SOPFEU busy in Quebec’s north
Quebec’s forest fire fighting agency SOPFEU is dealing with a number of fires in the province’s north, due to dry weather and lightning strikes, La Presse reported.
There have been 78 fires north of the 50th parallel as of June 27, which is four times the 10-year average.
“In Northern Quebec, there is a significant drought. [ . . . ] We can say that it’s a unique situation,” explained SOPFEU prevention and communications advisorJosée Poitras.
The number of fires in the southern portion of the province have been average.
SOPFEU announced the “additional mobilization” of its teams, and Poitras said that on Saturday evening, 119 people were fighting forest fires across the province.
“We are increasingly mobilizing our forces. [ . . . ] As the days go by, teams will be positioned in strategic locations, and their numbers will continue to grow,” she said.
Montreal shooting victims remembered
Two separate funeral services were held last Wednesday for the victims of the shooting in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood on June 22, CBC News reported.
Montreal Police officer Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34, and local shopkeeper Michel Mizrahi, 68, were killed in the shootout.
Mizrahi, La Presse reported, was shot accidentally by one of the officers responding to the shooter, who herself was wounded in the gunfight. He was remembered as a generous man.
“If someone needed help, advice or simply someone to talk to, he would make the time. That’s just who he was,” his nephew Tomer Marcus said at his funeral.
Benredouane left behind a three-year-old daughter and a wife, according to a Gofundme in support of his family.
“Behind the uniform was an exceptional man: a dedicated police officer, a loyal friend, a loving husband and an extraordinary father,” the description reads.
He is the first Montreal police officer killed in the line of duty since 2002.
The shooter, a 25-year-old man from Alberta, was killed by police. His manifesto, released online, attacks women, capitalism and online pornography, among other subjects. He began the shooting from a hotel window, shooting across the street into the offices of PornHub’s parent company Aylo.
Quebec launches call for bids on ‘third link’
Quebec’s government has issued an international call for interest in the long-discussed “third link” project linking Quebec City to the south shore community of Levis by way of a bridge and tunnel, CBC News reported.
The public notice targets construction firms with the ability to execute a project of this magnitude, and has a deadline of Aug. 10 for submissions.
Premier Christine Fréchette had said that her government would pursue an eastern route, a change from the more central plan proposed by her former boss François Legault.
While business groups in the Quebec City region praised the initiative, Parti Québécois MNA Pascal Paradis called the move a “stunt” ahead of this fall’s election.
“Even though the auditor general just called them out for wasting hundreds of millions on poorly planned projects, the Legault-Fréchette government is dug in on making things worse,” he said in a statement.
