METROPOLITAN NEWS: Andy Riga
One lonely anglo, AMT cutbacks and $5,000 parasols
It’s amazing what you can find when you dig into a government document. The 2010-2011 annual report of the Office québécoise de la langue française indicates the province’s language watchdog has ... an anglophone employee. One. That’s down from two in 2009-2010 and three in 2008-2009. The OQLF keeps track of this tidbit as part of a policy that encourages the hiring of more civil servants who are anglophone, native, handicapped or from cultural communities. The agency’s goal: to hire 25 per cent of new staff from these communities every year. In 2010-2011, only 14 per cent of new staff (six employees) were from these groups; none were anglophones and none were hired as permanent staff. I posted the OQLF’S annual report on my Scribd page (scribd.com/ andyriga). What’s life like for an anglophone working at an agency that’s reviled by many in the anglo community? If you’re an anglophone and you have worked at the OQLF, I would love to hear/tell your story. Email me at ariga@montrealgazette.com. Montreal’s train authority has cancelled the summer train day trips it has been organizing since 2001, Gazette colleague René Bruemmer learned while doing research for The Gazette’s Short Hops travel series. Last year, the Agence métropolitaine de transport organized 19 train excursions that took suburbanites to Montreal destinations and Montrealers to the region’s outskirts. Out-of-town trips last year focused on wine-tasting, garden tours and visits to the Canadian Railway Museum on the South Shore, among other things. This year, the AMT has cut back to three destinations in the spring and fall – spring cabane-à-sucre trips, and, in the fall, apple-picking and pumpkin-picking excursions. An AMT spokesperson said the agency is focusing on the most popular routes but she would not explain why the other trips were cancelled. I have posted some Transport Quebec videos showing simulations of what the new Turcot Interchange will look like when (if?) it’s completed. There’s an aerial tour, and two videos that show, from a driver’s perspective, what it will be like to drive from Highway 20 east to the Décarie Expressway north, and along Highway 15 north from de la Vérendrye Blvd. Last week, a Youtube video of a boy being beaten up at Westwood Senior High School in Hudson made headlines. I happened upon another disturbing video showing what appears to be a teen fight in a Mcdonald’s somewhere in Montreal. On Youtube, search: Montreal Mcdonald Girls Fight In an exposé on the spending tendencies at the Old Port of Montreal Corp., the Journal de Montréal this week disclosed that the parasols installed at the Old Port beach that is to open in June cost $5,000 apiece. This may explain why the Old Port plans to charge an entry fee at the beach. The fact that Ontario has a better road-safety record than us came up this week when Quebec unveiled its 2011 road-death statistics. In an email, reader Lionel Albert brought up a good point: “Ontario has much better roads than Quebec; not just the freeways where the expen- sive widenings were not to add an extra lane but to provide very wide shoulders on both sides but also the county roads – two lanes but with generous shoulders.” Heritage Montreal’s annual fundraising campaign is on. The private non-proft organization is offering those who donate more than $100 by May 31 the chance to win an original limited edition silkscreen print. The print, by artist Miyuki Tanobe, is titled C’est mai, voici le mois de mai (Bonheur d’occasion). Last year, Heritage Montreal raised $18,000. This year’s goal: $30,000. For more info (including a photo of the print), visit heritagemontreal.org.