Orphans oust
controversial
The annual meeting at 1700 Amherst turned into a minor revolution Sunday as Duplessis Orphans turfed their longtime committee president Bruno Roy. A group representing the estimated 1,500 orphans-adults forced to spend part of their childhood in insane asylums as a money-making gimmick for the Catholic Church and the Quebec government-showered Roy with unpleasant epithets upon his arrival. Many have been unhappy with revelations that last year's settlement will see the committee's lawyer receive over $5-million, while the former public relations guy and Roy himself will also receive six- to seven-figure payments, compared to a flat $10,000 plus $1,000 per year offered to the actual victims.
As Roy waited inside in the presence of two lawyers, 44 of the 60 orphans stood outside and raised their membership cards to support a motion to turf Roy. They voted in Hervé Bertrand as Roy's replacement, according to Rod Vienneau, new PR rep for the group and husband of new board member Clarina Duguay. "The orphans told Roy to beat it. They escorted him right to his car," he says.
Vienneau says that police have supervised a changing of
the locks at the committee HQ at 1231 Panet, where the first order of
business will be to ask the province to suspend Roy's payments.
The new committee aims to demand more substantial compensation and wants
more candidates considered eligible. They also demand the provincial Justice
Minister re-open 321 criminal investigations against those allegedly involved
in the abuse. Bruno Roy could not be reached for comment. :
-Kristian Gravenor
Moving day conspiracy
Curious, isn't it, that the province's busiest moving day just happens to fall on Canada's birthday? Why do you think that'd be? Maybe because sweaty, exhausted tenants who've just finished slogging their belongings up and down stairs all day would be too wiped out to make merry on Canada Day? To associate July 1 with misery and heat stroke? As a deliberate insult to the province's proud federalist patriots?
You bet, according to Jimmy Kalafatidis, president of the provincial Equality Party. In a press release issued on Sunday, Kalafatidis says, "The separatist government has in the past sought every means it could to reduce Canada's presence in the minds of Quebecers." In an interview, he states that he is "absolutely 100 per cent" sure there is a conspiracy afoot at the provincial level. "I don't think there's a territory anywhere in North America that has a moving day on a national holiday," he says. "Would the Americans do it on July 4? Or Quebecers on June 24? It's absurd."
The party plans to introduce a motion in the National
Assembly upon its return to change moving day from July 1 to another weekend.Housing
activist Arnold Bennett, who runs the housing hotline (481-2517), is less
conspiracy-minded. "The law was changed in 1971, because moving
day used to be on May 1, and there were too many kids in school,"
he says. "So all the leases were extended by a couple of months.
It was brought in by Jérôme Choquette. A Liberal."
:
-Patrick Lejtenyi
Bringing the wars back home
It used to be called cowardice, and men were shot for it. Then it was called shell-shock, and men were sent home, scarred and damaged forever. Now, we call it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and the Department of National Defence and the Department of Veterans' Affairs are getting serious about helping Canada's soldiers who have witnessed the horrors of war first-hand come to grips with what they seen.
Canada's first-ever treatment centre for PTSD opened yesterday at the Veterans' Hospital in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in a ceremony attended by Veterans' Affairs Minister Rey Pagtakhan and Defence Minister John McCallum. It will be the lead centre of its kind, providing support for other regional centres across the country.
"The centre aims to provide help for
soldiers who have suffered from trauma or who have witnessed traumatic
experiences, such as the injury or death of civilians or colleagues, while
they are helpless to do anything to prevent them," says Janice Summerby,
PR rep for Veterans' Affairs. Among prime candidates for PTSD are
the peacekeepers stationed in ex-Yugoslavia during the bloody civil war,
as well as those who served in Haiti, and perhaps those serving now in
Afghanistan.
Louise Coté, the hospital's director of communications, says
they have already treated over 100 veterans of peacekeeping missions for
PTSD. While precise records are not kept, a Defence Department spokesperson
told the Mirror that a survey of former peacekeepers is being carried
out to determine how many soldiers suffer from the disorder. Its results
are expected next May. :
-Patrick Lejtenyi
Angel
>>The International Criminal Court The ICC, which opened on Monday
in the Hague, Netherlands, is the first general international criminal
court to try individuals. Unlike the special courts for war crimes committed
during WWII, the Yugoslav civil war or the Rwandan genocide, this court
will be permanent and with widespread jurisdiction, having been ratified
by 76 countries. It will try cases of alleged genocide, war crimes and
crimes against humanity. The United States is boycotting the court,
however, for fear its servicepeople will be targeted by politically
motivated prosecutions. It has threatened to pull out of peacekeeping
duties in the former Yugoslavia if its military personnel are not granted
immunity. 
Insect
>> Moving day's abandoned pets As of July 2, the day after
moving day, the SPCA says it has received more than 1,100 pets, the
latest victims of the province's increasingly selective and capricious
landlords. While the SPCA no longer puts down healthy animals, a practice
it adopted in 1996, the organization has the capacity to house only
600 animals, including cats, dogs, birds and sundry cute rodents. Foster
homes are being sought to care for the animals for up to 21 days. Anyone
interested in adopting a pet, either temporarily or permanently, can
call the SPCA at 735-2711.
