Quote of the week:

“Win or lose, the winner in this has to be the community of Kanesatake” —Mohawk band council member Steven Bonspille, as he prepares for the long-delayed June 25 elections pitting him against controversial Grand Chief James Gabriel, in Tuesday’s Gazette.

Renting still tough

The city of Montreal is once again preparing for the July 1 Moving Doomsday, with $19-million in provincial government money set aside to help tenants who will find themselves without an apartment. As of next Wednesday, June 15, Montrealers in need of emergency assistance will be able to phone a special hotline for any questions or concerns they may have. The service will be available until July 15.

But while François Saillant, coordinator of social housing group FRAPRU, applauds the city’s initiative in dealing with the annual problem—this is the fifth year in a row they’ve had the project running—he says the province is cutting down on emergency aid overall. And despite the slight increase in vacancy rates, affordable housing remains a rarity in Montreal.

“For the first time in recent years we’re seeing a lot of ‘For Rent’ signs on the street,” he says. “But the low-cost apartments are still missing. It isn’t any easier for low-income people, for those whose job situation is precarious, and of course there’s always discrimination,” especially against tenants with children. The hotline is 868-GÎTE (4483).

» Patrick Lejtenyi

Human rights at Abbott

Over 120 international human rights activists will be descending on John Abbott College next week to learn how to be more effective back home. For the 26th year in a row, the Montreal-based Canadian Human Rights Foundation will host a three-week training program designed to help activists strategize, create programs and set up networks to stay in touch and help each other. Representatives from over 60 countries, including Iraq, Rwanda, East Timor, Uzbekistan and Canada, will be taking part.

“The participants are largely from NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in their home countries,” says the Foundation’s executive director Ian Hamilton. “One big challenge we’re facing more and more is that participants are coming from countries in conflict, where there’s no basic security. What they have in common is experience with conflict.” Last year, the program hosted their first participant from Iraq. They expect five this year.

As for the Canadian participants, they’ll be focusing on issues facing, in large part, the Native population, such as poverty, housing, discrimination and migrant work.

» Patrick Lejtenyi

Hippodrome home stretch

A recent provincial promise to sell its horse racing assets to the private sector has one councillor closer to his dream of establishing a new West End neighbourhood of 7,000 apartments where the Hippodrome track now sits.

“It’s wonderful news,” says councillor Marvin Rotrand of the plan to relocate the track, formerly known as Blue Bonnets. “For a long time, I was a lonely voice in the forest saying that it’s self-evident that this should be done. It’s a money-loser, it’s on life-support and it’s propped up by the government. Now we have a piece of land near the airport, metro and highway that’ll be a hedge against urban sprawl.” Rotrand admits to having attended his last horse race “25 years ago.”

But opponents suggest the plan is horse manure. “We pay our bills, we don’t owe anything to anybody,” says Pierre Guillemette, a St-Grégoire horse breeder.

“Horse racing justifies jobs on farms and in the regions—the chain starts out there. These issues must be discussed. They’ve been putting this trial balloon up for two years now. We don’t consider this to be over.”

» Kristian Gravenor

Home and biking

Why would a team of cyclists bike across the continent in the middle of summer? To raise money for affordable housing, of course.

American organization Bike & Build redistributes cash collected via bike trips to home-building groups like Habitat for Humanity. Trip coordinator and Montreal pedal-phile Anna Sarkissian has been on the phone since February, securing accommodations across the northern U.S. for her gaggle of 28 cyclists. Departing from New Hampshire on June 18 and winding up in Vancouver some 6,200 kilometres later, they’ll only have eight days off their two-wheelers, five of which will be spent building homes alongside community housing groups.

“We make a donation in the name of our host [town they’ve stopped in] to a local housing group, in addition to [Bike & Build’s] grant program,” Sarkissian says. A documentary filmmaker, she’ll also be strapping her video camera to the fancy bike provided by the organization.

A fundraiser is happening Wednesday, June 15 at Toc Toc (6091 Parc, 10 p.m.), featuring musicians Eric Hanson, Anna Daño and Uncle Daddy; tickets are $7. Visit www.annabikesandbuilds.com for more information.

» Tracey Lindeman

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

17 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
June 10–June 23, 1988

On the cover: Quebec feminist and author Nicole Brossard, who will also be the honorary president at the upcoming Third International Feminist Book Fair, to be held in Montreal. “The feminist [writer] can go up to a certain point, but then the creative person and the lesbian take over,” she says. Other articles in the Mirror book supplement profile Canadian Linda Spalding, escaped Black Panther Assata Shakur and Michael Chabon, “a new star of the second-person narrative.”

• “Beware of classified advertisers promising good money for stuffing envelopes,” the Mirror warns readers. “It’s dumb and illegal, according to the consumer protection office.”

• The Festival International Rock de Montréal promises 16 bands from four different countries (France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada) over four days. Switzerland’s Young Gods are “the band of the festival.”

• “This area is not ready to support a first-run theatre,” says Mike Rivard, of the People’s Action Committee to Save Cinema V. Famous Players leased the cinema and said it will not show rep films there.

Angel >> Canadian Environment Award winners The fourth annual awards ceremony honoured Canadians whose innovative, community-based approaches helped protect and preserve the environment. Among them are Mow Down Pollution, a Toronto-based organization that encourages swapping old, two-stroke mowers for newer, cleaner ones; Montreal chemistry prof Robert Litzler, who implemented Collège Rosemont’s green policies; Wildsight, a southeastern B.C. umbrella organization that promotes preservation of wildlife habitat; Lynn Oliphant, whose Prairie Institute for Human Ecology has transformed Craik, Saskatchewan into one of the country’s first self-sustained communities through programs like straw-bale housing, low-input greenhouse food production and community gardens, and Stephen Hawboldt, who pioneered the clean-up of Nova Scotia’s Annapolis River.
Insect >> Killer smog The weather’s warming up and the sky is getting hazy. That means 1,600 people will probably die this year in Montreal and Toronto, according to a report released last Monday by Toronto’s Public Health Department and Environment Canada. The report also blamed extreme temperatures for 164 deaths in Montreal and 125 in Toronto (coincidentally, Monday was the day of Toronto’s first heat alert of the summer, and a temperature record-setting day in Montreal). Both southern Quebec and southern Ontario experienced their first smog warnings this year in February—far earlier than usual. Despite the findings, federal Environment Minister Stéphane Dion said he won’t impose mandatory emission standards on auto makers.