.I hope you all had a happy halloween,.............next stop Remembrance Day
THANKS for stopping by, I do my best to acknowledge when someone leaves a comment,you do not have to be a member here & everyone is welcome. Ps: This site is monitored but not actively posting on a regular basis. Mostly these are stories & some photos saved from a defunct site known as Verdun Connections which was on MSN Groups initially then on a social network called Multiply.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Hope you Had a Happy Halloween
.I hope you all had a happy halloween,.............next stop Remembrance Day
Turcot Train claims 3 'artists' ------?
MONTREAL - Three teenage boys were killed when they were hit by a train under the Turcot Interchange about 3 a.m. Sunday.
Two died at the scene, near the intersection of Notre Dame St. and Place Turcot, Montreal police Constable Anie Lemieux said.
A third was rushed to a hospital but died of his injuries.
Two other men, also in the same age range, were taken to a hospital to be treated for shock.
Montreal police Constable Danny Richer said the young men may have been at the scene to inscribe graffiti on a Transport Quebec building or on the Interchange itself.
It is possible they did not see or hear the train coming, he said, as the sound of trains at that spot is muffled by the surrounding concrete structures of the Interchange.
The train was a Via Rail train arriving from Toronto. Following the collision, the estimated 45 passengers on board were transported by bus to Central Station.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Is believing in Ghosts a Slippery Slope ? Maybe in this case....
Archaeologists with the city of Montreal have been begun excavating the site of Simon McTavish’s mausoleum, which sits in a quiet, wooded section of Mount Royal just below the main path, Olmsted Rd., and north of Peel St. Once an imposing structure topped by a six-storey-high stone column, the city destroyed it and covered it in rubble in the 1870s to deter grave robbers and quell recurrent tales of a ghost that was terrorizing the mountain.
For 140 years, it worked, said Donovan King, an amateur historian who is writing a book about McTavish and hosts haunted tours of the city through Montreal Ghosts.
“There was no more grave robbing, and the memory of his ghost faded from the public consciousness – until now as we try to resurrect the story. Archaeologists are digging, and even though it’s been dormant for 140 years, people are becoming more interested. ...
“As you know from horror movies and ghost stories, the moment you crack open the tomb, there’s a chance of the ghost re-emerging.”
Archaeologists working the site yesterday, who had already uncovered the former monument bearing the words “Sacred to the Memory of Simon McTavish Esquire,” said there had been no sign of McTavish’s spirit. Yet. They don’t work nights, however.
They referred media questions to the city’s spokespeople, who were not able to answer questions from The Gazette yesterday, perhaps wary of the negative publicity unleashing the unholy fury of a raging phantasm on an unsuspecting public could incur. Officials called later to say they were doing exploratory work finishing up today to determine if there’s something else that could be done to honour McTavish.
Descendants of McTavish and local activists have long complained his memory has been treated poorly, nothing but a small stone monument on the mountain and his name on a downtown street left to commemorate a man who was once the wealthiest and among the most influential in the city.
McTavish came to Montreal from Scotland at the age of 25 and founded the North West Co., amassing his fortune mainly with the export of furs, in direct competition with the Hudson’s Bay Co. He started to build his McTavish Castle, two storeys high and overlooking the 9,000 inhabitants of the city below, on the side of Mount Royal in 1800, with the family tomb located slightly up the hill. But in 1804 he fell sick and died at the age of 54, likely of pneumonia. The Castle walls and roof were already built, but McTavish’s young French-Canadian bride quickly remarried and departed for England with their four children, and the castle was boarded up, “leaving Simon McTavish’s earthly remains abandoned, betrayed and locked in a mausoleum,” King writes.
McTavish would not stay locked up for long. As years passed, he was seen dancing on the roof of his house, flitting in and out of windows and taking the occasional moonlit toboggan ride in his coffin.
The city finally tore down his home in 1861. During the work, a construction worker fell three storeys and died. It was said he was pushed by the ghost of McTavish, exacting revenge for destroying his dream home. About a decade later, the mausoleum was torn down and covered, and McTavish faded away, King said.
Now, his tomb is being unearthed. And King thinks that would suit McTavish just fine.
“I think he would be pleased, because his ghost hasn’t been sighted in 150 years,” he said. “When they buried that mausoleum, they buried the spirit with it.”
----------------------------------------------------------HF&RV, Cheers
Sunday, October 24, 2010
YMCA Swimming Pool
I thought I would try out my new camera and took randomly this photo of a group of swimmers at the YMCA pool. The photo appreared in The Guardian dated April 29th 1948. Unfortunately, my flash was not on thus the poor results. This was one of my regular activities in the 40s as the "Y" was just around the corner from my home. To the right of the "Y" was a field where we played baseball in the summer and there was a skating rink where we played hockey in the winter.
I am also including an old photo of the "Y" and a recent one I took of the residential complex that replaced it.
Are there any members that remember that YMCA at 1000 Gordon street wich was between Bannantyne and the aqueduct (Champlain Blvd did not exhist in the 40s).
Guy
Source: ARCHIVES SHGV
Please check out my Album no. 21 for more photos on the "Y".
Verdun tallies another Murder
Seems Verdun has been busy this year, Isn't this the 3 or 4th murder this year in Verdun ? Friday afternoon they chalkeds up another one....
MONTREAL - Police have now confirmed the death of a 31-year-old man in Verdun on Friday afternoon was a homicide, bringing the total number of killings in the city this year to 33.
Major crimes investigators were called in after the unidentified man's body was found just before 3 p.m. in an apartment on Bannantyne St., very close to the intersection of Hickson St. Neighbours told media the apartment was inhabited by two men who could often be heard fighting.
According to Montreal police Constable Anie Lemieux, police arrested one male suspect in connection with the death shortly after arriving at the residence.
"He called police to confess, according to what we have been told," Lemieux said.
The man appeared in a Montreal courtroom on Saturday afternoon to face a single charge of second-degree murder, police said. He is expected to return to court on Oct. 26.
.HF&RV.....................................
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Happy Days ----------maybe not ,at least not for Tom Bosley
LOS ANGELES — Actor Tom Bosley, whose career spanned five decades and included his role as the father of a typical American family on popular 1970s TV comedy "Happy Days," has died at 83, according to media reports on Tuesday.
Celebrity news website TMZ cited family members as saying Bosley died at his home in Palm Springs, California and recently he had been battling a staph infection.
A spokesman for Bosley was not immediately available for confirmation.
Bosley’s everyday manner and looks helped him forge a career in Hollywood as a character actor and guest star in a number of popular 1960s television shows such as "Route 66," "Dr. Kildare," "Marcus Welby, M.D." and "Bonanza."
"Happy Days" ran from 1974 to 1984 and was a smash hit series that made Henry Winkler (Fonzie) a major Hollywood star and sparked the adult success of Ron Howard, who played Richie and would later go on to a career as a film director.
When the show ended, Bosley returned to character work on TV with roles in numerous popular series such as "The Love Boat" and "Murder, She Wrote." He continued working well into the 2000s with parts in series such as "That ’70s Show."
Did you know ? The origins of the 3 stars selection at hockey games ?
It began in 1936 as a clever way to advertise Imperial Oil's Three Star gasoline, a product that would cost you 191/2 cents per gallon -4.3 cents per litre in a metric system whose use at the pumps was nearly a half-century in the future.
Through 70-plus subsequent years, it grew into something for which many fans remained in the Forum or the Bell Centre after the final siren, something they'd even debate with a "what game was he watching?" scratch of the head.
And now, in this generation of corporate partnership and interactivity with consumers, the Canadiens have placed the postgame three-star selection at the fingertips of their fans. That is, those with a smart phone and/or computer sign-on.
Since the feature's introduction to the NHL by Imperial Oil during the mid-1930s, the three stars have been named by a member of the media. For decades, a game's shining trio was chosen by a print reporter; in recent years, by one of the club's rights-paying radio or television broadcasters.
But that tradition changed last Wednesday for the Canadiens home opener vs. Tampa Bay, when the "Molson Ex Three Stars presented by Bell" were chosen by fans voting by mobile phones or on the Internet.
Cumulative numbers from the fan vote will decide the segment winners of the Molson Cup, awarded monthly to the Canadiens' "best player." The final tabulation at season's end will decide the Cup's annual winner, presented to the player of the year.
The first-, second-and third-star curtain call is as important or irrelevant as you wish it to be. But for the Canadiens, the first NHL team to turn the selection over to their fans, it is one more way to connect with their faithful.
Fans vote for the starting lineup in the NHL All-Star Game, a process that's as objective as American Idol. Witness the vote-early-and-often campaign to make Canadiens' Carey Price, Andrei Markov, Alex Kovalev and Mike Komisarek starters at the 2009 game held in Montreal.
Online, or using a mobile-phone app downloadable free from Bell, three-star voting during every home and road game begins 90 minutes after the opening faceoff and ends roughly two minutes before 60 minutes have been played.
There's the practical issue, the team says, of quickly tabulating the vote, communicating it to public-address announcer Michel Lacroix at ice level and corralling the three selected players as they leave the rink.
Should the game go to overtime or shootout, the scorer of the winning goal is automatically named first star.
Last Thursday, Price made 43 saves and was the strong favourite of voters, but he was bumped to No. 2 by Tampa Bay's Ryan Malone, who scored the winner in overtime. Voted No. 2 by fans, Canadiens centreman Tomas Plekanec dropped to No. 3.
The registration-required, one-ballot-per-voter-per-platform process doesn't allow for stuffing the box, or for a sarcastic, orchestrated No. 1 selection of, say, an out-of-favour netminder who surrenders a half-dozen goals.
(A fan could vote in the Bell Centre by mobile phone, then rush off before the last-minute cutoff to vote again by computer. In that event, the only loser that night won't be the team with fewer goals.)
"It's a sensitive decision in the sense that the organization and Bell and Molson have very much been a part of (the three stars) through the years," said Canadiens vice-president Ray Lalonde, the team's chief sales and marketing officer.
"But we're in 2010. Fans vote for all-star (starters), an incredible honour to be selected. Who says it's actually the guys who deserve it the most? Three stars is not more serious than that. It's a traditional way in Montreal and Canada to honour the best players.
"As kids, all of us used to go to the Forum and never leave the building until you heard the three stars. That was part of the ticket."
Usually, the stars take a perfunctory semi-circle twirl on the ice to salute what remains of the crowd; in a losing effort, they might not appear at all.
Last Saturday, Canadiens first star Andrei Kostitsyn was so happy that he skated nearly a lap of the rink to toss three pucks into the stands.
The feature began on radio during the 1936-37 season, an initiative of Hockey Night in Canada sponsor Imperial Oil to promote its Three Star gasoline.
A few years earlier, Esso had begun sponsoring and outfitting "3 Star" minor hockey teams across Canada, and the instantly popular NHL program would be a marketing coup.
Imperial's three stars continued beyond 1952, when Hockey Night/La Soiree du hockey debuted on TV, and has endured since the company's primary HNIC sponsorship ended in 1976, Molson having continued the tradition in Montreal.
The most famous selection surely is that of Canadiens legend Maurice Richard. On March 23, 1944, the Rocket was named all three stars for having scored Montreal's five goals in a 5-1 playoff win over Toronto.
There have been other Canadiens moments. In the late 1960s, Dick Irvin and his road-game radio colourman, Red Fisher, suggested to scratched players Claude Larose and Jimmy Roberts that choosing the stars on deadline wasn't as easy as it looked. The pair took the challenge, and Fisher recalls them still arguing about their choices a half-hour after the game.
The Canadiens know the fan vote could become more of a popularity contest than a rewarding of excellence. The team, which estimates 5,000 to 10,000 votes will be cast each game, does hold a veto in the event of an obviously fishy result, and it has a Plan B should there be a technical glitch in the system.
But Lalonde has sufficient faith in the team's tech-savvy supporters to believe the ballot will be a fair reflection of the game.
"We rely on the integrity of our fans," he said. "Fans know hockey here. They are credible, attentive and passionate, and we have faith in their good judgment ... to make good choices."
Nor does Lalonde believe a visiting player will never again be voted a star. Ottawa's Milan Michalek was No. 3 last Saturday, having scored twice, behind Kostitsyn and No. 2 Plekanec.
"The fans love us, but they also criticize us when we don't play well," Lalonde said, suggesting that a Quebecnative star wearing another uniform could earn first-star selection.
Or perhaps the embraceable, decade-long Canadiens captain Saku Koivu, who returns to Montreal as an Anaheim Duck on Jan. 22.
"I believe you must have faith in your fans and give them a chance to voice their opinion," Lalonde said.
"Sports properties like ours engage with fans every day. We find ways to make things more available, more readily accessible every day, and this is one more way to turn to the fans."
Time will tell how this ultimately works in a city where the allegiance of many is dictated by one suspect goal and/or the quantity of Molson consumed, moods changing quicker than the price of gasoline.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Remember Mrs Cleaver (yea that's it Beaver Cleavers Mom) Well she checked off the planet at age 94
A family spokeswoman said Billingsley, who also played a memorable cameo as a jive-talking elderly passenger in the 1980 hit comedy film Airplane!, had been in poor health in recent years and died of rheumatoid disease at her Santa Monica, Calif., home.
In her signature role as June Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver, which ran for six seasons, Billingsley personified the ideal middle-class mother and housewife in an era when relatively few American women with children worked outside the home.
Ever patient with the family's rambunctious younger son, nicknamed Beaver, played by Jerry Mathers, and their teenage son, Wally (Tony Dow), June Cleaver was always impeccably stylish, often seen doing household chores in pearls and earrings.
Her pipe-smoking TV husband, Ward Cleaver, was played by Hugh Beaumont, who died in 1982.
The show aired first on CBS, then on ABC. Reruns are still shown widely in syndication almost half a century after the program went off the air.
Billingsley reprised her June Cleaver role in several revivals and TV movie updates of the original show that aired into the 1990s.
She complained at times that her association with the character left her forever typecast in Hollywood as the perfect mother.
But Dow said in an interview with CNN that Billingsley "was very proud of being June Cleaver."
"She was just happy as a lark being recognized as America's mom," he said.
It was an image she used to comic effect in Airplane! as an elderly passenger who offers to have a word with two upset African-Americans speaking in heavy street slang on the plane after she politely tells the flight attendant, "Oh, stewardess, I speak jive."
The daughter of a Los Angeles senior police commander, Billingsley appeared on Broadway during the Second World War as a chorus girl and also worked as a fashion model before getting her start in TV.
According to the entertainment website IMDB.com, Billingsley was good friends with several other actresses famous for the moms they played on TV, including Florence Henderson (The Brady Bunch), June Lockhart (Lassie, Lost in Space) and Jane Wyatt (Father Knows Best).
Friday, October 15, 2010
Bicycle Race in Verdun in the 30s
Guy
Oil Refinery East-end Explosion
MONTREAL - An explosion late Friday morning at the Shell refinery in Montreal's east end has reportedly sent two people to hospital.
More to come.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
If You Have Nothing To Do and All Day To Do It,Then This May Be For You.zzzz
Here's the deal:Watch live video of the canonization ceremony of Brother André, Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010, from 4 a.m. to about 6 a.m. ET, provided courtesy of saltandlighttv.org
.............Sorry folks it was a slow news day...........hahahaha -HF&RV-
Monday, October 11, 2010
Out Again................Remember this tragedy:
But time has dimmed the collective memory when it comes to the name James O’Brien, although those old enough will likely never forget the fire he helped set that resulted in the deaths of 37 people.
On Sept. 1, 1972, O’Brien, 22 at the time, and two other men, Gilles Eccles and Joseph Marc Boutin, were kicked out of a downtown bar. They returned later to the Blue Bird Café, on Union Ave. south of Ste. Catherine St., to douse the stairwell with gasoline and set it on fire.
The blaze killed 37 people in a country and western bar upstairs from the Blue Bird. Another 54 people were injured. The victims, including a girl as young as 14, died of asphyxiation or suffocation as they tried to escape the burning building.
Three months later, O’Brien and Boutin admitted to being drunk when they set the fire. They pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder and were sentenced to life, while Eccles eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
When O’Brien entered his guilty plea in December 1972, he told the court: “We didn’t mean to kill anyone. We only wanted to scare the doorman” who had tossed them out.
All three were released on parole by 1983, but for years O’Brien continued to have problems with alcohol that put him back behind bars. The most recent instance came in 2008 after he was convicted of impaired driving. He had been unlawfully at large for nine months before his arrest.
O’Brien was granted day parole in May 2009, but until now the National Parole Board has been reluctant to grant him a full release while he continued to work on his dependence on alcohol.
According to a written summary of a decision made last week to grant him full parole, O’Brien, 61 and living in Montreal, has found a full-time job and has attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings regularly.
Psychological and psychiatric assessments have found O’Brien’s “anti-social acts were more consistent with a pattern of socio-affective maladjustment than a frankly anti-social structure. Nonetheless, you have taken the (lives) of 37 persons and, on multiple occasions, you have become a mortal danger to society as you have developed the habit of driving under the influence.”
When O’Brien is sober and behind bars, according to the parole board, his behaviour has “essentially been compliant and you have never been a person of particular concern to preventive security.”
As part of the conditions of his release, O’Brien must follow psychological counselling for six months. The two parole board members who heard his case were convinced this will help him manage the risk of reoffending by treating his drinking problem, the main factor in his criminality.
He is also not allowed to drive except for work-related purposes, and he is not allowed to be in bars.
----------------------------------------------------------------------HF&RV-----------------------------------
Thanksgiving Weekend .....in Canada
| OVERVIEW OF CANADIAN THANKSGIVING In Canada, where the harvest generally ends earlier in the year, the holiday is celebrated on the second Monday in October, which is observed as Columbus Day in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving is only a three-day weekend, and the holiday is not as important as in the US. Because of the shortened break, there is far less travel during Canada's Thanksgiving and it is far harder for families to come together. As a result, Christmas is therefore the more family oriented of the two holidays. Additionally, while the actual Thanksgiving holiday is on a Monday, Canadians might eat their Thanksgiving meal on any day of that three day weekend. This often means celebrating a meal with one group of relatives on one day, and another meal with a different group of relatives on another day. In addition, the early date means the weather is generally warm enough in many regions that it is completely ignored and becomes a day of recreation or going to the cottage as opposed to a family gathering.  HISTORY OF CANADIAN THANKSGIVING Canadians trace the holiday to a feast held by Martin Frobisher in Newfoundland in 1578. It is also probable that American loyalists who emigrated to Canada after American independence brought with them many of their Thanksgiving traditions. The Thanksgiving celebration was held occasionally in English areas of British North America in the eighteenth century, especially in Nova Scotia. The holiday rose to much greater prominence with the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution. The holiday became entrenched in English Canadian society. It is however little celebrated in French-speaking Quebec, but the official holiday also applies there. The first official Canadian Thanksgiving Day was celebrated on April 5, 1872 in gratitude for the Prince of Wales' recovery from serious illness. The holiday was not officially recognized again till 1879, when parliament declared Thanksgiving to be an annual national secular holiday. The date was moved several times, finally being set on its current date (the second Monday in October) in 1957. For much of the period before 1957 parliament proclaimed the date annually. CANADIAN THANKSGIVING TRIVIA Canadian football is often a major part of the Thanksgiving celebrations much like it is in the U.S. Traditionally in both Canada and the U.S., two professional games are played on Thanksgiving Day. A Thanksgiving dinner in Canada might feature turkey, mashed potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, wine and other beverages. |
HF&RV..............................
Saturday, October 9, 2010
"You say it's your birthday" would be 70 today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acb15JsCGSk
Friday, October 8, 2010
Joseph Rielle, Mayor of Verdun 1904 -1905 has a descendant in Wayne Pa.
Joseph Rielle was mayor of Verdun in 1904 - 1905 and was a prominent land surveyor in Verdun/Montreal in that period. He also llived on Lower Lachine Road now LaSalle Blvd and his property was situated facing Rielle/Willibrod (the firestation is now situated there) as shown on the enclosed 1896 map wich also shows the newly built dike to retain the overflowing river wich flooded Verdun in the spring at that period. Joyce and Jamie Munroe 0f Wayne Pensylvania who viewed this information on this site where planning a trip to Montreal and suggested we meet me at the library of the SHGV since Jamie is a descendant of Rielle and inherited documents, photos and paintings wich they wanted to share with us. I greeted Joyce and Jamie at our premises in July and I was impressed by the documents that they showed me, particularly 2 of Joseph Rielle's note books written in his own handwriting. Some of the information from our archives also helped them in their research.
Guy
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Oktoberfest ---------at Atwater Market ? Never thought of getting barley there
Oktoberfest will be celebrated at Atwater Market this weekend, when about 35 micro-brewers from all over Quebec show off their beers and offer free tastings. If you want to buy the products, the market's cheese merchant Fromagerie du Marche Atwater sells all the brands that will be offered for sampling. Hours for the beer tastings: 1 to 6 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call 514-937-7754 ---Cheers !! HF&RV - Generally in October you would go there for a pumpkin 
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
October Crisis 40 years ago today
Forty (40) Years Ago Today, Tuesday ,October 5th ,1970 the October Crisis starts
A gloomy period of history for the La Belle Province...
watch a NFB film on the October Crisis
Je Me Souvien How about you............ HF&RV
Again in the 40 years ago today category (sorry Glenn) lol
In Quebec as elsewhere, myths are persistent, especially when they are used to mask the weaknesses of nationalist ideology and the errors of judgment of the movement they support. The deformation of the memory of the October Crisis is one of the most obvious examples of such historical revisionism. Indeed, the assassins and supporters of violence have become victims, while the defendants of the rule of law have been renamed as oppressors.
As Talleyrand said: "In politics, what is believed becomes the truth." This interpretation dictated by a certain separatist leadership, through ignorance, carelessness, irresponsibility or for the benefit of their cause, in fact contributes to the trivialization of violence and its consequences in a democratic society.
In his October Crisis 1970: An Insider's View (McGill-Queen's University Press (2007), freshly published this week in French by Editions Heritage and re-edited by Mc-Gill-Queen's in paperback), William Tetley, law professor at McGill University, minister in the Bourassa cabinet during the crisis, has succeeded in brilliantly taming the most commonly held myths about the October Crisis.
It is high time that all Canadians be reminded that:
The FLQ terrorists, who from 1963 until the summer of 1970, killed six people while committing more than 200 bombings and thefts -including the 1969 bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange, which ripped through the facade of the building leaving 27 wounded -were not "political" prisoners.
Pierre Trudeau and Bourassa were right not to negotiate with criminals; history will recognize their courageous struggle against those who threatened the rule of law through violence and blackmail, thereby jeopardizing the democratic process.
The 16 "eminent personalities," including Rene Levesque, Jacques Parizeau, Claude Ryan, and union leaders, who signed the petition of Oct. 14, 1970, calling for negotiations with the terrorists and the release of "political prisoners," instead of a clear and unequivocal request for the unconditional and immediate release of the two hostages, provided valuable de-facto support for the terrorists, rather than siding with Bourassa's freshly elected government.
It was the Quebec government, not the federal government, that, with the unanimous support of the leaders of the three opposition parties in the National Assembly at the time -including Camille Laurin, parliamentary leader of the Parti Quebecois -called on Oct. 15 for reinforcements from the Val Cartier Vandoos regiment of the Canadian Army to help the Quebec police authorities track those who had defied democracy by their crimes and calls to violence. At all times, the Canadian soldiers took orders and reported to the chief of the Surete du Quebec.
It was at Levesque's insistence that Laurin was forced to renege on his clear support a few hours later. Levesque would further humiliate Laurin when on Oct. 30, he would finally publicly declare in his Journal de Montreal daily column, that calling in the army was the "right decision." Soon thereafter, as correctly noted by Daniel Poliquin in his recent book, Rene Levesque (Boreal, 2009), Levesque repositioned yet again, now "accusing Trudeau of exaggerating the scale of the threat, and exploiting the hostage crisis to Ottawa's advantage. A clever counter-attack aimed at demonizing the federal government and allowing the separatist movement to shed responsibility, while also launching October revisionism, a much profitable industry to this day."
The implementation of the War Measures Act on Oct. 16 was not an all-out assault on civil rights and political liberty, but rather prohibited support for the violent acts of the FLQ. Freedom of expression, even to denounce the act, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly were at all times preserved. For instance, student assemblies, including those that warmly applauded the announcement of Pierre Laporte's assassination, were not prohibited. Union and PQ leaders continued to meet and make public declarations throughout the period. The media were never impeded in their duties, quite the contrary, they sometimes exacerbated the crisis.
It is from these moments onward that the terrorists were subdued, the escalation of violence halted, and democracy restored.
As early as March 1971, all people unjustly incarcerated during the October Crisis (103 individuals of the total 497 apprehended) were afforded a right to an entirely independent process before the Quebec ombudsman, and received compensation up to $30,000 in 1971 dollars from the Quebec government.
Canadians -and foremost among them the citizens of the province of Quebec -overwhelmingly approved these actions at the time, without reserve, deeming them necessary to counter the insurgents and restore order.
...we all remember it well ,it was a gloomy time for LaBelleProvince indeed --HF&RV--
Monday, October 4, 2010
Seville Theater is Done -More Montreal History Disappears- C'est le vie I guess
So long, dearie, dearie, should have said so long, so long ago. The Seville Theatre, that once venerable cinema palace, is falling down. Literally.
After decades of neglect, the bulldozers arrived this morning and are in the process of yanking out the steel girders and tearing down the front wall.
The whole place will be gone by nightfall.
My homeless friends, who are parked on the sidewalk when I walk by on my way to and from work every day, have already begun migrating to new patches in this woebegone end of Ste. Catherine St.
Now they really need to move on.
Walking by this morning, I was reminded of my first days as a columnist -- in those days, I was writing the city column. On my second day on the job, I wrote this piece about Janet MacKinnon, who was campaigning to save the theatre.
Even then, the Seville was already in a desperate state of mould and pigeons, but it could have been saved if the city had the energy and the means.
But Montreal, was in dire financial shape in the 1980s and early 1990s, barely staying afloat.
Fare thee well.
............and so we face the final curtain,
First Steps of the Automobile
Here is my translation of the text on the bottom of this april 1st 1899 La Patrie article:
THE AUTOMIBILE OF THE FUTURE - DRIVERS LEARNING THEIR TRADE
"The automobile has made considerable progress in France in the last 2 years. The gasoline driven automobile has no more vibrations and do not make any noise. We do not believe that the electricity will replace the gasolline to power the motor in the near future: an automobile with a gasoline engine can travel a long distance, while an electic driven automobile can only travel 60 to 80 kilometers without recharging. A machine activated by a mineral fuel can travel 1000 kilometers. However, it is hoped that progress and development of electricity will permit the automobile owner an extraordinary performance. The automobile manufacturers have more orders than they can supply. According to the new regulations of the state council, the speed cannot surpass 16 kilometers per hour, The inspectors will have autotricycles."
It is interesting to note that the debate was already on concerning gasoline versus electricity and that the speed limit was 16 km per hour and motorcycles where called autotricycles in 1899. I have added the photo in my Album no. 33 with other antique cars.
Guy
Sunday, October 3, 2010
3 wounded in Lasalle shooting
MONTREAL - Three men were wounded Sunday in a shootout outside a reception hall in LaSalle.
The gunfire erupted about 4 a.m. after a party in the hall on Lafleur Ave. near Clément St., Montreal police constable Raphaël Bergeron said.
Police have no suspect in that case, Bergeron said.
Montreal police later received a call from a hospital informing them that a third victim, also a man in his mid-20s, showed up with gunshot wounds. His condition was also stable on Sunday, police said. It turns out that man has also been at the scene on Lafleur
-HF&RV-
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