I was on my own at 18 and had a really rough time doing physical jobs while going to University and yet I saw a system that bends over backwards for the prior mentioned “disadvantaged’ groups at the expense of “my” group and I have to tell you, no I never got anywhere near that lepine character’s level of anger but there should be at least be an evenhanded method of dealing with academia as possible. Seriously the admissions systems is wide open to abuses as it is a behind closed doors system. The idea that women are not treated extra nicley by the system as well as fellow students is a lie. These 14 women were victims of a madman but the potential for future lepines is being created by the lack of even handedness. I am not talking about preventing any woman or minority from any field of work or study etc…. but everyone should be treated as evenly as possible. No special bursaries, no lesser fees, no special awards no quotas for admissions, no easier marking and extra soft dealing with these more “vulnerable” people because in reality it isn’t a sex issue, nor a race issue but what was your socio-economic standing that determines one’s prospects for success. I was on my own at 18 and grew up in “the” toughest and poorest distict in Canada and was the only one of 60 to get into any University of my grade 7 elementary class (we all went to different high schools outside of the point so I have to use that grade for comparison) and should this not be more of a discouraging element than what a woman from a minority family from even a middle class family. Minority families are far more supportive of their childrens education goals so what I am saying is the system is geared to create more Marc Lepines and not fewer. Loving our children etc…. is all cute and everything but the perception of an unjust society whereby a university degree is the only thing seperating one from a life at Home depot or making 75 k a year and that being reserved for woman and minorities does not a safe situation make.

This comment is sure to make people angry but seriously the situation is more tense now than it was then as mfg. jobs have dissapeared and there are only crap jobs left for those who can’t make it into a decent program at University. I am no longer desperate to have people like me so I don’t care about telling it like it is and I am saying the best way to avoid future Marc lepines is to create a truly transparent and even handed system as well as keeping everything from being made in China. There are a lot of underlying tensions in our society and the potential for people to do these types of things is worse now than it was before as it really is a winner take all society and it’s not right. It is tragic about those women and other victims, the system needs to be straightened out.

That is a very difficult to replicate industrial infrastructure located within metro distance of 1,5 million people. That could have been an excellent selling point as many large scale projects are typically located in remote locations with limited skilled labour available. Selling this to a condo developer may have made good business sense to the CN in some convoluted way but to society as a whole it was utterly retarded as an entire economic policy for the southwest area of montreal could have been based upon that land holding. The current residential building boom is great for condo developers but here was a way to have employment for people who would not have required vehicles to go to far flung areas and it was thrown away. Worse than that because it has rail lines going right into the facility it could have been used to make large scale windmills or even have been turned into a car production line emplying thousands as it had been used to produce sherman tanks in WW2.

“We just don’t give a shit”… Scary to see that what would seem to be 90% of the population just not caring enough to see where this is all heading. I don’t even know if caring is the right word. The mainstreamers just wake up, drink their coffee, get in the car, sit in traffic for an hour, sit in a cube for another 8, sit in traffic again… and repeat, repeat, repeat.

Everyone is desensitized to EVERYTHING. Mass murders of students, forgotten in a week. Hurricanes destroying entire coastlines, a distant memory. I think the only way humanity will truly understand the full effects of this will be when they wake up one morning and their cars are underwater.

Really. A sad, sad state of affairs.

Building and building for the sake of keeping the economic wheels in motion is what has got us into most of the trouble we see today, urban sprawl, oil dependency, climate change, etc. Human beings are extraordinarily adept at avoiding long term consequences for short term pleasures, even if those short terms projects create huge disparities between the haves and have nots. As long as we can pretend the system is on our side, we can tolerate short term injustice, provided it does not annihilate our dreams.

what to do?

can we take them to court for negligence, or something?

He advocates expanding the tax base by cleaning up the toxic soils and then build . . build . . build.

My hobby-horse is to let nature clean it up with careful nurture of the natural wetlands.

Blackhurst worked for decades in the RR Yards that were Turcot back when. He believes mucho in the work ethic and rags-to-riches through hard work. Now he is on the side of the developers (go figure).

Despite all this, people like Blackhurst are worth the effort to win over to an eco and sustainable alternative.

PS Hope that KM will note my email address and stay in touch.