Quote of the week:

"I was a little surprised there wasn't a greater groundswell of public opinion about the lockout. If I was the CBC, I would be very worried about this."—U Western journalism prof Michael Nolan, on public apathy surrounding the now-settled CBC lockout.

Morality and illegals

There’s a growing realization south of the border that the estimated 12-million illegal immigrants aren’t the threat certain groups and interests made them out to be. In fact, a good number of people are considering them vital to a healthy post-industrial economy, as they take the lowest-paid and most menial jobs. And for this they risk their lives.

Raymonde Provencher, a Quebec documentary filmmaker who’s been working on development issues for a quarter of a century, examines the moral responsibility of developed countries, including Canada, vis-à-vis illegal immigrants. Her new film, Partir ou Mourir, follows three would-be illegals as they make their way from the global south to the developed north.

“The situation in certain parts of Central America is so depressing that people no longer have a choice—they either leave or stay and starve to death,” says Provencher. “So it’s our morality of this I want to question.”

Partir ou Mourir screens on Friday, Oct. 7 at the Grande Bibliothèque (475 de Maisonneuve E., 7 p.m., free). It will be followed by a “Globalization, Poverty and Clandestine Immigration” conference. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Blind-friendly metro

Our island’s white-caned crowd doesn’t have a ton of transportation options. Driving is a non-starter and adapted door-to-door transit buses are offered only to the mobility disabled.

But lately our metro gods have been smiling. Dim metro lighting—a major annoyance for the blind—has been eradicated by the introduction of extra bulbs. Spaces beneath staircases—a head-thumping nuisance for many visually impaired—are being blocked off. Many plugged-in buskers who were masking sound-cues employed for blind navigation have been unplugged or banished. Next up, special yellow-colour coded tiles will be installed at the edge of platforms.

The Montreal Institute for the Blind lobbied for the renovations and is happy to offer free metro travel lessons to the visually-impaired. “We teach all the techniques so these people can orient themselves,” says Madeleine Fortin, the Institute’s orientation and mobility specialist.

The golden rule is to stop when unsure of what’s ahead. “When they have a problem, we teach them not to go on but to stop and ask for information or get assistance,” says Fortin. The Institute can be reached at 934-4622. » Kristian Gravenor

Faith in Iraq

Not all people who call themselves Christian are fire-breathing zealots. The Christian Peacemaking Team (CPT), for example, is a faith-based organization dedicated to violence-reduction around the world. It’s been a vocal critic of the occupation and an early warning sounder of Abu-Ghraib-style human rights abuses, and has linked up with human rights groups in Iraq to form a similar kind of group drawing on Muslim faith. A representative will conclude a series of talks about the group’s activities on Thursday, Oct. 6.

“There are many people from the Shia community in southern Iraq who don’t believe in the dividing up of the separate parts of the country,” says Toronto-based CPT co-director Doug Pritchard. “A group of them went to Fallujah, which is predominantly Sunni, in May to assist in the rebuilding of the city,” which was heavily-damaged by coalition forces the previous year. “They’re saying, ‘We’re coming to you as Iraqi brothers and sisters.”

The CPT’s Greg Rollins will speak on Thursday, Oct. 6 at 8789 Berri at 7:30 p.m. Special attention will be given to the new Iraqi constitution, to be voted on Oct. 15. » Patrick Lejtenyi

New homes in town

The past week was a rare good one for the apartmentally-challenged. The Welcome Hall Mission’s 50-unit building at Acorn and St-Rémi was launched Wednesday and the West Island Citizen Advocacy cut the ribbon last Saturday on a new 16-unit building at Harry Worth and Pierrefonds.

At the West Island building, former mental health patients pay a quarter of their $816 monthly welfare cheques for heated and furnished apartments. Some of the 100 candidates waited up to eight years for their unit.

“They’re really happy,” says WICA director Mary Clare Tanguay. “Some have come from really bad living situations. We heard awful stories about the places they were living before.”

Meanwhile, the new Welcome Hall building offers apartments for up to two years to 12-steppers trying to return to society. Mission spokesman David Lussier says the new building is a tonic for former homeless men.

“After a lifetime on the street they move in here and see all the space, colours, they have their own studio with a bathroom—this place just boosts their self-confidence to move on and succeed.” » Kristian Gravenor

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

12 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Oct. 7–Oct. 14, 1993

On the cover: Lucien Bouchard, as Dermod Travis examines the phenomenon of the Bloc Québécois and its assumed role as the potential official Opposition in the upcoming election. Its role in balancing the budget, cutting taxes, creating jobs and protecting social programs are all “efforts at cleaning up the shop before it’s time to divide up the assets,” says political scientist Daniel Latouche.

• Two music stories written by Chris Yurkiw address the banjo. In the first, Dinner is Ruined’s Dale Morningstar confesses, “I certainly don’t play the banjo player, but if I needed to learn something, I could make it sound like a banjo player, I guess.” In the next, Hypnotic Clambake’s Maury Rosenberg says the part of their song “Past Lives” is “essentially this Turkish thing that this guy [he met in an Irish bar] taught me on his banjo.”

• “If I don’t believe I’m the Viking, or the hero, or Mr. Nanny, then nobody else is going to believe it,” says neophyte actor Hulk Hogan, promoting his new film Mr. Nanny.

Angel >> Beefing up the Whistleblower Protection Bill Federal bureaucrats and employees who want to expose their superiors’ malfeasance may enjoy additional protection if, as is likely, Bill C-11 is signed into law this session of Parliament. A leftover from last session, C-11, the Whistleblower Protection bill, calls for the creation of an independent commissioner with powers to investigate alleged misdeeds, answerable only to Parliament, while guaranteeing the accuser’s anonymity, and for financial compensation for any losses incurred as a result of the denunciation. The bill was first introduced in 2001 but went through several revisions and was accepted in its final form by all parties in Parliament. It’s expected to be signed into law by Christmas.
Insect >> Passport paranoia The Bush administration repeated its plan to require all people entering the United States from Canada to show valid passports at all crossings, a move that was criticized when initially tabled last April. Aside from the inconvenience, the cost—most Americans don’t have passports—and the expected detrimental effect it will have on cross-border trade and tourism, it’s unlikely it will make either side any more secure. More likely, it’s another smokescreen designed to increase the public’s general paranoia and portray the Department of Homeland Security as anything but incompetent. The requirement is supposed to go into effect Dec. 31, 2007.