WARMING UP FOR CIRCUS CULTURE: Visitors to Verdun’s École de Cirque prepare for an afternoon of trapeze-riding, trampoline, diving, climbing and various other clownery last Sunday as the school opened its doors to the public for the city-wide Journée de la culture. PHOTO BY RACHEL GRANOFSKY

Quote of the week

“We can’t say it’s a noticeable phenomenon in Montreal, but we aren’t immune from it.” — Montreal Fashion Week organizer Chantal Durivage, on young, ultra-skinny models. The Week is banning any model under 16 or who appears anorexic.

P2P to pay

That popping sound you’ll hear this weekend won’t just be the music blaring out of every indie-minded nook and cranny of the Plateau. It’s also the sound of dreams of untold millions of dollars bursting and music-executive hearts exploding as they ponder this gob-smacking fact: an estimated 98 per cent of shared or downloaded music files are illegal, and the trend isn’t slowing down, despite frantic efforts unleashed upon savvy, cost-conscious consumers.

As part of the Pop Montreal festival, a group of industry types will be in town to share the latest plan that’s been hatched to attempt to recoup severe financial losses. Eddie Schwartz, the Nashville-based acting president of the Songwriters Association of Canada and the man behind hundreds of pop songs, will be leading a panel discussion in which they’ll propose a cheap way for musicians to actually see some returns on iPods overloaded with illegal files. The scheme involves a small fee—a surcharge on Internet bills of 12 cents a day, roughly $60 a year—that would be forwarded to various songwriter groups. Downloads would be tracked by an independent third company to assure fair distribution of funds.

Come cheer or boo the panel on Friday, Oct. 5, at Pollack Hall (555 Sherbrooke W.), at 10:30 a.m., for free.

by Patrick Lejtenyi

Drugs,
parties, sex, risk

The annual Black & Blue circuit party will be competing for warm bodies with Pop Montreal this weekend, but audiences of both may be interested in attending a health summit centred around the risks of combining sniffing, popping, smoking and the horizontal mambo. After all, burning urinary tracts affect shoe-gazing electro-minimalists as much as buff, pupil-dilated house fans.

Organized for the eighth time by local artist Kat Coric and McGill Health Services director Dr. Pierre Tellier, the Black & Blue Festival Annual Health Summit looks at the risks of excess partying. This year’s theme is “Party Drugs=Risky Sex?” and will feature a group of panelists presenting recent work on the topic.

Coric will be talking about the syphilis-testing project she carried out in the Village over the summer, where she stood on a street corner trumpeting free tests to attract attention. “We did three separate events at Cabaret Mado, where nurses and doctors and volunteers did free open testing,” she says. “We handed out these really fun, cute flyers—everything is in the approach.”

The summit takes place on Saturday, Oct. 6, at the Delta Hotel (475 President Kennedy), from 1–5 p.m., for free.

by Patrick Lejtenyi

Med pot’s slow access

As the Montreal Compassion Centre gets ready to celebrate the official opening of their new digs on 72 Rachel E. this Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 6 p.m., relations between the benevolent marijuana distribution organization and the bureaucrats running Health Canada’s Medical Marijuana Access program remain as stilted as ever.

“Sadly,” says Montreal Compassion Centre president Marc-Boris St-Maurice, “Health Canada’s program is not the product of social demand and medical necessity but a court-ordered directive, which they honour less than enthusiastically. Communicating with their office is cumbersome and, most times, futile. A simple phone call can take a week before it’s answered—if it’s answered at all. There are major delays processing things like applications and licence renewals. I mean, 18 months ago, we requested a supply of application forms that we still haven’t received.”

St-Maurice also cites frequent, “disturbing” reports of doctors being pressured by Health Canada to reduce their patients’ recommended daily dosage of the sweet, healin’ herb.

“The federal government’s Medical Marijuana Access program is an embarrassing oxymoron,” fumes St-Maurice. “We believe the time to acknowledge and legitimize our contribution to the Canadian health system is long overdue.”

by Chris Barry

Housing’s emergency

Local activists will host the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, for a public meeting at the Old Brewery Mission (915 Clark) next Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 1:30 p.m. “In Montreal, there are something like 15,000 people who are homeless,” says social housing FRAPRU coordinator François Saillant.

Kothari, who will be visiting Montreal and Kahnawake as part of a nationwide fact finding tour, is expected to publish his conclusions later in the month. Last year, the UN’s Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights determined that homelessness and inadequate housing were a “national emergency” in Canada.

“We expect that [Kothari’s] report will be very severe towards Canada because it is a very rich country,” says Saillant. “We don’t have to have these kinds of problems.”

The following day, the folks at FRAPRU head down the highway to Ottawa for a demonstration in front of the Canadian Armed Forces recruitment centre, where they will call on the federal government to invest an additional $2-billion for new affordable housing instead of spending it on the military.

Anyone wishing to join the protest can hitch a free ride on buses leaving Thursday morning. For more information, call (514) 522-1010, or visit www.frapru.qc.ca.

by Christopher Hazou

Rear-view mirror

12 YEARS AGO - OCT. 5–12, 1995

On the cover:New York’s Junior Vasquez, DJing at Black & Blue. After six years at the top of NYC’s clubland, Mireille Silcott writes that “the subterranean house-nucleus has begun the campaign for a new leader.” “I feel burned and dejected,” he says. “They push you to the top. And once you get there, they ridicule you. It’s the nature of the business.”
•Uchenna X, a member of the Nation of Islam’s Montreal branch, discusses the upcoming Million Man March. “We’re not doing this to exclude women or exclude other people but we’re doing this right now because problems which affect us, the black male, are very, very particular,” he says.
•Deborah Ann writes a tribute to former Shlönk/My Dog Popper/Wall of Angus member Colleen McIntyre, who succumbed to AIDS at 34.
• Gus Van Sant’s To Die For, an “acutely observed satire on TV bimbos and blonde ambition,” is described as “a nasty joy.”
• Under the Logo reads, “Getting out the maybe vote,” referencing the upcoming referendum.

Angel >> The Montreal Archipelago Ecological Park This week, over 40 green groups joined together to pressure the Quebec government to reactivate stalled plans to create the MAEP, which would conserve the dwindling green space in and around Montreal. The area, stretching from the Ontario and U.S. borders to Sorel, is already 80 per cent urbanized or under cultivation, according to environmentalists, and urgent action is needed to protect what’s left. Wildlife like the western chorus frog (pictured), the red-shouldered hawk and the least bittern, as well as several plant and tree species, are in peril. One coalition spokesman said the plan disappeared when Thomas Mulcair, the newly-elected NDP MP for Outremont, left the government of Jean Charest.

Insect >> Dopey drug wars Just a few short years ago, Americans were getting mad at us because Canada was so close to decriminalizing pot, you could smell the skunk in the air. But this week, Stephen Harper’s (still) New Government has announced plans to overhaul and toughen drug laws, bringing us ever-closer to the destructive, counter-productive and often idiotic American model. Drug offenders can expect stiffer penalties, anti-drug campaigns will be ramped up and border guards will get more money. But no cash is set aside for treatment or harm-reduction measures like safe injection sites. The plan’s many critics—ranging from the federal Liberals to physicians to academics—say this is another example of pandering to people’s fears, and of ideology trumping science.