Quote of the week:

“There’s nothing vulgar about it, on the contrary, it’s rather classy.” —Québécoise chanteuse Caroline Néron, on her belly-button-revealing “Gucci shot” now adorning billboards about town, in Tuesday’s Journal. Comparisons to Marie-Chantal Toupin’s famously revealing 1999 billboards are misplaced, her people say.

No Latinos day

Imagine an America without Latinos. While that may warm the hearts of people like Senator Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who want to deport every last illegal Mexican yesterday, demos across the United States next Monday, May 1, will give the world an idea of what would happen if those immigrants, legal or otherwise, suddenly vanished. Organizers are urging Latinos—not just Mexicans—to not show up for work and to not buy any American products that day. Montreal’s Mexican community is also getting involved on May Day, with a planned demonstration outside the U.S. consulate.

“We want recognized [illegals’] right to work, the right to educate their children and the right to medical insurance,” says Maria Quezada, president of the Association de la Communauté Mexicaine du Québec (ACMQ). “These people don’t sit around and not work. They’re very good workers.”

Quezada says she was recently contacted by the province’s unions to participate in this weekend’s series of protests, but hadn’t made a decision by press time. The ACMQ demo starts at 1 p.m. at 1155 St-Alexandre. See www.comexqc.org for more info. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Sex from Brazil

A daylong conference will examine the role of the sex industry in the global phenomenon of women trafficking.

The event will focus on the socio-economic factors behind prostitution in Brazil, the main supplier of the sex workers in Latin America, and host of one of the largest sex industries in the world. L’Entraide Missionaire, a Montreal-based international solidarity organization, set up the event as part of its annual Brazil-Quebec day.

Speakers, who include women-issues researchers and social workers involved in Brazil, will also look at the impact that prostitution has in Quebec.

L’Entraide Missionaire coordinator Gerardo Aiquel says that although Europe is the main destination for foreign sex workers, the phenomenon exists in Quebec too.

“We want to find out how relevant it is here and pressure the Canadian government to change those laws that allow women trafficking,” he says.

“Women trafficking and globalization” will take place on Saturday, May 6, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at L’Entraide Missionnaire (15 de Castelnau W., $20 with luncheon).

For more information, e-mail emi@web.ca or phone 270-6089. —Irene Caselli

Party time, comrades!

Whether on the factory floor or at the barbecue, the proletarian conscience is always on guard. The Immigrant Workers’ Centre (IMC), which toils year-round to uphold the rights of Montreal proles, will hold an arts festival on Saturday, April 29, to celebrate its varied accomplishments and showcase workers’ art.

“We want to celebrate some of the wins this year” in several of their campaigns, says Jill Hanley of IMC. The festival provides “a chance to look at how we can use art in our organizing work.”

The afternoon affair at NDG’s Kent Park (corner of Appleton and Plamondon) will feature art workshops, film screenings, bands and a barbecue.

Later in the evening, plebian merrymaking continues at the Main Hall (5390 St-Laurent), as the Workers’ Solidarity Network celebrates its first anniversary with a night of theatre and live music.

Both events are part of Montreal’s MayWorks! Festival to mark International Workers’ Day on May 1.

The afternoon event lasts from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The evening show starts at 8 p.m. Call 342-2111 or 859-9092 for more info. —Samer Elatrash

Race for camp

Chances are, when you start pondering ways of helping out underprivileged and/or special needs kids, it’s not the children of Westmount who initially come to mind. But according to Tracy Kamel, community development coordinator for the Westmount YMCA, “At least 10 per cent of Westmount residents live below the poverty line.”

To help subsidize the Westmount Y’s summer day camp program, Kamp Kinema, the 90-year-old-plus institution will be holding their fourth annual spring race this Sunday, April 30, beginning at 9 a.m. in Westmount Park. “We’re looking for runners, volunteers and sponsors to come out and raise money, not just for those families in need of financial assistance, but to help pay for trained companions for the autistic children and other Kamp Kinema campers with special needs,” says Kamel, also the annual race director.

Last year’s run brought out close to 1,000 people and netted the Y a cool 20 grand, allowing them to provide “39 special needs campers with a full-time companion and financial assistance to 49 more campers.”

For more information, see www.defiwestmountymca.ca. —Chris Barry

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

15 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
April 25, 1991–May 2, 1991

On the cover: Mohawk activist Ellen Gabriel, as the Mirror looks back on the land negotiations sparked by the 1990 Oka Crisis. They aren’t going well, says Gabriel. “We’re being harassed. We’re being scoffed at. [The Ministry of Indian Affairs] talk about divisions [among Mohawks], they talk about factions. But they don’t talk about the real issue: the violation of an international treaty.”

• “I’ve been thinking about the apocalypse,” reveals Living Color guitarist Vernon Reid.

• “The longer I worked on the film, I started to realize that the ’60s were more important for the fundamental questions they raised about the direction of American society and Western civilization than for any real answers,” says Berkeley in the Sixties director Mark Kitchell.

• Female Persuasions columnist Julianne Pidduck on the newer man: “He is outraged, nay, scandalized, at what pornography ‘does to women.’ He is brandishing the sword of self-righteous, pious indignation and is hell-bent on rescuing us from that rearing, snaky, snarly beast: doubt. But who will rescue us from him?”

Angel >> Fondation Rivières/Rivers Foundation The Quebec conservation organization, founded in November 2002, should be getting busy again. Not content with pissing off thousands of Quebecers over the Mt. Orford sale, the Charest government is plotting to lift the moratorium on new power-generating mini-dams on provincial rivers imposed in 2002. The foundation, whose co-president is hunky Quebec actor Roy Dupuis (Maurice Richard, Mémoires affectives, Best Actor: 2005 Best of Montreal readers’ poll), has played a big part in raising the profile of environmental issues that this provincial government would like to ignore.
Insect >> Playing down bodybags No flags lowered at half-mast to mark the return of soldiers’ remains. No media access to coffins being unloaded. Where have we heard this before? Seems flabby Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking more tips from the U.S. on how to play down bad news from the War on Terror. But is anyone going to tell this administration that it doesn’t work? Bush’s ratings are in the toilet, and even the most cynical and condescending attempts at staying on message are doomed to failure. Nobody in Canada believes the controversial mission in Afghanistan is going to be easy, but that doesn’t mean the inevitable combat deaths should be swept under the rug.