Quote of the week:

"Take cover under something solid. You're more likely to get hurt by flying debris than by walls falling on you." - Earthquake survival advice, given by seismologist John Adams, after two quakes struck Quebec within a week, in Monday's Gazette.

Ojibway target Abitibi

The barricade at Grassy Narrows, an impoverished Ojibway reserve in northern Ontario, has been up since Dec. 3, 2002, and it doesn't look like it'll be coming down any time soon. Erected to keep Montreal-based logging giant Abitibi Consolidated from clear-cutting their land, the barricade is reportedly the longest-running in Canadian history.

Meanwhile, some of the reserve's inhabitants are currently touring Ontario and Quebec in an effort to publicize their cause. They roll into town on Sunday, March 13, and plan on demonstrating outside Abitibi's Dominion Square office on Monday, March 14.

"[The delegation] is coming here to challenge the corporation's public relations claim that it's been negotiating with the Grassy Narrows band council, because a lot of people don't feel that the band council represents them," says Antoine Libert, a member of Indigenous People's Solidarity Movement.

There will be a dinner, film presentation and discussion on Sunday at the Native Friendship Centre (2001 St-Laurent), beginning at

6 p.m., free. The demonstration will take place Monday at Dominion Square at noon. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Stella keeping busy

Stella, Montreal's sex workers' rights organization, is working hard these days, launching the prison-theme edition of its magazine ConStellation this week at Joliette and Tanguay prisons. It'll be available for general consumption at the end of the month for a tenner.

They're also preparing to host a major international sex work conference from May 18–22, which will include visitors from as far as Calcutta. They're hoping this will be the year authorities finally change the Criminal Code provisions that make life difficult for sex workers (at the federal Liberal convention last weekend, the Prime Minister said he won't change them).

Stella director Claire Thiboutot has a particular beef with Canada's ban against living off the avails of prostitution. "There are already laws against abuse, fraud and manipulation," she says. "We don't need an extra law against pimping. If I pay $70 for a massage, the masseuse only gets a fraction of it. It's the same thing in the sex industry. If you pay for a service there's someone who must organize the work - it's normal for them to take a cut." » Kristian Gravenor

Blue collar class action

If you slipped on an icy Montreal sidewalk between last Dec. 5 and 12, you might have some cash coming. During that period the city's blue collar workers refused to salt the sidewalks as a work protest. Now Grace Biondi has lawyer Phillippe Trudel launching a class action lawsuit against the blues for her injurious fall at University and Pine.

If a judge greenlights the case, there will be a 12 to 18 month wait, Trudel says. He also says they have the names of almost 200 people claiming damages already, but states that it's not necessary to be on the list to eventually receive compensation if a judge decides to reward it.

He says chances are good that the slippery sidewalk action will go ahead. "We already got another case authorized against the blue collars in 2003 when they blocked streets in Old Montreal in labour protest," he says. "We're still waiting to see what happens to that one as well."

He invites those with questions to call him at 871-8385. » Kristian Gravenor

Fight the lease increase

Renters should know that July 1, Montreal's annual moving day nightmare, isn't that far off. For tenants whose leases expire that day, March 31 is the date by which landlords have to alert you to any lease increases. But of course, there are rent increases, and then there are rent increases: landlords are only allowed to raise rents a certain amount per year, based on specific calculations. Not that many tenants know this, or have the gumption to contest any rent raise their landlord presents them with.

But, says the Comité logement du Plateau, they should, and to that end are hosting information sessions on every Wednesday until April 27. The goal is to educate tenants about the legal amount their landlord can up their rent. The Comité's Daniel Miville says that, while they won't calculate the amount for you, they will "explain the calculations, based on things like heating, electricity, school taxes, upkeep fees and insurance, based on the Régie du logement's calculations. Afterwards we'll answer any questions." Call 527-3495 for more info. » Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

17 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
March 4–March 17, 1988

On the cover: Jane Siberry, whose songs, according to Andrew Jones, offer "quick, detailed, memorable portraits" of disparate visual images. Asked if she's a painter, she responds, "I've always wanted to [paint], but my hand/eye coordination is not that good."

• The black community is simmering with anger in the wake of police Constable Allan Gosset's acquittal by an all-white jury of the fatal shooting of black youth Anthony Griffin, as community leaders call for judicial system reforms.

• In his review of Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, a collection of the late Lester Bangs' rock criticism, Stanley Whyte writes that Bangs "recognized that 99 per cent of [rock 'n' roll] was garbage. But garbage is a product of society, and he gave it its due."

• In Bare-Faced Messiah, Russel Miller's exposé on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, reviewer David Parkinson finds it a relief that "Hubbard emerges as merely racist, sexist, paranoid, greedy, deceitful, cruel and capricious," but not psychotic. "Another Jonestown would have been easy for Hubbard."

Angel >> Progenitorivox It's not a real drug, which is good, considering it costs $12 (U.S.) a pop and can cause humiliation, constipation, male lactation and rust-coloured urination, among other side effects. But Consumers Union, the publisher of influential magazine Consumer Reports, is hoping its satirical Internet bluegrass-esque-song and Flash clip helps to motivate the American government to pass a law forcing pharmaceutical companies to make the results of all their studies, including those with negative results, public. The Progenitorivox clip also pokes fun at high prices and tacked-on, hurried warnings at the end of ads. There's also a favourable reference to Canada. It can be seen at www.consumersunion.org.
Insect >> Guns Following the brutal murder of four Mounties in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, there was a lot of confusion about what gunman Jim Roszko was doing at his Quonset hut. A grow op? No. A trade in stolen car parts? Maybe. But it's most likely that the four officers would still be alive if the violent, cop-hating lunatic Roszko hadn't had access to an assault rifle. Last Monday marked the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death by gun; the same day, women in Quebec held a demonstration stating that women are at particular risk in a world flooded by small arms. The gun nuts are dead wrong: guns do kill people.