Aylmer, Quebec news

• Montreal businessman who bribed CRA employee seeks new lawyer

  12-09-2018 23:26 via montrealgazette.com
  A Montreal businessman who admitted this year that he bribed a Canada Revenue Agency employee before and after the man became an undercover agent in an RCMP investigation is looking for a new lawyer before his case enters the sentencing stage.
  A sentence hearing for Reza Tehrani, 60, has been put off four times since May 22, when he entered guilty pleas to seven charges filed against him in 2012.
  The former owner of the Institut Technique Aviron de Montréal, a trade school based in Town o
  
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• 'Our backs are against the wall': Alouettes head coach Mike Sherman

  12-09-2018 23:20 via montrealgazette.com
  For the third consecutive day on Wednesday, Alouettes backup quarterback Johnny Manziel — who hasn’t played since Aug. 3 at Ottawa — didn’t attend practice.
  And for the third consecutive day, the organization maintained Manziel is suffering from stomach flu. He did practise Sunday, when the Als returned from a bye week in the schedule.
  Never has there been so much fascination surrounding a player who hasn’t actually played of late.
  “This isn’t odd to me.
  
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• Watch: Pedestrian safety in Montreal

  12-09-2018 23:08 via montrealgazette.com
  Montreal police launched a series of road safety operations with a focus on pedestrian safety on Wednesday.
  Montreal Gazette photographer John Mahoney was on hand at the intersection of René-Lévesque Blvd. and Berri St. at 11 a.m. and files this video, which finds that pedestrians are not always paying attention to the traffic lights and are often distracted by their smartphones.
  The SPVM road safety operations continue until Sept.18, quite possibly coming to an intersection n
  
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• Quebec election: Liberals promise four more years of balanced budgets

  12-09-2018 23:08 via montrealgazette.com
  Four more years of balanced budgets and increased spending on health and education — that’s what Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard promised voters on Wednesday as his party released its financial framework for the mandate it hopes to win on Oct. 1.
  “What we’re saying today is we’re guaranteeing stable and predictable funding in health care and education,” Couillard said.
  “We will not proceed with further tax cuts unless we are sure that the funding
  
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• Quebec election: Michelle Blanc says she owes Hasidim no apology

  12-09-2018 22:32 via montrealgazette.com
  Parti Québécois candidate Michelle Blanc says she does not need to apologize for perceived anti-Semitic comments she made in the past.
  “I don’t have to defend myself,” Blanc told the Montreal Gazette, saying the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has “already defended me.”
  She then said she had no other comments to make on the subject.
  Blanc’s comments have been denounced by the human rights organization B’nai Brith Canada, which cal
  
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• Notorious bank bandit sentenced in Montreal armoured-car heist

  12-09-2018 20:52 via montrealgazette.com
  One of Canada’s most notorious bank robbers has been sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in a Rosemont heist fours years ago.
  With time already served, his remaining sentence amounts to about half that.
  Paul Thomas Bryntwick, 67, came to notoriety for his role in a 1977 robbery in Vancouver in which he and other members of Montreal’s West End Gang made off with more than $2.5 million in gold bars and other valuables.
  At the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday, Superior Court
  
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• Opinion: Elected school boards are vital to English-speaking Quebecers

  12-09-2018 20:50 via montrealgazette.com
  English public education has a long and storied history in Quebec. Today the system has roughly 100,000 students in schools located throughout the province. We strongly believe that quality English public education essential to our future, and that maintaining control and management of that education by means of elected school boards is vital to the future of English-speaking Quebec.
  Over the years, we have heard intelligent, well intentioned people propose other educational models, such as
  
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• Montreal robot bartender serves up drink, song, dance and counsel

  12-09-2018 19:56 via montrealgazette.com
  “Tough day?” the bartender asks. “How about a glass of champagne? Would you like one?”
  Why not.
  “How about a song?
  Sure.
  The strains of Lionel Richie’s Hello come bursting out of the bartender.
  “Want me to dance?” the bartender inquires.
  Seriously?
  The bartender then busts a few moves that would do Daft Punk proud.
  No accident there. This bartender could pass for — the top half, anyway — a member of the hit robotic-resembling French ele
  
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• Quebec election: 'Too many' councillors in Montreal, Legault says

  12-09-2018 19:39 via montrealgazette.com
  L’ASSOMPTION — Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault believes there are “too many” elected officials in Montreal and plans on meeting with city officials about it if elected.
  “I would like to discuss with Montreal representatives, including the mayor,” Legault told reporters after a news conference in his home riding of l’Assomption on Wednesday.
  “I think right now it’s true, it’s a question of fact: th
  
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• Martin Patriquin: In Quebec election, one fear has replaced another

  12-09-2018 19:27 via montrealgazette.com
  In 1970, a year marked by burgeoning facial hair and a certain unhinged president in the White House, Quebec held an election in which getting the hell out of Canada was on the table, even if a remote possibility. In 2018, with facial hair once again a resounding thing and an even more unhinged president serving as commander-in-chief, the province will, for the first time in 48 years, vote in an election in which staying put is a given.
  This is very good news. For nearly half a century, Quebec p
  
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• Watch — Quebec election: Anglos on what they want in a political party

  12-09-2018 18:32 via montrealgazette.com
  Quebec’s political sphere is complicated.
  In addition to traditional differences between leftist, centrist and right-wing parties, language rights and separatism are unavoidable.
  As Quebec’s Oct. 1 general election approaches, we asked anglophones in Montreal what they are looking for in a political party.
  The outcome of this informal and not entirely representative survey was a mixed bag.
  Some said they’d found a party that broadly reflected their outlook.
  Others were struggli
  
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• Notorious bank robber sentenced for role in Montreal armoured-car heist

  12-09-2018 18:32 via montrealgazette.com
  One of Canada’s more notorious bank robbers has been sentenced to an overall prison term of eight years for his role in a heist in Rosemont fours years ago.
  Paul Thomas Bryntwick, 67, came to notoriety for his role in a robbery carried out in 1977 in Vancouver where he and other Montrealers who were part of the West End Gang made off with more than $2.5 million in gold bars and other valuables.
  On Wednesday, during a hearing at the Montreal courthouse, Superior Court Justice André V
  
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• Quebec election: CAQ would ‘systematically’ screen all young children

  12-09-2018 17:46 via montrealgazette.com
  L’ASSOMPTION — A Coalition Avenir Québec government would enact province-wide measures to screen for developmental disorders among young children and guarantee each child access to a family doctor, the party announced Wednesday morning.
  Leader François Legault made the announcement outside a CPE in his own riding of l’Assomption. He called the promise “one of the most important” of the campaign and estimated the idea would cost $40 million.
  Legaul
  
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• Quebec election: Liberals apologize for election sign in Black Rock cemetery

  12-09-2018 17:29 via montrealgazette.com
  The Liberals say they have finally removed a large election sign the party erected at a monument that sits atop a burial ground for Irish immigrants who died of typhus in Montreal in 1847.
  “The situation is totally unacceptable,” said Dominique Anglade, the Liberal candidate in Saint-Henri—Sainte-Anne and economic development minister in Philippe Couillard’s government.
  “I was just in touch with party members and it’s supposed to be down.”
  On T
  
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• Quebec election: When are the leaders' debates on TV?

  12-09-2018 17:17 via montrealgazette.com
  Wondering exactly when and where — and in what language — the leaders of Quebec’s main political parties will debate the top issues on TV? We can help you with that.
  In the lead-up to voting day on Oct. 1, here are the details for the three televised debates for the Quebec provincial election, featuring major party leaders Philippe Couillard of the Quebec Liberal Party, François Legault of the Coalition Avenir Québec, Jean-François Lisée of the Parti
  
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• Quebec election: Nationalist group wants English debate cancelled

  12-09-2018 16:51 via montrealgazette.com
  A nationalist group is calling on the leaders of the four main political parties to reconsider their plans to take part in an English-language debate next week.
  In a press release Wednesday, the Mouvement Québec français said the leaders should cancel the debate to reinforce the fact that French is the province’s official language.
  If they take part, they will send the message “that learning French is neither necessary nor important, since even our aspiring premier
  
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• Quebec election notebook: A day later, 'callous' Liberal election sign still stands in Irish cemetery

  12-09-2018 16:21 via montrealgazette.com
  Victor Boyle started hearing about it early Tuesday morning via Facebook.
  Large election signs — two touting the Parti Québécois, one the Liberals — had popped up next to the Black Rock in the median of Bridge St. near the Victoria Bridge.One of the most solemn places for Montreal’s Irish community, the boulder commemorates the 6,000 poor Irish immigrants who escaped the Great Famine only to die of typhus in Montreal. They were buried in mass graves
  
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• Quebec election: Couillard promises 4 more years of balanced budgets

  12-09-2018 15:56 via montrealgazette.com
  A re-elected Liberal government would balance the provincial budget for four more years, Leader Philippe Couillard promised on Wednesday.
  The promise came as the Liberal Party released its financial plan for the second mandate it hopes to win Oct. 1.
  The plan projects that government revenue will increase — as a result of economic growth —and  much of that increased revenue will be used to fund new promises, the Liberals say. The plan forecasts that budget surpluses will rise fr
  
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• Telecom tycoon’s paintings back in the public eye 10 years after financial crisis

  12-09-2018 15:35 via montrealgazette.com
  It was November 2008 and the financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. had finally caught up with the art market. Auction volumes plunged and prices tumbled. While many collectors were too distracted or short on cash, others sensed opportunity — and went shopping.
  One such person was Juan Antonio Perez Simon, the former chief executive officer of Teléfonos de Mexico and longtime business partner of billionaire Carlos Slim, the world’s seventh-
  
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• While you were sleeping: Norm Macdonald apologizes, Rachid Taha has died

  12-09-2018 14:51 via montrealgazette.com
  We hope you slept well. Here are a couple of stories from overnight.
  Norm Macdonald apologizes: Canadian comedian Norm Macdonald apologized for defending Roseanne Barr and Louis C.K. during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter but several sources reported that his planned appearance Tuesday on the Tonight Show was still cancelled. Barr, who hired Macdonald to write on her original Roseanne series, lost her comeback series over a racist tweet. Louis C.K.’s production deal with FX Networ
  
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• Citizens give Pointe-Claire a standing ovation as townhouses rejected

  12-09-2018 14:07 via montrealgazette.com
  Pointe-Claire council listened and the citizens stood and applauded.
  Last week, council gathered to hear developer David Owen’s appeal of the rejection of his proposed Walton Ave. townhouse development. The 24-townhouse project would replace a derelict strip mall in the Lakeside Heights neighbourhood where bungalows, split-level and two-storey red-brick homes line the streets.
  In July, the Pointe-Claire demolition committee approved the demolition of the strip mall, but rejected the develo
  
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• Conservatives would champion anglo rights in Quebec

  12-09-2018 13:33 via montrealgazette.com
  The Conservative Party of Quebec is hoping undecided voters will give their party a second look in the upcoming provincial election.
  Louis-Charles Fortier, the Conservative Party candidate for Jacques-Cartier riding in the West Island, said voters should see the party as a federalist party option to the Philippe Couillard’s Liberals on Oct. 1.
  Fortier said he’s been well-received by voters during his door-to-door campaigning in the riding.
  “One of the things we’re seeing
  
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• Schools face ripples of confusion after field-trip class action suit

  12-09-2018 13:30 via montrealgazette.com
  There is some confusion about what field trips, if any, schools are planning this year. In the case of Lester B. Pearson School Board schools, there will be field trips but details are still being hammered out.
  A series of events has helped feed the confusion.
  It all began when a mother in Quebec City launched a class action lawsuit against school boards province-wide, including all nine English school boards. The lawsuit contested school fees parents were being charged for field trips and schoo
  
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• Individual schools mull over what and when field trips will happen

  12-09-2018 12:11 via montrealgazette.com
  There is some confusion about what field trips, if any, schools are planning this year. In the case of Lester B. Pearson School Board schools, there will be field trips but details are still being hammered out.
  A series of events has helped feed the confusion.
  It all began when a mother in Quebec City launched a class action lawsuit against school boards province wide, including all nine English school boards. The lawsuit contested school fees parents were being charged for field trips and schoo
  
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• Quebec election: First Nations chief demands concrete action from party leaders

  12-09-2018 12:00 via montrealgazette.com
  No matter who wins the Oct. 1 election, the relationship between First Nations and Quebec’s government will have to be “entirely revisited.”
  That’s what the chief who represents 43 Indigenous communities inside Quebec and Labrador’s borders wrote Wednesday in a letter to the province’s four main party leaders.
  “Our demands are not new. We have always been making them known, perhaps too quietly, perhaps too politely,” wrote Ghislain Picard, chi
  
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• Opinion: On a bright day, rafting the Lachine Rapids took a dark turn

  12-09-2018 12:00 via montrealgazette.com
  Once a treacherous obstacle to seafarers trading goods in Montreal, the Lachine Rapids have been redefined in the cultural imagination of Montrealers as a source of entertainment and sports. On any given summer day, boatloads of people are jumping the waves amid screams of joy and excitement. On one of these hot days, I was one of them.
  As a group of about 50 people gathers around for a safety talk before we board the bright yellow inflatable rafts, I am surprised by the number of young children
  
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• Montreal weather: Everything's basically fine and it's a bit unsettling

  12-09-2018 12:00 via montrealgazette.com
  Environment Canada forecasts that some fog, which is the only interesting element of the day’s weather, will dissipate int he morning.
  The daytime high is expected to be 24 degrees with a humidex of 29.
  There’ll be a few clouds at night to go with the forecasted low of 13 degrees.
  Don’t forget to submit your photos of Montreal via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by tagging them with #ThisMtl. We’ll feature one per day right here in the morning file. Today’s pho
  
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• Kramberger: WIAIH marking 60th anniversary with a block party

  12-09-2018 12:00 via montrealgazette.com
  The West Island Association for the Intellectually Handicapped (WIAIH) is marking its 60th anniversary with a street party this month in Valois Village.
  “We’ve never done something like this,” Lyne Charlebois, WIAIH’s executive director, said of the 60th anniversary block party to be held in front of their home office on Donegani Ave. on Sept. 29. (A section of the street will be closed off for the event.)
  “We wanted to make it accessible to our members. Keep in min
  
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• Bill Brownstein: Yet more clowns are coming to town

  12-09-2018 12:00 via montrealgazette.com
  Quick, send in the clowns.
  Don’t bother, they’re here.
  No, not those clowns on the election campaign trail or those other clowns making a mess of our roads. And definitely not who Stephen Sondheim had in mind when he composed his iconic Send in the Clowns back in 1973.
  We’re talking professional clowns here. They have descended on the city en masse for the third annual Festival des clowns de Montréal, starting Wednesday and running until Sunday at the Mainline Theatre.
  I
  
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• Quebec election: Jacques-Cartier riding by numbers

  12-09-2018 11:55 via montrealgazette.com
  The electoral district of Jacques-Cartier is one of four West Island ridings gearing up for the Quebec elections, Oct. 1. Here is a look at the riding by numbers.
  Martine Bourgeois is the Parti Québécois candidate in the riding of Jacques-Cartier in the 2018 Quebec general election.
  Jacques-Cartier is comprised of Baie-D’Urfé; Beaconsfield; Pointe-Claire; Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and Senneville and is the only provincial riding with an anglophone majority. When the elector
  
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• Quebec election: The West Island's Parti Québécois candidates

  12-09-2018 11:33 via montrealgazette.com
  It’s no secret the West Island has been a Liberal, federalist, stronghold for decades. And it’s no secret that the Parti Québécois is pro-independence.
  In the 2014 election, the Parti Québécois received a combined 28.13 per cent of the votes in the four West Island ridings.
  Here is a look at the PQ’s West Island candidates.
  Chantal Legendre is running in the riding of Nelligan (Kirkland, Île-Bizard and Pierrefonds area). Legendre, who has a bac
  
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• Citizens give Pointe-Claire council a standing ovation

  12-09-2018 11:30 via montrealgazette.com
  Pointe-Claire council listened and the citizens stood and applauded.
  Last week, council gathered to hear developer David Owen’s appeal of the rejection of his proposed Walton Ave. townhouse development. The 24-townhouse project would replace a derelict strip mall in the Lakeside Heights neighbourhood where bungalows, split-level and two-storey red-brick homes line the streets.
  In July, the Pointe-Claire demolition committee approved the demolition of the strip mall, but rejected the develo
  
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• Quebec election: Vaudreuil by the numbers

  12-09-2018 11:00 via montrealgazette.com
  The provincial electoral district of Vaudreuil is comprised of Vaudreuil-Dorion as well as Pincourt, Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Île-Perrot and Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot. It and Soulanges are the two provincial electoral districts in the Montérégie being covered by the Off-Island Gazette leading up to the Quebec elections, Oct. 1.
  The Vaudreuil riding, along with its predecessor the Vaudreuil-Soulanges riding, have been Liberal strongholds for decades, with the exception
  
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• Quebec election: PQ's Lisée warns citizens not to split sovereignist vote

  12-09-2018 04:15 via montrealgazette.com
  Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée warned a packed room in his Rosemont riding not to divide the sovereignist vote, because that would pave the way for a Coalition Avenir Québec government.
  “It’s no joke; if an were election held today, the CAQ would win, and it is a party that believes in privatizing health care and austerity,” he said Tuesday night at an all-candidates meeting attended by more than 300 citizens at the Gabrielle-et-Ma
  
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• Man charged in Mile End death and dismemberment case led nomadic life

  12-09-2018 03:15 via montrealgazette.com
  A murder case brought against a travelling musician who is alleged to have killed and dismembered a fellow bandmate inside an apartment they were sharing in Mile End weeks before police even knew the victim was missing is scheduled to return before a judge at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday.
  Earlier this month, Raymond Henry Muller, 51, was charged with the first-degree murder of Cedric Gagnon, a fellow musician. According to reports, both men were part of a Montreal band called Pirates! Th
  
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• Climate change should be priority of election, QS’s Nadeau-Dubois says

  12-09-2018 02:38 via montrealgazette.com
  The only real ballot box issue in the provincial election is the fight against climate change, Québec solidaire candidate Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said on Tuesday while on the campaign trail.
  During a campaign stop in Carleton-sur-Mer, a town on the Gaspé’s south shore, QS’s co-spokesperson announced his party would bring “a definitive end to the production of hydrocarbons” in the province if it were elected. He also said climate change should take priority ove
  
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• Nick Suzuki hoping to make Canadiens' roster after trade from Vegas

  12-09-2018 01:17 via montrealgazette.com
  Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin said Nick Suzuki was the key player for him in the trade that sent captain Max Pacioretty to the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday.
  The Canadiens received Suzuki, Tomas Tatar and a second-round pick at next year’s NHL Entry Draft in exchange for Pacioretty. Suzuki was the Golden Knights’ first-round pick (13th overall) at the 2017 draft and posted 42-58-100 totals in 64 games last season with the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack. Tatar had 4-2-6 totals in 20 game
  
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• Former CFL player Tim Fleiszer speaking up about danger of concussions

  12-09-2018 01:12 via montrealgazette.com
  It has been 20 years since Tim Fleiszer, then a rookie defensive lineman with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, suffered the second of his three diagnosed concussions.
  The injury occurred on the game’s opening kickoff. Fleiszer slammed into a wedge of blockers. The next thing he remembers was looking at the scoreboard. Twelve minutes remained in the second quarter, and yet, Fleiszer had continued playing.
  “This is not a unique story. And after the game, it was sort of no big deal,” said
  
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• Allison Hanes: We need to do more to curb pedestrian death toll

  12-09-2018 01:08 via montrealgazette.com
  When an 87-year-old woman was fatally struck by a car in St-Laurent Monday night, Montreal’s pedestrian death toll edged higher than the city’s homicide rate so far this year.
  While we should all be glad that the number of deaths from crimes dipped to a 46-year low in 2017 at only 22, the fact Montrealers appear to be more at risk from doing an ordinary activity like walking down the street is cause for alarm. It should also be cause for outrage: deaths from these types of accidents
  
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• NBA players step up as Canada hosts Brazil at Place Bell in Laval

  12-09-2018 00:48 via montrealgazette.com
  Kelly Olynyk will be standing tall for Canada Thursday night at Place Bell in Laval.
  Olynyk, a seven-foot centre with the Miami Heat, will be one of six NBA players in the lineup when Canada faces Brazil in a crucial Americas qualifying game for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
  “Any time I get a chance to represent Canada, I’m there,” Olynyk said after a practice session this week at the UQAM  sports centre. “This is an important game and I wanted to be here becau
  
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• As Canadiens' promising core of 2014 is dismantled, retooling begins

  12-09-2018 00:29 via montrealgazette.com
  Rebuild or retool?
  General manager Marc Bergevin said he didn’t want to put a label on the Canadiens’ latest effort to put together a competitive team, but the long-awaited Max Pacioretty trade has moved the situation squarely into the rebuild column.
  If a real estate agent was describing the state of the franchise, they would label it as a “tear-down.”
  The key to the trade is 19-year-old Nick Suzuki, who is skilled and fast. The Canadiens also picked up Tomas Tatar, 27,
  
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• Snoop Dogg guest of honour at party here for Namaste Technologies

  12-09-2018 00:02 via montrealgazette.com
  Snoop Dogg will be in Montreal Wednesday and the event couldn’t be better suited to the superstar hip-hop artist and marijuana entrepreneur. He will be DJing at a party at New City Gas, an invitation-only event for shareholders in the Toronto-based cannabis company Namaste Technologies.
  Namaste CEO and founder Sean Dollinger said he thinks the guy who has often rapped about smoking weed is the perfect person to anchor the party.
  “Snoop Dogg is the face of cannabis and so we thought t
  
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