Quote of the week:

“Think about poison ivy every time you fill your gas tank.” —Harvard ecologist Jacqueline Mohan, whose six-year trial study showed that global warming will cause bigger, itchier poison ivy vines in the coming decades.

Fisk snubs CSIS

Robert Fisk hasn’t even arrived here and he’s already jilted the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS).

The award-winning Middle East correspondent for the U.K.’s Independent declined an invitation to lunch with CSIS director Jim Judd when Fisk comes to Montreal next week to promote his latest book, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.

So what had CSIS planned for lunch? “We did not foresee anything terribly structured, a kind of working lunch and discussion,” says CSIS spokesman John Dunn in an e-mail sent to Human Rights Media (HRM), which is organizing Fisk’s Montreal lecture.

Fisk couldn’t be reached for comment. However, an HRM organizer says Fisk advised CSIS to prepare notepad and pen and attend one of his public lectures.

Enn Raudsepp, chair of Concordia’s journalism department, says journalists shouldn’t be debriefing spy agencies if they are to maintain their credibility. Raudsepp says he hasn’t ever heard of CSIS interviewing foreign correspondents.

Spot the spy as Fisk speaks at Concordia (1455 deMaisonneuve, H-110, 6 p.m., tickets $10–$20) on Wednesday, June 7. —Samer Elatrash

Plateau Alegre budget

This summer, the Plateau borough is trying to revolutionize the relationship between its citizens and their municipal government.

Inspired by the direct democracy initiatives made famous by Porto Alegre, Brazil, the borough is launching its first-ever participatory budget.

Through a series of public meetings and an online forum, residents will be given a chance to directly set their own priorities and voice recommendations for the borough’s future expenditures. The hope is that the exercise will lead to more citizen involvement in the coming years.

“The success of this initiative depends on citizens participating,” says Helen Fotopulos, the Plateau mayor. “We often hear that citizens feel alienated from decision-making. With the participatory budget, we’re putting the budgetary tools in their hands.”

Fotopulos admits, however, that this year’s budget is only a first step toward a more comprehensive process. “A big portion of the 2007 budget is allocated to projects already underway that must be finished,” she says.

The next budget session is 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 7, at 480 Gilford, metro Laurier. For more info see www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/plateau. —Rishi Hargovan

Bash for Jeanne Mance

There are a variety of good reasons why Jeanne Mance has a street named after her, not the least being she was a pretty cool community-minded chick in her time—some four centuries back.

This Sunday, June 4, the section of the street bearing her name between Bernard and Van Horne will be closed to traffic from 2 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. for a street party organized by la Comité des citoyens de Mile-End, celebrating the good woman’s 400th birthday.

“Sure, some might feel it’s just a pretext for a party, but she’s an inspiring person,” says organizer Christian Gagnon. “Jeanne Mance was very stubborn and courageous in founding the city, which was seen as crazy by most of the people around her, but she did it anyway. So in the same spirit that she gathered her fellow Montrealers around her at that time, we think this party can gather everyone in the Mile-End and unite the people here. Residents can come and get to know their neighbours.”

A full schedule of activities can be found at www.kodprotocol.com/jeannemance400. —Chris Barry

Hikes of Kilimanjaro

Wilhelmina Fredericks is the director of the Montreal-based Zerf Productions and a fireball of enthusiasm when it comes to improving the health of children in Africa.

Since 1988, Zerf has brought approximately $500,000 worth of medicine, hospital equipment, books and computers to children in Congo, Chad, Tanzania, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

This September, for the third year in a row, a team will hike up Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for a diagnostic and training centre. Fredericks, a 66-year-old native of Cape Town, South Africa, will lead a parallel cultural tour of the region for those not up to scaling Africa’s highest peak.

“I’m going to gather groups to climb mountains as long as there’s AIDS in Africa,” says Fredericks, who first climbed Kilimanjaro in 2004.

Zerf is hosting a gospel concert on Saturday, June 10 at the River's Edge Community Church (5567 Cote St-Antoine, 7:30 p.m.) in NDG. Free, though cash and non-perishable food item donations are welcome. To participate in the climb or to donate, call 486-0924 or visit www.zerfchallenge.com. —Marc Apollonio

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
May 28–June 4, 1992

On the cover: André Brassard, hailed as the “master architect behind Quebec’s New Theatre,” due in part to his long-time collaboration with playwright Michel Tremblay. Now working on Marcel poursuivi par les chiens, Tremblay’s latest, he says he often makes small changes to the plays. “I respect playwrights. I’m just not obeisant to them.”

• Quebec’s work for welfare reforms have “created an underclass of workers,” writes Karen Herland. “We have a system of apartheid here,” says a welfare advocate. “It’s legal, obligatory slavery.”

• “If forced to [choose] by some local radio station or other,” Ian Blurton, singer/guitarist/songwriter of Toronto’s Change of Heart, would bring the following albums to a desert island: Hawkwind’s Space Ritual, Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime, MC5’s Kick Out the Jams.

• Steve Kokker writes that President Bush’s address to the nation following the L.A. riots, in which he referred more often to what people saw on TV than on what caused them, “highlighted America’s desperate dependence on fantasy and its reliance on images as the prime communicator.”

Angel >> RAPSIM’s rights card As summer and its innumerable festivals approaches, the city is getting ready for its annual crackdown on undesirables, meaning primarily the homeless. So on Tuesday, May 30, RAPSIM, a Montreal homeless advocacy group, in partnership with needle exchange centre Cactus, began distributing cards to homeless people that outlines their legal rights, a handy tool when they’re being hassled by cops, they say. For the past three years, RAPSIM has been saying that busting homeless people for being homeless doesn’t help anyone, and chucking them in jail for non-payment of fines, cutting them off from social services and family only exacerbates the situation.
Insect >> Indigo The June issue of Harper’s is a good one. Not only does it contain literary editor Ben Metcalf’s musings on strangling George W. Bush to death with his bare hands, but also an insightful essay by Pulitzer-Prize-winner Art Spiegelman (Maus, In the Shadow of No Towers) that features the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Not that you’d find it at Indigo. In a move that may be construed as culturally sensitive, but seems more cowardly and censorious, Indigo and its subsidiaries Chapters and Coles pulled the issue, saying they feared possible protests outside their 260 Canadian stores. Although the store will stock future issues, Indigo’s bowing in face of any possible controversy doesn’t bode well for free speech in Canada.