Quote of the week

“She represents all of us who are repressed and who are victims of this regime.” —Stéphan Hashemi, whose mother Zahra Kazemi was allegedly imprisoned, tortured, raped and murdered by Iranian prison guards. Hashemi is trying to sue the Iranian government over his mother’s death.

St. Pat’s dog and pony

Surrounding animals with hordes of drunken, bellowing pseudo-Irishmen and women may sound like a bad idea, but in the confines of a friendly annual parade, maybe not. This year, along with flatbeds hauling media personalities, marching teenage sports teams and the ever-awesome Shriners guys with their fezzes and little cars, two animal-themed contingents will be part of the 186th St. Patrick’s Day parade, on Sunday at noon, moving east from the corner of Fort and Ste-Catherine.

One will be from the Griffintown Horse Palace Foundation, a group dedicated to preserving the lore and feel of the once-Irish working class neighbourhood. Among their plans are preserving Leo Leonard’s Griffintown Stables, the last working stables in the city, and creating next door a museum dedicated to recreating a typical 19th-century industrial-era workingman’s home. For more info, see griffintown.org/horsepalace.

More surreal, and potentially horrifying to the truly inebriated, might be the Montreal Dachshund walk. Dreamt up by Natasha Clayton, “head wienie” at montrealdachshund.com, the walk is generally for small dogs and is meant to promote adopting an animal from a rescue shelter rather than buying one at a pet store. Clayton is looking for volunteers. Those interested can e-mail info@montrealdachshund.com.

PATRICK LEJTENYI

RAPSIM aging, fighting

As homeless advocacy group RAPSIM gets in gear to celebrate its 35 years in existence this month, the number of new homeless people hitting the streets continues to rise.

“This is why we’re calling on the federal government to increase the budget for the Homelessness Partnering Strategy initiative,” a federal program that lets communities determine the best way to reduce homelessness, says RAPSIM coordinator Pierre Gaudreau. “It’s an excellent program, but it operates on the same budget it did 10 years ago while the cost of everything, especially housing, has gone up. The amount of money allocated to combat the problem has, in fact, decreased.”

To this end, RAPSIM have organized a demonstration to take place outside the offices of the National Secretariat on Homelessness in the Guy Favreau complex (200 René-Lévesque W.) on Thursday, March 11, 10:45 a.m. “Everybody supports us with this, the City of Montreal, all three opposition parties in Ottawa, everyone but the Conservatives, but since they’re a minority government, we’re hoping they’ll still listen,” says Gaudreau.

RAPSIM’s 35-year bash takes place Wednesday, March 17, at L’Alizé (800 Ontario E.), 5 p.m. For further details about the demonstration, go to rapsim.org

CHRIS BARRY

Cash and worry

Student groups in Quebec are facing an unusual dilemma: too much money in the bank.

On February 3, Ottawa transferred $125.8-million from the Canada Student Loans and Grants program to the Quebec government, of which $115-million came from a new bursary program that replaces the now defunct Millennium Scholarship Fund. This is $35-million more than the regular annual $80-million transfer that usually comes to the province. So obviously that cash will be used to patch the holes in Quebec’s shrinking bursaries system, right?

Not so, says Xavier Lefebvre Boucher, president of the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ). He says students—an estimated 30 per cent of whom rely on the loans and bursaries program—are worried the economic crisis will tempt the government to find another use for the money.

“There’s been no indication from the Minister of Education that they will be modifying and improving the program,” he says. Boucher says the system is $100-million short of meeting students’ needs.

That would be reduced by a third if the extra $35-million were put back into the system. Students will be demanding just that at a demonstration taking place today, March 11 at 2 p.m. at Place Émilie Gamelin (St-Hubert and de Maisonneuve). Details at decomptepcbe.org.

Matt Jones

Oh St-Henri

St-Henri may lack the precociousness of the Plateau, but its residents generally like the scrappy southwest neighbourhood. But it is changing, and southwestern Montrealers know as well as anybody that change isn’t always for the best. Just ask the residents of the Village des Tanneries, a small neighbourhood in the shadow of the Turcot interchange, whose lives remain in limbo while Quebec City decides what to do with the aging concrete overpasses.

Not surprisingly, those who live in the area want a say in its future, and to that end are in the process of organizing a series of public forums between March and May to air some ideas as to how to make St-Henri a better place to live, work and play.

Issues to be discussed include the usual: transportation, safety and security, public and low-income housing, the environment, and so on. Similar citizen-led discussion groups took place last year in Mile End and Verdun.

To get things rolling, interested parties are urged to visit Le Forum des Citoyens de St-Henri’s Facebook page and fill out an online questionnaire, where respondents can list their top three priorities. Times, dates and location of the discussions are to be determined, but those interested in participating can call (514) 440-2288.

PATRICK LEJTENYI

Rear-view mirror

15 YEARS AGO - MARCH 9–14, 1995

On the cover: Marc Labrèche, starring in Robert Lepage’s one-man play Needles and Opium. Of working in a “torture device” harness, he says, “You’re floating. Your heart beats faster, your guts are compressed, you can’t eat before or drink during.”

• In an article on anglo separatists, Dawson College Humanities prof David Mitchell says, “The loudest cries of oppression come from people who live in English areas. They’ll move mountains to maintain their linguistic isolation.”

• Former underage porn star Traci Lords says she’s happy to bounce between singing and acting. “I get really bored with everything, so I go back and forth really easily. I think it’s all venting and escaping.”

• The review for The Re/SEARCH Guide to Bodily Fluids asks, “Why is the interior life of the mind considered a fit subject of poetry but equal interest in the interior life of the body considered a sign of perversion?”

• Up for the MiMis “The Hair Award”: John Kastner (Doughboys), Corpusse, Paul Gott (Ripcordz), Cecil Seaskull (Nerdy Girl).

Angel >>Justice in the Norbourg scandal When the fraud case against five former employees of the trust fund company Norbourg collapsed at the end of January, there were some concerns that the alleged thieves might escape justice. That fear may be allayed now that a new trial is back on (although the number of charges against them has dropped—from 722 charges of fraud down to a mere 615). Prosecutors are hoping to avoid another mistrial by asking if they can present their case before only a judge, and not a jury. Part of the reason the case collapsed was its enormous complexity, involving financial matters the jurors couldn’t understand. Defence lawyers will respond to the request on March 22.

Insect >> The Canadian Booksellers Association Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, said Samuel Johnson, so when an industry wraps itself in a flag to block a foreign competitor, something starts to smell. That’s what the Canadian Booksellers Association did this week, when it asked Ottawa to block Amazon.com from setting up a distribution centre in Canada. According to the CBA, Amazon is a threat to Canadian culture and Canadian values. Apparently, being held captive by a small group of television, Internet and book providers is as Canadian as Mounties, beavers and hockey.