INSERT “WALK INTO A BAR” JOKE HERE: Guests at Saturday’s “Reasonable Accommodation”-themed Halloween party at Taza Flores on Parc Avenue share a drink while engaging in unholy behaviour. Partygoer costumes included monks, nuns, Bedouins and, at left, either Vulcans or elves (note pointed ears). PHOTO BY RACHEL GRANOFSKY

Quote of the week

“The Horseshoe Falls is now on U.S. soil, congratulations on your new land claim.” —YouTube user CanadaBagpiper, commenting on Welcome: Portraits of America, a seven-minute Disney-produced promotional film of the U.S. that bizarrely includes a shot of the all-Canadian part of Niagara Falls. No correction will be made, say U.S. officials.

Laval’s refugees

The Laval detention centre, in which more than 100 immigrants are incarcerated pending deportations or immigration hearings, was supposed to be temporary transit, but some immigrants languish in it for more than a year.

“It was not meant as a long-term facility,” says Jared Will, an immigration lawyer and member of Solidarity Across Borders, adding that some immigrants have been detained for two years. Solidarity Across Borders, along with other immigration groups, is organizing an overnight protest camp outside the detention centre on Saturday, Nov. 10.

“We want to show support for the detainees,” says Mostafa Henaway, another SAB member. The event, part of a continental day of action against immigration restrictions, will protest “the injustice of detaining immigrants for doing nothing but trying to make a better life for their families,” says Henaway.

The organizers will host a community lunch at Cabot Square (Atwater metro) at 11 a.m. before buses leave to the detention centre. The camp will feature workshops on issues ranging from immigration to the Israeli separation barrier in the Occupied Territories. To reserve tickets for the bus ride or for more information, e-mail nobordersmontreal@no-log.org.

by SAMER ELATRASH

Downtown’s refugees

If Just for Laughs, the Jazz Fest, Fantasia and Blue Metropolis weren’t enough for you, rest assured the festival season isn’t over just yet. From Wednesday, Nov. 21 to Sunday, Nov. 25, Place Émilie-Gamelin will host the eighth annual Manifestival État d’Urgence, a multi-disciplinary art festival featuring the paintings, music, comedy and theatrics of like-minded artists trying to raise awareness about social problems like poverty, prejudice and general suffering. Event organizers Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable (ATSA) have decorated the area to replicate the festive atmosphere of a refugee camp, where attendees can roam freely while taking in the various performances and works of art on display.

Featured artists include musicians Tricot Machine and Paul Cargnello, comedian Christian Bégin and sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. Most events are free and guided tours can be arranged in advance. The festival is still in need of volunteers and, due to cutbacks in government funding, donations are being accepted more eagerly than ever.

“We are always searching for more people to become involved, artists, spectators and volunteers,” explains ATSA co-founder Annie Roy. “People need to become aware of these issues and to start thinking about them.” For more info, see www.atsa.qc.ca.

by Steve Zylbergold

Calling all queers

Next week, from Monday, Nov. 5 to Sunday, Nov. 11, the Queer É Action collective will be sponsoring Radical Queer Week in a series of still-secret venues spread across St-Henri. Organizers are calling the gathering both “simultaneously festive and political,” and are putting the call out to “queers and freaks of all genders, races or size [who are] concerned with transgressing sex, art and politics.”

Attendees can look forward to a series of workshops, educational exchanges, musical performances and DJs over the course of the affair, all with the grand purpose of “questioning the limits of self and re-evaluating our notions of community.”

And why all the secrecy, you wonder? “We only want people who are curious enough to actually go out and seek the addresses to show up,” says event spokesperson Ellie. “And also, since Radical Queer Week deals with sexuality, the police could possibly find some stuff to be offensive, so it’s easier for us to sleep at night knowing that the addresses will only be given out to specific people.”

To become one of those specific people, call the info-line at (514) 467-JOIE, or by visiting queereaction.org.

by Chris Barry

Student strike history

Back in 1986, the Quebec government proposed a university tuition fee hike only to back down two weeks later after a student strike. Two years later, in a move redolent of the current government’s policies, it responded to student demands for more bursary funds by accepting the demands while vowing to raise tuition fees.

“There are many parallels” between now and then, says Benoît Lacoursière, author of Le mouvement étudiant au Québec de 1983 à 2006, the result of several years of research for a Masters thesis he completed at UQÀM university, which involved combing through years of student press and Quebec newspapers.

Although the Quebec student movement has a reputation as the brash and militant type, Lacoursière says the students have less fire in the belly compared with their predecessors in the 1980s, singling out the rather sluggish La Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec for blame. “My point is to demonstrate that, with groups such as FEUQ, the movement has lost something,” he says. “They prefer lobbying,” which has not stopped the Charest government from raising tuition.

Lacoursière is launching his book Thursday, Nov. 1, at Yer Mad (901 de Maisonneuve E.), 5 p.m. Info: sabotartedition@hotmail.com.

by Samer Elatrash

Rear-view mirror

17 YEARS AGO - NOV. 1–8, 1990

On the cover: Mayor Jean Doré, surrounded by garbage. The Mirror roots through the trash of four politicians running in the election for a “garbological analysis of the would-be leaders.” Among Doré’s refuse was “1 can l’Oréal fix spray,” “1 tube concentrated hair gel” and “1 Oct. 11 copy of Voir containing a critical report card on [his party’s] environmental program. Appears unread.”
• Discussing Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, South African playwright Athol Fugard says of the mood of the country, “I’m sure it’s the way people must feel before an earthquake when the ground starts to heave…. That was the sense one had socially.”
• Playing at the Paris, The Wizard of Oz is described as “the original version of Wild at Heart—reams of fun and it will show up the limits to Lynch’s imagination.”
• Jenny Ross documents three French bands in town, including Les Garçons Bouchers (“Chevalier meets the Pistols”), Tétines Noires (“like their name—gloomy yet droll”) and Road Runners (“sound like Swinging Londoners—Normandy does overlook Britain.”)

Angel >> Option consommateurs’s class action suit against big banks The provincial consumer watchdog group will be filing a class action suit against the country’s big banks and Desjardins for alleged shenanigans involving credit cards after a Quebec Superior Court judge gave it the go-ahead this week. The suit, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, centres around three complaints: levying credit fees before the requisite 21-day grace period for interest payments, fees charged when a consumer spends above their limit and demanding fixed fees for cash advances. The group’s lawyers say the behaviour is illegal and abusive, and are inviting people who feel they’ve been wronged to sign an online questionnaire at www.option-consommateurs.org.

Insect >> More torture allegations Are Canadian troops in Afghanistan still signing over prisoners to be tortured by Afghan jailors? According to Monday’s La Presse, they are, despite an agreement signed in May between Canada and the Afghan government that gives Canadian officials access to detention facilities to ensure no prisoners are being mistreated. The Harper government is dismissing the allegations, saying the Taliban make up all kinds of stories, but the opposition parties are taking the charges seriously. International conventions ban the transfer of prisoner if they face possible torture, and there is proof prisoners have been treated brutally by their countrymen in the past. Turning a blind eye to the continued use of torture in Afghanistan is another compromise Canadians are making in a war that’s losing support at home.