Quote of the week:

“Private homes aren’t affected by anti-smoking laws, and people can bring their own alcohol.” —Quebec Swingers Association President Jean Hamel, on why much of the province’s swinging is in private homes rather than clubs, in Monday’s Journal de Montréal.

Gaz gets demo’ed

When the 20 or so members of local anti-war, anti-U.S. and anti-Israel group Block the Empire! gathered outside the downtown office of The Gazette Tuesday morning, the truce between Israel and Hezbollah was less than 48 hours old. That didn’t make much of a difference to the protesters, who held a banner in front of the paper’s Ste-Catherine W. office and took over the lobby, all under the ever-watchful eye of Montreal’s finest.

“Truces in the Middle East most often are truces that are very fragile, and have usually leaned in favour of Israel,” said spokesperson Fiona Becker. She added that as long as Palestinians don’t have land or rights, protests will probably continue.

The group was outside The Gazette to protest the paper’s sponsorship of a benefit dinner for the pro-Israel Jewish National Fund Tuesday evening, featuring former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as keynote speaker. They accused The Gazette of being a propaganda outlet and having a pro-Israel bias. Another demonstration was held outside the Queen Elizabeth Hotel Tuesday afternoon.

Bewildered Gazette staff used the Peel entrance to get to work. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Street kids get fest

What if, to paraphrase the hippies, they threw a festival and only street kids came?

Seems that’s what is going on next week, from Tuesday, Aug. 22 to Thursday, Aug. 24, at Place Pasteur, on St-Denis between Ste-Catherine and de Maisonneuve. The Festival d’Expression de la rue is marking its 10th anniversary, having come a long way since its inaugural year, when it was known as the Festival des films de la rue, accompanied by eats provided by Food, Not Bombs.

This year, says Bernard St-Jacques of homeless advocacy group RAPSIM, one of the festival’s partners, it will include music, some circus acts and education on issues like harm reduction for drug users and STDs.

“This is one of the last festivals of the festival season, and it’s for the young people who’ve been displaced all summer,” says St-Jacques.

The festival will also include a manifesto, to be circulated to residents and politicians calling on them to address issues like public spaces and the right to work—which in many cases means being allowed to squeegee in peace. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Firefighting review soon

There seems to be some confusion surrounding the fate of Station 26, the firefighting unit based at Mont-Royal E. and Des Érables. Contrary to rumour, several sources told the Mirror the station is not closing—they’re just losing one truck, which, as of Monday, Sept. 4, will be moved to Lachine.

The firefighters based at Station 26 aren’t happy about it, and have a petition outside their front door inviting local residents to add their signatures. But, says Marc Snyder, an aide to Plateau borough mayor Helen Fotopulos, no stations will be shut down, at least not yet: there are plans afoot to reorganize the city’s fire-fighting system, which may include closing some stations, but nothing has been decided. “We’re expecting a report from the province in the next few months, maybe October,” says Snyder. “But there will be public hearings. We have nothing in front of us right now.”

Meanwhile, says James Ross, operations chief for the Montreal fire department, the Station 26 firefighters will just have to learn to live without the extra truck. —Patrick Lejtenyi

Volleyballing for sex ed

Ah, teens and sex, two things that go together as naturally as a high-speed Internet connection and a tube of KY Jelly. But while Quebec cut sex education from the province’s high school curriculum last year, the number of STD infections among Canadian youth has nearly doubled in recent years.

“According to a recent [Health Canada] report, 50 per cent of grade nine students think there’s a cure for AIDS,” says Christina Foisy, coordinator of the Sense Project, a community organization affiliated with NDG organization Head and Hands that is devoted to spreading the good sex ed word to Quebec youth.

In order to do so, the Sense Project needs money, and so has organized an Inter-bar Beach Volleyball fundraising tournament at the courts in Jeanne-Mance Park, Monday, Aug. 21, from noon until 6 p.m. Featuring teams from Blizzarts, Barfly, the Claremont, Tokyo and a host of other local drinking establishments, organizers are hoping to raise $5,000 for the Sense Project.

The various bars’ teams will be fundraising throughout the day with the après-volleyball party scheduled to go down at Blizzarts (3956 St-Laurent) later that evening. —Chris Barry

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

13 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Aug. 19–Aug. 26, 1993

On the cover: An illustration of a man spray-painting “Publish Me” outside McGill’s Roddick Gates, as the Mirror looks at the relationship between poets and grants. Mainstream reviewers only seem interested in Canada-Council-blessed “All-Star” poets like Dudek, Layton and Gustafson, writes Ian Stephens.

• The Mirror letters page contains 10 letters, nine of them seemingly fictional. They are from: “Ian from Tulsa,” “Bernard Landry,” “Jacques Parizeau,” “Name Withheld,” “Jean Doré,” “A Montreal police officer” and “Mirror Reader # 45362,” who writes, “It’s clear to any reader that you are merely making up letters to fill space because you don’t have enough real ones to do the job…. That is why I prefer the Gazette, especially Jack Todd.”

• After a CBC exec saw them busking in Toronto and commissioned 25 songs, admitted CBC-philes Moxy Früvous’s “attention turned to political commentary and satire,” says the band’s Jian Ghomeshi.

• The Mirror conducts a St-Laurent pizza poll: reviewed are pizzas from Pizzédélic, Shed, Calypso, Euro-Deli, Homa, Buona Notte and Pizzaiolle.

Angel >> Saving the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine House It’s only been 20 years, but hey, better late than never. The Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine House on Overdale, for a brief time in 2001 Montreal’s stateliest squat, was designated a site of historical interest two decades ago, but has fallen into serious disrepair since. A recent proposal has surfaced to turn it into a museum dedicated to Lafontaine, the first prime minister of the united Canadas in the 1840s. The proposal is being championed by Senator Serge Joyal, who wants the site saved and made public. Heritage types and historians want the city, province and feds to step up and save the building before impatient developers tear it down.
Insect >> Federal Justice Minister Vic Toews Guess what, you little shits: you screw up, you’ll be standing tall before the man with the gavel. Vic Toews, the fire-breathing, capital-punishment-supporting Justice Minister told the Canadian Bar Association on Monday that he’d like to see kids as young as 10 face the court system if caught breaking the law. This isn’t a new proposal: the Reform Party of the ’90s argued the same, saying that kids under 12 should be responsible for their actions. Currently, social welfare agencies deal with miscreants under 12, but Toews wants to use the Youth Criminal Justice Act to deal with these pint-sized menaces. Child psychologists and justice lawyers, meanwhile, expressed serious reservations, saying children that age don’t understand the consequences of their actions.