Quote of the week:

“After further investigation with home-brewed tooling, I slowly discovered what emerged as a complete mini-game.” —Dutch gamer Patrick Wildenborg, whose downloadable “Hot Coffee” mod reveals hidden, graphic sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, to MTV.com on Monday.

Notre Dame electioneering

Richard Bergeron, the head of the new Projet Montréal municipal party, was happy when he heard the news about the recently announced Notre Dame E. expansion. The East End artery is slated to be bulked up, at a cost of $600-million over six years, to eight lanes, able to accommodate 120,000 vehicles a day, up from the 90,000 capacity now.

“We don’t like this project at all, but electorally, it is excellent for Projet Montréal,” he says. That’s because his party is focussed on sustainable development, mass transit and meeting Montreal’s Kyoto Protocol requirements. “This makes it essentially a large-calibre autoroute…. What Tremblay is saying to the environmental groups who supported him last election is, ‘We needed your credibility, but don’t think for a second that you actually matter.’”

The previous municipal administration under Pierre Bourque had its own plan to expand the boulevard, including burying part of it and improving access to the river. But Bergeron believes that neither plan would have reduced overall car use—something Projet Montréal strongly advocates. » Patrick Lejtenyi

More abused kids good

The total reports of Quebec child abuse has risen by 25 per cent over the last five years. That’s a good thing, according to youth protection authorities.

“It means that people are more sensitive to the distress of children and more intolerant of people who abuse children,” says Judith Laurier of the Association des centres de jeunesse du Québec. Besides, she notes, people have to be. “It’s against the law in Quebec to fail to report an abused child to the authorities.”

Laurier says that neglect is increasingly a problem, caused by smaller, isolated clans. “Families no longer all live in the same city and often they don’t have relatives to help out,” she says.

Quebec’s stats are hard to compare to places like Ontario, where youth protection only deals with children up to age 16 (ours go to 18). Meanwhile, Ontario doesn’t deal with behaviourally troubled children, whereas such kids make up a quarter of the 77,000 youths monitored by Quebec’s Director of Youth Protection. She urges anybody with doubts about the way a child is being treated to consult www.acjq.qc.ca. » Kristian Gravenor

Market futures

The municipally-owned building that houses the 123-year-old St-Jacques market is up for sale, and locals are worried.

The ground-floor market, at the corner of Ontario and Amherst, is the three-storey building’s only tenant, and the city is looking for buyers, but residents and borough councillors are urging the city to think before they sell.

Fears of another condo structure going up in its place have led to a citizens’ petition and, at last week’s borough council meeting, Ville- Marie councillors urged the city to give the borough a say in the process.

“The borough is very concerned about this,” says Isabelle Bédard, political attaché to Ville-Marie mayor Martin Lemay of the opposition Vision Montreal party. “We want to preserve the market and we support the citizens who have launched a petition.” The petition can be signed at the market.

The city will be preparing to open up for offers on the site soon, although Bédard says they don’t know of any potential buyers yet. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Whistleblowers wanted

Andy Srougi, one of the three Montrealers behind www.endcorruption.ca and its sister site www.denonciation.ca, knows how hard it is to take on, much less bring down, the establishment. But that’s what he’s trying to do, having amassed evidence of serious malfeasance among our society’s elite. He and his partners plan on taking it all public by the end of August.

“The corruption in our society is just unbelievable,” he says. “In 30 years, if things don’t change, we’ll wind up worse than Haiti.” He and his friends went into action following the sleaze reported by the Gomery inquiry—and its astronomical legal bills.

His Web sites invite ordinary people to report incidences of corruption they’ve encountered in their day to day lives, preferably with hard evidence. Srougi, a 39-year-old emergency systems manager, and the volunteer committee then investigate and follow up on the allegations. While they have no official power, Srougi says no cow is sacred, and many of his cases have to do with the courts, the health system and law enforcement. » Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

12 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
July 15–July 21, 1993

On the cover: PC youth worker Bronwen Davies, wearing a Jean Charest t-shirt, as the Mirror attends the Tory convention in Ottawa. “Youth aren’t really rebellious anymore,” Davies says. “That was more of a ’60s thing.”

• “Does Canada, let alone Montreal, deserve a media column?” asks managing editor Peter Scowen. “Being a Canadian journalist means not believing a word anyone tells you but printing it anyway.”

• “We have to defend ourselves if we can’t rely on the police,” says anti-racist organizer André Querry, after being beaten at an East End Klan rally.

• Montreal businessman and philanthropist Ron Farha dies of AIDS, age 34.

• Jenny Ross lists acts at Spyder’s Birthday Punkfest ’93 in Marmora, ON, “half-way between Montreal and Toronto:” Alien Sex Fiend, UK Subs, “a whole busload from Toronto, including the faves Random Killing, Armed & Hammered, Bunchofuckingoofs,” and Montreal’s Megalo, Blood Sausage, Grim Skunk, Northern Vultures and Rhododendron.

Angel >> Doctor-assisted suicide The sad case of Marielle Houle, the Sherbrooke woman who was allegedly suffocated into a fatal coma by her husband André Bergeron, provides a powerful argument for doctor-assisted suicide. Houle was suffering from a degenerative nervous system disorder, and reportedly in hellish agony. She had told relatives that she wanted to die, but Canadian law forbids mercy killing. Now Bergeron faces criminal charges, and possibly life in prison, depending on Houle’s autopsy report and the Crown’s choice. If Houle and Bergeron had the legal option of choosing death, she wouldn’t have been suffocated with a plastic bag and he wouldn’t be looking at a potential life sentence.
Insect >> Bombs, bombs and more bombs Consider the news in the last week alone: four bombs in London killed at least 52 commuters on their way to work; between Sunday and Wednesday, over 80 Iraqis, including many children, were killed in a series of suicide bombings; a bomb blast at a Turkish resort Sunday wounded 20. On Tuesday, three Israelis were killed by a bomb blast at a shopping mall and two people were killed by a car bomb in Lebanon. The causes, culprits and goals may all have been different, but the common thread among all of them was a deliberate disregard for civilian deaths.