This week, we had a bad quarter of an hour. The tragedy that occurred in the Sainte-Rose district took place a few streets from our house. And even closer to the school of our beautiful big Manu. In the first hours, when we learned that a potentially deliberate accident had occurred in the neighborhood and that we did not yet have confirmation of the exact location of this tragedy, the atmosphere was far from Cuddle bears.
Especially not when we started to see the images of the media plastering our so familiar streets, the corridors of police installed everywhere, the images of our daughter’s school on the front page. This same school which, moreover, was used throughout the day as an anchor point for all the emergency and ambulance services. Images of stretchers passing in the face of disbelieving students, with parents in distress from the daycare center redirected to this same building.
Unlike others, we were at least lucky to have confirmation at the end of the morning that the students of the Ecole du Parc were safe and sound. But, suddenly, realizing the surreal magnitude of a situation like this when it happens in your neighborhood, in your daily life… it hurts.
Especially when your daughter tells you that a friend from class is waiting for news from her little sister, who was at daycare when the tragedy happened. This daycare that we see so often, located in this beautiful little corner that punctuates our regular walks near the Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, in the old historic train station of the old village of Sainte-Rose-de-Lima, next to the railway, where these old stone houses welcomed the Patriots. The real ones, those of 1837-1838.
The police controls everywhere, the cursed sensationalist helicopters of the media, the concussion, the injuries and the death of young children. And all these politicians who do their reality show by landing with their security contingent, when we never see them in normal times. Or if we see them, they don’t listen.
This policy, which has never been so sclerotic in our lifetime, so Americanized, suddenly finds an outlet, a beneficial image to rally people, the time that we forget for a moment the crass incompetence that plagues it. This theatre, this lack of accountability, these evasions, these minions of communications who, in the shadows, lead politicians by the nose by “controlling the message”.
All this farting, while the people on the ground are suffering and continue to be lied to in the face that they will finally be listened to, contrary to what the “other party” has done for four years (message to be copied -paste in four years). All these beautiful people who are told that their access to mental health resources will finally be improved, that their health care system will one day be worthy of the name, that the environment and their living environment will finally become a priority, that a concrete action will be set in motion so that this planet does not self-destruct in 100 years.
But above all, that the school of their little brats will finally be renovated, that help resources will be offered to their dyslexic daughter, to their boy with learning difficulties. That all this will be improved in this same school which, ironically, served as a strategic base for the relief of the tragedy of this week in Sainte-Rose.
This same school which, two days before, had literally just been flooded for the indirect cause of absolute decrepitude (you should see the state of the classes, it’s scary). This flood which forced the temporary relocation of the group of this same little girl whose sister was not heard from at daycare at the time of the tragedy (no, it can’t be invented, it’s my daughter’s class).
And after these tears, we will hear them vociferate with their big smile: “The health of patients at the heart of our priorities. » « Education at the heart of our priorities. » « The environment at the heart of our priorities. “Mental health at the heart of our priorities. The more we hear about priorities, the lower the priority. And the less there is heart. The only priority is their cursed re-election and their power to decide to do nothing. Another four years, board the train that turns in circles!
news flash : services, there are none left at all. Hospitals are crumbling under pressure, public buildings are crumbling and bus drivers are in distress. Less access to mental health, education, community settings, environment, etc. This is the reality on the ground. Just open your eyes and need these services to realize it. Even the former first lady of our province is passing away in the most excruciating suffering because of the failures of our health care system… Can you imagine the fate reserved for the common people?
It’s just if we don’t hear them tell us that at least we, this week, in our neighborhood, we were lucky not to receive the phone call from the hospital informing us that our daughter had pulled out from under a bus tire. As if it were comforting and normal to realize that consciously. As if it were normal that it is even a mental image that can now exist in our lives…
But yes, luckily ours was safe. Failing to have the society we should be able to choose, we cling to the small daily pleasures.