On July 1st, another (another!) increase in the ARTM goes into effect. Zone A ticket costs from $3.50 to $3.75. This surge, along with all others, will harm many people. For people on low incomes, public transport is often the only means of transportation. However, due to the constantly increasing costs, this option does not exist for many people.

Currently, the cost of a monthly pass to use public transport is more than 10% of a welfare recipient’s income. With the announced increase, things will only get worse.

At ACEF du Nord de Montréal we offer nothing less than free public transport. How not to consider this measure, knowing that it enables both the fight against social exclusion and climate change?

A fundamental right

Mobility is a basic need that enables a number of other rights to be realized (right to housing, to work, to education, to food, to health, etc.). Mobility should therefore be understood in a public service logic in the same way as health or education. These services are available to the public regardless of an individual’s ability to pay. Unfortunately, this is not the case with public transport.

While a single person on welfare gets $770 a month, many workers are also pulling the devil’s tail. With rent costs skyrocketing, utility bills soaring, not to mention groceries, how much money do you think is left for transportation? To ask the question is to answer it.

Surroundings

Free public transport is also a solution to meet our urgent goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This measure also makes it possible to create denser and safer cities that are geared towards the people who live there and not the cars that travel there.

Because yes, we believe that freedom would be an important incentive to give up the car, even if the range of services is also a decisive factor in this choice. In Montreal, 40% of greenhouse gases come from road traffic. It is estimated that climate change alone will cost communities $5.3 billion a year. A decline in the number of cars in the city has several advantages.

A political decision

Nothing comes for free, you will say. Quebec must fund this measure to replace the part paid by users. However, with this clever cost-benefit calculation, savings must also be taken into account (road maintenance, congestion, pollution, health, etc.). Additional revenues must also be taken into account (attractiveness of the cities for companies and tourists, densification of the districts and revitalization of the city center and its shops). Political decisions are also possible.

In Ontario, 71% of confirmed transport investment for 2022-2032 is for public transport and 29% for roads, while in Quebec there is an inverse ratio of 30% for public transport and 70% for roads. If Quebec can invest billions in building a new tunnel, it can also invest in free public transport if it chooses to.

Valérie Plante recently proudly presented the achievement of free entry for seniors. She casually mentioned the concept of territorial justice regardless of income. This justice must apply to everyone, not just seniors. From an ecological point of view, free access also has an impact on intergenerational equity. Ms Plante mentions that public transport should no longer be seen as an expense but rather as an investment in the future. We wholeheartedly agree with her and hope she will help us bring that vision to Quebec.

Free local public transport is not a utopia. It is present in more than 120 cities around the world. What is the city of Montreal waiting for to join the movement?

Isabelle Mailloux-Beique And Dominique Gagnon, ACEF Budget Advisor for North Montreal

A multiple traffic accident involving eight vehicles was registered early in the morning at kilometer 43 of the M-50 in Getafe (Madrid). According to a spokesman for the 112 emergency number of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, it was a “first emergency call” to which others have joined in a chain, the first warning call to 112 being made at 7.65am. The accident, which involved two trucks, a van and up to five cars, injured seven people, three of them “potentially seriously” and four others minorly, and also caused a significant traffic jam on this access road to the capital.

The Summa 112 treated a total of seven wounded. The potentially serious individuals, who “do not appear to have any serious injuries but may later develop serious complications from those injuries,” are a 50-year-old man with multiple trauma who was in a medical helicopter to the Doce de October, a middle-aged man with multiple injuries who was evacuated to the same hospital centers and a 48-year-old man who also sustained multiple injuries and was taken to Getafe Hospital.

In addition, four people with minor injuries were treated for multiple injuries, two of whom were transferred to Getafe Hospital and two others to Twelve October Hospital. The accident resulted in the disruption of interior M-50s and major traffic delays. The Guardia Civil is investigating the causes of the accident.

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The Paris Club’s western creditors, who are responsible for renegotiating the debts of countries that cannot meet them, want to commit to responding with their partners to a request from a state “within six months,” while some are already waiting have more than two years.

“The delays have been very long, there is certainly a need for technical work, but we cannot allow countries to wait more than two years before receiving debt treatment,” said the president of this club, Emmanuel Moulin, at the opening of the 10th… .annual Paris Forum on Wednesday Club, organized in the capital.

An informal group founded in 1956 and bringing together 22 countries including Germany, France and the United States, this club is responsible for finding solutions to the difficulties of debt repayment in fragile countries.

Other actors have muddled the composition of poor countries’ debt in recent years, chief among them China and private creditors, whom the club invited to Paris on Wednesday for discussions to take place throughout the day and must progress across several cases, including Zambia, Ghana and Ethiopia.

Zambia has defaulted since 2020 but has still not received debt treatment under the Paris Club, which has been extended to non-club countries like China and grouped under a “common framework” set following discussions at the G20.

“I believe that we are close to being able to offer Zambia the conditions of adequate treatment,” affirmed Emmanuel Moulin on Wednesday, on the eve of an international summit in Paris aimed at helping developing countries better deal with climate change .

Turning to Ghana, “our pledges of funding have made it possible to take an important first step in addressing the debt (…) but there are more steps ahead,” he added. For Ethiopia, “the committee is already formed and ready to move forward as quickly as possible with the support of the International Monetary Fund,” continued the club’s president, who is also director general of the French Treasury.

Emmanuel Moulin also called on Wednesday for the creation of a “handbook based on the experience of Chad and Zambia” to “better explain how this common framework works to potentially eligible countries” and “provide more clarity to debtor countries.” .

A couple who hand-reared a day-old duckling before releasing it into the wild were stunned when they returned to their home six months later with 11 ducklings.

Phil Garner, 67, of West Yorkshire, took the little mallard under his wing after finding it abandoned by a fishing lake before returning it in his coat pocket to his wife Julia Garner, 66.

The former freight train driver said the bird, who they named Freda, was partially potty trained after she moved into her triple home in April 2021.

And the pair even took turns sleeping at the “demanding” bird’s bed and feeding her a 40-pound diet of maggots until she flew from the nest last October.

But they were stunned when she reappeared on their doorstep in April with a male “friend” duck – who they named Fred -.

Phil Garner, 67, and his wife Julia, who hand-reared a day-old duckling before releasing it into the wild, were stunned when they returned to their home six months later with 11 ducklings.

A few months later they saw her coming up the driveway with her newly hatched ducklings who had now settled back into her garden.

Phil said, “Going from one duckling to eleven was chaos.” It was like, “What are you doing with that crowd?” They’re eight inches long now and as fat as butter – fluffy, very fluffy.

“They have to swim, they have to wash themselves.” So we have tubs everywhere. The garden looks like a bomb site, but that doesn’t bother me.

“It was a bit sad when Freda was there for the first time, but at the same time it was also a small relief because she worked hard and was very demanding.” It was a double-edged sword.

“But in the back of my mind I was expecting them to come back because we were told they leave a mark on you for life.”

Julia said her husband, to whom she was married for 16 years, was undergoing agonizing treatment for bladder cancer when he first met Freda.

And she now considers the duck to be Phil’s “guardian angel” as he was able to focus his energies on taking care of her during this difficult time.

She said, “At first I wasn’t particularly keen on making my home a duck sanctuary, but we’re all adapting.”

Philip, from Castleford in West Yorkshire, hand bred an abandoned duck they named Freda (pictured)

The couple hand-reared the day-old duckling, feeding it maggots before releasing it into the wild

“And that year Phil had three cancer surgeries and 15 follow-ups. It was a tough time for him and in a way Freda helped him through it.

“So she was like his guardian angel.” I think she was sent for a reason.’

Phil said he was fishing with his son near their home in Allerton Bywater, near Leeds, on April 1, 2021 when the little duck first darted towards them.

They spent hours trying to find her parents before the grandfather of seven took her home after the fisheries manager said she would die if left in the wild.

Phil said: “It was freezing cold that day and there was no sign of the mother.”

“The guy said, ‘If you leave her here, she’s going to die.'” So we brought her home and thought, ‘What do you do with a day-old duckling?’

Phil, with Julia’s help, nursed the chick back to full strength in the comfort of the warm home and let Freda run around the living room, kitchen and garden.

They also allowed her to swim in a fiberglass pond they bought for goldfish – and it didn’t take long for her to bond with her rescuers.

Phil said, “She either slept in a box, at your feet, or under the coffee table.”

“But one of us had to sleep downstairs or she would start screaming and crying. We taught her to use towels.

“She sat on my shoulder and on my desk while I worked on the computer.” She was so loving.’

Phil said Freda suddenly left home last fall after spending a couple of weeks yelling at other ducks she could hear at a local lake.

And the couple believed that was the last time they saw her until April 3 of this year when she walked up the driveway again with her “boyfriend” Fred.

Freda with Julia at the age of one week. Freda has had to partially use the potty after moving into the triple home in April 2021

Freda felt right at home in the couple’s triple home near Leeds and even slept in Phil’s slippers

Freda knew a perfect safe place for her little ducklings – in a lavender bush near her old home

Ducks apparently leave their mark on their parents for life – so perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that Freda returned home

Freda and her brood – she was rescued as a day-old chick after being orphaned and has lived a happy life ever since

Phil said the lovebirds spent a few months together before Freda suddenly disappeared and her ‘lost’ partner had to fly away without her.

But two days later, she emerged from a neighbor’s lavender bush with a bouquet of little ducklings who now live in Phil and Julia’s garden.

Phil said, “We looked out the front window one morning and saw the little ducklings waddling towards us.” They’ve stopped here ever since.

“We let them in the fish pond in the front yard, but we dug a separate pond in the back and feed them cornmeal, worms, maggots and Weetabix.”

“You can hear them say ‘beep, beep’ when they want to eat or when the mother leaves, but they’re pretty quiet.”

Phil expects the ducks to stay with them for a few more months but is willing to house them in a nearby pond if they don’t go back into the wild.

He added, “We expect her to fly away and go back to where she was before and the ducklings will just follow her and do their own thing.”

“If not, there’s a good fishing pond near us that’s surrounded by a fence to keep the foxes out.”