Quote of the week:

“I have to say that I am concerned, given Mr. Harper’s past statements, that he put into his cabinet a non-elected Minister of Public Works.” —Interim federal Liberal leader Bill Graham, on the appointment of Montrealer Michael Fortier to the Conservative cabinet, on Monday.

Child law changes

The egg timer could soon be turning on inept parents who’ve had their children taken away by the province’s youth protection authorities. Experts are urging upcoming reform to child protection laws to include a one-year limit for parents to mend their ways before they recover their children.

“Right now, children can spend several years in a foster home and then the parents decide, five years later, to take the child back,” says François Jacob, of l’Association des centres jeunesse du Québec. “By then, the child in a foster home is attached, and we end up playing yo-yo with them.”

He suggests a new deal should offer troubled parents resources to change their ways. Batshaw Youth and Family Centres also likes the proposed Bill 125, but assistant director Gérald Savoie has one objection. “The law proposes that a child only be retained if he’s causing harm to himself, not others in his environment,” he says. Thus, when a teen beats on his parents, “that leaves it up to parents to press charges. You don’t always want to put parents in that situation.” —Kristian Gravenor

Occupational criticism

If you’ve passed by Peel and René-Lévesque on Friday around lunchtime over the last few years, you’ve probably noticed a group of protesters regularly huddled on the northwest corner. Those hardy souls are members of Palestinian and Jewish Unity and the Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation, and this Friday, Feb. 10, marks five years since they began their weekly vigil outside the building that houses the Israeli consulate.

With 260 weeks under their belt, they’ll continue “as long as the occupation continues,” says PAJU spokesperson Daniel Saykaly. “And I hope that won’t be for very long.” As always, the faithful will congregate Friday from 11 a.m. to noon. Everyone is welcome.

Also on the schedule this week for those who can’t get enough of the (un)Holy Land, Israeli academic Uri Davis will be speaking at Concordia’s Samuel Bronfman Building (1590 Dr. Penfield, corner Côte-des-Neiges) on Wednesday, Feb. 15, along with Dr. Ismail Zayid, president of the Canada Palestine Association. The lecture, entitled “Living in Exile: Memories of the Nakba, Ethnic Cleansing and the Right of Return,” begins at 7 p.m. Free. —Christopher Hazou

Rock for rights

For the better part of a half-century, the folks at la Ligue des droits et libertés have been working to protect the civil and human rights of Quebecers and Canadians. This Friday, Feb.10, the independent non-profit is asking for the public’s help in raising funds so they can continue fighting the good fight.

The first of what they hope will be an annual benefit concert takes place at Theatre Plaza (6505 St-Hubert) and features performances by Karen Young, L’ensemble Acalanto, François Patenaude of the Zapartistes, Joujou Turenne and Maïa Davies.

And though it might seem that that fight is an uphill battle post-9/11, Ligue spokesperson Pierre-Louis Fortin-Legris sees some hopeful signs.

“I think people are more and more aware of how [governments are] going too far, so in this sense it’s a little easier,” he says. “But there are so many attacks on liberties and rights that it’s never easy.”

Tickets are $30, $15 for students and the low-income, and are available from the Ligue or Admission. Things begin at 8 p.m. Info 849-7717. —Christopher Hazou

Homeless on air

Community radio station CKUT 90.3 FM will be braving Montreal’s wintry streets for the fourth time in as many years next Wednesday, Feb. 15, broadcasting their 14-hour Homelessness Marathon from the Native Friendship Centre at the corner of St-Laurent and Ontario as of 5 p.m.

“Every year that we get on the airwaves, we ask the question, ‘Why is housing not a human right in one of the coldest countries in the world?’” says marathon coordinator Gretchen King.

Vancouver’s Co-op Radio will be posing the same question this year with its first CKUT-inspired marathon, broadcasting live from the notorious Downtown East Side. Thirty community radio stations across Canada will broadcast CKUT’s marathon, and groups like Ottawa’s Operation Go Home are preparing complementary events, all happening on Feb. 15.

This year, issues surrounding homelessness like disability, gender and employment will also be addressed.

“The main goal of the marathon is to allow homeless people to speak to these issues,” King says. —Tracey Lindeman

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Feb. 6–Feb. 13, 1992

On the cover: Roy Dupuis, star of Being at Home With Claude, in which he portrays a hustler who murders his lover. While researching, he says, “I went up to Mount Royal, hung around in the gay village, and felt out the world of the male prostitute. Of course, going through that world so much, there was some self-questioning—could I be homosexual? I asked myself. But it just didn’t happen.”

• “The Cree nation is far more prepared this time than they were 20 years ago,” says Montreal lawyer James O’Reilly, representing natives in their fight against Hydro’s James Bay II project.

• Black History Month, says dub poet Michael Pintard in an article on the Reggae Poetry Snowsplash, “is an American term that other people picked up on for interconnectedness, exchanges with communities elsewhere. Exchange has gone on since people were taken out of Africa.”

• Upcoming shows at La Brique (32 Ste-Catherine W.): Honeymoon Suite, the Fleshtones, Ice-T (with Body Count + Hard Corps), L.A. Guns.

Angel >> Preserving the Great Bear Rainforest On Tuesday, Feb. 7, the B.C. government announced to great fanfare that an additional 1.2 million hectares of rainforest on the Pacific Coast will be protected. Running north from Vancouver Island to the Alaska Panhandle, the Great Bear Rainforest is a pristine chunk of real estate four times the size of Prince Edward Island, and home to a diverse range of flora and fauna, including a large number of grizzly bears and the rare Kermode, a type of black bear that has white fur. The deal has been widely praised by environmentalists as a model for future forest management.
Insect >> National Football League prissiness The overlords of the most macho and virile of sports leagues looked suspiciously like dour schoolmarms during last Sunday’s Super Bowl. The Rolling Stones, rumoured to have led less than Christian lifestyles during their 40-plus-year careers, agreed to have certain words blanked out by the sex-terrified league during their half-time performance. “You make a dead man come” (from “Start Me Up”) and “Am I just one of your cocks” (from “Rough Justice”) each had the last word muted. Given the dismal sound quality of the show in general, it’s doubtful that otherwise God-fearing Americans would have immediately stripped naked and started balling each other in the stands; but in the post-Nipplegate world, it’s apparently better not to take the chance.