Quote of the week

“I anticipate the end of the ADQ.” —University of Sherbrooke political analyst Stéphane Paquin, on the party’s future after its founder, Mario Dumont, announced his resignation from politics on Tuesday.

Heroin helps

Contrary to some fears, but as expected by most experts, the area surrounding the Plateau clinic distributing free heroin to addicts for a scientific study has not led to increased crime or stray drug paraphernalia littering the ground, according to a Université de Montréal study released last week.

The Montreal leg of the study was led by UdeM criminologist Serge Brochu, whose team interviewed 40 people who lived or worked around the clinic, took over 150 observational walks with a 200-metre radius and analyzed Montreal police data. They found that there was no increase in drug detritus, crime, antisocial behaviour or emergency interventions since the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) study began in 2005. Research around NAOMI’s Vancouver branch, in the drug-riddled Downtown Eastside, returned similar findings.

As for the patients—hardcore heroin addicts with histories of failed recoveries who receive two to three doses of free heroin a day—Brochu says there is “a clear improvement on their health, criminality and social integration.”

Nevertheless, with the study running its course, its future remains cloudy. Future funding will have to come from the Quebec Ministry of Health. The project’s continuation will likely be studied this summer, after its final report is published.

Budget
promise pressure

The provincial budget is coming up and the question on the minds of many in Quebec’s social movements is: will Minister of Finance Monique Jérôme-Forget keep her party’s election promises? At least 1,130 community organizations aren’t so sure, which prompted them to send Jérôme-Forget a joint letter last week reminding her of the promise to construct 5,000 units of social housing per year over the next five years.

“As far as we’re concerned, an election promise remains an election promise,” says François Saillant of anti-poverty group FRAPRU, which is spearheading the campaign. He says the government needs to have a long-term plan about how to deal with the increased need for subsidized housing the economic crisis could provoke.

“In the last two recessions, the number of people paying more than half their income in rent increased by the same amount: 41 per cent. Right now there is a plan for social housing that lasts one year. So we always have to wait for the next year to see if it will continue. There hasn’t been a five-year plan since 2001,” he says.

FRAPRU plans to drive the message home with a demonstration on Saturday, Feb. 28 at 1:30 p.m. at Carré St-Louis. Details at frapru.qc.ca.

by MATT JONES

Apartheid history

With the world transfixed on fallout from the recent carnage in Gaza, it is easy to forget one of the earliest suppressed peoples of colonial history—North America’s aborigines.

To bring First Nations issues to the forefront of debate, well-known indigenous activists will be hosting a panel this weekend, called “Apartheid in Canada: Frontline Voices of Indigenous Resistance on Turtle Island.”

“Historically, Canada was one of the forerunning states to implement apartheid policies,” says Israeli Apartheid Week spokesperson Meg Leitold, referring to the Indian Act of 1876, which imposed the notorious reserve system. “It’s just a historical reality that needs to be acknowledged.”

Elizabeth Penashue, an Innu elder from Nitassinan—present-day Labrador—will be speaking about the militarization of Goose Bay and resistance to NATO’s low-level military flying exercises in the 1980s. Judy Da Silva, a mother of five from Grassy Narrows in northwestern Ontario, will be speaking about her fight to protect the Anishnabe peoples from the encroachment of logging and mining companies.

Apartheid in Canada takes place on Sunday, March 1 in affiliation with Israeli Apartheid Week at Concordia (1455 de Maisonneuve W., H-110), 7 p.m., free.

For a full schedule of Apartheid Week events, visit iawmontreal.org.

by MATTHEW BRETT

Jane walkers wanted

If you’re a community-minded sort and maybe know a thing or two about your ’hood, then you’re just the kind of person the people over at the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre are looking for to conduct a series of Jane Jacobs Walking Tours this coming May 2 and 3.

“These will be the first Jane walks that we do in Montreal,” says Gessica Gropp, community organizer for the centre. “Jacobs was a Toronto advocate for

human-, as opposed to car-oriented neighbourhoods. So, in her honour, we’re looking for citizens to give free informational walks in Montreal neighbourhoods, walks promoting community development. For example, in the Milton Park area, speakers might give a brief history of how and why the Parc-Pine interchange was demolished, or show all the housing cooperatives standing in Milton Park today and discuss the struggle community organizers had in the 1970s to preserve the neighbourhood, this kind of thing.”

Gropp says volunteers needn’t be experts on their chosen neighbourhoods. “These are just meant to be casual yet informative walks given by citizens for other citizens.”

To get involved, contact her via gessica@ecologieurbaine.net or by phone at (514) 282-8378. To get a better handle on Jane Jacobs and her whole deal, go to janeswalk.net.

by CHRIS BARRY

Rear-view mirror

16 YEARS AGO - FEB. 25–MAR. 4, 1993

On the cover: A woman in a top hat, for the Clubland supplement. Articles include Jenny Ross’s retrospective on Montreal in the 1950s and 1960s, Ian Stephens on the ’70s and ’80s, and Lynn Suderman’s on clubbing 2050.
• A witness at the trial of Kahnawake Mohawk Darren McComber, convicted Feb. 11 for threatening the life of an RCMP officer, says the charges are “payback from the [Oka] crisis.”
• News writer Alex Roslin roasts the Gazette’s coverage of the Feb. 23 police shooting of Sheed Sahadath in Little Burgundy. The story, highlighting Sahadath’s troubled background rather than irregularities in the police version of events, makes the paper’s account “astonishing.”
• Cinéma Parallèle hosts a retrospective of Spike Lee’s films.
• Ween’s Pure Guava receives a tepid review by Richard Bird. “This minimalist… thing was covered pretty comprehensively by Jandek over the course of 20 albums. Then Dean and Gene Ween come through with the achingly beautiful ‘Sarah’ and the frighteningly deranged ‘Mourning Glory’ that almost makes all the nonsense worth it. Almost.”

Angel >> .08 The federal justice committee began hearings this week as to whether they should lower the national legal limit for impaired driving from .08 blood alcohol content (BAC) to .05. As it stands, all provinces (except Quebec, which remains sensible) have temporary penalties for anyone found driving with a BAC of .05 or more—even though this is more likely to punish someone who had a beer or two at a hockey game or dinner than someone who is dangerously drunk. Even anti-drunk-driving experts agree that the current penalties are adequate deterrents, so why bother further criminalizing people who aren’t posing a threat? Zero tolerance isn’t practical, unless the driver is professional, like, say, a taxi driver, bus driver or snow truck operator.

Insect >> Snow truck operators This is getting ridiculous. Less than three weeks after three pedestrians were killed by snow removal trucks on the same day, and two months after the first casualty of the season, two snow truck operators were arrested on Monday for driving drunk, one in Trois-Rivières, the other in Montreal’s Rosemont-Petite-Patrie. The Montreal man arrested was the second city blue-collar worker busted this winter. Is there something inherently wrong with the way the cols bleus are trained? Are they too stupid, arrogant or both to get the message? Whatever it is, someone needs to explain things better.