalities and compare them to those down the 401 in Detroit. You get what you pay for.
The big danger for Canada is that TV is a reflection of the people who are consuming it; when I watch Detroit/Seattle/Buffalo TV I see those towns reflected in the local news, which is L O C A L; when I see Canadian TV it is a reflection of Toronto and how people from the Big Smoke perceive the rest of the country.
WFDS
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