Quote of the week:

"You, our people, are our greatest asset, and don't let anybody - or any media commentator - tell you differently." - From a full-page Wal-Mart Canada "open letter" to its employees, after it announced its recently unionized Jonquière store will close, in Quebec papers this week

Grover at crisis stage

The 200 or so artists, artisans and small businessfolk inhabiting the old Grover factory building at Parthenais and Ontario have until Saturday, February 19, to come up with $3-million. That, or see their offices, workshops and studios go condo.

Architect and Grover tenant François Lafontaine, president of the Coalition sauvons l'usine (www.sauvonslusine.mine.nu), says the building's tenants learned about its sale and imminent conversion in September. Since then, they've been trying to get the city to buy and preserve it. And while they did get a temporary stay on the sale - which expires this Saturday - they are still waiting to see what the city will do about deciding its final status. They expect an answer sometime this week.

"The artists here will have a very difficult time finding another place like this," Lafontaine says. "This place is perfect. It's not slick - there's a lot of dust, paint and noise, but the size of each local is ideal."

Tenants have been holding vigils outside the building during morning and evening rush hour all week, and will continue until the weekend. » Patrick Lejtenyi

West end's driving issue

Citizens of Côtes-des-Neiges-NDG have been known to clog up borough council meetings with finicky protestations against what they consider an excess of cars on their sleepy streets. But the usual not-in-my-backyard, anti-traffic vibe had a human face at December's meeting, when relatives of popular young rapper Nofy Fannan demanded answers about his death in November at the hands of a speeding taxi driver on Côte-St-Luc Road.

But a new police report released February 7 suggests that such incidents are decreasing. Injuries are down six per cent, and cops gave out one-third more tickets in 2004 than 2003. Councillor Martin Rotrand considers it the fruit of hard work.

"Traffic is a legitimate concern and a major preoccupation, but councillors have been in constant dialogue with the police department," he says. "We've asked to make traffic a priority. If you're going to be a scofflaw, you'll get nailed."

Last year, boroughs got the power to change traffic arrangements independently of city hall. As a result, Rotrand says, the borough is currently studying 24 different requests and petitions for various traffic reducing measures. » Kristian Gravenor

Doc indoctrination

Cinema Politica has its sights set on young minds across the nation. The increasingly popular series of free Monday-night documentary screenings at Concordia began in winter 2003, but next month, groups at UQÀM and Queen's will be hoping to mirror its success by starting similar series of their own.

"There's no shortage of political films, old and new, but there is a shortage of screens showing them," series founder Ezra Winton says. "I'd be happy if there was a Cinema Politica in every high school, college and university in the country."

After founding Cinema Politica at Vancouver's Langara College almost four years ago, Winton came to Concordia to study communications and political science in January 2003, largely thanks to its politically charged atmosphere following the 2002 Netanyahu riot. He hopes to continue the radical tradition by showing lefty-minded films.

Cinema Politica's next film is Amandla: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony as part of Black History Month, Feb. 21, 7 p.m. in the Hall Building (room H-110, 1455 de Maisonneuve W.). Visit www.cinemapolitica.org for more info. » Tracey Lindeman

Black History this week

This is a good week to discuss Big Issues relating to Black History Month. On Thursday, Feb. 17, Haitian culture and religion will be the topic of a lecture at the Pointe Claire Cultural Centre (176 Lakeshore, 7:30 p.m.). The next day, Friday, Feb. 18, there's a conference and debate on young blacks and how they identify with their community, hosted by outreach group RECOPAC at Centre Afrika (1644 St-Hubert, 6:30 p.m.), and a workshop on black male role models at Maison des jeunes de L'Ouverture (5442 Henri-Bourassa, 6 p.m.). Also on Friday is the Black History Month Committee's discussion on identity and liberation at 9275 Clark, corner Chabanel, 6 p.m. And on Sunday, Feb. 20, young black women will talk about their perception of young black men (1200 Bleury, 3 p.m.). All are free.

Guy Giard, creator of Angélique 1734, a multi-media examination of Haitian slavery, shows his accompanying film at the Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay (6052 Monk, Feb. 20, 2 p.m.). Also free.

There's lots more art, dance, theatre, film and photography to be found at http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/mhn/fr/index.shtm. » Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

16 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Feb. 10–Feb. 23, 1989

On the cover: Nick Cave, who tells Marian MacNair that he likes "to use the prison context to write songs in - it's quite clear to me how prison parallels society."

• Wayne Hiltz writes about the level of toxicity of the Des Carrières incinerator's ash, 250 tonnes of which are dumped in a landfill every day. "Every indication shows that it's full of dioxin, lead, cadmium and mercury," says environmental activist Peter Monet.

• "My whole reason for making this film was to say, ‘Isn't there something a little more valuable in life than hairspray, makeup and getting laid?'" Penelope Spheeris, director of The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years, says to Andrew Jones.

• The Mirror nightclub supplement offers descriptions of Montreal bars - from the American Rock Café (with accompanying photo) to Shed Café. Also photographed are Foufs, Di Salvio, L'Esprit and Business.

• In a "Kopenhagen Kaper," Slum Dog, "caught in the clutches of criminally crazed petty pornographers," narrowly escapes by biting one of them.

Angel >> Refugee clemency Alvaro Vega, a Colombian academic and activist, his wife Mireya and their 21-year-old daughter Marcela are now free to apply for landed immigrant status in Canada. Their 19-month saga kicked off a public debate about Canada's immigration and refugee system, after the Vegas were denied refugee status, despite Alvaro having been tortured for his political views in Colombia. Rather than return home, the family sought sanctuary in the basement of a St-Laurent church, where they've been living, without going outside, since. Marcela says she hopes Ottawa will show the same compassion to the Ayoubs, three elderly Palestinians facing deportation to Lebanon, who've been living in an NDG church for over a year.
Insect >> The Canadian Television Fund The principal funding authority for Canadian TV production is taking heat from a coalition of producers and broadcasters for its dogmatic attachment to Canadian content. The coalition says only programs with a specifically Canadian angle get funding, so general interest topics - a biography of 20th-century art giant Modigliani, for instance - won't get made, at least not by a Canadian with Canadian money. It gets weirder: funding was also denied to a producer who wanted to make a documentary about the Plains of Abraham because it took place before confederation. Only in Canada.