Quote of the week

“If nothing is done, it is students who will suffer first. And surely, inevitably, so will all of Quebec society.” —Lucien Bouchard, advocating raising university tuition fees. Bouchard said Quebec universities’ finances are approaching crisis stage—over a decade after he froze tuition fees and slashed public funding as Premier.

Griff needs
culture

While l’Office de consultation publique de Montréal prepares its final recommendations for the impending Bonaventure reconstruction project, concerned Griffintown residents are wasting no time in utilizing this weekend’s Montreal High Lights/Nuit Blanche festival to promote their own vision for the area’s future.

“The community is responding to all these proposals for mega-projects in our neighbourhood,” says Judith Bauer of the Griffintown Cultural Corridor group. “There are significant historical sites in Griffintown, so we’d like to see the area developed with a culture and heritage focus, preserving these sites from this perspective rather than building all these franchised towers you find in every other city of the world.”

Among their suggestions is the creation of a Griffintown Cultural Corridor, which Bauer says “would adapt and valorize existing sites of architectural and historic significance for the purposes of everything from community cultural events to private galleries, economuseums, arts cafés, owner-operated restaurants, an art school, artists’ studios and more.”

The exhibit for the Cultural Corridor and the group’s several other redevelopment ideas will be at New City Gas (140–141 Ann) on Saturday, Feb. 27, 1 p.m. For a detailed list of Nuit Blanche’s Griffintown events, go to griffintown.org.

Anti-proroguery
coming

As Parliament gets ready to de-prorogue itself next week, Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP), the ad-hoc group that brought thousands of angry Facebookers off their laptops and onto the streets last January, has one last trick up its virtual sleeve. Their Not-So-Secret-Democracy-Mission will take place somewhere or maybe everywhere between March 2 and 3, just as politicians are getting ready to take their seats in the House.

“I can say that it’s something that is easy for any Canadian from coast to coast to participate in and that pays tribute to the way the movement started in the first place,” says CAPP’s field coordinator Mathieu Murphy-Perron.

After the Jan. 23 protests, the group’s 225,000 members struggled to find a way to debate what to do next. Discussions are currently underway about how to make the CAPP a permanent organization.

The message Murphy-Perron wants to send is that people across the country will continue to watch the Harper government with a suspicious eye, ready to act again if necessary.

“Last time we were able to shake the Conservatives more than anything had ever shaken them before. They dropped 15 points in polls in 15 days.”

Check canadaparticipates.ca to find out how to participate.

MATT JONES

Israel’s artsy
scolding

In the attempt to do for Palestine what Little Steven Van Zandt and the musical superstars of the 1980s did for South Africa 25 years ago, over 500 Montreal artists have recently come together to sign an open declaration “in opposition to Israeli apartheid policies against the Palestinian people.”

The declaration, organized internationally by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and locally by Tadamon! Montreal, calls for a global boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, particularly in light of said country’s military bombardment of Gaza last winter and violent attack on Lebanon in 2006.

“The letter aims at building a collective solidarity around the struggles faced in Palestine,” says Tadamon! representative Amy Darwish. “Artists have long played a vital role in different resistance movements. They’re often the first to speak out against repression, and sometimes the last people who are able to do so. Artists played a very substantial role in fighting apartheid in South Africa and built a lot of momentum with that campaign, and we believe that artists in Montreal can continue to do so today with respect to Palestine.”

To read the statement and list of signatories, go to tadamon.ca.

CHRIS BARRY

Canada bashing
redux

Activist and author Yves Engler makes it his business to soil Canadians’ idealized image of their country by any means necessary. That can mean pouring fake blood over former MP Pierre Pettigrew or writing books that uncover facts about the nefarious side of Canadian foreign policy, like his latest work Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid which is being launched at the Divan Orange (4234 St-Laurent) on Saturday Feb. 27, 5 p.m.

“The book makes the case that the Harper government has made Canada the most pro-Israel country in the world,” says Engler, adding that the current government is continuing a long tradition. “Lester Pearson decided to do all he could to support a Jewish state on Palestinian land.”

The book documents secretive ties that link the two countries. “It looks at the role of Canadian charities funnelling millions of dollars into the occupied territories and the ties between CSIS and the Mossad,” he says.

Engler won’t be selling his book at Chapters or Indigo. “Profits from Chapters/Indigo go to funding Israeli mercenaries,” he says, referring to the a program set up by Indigo CEO Heather Reisman that awards scholarship money to foreign volunteers for the Israel Defense Forces.

For more info, see turning.ca.

Rear-view mirror

16 YEARS AGO - FEB. 24–MAR. 3, 1994

On the cover: Annie Leibovitz, for a 20-year retrospective exhibit at the Beaux-Arts. Her early days, she says, were marked by a special kind of doggedness that helped her capture her subjects. “I didn’t know how to leave. Often, I think I was thrown out.”

•“This is a crime without criminals,” says one of the 165 patrons arrested at a police raid on gay club Katakombes. “The logic is that when you’re in a bank and there’s a robber in the bank you are all criminals because you were in the bank.”

•Spending a night with the Dome’s bouncers for a Clubland supplement article, Peter Scowen writes, “Pierre came to work with a bandage on the fist he injured against the face of a drunk American who called him a ‘Canadian pussy.’”

• In the same supplement, Henry Lehmann makes the rounds of “bars I never visit” as a “solidly middle aged art critic.” He stops at Bifteck (3702 St-Laurent), Bowling (4428 St-Laurent), Opera (3523A St-Laurent) and Backstreet (382 Mayor).

Angel >>High-speed Montreal-New York rail It’s something long, long overdue, but a high-speed rail link between Montreal and New York City may have inched a bit closer to reality following a meeting between Jean Charest and American Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood last week. The two agreed to commission (yet another) feasibility study that would link the cities and Boston via a high-speed line. The idea is buoyed by the Obama administration’s $8-billion (U.S.) stimulus package and more concern about greenhouse gas emissions and the rising price of fuel. There’s been a lot of talk about this before—and nowhere is a Montreal-Toronto link mentioned—but at least it’s a step in the right direction.


Insect >> Slow, expensive Canadian Internet A recent report from Harvard University has confirmed what most of us already knew: Canada’s Internet connections are old, slow and expensive. According to the report, Canada ranks 22nd overall out of 30 countries surveyed, and a lack of competition and bad government policy are to blame. The report notes that five companies control 81 per cent of the Internet market, and the federal government’s policy to focus on connecting remote locations (which is no bad thing) rather than high-end capacity have left Canada badly positioned when it comes to 3G wireless service. Japan, South Korea and Sweden have the best service, the report found.