Quote of the week:

“It’s a recipe for all kinds of illnesses like pneumonia.” —Peter Sergakis, the irony- challenged spokesman for a coalition of bar owners opposing the province’s smoking ban, on customers being forced to smoke outside, before appearing in court Monday.

Galloway blows in

Scrappy London MP George Galloway, perhaps the fieriest orator in British politics, will roll into town Friday, Nov. 17, to discuss the war in the Middle East. Controversy has dogged Galloway ever since he was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 after calling on British troops to disobey “illegal orders” in Iraq. But Labib Farjallah, spokesman with Al-Nahda, the local Syrian nationalist community group that invited Galloway, says, “He is one of the most eloquent voices in the West on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and Iraq, even if we don’t agree with him on everything.”

Galloway’s popularity soared internationally last year after he blasted the Iraq war during a U.S. Senate hearing into allegations that he made oil deals with Saddam Hussein’s government, an accusation he litigiously denied. His detractors say he is also suspiciously deft at flattering dictators like Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad and Saddam (whom he called, in the ’90s, a man of “courage” and “indefatigability”). Galloway also drew criticism from his constituents after his toe-curling January 2006 appearance on the U.K. reality show Big Brother, where he wore a leotard and mewed like a cat.

The talk is at 6:30 p.m., at Concordia (1455 de Maisonneuve, H-110, $10). Call (514) 963-9351 for tickets. —Samer Elatrash

Taxis and rights

Yellow taxis are an indelible symbol of New York, but little is known about the tens of thousands of cabbies who drive them.

Biju Mathew, author of Taxi!: Cabs and Capitalism in New York City, will be in Montreal next week to let you know about life behind the wheel in the Big Apple. As a founding member of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance, Mathew is extremely active in the fight for cabbies’ rights. In 1998, the group organized a successful city-wide strike to demand representation at municipal negotiations on the rights of drivers in New York.

“Today, no major decision is made concerning taxis in New York by the city administration without directly consulting us,” says Mathew.

Globalization, taxis and immigration are the themes which weave together Mathew’s writing and activist work. “Transformations of the world due to neo-liberal economics is forcing manufacturing sectors from the U.S.,” he says. “This economic change has created a service economy in North America that is fuelled by the labour of new immigrants whose rights are exploited while driving cabs and washing dishes.”

Biju Mathew will speak on Thursday, Nov. 16, at 7 p.m. at Concordia’s Samuel Bronfman building (1590 Dr. Penfield). —Stefan Christoff

Conserve for bucks

Just in case the prospect of global warming and impending doom isn’t enough to motivate you to cut down your energy consumption, as part of their Citizen Café series, the Urban Ecology Centre will be presenting an info session entitled “How to Save Energy and Money This Winter,” featuring noted McGill scholar Gemma Peralta.

According to Luc Rabouin, co-ordinator of the event, “People can do lots of things to improve energy conservation without the help of government. After Gemma presents her research on the subject, we’ll be forming small groups to discuss the 10 small things you can do to save energy and money. The idea is to create a public dialogue. We’re trying to develop a full participatory sustainability plan in Milton Park, with energy conservation being just one part of the plan. We’ll be doing another session on water next month, and another on garbage the month after.”

Rabouin says he’s hopeful that the Centre, with the help of concerned citizens, will have a full sustainability plan in place for the district by April.

The session takes place on Thursday, Nov. 16 (3516 Parc, 7 p.m.). For more information, call (514) 282-8378. —Chris Barry

Fair Christmas

It’s that time of year again, where emptying your decoration box goes hand in hand with emptying your wallet. But this year, there’s a way to combat the holiday season’s blatant consumerism.

On Friday, Nov. 17 and Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Marché Bonsecours (325 de la Commune E.), the first edition of the national exhibition of fair trade and social economy will take place. The event is being planned by Comité de l’économie sociale de l’Île de Montréal (CESÎM), the Chantier de l’économie sociale and Équiterre.

With over 40 socially conscious vendors attending, the event hopes it holds something of interest for even the most fickle of shoppers. “People in Quebec want to buy products that are in line with their values, be it social, economical or environmental,” says Marie-Eve Roy of Équiterre. “There will be crafts, clothes, furniture and technology, and on Friday at 7 p.m., we’ll have a fair trade fashion show, and the next day at 3 p.m. a conference on fair trade, so it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

The fair runs from 2–9 p.m. on Friday, and 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

the following day. Visit www.chantier.qc.ca for a list of all the organizations in attendance. —Benjamin Barna

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

17 years ago - Nov. 17–23, 1989

On the cover: Michel Tremblay, as The Heart Laid Bare, the English translation of his 1986 novel, hits stores. “Normally I’ve waited quite a while before writing about the people around me. Not here. It’s Outremont in the ’80s.”

• HIV+ prisoners receive poor treatment in the province’s jails. “It took me over four months to get a blood test for my T4 and T8 [white blood cell] counts,” says “Pierre.” “My doctor didn’t even know what this test was called at first.”

• City councillor Nick Auf der Maur is expelled from the Civic Party, “officially because he skipped a party brunch,” reports Brendan Weston.

• “Our songs are three-chord stupid songs. Or 12-chord stupid songs that sound like three-chord stupid songs,” admits the Ripcordz’s Paul Gott. “We’ve mastered the art of making complicated songs sound really dumb.”

• “The Brits are extremely effective corporate liars, and there is an obscene gang of spivs running our country,” says Bruce Robinson, the director of How to Get Ahead in Advertising.

Angel >> Challenging Big Pharma’s perks New rules protecting brand-name drugs from competition by generics were quietly passed by a Cabinet decision last month, but the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association is trying hard to get them quashed. The association announced it would be challenging the rules in court, saying that the regulations, which extend the period before generics can market their own, cheaper versions of brand-name drugs from five to eight years, are illegal and will cost taxpayers as much as $100-million a year. The brand-name drug companies say they are only keeping in line with NAFTA norms, but the generics say this kind of “data protection” only lasts five years in the U.S.
Insect >> ICUs in crisis The shortage of nurses and beds in Quebec’s intensive care units are reaching crisis mode and endangering the lives of patients, provincial doctors said this week. Burnout is a common problem among nurses, with many experienced ones leaving the profession because of increasing workloads, weekend shifts and excessive overtime. And fewer and fewer nurses are taking their place. The Quebec Federation of Nurses says the province needs up to 1,500 new nurses to overcome the gap, and that the responsibility lies with the provincial government. The bed shortage meanwhile means that ICUs are often forced to release patients early, and that elective surgeries are being increasingly delayed.