SMOKES TRUMP COLD: Business proceeds as usual for a Monday night in March at B-Side on St-Laurent and Prince Arthur, despite a record-breaking cold snap. An Environment Canada spokesman confirmed that Tuesday was the coldest March 6 in history, with a high of around -17C and a low of -24.3C. Photo by Rachel Granofsky

Quote of the week

“A lot of this is driven by general lack of awareness of Canada.” —Oliver Martin of GlobeScan Inc., the Canadian polling firm that conducted an international survey of attitudes towards major nations for the BBC, in which Canada came out tops.

Main claim

Sick and tired of seeing ad trucks drive up and down St-Laurent? So is Jason C. McLean, of the Optative Theatrical Laboratories. That’s why he and partner-in-guerilla-theatre-crime Donovan King kicked off their Reclaim the Main campaign this week to get the ad trucks banned.

On Monday, March 5, and Tuesday, March 6, McLean, King and members of überculture, the non-profit collective dedicated to reclaiming culture from corporate hands, demonstrated outside borough council meetings in the Plateau and Ville-Marie (downtown). Dressed up as representatives from PubPartout/Brand Everything, an obsessive and grasping (and fictional) marketing company, they handed out pamphlets satirically encouraging ad trucks and other kinds of “corporate spam.”

“St-Laurent is a historic site and there should be minimal intrusion, but that’s not being respected at all,” says McLean. The federal government designated the Main a site of national historic significance in 2002. Eric Chevrier, the coordinator of überculture’s [B]ad Trucks campaign, will be presenting petitions to the borough council meetings calling for the removal of ad trucks “every month until the existing laws [banning them] are enforced or new ones are enacted.”

For more info, see www.uberculture.org/badtrucks and www.infringementfestival.com.

by Patrick Lejtenyi

Women of the world

If you still don’t have any plans for International Women’s Day, and a pillow-fight with the gals followed by the ritualistic burning of a male effigy seems too cliché, why not celebrate the virtues of femininity by complaining about the current global condition of women?

In honour of the day, the March 8th Coordination and Action Committee of Women of Diverse Origins will host its sixth annual public forum on Saturday March 10, at Université de Montréal (3200 Jean Brillant, 2nd floor, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.).

This year’s theme, “Reclaiming the Roots of Feminist Resistance,” addresses growing anti-feminist sentiment around the world. Discussions will be led by a panel of international and local keynote speakers. Suggested contribution is five dollars, and lunch is provided.

“Each year, we focus upon issues affecting women worldwide,” says March 8th Committee spokesperson Tess Tesalona. “This year, we have witnessed events and seen policies come into effect that are very anti-feminist, like the Canadian federal government cutbacks to the Status of Women.”

The Committee is also organizing a walk on Thursday, March 8, beginning at 6 p.m., from Place Émilie-Gamelin to Phillips Square to commemorate the day itself.

by Steve Zylbergold

Going for gold

Stephen Harper may have been making uncomfortable noises to the Chinese president over his government’s human rights record recently, but when it comes to Canadian corporations mining in Tibet, he may figure that silence is golden. Several Canadian mining companies are involved in gold mines in Tibet, the profits of which gild Canadian and Chinese coffers, while legitimizing the Chinese occupation, says Students for Free Tibet (SFT) activist Chris Schwartz.

“Canadians can push for human rights or not,” says Schwartz. “Unfortunately, Canadian companies are investing in mines in Tibet, and it doesn’t benefit the people of Tibet.”

On March 10, the 57th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising against the occupation, SFT and the Canada Tibet Committee are planning to bus protestors from Montreal to Ottawa for a protest on Parliament Hill and before the Chinese embassy.

This should be the largest protest since the uprising was first commemorated, says Schwartz, and comes a year before China can expect added scrutiny when it hosts the 2008 Olympics.

Buses leave at 8 a.m. from Longueuil metro and at 8:30 a.m. from the corner of Queen Mary and Decarie (Snowdon metro). E-mail ctcoffice@tibet.ca or call (514) 487-0665.

by Samer Elatrash

Resistance lit

Canadian literature and social justice will be points of discussion by poet, author and essayist Dionne Brand at an upcoming Montreal lecture. Brand is a widely celebrated author who has penned multiple novels and poetry books that weave together themes of gender, race and sexuality.

Slavery, displacement and African identity in the Americas are important to Brand’s literary and activist work. Born in Trinidad, Brand immigrated to Canada in 1970, eventually earning at Ph.D. in Women’s History and emerging as a significant name in Canadian literature, winning multiple awards, including the Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

Brand’s Montreal lecture, “Writing and Resistance,” will take place at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 9 at McGill’s McConnell Engineering Building (3480 University), on the heels of International Women’s Day. The event is part of QPIRG Concordia’s Tools 4 Change event series, co-sponsored by the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy at Concordia University.

“Brand’s work draws on an incredible variety of literary and oral traditions,” says event organizer J. Michel Bertrand. “Brand’s writing is an inspiration for many and our communities need role models such as Dionne, a role which she can temporally fill while in Montreal, encouraging people to share their stories."

by Stefan Christoff

Rear-view mirror

15 years ago - March 5–12, 1992

On the cover: Barbie, whom the Mirror wishes, for International Women’s Week, “Happy Birthday… NOT!” The doll turns 33, and the Mirror interviews stripper Carolyn Zimmerman, dancer/instructor Dayle King and textile designer Paige Newton to discuss “their own experiences and the larger role of women in society.” All agree that self-esteem is paramount for women, and that rapists should be castrated and/or have their dicks cut off.

• Lars von Trier’s Europa, set in post-war Germany, “is interesting because at least it admits that we have no vision for the future,” says lead actor Jean-Marc Barr. “It’s like a Kafka version of The Graduate, with an ending that’s Beckett’s version of Singing in the Rain.”

• Folk singer Penny Lang prepares to play the McGill Ghetto’s Yellow Door’s 25th anniversary celebration. “I remember how we used to pack people in there,” she says. “They sat under tables, on the stage and all the way up the stairs.”

• A letter complains about “the lack of coverage of our recent dance festival.”

Angel: Sunny days ahead For the first time ever, clocks will spring forward an hour on the second Sunday in March, thanks to a sustained campaign by the Mirror (see our cover story, Darkness at Afternoon, Oct. 16, 2003) and its immense influence over lawmakers in the United States. This paper has long advocated the complete elimination of standard time, but increasing the period of daylight saving time by several weeks in the spring and autumn is a good first step. It’s hoped that by having more daylight hours in the afternoon, consumers will use less energy and be less depressed commuting home in daylight than in darkness. From all of us at the Mirror, you’re welcome.

insect: User fees Canada’s big banks made around $19-billion in profits last year, and about $420-million of that, according to NDP chief Jack Layton, is from user fees—the extra $1.50 to $2.50 ATMs charge when you withdraw money from a machine other than your own bank’s. The federal Finance Minister met with bank execs this week to discuss the situation, but the banks are whining that they just installed entire fleets of new machines at considerable expense. Critics say banks have been gouging consumers for years, and worry that, even if fees are eliminated altogether, the banks will just find new ways to include service charges elsewhere.