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Openfile withholding pay
A group of Montreal journalists launched a collective action Monday against the community based news site, Openfile.
According to an article by the Concordian, the journalists were being kept waiting for up to two thousand dollars of unpaid work for over a month.
In response, four former contributors wrote an open letter and published on a Tumblr page, demanding overdue pay and an explanation for the websites hiatus.
CEO of Openfile, Wilf Dinnick, published a post on the website on September 28th, announcing a hiatus with no word on when it would be online again.
On October 2nd, Dinnick sent a group email to writers and editors, promising to pay overdue invoices within 60 days. According to the journalist’s open letter, some writers have been waiting more than 90 days.
Justin Ling, media spokesperson for the authors of the open letter, said that Dinnick contacted him shortly after the letter was published, and was left confident that everyone would be paid by the end of the year.
On a less positive note, J-Source published a recent article which quoted Dinnick saying that auditors had taken the books, stopping him being able to write the cheques for now. No further or official word about the auditing was made.
STORY WRITTEN BY: CATLIN SPENCER
PQ introduces Bill 10 in quest to fight corruption
The PQ is embarking on a blitz to pass a series of bills before parliament breaks for the holidays.
According to CBC News, the latest bill is receiving plenty of support from opposition parties. Bill 10 gives power to a judge to suspend any mayor or councillor with pay if they are facing a criminal charge that could lead to prison time.
Both the opposition Liberals and CAQ have voiced their support for the bill, however, it is not without its critics. Quebec City mayor Regis Lebeaume said that the government should not forcibly pass these laws just because a few bad apples were elected to their posts.
Currently, Mascouche mayor, Richard Marcotte, would be the only elected mayor that would be affected by Bill 10. He refuses to step down despite all of the accusations set against him.
Bill 10 is one of a group of laws the PQ plan to introduce to fight corruption. They already introduced Bill 1, a law that places pressure on companies bidding on contracts to prove they have a clean track-record when related to corruption.
Flickr Photo by: oeᴈib
November 16th, 2012
Hosted by: Hannah Besseau
Stories by: Hannah Besseau, Catlin Spencer & Carlo Spiridigliozzi
Produced by: Carlo Spiridigliozzi
LISTEN TO : Palm Fête - Eyes
Palm Fête throws you back to summertime on a hot, breezy beach - cool, calm and collected. Listen to the brand new track, "Eyes".
November 15th, 2012
Read by: Catlin Spencer
Stories by: Patrick Miller, Carlo Spiridigliozzi, Chloe Deneumoustier and Nikita Smith
Produced by: Alyssa Tremblay
Occupy Wall-Street to unveil new initiative
Occupy Wall Street has just announced the release of its latest project, Rolling Jubilee.
According to Forbes, Rolling Jubilee is a way for Occupy Wall Street to help anyone who has debt to abolish it.
The Occupy movement has already done a test run claiming that by having spent $500 they were able to buy $14,000 worth of outstanding debt. The person with the debt would then have a clean slate. They would owe Occupy Wall Street nothing.
The movement is trying to get more people to donate it funds so they could relieve many debt holders.
This is the latest in a series of initiatives done by the Occupy movement to promote helping one another instead of protesting. Another recent project was Occupy Sandy, which helped with the storm relief effort.
Flickr Photo by: YODCOX!
STORY WRITTEN BY: GREGORY WILSON
Surgical wait times for some women's procedures on the rise
Surgery wait times for ovarian, breast, and cervical cancers in Quebec are triple the government benchmarks.
According to the Gazette, the lack of resources, such as nursing staff and budget cuts, are causing a backlog of surgeries while leaving operating rooms empty.
Experts suggest that gynecological cancers may be the most severe. This cancer usually spreads quickly before it is detected. Rather than waiting four weeks from diagnosis to surgery, patients are waiting as long as three months.
According to Dr. Robert Sabbah, President of the Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Quebec, the promise to cut surgery wait times, by the province, saw the most improvements in eye, knee and hip surgeries. It is rare for a doctor to have wait-times less than four weeks.
STORY WRITTEN BY: JAMIE-LEE GORDON
Friday, November 16th on The Reaktor
Tune in to The Reaktor this Friday, November 16th 2-4pm for an interview with Ray Carlisle from Teeange Bottlerocket. The band is opening for the Dropkick Murphys at Metropolis (59 rue Sainte-Catherine E.) on Sunday, November 18th.
November 14, 2012
Read by Sarah Deshaies
Produced by Nikita Smith
Stories by Audrey Folliot, Jaime-Lee Gordon, and Gregory Wilson
Demand for public inquiry on police brutality renewed
The fair amount of police brutality that has been reported during last spring’s numerous protests against tuition hikes still make the news today.
Groups, such as Amnesty International and the Ligue des droits et libertés, denounce the violent treatments that some students faced at the time.
According to The Gazette, as many as fifty-one groups have renewed their demand for a public inquiry on the matter.
Those acts of violence include being beaten, pepper sprayed, charged by police officers on horseback and attained by plastic bullets, says the article.
The directives given by the previous Charest government to the officers during the period of the strike are not clear, and groups also want to shed light on that.
As many as 16,000 names have so far been gathered on two petitions in support of the cause.
Newly elected Premier Pauline Marois cancelled Charest’s proposed tuition hike soon after her election last September.
Éliane Laberge, president of the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec and Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec both hope for a public inquiry.
They defend the right to demonstrate freely and without fear, which the most controversial sections of Law 12 where taking away.
At the same time as she cancelled the tuition hikes, Marois had also repealed those sections of Law 12, she who proudly wore the red square during last spring’s demonstrations.
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