Quote of the week:

“His behaviour demonstrates that he is not such a good father.” —Judge Gérard Girouard, on Mario Morin, who spent 26 hours last month on a Jacques-Cartier Bridge billboard demanding to see his daughter. Girouard kept him behind bars until his June 27 preliminary hearing Monday.

Walls of Montreal

It’s likely Normand Lalonde won’t ever be compared to JFK or Ronald Reagan, but he does share something in common with them: he hates big concrete walls.

The wall in question has yet to be built, but Lalonde and a group of Rosemont-Petite-Patrie residents are furious about it. To be erected along the CP tracks that form the border between his borough and the Plateau between St-Hubert and Christophe-Colomb, the wall is designed to act as a sound barrier that would protect condo dwellers of the Jardins d’Héracles project from the noise of trains passing past their neighbourhood. The problem is, the concrete wall will be butt ugly, and the residents on the Petite-Patrie side haven’t been consulted about its construction, complains Lalonde. The city recently turned down a proposal by green-ish Projet Montreal to erect a natural screen made of trees.

“This isn’t only an esthetic problem,” he says. “It also consecrates social exclusion.”

Two other walls have already been built along the tracks, but Lalonde says there wasn’t a clause in the sale contract requiring a third one. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Open mosque dialogue

A Muslim leader who was threatened by an armed assailant last week in what police are calling an alleged hate crime says his mosque will be holding an inter-faith dialogue Friday, June 16.

“We want to talk to Muslims and other communities about security problems, and to show our mosques are there for building dialogue and openness,” says Said Jaziri, cleric at Al-Qods Mosque in Montreal North.

Jaziri and a friend were approached by a knife-wielding man on Friday, June 9, who uttered threats and racial insults, Jaziri says. Police were called and they arrested the man, who is being charged with uttering threats and weapons possession.

This month’s high profile arrests of an alleged Ontario Muslim militant group has led to a backlash against Muslims in Ontario and Quebec.

Vandals broke a window in a Toronto mosque and a Muslim woman says she was attacked in a Toronto shopping mall.

“It’s a problem if hatred increases every day, for Muslims and non-Muslims,” Jaziri says.

The open house begins at 2 p.m., at Al Qods Mosque (2465 Belanger E.). —Samer Elatrash

Hug your local refugee

“Hope” isn’t the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of refugees. In Darfur, for example, where government sanctioned ethnic cleansing of Fur tribes has left hundreds of thousands stranded in camps in Sudan and Chad, refugees face shortages of food and medicine, and tens of thousands have died of starvation and preventable diseases.

But hope is the theme of this year’s World Refugee Day, which will be marked in Montreal on Tuesday, June 20. United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees will be observing the day by hosting various performances and information stalls in the afternoon, and a screening at the National Film Board of the documentary Who Shot My Brother? in the evening.

The day’s events should be an eye-opener on the issues faced by refugees around the world, says Rita Hamel of UNHCR.

June 20 was marked as Africa Refugee Day until 2000, when the UN Security Council called for it to be marked internationally.

Afternoon shows at Place Pasteur (1434 St-Denis 3–5:30 p.m.), screening at NFB (1564 St-Denis, 6 p.m.); voluntary contributions. —Samer Elatrash

Wednesday in the slow lane

Stressed out? Feel like life is moving along just a little faster than you’d like? Feeling out of touch with the real, inner you? Well, it doesn’t have to be that way, and if you head down to Lafontaine Park anytime Wednesday, June 21, from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m. for la Journée Lenteur, you’ll be given the opportunity to learn to chill from the masters.

“There are many tools we’ll be showing people to help them learn to slow down, such as tai chi, yoga, and fascia therapy,” says head organizer Patric Hani.

“There’ll be workshops, group chanting and percussionists, but la Journée Lenteur is much more than just that: it’s a celebration of life, taking the time to be with people we love, even taking the time to eat in the logical, respectful rhythm of our bodies—like with the slow foods we’ll be giving away on the spot, which are mainly organic, locally produced foods, in reaction to the fast food industry.”

For more details and a full schedule of the day’s events, go to www.journeelenteur.ca. —Chris Barry

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

11 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
June 15–June 22, 1995

On the cover: Mix master Armand Van Helden, who tells Mireille Silcott that he is a “plumber, out on a rescue mission to save shit that needs fixing.” Van Helden, she writes, “uses the word shit with an eloquent creativity seldom seen.”

• The city is giving the Fringe a hell of a time: move the info booth or be fined, pay a parking meter or be fined at the booth’s new location, take down the banner on St-Laurent, move their beer tent site and change some venues.

• In Living in Oblivion, director Tom DiCillo (Johnny Suede) “lampoons the egos that often obstruct filmmaking” by “making a scathing comedy about the characters behind the camera.”

• A letter-writer: “Martin Suazo was my friend. Now he’s dead, murdered by the MUC police on May 31, 1995. Martin got the death penalty, and without trial, in a country that outlawed capital punishment, because he shoplifted a few pairs of jeans.” The letter-writer doesn’t sign his name. “I’m too afraid of the police.”

Angel >> Open-minded Quebecers With the Harper Conservatives planning to raise the age of consent to 16, the good folks at Léger Marketing have just published their 2006 Morality Barometer. And guess what: Quebecers are the most laid back when it comes to boinking. Sixty-five per cent of Canadians believe that sex before 16 is immoral, a figure that drops to 51 per cent in Quebec. Sixty-eight per cent of Quebecers think extra-marital affairs are immoral, compared to 74 per cent nationally (a French thing?). Only 54 per cent of Quebecers consider watching porn immoral (58 per cent nationally do), 43 per cent of Quebecers object to blasphemy, (51 per cent nationally, tabarnac!) and Quebecers’ attitudes on abortion, homosexuality and divorce are more tolerant than the national average.
Insect >> Quebec Liberals’ legislation ramrod So much for debate. In order for the hard-working provincial Liberals to clean off their desks before heading on vacation, the Charest government kept the National Assembly working until the wee hours of Tuesday morning to push through some sticky bills, including Bill 23, which would allow the sale of parts of Mount Orford park to condo developers. Other bills, including one on medical specialists’ pay increase and another banning lawsuits against snowmobilers, were also shoved through. Opponents of the Orford sale and the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists, to say nothing of the opposition parties, are howling—but are licking their chops while waiting for the next elections.