Quote of the week

“When guys do find a way to bring in [cigarettes], they’re selling it $6 apiece” —Former Ste-Anne-des-Plaines inmate Dale Tremblay, who is trying to overturn a ban on smoking in federal prisons.

Homeless one night

Have you ever walked by some homeless person begging for change and wondered what a night in their shoes might be like? Well, you’ll get your chance to live the experience this Friday, Oct. 16, beginning at 6 p.m. at 1710 Beaudry, for the 20th edition of Nuit des Sans-Abri, aka Homeless Night. Last year, over 8,500 Quebecers spent one night on the streets to show solidarity with their less fortunate citizens and demand action on the issue from the Quebec government.

“We started this event 20 years ago to bring attention to the issue of homelessness in Montreal,” says event coordinator Pierre Gaudreau of RAPSIM. “And this year we’ll be doing it in 23 towns across Quebec, because the problem doesn’t only exist in Montreal, homelessness is in our smaller cities as well.”

Gaudreau is nevertheless confident lawmakers are gradually starting to get the message. “For three years, we’ve been demanding the government adopt a comprehensive policy on homelessness, and this year, we’re hopeful one will finally be introduced. Everyone can see the problem is growing. We need immediate action.”

Organizers are recommending participants bring sleeping bags and whatever else one might need to survive a cold autumn night sleeping on the streets of Montreal.

CHRIS BARRY

March of the poor

This Saturday, Oct. 17, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty will be marked in dozens of cities around the world. Here in Montreal, a coalition of community groups will be holding a demonstration in Little Italy to shed light on local poverty issues.

“There’s a great need for social housing in the area but, more and more, it’s condos that are being built,” says Jonathan Blais of Amnesty Canada’s francophone division, which is helping to organize the demo.

Participants will gather at 9:30 a.m. at Martel Park (corner St-Laurent and St-Zotique), where speakers, including individuals who have pulled themselves out of poverty, will address problems affecting the community before heading out on a silent march, which will be followed by the distribution of a free lunch. “The march will be silent because it’s symbolic of the fact that we don’t often hear the voices of people living in poverty,” says Blais.

Although not officially a part of Amnesty International’s Demand Dignity campaign, the march is part of a shift by AI to focus on social and economic rights in addition to their more traditional territory of civil and political rights.

For more info, visit oct17.org.

CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

Street democracy

Perhaps there’s more to municipal politics than garbage delivery, rampant corruption and bylaws regulating how close to your neighbour’s picket fence you can build a shed. In recent years, a spate of activists have interpreted “Think Global, Act Local” to mean getting involved with city hall, whether that means voting on a participatory budget or making noise to stop a highway or casino being built on your street.

“The election is a good time to stir up interest among citizens, but real democracy is a process that goes on every day,” says Luc Rabouin, director of the Urban Ecology Centre.

Big thinking about small-scale change is a topic that will be taken up by Rabouin in a panel on “Democratizing and Rethinking the City,” taking place Thursday, Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. at Librairie Olivieri (5219 Côte-des-Neiges). He’ll be joined by former Pointe St-Charles councillor Marcel Sevigny, author of a book on autonomous organization and resistance.

“If we want to change the world but we can’t change our own city, we’re not starting off well,” says Rabouin. “Fifty-five percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Montreal come from transport, so it’s really at the municipal level that we have to address that.

Reservations are mandatory. Call (514) 739-3639 to book a seat.

MATT JONES

Waste goes to art

Waste Reduction Week, a national week of awareness taking place across Canada from Oct. 18–25, isn’t something many Quebecers know about. Though the WRW’s website says it is about “empowering all Canadians to adopt more environmentally conscious choices,” Nadia Bini of Matériaux pour les arts Montréal is really just hoping the week will bring awareness to the local sustainable development organization.

MAM is a non-profit that reroutes materials that might otherwise be called waste from industry, commerce and institutions and puts them into the starving hands of artists and art education institutions. As of 2009, the MAM now offers a free online service that puts artists in touch with unique raw materials ranging from grass to cardboard tubes to thread spools.

The point is not to lobby wasteful corporations, says Bini. “Right now we are not trying to convert people who are not interested in us; we are addressing the people who are interested in trying to divert their materials. It’s much easier to preach to the choir, so to speak,” she adds.

The waste-for-art materials database is now accessible at bimam.qc.ca. Corporations can apply to become donors, and artists can also submit a request to become beneficiaries.

Check the website for more information: mamontreal.qc.ca.

LINA HARPER

Rear-view mirror

16 YEARS AGO - OCT. 14–21, 1993

On the cover: A butt cheek tattooed with the Mirror logo, for Montreal’s first international tattoo convention. Invitees include big name artists like Paul Booth (New Jersey), Bernie Luther (Vienna), Tin Tin (France) and Elio Espana (San Fran). “They are wild artists,” says organizer Keith Stewart. “They dropped too much acid when they were kids, you know what I’m saying?”
•For the 1993 Mirror Record Guide, critics pick their top albums of the past 12 months. Among them are: Madonna’s Erotica, Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Sven Väth’s Accident in Paradise, Buju Banton’s Voice of Jamaica.
•Artists to be profiled at the Festival International du Nouveau Cinéma: Luis Buñuel, Miles Davis, Martin Scorsese, D.W. Griffith, GG Allin, John Lurie and Lydia Lunch.
•Reporting on MuchMusic/ MusiquePlus’s fall line-up, the Streetseen column—written by “Mirror irregulars”—gives “Three cheers for Beavis, Butthead and Claude” Rajotte, whose shows Rage and Le Cimetière des CD debut.
•“Excuse the expression, but fuck the ‘Mirror Irregulars’,” begins a letter by Paul Gott and Will Richards.

Angel >> The Nordiques Quebec City mayor Régis Labeaume, currently campaigning for reelection, is doing his darndest to bring the NHL back to the provincial capital. It’s a good idea: the epic battles between the Canadiens and the Nordiques were legendary, bloody and tons of fun. Labeaume met with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman last week and is promising an announcement on Thursday or Friday. Given Bettman’s pigheaded refusal to admit a mistake, it will probably end as just another dashed Canadian pipe dream. But reviving a nasty rivalry might just revive a moribund league and a certain moribund local team. Coincidentally, the Habs meet the Colorado Avalanche tonight, Thursday, Oct. 15, for the home opener of their 101st season.

Insect >> Flu confusion Between Big-Pharma-phobes like Bill Maher and buffoonish right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, there’s a whole lot of nonsense flying around regarding the H1N1 flu vaccine in the U.S. Add to that mismanaged government bureaucracy in Canada, and you wind up with one hell of a headache—without even being sick. The former Ontario chief medical officer of health said Canada’s decision to concentrate on producing seasonal flu shots instead of H1N1 vaccines will put thousands of Canadians at risk, in particular healthy young women. Although 99 per cent of H1N1 cases are mild, those who do get very ill stand a good chance of dying. So stock up on your chicken soup and get the damn shot.