Quote of the week

“He just said, ‘Look, I got a lot of broken bones.’ He’s always an ‘up’ person anyways.” — Journalist Larry LeBlanc, in the Globe and Mail, on his friend Daniel Lanois, shortly after the Quebec-born producer and musician suffered a serious motorcycle accident on Tuesday in L.A. Lanois has cancelled his upcoming Black Dub tour, including Montreal’s July 2 stop.

Abortions
wanted

Angered by the Harper government’s refusal to include safe, legal access to abortion as part of Canada’s G8 initiative regarding maternal health, a coalition of women’s groups are organizing a rally this Sunday, June 13. Demonstrators are being asked to dress in black and bring wire coat hangers with them and to be prepared for “a surprise” come 1 p.m.

“We’re only announcing the surprise on site because we don’t want problems with security or the police”, says Natalie Parent, coordinator for Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances, one of the principal organizers of the demonstration. “The Harper government has stated we should make global maternal health a priority, increasing our engagement financially while encouraging global action to decrease child and maternal mortality. However, he isn’t including abortion into the plan, knowing full well that abortions are the cause of 70,000 female deaths every year and that 13 per cent of maternal deaths around the world are because women didn’t have access to secure, legal abortions. There’s no reason why Harper’s government shouldn’t support this other than for ideological reasons.”

The rally takes place at 12:30 p.m. at Dorchester Square (corner René-Lévesque W. and Metcalfe). See fqpn.qc.ca for more info.

CHRIS BARRY

Across
the tracks

Pedestrians and cyclists who cross the CP railroad tracks between Rosemont and Mile End are mobilizing this Sunday, June 13 to call for safe ground-level track crossings.

CP police have been handing out $150 tickets after watching people cross, and CP keeps patching up holes in the fences, which people keep cutting because the few viaduct crossings are out of the way and unsafe, crossers complain.

Organizer Nathalie Casemajor wants people to bring their own creative touches to the event—self-made posters for the fence, musical installations and people with cameras to record the event and post it on the web.

“The idea of this project is to put some visibility on the mobilization—to move things along quicker,” Casemajor says, recognizing representatives of the two boroughs are showing interest in negotiating legal crossings with CP.

After patched fence holes were causing her and other regular track crossers hassles this spring, Casemajor launched an interactive Google map for people to communicate about the status of the holes, and then a Facebook group dedicated to track crossings, which now has hundreds of members.

The Sunday, June 13, action is from 3–6 p.m. along the bicycle path north of the tracks by de Gaspé, south of Rosemont.

JOANNE PENHALE

Inuit
welcome!

Thursday, June 17 is National Aboriginal Day and the Native Friendship Centre is marking the date with a day of community art and feasting.

“We’re celebrating the culture of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in Canada and making it visible for the public,” says organizer Rossel Berard of the Inter-tribal Youth Centre (ITYC).

That’s a message that seems especially urgent after last week’s uproar in Villeray, when residents, including borough mayor Anie Samson, were accused of making anti-Inuit comments about a proposal to convert an unused hospital in the neighbourhood into a 150-bed hostel for patients from Nunavik.

The day starts at 11 a.m. with a roundtable on the history of indigenous people in Canada at CKUT. At 1 p.m. it relocates to the parking lot next to l’Insoumise (2033 St-Laurent) for music, storytelling, an art show and open air stone carving, courtesy of the stone carving studio opened by the ITYC last July.

The festivities close off with a feast at the Native Friendship Centre (2001 St-Laurent) with food provided by McGill’s First People’s House and Missing Justice. The eight-hour event will be broadcast live on CKUT radio (90.3 FM). See ckut.ca for details.

MATT JONES

Trans folk
and the law

“It’s urgent that human rights be granted to human beings who don’t have them,” says Alexandre Baril, spokesperson for the Trans Commission of PolitiQ Queers Solidaire, a radical queer group founded in 2009. The group is holding a peaceful demonstration for transsexual and transgender rights on Thursday, June 17 at 3:30 p.m. outside the offices of the Directeur de l’état civil (2050 Bleury).

PolitiQ Queers Solidaire, with the support of over 70 other groups, is calling for easier access to legal change of name and sex designation for transgender and transsexual people in Quebec. According to their manifesto, the current regulations for trans people are long, complex, restrictive, and not universally accessible, and essentially require trans people to undergo compulsory sterilization before their documents can be changed to match their gender.

“This is especially relevant considering the anti-homophobia policy published by the government of Quebec in 2009,” says Baril. The policy states, among other things, that government service providers must adapt to the specific needs of sexual minorities. “It’s clear that there are contradictions between what the government says and what they’re doing for trans people.”

Check out the full manifesto at politiq.info.

ANDREA ZANIN

Rear-view mirror

13 YEARS AGO - JUNE 12–19, 1997

On the cover: The leads from Danespotting, appearing at the Fringe. “It’s sort of a Hamlet meets Trainspotting love story,” says actor Matthew MacFadzean.

• Westmounters, who live according to writer Jacquie Charlton in “an isle of comfort in a city racked by poverty,” are stunned by an anti-poverty march through their neighbourhood. The march is called “disgusting,” “terrible,” “unbelievable” and “ridiculous” (twice) by an assortment of residents.

• Reviewing London Symphony/Royal Choral Society’s Symphonic Rock—The British Invasion, Concordia music professor Wolfgang Bottenberg says, “It’s a bit like serving junk food at Buckingham Palace.... It’s not good rock and it is not good symphonic music.”

• “I call myself a metamorphosexual,” says former porn star Annie Sprinkle, now a married lesbian, which she considers “amazing, because I was a committed cock worshipper. But you know, after a few thousand men, it was time for a change.”

• Letter writer Robert Cox says the June 5 cover, featuring actress Pascale Bussières with a cigar, showed “great sensitivity to the tobacco lobby. You are truly disappointing.”

Angel >>Compassion clubs Though technically illegal, compassion clubs play two very important roles: first, and most immediately, they provide much-needed relief to people in genuine pain. Second, they push an envelope Health Canada would prefer stay sealed by advocating changes to the country’s drug laws. Worthy endeavours, both. That’s why last week’s busts of five compassion clubs in Montreal and Quebec City smack of silly posturing. It’s the quality of Health Canada’s pot and the bureaucratic hoops would-be users had to jump through that drove them to the compassion clubs in the first place. So who benefits from the busts? The patients? No. The governments? Hardly. Montreal’s many fine drug dealers? Yes. Well done!

Insect >> Anti-Inuit NIMBYism in Villeray Some residents are so worried about the resilience of Villeray’s fragile charms that they fear an influx of Inuit will turn the ’hood into one giant Bar Diana (1817 Ste-Catherine W.). Or so an outcry last week would have it. Faced with news that the former Chinese Hospital at 7500 St-Denis may be converted into a hostel for visiting Inuit medical patients, some residents—including borough mayor Anie Samson—became hysterical at the prospect of what was sure to follow: increased crime and drug and alcohol abuse. Once everyone calmed down and learned the plan did not involve a rehab centre, Samson apologized and the agencies involved were properly embarrassed. But not before grossly offending Quebec’s aggrieved Inuit population.