Quote of the week:

“[The country’s status] is not the number one priority at the present time.” —Jack Layton’s NDP Quebec Pierre Ducasse, on the Quebec NDP wing’s proposal to ditch the Queen and transform Canada into a republic.

Crime and hate

No one likes a hasty police force. But Montreal police’s reluctance to call the weekend firebombing of an Outremont Hassidic boys’ school a hate crime suggests police lack sensitivity and need a hate crimes unit, critics say.

The only other time a school was firebombed in Montreal was when a Jewish elementary school was torched in 2004. “People don’t usually firebomb schools,” says Rabbi Reuben Poupko, who chairs a Jewish community security comittee. Jewish comunity leaders have asked police to treat the firebombing as a hate crime.

Police officials say it’s too early to decide what motivated the firebomber, and are investigating the attack as an arson case.

“It’s not merely a technical proceeding,” says anti-racist activist Fo Niemi. “Police should listen to how victims perceive the attack. Trivializing these perception shows a lack of sensitivity.”

Unlike police forces in other provinces, Quebec police departments have no hate crime units, and hate crimes are investigated by the major crime unit. Investigators from that unit are now involved in the case, a police official says. —Samer Elatrash

Quiet in the parks

A municipal bylaw barring people from staying in the city’s squares overnight hasn’t led to an increase in arrests or ticketing, says a Montreal homeless advocate, but the effects will have to be judged after both short- and long-term study.

Bernard St-Jacques, a community organizer at RAPSIM, says the bylaw, enacted last week, “is an additional tool for police, but not something that needs to be used urgently, as it was created in order to respond in emergency situations or complaints from residents or merchants.” Bylaw violators, most of them expected to be homeless, can be ticketed $141. RAPSIM and other homeless advocacy groups have criticized the bylaw, saying it unfairly targets an already marginalized community.

“It may be used as a form of mass expulsion,” he says. “The number of tickets being issued was already very high.” According to St-Jacques, up to two-thirds of Montreal’s homeless population wind up spending time in prison because of unpaid tickets.

“If you imprison someone, he gets a criminal file, and all you’re doing is keeping the person on the street longer.” —Patrick Lejtenyi

Torture action

A report by a coalition of immigrant rights groups says the public should take action, including civil disobedience, to prevent the deportation of asylum seekers to countries where they face torture.

The report, published by People’s Commission on Immigration Security Measures, says Canadian security agencies should be investigated for sending asylum seekers and a Canadian wrongly suspected of terrorism to countries where they were tortured. Extraditing suspects to countries that practise torture is prohibited by international law.

The findings of the report will be released Monday, September 11, during a panel discussion at McGill University on security measures and racial profiling after the 9/11 attacks (6:30–9 p.m., Leacock 132). The People’s Commission held several public hearings over the past year to gather testimony on how security measures affected immigrants and ethnic communities in Canada.

“The report is a full overview and synthesis of what we’ve gathered,” says People’s Commission organizer Mary Foster.

Go to www.ssmu.mcgill.ca/qpirg/ for details. —Samer Elatrash

Brits and bears

Sure, it’s one thing for the British Ministry of Defense to go about slaughtering innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when it comes to the thoroughly unnecessary, brutal slaughter of Canadian black bears, well, that’s another thing entirely.

According to PETA spokesperson Anita Singh, by continuing to kill wild Canadian bears so as to fashion their skins into ceremonial hats for the Queen’s Royal Guard, “the Royal Family and the MoD have blood on their hands.”

Former Montrealer Singh, who is back home to promote the cause, is at the forefront of a British PETA campaign to persuade their government to manufacture the headwear with synthetic materials. Yet despite overwhelming public support for the change, the MoD has been slow to act, claiming they’ve been searching for alternatives for 20 years but no suitable material exists.

“They can launch missiles halfway around the world with pinpoint accuracy but apparently can’t come up with a synthetic bearskin material for their hats,” quips Singh.

Encourage them to try a little harder by going to unbearablecruelty.co.uk. —Chris Barry

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

14 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Sept. 4–Sept. 10, 1992

On the cover: Dancer Catherine Tardif, performing in Mirador-Mi-Clos, for the Fall Arts Preview, which previews upcoming dance performances, including Lynda Gaudreau’s De sang-froid, which, despite not being based on In Cold Blood, piqued her interest in Truman Capote, and led her to the New York Public Library. “In the end, I photocopied a couple of pages from his notebook,” she says. “It was Capote’s description of the courtroom when the judge handed down the sentence.”

• Previewing Douglas Coupland’s Shampoo Planet, Lynn Suderman writes, “Within the low-tech, insightful bevy of metaphors lies a very gloomy message about consumerism and the Western world.”

• Honouring Labour Day, Alex Roslin interviews five Montrealers about work: a mechanic, a tree-planter, an immigrant turned TV producer, a McGill environmental forestry student and a Concordia Ph.D. candidate.

• “The first time I heard AC/DC, I stole a car, robbed a liquor store and drove through a factory wall at 100 miles per hour,” says Wall of Angus singer Scott Johnson (aka Al Warnock).

Angel >> Keeping Orford public A new report by an advisory committee studying the Mount Orford’s future says the provincial park should keep its protected status, and that condo development should be kept to a minimum. But the commission, appointed by the same provincial government that wanted to sell chunks of parkland to a condo developer, also proposed an ambitious plan to create a village-style recreation centre, complete with four amphitheatres and underground parking, and the construction of four new hotels. Conservation advocates are skeptical of some of the proposals, saying no right-thinking developer would get involved. Still, anything that puts some brakes on runaway development isn’t a bad thing.
Insect >> Greenhouse gas emission regulation foot-dragging A poll by consulting firm Deloitte of Canada’s biggest industrial polluters revealed this week that they aren’t planning or budgeting for greenhouse gas emissions reductions because they’ve received zero direction from the federal government. Stephen Harper’s very public contempt of the Kyoto Protocol hasn’t been replaced by any kind of thought or vision, although he guarantees one, his so-called “Made-in-Canada” approach, is in the works. But when it does eventually appear, don’t bank on it containing anything tough: CBC News revealed that consultations on the Tory Green Plan could take up to five years before regulations on emission limits are finalized.