Quote of the week

“I have never been so discouraged about Montreal.” —Retired judge John Gomery, on his decision to enter municipal politics at age 77 to act as honorary chairperson of Projet Montréal’s fundraising campaign. His daughter is also running for the party in the West End.

Punks in the park

Once again this summer, Parcs Vivants is doing its best to prove that the parks of the Centre-Sud district are indeed more than simply venues for teenage beer-drinking parties, copulating with prostitutes and comfortably predictable locations in which to purchase one’s crack cocaine. As part of their 2009 summer schedule, this Friday, Aug. 14, they will be sponsoring an “acoustic punk concert” featuring none other than la Gachette and Nailheads, beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Parc Charles Mayer (corner Ontario and Montcalm).

“Parcs Vivants was created in 2002 after the city wanted to sell off some of the smaller parks of this district to various private interests,” says PV spokesperson Thierry Martin. “But after citizens rose up against the idea, the municipal administration asked us to see what could be done with our parks instead of selling them, and now we have many different things going on in them—like Tai Chi classes, yoga classes and cultural events like this one we’re doing on Friday.

“The basic idea is to get citizens using the parks in different, creative ways,” he continues. “After all, if the parks are busy, they’ll also be safer, or at least it’ll help people feel safer in their neighbourhoods.”

For more information, go to ville.montreal.qc.ca.

CHRIS BARRY

Beauty meets
cancer

The best way to fight breast cancer, according to local non-profit Breast Cancer Action Montreal (BCAM), is to know what causes it. According to the Breast Cancer Society of Canada, one in nine women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, and one in 28 will die from it.

BCAM thinks the long list of harmful chemicals in ordinary beauty products add to the risk. To let people know, they will be launching a new Web site, FemmeToxic, next month. The site contains form letters to send to government officials and industry, and has a how-to section to organize your own demonstration. The site is meant to appeal to young women, who tend to be most at risk from heavy cosmetic use.

“We are asking the Canadian government to change its legislation [regarding chemical products],” says BCAM coordinator Janice Melanson.

BCAM isn’t that enthusiastic about fundraisers like the upcoming Weekend to End Breast Cancer (Aug. 22-23) because, she says, “something like 95 per cent of all money raised goes to research on treatment, buildings and equipment, and we’d like some of that money to be spent on research.”

For more info on BCAM, visit bcam.qc.ca. For info on the Weekend to End Breast Cancer, see endcancer.ca.

PATRICK LEJTENYI

Queers for
Palestine

Amid the usual pageantry and splendour that is the Montreal Pride Parade, this year’s edition features a new and decidedly Middle Eastern flavour, as Queers Come Out Against Israeli Apartheid make their first appearance on the pride stage.

“This is an issue that has been more and more prevalent in the queer community in recent years,” says Leila Pourtavaf, a member of QTeam, one of the groups organizing the contingent.

Participants, who are encouraged to wear a white shirt and bring signs and noisemakers, will gather at 12:30 p.m. on the day of the parade, Sunday, Aug. 16, at the corner of Ste-Catherine E. and de Lorimier. “So often, LGBT rights within Israel are used as a signifier of Israel being a democratic state,” says Pourtavaf. “So it’s about dispelling that myth and showing that there’s an inherent racist ideology behind it.”

As a warm-up, Toronto-based Queer Activism Against Israeli Apartheid give a free workshop Saturday, Aug. 15, from 3–5 p.m. at 1710 Beaudry, examining queer solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and “how the Israeli state appropriates the language of queer rights to promote its continued occupation of Palestine.”

For details, visit perverscite.org.

CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

Polo on wheels

The word “polo” has traditionally been associated with the aristocratic equestrian sport or used as an elaborate excuse to dunk people’s heads in a pool. But now, thanks to Bike Polo, landlubbers and plebes alike can get in on the action.

“It’s incredible how much bike polo has grown in the past two years,” says Benny Zenga, an organizer of the annual Bicycle Film Festival. Part of the festivities is a Bike Polo tournament taking place Saturday, Aug. 15 at 11:55 a.m. in Verdun (corner Verdun and 6th Avenue).

The game sees two mixed teams of three chase a street hockey ball around a tennis or basketball court on their bikes, whacking at it with mallets made from ski poles with a plastic pipe screwed onto the bottom. The catch is that you can’t take your feet off the pedals and you’re not allowed to smash your opponent’s head in with your ski pole.

“That would be considered bad sportsmanship,” says Toronto bike polo organizer Navid Taslimi.

Though the sport was actually featured in the 1908 Olympic Games, it’s only been rediscovered in the last few years. Taslimi says it’s especially popular among former bike couriers.

See bicyclefilmfestival.com for details.

MATT JONES

Rear-view mirror

12 YEARS AGO - AUG. 14–21, 1997

On the cover: Irish labourers, as David Fennario remembers the great migration of 1847. The British colonial administration in Canada, he says, “simply wanted to spend as little as possible on a bunch of sick, starving ‘Micks’ who were incapable of helping themselves.”
• The Media Circus column celebrates the imminent arrival of “the belching, bitching and altogether obnoxious ravings of one of my personal idols,” Howard Stern, to CHOM.
•The 3 a.m. Eternal column investigates speed garage, which “comes at a time when ‘dumber’ hard dance (happy hardcore, jump-up jungle) is getting more respect, so the chin-stroking of the ‘deep’ camps probably won’t make it near the door.”
•Ridley Scott says he deliberately avoided making Demi Moore’s character in G.I. Jane a lesbian. “It would have become a completely different movie.”
•A “disgusted” letter writer uses Scripture (Isaiah 66:12-13, Psalm 18:2, John 15:1ff, Deuteronomy 32:11) to disprove fellow letter writer Thoth Harris’s allegations of God’s cruelty.
•Under the logo: “Dreading the Great Poutine Famine.”

Angel >> Scary Canadians When bloviating right-wing American imbeciles like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck mention Canada, it’s usually through a dismissive and contemptuous snort. But now, all of a sudden, thanks to our (comparatively) sensible health care system, these same imbeciles are portraying us as a creeping socialist menace intent on devouring freedom in an anti-health system reform media blitz in the U.S. The health care conversation in that country has long gone off the deep end, but you know that when frenzied conservatives tar Canadians as Trotskyite bogeymen instead of meek, placid Milquetoasts, someone has to be feeling desperate.

Insect >> Bill 34 Legislation introduced this spring by the National Assembly wants all specialized medical clinics to meet certain standards in hygiene by the end of September, which on its own sounds reasonable. The problem? Abortion clinics have to meet the same standards, despite being not nearly as invasive as other types of surgeries. Four Montreal clinics are worried about their future, even though there has never once been a complaint about the quality of service, and they meet national standards. About one third of the estimated 30,000 abortions are performed in clinics, and while the Montreal Health and Social Service Agency says hospitals and CLSCs could take up the slack, making them ever more crowded won’t help anyone.