Quote of the week

“The person maybe wasn’t as competent as we thought.” —Provincial International Relations Minister Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, on Quebec’s former representative to New York Bruno Fortier, who was fired, allegedly for insubordination and stubbornness, in March. Psychological harassment claims have also been filed against Fortier by two former employees.

Legalize us

With May Day 2008 celebrations wrapping up this weekend, it’s time for workers of the world to unite and dust off the old marching boots to take to the streets demanding status for all. This Sunday, May 4, at 12:30 p.m., the good folk at Solidarity Across Borders, in collaboration with Mayworks 2008 organizers, and the Immigrant Workers Centre, will be assembling on the corner of Victoria and Van Horne in Côte-des-Neiges to march through the ’hood demanding justice and dignity for immigrants.

Claiming “there is no such thing as an ‘illegal’ human being, only illegitimate laws and governments,” Kerre King of Solidarity Across Borders states. “We’ll be marching to show our solidarity with everyone who is living without status and/or has immigration problems. We’re demanding status for everyone and trying to demonstrate how poverty, racial profiling and the racist immigration policies in this country are all interconnected—which is one reason why we’ve chosen Côte-des-Neiges for this demonstration. We feel it’s the neighbourhood which most reflects the poverty resulting from the current immigration system.”

For more information about the march and other Mayworks 2008 events, go to www.solidarityacrossborders.org.

Street U

Hitting the pavement isn’t the only way of getting a street education—in fact, you can get one while sipping coffee in NDG or Mile-End. University of the Streets Café has been bringing the streets into coffee shops for five years by hosting public conversations, giving academics, armchair philosophers and regular folk the opportunity to make connections with their fellow citizens.

“There’s no diploma, there’s no grade,” says Elizabeth Hunt, coordinator for the University of the Streets Café. Instead, people come together looking for a community or a forum, and come away with a different point of view, a deeper understanding or a newfound respect.

The Cafés are held a couple of times a week in various Montreal coffee shops, bringing together people who come through different doors in life. Topics of discussion range from environmentalism to media to anarchism in sports and everything in between, but for Hunt, the key to these conversations is not the content, but the exchange.

“We talk too much, and not enough, all at the same time,” she says.

The next conversation, about “Conversation Space: How do we build a conversant community,” takes place on Monday, May 5, at the Arts Café (201 Fairmount W.) at 7 p.m. For the complete schedule, visit www.univcafe.org.

by TRACEY LINDEMAN

Bargain charity

The annual Au Coeur de la Mode fashion charity has certainly grown up to be beautiful in its 21 years. This Sunday, May 4, more than 65 boutiques and local and international designers will be selling their high-end, and normally high priced, wares at half price or less at the Palais des Congrès to raise much needed money for the Farha Foundation, a charity group with links to over 40 AIDS-related organizations.

“It’s going to be quite fabulous!” enthuses Nancy Farha, whose brother Ron created the foundation shortly before he died of AIDS-related complications in 1993. “La Senza is giving us 7,000 slippers and we’ll be giving our first customers VIP treatment, so they’ll be able to enter 15 minutes [after paying an additional dollar on the $5 entry fee] before we open wearing these wonderful slippers.”

The foundation will receive 25 per cent of the sale’s profits (“although some boutiques and manufacturers give us a bit more,” says Farha), as well as 100 per cent of the door, all to be distributed among organizations that help people with AIDS or in education and prevention.

The sale takes place Sunday, May 5 at the Palais des Congrès, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more info, see www.aucoeur.ca or www.farha.qc.ca.

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Mental health movies

Frames of Mind, the screening series of films on mental health, raises the curtains for its fifth year this Monday, May 5, at the NFB’s CinéRobothèque, with Lyne Charlebois’s film Borderline. Sponsored by the Douglas Hospital, the film’s co-writer, Marie-Sissi Labrèche, and Douglas expert Dr. Mimi Israël will field questions after the screening. This marks the first time screenings have been held downtown, and, if spokesperson Marie-France Coutu is to be believed, hopefully will not be the last.

“We’re trying to bring people together where they can talk about mental health issues in a non-judgmental, welcoming environment, and what better place to do that than a movie theatre?” she says.

Coutu says the point of holding the inaugural screening downtown is to rub elbows with the city’s filmmakers, and try to get the series to grow into a festival.

“We would really like to meet people in the cultural/movie milieu and to be in contact with them when their films are in pre-production or pre-distribution.”

The screening takes place at the Robothèque (1564 St-Denis) at 6 p.m., with cocktails at 5 p.m. $7.50/ $5.50 students and seniors. For more info, see www.douglas.qc.ca.

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Rear-view mirror

19 YEARS AGO - MAY 5-18, 1989

On the cover: Montreal dancer Margie Gillis. Preparing for Bloom, her dance to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy at the end of Ulysses, she is sitting in a dark closet, alone and silent. “I’m listening to the sound vibrating inside me,” she says.
•The city plans on opening a ring of beaches on the St. Lawrence, but the high levels of human and industrial waste in the water still worry many. “It is disgusting, and it smells,” says one windsurfer, referring to L’Anse à l’Orme. “There is brown foam on the shore and dead fish floating on the water.”
•Despite writing songs like “Judy Come Home,” about a woman who stabs her abusive lover, and “Fuck the System,” the Sons of Freedom’s Jim Newton says, “I don’t really like being called a political band. I don’t feel I have the right to judge or criticize people in a song.”
• Pet Sematary “proves that Stephen King’s vision of horror is too grandiose and complex to be… translated to the screen.”

Angel >> Defending Vermont Public Radio Anyone who’s listened to mainstream radio in this province (not to mention this city) knows how dreadful it can be. So it’s no surprise that listeners in the Eastern Townships want to stand up for decent listening. They worry that Corus-owned CHLT-FM, based in Sherbrooke and broadcasting at 102.1 FM, will be granted its request to change (and boost) its frequency to 107.7 FM, right next door to VPR’s 107.9 FM, and effectively drown it out. It happened earlier this year, when Hawkesbury’s the Jewel began broadcasting its classic rock over VPR’s frequency. The CRTC is studying the request now.

Insect >> Paranoia at DND Some military secrets obviously need to be kept just that, secret, but we have to wonder at how sensitive some of those secrets actually are. The Globe and Mail revealed this week the Department of National Defence has a guideline on how to justify censoring and restricting records requested by journalists and the public, which was distributed across the Forces and the department in January. Usual excuses are operational security and avoiding insulting other nations or its citizens, but the blanket can be extended to even innocuous information that could be used to piece together a bigger image. Without nosy reporters, ugly but important information like the Abu Ghraib scandal would remain hidden forever—to only a few people’s benefit.