Pit Bulls Owners not the Problem...Pit Bulls Are

It's good news that the Quebec government is taking steps to ban new ownership of pit bull type dogs and to control those dogs presently owned and to be grandfathered.

“Public Safety Minister Martin Coiteux announced the government’s intention after tabling legislation Thursday to better control dogs in the province, particularly dangerous canines that have bit or attacked other people or animals or those that have been deemed to be “potentially dangerous” based on their actions or by reputation.

He said that the number and severity of the attacks involving pit bulls, as well as an incident last summer in which a woman, Christiane Vadnais, was killed by such a dog, convinced him of the need to take the disputed step.

“In case there were still doubts about it, now there are none,” he told reporters in Quebec City.

“People have fears about pit bulls, and with good reason.”

The official order to enact the ban will come once the bill is passed into law, likely in the coming months.”

It is the common refrain of pit bull activists and defenders that pit bull attacks can be directly attributed to bad owners and not bad dogs, the same argument that the NRA makes in saying that guns don't kill people, people kill people.
If you believe one of those premises than I assume you believe the other.
Blaming dog owners for pit bull attacks is a convenient excuse and at any rate, until they have a test for responsible dog ownership as a prerequisite to acquiring a pit bull, it is entirely beside the point.
Unfortunately, there will always be bad dog owners as well as irresponsible gun owners and a prudent societal constraint is to take these potential deadly weapons out of circulation... period.

Pit bulls are sweet, wonderful animals and make a great family pet. There are enough YouTube videos to attest to that.
I would venture to guess that as a breed, pit bulls attack less than most others dogs, especially those little yappy laps dogs who have a propensity towards nipping anything or anybody that approaches.
But pit bulls are powerful and on the rare occasion that they attack, they are deadly, therein lies the problem.
I'd rather suffer 50 Chihuahua attacks than be set upon by one enraged Pitbull.

Last Monday a 64-year-old woman in  Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, was attacked by her own dogs, a Boston terrier and a Pit bull. She was badly mauled and even had her two ears bitten off.
Now I can't say that the pit bull initiated the attack, it is more likely that the Boston terrier was the culprit. But dogs attack in packs and even if the pit bull did nothing more than join in the mayhem, it certainly was the dog that inflicted the dangerous injuries, trauma that the terrier just couldn't produce. The police shot and killed the pit bull and sent the terrier to a shelter, so it's obvious which dog did the damage.  Link 
Despite the obvious prima facie case that pit bulls represent an unacceptable threat to society, there is a concerted effort by pit bull owners, activists  and apologists to portray pit bulls as lovingly harmless. The internet is rife with images like these below.

Wilful deception and selective facts, that is the pit bull lobby.

So let me offer up some rebuttal with these images of the impact of real pit bull attacks. I dedicate the following picture to the idiots at the Montreal SPCA and their dangerously fanatical director Alana Devine, who battles relentlessly against any pit bull ban. 
I've heard her spout her idiocy on the radio and television and just like a dedicated anti-vaxxer, her spiel sounds convincing, but is dangerous nonsense.

I wonder how  Ms. Devine woulld feel if if a family member suffered one of these injuries.

In the 12-year period of 2005 through 2016, canines killed 392 Americans. Pit bulls (who represent 5% of the population) contributed to 65% (254) of these deaths.  Link

Living in a city means making allowances for other people as they make allowances for you. 
Keeping a pit bull is cruel and selfish, because aside from being potentially dangerous, they also scare the crap out of your neighbours.
The reality is that any of the 700 dog breeds can provide love and companionship, almost all of which pose little risk to humans.
It's a no-brainer, but sadly those advocating for pit bulls have no brains.

Pit bull activists make idiotic claims, employ selective facts and spout nonsense that can best be described as alternative facts. Whenever you hear a pit bull activist get on their high horse, ignore them, they are as dangerous as those arguing against childhood vaccinations.
One of the lies propagated by them is that it's impossible to determine if a dog is truly a pit bull.
It is utter nonsense. I can spot one a block away and I'm sure you can too. But repeating this bullshit is just another fake fact that pit bull advocates use.
 Read:Pit Bulls Are Identifiable

Here is more deception;

“The thing that disturbs me the most,” Bruce said over the phone from Calgary, “is that in every city I’ve looked at (that has introduced a breed ban), they have not reduced the overall number of bites in the community.” - Bill Bruce, the former director of animal services for the city of Calgary

Well, I'll tell you what Mr. Bruce, the bans do reduce the number of PIT BULL bites.
All dogs bite and when owners replace pit bulls with other dogs, it doesn't change the number of bites. What changes is the severity of the injuries caused by the bites.
These are the type of deceptive arguments made by those against breed specific bans.

Fan website pedals alternate 'truth'

The ultimate chutzpah of pit bull activists is the fantasy that this pit bull fan website peddles, the idea that pit bull owners are smarter than average.
In one of the very few studies that compared dangerous dog owners with regular dog owners found;

A total of 166 owners of high risk dogs were compared with 189 owners of low risk dogs. The high risk dog owners had nearly 10 times more criminal convictions than other dog owners. Breaking the data down by categories of criminal behavior they found that high risk dog owners were 6.8 times more likely to be convicted of an aggressive crime, 2.8 times more likely to have carried out a crime involving children, 2.4 times more likely to have perpetrated domestic violence, and 5.4 times more likely to have an alcohol related conviction when compared to low risk dog owners.. -Psychology Today

Still unconvinced? Read Barbara Kay's excellent takedown in the National Post 

United Airlines Bashing Underscores America's Mean Streak

Business as usual... Beating up  a paying passenger

Americans generally believe that Canadians pronounce the word "about" as "a-boot" and that as a people Canadians are generally mild-mannered and nice. 
While "a-boot" is laughably false, the idea that Canadians are generally nicer than Americans is absolutely truer than true, because pretty much every western democratic society is kinder and gentler than America.
In which western democracy would a paying airline passenger be violently ripped from his seat by thugs in uniform, for no reason other than it is in the airline's economic interest?
Could it happen in Canada, France, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Australia???

Nope, as the saying goes...... Only in America.

If you wonder why America has such a highly developed legal tort system, it is because corporate America generally lives by the tenet that screwing and mistreating customers is better for the bottom line than treating customers with respect and dignity and that the occasional fine or court debacle is just the cost of doing business and cheaper in the long run.
And so despite what everyone says, United will pay dearly for beating up a paying customer, the American court system geared towards appeasing the public with the occasional multi-million dollar award that while satisfying, does nothing to change predatory or otherwise shameful business practices of corporate America.

Don't listen to TV talking heads who agree with United in maintaining that the company had every right to do what they did in accordance with it's own contract, the infamous Contract of Carriage, which can best be described as the corporate version of "Manifest Destiny"

Not many commentators have read the infamous document (as I have), assuming that the company lawyers have covered United's corporate ass completely. You'd think they had, but the unique circumstances of the incident show otherwise and leaves the company open to a whopping lawsuit. According to the rules that United itself wrote, a passenger can be denied boarding for just about any reason that the airline deems fit. But the contract words are clear and the lawyers left a big loophole in defining the terms 'Denied Boarding' and 'Refusal of Transport.'

Plainly speaking, under Rule 21, the airline may refuse to board you on the aircraft for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to overbooking and is required to offer limited compensation, sometimes none.
But the rules change once you have boarded and "Rule 25- Refusal of Service"  kicks in, which provides that the company may deny you service and even remove you from the aircraft for a variety of reasons including force majeur, safety, security, but clearly not for business purposes.

Denied Boarding or Refusal of Transport. A distinction without difference?   Not at all. 

Any litigation will focus on whether the beat up passenger Dr. David Dao was denied boarding or refused transport under the terms of the Contract of Carriage and here United is utterly screwed..
It is a legal principle that the drafters of a contract are responsible for its content and that any ambiguity works in the opponent's favour.
If you were a judge or on a jury hearing the case which way would you rule, for the company or for the beat-up passenger?
United, it's sub-contractor and indeed the Chicago Airport security force, will all certainly be found to have acted outside the terms of service and will likely be ordered to pay millions.
My voice is not unique in holding that United will pay big time. Although the corporate line that United is in the clear is being parroted across mainstream media, defence lawyers across America are starting to voice their opinion that the opposite is true.
The only choice United has is to settle quietly and try to put the debacle behind them.

There are those that say that it will be a return to business as usual when the media and the public turn to the next story, but I'm not so sure.
The airline industry has a business model that is just incompatible with good customer service whereby they allow customers to book tickets and not pay for them when they don't show up. To compensate the airline takes more reservations than capacity dictates leading to the occasional but fully to be expected fiasco when too many passengers do show up.

Imagine if your favourite sports teams, concert artist or restaurant adopted the same policy?
Could you imagine sitting down to a Broadway play, having paid for your ticket weeks in advance, and then just before the curtain rises being told  that you have to get up and leave because the theatre has sold more tickets than it anticipated and that uniformed thugs will beat you up if you refuse to vacate?
What society tolerates such a cruel business model?

Welcome to America.

Bridge Saga Confirms Our Leaders as Idiots

It was with stunned amazement that I watched the presentation by our illustrious leaders who explained quite proudly that the plan to remove the old Champlain bridge (once the new span is completed) will take some four years to complete and cost upwards of $400 million.

Whaaaaat???????????

The Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges  authority prepared a video at a cost of untold tens hundreds of thousands of dollars to illustrate how they might undertake the vastly complicated project.
 I say 'complicated' rather facetiously because the entire world understands that to demolish a bridge, the cheapest and fastest way to do so, is to blow it up in one fell swoop.
Not so in Quebec, where we do things differently, not to be better, just to be different and always at a higher cost.

At any rate, the new bridge looks like it's going to be late and over-budget, something every person reading this page, fully expected.

You might ask why they don't just blow up the damn thing with dynamite in a controlled demolition for a fraction of the cost, with just a couple of weeks preparation.
If you do ask, you'd get the most ridiculous and patently stupid answer in return.

You see the good folks at the bridge authority are afraid of disturbing the mutant three-headed fish that swim below the bridge and they want to spare the folks on the adjacent Nuns Island a nasty dust cloud that would inevitably follow.
Yup, that's the justification for that $400 million cost. The fish and the dust.

Montreal Dumps massive amount of sewage into river

This for a city that dumped a gazillion liters of toxic sewage into that same river last year because to do anything else would cost too much and be quite the bother.
When it comes to saving the environment in Quebec, all efforts are mandatory and at any cost ....as long as Ottawa and Canadian taxpayers ante up.

The question to be asked is why in Quebec is blowing up a bridge not politically or environmentally correct, when the practice is standard operating procedure all over the world.
The City of New York doesn't seem to have any qualms about blowing up a bridge with dynamite and this in one of the most densely populated urban areas in North America.

"A much needed replacement bridge has been under construction since 2015 and is slated to open in April. Once it's fully functional, the 78-year old Kosciuszko Bridge will literally be blown to smithereens. The reason behind blowing up the bridge is that it will just save the work crew's time. Usually, it takes months to dismantle a bridge so blowing it up is actually much easier (not to mention, considerably more dramatic)."Link

The only controversy around the project is which music will be played during the big explosion, with many proposing the 1812 Overture being  played by a volunteer band.
In a ceremony last year blowing up another New York State bridge, Gov. Andrew Cuomo didn't seem to have any qualms about using explosives to take down another out-dated bridge.

"Life is tough when you’re a bridge," he said. "You work for 85 years, stand up through storms, rain, carry vehicles every day. Then at retirement, you don’t get a watch, you don’t get a pension, you don’t get a thank you. All they do is blow you up.”

In fact dozens of bridges are successfully blown up each year, even those over rivers.
What is it that makes us so special that we cannot do the same?

Now I understand that a federal agency is undertaking the foolhardy project which includes an overpriced bridge and a ridiculous over-priced demolition, so we here in Montreal are sitting on our hands, watching the rank stupidity and foolhardy spending with nary a complaint because we are the beneficiaries.
Like usual Quebec takes while giving back a pittance and so Canadian taxpayers get to play the generous fools once again.
The project represents all that is wrong with our government, both provincial and federal when idiots have their hands on the public purse strings and spend like demons just because they can.
The announcement of the environmental effort to spare the fish under the bridge comes in the same week that Montreal is surreptitiously chopping down 1,000 trees on beautiful St. Helen's Island to make way for a paved concourse, further degrading a stunning green space to accommodate Osehega, an alt-music festival.
Maybe the festival can adopt Joni Mitchel's 'Big Yellow Taxi' as it's anthem.
You know the lyrics;

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got til its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
And put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half to seem 'em

I cannot fathom the timid reaction by taxpayer groups, watchdogs or the press, who let the issue of the massive overspend on the removal of the old Champlain bridge go with nary a word of protest.
This while people are motivated to protest in the streets over a couple of million dollars in over-compensation of Bombardier executives while quietly accepting a needless $400 million demolition project.

I remember getting a knock on my door in my rented apartment in Florida. A lovely and spry grey-haired senior citizen asked me if I planned to go down to city hall for the big tax protest that they were organizing.
Alas, I answered, I'm only a temporary renter with no dog in the fight.
To which she called me an idiot, reminding me that because of the tax increase I would be paying more next time I rented.
By the way, the protest was successful and rates were frozen.
If only we had the same concerned citizens here, we might attend a grand farewell blow-up party for the Champlain bridge, saving us hundreds of millions.

Bombardier Makes Fools of Us All

It boggles the mind how devious, arrogant and underhanded companies like Bombardier can be. This coupled with the rank stupidity of those in government who deal with these slickers, leaves taxpayers holding the bag once again, a Quebec tradition.

Quebec is the provincial champion of government largess vis-a-vis company handouts and actually doles out three times as much money and tax breaks to companies as Ontario does. Considering that Ontario's budget is 1½ times that of Quebec, it means that we dole out money at a rate 4½ times in comparison.
This adds up to about $6 billion that the government shells out to keep companies from fleeing to greener pastures.
The vaunted Montreal video game industry, the poster boy of the government's investment in jobs is strictly a question of pay to play, with tax benefits that cover in some cases of up to a third of the overall company payroll.

At any rate, let us say that when negotiating with these companies, our illustrious leaders are over-matched, like a flyweight boxer getting into the ring with a heavyweight.

If you hadn't heard the latest, Bombardier blackmailed the Quebec government for a $1.3 billion loan, claiming poverty, and then turned around and gave huge raises and bonus' to its bosses.
The company has a long history of living on the government dole.

There is no better description of Bombardier's actions than the Yiddish word "Chutzpah"

How stupid are Bombardier bosses?
Not since "New Coke" has a company blundered so publicly, turning even the biggest government defenders against them.
The federal government is now considering an additional request from the company for a further $1 billion loan, which has become toxic overnight.
Not even Trudeau can sell this loan, the country won't have it.

It's time for governments to forgo loans and subsidies to  private business. Those companies asking for handouts are either commercial failures (Bombardier) or successful companies who scam idiot politicians with threats and promises over jobs.

Now we are hearing that the Calgary Flames are threatening the city and province with moving if taxpayers don't shell out for a new arena.
The Flames are in the successful scammer category, threatening taxpayers in a shameful ruse that would make a mafia protection racketeer proud.

The Flames billionaire owner is just following the successful shakedown that the other Alberta hockey billionaire-owner of the Oilers, Daryl Katz did on Edmonton taxpayers, getting the city to pay for most of the $600 million arena project. All it took was a shopping trip to Seattle to frighten officials into coughing up. Easy-peasy.

But Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi should call the Flames bluff.
There is absolutely no good option in the western part of Canada or the United States to move to, Seattle included. If there was an option, the NHL would have expanded there itself.
On the other hand, on the remotest of chance that the Flames move, another ownership group would jump at the chance to operate in Calgary under the present conditions.

Politicians need to grow a pair.
Subsidies and corporate handouts should be made illegal, because just like drugs they are too tempting for weak-kneed politicians.

As Nancy Reagan said....JUST SAY NO!

Does Social Malaise Grip Quebec?

It was more in sadness than anger that I read about the inevitable forced resignation from McGill university by perceived Quebec-basher Professor Andrew Potter, who wrote a scathing and perhaps disjointed article attacking Quebec society entitled entitled;
“How a snowstorm exposed Quebec’s real problem: social malaise.”

Reading the article I couldn't help but sense the profound disdain and anger that the good professor felt for Quebec society, and although the article was mostly accurate, it had the sense of one written by an author in an altered state or someone unloading on his boss before the inevitable firing.

Of course, once published, the writing was on the wall for the good professor at McGill, an institution on a precipitous decline after itself adopting and installing Quebec values, best represented by the French expression; "Nivler par le bas" or as we say in English "leveling down," the process of making the lowest common denominator the academic standard.
McGill is a university led by Quisling-like administrators petrified of giving offense to its government overlords and French language critics. It is quick to change its academic standards so as to accommodate French students in order to scare off the language hounds.

“Dr. Saleem Razack, assistant dean of admissions for medicine.... .... says McGill would have kept the MCAT requirement if there was a French equivalent. “But we want to make sure there’s no barrier for a major segment of our population.” According to Razack, the regular med school class from undergraduate programs doesn’t have as many francophones as McGill would like....” LINK

McGill University medical school, which lowered admission standards to favour francophones has slid from the best program in Canada, to third, reflecting the sad realty of the effects of affirmative action.
I can only imagine what other 'accommodations' have been made in other faculties.

And so it isn't strange that the good professor was shown the door despite the university denying that it forced the professor out, even in the face of criticism of the apparent assault on academic freedom of expression.
The French press went berserk as is always the case when the Quebec model is attacked, with irrational and unrestrained charges of 'Quebec bashing.'

I wonder if the Quebec Press Council will again censure Macleans magazine for the anti-Quebec article, just as it did over the blockbuster article the magazine ran last year entitled...  "The Most Corrupt Province In Canada ."
On second thought probably not, considering that the last fiasco left the Press Council with egg dripping on its face when the allegations made in the article turned out to be more than accurate.
At any rate Anglo apologists like the Montreal Gazette took up the banner of crushing the messenger  with a sadly amateur opinion piece by editor in chief Lucinda Chodan that was to be kind, unworthy of a high school journalist. The Gazette
In the piece Chodin claimed that criticizing Quebec is fine for Quebecers, but 'Quebec-bashing' when done by mean-spirited out-of-provincers. She went on to excuse Quebecers lack of charity or volunteerism on the demise of the Catholic Church, some 50 years ago, an argument akin to the 'dog ate my homework.'
Most of the attacks over the article were based on two small factual errors which in and of themselves were minor. The author claimed that Quebec ATMs distribute $50 bills to facilitate the underground economy and that restaurants routinely offer discounts for cash.
The attacks based on these small errors reminds me of the lawyerly practice of picking apart the devastating testimony of a witness in court wherein a small discrepancy is blown up out of proportion to discredit the entire testimony.
And by-the way, the practice of cash payment in restaurants was so pervasive in Quebec, that the government installed a draconian system of electronic surveillance of restaurant payments, via government mandated billing machines that connects restaurants directly to the tax department. A small army of vicious tax inspectors prowl restaurants clandestinely buying food to make sure that the billing system is used and that every customer is issued a government receipt.
What other province does this?
And by the way, most  hair salons and barbershops in Quebec are notorious for practicing the art of 'cash' payments,' so much so that the government is contemplating installing the same type of  controlled billing machines. The only caveat is that the attached government inspectors would be obliged to get a haircut or perm to establish the bone fides of the billing system, a prospect not altogether practicable.

As for $50 bills in ATMs, they have recently become rare, with Canada Trust one of the few institutions that provide the bills routinely.
Perhaps the banks are under pressure by the government to no longer provide them. 

At any rate, the ad hominem  attack on the author and the picky argument over the minor errors were nothing more than an attempt to deflect, a concerted effort  to obscure the argument made in the piece, that Quebec suffers from social malaise, a subject worthy of legitimate debate.

So the question remains; is Quebec in a situation of social malaise?

social malaise 
- a feeling of pervasive dissatisfaction and disgruntlement
-problems and difficulties acting together which are causing a bad situation.
-a vague awareness of moral or social decline.

Now let us not mince words;
Quebecers are more dependent on government because that is what they voted for...the nanny state and all that it entails and all that it breeds.
The results;
Quebecers are less generous than Canadians and volunteer less because Quebecers view these responsibilities as the government's.
Quebecers work many less hours than other Canadians because the money is less important than the free time.
Quebecers ship their parents off to senior homes at a rate twice that of Canada because personal and familial responsibility has been bred out of them.
Quebecers save for their childrens' education at a rate half of that of parents in British Columbia and 65% of Quebec parents don't contribute a dime (other than general taxes) to their children's higher education.

I could go on and on, but the question remains... Is this a sign of social malaise?
I think not..
That's just the way Quebecers order their lives and they generally feel right about it, far from the definition of social malaise.
As for Canadians judging them as socially backward...well as the saying goes ...Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And let us remember that like an over-indulgent parent, it is Canadians that help fund these excesses through those naughty equalization payments.
I mean really, if your parents gave you an overly-generous allowance as a teen, would you seek a part-time job at McDonalds?