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A modest proposal, Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal Landmarks, Montréal on Film, Perspectives on the City, Scenes from the City, Worth reconsidering

Snowdon Theatre Fire, The Lowest Point & Social Media

Still frame from Snapchat of the Snowdon Theatre Fire - posted to mtlurb
Still frame from Snapchat of the Snowdon Theatre Fire – posted to mtlurb

Generally speaking, I’m a fan of urban exploration.

However, there’s a few golden rules we should all keep in mind when it comes to exploring the secret and unseen parts of the city: don’t leave any trace behind, don’t hurt yourself, don’t inconvenience others, and above all else, don’t negatively impact the place you’re exploring.

Say, as an example, by starting a fire that may threaten a vintage theatre and the residents of the adjacent apartment complex.

But if you are so inclined to start a fire in an abandoned building, for the love of all that is good and holy, please share a video or photographs of your illegal deeds on social media, so you can be found and eventually prosecuted.

At this point you may be asking; “but who on Earth would be so foolish to do such a thing?”

The answer: teenagers. Boneheaded teenagers. And apparently some hotshot young videographers as well.

In an astounding coincidence, on the very same day that photographs, like the one above, emerged online of several teenagers apparently starting a fire on the second floor of the abandoned Snowdon Theatre, this video of several people galavanting through the Métro tunnels was posted to YouTube and widely distributed on local social media networks.

Montreal police are now both searching for the teens suspected of starting the fire and have opened an investigation into how the Métro tunnels (and trains) were accessed by the creators of ‘Lowest Point in Montreal’.

In the latter case, the film crew accessed one tunnel while the Métro was still in operation, and then proceeded to make their way into the rear conductor’s cabin of an operational train, locking the door when accosted by an STM employee. As La Presse notes, there’s a safety issue inasmuch as there’s a security issue. It was just last week that Daesh sympathizers detonated bombs in a Brussels Métro station; the film crew in the ‘Lowest Point’ video had access to Métro controls, the track, and service tunnels and the various equipment kept in those tunnels. My guess is they were probably down in the tunnels for more than hour, and evaded STM security throughout.

Unless of course these are off duty and out of uniform STM employees who happen to be urban exploration enthusiasts; that would be one of those ‘everything worked out better than expected’ conclusions I don’t think is terribly likely.

I’m torn, really. I feel creeping adulthood and my gut says “don’t go exploring Métro tunnels”, especially not when the trains are actually in operation. It’s immensely dangerous, not to mention inconvenient for thousands or tens of thousands of people who may be affected by a temporary line closure. I think the code ‘900-02’ announces a suspected infiltration of the tunnels; if either an STM employee or the system’s CCTV system suspects there’s someone in the tunnels, they have to call it in, close it down and investigate.

So while I find this video intriguing and interesting, I can’t in good conscience recommend others do the same. The risk is far too great.

That said, the STM could probably make some coin offering after-hours behind-the-scenes tours of the city’s transit infrastructure. I would pay good money to get a guided walking tour of the Orange Line, and am certain many others would too.

It’s remarkable to me that two different groups of people, in the same city and at essentially the same time, both recorded acts of trespassing and other illegal activities and then posted it to social media, seemingly oblivious the video or photo evidence could be used against them.

***

Kristian Gravenor has weighed-in on the Snowdon’s fire, but places the blame for the building’s slow demise ultimately on the city and borough government. In his opinion, neither have been proactive with regards to saving this building, and he suspects the borough will now announce it can’t be saved, and that as such it ought to be razed to fast-track new construction.

Gravenor insinuates that there’s “…a conscious or subconscious will to eradicate this beautiful Art Deco building and what it symbolically represents.”

I would like to hope he’s wrong, and that this is simply a matter of local government lacking in vision and hoping for ‘free market’ solutions to solve problems that clearly fall within the public domain.

But when you consider that the Snowdon is the latest in an unfortunately long list of landmark Montreal theatres abandoned to ignoble fates without even an iota of effort by municipal officials to save them, it makes you wonder. This isn’t a new problem, it dates back forty years to the destruction of the Capitol Theatre, arguably the grandest of them all. More recently, the Seville and York were pulled down (to build condos and a university pavilion, respectfully), while the Snowdon, Cartier and most importantly, the Empress, lie abandoned and in ruin (and there are maybe a dozen more scattered elsewhere about the city).

In a city known for its nightlife, live entertainment and general cultural engagement, why is it very nearly impossible to renovate and rehabilitate old theatres and make them useful elements of the community at large?

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Montreal Cops, the Homeless Problem & Paradoxical Undressing

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Today’s news is that the Montreal police (SPVM) will discipline an unnamed constable for threatening to lock a homeless man (seen on a remarkably frigid day last week in nothing but shorts and a t-shirt outside the Jean-Talon Métro station) to a pole unless he stopped being a nuisance. Apparently police were called because the man had been ‘acting aggressively’ inside and around the Métro station. The video of the altercation, and the constable’s poorly-considered comments, is posted above.

Many were quick to condemn the constable for his apparent lack of humanity, and indeed it’s pretty inhumane to lock an inappropriately-dressed homeless man with aggression issues (and possible mental problems) to a pole outside on a day when even the most acclimatized Montréalais would think better than to venture outside.

The question is, was the constable serious?

I should think not. I don’t honestly believe the constable had any actual intention of locking the poor man to a pole. I would like to say I can’t imagine Montreal police would ever do such a thing, but unfortunately the force has consistently demonstrated a bad habit of abusing the fundamental right of the citizenry to be free of unwarranted police aggression. The conduct of the SPVM at annual May Day demonstrations, during the Printemps Érable or its predilection to shoot first and ask questions later are all justification enough to be critical of the SPVM.

Though again, I don’t actually believe this particular constable actually intended to lock this man to a pole on a freezing cold winter day.

I don’t think any individual police officer in this city would actually think they could get away with such brutality, especially anywhere near a major Métro station. That the constable’s offending remarks were captured on video is proof enough – imagine the shit storm if the video had been of the police locking the man to a pole and then driving off?

That’s full-blown inquiry territory. It would imply the constable didn’t fear any negative repercussions from his superior officers and this in turn would suggest such appalling actions are ‘normal operating procedures’ for the SPVM. But such is not the case. The offending constable will be reprimanded, though not dismissed. My guess is he’ll be riding a desk for a little while.

Again, if he had in any way been serious I have a feeling the bull’s upper brass would very quickly have gotten rid of him, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

SPVM spokesman Commander Ian Lafrenière indicated disciplinary actions could range from a verbal warning to a suspension, but didn’t indicate what would happen. He did elaborate, however, that the constable did try to help the homeless man and that his comments were completely unacceptable.

The exchange highlights a crucial problem in Montreal and other major cities; police are more often than not the primary point-of-contact with our homeless population, not social workers or specialized therapists.

And as we all know, police aren’t social workers, nor are they psychologists or nurses. Yet we expect them to play these roles despite the fact that far too few have even had a cursory training in these domains. Is it any wonder they sometimes fail spectacularly? And do we really want the police to be responsible for our city’s homeless population in the first place?

Montreal’s Homeless Problem

The first question we need to ask ourselves is: how many people in this city of 1.65 million people are actually homeless?

Unfortunately, what statistical information we have is both limited and old – 15 years old to be precise.

The last major study of homelessness in Québec was conducted in 1998-1999 and revealed that there was somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 people ‘who had used services intended for the homeless’ at one point during the year here in Montreal. Of those, more than 8,000 had no fixed address during the time of the study.

It’s hard to say whether these figures are still relevant, for example, we’ve had something of a major economic crisis these last few years, and I would imagine this may have put more people into precarious living situations.

But if we’re to assume that these numbers are in fact accurate, and that we have a somewhat stable homeless population of between 6,000 and 10,000 people, then I think we have a legitimate homeless problem and need to start coming up with some solutions.

And appealing for more donations to food banks and homeless shelters isn’t going to cut it. At a certain point we’re going to have to bite the bullet and acknowledge that the homeless problem is indeed everyone’s responsibility, and that both the city and province need to collaborate of finding a long-term shelter solution for people who otherwise run the risk of freezing to death on a city street.

I saw just that about a decade ago Рa homeless man who had died of severe hypothermia and exposure, lying half-naked on the sidewalk outside the McGill M̩tro entrance on President Kennedy and University. When I saw him the paramedics had just arrived and his clothes were strewn about, possibly as a consequence of paradoxical undressing.

Paradoxical Undressing

Watching this video reminded me of a of some aspects of hypothermia that may help put what we’re seeing into context.

In the case of the threatened homeless man, or of the dead man I saw lying on the sidewalk, both were inappropriately dressed given the extreme cold. In the case of the former, he’s seen wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts on what may have been the coldest day of the year thus far. With regards to the latter, he appeared to have taken his clothing off.

As it happens, people suffering from hypothermia are known to take their clothing off in what’s called ‘paradoxical undressing’. They also tend to be highly confused, agitated, confrontational, aggressive and, in the final stages of hypothermia, will attempt something called ‘terminal burrowing‘ wherein the victim seeks out small partially enclosed spaces in which to lay down.

Suffice it to say, I have my suspicions that may have lead to the man’s apparent aggression and lack of clothing. He likely spent the night out in the cold and had been desperately trying to get warm inside the Métro entrance to no avail. The Métro isn’t heated – warmth is generated primarily by concentrated, captured body heat that keeps most station platforms relatively warm throughout the year, but most of that warmth would have dissipated at the upper level of the vestibule.

In sum, this guy, regardless of his existing mental state, was likely being driven crazy by the cold, and I would expect a nurse, paramedic or even a social-worker with experience working with the homeless would know this instinctively. By contrast, I expect cops to know the highway driving code and Miranda rights instinctively.

Is homelessness a right?

A fundamental philosophical human-rights question is whether or not any individual citizen has the ‘right’ to be homeless.

I don’t think so, but I would counter that the state, as agent of the common interest, has a responsibility to provide food, clothing and shelter to everyone who can’t (for whatever reason) provide it for themselves.

I suppose the Ayn Rand types would argue that any legislation of the sort would do nothing but help lazy people be lazy, and that it would ultimately lead the whole of society to simply give up trying and live off government hand-outs.

Being a reasonable person, I think such thinking is ludicrous.

Regardless, it’s an interesting question because this is Canada and most of us believe that we have some kind of an inalienable right to live off the land much in the same fashion as our colonial-era ancestors. If it isn’t a right already, I would expect most Canadians would support any measure which stipulated we all have the right to pitch a tent on unclaimed land and camp for as long as our supplies last. And as long as we’re all responsible and clean up after ourselves, no harm, no foul. It’s part of the Canadian aesthetic – we love the outdoors and our culture has been shaped in no small part by the lifestyles and experiences of frontier living and seasonal nomadism.

But this can’t possibly apply to cities and their homeless populations, and we can’t cavalierly insinuate that homeless people are homeless because they choose to be, as if they were simply camping in our parks, alleyways and public spaces.

The primary reason why we can’t look at homelessness as a choice is the fact that most homeless people in Montreal, as elsewhere, suffer from mental illness, not to mention poor diet, poor general health, drug addictions etc. (and, taking it a step further, are suffering from all this at the same time). As such, it’s inconceivable that anyone would think the average homeless person is in any way capable of making a conscious, rational choice to be homeless.

Ergo, I think it ultimately comes back to the state, not only to provide for the homeless, but to make sincere and long-term efforts at rehabilitation.

However, in order to guarantee the success of such a program, people can’t be permitted to sleep on the streets.

This last point will doubtless irk many progressives who would nearly instinctively imagine the police rounding up all the homeless in the middle of the night and putting them in some kind of a prison. This isn’t what I’m proposing of course – I think we need a large centralized shelter that can accommodate many thousands of people at the same time (and for prolonged periods of time), in which a wide variety of services are made available to help get people off the streets and back into the realm of productive society.

But of course, it would likely require police to force obstinate homeless people into such a facility, even if there were specially-trained social-workers whose job it was to incentivize and convince the homeless to take up the offer. Fundamentally, the movements of the homeless can’t be limited (up to and including the right to wander the streets all day), so perhaps a specific law that could be enacted would simply say no one has the right to sleep overnight in a public place.

No easy answers here, just more ethical and moral questions the people of a modern city need to ask themselves.

Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Social commentary

The Shame of Montreal – SPVM Brutality Over a Noise Complaint

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What the fuck SPVM? You guys we’re the no.5 top local twitter feed on Cult #Mtl’s BOM list; frankly I expected better.

Le Devoir is reporting that the man wrestled to the ground in the video above is the proprietor of a business on The Main, part of which was closed to traffic Thursday for the MURAL festival. It was a typical street fair, in which the businesses habitually extend their services out onto the street and we’ve seen on The Main countless times. It’s crowded and loud, not my cup of tea, but something I think we’re all quite accustomed to.

Apparently another business owner thought the man (owner of or somehow involved with La Vieille Europe) was playing his music too loud and called 911.

Why that individual didn’t first contact a representative of la Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent or the festival organizers is beyond me, and frankly I think its a bit much to call 911 for a noise complaint during a street festival. Perhaps it was a dirty trick to tank La Vieille Europe’s business, like when competing nightclubs send their stooges to set-off pepper spray canisters in the air ducts of their competitors.

In any event, according to police spokesperson Ian Lafrenière five constables were dispatched to deal with the ‘large and well-built’ individual – this is standard practice, apparently, and after about eight minutes of negotiation, the proprietor refused to turn down the music and was ordered to place his hands behind his back, an order the mena refused.

It’s at this point that a smaller, more cowardly constable decided to use a choke-hold to bring down the man. Again, according to Lafrenière, this is standard operating procedure for the SPVM.

He then relates that this incident will be reviewed (internally) and that Montreal police aren’t infallible.

Well isn’t that dandy.

Let’s step back – a noise complaint necessitated an arrest?

How would you react?

Handcuffing someone (without their consent) is a major violation of individual liberty. In the case of a dangerous criminal it’s thoroughly justified, but for a noise complaint?

Noise complaints typically result in a fine that’s all too often contested in court.

But five constables wrestling a man to the ground with a choke-hold? That’s excessive.

The crowd was, as you might imagine, passive and resorted to filming this act of police brutality rather than intervene to help. I can understand why. Just last year we got a chance to witness a mass of police brutality incidents, and it hasn’t been too long since the SPVM just up and shot somebody under questionable circumstances. A hospital worker, a teenager, a homeless man – the SPVM has a bad history when it comes to needlessly killing Montrealers.

In any event, a damned shame I’m glad was caught on video. The SPVM has been moving away from acting in the public’s benefit for a while now, and the secretive ‘Police Brotherhood’ has proven itself unwilling to cooperate with civilian authorities to review practices and allegations (all too often with widely disseminated video evidence) of police brutality.

Which makes me wonder – with the powerful organized crime syndicates, street gangs and all manner of criminal problems we have in this city, why isn’t the SPVM making more of its resources available to combat the real criminal problems in our city? Dispatching five constables to take a man down over a noise complaint is simply a blatant waste of resources and abuse of the people.

And while some are saying it would have been so simple (and a non issue) if the man had simply complied and but his arms behind his back, I can only say this – how much individual freedom are the people willing to lose? What are we willing to compromise for the benefit of the police?

With the NSA spying scandal unravelling it’s becoming increasingly clear that Western governments (the supposed guarantors of liberty and personal freedom) have in fact been spying on their own populations and people all over the globe through electronic means for quite some time, all without any oversight or public knowledge. Well haven’t things changed now – the United States has been working out of a Stasi handbook with more sophisticated tools. And though they, much like our own government, military and ‘law-enforcement’ officials have said this is to keep us safe and secure from terrorism, they only seem to be capable of taking down the dumbest, most inept terrorists. At the local level, it seems as though police – who are supposed to serve and protect the public – are instead being used to oppress and monitor them.

This isn’t what I signed up for.

Montreal needs a transparent police force that brutalizes less and thinks a bit more before they act.

Shame.

Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary, What were they thinking?

Public may panic if provided with basic statistical information…

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Montreal's Finest

So apparently the Montreal Police think the public would panic if we knew the Métro’s actual crime statistics, as they apparently have been feeding us bullshit for years.

The Gazette filed an access-to-information request a few years back to get the following basic data from the SPVM: what kinds of crimes happen in the Métro? How often are crimes committed and how do the stations rank in terms of occurrence? Pretty basic stuff I’m actually a bit astonished the Gazette specifically had to request (i.e. you’d figure this would be public knowledge, available on a city website).

The SPVM said no, that divulging such information could compromise their crime-fighting efforts to such a degree they’d be starting from scratch. After a bit of a back and forth the issue has wound up in front of the Access to Information Commission which has so far balked at even reviewing the case at all (which makes me wonder why they wouldn’t – what do these commissions do otherwise?)

During discussions the police lawyer argued that making this information public may cause a panic, as though she knew the SPVM’s argument stats published in the English-language daily might ‘tip-off’ common criminals and derail their efforts was a bit short on substance.

The Gazette, by contrast, argues such information would pretty much reinforce what seasoned Métro riders already know – some stations require a bit more vigilance and situational awareness than others. The Gaz goes as far to suggest the information “could warn métro users about potential dangers and allow them to take preventive measures”.

I don’t think there’s much more that can be done aside from being vigilant, and I’d like to know how many Gazette readers take the Métro come to think of it, but I digress.

The Gazette has a point – this information should be public (and I’d argue far more accessible as well).

The point isn’t so much to warn riders of where they ought to keep their guard up (hint – always be aware of your surroundings, free life pro-tip for ya), but rather to feed a knowledge-hungry citizenry the vital statistical data it needs to study and assess the actions of its elected officials and civil servants.

I want to know where crime is happening to see if the cops are doing their jobs, to see what might be facilitating the crime at those specific stations. Is it the poverty of a nearby neighbourhood? Or is it bad station design?

As I mentioned earlier, the cops made an effort and provided what they call data, though it didn’t quite measure up. For one, they only provided limited information about each of the lines on average, grouping the interchange stations (like Lionel-Groulx, Snowdon, Berri-UQAM etc.) together with the Yellow Line to create some kind of an equilibrium, this despite having highly detailed information for every station at all hours of the day and night.

To put it bluntly, submitting official SPVM data concerning crime in the Montréal Métro wouldn’t pass a CEGEP-level research methods class. Not only is this statistical garbage, it’s purposely deceptive.

And if the Rob Ford scandal is any indicator, the SPVM should be concerned. They run risk of creating a panic by inferring the data would cause a panic. Despite the data’s still secret, unseen status, it may be able to damage police efforts anyways; nothing quite gets under the skin of a young journalist like denied information, and this city is swimming in reporters.

Dumb move gumshoes.

Now I wanna know too. And why doesn’t the STM have this kind of information? Wouldn’t they have some kind of an idea about the crimes that are taking place in the Métro system too?

In any event, the real crime in my eyes is that I can’t get platform gyros:

A modest proposal, Cultural commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Québec sovereignty, Scenes from the City, Social commentary, Video

Student Activists: A New Source of Revenue for the Montréal Police

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Welcome to Montréal, Québec – where civil disobedience has been turned into a revenue generator for the city’s police department.

Using an unethical and possibly illegal method called ‘kettling’, Montréal Police gather around a gathering and slowly process all the people there, issuing fines they may or may not collect. Assuming everyone pays up, the estimate is Montréal’s police made nearly $180,000 last night. I call this method unethical because it is specifically designed to prevent people from being able to get away.

Or disperse as police so often request.

As you can see by this video, police have a total advantage against the protesters, one of whom decided to bring his guitar.

Or perhaps he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That would be anywhere within fifty feet of an SPVM constable at any time of the day; our boys and girls in black and blue will gladly break into your home and throw you down the stairs (say if they think you might be drunk, as an example). Or if you live in the Plateau, or wear black, or happen to be a minority. Whichever’s most convenient.

Here’s constable Stéphanie Trudeau using her using the choke-hold to subdue an old man; local policing at its finest:

And most terrifying of all, this is all happening with the full consent of those who both run the city of Montréal, its police force, as well as the government of Québec, currently managed by the insufferable gasbag wannabe country-destroyer Pauline Marois.

A woman who was praised but months ago for finally bringing a woman’s touch to the old boys club of provincial politics. No more paternalist, police-heavy practices! she said while awkwardly clanging pots and pans. We all thought, at the very least, she’d do the right thing, find other methods of funding our universities and kill the bills that have so infringed on our federally protected right to freedom of assembly and conscience.

But I suppose therein lies the problem; if you don’t want to be a part of Canada, you’ll likely be disinclined from appealing to your federal government for assistance (not that it would happen, though at least our MPs could make a stink in Ottawa, coordinate class-action lawsuits against the SPVM for criminal violation of individual rights etc etc.)

Marois knows these students voted for her back in September, but despite this has decided not to pressure the city of Montréal nor the SPVM to cease this obscene and vile practice.

Unless the money collected is being used to fund higher education in Québec.

At which point she’d be an evil super-genius of epic cartoon proportions.

That would be preferable to our current state.

That of being an international joke and national embarrassment.

Where the hell is the leadership in this province, this city?

Who defends the interests of the people from the abuse as we see above?

There are other non-violent means of executing social and political change, outside the realm of non-violent (though for the time being illegal) protests and demonstrations. Organization would be a good place to start, and how Montréal’s activists vote this coming Autumn (i.e., whether they vote en masse for someone who will repeal P6 and kick pathologically abusive police constables to the curb) will be a demonstration of whether grassroots political organization truly extends beyond the all-to-often party atmosphere of public protest in our city.

Il faut que ça change.