BUMPIN’ TO BLOC PARTY: Osheaga attendees bounce around to the sounds of Brit-dance-popster darlings Bloc Party, closing out the two-day, five-stage, open-air festival at Parc Jean-Drapeau. An estimated 30,000 music fans turned out over both days. PHOTO BY RACHEL GRANOFSKY

Quote of the week

“Quebecers should get their kids to speak better French at home.” —Former Rwandan refugee and political science CEGEP teacher Irénée Rutema, speaking at the Reasonable accommodation commission hearings in Gatineau on Monday.

Target: Brian

On Thursday, Oct. 4, for a mere $500 entry fee (snacks included), you can attend a celebration at the Windsor Hotel ballroom of former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney for his role in creating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 20 years ago. The Fraser Institute, in collaboration with the Montreal Chamber of Commerce and Quebecor, is organizing the event.

If you don’t feel that this anniversary is a cause for celebration, rest assured you are not alone. The Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi (MASSE) and Project Genesis plan on crashing the party in order to give Brian, who in his new 1,100-page autobiography Brian Mulroney: Memoirs 1939–1993, refers to Pierre Trudeau as both an anti-Semite and a pussy too afraid to fight the Nazis, a “special greeting” of their own.

The group held their first planning meeting this week, and wouldn’t share with the Mirror what they have in store, but it probably won’t be hugs and flowers.

“Mulroney represents the current of ideas that led to cuts to important social programs,” says MASSE coordinator Hugo Desgagné. “He helped bring about the view of the Canadian worker as cheap labour.”

For more info, see www.lemasse.org.

by Steve Zylbergold

Politics on film

Fans of political cinema can look forward to focusing in on hot-button issues as Cinema Politica returns to Concordia. Now in its fourth year, the screening series kicks off its fall season this Monday, Sept. 17, with Sharkwater, about man’s bizarre and catastrophic fear of marine predators. Screenings will continue every week—usually on Monday—until Dec. 3. All are free.

Topics examined this season will include international politics (John Pilger’s The War on Democracy, Nov. 12), violence against Native women (Finding Dawn, Oct. 15) and Darfur (The Devil Came on Horseback, Oct. 29). While there is an emphasis on documentaries, CP will stray occasionally into fiction. Invited guests will also appear.

For the most part, the films come from a left-ish perspective. Asked why, programmer Ezra Winton says, “Part of the reason is because the right make so many crappy documentaries. Find me a good film that’s critical against the Palestinians and biased towards Israel. I’ve asked for some, but nobody’s ever sent me anything. If there is a political bias, it’s just to explore marginalized stories, and these are often constructed by progressive filmmakers.”

All screenings take place in the Hall building’s room H-110 (1445 de Maisonneuve W.). For more info, see www.cinemapolitica.org.

by Patrick Lejtenyi

Cool green days

The Montreal Urban Ecology Centre blows the lid off the proverbial compost heap this Saturday, Sept. 15, as it hosts its first Backyard Party to close out the summer.

Organizers will be showcasing a “no waste ecological backyard” as well as a sustainability plan for the neighbourhood, called “Imagine Milton-Parc.” There will also be a tour of the Milton-Parc “Cool Island,” an area designed to keep temperatures down naturally during the summer heat.

“We’re doing this to give individuals a chance to come by and show them what we’re all about,” says the centre’s Tanya Dossa. “And at the same time, they can implement some of the changes we’ve implemented at home.”

Things begin at 1 p.m., at 3516 Parc. For info, call Tanya at (514) 282-8378.

Also on Saturday, bird lovers on the West Island can flock to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue for Ecology Day, taking place on the Canal Boardwalk. Activities include an interactive talk on birds of prey at 11:30 a.m., featuring live specimens, as well as two workshops on wildlife photography, one in English and one in French. Registration is required for the workshops due to limited space. To register, or for other info, call (514) 457-9758.

by Christopher Hazoiu

Transit fares unsocial

With the cost of riding Montreal’s public transportation system creeping higher seemingly every time you turn around, many citizens are finding the service increasingly out of their financial reach. When you’re working some minimum wage job, coughing up the whopping $5.50 fare to simply get to work and back represents a noticeable hit to your wallet.

So next Thursday, Sept. 20, social justice group TROVEP-Montreal will be holding a picnic/demonstration to try to convince Quebec Minister of Transportation Julie Boulet to introduce a “social fare” for riders with annual incomes falling below the poverty line. “We’re demanding that a social fare for low-income riders be introduced,” says TROVEP spokesperson Aaron Lakoff, “similar to the fares students and senior citizens pay. Public transportation, being the public service it’s supposed to be, should be accessible to everyone, but the current high fares represent a barrier to a lot of people. We’d like to see the cost of a monthly pass be reduced to $22.25 for those who meet the criteria.”

The picnic begins at noon just outside the Square Victoria metro station, with the demonstration slated to get underway at 1:30 p.m.

For more information, call Lakoff at (514) 738-2036.

by Chris Barry

Rear-view mirror

17 years ago - sept. 13–20, 1990

On the cover:Director and former Montrealer Allan Moyle, with a cover cut that says “Pump Up the Volume creates a Rock ’n’ Roll Highschool [sic] for the 1990s.” He says, “A few months ago, we did several test screenings in Los Angeles, and when a roomful of 15-year-old kids started going ‘Yeah!’ I knew it worked.”
• Montreal high schools are not addressing Montreal’s ethnic diversity, according to an article. “We sat through a history class and said, ‘this is not us,’” says one black student. “It was always the French and the English, the French and the English.”
• Commenting on 2 Live Crew’s Banned in the U.S.A., Andrew Jones writes, “Yes, Luther Campbell should be free to be as nasty as he wants to be. Just as we should be free to think he’s a hustler and a misogynist, and use his CDs for coasters.”
• A classified: “7 1/2 with 2 persons seeking loud bill paying carnivore who smokes & swears & cleans up after itself. $270/mo all included.”

Angel >> Canadian water According to a major academic paper released this week, a serious court challenge could, despite repeated government assurances, result in Canadian water flowing southwards through sale or diversion projects. Our water’s status remains unclear legally, but business groups in Canada and the U.S. have long thirstily eyed the huge markets in the parched southern states. Canadian politicians haven’t, as yet, been suicidal enough to pursue water sales—Canadian public opinion is strongly against it, for a number of reasons—but wording in the final NAFTA deal did not secure its protected status.

Insect >> Immigrant unemployment A new Statistics Canada study on immigrant employment released on Monday contained some troubling conclusions: The national unemployment rate for immigrants who’ve arrived between 2001 and 2006 stood at 11.6 per cent, more than twice the 4.9 per cent average for people born in Canada. The situation in Quebec is even worse. Here, 17.8 per cent of recent immigrants are jobless, almost three times the average for those born here. StatsCan doesn’t offer any explanation as to why the Quebec number is higher, but the language barrier and the non-recognition of foreign credentials are good bets.