Quote of the week

“The content in it is not much more salacious than any episode of Sex and the City.” —Brad Pelman, president of Maple Pictures, the distributors of Young People Fucking. Pelman is inviting a group of 50 politicians to an Ottawa screening of the film on Thursday to dispel their queasiness over its taxpayer funding.

Aborting C-484

A couple things guaranteed to get a Tory politician drooling are tough crime laws and strict abortion controls. So why not put the two together?

That seems to be exactly what Edmonton MP Ken Epp had in mind when he introduced the “Unborn Victims of Crime Act” into Parliament. Bill C-484 intends to stiffen sentences for anyone who attacks or kills a pregnant mother, charging them twice: once for the mother and once for the foetus. Pro-choice activists are arguing that changing Canada’s laws to recognize the independent life of an unborn foetus would set a dangerous precedent towards re-criminalizing abortion.

“Canadian society tends to be very pro-choice,” says Claude-Catherine Lemoine, of the ad-hoc group Féministes opposées au projet de loi C-484. “That’s why they needed to introduce it under the veil of something else, something that seems more noble.”

Lemoine’s group is organizing a demonstration against the bill this Sunday, June 1 at 2 p.m. The action will take place in Parc Lahaie (at the corner of St-Laurent and St-Joseph), the site of numerous confrontations between pro-choicers and pro-lifers in the 1980s and ’90s.

For more information, see contrelec-484.blogpot.com.

Turcot worries

With the ageing, soaring highways of the Turcot interchange slated to come down over the next few years, some residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods are wondering just how bad life is going to get. The provincial Transportation Ministry announced last year that the interchange, which connects the 15, 20 and 720 highways, will be rebuilt by the end of 2015, at an estimated cost of between $1.2- and $1.5-billion. But the people in St-Henri and Côte-St-Paul in the Southwest borough are worried that years of construction—and the newer, lower highways—will present some serious health, environment and housing concerns.

“The project as it stands now has too many negative impacts,” says Sophie Sabourin, of Concertation Ville-Émard-Côte-St-Paul, a community group. She and others say the project will increase air pollution around the new highways, is a step back in the province’s commitment to fighting global warming and will raze important and increasingly scarce low-income housing.

An information session on the project was held this week, and Sabourin says they are organizing a petition against the project which they hope to present to the National Assembly in the fall.

For more information, see www.mobilisation-turcot.info.

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Whose SPP?

For many Canadians, the first they’d heard of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was amid the din and smoke of last year’s Montebello summit and protests. Described by foes as a secretive “NAFTA on crack,” the SPP is said by its supporters to be a series of meetings between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to discuss mundane issues like trade standards and the like. But the NDP has been criss-crossing the country this year holding public forums to inform Canadians, they say, about some of the SPP’s more worrying aspects. On Thursday, May 29, they’ll be hosting the first such meeting on the island of Montreal.

“There’s nothing wrong with the Prime Minister of Canada meeting behind closed doors with the presidents of the United States and Mexico,” says Dan Quinn, the NDP’s candidate in the Lac St-Louis riding. “But the top CEOs in the countries also have access to those meetings. We as the public don’t know what decisions are being made.”

Apart from the secrecy, Quinn says, if the SPP is implemented, “the social, economic and environmental standards will be reduced to the lowest common denominator.”

The meeting takes place at the Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Legion (28 Ste-Anne), at 7 p.m.

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Beer taps open

And another summer of festivals here in the magical land of the summer festival begins. Kicking things off this year will be the 15th annual Mondial de la Bière, which got underway Wednesday, May 28 and runs until Sunday, June 1 at the Windsor Station and Courtyard (1160 de la Gauchetière W.). Because it’s never too early in the morning to start drinking, doors open every day at 11 a.m. and will stay open until 10 p.m., except on Sunday, when the entire festival will be wrapping up at 8 p.m. As always, admission is free and beer tasting coupons cost one buck each, with three- to four-ounce glasses of beer costing anywhere from one to five coupons.

“Special to this year,” reports festival spokesperson Marie-Josée Lefebvre, “we’ve asked 15 breweries to brew one beer each that will be unique to this occasion, our 15th anniversary. Among them will be Brutopia with their Nigerian Nectar African ale, and La Barbarie with their Sangri-Bière, and, of course, visitors will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite of the 15 brews.”

For more information on everything the beer festival has to offer, go to www.festivalmondialbiere.qc.ca.

by CHRIS BARRY

Rear-view mirror

17 YEARS AGO - MAY. 30–JUNE 6, 1991

On the cover: Cops hitting someone, as the Mirror asks if a new ethics committee will “keep the police under control.” City councillor Marvin Rotrand says, “Quebec now has one of the most open review processes in North America.” But others wonder why so few Montrealers know about the review process in the first place.
•“Me Mom & Morgentaler launched their tape Clown Heaven & Hell with mummery: devil horns, clown noses, space suits, Capt. Kirk, Infamous Basturds’ Chico, god, satan, and rocket, to the tune of Star Wars,” writes Jenny Ross. However, “The tape, though fun, can’t compare to their full-of-beans live show.”
•“I see [performance art] as art one person does,” says local artist Dominique Stolow. “It’s a special dialogue and the performer must feel privileged to have this dialogue.”
•“I don’t’ consider myself an Elvis impersonator,” says Dread Zeppelin singer Tortelvis. “I consider myself an Elvis impersonator impersonator.”
•“Carnivores be prepared to celebrate; vegetarians, be forewarned,” reads the review of German resto Berlin.

Angel >> Canada on Mars! Thanks to top-notch Canadian engineering, we now have a presence on the Red Planet. Our contribution to the Phoenix lander project, besides providing a convenient simulation of Mars-like terrain: a weather station. Developed by the Canadian Space Agency, based in St-Hubert, the $37-million device will tell the world just how cold and windy is the polar cap of the fourth planet from the Sun (answer: most likely very). Early signals indicate all systems are functioning well, although communications are difficult. But gosh, it seems fitting that Canada can contribute to something as titillating as the weather.

Insect >> Tory pratfalls Arguably the best thing about ex-Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier’s fall from grace, aside from pics of ex-biker babe Julie Couillard in a plunging neckline everywhere, is seeing the Harper government exposed for what it increasingly appears to be: bumbling, obfuscating and preferring optics over substance. Few will argue that Bernier was ever suitable for the job, and his multiple gaffes, including forgetting classified documents after a Montreal booty call, confirm it. But Harper’s weeks of sidestepping the issue over the questionable Bernier-Couillard relationship proves that, when it comes to protecting valuable political assets like a Québécois Conservative foreign minister, he plainly values politics over competence.