Quote of the week

“This will be the first time Canada played gendarme to the American military.” —Bob Agee, spokesman for the Vancouver War Resisters Support Campaign, on a Federal Court ruling to deport U.S. army deserter Robin Long back to the States on Monday.

Action after apology

Stephen Harper’s much lauded apology last month for the lethal blunder that was Canada’s residential school system provoked a range of responses among native communities. For some it was a relief, but others are wondering if the government plans to back it up with action. That’s what provoked Canadians for Aboriginal Justice to organize the March for Action Not Words.

“Harper’s apology really tried to minimize the damage that was done,” says organizer Irkar Beljaars. He contrasts it with Australian PM Kevin Rudd’s apology last February for the Stolen Generations, Australia’s residential school system. “Rudd admitted the mistake, went into detail about what happened and outlined policy to correct it,” says Beljaars.

The government also established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which aims to shed light on what actually transpired. But critics say it has no teeth, as victims won’t be allowed to name their aggressors nor use any new information for legal proceedings or lawsuits.

“The Canadian government has committed a crime by refusing to prosecute,” says Beljaars.

The march takes place Thursday, July 24 at noon outside Place des Arts metro station. For more information, call (514) 572-2684.

Future war panned

Those who want peace should prepare for war, so the old maxim goes. And it’s one that applies equally to generals, policy-makers and peace activists.

Not content to leave two botched wars in his wake, U.S. President George W. Bush is still making noise about attacking Iran, or farming out the order to Israel. But very few people outside the White House think a strike against the missile-armed mullahs is a good idea.

The Collectif Échec à la guerre is preparing for the worst if the U.S. or Israel decides to do more than just rattle their sabres. If an air strike against Iran does take place, the Collectif already has a demonstration planned for the first Saturday following an outbreak of hostilities. The demonstration will take place at 1 p.m. at Dorchester Square (corner René-Lévesque and Peel).

“The rumours [about a possible attack] are persistent,” says the Collectif’s Raymond Legault. He doesn’t necessarily think an attack will take place, but it’s best to be prepared. “There is a whole range of factors to think about that aren’t to be ignored—but we still don’t know what’s happening at the highest levels of power.”

by Patrick Lejtenyi

Barbecue for freedom

For more than 900 days, blind Algerian refugee claimant Abdelkader Belaouni has been holed up in St. Gabriel’s Church in Pointe St-Charles in defiance of a deportation order that would send him back to the U.S., and from there likely on to his country of birth where he fled civil war more than a decade ago. This Sunday, July 20, Belaouni’s supporters throw a “Solidarity BBQ” in his honour, the third in what has become an annual event.

“There will be music, lots of food and kid’s activities,” says Freda Guttman of the Committee to Support Abdelkader Belaouni.

Not everyone is sympathetic to Belaouni’s plight, however. Last week, in an editorial entitled “Too much compassion can erode the rule of law,” the Gazette urged authorities to dispense with the “medieval superstition that a place of worship should provide immunity” and deport rejected asylum seekers like Belaouni.

The barbecue takes place at St. Gabriel’s Church (2157 Centre, metro Charlevoix), at 3 p.m. In case of rain, the date will change to July 27. Anyone planning to bring food is encouraged to e-mail organizers at jordan@resist.ca or freda.guttman@gmail.com to coordinate. For more info, e-mail soutienkader@gmail.com or visit www.soutienpourkader.net.

by Christopher Hazou

Laughing high

Once again this year, comedian and former Montrealer Howard Dover will presenting his Medical Marijuana Comedy Show ExtravaGANJA at le Social (1445 Bishop) in order to raise funds for Montreal’s Compassion Club and Green Therapy.

Along with the comedic stylings of the D-Man himself, Russell Roy, Bryan Bruner and a slew of special guests, Dover is suggesting that this year, as in years past, some of the bigger names appearing at the Just For Laughs Festival might well be stopping by to do an impromptu set over the course of the evening.

As a comedian speaking in all seriousness, Dover states, “Medical marijuana should be legalized. Period. There is no reason to deny a dying person a substance that brings them relief. Marijuana keeps people alive.”

And it gives the non-dying among us a reason to live as well, so Jah knows the $10 admission charge you’ll be forking over to witness Dover’s yuckfest will be going to a good cause.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance at the Compassion Club (68 Rachel E). Doors open at 8:30 p.m. with the show commencing promptly at 9 p.m.

For more information, go to www.howarddover.com.

by Chris Barry

Rear-view mirror

14 YEARS AGO - JULY 21–28, 1994

On the cover: Four young music fans getting high, as Chris Yurkiw reports from Chicago on Lollapalooza. “I’ve stumbled onto the Spoken Word Gazebo, and a young and shirtless long-haired chap is screeching something about his possessing an effigy of Michael Bolton, and did anyone in the audience want to come on stage to kick it?”
•A sidebar estimates that Lollapalloza Montreal will cost between $165.73–$172.57.
•Controversy over serial killer cards reaches a fever pitch, writes the Mirror’s Ottawa correspondent Vincent Gogolek. “I think [the public] see the killer cards… as another instance of the values our society was based on being eroded,” says Reform MP Val Meredith.
•At Just for Laughs: Gilbert Gottfried, Bobcat Goldthwait and a 70-minute, twice-daily showing of the best Friz Freleng cartoons.
•Johnny François writes in a letter—three years after his brother Marcellus François was killed by police in a case of mistaken identity—that “the MUC is allowing the police to put their interest above that of the general public’s.”

>> Free pork Usually, the words “pork” and “politics” sandwich “barrel,” and the connotations are negative. This week, however, the flesh of slaughtered swine is being put to good use. Faced with rising grain prices and a strong dollar, Canada’s pork exports have slowed, resulting in a surplus of pigs. The federal government ordered a cull of 10 per cent of the country’s herd, condemning 150,000 pigs to a premature death. But the provincial government has decided to donate its share—some 300,000 kilos’ worth—to food banks across Quebec. The president of the Quebec Food Bank Association says over a million meals can be served with the added meat. Roll out the barrel!

Insect >>The satirically challenged The discourse surrounding the next presidential election sinks ever lower. At issue this week is the cover of the New Yorker, drawn by former Montrealer Barry Blitt, which depicts Barack Obama dressed as a fundamentalist Muslim and his wife Michelle as a gun-toting militant, giving each other a terrorist fist-jab as Osama Bin Laden looks down from a picture frame and Old Glory burns in an Oval Office fireplace. Anyone with half a brain—thus excluding most cable news pundits, bloggers and representatives of both parties—realizes it’s a send-up of scurrilous right-wing rumours about the electoral front-runner. The outraged are either too dumb to get the joke or too cynical not to spin it to their advantage, but either way, it’s an absurd state of affairs.