MEDINA MADNESS: Recreating the look and feel of a traditional Arab market in a heated tent outside Place des Arts, local vendors display their wares as part of the Festival du Monde Arabe. The festival concludes on Sunday, Nov. 11. PHOTO BY RACHEL GRANOFSKY

Quote of the week

“Even though they are more likely to skip class, they have the same level of good grades.” —From a University of Lausanne study of over 5,000 Swiss teens, comparing those who used marijuana and those who don’t. The research found that teen potheads aren’t more likely to do poorly in school, athletics or in their social lives.

Certificates still on

Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is currently considering Bill C3, a new law addressing the thorny issue of security certificates. This, in response to last February’s Supreme Court of Canada decision declaring the practice of incarcerating non-Canadian suspected terrorists indefinitely and/or sending them back to their countries of origin to be tortured unconstitutional.

But not everyone is convinced the new bill is any more progressive than its predecessor. “If Bill C3 passes, the doors will still be open for people to be held indefinitely solely on the basis of suspicion or exported back to their countries of origin to be tortured. And this is thoroughly unacceptable,” says Mary Foster of the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui.

To address the issues, a debate on security certificates sponsored by the Canada Research Chair on International Migration Law and the Quebec Bar Association is scheduled to go down Wednesday, Nov. 14, from 7–9 p.m. at Université de Montréal (3200 Jean-Brillant, B-2215), with the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui and others organizing a protest rally leaving from the Cote-Vertu metro station on Saturday, Nov. 17, at 1 p.m.

For more info, see cdim.cerium.ca/ and adilinfo.org.

by Chris Barry

Thesis goes to court

Abraham Weizfeld, a long-time Montreal pro-Palestinian activist and a founder of an anti-Zionist Jewish group, claims he was denied an opportunity to defend his Ph.D. thesis at UQÀM in 2005 because, he alleges, some members of the academic team supervising it disagreed with his criticisms of Zionism and his advocacy of the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to Israel.

In a brief filed before the Quebec Superior Court last week, Weizfeld is asking for a judicial review of UQÀM’s decision, which he says violates the university’s regulations and goes against the recommendations of UQÀM’s ombudsman.

“The ombudsman was favourable to my position, but the administration refused to accept his recommendations that they bring in a fifth reader to resolve the blockage and to allow me to defend my thesis,” says Weizfeld.

The research team, made up of four professors, was evenly divided on Weizfeld’s thesis, he says, adding that one of the professors who voted against his thesis indicated in his evaluation that he was willing to reconsider his vote.

A UQÀM spokeswoman says she cannot comment on the case because it is before a court.

by Samer Elatrash

FRAPRU in action

In keeping with their ongoing fight to increase the number of social housing units in Quebec and make the winters (and all seasons) a little less sucky for those of us who struggle to make ends meet, social housing advocacy group Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) is coordinating a National Week of Action from Sunday, Nov. 11 to Friday, Nov. 16.

The week includes a number of organized demonstrations across the province, including three in Montreal: Monday, Nov. 12 at 1:30 p.m. at 155 Ste-Catherine E.; Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 9:45 a.m. at 5350 Lafond; and Thursday, Nov. 15 at 10 a.m. in front of city hall, 275 Notre-Dame E.

“Currently, social housing accounts for only 10 per cent of rental apartments in Quebec, but in Europe, it’s 50–70 per cent,” says FRAPRU coordinator François Saillant. “There’s a huge crisis.

“We are trying to get the government to double the number of social housing units across the province, to develop new programs and invest money,” he continues. “[Quebec Finance Minister Monique] Jérôme-Forget announced that this coming year, there will only be 2,000 new units in Quebec, 800 of those in Montreal. This is nowhere near what is truly needed.”

For more info see www.frapru.qc.ca.

by Steve Zylbergold

Anti-wall funding

Local Lebanese social activists Tadamon! mark the fifth international week of action against Israel’s “apartheid wall/security barrier” this Sunday with a fundraising cultural event, Artists Against Apartheid, at the Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent).

Performers will include Juno award-winning guitarist and composer Lubo Alexandrov, poet and songwriter Valerie Khayat, members of the Kalmunity Vibe Collective and DJ Kandis. The short films Jerusalem in Exile and Meet Me Out of the Siege will also be screened. The evening will serve as a prelude to the Palestinian Perspectives mini-film-festival at Cinéma du Parc later this month.

Heeding the appeals of Palestinian non-governmental organizations, organizers are calling for sanctions against the Israeli government. “The Palestinian popular grassroots movement itself launched this campaign, asking people around the world to support a boycott, divestment and sanctions,” says filmmaker Mary Ellen Davis, organizer of Palestinian Perspectives, who is also involved with the fundraiser.

It’s unlikely the federal government will support such an initiative any time soon. Last week, Israel’s Public Security Minister Avi Dichter met with Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, to sign an interim security agreement.

The event takes place on Sunday, Nov. 11 at 8 p.m. Suggested donation $10. For more info, see tadamon.resist.ca.

by Christopher Hazou

Rear-view mirror

16 YEARS AGO - NOV. 7–14, 1991

On the cover: The St. Lawrence, as the Mirror looks at the river’s worst polluters. The article names and shames 10 companies, including, in Montreal, Shell, Petro-Canada and Noranda Minerals.
• Lafayette, Louisiana-based zydeco band the Bluerunners seem more interested in politics than music these days, discovers Ava Chisling, mostly because avowed white supremacist David Duke is running for governor. “You know things are fucked up when people vote for a Nazi because he’s opposed to abortion,” says singer/guitarist Mark Meaux.
• The six short films in the anthology Montréal vu par…, with works by Denys Arcand, Atom Egoyan and Léa Pool among others, “may be love letters, but some have a definite dear john quality,” reads the review.
• A letter signed by two women reads, “We like the page three photo of ‘Wim Wenders and wife’ [Oct. 3]. Does the ‘wife’ not have a name?” An editor’s note replies, “Yes, Solveig Dommartin has a name, and no she is not married to Wenders, they are companions. We regret the error.”

Angel >> Canada’s watchdog scientists
Yes, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming, but so did a whack of scientists who participated in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, among them a few dozen Canadians. And now those Canadians are using their newfound platform to criticize the clueless Harper government, which is busy winding down important research tools like a federal climate change research network and blocking new studies on the problem. One climatologist said the cuts are either “vindictive” or the result of “stupidity,” and said the Conservatives’ climate plan is becoming an “international embarrassment.” Meanwhile, according to a new British poll, 91 per cent of Canadians feel changes are necessary to combat global warming.

Insect >> Rumsfeld’s fear-mongering “snowflakes” Disgraced former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was such a prolific memo-writer that his missives came to be known inside the Pentagon as “snowflakes.” But in those flakes are, according to last week’s Washington Post, revelations about the inner machinations of the Bush regime in the run-up to the Iraq war and its attempts to start another one against Iran. Rumsfeld instructed his staff to “Keep elevating the threat,” “Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists” and to “link Iraq to Iran.” We all knew Rumsfeld was a liar and a weasel, but it’s nice to have it in print.