HAPPY TO SQUEAK BY: Core supporters show some spirit at Liberal headquarters in Montreal North on an otherwise glum Monday night for Jean Charest’s party. Although the Liberals will form the next provincial government, they lost 28 seats, mostly to the ADQ. Photo by Rachel Granofsky

Quote of the week

“Can you imagine seven more years of me?” —Don Cherry, after the CBC announced they would be renewing Hockey Night in Canada through 2014 on Monday.

NYPD spyjinx

The New York Times reported Sunday that the New York Police Department spied on dozens of activist groups in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Montreal in the year prior to the August 2004 Republican National Convention. Covering a lawsuit against the NYPD by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of seven of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention, the Times writes that, “On Jan. 6, 2004, the [NYPD’s] intelligence digest noted than an anti-gentrification group in Montreal claimed responsibility for hoax bombs that had been planted at construction sites of luxury condominiums…. The group was linked to a band of anarcho-communists whose leader had visited New York, according to the report.”

But the vast majority of people investigated had no intention of committing violent acts, released police records show—and their contents indicate some pretty poor intelligence. Local activist Jaggi Singh says the Montreal anti-gentrification group in question was one 20-year-old who was arrested and quickly confessed, and was not known to the local activist community.

Singh, who says he was smeared by “scare-mongering” NYC tabloids prior to the convention, says the NYPD was “exaggerating the extent of their knowledge and information” about anarchist groups to appear competent. The NYPD denies the allegations.

by Patrick Lejtenyi

Logo uh oh

Concordia president Claude Lajeunesse describes Concordia’s new logo, adopted in January, as “appealing ... in terms of its openness, its audacity, and in terms of its difference.” Audacious perhaps, but different?

The logo is strikingly similar to that of Study Guides and Strategies, an educational Web site run by Joe Landsberger in Minnesota. Landsberger designed his logo more than six years ago, and recently asked the university to come up with a new one. He hasn’t heard back. He is at a loss as to how to proceed against what he says is a trademark infringement. He could sue, but that might be un-Quakerish.

“I’m a Quaker, and we prefer to work things out in an agreeable manner,” he says. “But if Concordia indeed considers plagiarism inappropriate for students, what about trademark violation?”

Sami Antaki, Concordia’s director of marketing communications, says he believes the two logos are different, and the sun-and-book have always been part of Concordia’s history.

by Samer Elatrash

Cops and brutality

Montreal police are dealing with an increasingly tarnished image. A former police officer pleaded guilty last week to a string of 22 sexual assaults, including three charges of sexual assault with a weapon. Unresolved shooting deaths continue to haunt the force, including the case of the young Moroccan immigrant Mohamed-Anas Bennis who was shot and killed by police in late 2005.

Tonight, Thursday, March 29, CKUT Radio, the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COBP) and the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at McGill are hosting an event to deal with issues concerning racial profiling and police brutality. The event will include presentations from Khadija Bennis, the twin sister of Mohamed-Anas Bennis and Rodney Patricio of Kabataang Montreal, a Filipino youth organization in Côte-des-Neiges.

“Police brutality is on many people’s radar these days with the Bennis case,” says Indu Vashist of QPIRG McGill. “Police violence and police brutality are issues that all Montrealers should be aware of, and with this event, we aim to open a public discussion on the issue.”

“The police have plenty of space within the major media”, says Gretchen King, CKUT’s news coordinator. “As a radio station, we want to bring the stories of police violence which we broadcast on our station into a public forum.”

by Stefan Christoff

Give out drugs

If the idea of being in the presence of senior and student activists doesn’t turn you off, and you feel strongly that access to affordable medicine is a basic human right, then make your way to Phillips Square (Ste-Catherine corner Union) on Friday, March 30, from 12:30–1:30 p.m. The McGill Global AIDS Coalition along with everybody’s favourite gang of socially-conscious seniors, the Raging Grannies, will be hosting a public demonstration to demand that the Canadian government make essential medicines accessible to people in developing countries.

“In 2004, when our government started Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime, it looked like a positive move,” says Coalition media coordinator Meg Atkinson. “However, not a single pill has been shipped to countries in need, and as a result, over 25 million people have died from treatable diseases in the past three years.”

And of course, since no public demonstration is complete without the edutainment we have come to expect, attendees will be treated to a little street theatre, as well as the protest songs of the Raging Grannies, proving once again that nobody can complain as effectively or convincingly as the elderly.

by Steve Zylbergold

Rear-view mirror

21 Years Ago - Mar. 23–Apr. 9, 1986

On the cover: Jean Doré, the “young, personable leader” of the Montreal Citizens’ Movement. With municipal elections due in November, Doré compares incumbent Jean Drapeau’s reign to a “city shoe store of the 1950s.” Asked to explain, he says, “City shoe stores were run by groups of three to five persons and that is precisely how Drapeau and his four-man Executive Committee have controlled city politics.”

• Jenny Ross notes that three Australian bands are opening for other acts in the coming weeks: the Hoodoo Gurus for the Bangles (Spectrum, March 23); the Church for Echo & the Bunnymen (Théâtre St-Denis, March 29); Mental As Anything for Robert Palmer (Théâtre St-Denis, April 13).

• The Mirror offers its “Top Picks” for the Oscars: After Hours, Broken Mirrors, Sans toit ni loi, Dance With a Stranger and Quel Numero/What Number.

• “Saint Lawrence boulevard North of Mount-Royal,” reads an ad filler, is “affectionately called Montreal’s new ‘SOHO.’”

• The Mirror vol. 1 no. 15 is 16 pages long.

Angel: No separation talk Monday’s election produced some interesting results, but the one that is probably most welcome for non-separatists is the temporary freeze on the looming possibility of a referendum. The PQ’s spanking may have been the result in part of leader André Boisclair’s promise to hold a referendum even if he led a minority government. That, as those in this province, to say nothing of the rest of the country, know would result in months of identity angst, chest-thumping claims of victimhood and destiny, and studious avoidance of real, pressing issues like health care, education and the environment. The electorate can rest easy for now—unless the ADQ’s Mario Dumont opens a constitutional can of worms.

Insect: Quebec’s rightward lurch Mario Dumont made much of tapping into rural Quebec’s discontent with foreign customs and big cities, enough to catapult him and his inexperienced party into the official opposition seat. But voter alienation with the two established parties also brought in a committed economic conservative as well, which, combined with the centre-right Liberals, might mean some of Quebec’s popular institutions, such as $7/day daycare and the public health system, will go under the knife. Dumont also proposed to draw up a list of Quebec values, something that would please the rural voters who fret about things like headscarves, pork-free sugar shacks and the public stoning of women.