Quote of the week

“Nobody here uses hambourgeois…. I think our name sums up our institution and vocation pretty well.” —Julie Poirier, owner of burger joint M:brgr. The Office québécois de la langue française and Mouvement Montréal français are both alarmed by restaurants using suspiciously English-sounding names, according to the Journal de Montréal.

Demo for Fredy

The police shooting that injured 18-year-old Nashwan Abdullah in Montreal North last Sunday did little to ease the community’s anxiety about heavy-handed Montreal police tactics in their area. The shooting came less than two months after the death of 18-year-old Fredy Villanueva at the hands of the police, and a week after the release of the official police report into it.

Will Prosper, from the coalition Montreal Nord Republik, is skeptical that an internal police investigation will shed all the light on the situation, stressing that the way it has been run so far shows police are not taking accusations of undue use of force seriously.

“They took over 70 statements before they interviewed the officer,” says Prosper. “When they did take a statement from him, they interviewed him as a witness, not as a suspect.”

The group is organizing a demonstration at Parc Pilon (deep Montreal North: Henri-Bourassa and Pie-IX) on Saturday, Oct. 11 at 2 p.m.

Also present will be the families of Mohamed Anas Bennis and Quilem Registre, two other men killed by Montreal officers in the last two years. The demo will demand a public investigation, an end to racial profiling and recognition by the city that social insecurity is tied to economic insecurity.

Feminists wave in

Funding cuts to equal rights programs, pay equity gaps, back-door attacks on the right to abortion: women’s rights have improved over the past 50 years, but recent challenges, particularly under the Conservative government, have meant growing concerns over whether that trend will continue.

It’s with this in mind that some 500 young feminists from across Canada will gather at UQÀM from Oct. 11–13 for Waves of Resistance, a conference that will feature three days of workshops and discussions on what it means to be a young feminist and how to fight the challenges women continue to face. The event is organized by a wide range of women’s groups, including the Federation des Femmes du Québec and the Montreal YWCA.

“It’s a way we can come together and say, ‘Hey we’re not alone,” says Jessyka Boulanger, a member of the ASSé student federation’s women’s committee, one of the conference’s organizers. “There’s a huge movement in Canada, so let’s participate together and break this feeling of isolation and fight against the Conservatives and patriarchal values still present in society.”

Entrance fees are on a sliding scale, with no one turned away. For details, and to register, visit www.rebelles2008.org.

by Tim McSorley

Welcome to boobtown

When a woman whips out a boob in public, bystanders are usually very interested—but not so much when there’s a baby attached.

“In North America, mothers don’t usually feel comfortable [breastfeeding] in public,” says Carole Dobrich of the Canadian Lactation Consultants’ Association. She says the public and mothers alike are often misinformed, and therefore misunderstand the act, and the importance, of breastfeeding, “the one thing a mother can give to her child.” And with all those infant formula recalls, and a growing move to simpler and more sustainable ways of eating and living, we may just have to get used to babies suckling away outside the home. And this Saturday, people may be seeing lots of boobs for this year’s Global Breastfeeding Challenge.

A call to mothers around the world to breastfeed their babies in solidarity, the Challenge has over 290 global sites registered so far for 2008, 149 in Canada alone. Montreal won several past challenges like last year’s, when 445 babies latched onto their mums simultaneously at Place Bonaventure.

Montreal moms will meet at Palais des Congrès (201 Viger W.) on Saturday, Oct. 11 as of 9 a.m., with the Challenge at 11 a.m. sharp. Register on site, by phone (514) 528-2400 x 38888) or online at www.santepub-mtl.qc.ca/defi2008/formulaire.html

by Tracey Lindeman

Wapikoni moving

Canada’s native peoples have come a long way since their land was stolen, their babies taken away, shoved into schools and told to love Jesus. Thanks to the nomadic arts studio Wapikoni Mobile, many have found a way to express contemporary Aboriginal culture through film.

Tonight, Thursday, Oct. 9, the Wapikoni project celebrates its fifth year of travelling to reserves and teaching young native people to create their own movies. Through the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Wapikoni Mobile is showing a selection of 15 films made in various communities this year.

Jolyanne Mathieu, Wapikoni Mobile’s communications coordinator, promises a lot of diversity. “We have some music videos, we have animated films, we have several documentaries. They all present the native reality.” The nations represented are as diverse as the film content. “Wapikoni travels to 14 communities every year. We are not showing one film per nation, but we try to represent everybody: from Mohawks to Crees etc.”

Algonquin rap artist Samian will open up the event with a few songs and the filmmakers will be around to meet, greet and answer questions. The screening is free and starts at 6 p.m. at the Agora Hydro-Québec of UQÀM (175 President-Kennedy).

For more info, see www.wapikoni.ca.

by Roxane Hudon

Rear-view mirror

11 YEARS AGO - OCT. 9–16, 1997

On the cover: Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, discussing life after Nirvana. “I actually haven’t talked about Nirvana … in a long time. With the first [FF] album, it was pretty taxing and it got to be a pain in the ass, but lately it’s been pretty simple.”
•City councillor Marvin Rotrand criticizes the city’s new community policing initiative. His main beefs are too little training, too little civilian oversight and a lack of consultation.
•Discussing Image & Nation’s 10th anniversary, Matthew Hays writes, “This is our festival, and if people (straight or gay) don’t like a fist-fucking scene or images of two men in a passionate kiss, they can get up and leave.”
•Three people contact the Rant Line™ to complain about the previous week’s rant complaining that there were too many Greeks and Italians at the Dôme. “Joe from St-Léo” says, “The Greeks I can understand, but DON’T PUT DOWN THE ITALIANS.”
• Two letters address the Sept. 25 Mirror re-design, one favourably, one not.

Angel >> Economists Sure, they’re dreary and can’t agree on much, and their field is in disrepute these days, but that doesn’t prevent them from occasionally doing something good and right. This week, over 230 teaching economists signed an open letter to federal political leaders urging three actions to fight climate change: First, put a price on carbon; second, put a tax on carbon; third, create a cap-and-trade system. Not perfect, but a start, and one that would spur research and development into alternative energy sources. The dismal science may indeed be just that, but making industries and consumers pay for their pollution is a ripe idea.


Insect >>Losing the F1 It’s loud, it’s terrible for the environment and it floods the city with obnoxious jet-setting Eurotrash, but the annual Formula One Grand Prix brings in big bucks for the city. And now it looks like it’s gone for real. The axe came down early this week, for reasons that remained unclear at press time, though reports mention some problem involving contractual negotiations between the local track and F1 management. The F1 always was a sticky, tacky orgy of bad taste, but it did bring in $75-million, making it the most profitable tourism-related weekend of the year.