Quote of the week

“Those people certainly share an ideology, a narrow ideology, that doesn’t correspond at all to the modern times in Quebec.” —Gilles Duceppe, on Opus Dei. The Conservative candidate in Saint-Bruno, Nicole Charbonneau Barron, is a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic sect.

Memories of Griffintown

Although Griffintown was largely dismantled in the run-up to Expo 67, the dusty southwest neighbourhood will be celebrated with this weekend’s Remember Griffintown Festival, before new developments eclipse history.

Event coordinator Paul Aflalo says the festival is a chance for people to rediscover and learn about a lost part of Montreal. “Most people don’t know where Griffintown is. This is the main place where newcomers would settle when people got to Montreal.”

Last November, the city gave developers Devimco the go-ahead to build 3,900 housing units, a theatre or music venue, a cinema, office space, two hotels and underground parking.

“There’s been no talk of the history, the roots of Griffintown, only what we’ve heard about with the redevelopment proposals,” says Aflalo. “Even though it has the potential to make a political impact, that’s not the point.”

The festival starts Friday, Sept. 12 with the Griffintown Gallery (950 Ottawa) opening vernissage and performances by the Kalmunity Vibe Collective. Other activities include historical walking tours, a scavenger hunt, free Gumboot dance lessons and a talk about urban planning and Griffintown by Steven Peck.

For the full schedule, visit www.remembergriffintown.org.

Cops and rights

For the better part of a decade, Copwatch has been keeping an eye on Montreal law enforcement, monitoring police behaviour, particularly towards street people, and trying to ensure that they obey the laws they’re sworn to uphold. “The idea is to show the police that they’re not alone,” says François du Canal, a member of the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality. “They’re watching us but we’re watching them too.”

This Monday, Sept. 15, the COPB presents a free workshop at the Carrefour d’éducation populaire de Pointe St-Charles (2356 Centre, metro Charlevoix) on the rights of the public when dealing with the police, followed by an introduction to Copwatch itself. “We want to let people that are being abused know that it’s possible to do something to counter police violence,” du Canal says.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Montreal’s finest don’t always take kindly to the oversight provided by Copwatch. “They really don’t like it,” says du Canal. When filmind police at work with video cameras, COBP gets “all kinds of reactions, from a smile and a little wave to being arrested and charged with obstruction.”

The workshop begins at 7 p.m. For more info, call (514) 395-9691 or visit cobp-mtl.ath.cx/en.

by Christopher Hazou

Resister defence

Back in the Vietnam era, we Canadians could hold our heads high, proud of our government’s prudent decision not to follow our Commie-fearin’ southern neighbours into another patently stupid foreign military engagement. Even better, Canada was providing safe haven to thousands of kids who’d decided life as cowardly draft-dodgers in the Great White North was infinitely better than torching Vietnamese villages and/or getting their testicles blown off by Charlie. In return, Canada wound up co-opting many of the best and brightest young people of that generation.

Oh, but the times have certainly changed. On Tuesday, Sept. 23, Jeremy Hinzman, the first U.S. Iraq war resister to seek sanctuary in Canada, is scheduled to be deported, this in spite of a June 3 House of Commons motion where members voted 137 to 110 to let Iraq war resisters stay in Canada and stop all deportation proceedings against them.

“I don’t even know how Stephen Harper’s Conservatives can legally do this, but they’re doing it anyway, in spite of Parliament,” says Raymond Legault, spokesperson for Collectif Échec à la guerre. In response, his group has organized a local demonstration to take place outside 200 René-Lévesque W. on Saturday, Sept. 13, at noon.

For full details, go to www.resisters.ca.

by Chris Barry

Alt intro to Con U

Not to be outdone by beer-funneling McGill froshers up the street, Concordia’s newbies have also been spending the last week downing their share of cheap booze and sharing their repertoire of odes to engineering with the rest of Crescent street. And just as McGill has its Radical Frosh, Concordia has QPIRG’s Alternative Orientation for those who find watching documentaries about the Occupied Territories more fun than riding a mechanical bull after chasing a two-four with a bottle of José Cuervo.

“There’s a strong history of student activism at Concordia that new students should know about,” says QPIRG coordinator and political science student Tasha Zamudio.

Expect to see the next generation of Concordia shit disturbers careening around the campus on bikes (the Bike Tour of Community Bike Spaces), on foot (the Radical and Sustainable Tour of Concordia) or by any means necessary (the Radical Scavenger Hunt).

“The idea is to show students parts of the university the administration won’t show them, like the Frigo Vert, the Co-op Bookstore and the People’s Potato,” says Zamudio.

The Alternative Orientation kicks off tonight, Thursday, Sept. 11, with a film screening and DJ night at le Social (1455 Bishop). For details, see qpirgconcordia.org.

by Matt Jones

Rear-view mirror

13 YEARS AGO - SEPT. 14–21, 1993

On the cover: Jacques Parizeau, who “is promising paradise but his government’s first year in power tells another story.” Lyle Stewart writes, “Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the slow dismantling of Quebec’s once-progressive state will continue.”
•The page seven photo shows a protester supporting controversial death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal outside the U.S. consulate.
•Appearing at the Bay, “drag superstar” RuPaul tells Matthew Hays he thinks Quebec’s bid for separation is “dangerous.” An image of RuPaul also appears as the “I” in the Mirror’s cover logo.
•Under the logo: “Any excuse to get drag on the cover.”
• Disc of the Week is D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar. “Aside from Tony Toni Toné, D’Angelo is one of the few artists who proudly showcases both his musicianship and dedication to making soulful music—a rarity in contemporary black music,” writes Mick Antoine.
•Spike Lee’s Clockers “is the American counterpart to France’s La Haine, both of which carve down to the nub of racial tension and crime in inner-city ghettos.”

Angel >> Denouncing climate change sloth As far as Canadian names go, they were pretty big: Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Stephen Bronfman, Moses Znaimer, a gaggle of former Prime Ministers (Clark, Turner, Campbell and Martin) and over 50 other bigwigs in science, academia, business and civil society, all got together to roast the Conservative-led federal government for its bupkis approach to climate change. Calling themselves Canadians for Climate Leadership, the group says we need to “deploy climate-safe technologies at a staggering rate” and end the partisan bickering that’s stalled any progress. They also want the price of one tonne of carbon emissions set at a basement price of $30/tonne. The current Prime Minister, however, given his aversion to environmentalists (see below), probably isn’t listening.


Insect >> Muzzling the Greens Even though the federal Green party has an actual bona fide MP thanks to a defecting Liberal, the party’s leader Elizabeth May has been excluded from the leaders’ debate because the media consortium that organizes them—made up of CBC/Radio-Canada, CTV, Global and TVA—caved to Stephen Harper’s bullying. The PM warned that if May participates, he’ll boycott the debates, saying she’s too cozy with the Liberals. If Harper isn’t participating, says Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, he won’t either (the NDP also opposes her presence, the Bloc less so). May is threatening legal action—but if rules keep changing and one man can huff and puff and whine and bitch and still get his way, this already goofy election is about to get goofier.