Quote of the week:

“Stephen Harper Eats Babies” —Read on a Toronto-area GO transit train’s LED sign last week, in a case officials are calling “electronic vandalism.” The sign kept re-appearing through to Monday, much to the transit company’s embarrassment.

Panning Gitmo North

The funny thing about Canadian law is we generally have to inform the accused what they’re accused of before sending them away to prison indefinitely. Nuts, eh?

This, of course, is based on the assumption you’re a Canadian citizen not being held on suspicion of terrorist activities. Otherwise, you might find yourself rotting in the brand new facility at Millhaven Penitentiary in Bath, Ontario, near Kingston, built especially to hold terrorist suspects until the feds get around to charging them. In Mohammad Mahjoub’s case, it’s been six years and counting. For Adil Charkaoui, three years and counting.

“It’s sick,” says Mary Foster, spokesperson for the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui, “and this new facility in Kingston is moving towards institutionalizing this state of indefinite detention in Canada. People need to understand what’s being introduced to Canada by our government.”

In order to bring attention to the issue, the coalition has organized the Rally Against Guantanamo North, which will be assembling Saturday, May 13, at noon outside the Complexe Guy Favreau (200 René-Lévesque W.).

For more info, go to www.adilinfo.org. —Chris Barry

Fair Trade days

Until Monday, May 15, local environment-friendly organization Équiterre will be pushing the benefits of fair trade, the practice of actually paying agricultural workers in developing countries a decent price for the commodities we love.

It’s a growing trend: according to Équiterre, fair trade has grown by 55 per cent over the past five years. They think the upward spiral is bound to continue, as shoppers like to feel good about the things they buy.

“There is an increased sensitivity to fair trade and to fair trade products,” says Équiterre’s Murielle Vrins. “More and more people know what we mean when we talk about fair trade, they’re caring more and there are many more places to buy fair trade products in Quebec.”

She estimates that fair trade products can be bought in 1,500 locations province-wide, up from a handful a decade ago.

Équiterre will be sponsoring a series of events until May 15 at various locations around Montreal, including taste tests at public markets, vernissages, parties and conferences. For a list of events, see www.equiterre.qc.ca. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Euro streets rule

Isabelle Gaudette is seeing her long labour bear fruit. The community organizer at the Maison d’Aurore, a Plateau resource network, says her traffic calming initiatives have the borough bigwigs listening, and sooner rather than later, she’ll be telling them how to get drivers to slow down on the narrow, crowded streets of her neighbourhood.

Last winter, Gaudette helped initiate the “MAXIMUM 30” signs residents hung in their windows, urging drivers to keep their speed below the limit. Next week, she’ll be hosting an evening on traffic calming measures used overseas, featuring a presentation on how those clever Europeans use their streets to the advantage of cyclists and pedestrians, with measures like zig-zagging designated parking areas and individual diagonal parking spots. “If you look at St-Joseph, it’s designed as an urban highway, so people treat it like an urban highway,” she says.

Public consultations on traffic calming will take place sometime in the summer or fall. The information evening takes place on Wednesday, May 10, at the Maison d’Aurore (4816 Garnier), 7 p.m. Call 527-9075 for more info. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Legal fees rock

It’s been over a year since CEGEP and university students took to the streets and went on strike, and the time has come to pony up for the legal fees of those arrested in March 2005.

A benefit will take place at CEGEP du Vieux-Montréal on Friday, May 5, to raise funds for the busted students. According to Guillaume Beauvaif, an organizer of the benefit, more than 20 were arrested and face trial.

Beauvaif says the funds would pay the lawyers of “all the people who were arrested during the strike—people who did occupations and people who were at the demonstration.”

According to an organizer at the CEGEP du Vieux Montréal’s student association, some trials have already begun over the “past few months,” with the remainder starting in June.

The fundraiser will feature a concert with Nul Si Découvert’s hip hop, Open Wounds’ grindcore and Downshift in Case’s ska-core. And cheap beer. Find it all at CEGEP du Vieux-Montréal (255 Ontario E., room A3.85), 6 p.m. Tickets $5 in advance, $6 at the door. —Samer Elatrash

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
May 7–May 14, 1992

On the cover: Anthony Hopkins, still talking to Martin Siberok about Silence of the Lambs despite the impending opening of Howard’s End. Preparing for the role of Hannibal Lecter, he says, was “dead easy, because I’m a very disturbed person.”

• Mayor Jean Doré is criticized for appearing in a Coke-sponsored ad celebrating the city’s 350th anniversary, along with Céline (note accent) Dion, Ronald Corey and Claude Brochu. “Doré used to be a consumer advocate and now he’s pushing soft drinks,” says opposition leader Sam Boskey.

• Me Mom and Morgentaler, the Sherlocks, the Mobsters, Fall Down Go Boom and Groovy Aardvark play an AIDS benefit at the Rialto. The media, says organizer Nora Bryson, “didn’t want to hear about AIDS. They figured it wasn’t a good hook. The public wouldn’t buy it. So we’ve sold them the bands, not the cause.”

• In the Mirror Travel Supplement, Peter Bracegirdle writes about the chickenbuses of Quito, Ecuador: “Virtually all chickenbuses have stickers of Ecuador’s most popular figures: Jesus, Che Guevara and Batman.”

Angel >> (Belated) Action on Darfur It’s been three years, 200,000 dead, over two million displaced and as usual it’s taken a slew of movie stars to grab the public’s attention, but it seems that there may finally be some rays of hope for the ravaged area of western Sudan. Peace talks in Nigeria between the Sudanese government, the pro-government Janjaweed militia and two rebel groups seeking greater autonomy wrapped up earlier this week, extended by two days after Sunday’s deadline expired. Whether they accomplish anything tangible remains to be seen, but the fact that world powers like the U.S. and the U.K., long distracted by the Iraq debacle, are finally paying attention is a start. Canada may send troops to the region as part of a wider UN force.
Insect >> Canada Border Services Agency’s crackdown on students Last week, officers with the federal agency removed four students from two schools in Toronto because their illegal alien parents, Costa Rican asylum seekers, hadn’t shown up for their deportation dates. The students, aged between seven and 15, were then taken to detention centres, along with their mothers, which they described as jails. Immigration lawyers, refugee advocates and school boards denounced the “storm-trooper tactics,” and blamed the Harper government’s tough law-and-order stance for the CBSA’s disgusting actions. Conservative Public Security Minister Stockwell Day, meanwhile, said he was concerned and has asked for a full review of the operation, denying it was normal procedure.