Quote of the week:

“In Ecuador we’re used to seeing police repression, but never in such a gratuitous manner.” —Carla Pérez, whose husband, 50-year-old Ramon Villarroel, was pepper-sprayed by riot police at Sunday’s May Day march, in Monday’s La Presse.

Transit ads irk

Ads plastered all over Montreal’s metro stations, buses, bus stops and even bus passes have gone way too far, according to high school senior Esteban Vargas. “If you don’t want to see advertisements on TV, you can just turn it off, but with these you’re forced to see them whether you want to or not,” says Vargas, 17. “On the bus passes the ads are right on the front side. When you slide your bus pass through the metro gates you’re forced to see the ad. Enough is enough.”

Vargas has hit back with a fledging petition pleading the Société de transport de Montréal “cease using advertisements that are not related to the MTC.” It’s at wwwpetitiononline.com/stmmtl.

MTC rep Odile Paradis rebuts: “The ad revenues allow us to keep transit fares down.”

The MTC hauls in $16-million of its $831-million annual budget from a combination of ads and fees collected from pay phones and news kiosks. Ads will likely be more prevalent next year as the latest business plan aims to increase commercial revenues by an extra $8-million. » Kristian Gravenor

Anti-Niocan blitz

As the approval date for a controversial mine approaches, activists from the Indigenous People’s Solidarity Movement are urging Quebecers to bombard the Quebec Minister of the Environment with pleas to block it today, May 5. The proposed mine, which would dig for niobium, a rare metal, would be carved out of land near the Kahnesatake Mohawk reserve and the village of Oka. Residents fear the mine would unleash radon gas, a carcinogen.

“There are a number of environmental concerns,” says IPSM member Antoine Libert. “This region has the highest levels of radon in the country, and the BAPE (Bureau d’audience publique sur l’environnement, a provincial body that holds hearings regarding environment issues) study on this was very limited. The people of Kahnesatake were not consulted.” He also says legal efforts to halt the project ran out of steam as Kahnesatake band council funds dried up.

Earlier this week, Libert and others went straight to Environment Minister Tom Mulcair’s office to demand a meeting but met instead with his political aides. Mulcair is expected to deliver his decision by the end of the month. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Know your rights

It’s said the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations (CRARR), a local anti-racism organization, knows it. This weekend, Niemi and representatives from other similar groups will be holding an education workshop aimed at ethnic minorities in general but Muslims in particular. The workshop will explain how people can effectively complain about negative portrayals of their religion and culture in the media and workplace.

“In terms of basic civil rights, we want to explain why they should examine, promote and protect them,” he says. Whenever they see breaches, they should know how to complain about them, and to whom.

Many of the people taking part in the workshops, which is organized by three Montreal Muslim groups, are immigrants, Niemi says. “Often they are intimidated and afraid of this or that,” he explains. “There’s a psychological barrier they have to get through.”

The event will take place on Saturday, May 7, at Concordia’s Hall building (1455 de Maisonneuve W.), Room H-762, 10:30 a.m. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Talking trees

Beginning this week, the City of Montreal is holding public consultations on its first-ever tree policy. While the policy supposedly praises urban trees and aims to help them grow and multiply, some green types are wondering just how committed the city is to really making Montreal environmentally sound.

“We think the tree policy is a wonderful idea,” says Sylvia Oljemark, a spokesperson for the Green Coalition, a volunteer grassroots organization. “But our big deal is to save the Montreal region’s last natural areas,” which she says are going fast.

“Only three per cent of the whole island is protected,” she says. “Since the 1980s, we’ve lost over 1,000 hectares of natural forest.” Mount Royal Park, she points out, covers 200 hectares.

Still, the Green Coalition hopes to participate in the consultation process, mainly because they have something to say: the priority on replanting, for instance, should focus on indigenous trees like the black maple and hackberry, says Dave Fletcher, another coalition spokesperson.

Consultations begin May 5, at city hall (275 Notre Dame E.),7 p.m. » Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

11 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
May 5–May 12, 1994

On the cover: A plus-symbol-shaped pill, as Montreal poet/singer Ian Stephens writes about his life with AIDS. “The evening before I leave the hospital, Dr. Cenci, a hematologist, sits on the windowsill talking about blood,” he writes. “He says my white corpuscles are increasing abnormally in my blood. He says I probably have non-Hodgkin’s disease, malignant lymphoma. He thinks I may have to undergo chemo although that may not be suitable considering my HIV status. He will consult.” Stephens died in March 1996.

• Chris Yurkiw writes about four new spiritually themed albums: Canto Gregoriano by monks of the Santo Domingo de Silos; Loreena McKennitt’s The Mask and Mirror; Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum; and Yanni Live at the Acropolis.

• “Lapsed Catholic” Gaëtan Charlebois writes of Le Miroir, a play performed in a church: “Imagine my terror, barely held in abeyance, at attending a play in such a setting that dealt with the most evil of things—vampirism—and used the church’s massive pipe organ to accent the proceedings.”

Angel >> Bob Hunter He coined the term “eco-warrior,” and fit the description perfectly. Bob Hunter, a Greenpeace co-founder, died last Monday, aged 63, of prostate cancer. Considering his ’60s hippie-anarchist demeanour, his accomplishments are impressive: starting with a half-dozen freaks working out of a rented Vancouver office, Greenpeace has since become a byword for radical pro-environment action. Whales, baby seals and oceans enjoyed his special attention, while Inuit and Newfoundland seal hunters despised him and Soviet whalers once tried to harpoon him. Hunter left the organization in 1981 to focus on writing and broadcasting full time, but was able to watch it grow into a global organization operating in 40 countries with over 2.5-million members.
Insect >> Segregated farming In a bizarre tale of alleged racism and filthy working conditions, a South Shore farm was fined tens of thousands of dollars recently for its treatment of its Haitian employees. The Quebec Human Rights Tribunal slammed the Centre Maraîcher Eugène Guinois Jr. over its policy of refusing to let its black workers eat in the company cafeteria, ordering them to a separate one without heat, running water or soap. They were also said to be regularly insulted and physically abused by the owners. The presiding judge wrote that she was “stunned, even scandalized,” when she heard the testimony. The owners, for their part, say she’s incompetent and will appeal.