Quote of the week

“We had no idea this was the celebration of the founding of Quebec City.” —Paris Match editor-in-chief Gilles Martin-Chauffier, on his magazine’s 30-page special report on the province of Quebec’s “400th anniversary,” which hit stands last Friday. The spread apparently had excellent things to say about Montreal, but nothing about the capital.

Condo QC

If you thought the housing crunch in this city—and, indeed, the province—has eased lately, think again. The Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques (IRIS), an independent Montreal-based think tank, says the continuing mania developers have for condos over rental apartment buildings is contributing to the ever-increasing upward spiral of rents.

According to the IRIS, the current vacancy rate in Montreal stands at 2.5 per cent—below the equilibrium rate of three per cent. Outside the metropolis, the situation is far worse: Quebec City’s rate is 1.1 per cent, Trois-Rivières’s is 1.3 per cent and Saguenay’s is 1.8. For small towns, it’s worst: Gaspé has 0.2 per cent vacancy, Thetford Mines 0.4, Amos 0.5, Rouyn-Noranda 0.9 and Rimouski one per cent. Overall, rents have increased by 27.6 per cent since 2000, says IRIS researcher Marc Daoud.

“In the 1990s, promoters started building condos because they made more profits, even if apartment buildings were still profitable,” he says. “Even today, there are still three condos being built to every one apartment building.”

While IRIS does not advocate policy, he says building one apartment unit for every condo would help re-establish a more affordable equilibrium.

City of dreams

If you’re one of those people who naively think others might be the least bit interested in hearing about your dreams yet keep finding yourself disappointed upon learning nobody does, take heart in the knowledge that an entire conference devoted to dreams and their interpretation will be taking place in Montreal from Tuesday, July 8 to Saturday, July 12 at Hôtel Auberge Universel (5000 Sherbrooke E.). Not only that, but in honour of the conference and a simultaneous dream-themed art exhibit that will be running at the Gallery Art Neuf (3819 Calixa-Lavallée) all summer long, the city of Montreal has officially declared the week in question to be “Dream Week.”

“This conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams is open to everyone,” says Layne Dalfen, host of the affair. “We’re a multi-disciplined organization devoted to the pure and applied investigation of dreams and their meaning. We’ve got Freudians, Jungians, Adlerians, Gestalt therapists like myself, artists, spiritual people—I’ve even heard Tibetan monks speak at these conferences before. Everyone—and I mean everyone—who is a major figure in the world of dreams will be attending.”

For more info and schedule of events, go to www.asdreams.org/2008.

by Chris Barry

Folk hero family special

Legendary folk singer and left-wing political activist Pete Seeger heads to Montreal this weekend for his first local appearance in two decades for a “Special Family Concert” at the River’s Edge Community Church (5567 Côte St-Antoine) in NDG

“I’d walk to the North Pole just to be in the same room with him,” says Matt Large, founder of Hello Darlin’ Productions and a huge Seeger fan. “To be able to present him in concert is something I never thought we’d be able to do,” says Large. “I wake up every day wondering if it’s actually true.”

The 89-year-old Seeger will be joined by his grandson, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, and bluesman Guy Davis. Proceeds from the mini-tour, which also includes dates in Toronto, Kingston, and Ottawa, go to the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada’s Seeds of Survival program.

In recent years, Seeger has scaled back his live appearances and concentrated on political causes such as the environment and opposing the war in Iraq.

Although tickets, which cost $50, are already sold out, some may become available due to cancellations. Seeger performs this Saturday, July 5, at 3 p.m. For more info, visit www.hellodarlinproductions.com.

by Christopher Hazou

Art in the street

In addition to housing trendy eats, friendly saunas and open sky terrasses, Ste-Catherine E. will turn itself into an art gallery for three days in July. Now heading into its ninth year, the Festival International Montréal en Arts (FIMA) aims to transform the strip into a “Boulevart” or “Galerue,” depending on your taste in puns.

“It’s about democratizing and demystifying art,” says Marie-Chantal Scholl, communications agent for the festival. “You won’t need a suit and tie to attend.”

From Thursday, July 3 to Sunday, July 6, a kilometre of Ste-Catherine, from St-Hubert to Papineau, will be given over to 135 artists, who will set up kiosks to display their work. The public is invited to browse the work, chat with the artists and down a pint at the lounge in Amherst park.

Aside from the exhibits, there will also be live events. Victoria Stanton, for instance, will be feeding a chocolate cake version of her Concordia diploma to passersby, and Omen, the graffiti artist whose work very likely decorates the outside of the apartment of someone you know, is taking the radical step of painting on canvases, which will then be raffled for AIDS Community Care Montreal.

For details on the festival, visit www.festivaldesarts.org.

by Matt Jones

Rear-view mirror

11 YEARS AGO - JULY 3–10, 1997

On the cover: “Portraits of the Jazz Festival.” The Mirror runs a two-page spread as “critics and scenesters review their favourite shows.”
•Looking at some recent controversies, the Media Circus column describes Vice’s “confrontational and proudly amateurish journalism” as “a bona fide Montreal success story—albeit a small one that could at any minute shoot itself in the brain.”
•Hosting the Association of Alternative Weeklies’ (AAN) annual convention, the Mirror is denounced by Michael Hollet, publisher of Toronto’s NOW, over its recent takeover by Quebecor. Despite upholding its ban on papers owned by a daily, the AAN does not, ultimately, expel the Mirror.
•Music editor Mireille Silcott meets Aerosmith at a Toronto junket. The experience is “all horrid,” the band “shallow” and Steven Tyler’s “tiny, bloated face” disturbing.
•Fant-Asia’s second edition highlights include: a “schizoid Western” Once Upon a Time in China and America; A Gun for Jennifer, “a sublime bit of B-moviemaking;” and Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master 2.

>> Defending free speech Shock jocks and right-wing windbags may be annoying, but not as much as, say, hectoring busybodies who think they know better. Last week saw two victories for free speech: one for Maclean’s magazine, which printed an excerpt of Mark Steyn’s book entitled “The Future Belongs to Islam,” and another for Vancouver DJ Rafe Mair, who likened a Christian-values advocate to a Nazi. Steyn’s past, present and probably future comments about Muslim demographics may be nauseating, and Mair preposterously over the top, but free speech isn’t always pretty, nor should it be. Exchanging ideas and opinions, even stupid, bigoted ones, shouldn’t be limited by a narrow set of top-down values.

Insect >>Stacking the parole board with ideologues If you’re up for parole soon, Mirror readers, be warned. The parole board you face is likely to be hard-ass. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has been stacking the national board with former cops and prison officials, which makes sense given his party’s emphasis on law and order and cracking down on crime. Saying the appointments are ideologically motivated, opposition MPs and the John Howard Society are claiming the Tories are ignoring past successes in supervised parole and rehabilitation. Using cops and guards on parole boards isn’t new, but in the past, they’ve been used sparingly. But the Tories have never been ones to pass on a good, if short-sighted, vote-getter.