New Montreal trends, palimony, car taxes and graffiti deaths

Palimony on its way to the Kweebeck!
   After one judge nixed a demand for palimony, an Appeals Court judge yesterday agreed with a woman that her billionaire Quebecois ex-boyfriend should be obliged to pay herr alimony in spite of never having been offiicially married. As you know there is no such thing as a common law relationship in Quebec because we have civil law, not common law. One of the wrinkles is that the court system has never awarded alimony payments to a woman who was not officially married. A split parent with child custody will get child support payments - Quebec orders lower payments than in the rest of Canada btw - but that's a separate thing. Palimony is accepted everywhere else since the famous Lee Marvin case, so it should come as no shock. But presumably the Quebec billionaire will appeal this ruling all the way to the Supreme Court if need be so perhaps it's still a bit off. Palimony could benefit a lot of women here where most cohabiting relationships in Quebec are of the non-married variety. So the advantage of remaining unmarried will disappear and the crazy low marriage rate in this province could go up.
   The ain reason we don't already have palimony in Kweebeck is because the big women's group here opposed it. I once asked them why, as it would benefit a lot of women. The woman who answered said it was too long ago and couldn't remember and that it was a philosophical decision. 

Montreal announces a new car tax that punishes families, people with kids.
In an extremely lame development Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay announced that he's slapping two new taxes on car owners regardless of how often they drive, why they drive, where they drive. Westmount Mayor Peter Trent agrees with it, which further proves that it's a bad idea. 

   Tremblay wants to cut down on drivers and encourage people to take public transit. Of course this makes no sense as the transgressors over the traffic issues are largely people who do not live on the island and will be spared of this ridiculous tax. Never has any municipal party discussed serious bureaucratic cutting to balance budgets.

Montreal's graffiti causes four death this year alone

 Four young Montreal men whose lives were ahead of them are simply no more. It's an outrage and those who lured them into this crazy cult should be scrutinized with rigor. Griffiti artists you need deprogramming. There are much better outlets to one's artistic expression than to impolitely impose your initials on public or private property only to have it erased a few days later. You've got the internet now and other services which now encourage art to be displayed and sold without need for a gallery setting.