Quote of the week:

"Don't swear at me you (expletive). I'll rip your tongue out. " - Ted Theodore Sr., father of Djurgarden goalie José, heard on a police wiretap berating a client of his loansharking enterprise. He and three other sons pleaded guilty to gangsterism charges on Monday.

VLT suit delayed

Sol Boxenbaum was hoping to have won a judgement by now in his class action suit targeting Loto-Québec for failing to properly affix notices on VLTs warning of the dangers of gambling addiction. But he's now learned that the case won't even begin for another two years.

"Our expectation was by now we'd have some kind of settlement or conclusion to the charges," says Boxenbaum, CEO of Viva Consulting, a local non-profit anti-gambling organization. His $700-million lawsuit, representing 480 compulsive gamblers - out of the 119,000 Boxenbaum guesses there are province-wide - has been put off until February 2007 because that's apparently the only time that lawyers from Loto-Québec and the three other companies involved in buying the machines can find time to get to court together.

"I think it's ludicrous that we have to wait all that time to get a judgement," he says. "I think it's an intentional stalling tactic on behalf of Loto-Québec."

Boxenbaum says a cash victory would go to compulsive gamblers, "not to cover losses but to provide money for treatment and prevention and legal fees." » Kristian Gravenor

Back home for
Projet Montréal

Projet Montréal, the new, green-minded, left-leaning municipal party that emphasizes public transport and "sustainable development," will be revisiting their Plateau base for another evening of meeting and greeting the public. Their aim, says Richard Bergeron, the party's leader, is to shore up their main oasis of support in an otherwise desert of public apathy. "Whenever we want to raise our morale, we go back to the Plateau," he says. "The Plateau is really at the heart of our program."

Bergeron's party is busy making links with like-minded community groups that share its vision of dethroning King Car and, among other ideas, installing tramways along Parc and Mont-Royal. Plateau denizens, he says, seem much more interested in their borough soirées than suburbanites.

In the meantime, Projet Montréal is getting ready for the municipal elections expected this Nov. 6. Candidate lists are being drawn up and should be finalized in time for their party congress on June 12.

The conference takes place at Café Rico (969 Rachel E. corner Boyer) on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. For more info see www.projetmontreal.org. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Canada's Haiti guilt

In his 15-year experience covering the political situation in Haiti, outspoken independent journalist/filmmaker Kevin Pina has survived numerous threats, attacks and an assassination attempt.

As part of a cross-Canada tour, California native Pina is set to tell his side of the story with screenings of Harvest of Hope, his riveting feature-length primer for understanding the current crisis in Haiti, and excerpts from his upcoming film, Haiti: Betrayal of Democracy. Pina will also be giving a Q&A and talk that will certainly include his current beef with Canada.

"What angers me about Canada's role in Haiti, in particular with the RCMP, is that while they brag about providing training to the new Haitian police force, they assume no responsibility whatsoever for the massacres being committed by that same police force they are training," he says. "If Canada and the United States is going to call themselves a democracy, then that implies an informed constituency. We deserve to hear the side of the story that's not being told."

Pina's presentation takes place on Monday, Feb. 7 at the Concordia University Hall building (1455 de Maisonneuve W.), Room H-110, 7 p.m. » Rafael Katigbak

Calling out for anarchy

Diversity is the word for the sixth annual Montreal Anarchist Bookfair and the month-long Festival of Anarchy.

"What we really try to reflect is how anarchy ties into all kinds of different subjects," like the labour, women's and environmental movements, explains Jaggi Singh, one of the organizers.

The call-out for submissions for workshop ideas and art for the increasingly popular event, which drew about 4,000 people last year, was sent out late last month.

Along with a diversity of topics, organizers are hoping to offer a wider range of events, including anarchist-inspired art, such as murals and sculptures. Also in the works are children- and family-oriented events on topics like parenting and education.

The literary fare will also grow this year. Organizers for the bilingual event are reaching out to other countries in the Francophonie for contributions to the myriad of books that will be on sale May 21.

All this is on top of the regular workshops, talks, and film screenings that surround the two-day booksale/workshop main event. Submissions are due Feb. 15. Guidelines are at http://anarchistbookfair.taktic.org. » Tim McSorley

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Feb. 7-Feb. 14, 1991

On the cover: Isabel Allende, who, despite the prevalence of the fantastical in her new book of short stories, The Stories of Eva Luna, doesn't think her work is "otherworldly." "Don't think that it is a Latin American device, or that extraordinary things happen only in exotic places, in banana republics," she tells Marian MacNair. "Several stories I heard about just by reading the newspaper."

• Lynn Suderman and Mae Brown address love and relationships from the het and homo perspective respectively. Suderman: "Compromise and respect rule over martyrdom in any strong relationship.... Essentially, a cease-fire is as effective as a state of harmony." Brown: "North American society is brimming with social mores, marriage counsellors and guide-books to heterosexual relationships. No such outside opinion is available to same-sex couples."

• The McGill Women's Union is "outraged" that the Mirror didn't write about a class hostage-taking in Berkeley, California, in which an armed man forced the men to sodomize the women with carrots. "By ignoring violence against women you are promoting it," they thunder.

Angel >> Same-sex marriage, nearly Fireworks are already flying - in a political sense, anyway - following the return of Parliament on Monday. On Tuesday, the federal Liberal government introduced the long-awaited final draft of the same-sex marriage bill. To make it more palatable to some big-and-small-c Conservatives, it does not force religious groups to perform same-sex marriages if they choose not to do so. The NDP and the Bloc both support the bill, but its passing into law is still no sure thing: according to the Globe and Mail, 139 MPs support it, 118 oppose it and 49 are undecided or gave no answer. The bill needs 154 votes to pass. The vote is expected in June.
Insect >> The nursing brain drain Relatively low wages and the threat of dismissal due to failed language tests isn't helping Quebec retain its nurses. At a medical job fair held in Montreal on Monday - the last day of a bitterly cold January - nurses were being offered jobs in California, Florida and other Gulf states that come with generous sweeteners: starting salaries at $32 (U.S.) an hour, signing and relocation bonuses of over $10,000 (U.S.) and the option of personally scheduling shifts. Coupled with the pressure many anglophone nurses face from the French language tests, it's small wonder that many of them would seek climes that are both literally and professionally warmer.