Just a typical day’s news

Some days, reading the paper can be hazardous to my health.

Take today, for example, where we see the following among the headlines:

Homeless people are angry about art in parks because they feel it’s “encroaching” on their space:

To try to clean urban eyesores in the downtown area, the city is using art to attract residents to parks usually frequented by homeless people. But advocacy groups see this as another encroachment on the already restricted space of homeless people.

[ . . . ]

“The people in Viger Park are getting kicked out of their home,” said a 30-year-old man who wishes to be identified as Napalm and who used to sleep in Viger Square until he was ticketed by police last summer. “It’s more or less the rich who want to make a use of that park. That’s pushing the government to do something.”

Instead of pointing out the obvious – that the homeless people are living in the parks illegally, the government is working overtime to try to make them feel unthreatened by these projects and even to “include” them. After all, it wouldn’t be politically-correct to suggest that people get a job and pay rent like the rest of us instead of choosing a “homeless lifestyle”, now would it?

Reading on… I see a headline about blue collar-workers refusing to de-ice downtown cause they’re upset about their arbitrated new contract that makes them work a whopping one more hour a week:

Workers responsible for spreading salt and sand on roads and sidewalks stayed home in defiance of the new 36-hour workweek imposed by a provincial government arbitrator.

The union is still angry over an arbitrator’s decision made Oct. 4 that increases the workweek from 35 hours to 36 hours. After months of stalled negotiations, a government mediator imposed the rule.

[ . . . ]

The union argued that the new hours would cut into the four-day week currently enjoyed by workers. City officials said the increase amounts to 15 extra minutes of work per day.

Just to recap, the poor babies only work 4 days a week, and are angry about one additional hour that still gives them a shorter workweek than 99% of people in Quebec. The union agreed to binding arbitration but decided it didn’t like the deal that was arbitrated so now it wants out. And to prove that point, the workers are letting people walk around on slippery sidewalks. The same people whose taxes pay their wages.

Blood pressure rising, I move on further and see that the SAQ employees are still refusing to deal with management, so the government-owned liquor monopoly will stay closed longer into the holiday season:

Charron called on the provincial government to intercede on the union’s behalf. He also asked unionized employees across the province not to cross the picket lines, as a gesture of solidarity with the SAQ employees.

But among the customers milling about the liquor store facing the Atwater Market to stock up on liquor for the holiday, sympathy for the striking workers seemed low.

Well, what did you think, genius… that the public would be happy about having restricted access to alcohol?

All in a typical day’s news here in Montreal…