A pile of police have been deployed near Ubisoft for what has been reported so far as a hostage taking, an armed robbery, a bomb threat, and/or a large ransom demand.
An SPVM spokesperson says they are in "verification mode." No event has yet been confirmed.
It is quite unusual that at this stage there would be no information about the cause of a deployment this big.
For example, normally if an armed man had taken someone hostage, police would have said that by now. This is a thing that happens occasionally in a city like Montreal.
It's also very unusual that reporters have found no witnesses to anything yet.
When I first heard of this a little over an hour ago I started searching "Ubisoft" and man are there a lot of people angry at them about some game problem.
To recap: Police went in large numbers including swat members after an unconfirmed threat near the city's Ubisoft office over an hour ago.
Police have confirmed no one is hurt. They have yet to confirm if there's an actual event taking place.
The intrepid @felixseguin says his impeccable police sources are telling him that it looks like a hoax. Caveat: Police operation still underway.
The Ubisoft building is six storeys and occupies half a city block. It takes time to find nothing, if there's nothing to be found.
The Montreal police just sent out a statement saying their operation continues but "no threat has been identified."
People are starting to come out of the Ubisoft building now.
I understand why closing schools is tempting. Quebec has had an extended lockdown banning social visits and closing almost all recreational and entertainment activity. All we got is a month-long plateau in new cases at a high level followed now by the start of another rise. 2/
Deaths and hospitalizations are steadily rising. Something has to break and the government does not want to close more commercial activity, where 54% of outbreaks take place, compared to 15% for educational institutions. 3/
This is not to undercut a fine piece of reporting, but was anyone outside BC ever under the impression science had the last word on any of this? thestar.com/news/gta/2020/…
Even in BC when everyone was praising Dr. Henry for following best practices she was also engaged in a campaign of moral suasion (ie: politics) a large percentage of the time.
While I’m here, a couple people have pointed out Dr. Henry has declined to mandate masks and has rejected the covid app. Which, given BC has performed better than any province outside the Atlantic, illustrates science is only part of the answer.
Quebec is updating the back to school plan it unveiled early in the summer. Ed Min Jean-François Roberge, Health Minister Christian Dubé and director of public health Horacio Arruda are presiding.
First an update on the computer system update that is causing Quebec stats delays: It's coming, Dubé says. Today. He promises.
98 new cases today. First time under 100 in a month.
The indomitable @nolore predicted Mesley’s admission of the incident involving Vallières’ book would “distract and confuse the issue, aided by Quebec distinct society analysts who will fully obscure what she has been reprimanded for.”
Spot on so far.
Many people are pointing out Durocher often has a passing relationship with facts, but she’s far from alone putting her energy into the Vallières aspect of the controversy.
I grew up in the boonies of Saskatchewan. My only knowledge of police was getting caught drinking in the bush while under age. It usually ended I spilled drinks.
Then I got into journalism and one of my first jobs was working at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix starting around 1996. 2.
When I got there, the paper had shed a lot of staff so as a rookie I was dealing with fallout from a couple of the most egregiously incompetent investigations and prosecutions in Canadian history. Google ‘ritual satanic abuse’. It was a thing. Add in Sask. for that chapter. 3.