Quote of the week:

"Éric is not glamour. He's not jet set." - Éric Lapointe's manager, on the Quebec singer's image following his arrest last week for allegedly assaulting a woman, at the launch party of his new CD, Coupable. No charges were laid.

Kyoto's Canadian questions

A major new scientific study to be released next week but leaked to the New York Times says that - stop the presses! - the Arctic is indeed heating up and that smokestack and tailpipe emissions are the principal cause. Meanwhile, as ice caps melt and permafrost thaws, environment ministers from Quebec and Ottawa met earlier this week to discuss the implementation of the much-maligned Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement designed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Canada ratified Kyoto in December 2002 but only a few provinces are happy about it, feeling that too many breaks are given to Alberta and its oil industry at the expense of other provinces.

Steven Guilbault, Greenpeace Canada's Montreal-based climate change expert, says the federal government needs to do more to make the burden-sharing more equitable. "The feds could decide to cut subsidies to the coal industry, for instance, and train workers to work in other industries like wind turbines," he says. "Or they could pass legislation to force the car industry to put more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road, like California's done."

Guilbault says that, as Canada's ratification now stands, Quebec and Ontario are paying the price for Alberta's oil perks. "This plan is putting unfair burdens on Quebec and Ontario manufacturing industries," he says. "In some cases, like the aluminium industry, emissions have been stabilized and even reduced."

Guilbault doesn't expect much radical change soon. He chastises both the federal and provincial Liberals who, since reaching office, have done "absolutely nothing. They have no plan." » Patrick Lejtenyi

Weapons of the world

At most anti-war rallies, clever demonstrators make much of the profitable link between war and big business. But not every country has a Halliburton, and in the developing world especially, military budgets often dwarf all other expenditures, crippling other areas. An upcoming series of conferences, workshops, expositions, movie nights and seminars will look at how military expenditure actually impedes development and increases global insecurity.

"This is kind of a crash-course of militarism," says press rep Emmanuelle Berthou. "Some of the world's poorest countries have the biggest military budgets. At the heart of the question is that money spent on arms is not spent elsewhere, like in education, health and agricultural development."

The annual Journées québécoises de la solidarité internationale series, running for 10 days, will open Nov. 10 with a talk and photography exhibition by famed Iranian photojournalist Reza at the BloWup Gallery (800 Square Victoria). One subject of the series will be the media. "We want to look at what the media can do to help the rebuilding process after the wars have finished, and what role they have in post-war reconstruction," says Bethou.

The series is organized by l'Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (AQOCI), with the help of anti-war activist collective Échec à la guerre and the Quebec Ministry of International Relations. Most of the events in the Montreal region - the series has events across the province - are free. For more information, visit www.aqoci.qc.ca. » Patrick Lejtenyi

CLSCs help kick butts

Among the arguments against smoking are: a) it's one of the world's most addictive habits, and b) it's one of the deadliest, claiming 13,000 Quebecers per year, according to provincial health authorities. Therefore why are smokers trying to kick butts not offered access to detox centres, like other kinds of addicts?

Along with the provincial government's nic-fit support line (1-888-853-6666), our local CLSCs are fast expanding their help for those looking to stop lighting up. One in four Quebecers still smokes (down 10 per cent since six years ago) and a reported 70 per cent of smokers want to quit. Ergo, Montreal's CLSCs keep expanding their year-old quit-smoking services, with two more locations now offering meetings at 14 of the island's 30 CLSCs. In the eight-week, two-hours-a-week program, cigarette fiends "support each other by discussing their dependency and how to deal with it," says Doina Malai, spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Montreal. Sessions are available everywhere from Pierrefonds to Anjou.

Meanwhile, anti-tobacco advocates are trying to lower our smoking population by lobbying for greater repression. They're hoping the provincial health ministry will ban smoking in bars and restaurants in the upcoming Tobacco Act, which will be revised in January. "We've been asking the health minister to forbid smoking everywhere in Quebec's public and work places," says Louis Gauvin, coordinator of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control. "Based on the experience elsewhere, a lot of people quit when it's forbidden to smoke in more places." » Kristian Gravenor

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

12 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Nov. 5–Nov. 12, 1992

On the cover: Italian immigrant author Marco Micone, whose new book, Le figuier enchanté, will be launched at the Salon du livre. "I frown at anyone who thinks that a culture - any culture - must be immutable," he tells Gaëtan Charlebois. "Insofar as words are part of the culture, they too, by necessity, must change - be open to influence from the outside."

• The new express lane on Parc is criticized after a traffic death. "The city made a highway," says one concerned resident and parent. "They don't care about the people who live in the area." The city says it will look into the problem.

• Commenting on Jean-Jacques Annaud's sexually charged film The Lover, its 19-year-old star Jane March says, "It's not porno - it's a beautiful film from a beautiful book. Jean-Jacques doesn't direct trash. I think people are scared because there's no violence to counteract those scenes."

• "I think it's one of the funniest things we've ever done," says Negativland's Mark Hosler, commenting on their lawsuit-inspiring U2 12-inch.

Insect >> Four more years The good news coming out of the U.S. presidential elections is that apparently, waging an illegal war, giving tax cuts and oil bonanzas to your friends, refuting science and allies and being in thrall to religious fundamentalists won't lose you your job. The bad news is everything else.

This election was more than a referendum on the war on terror - a second Bush term means four more years of opposition to stem cell research, gay marriage, abortion, environmental sanity, responsible federal spending, open borders and much more. From waging an incompetent hunt for Osama bin Laden to bogging the U.S. down in Iraq, Bush has failed to make America - and the world - safer. Consider his legacy so far: not a single suspected terrorist has been convicted in the United States; he has brought religion deeper into the White House than any president from the last century; despite glaring evidence, he has done nothing to halt global warming; his tax cuts to the rich have failed to revive a slumping economy.

This term we can expect more of the same, plus he's sure to stack the Supreme Court with arch-conservative judges. The fact that voters rewarded such a staggeringly dismal example of a president with another term based on his moral values rather than his competence says as much about the electorate as it does the state of the world.

American refugees, welcome to Canada!