Quote of the week

“We get a lot of training at the Montreal police, but there’s not a training to deal with moose, that’s for sure.” —Montreal police spokesman Const. Olivier Lapointe, on successfully capturing and releasing a 500-600-pound moose that had wandered into St-Michel on Tuesday.

Fighting for
compassion

Promising that “a big legal battle is brewing,” the good folk at the Montreal Compassion Club (MCC) on Papineau are calling on supporters to come out to the Montreal courthouse to show solidarity for five of their administrators now facing criminal charges as a result of the June 3 police raids on four local cannabis distribution centres.

The MCC has been supplying medical marijuana to those meeting their membership guidelines since 1999, and until recently without challenge since 2002, after a lengthy court battle wound up with a suspension of procedures against the organization. “These arrests definitely represent a paradigm shift”, says Marc-Boris St-Maurice of Montreal Compassion Centre, which provides a similar service out of its headquarters on St-Laurent below Rachel.

St-Maurice, who is also facing criminal charges stemming from the raids, says, “For the moment we’re kind of on stand-by until we meet with our lawyers and have a better idea where we stand with all this, and while Stephen Harper didn’t call the police on us directly, I’m sure he’s happy someone did.”

Supporters are being asked to dress in black for the demonstration, which takes place at 1 Notre Dame E., from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 23.

CHRIS BARRY

Know your
enviro

The fifth annual Salon national de l’environnement has a slew of free activities, talks and films along the Old Port piers this weekend, aiming to make city dwellers practise good planet karma. Exhibitors will display and inform while thematic workshops will provide practical solutions on sustainable living.

Opening with Friday’s workshops on sustainable development in an urban setting, each day features a different theme to contextualize the environmental issues at the fore. On Saturday, workshops will be centred on integrating alternative transportation methods. Sunday is dedicated to energy challenges and managing renewable resources—an especially timely topic considering the recent environmental disaster in the U.S.

Highlights include a conference from the David Suzuki Foundation and a film by French aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand on Friday at 7 p.m., as well as a test track for folks to try out fuel-efficient vehicles. An eco-friendly fashion show takes place on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. as a preview of the Salon. Tickets are available at ticketpro.ca.

The Salon is open from 10 a.m.–8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Sunday, it’s 10 a.m.–6 p.m. A detailed list of activities is available at terrenouvelle.info.

LINA HARPER

Cops on film

While the perils of birdwatching and trainspotting tend to be limited to tedium, the consequences of copwatching can be more harmful. Unlike sparrows and double-engine freight locomotives, police like to get on with their business out of the enquiring eye of cell-phone-camera-wielding protesters.

That’s the lesson Catherine Landry and her gang of copwatchers learned in June 2008 while filming a police intervention in Carré St-Louis.

“We set up a good distance away from them. Everything was going fine until they noticed we were filming them. They came and told us we didn’t have the right to film them,” says Landry. She says the law prevents people working in the public interest from refusing to be filmed. During the course of the argument, the tension rose, reinforcements were called in and three copwatchers were arrested.

Landry hopes the experience will encourage more copwatching in Montreal. “It’s especially important to film police interventions that have to do with social profiling, like the clean-ups they do every summer to make sure tourists don’t see homeless people downtown,” she says.

The copwatchers get their day in court today, Thursday, June 17 at the Montreal Municipal Court (775 Gosford) from 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. They encourage supporters to come and watch the proceedings.

MATT JONES

Bikes go
south

Should you have any old bicycles lying around the house that you’d like to put to good use, the Société de transport de Montréal and Cyclo Nord-Sud will be happy to take them off your hands this Sunday, June 20 and ship them off to the Third World, where they’ll enjoy a second life.

“For the STM it’s an opportunity to show Montrealers that bicycles are welcome in the metro, and for us a chance to acquire more bicycles to send down to Cuba and Haiti,” says Fabienne Vinet, the communications coordinator for Cyclo Nord-Sud. Vinet says it doesn’t matter if the bikes being donated are slightly broken so long as they’re repairable. The group is also asking donors to cough up an extra $12 to help with shipping costs.

“We’re never going to refuse a bicycle if the donor doesn’t have the $12, but it costs us about $60 to ship each bike so that money makes a real difference, and of course we’re providing tax receipts for both the bike and the shipping donation,” she says.

The drive will be taking place in the Berri metro (Émilie-Gamelin and Ste-Catherine street exit), 10 a.m.–3 p.m. For more information, go to cyclonordsud.org.

CHRIS BARRY

Rear-view mirror

18 YEARS AGO - JUNE 18–25, 1992

On the cover: TV screens with a hand and a remote, illustrating the Régie du cinéma’s new age restriction laws on home videos. “The state [is] assuming the role of parents by dictating viewing habits,” objects the head of a home video chain.

• A new group called Canadian Skinheads disavow violence while keeping their racist faith. “Some of my members have Hitler as their idol, but for me it’s Ian Stuart Donaldson [of British band Skrewdriver],” says 18-year-old leader Carolyn Sénécal.

• Reports Jenny Ross: “Nimrod’s flexidisc Cuntroll is fraught with scary swarms of noise, as distorted as Morrison locked in a trunk, then fried by a live wire.”

• “The hot weather always seems to bring out a particular species of man who has nothing better to do but gawk, insult and comment on our bodies,” writes Julianne Pidduck. As a remedy, she suggests one of the following: an angry retort; an insult about their penis size; blowing a whistle at them; spraying them with dye or mace.

Angel >>The sun The big yellow ball of gas has been getting a bad rap lately, what with global warming and all, but let’s take some time to appreciate it on the eve of the longest day of the year (the summer solstice takes place, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on Monday, June 21 at 7:28 a.m.). It warms us. It lights us. Its gravitational pull keeps the planets from crashing into each other. And, especially at this time of year, it keeps us on the terrasses, patios and balconies until late in the evening, allowing us to enjoy a distilled beverage after a long hard day at work. Enjoy it while you can, since the days start getting shorter as of Tuesday.

Insect >>Harper’s journo muzzling Consider, for a moment, the lot of Canada’s hapless parliamentary correspondents. Chasing down pols, shoving a mic in their faces hoping for a quote, covering committee work, living in Ottawa. It’s a lousy life, most likely. And when the Conservatives order their troops to clam up and say nothing, as well as stymie Access to Information requests, it’s bound to make it unbearable. So the journos are fighting back, with an open letter published last weekend lambasting the Harper government’s mute button (read it here: bit.ly/buV81y). Good luck guys: Harper’s contempt for the ink-stained wretches of the world is notorious, and calling him out is unlikely to open any floodgates soon.