Work still needed to achieve equality, suggests city manager Jacques Ulysse
For the first time in its 56-year history, the City of Laval held a summit for diversity and ethnocultural inclusion on April 22, bringing together more than 400 participants on an online platform, while providing an open forum for speakers to express what were at times some very frank views.
Led by Francophone radio and TV host Rebecca Makonnen, the guest list included Quebec Minister for International Relations Nadine Girault, Environment and Anti-Racism Minister Benoit Charette, Sainte-Rose MNA Christopher Skeete, Mayor Marc Demers, executive-committee vice-president Stéphane Boyer and city councillor for Auteuil Jocelyne Frédéric-Gauthier.
Garbage piled to the ceiling in a Chomedey duplex. Books, magazines, food trays, decaying food, discarded packages, and more, filling chairs, tables, beds; some rooms are so stuffed you can’t walk through them.
The home, 904-906 Emerson Street, is an ideal place for roaches and rats to breed, and the pests made their way through walls into neighbors’ homes. Neighbors are awakened by rats scratching on the walls and scurrying in the ceiling of their living quarters. “Imagine having to live next to a place full of trash. That’s what we have had to deal with,” said Vicky Zannis, who lives in the adjacent duplex whose apartment is now infested with rats.