Montreal Mirror - The Front Page : News

Divers/Cité and the AIDS charity organization Farha Foundation have teamed up to make a good cause more fun. The Farha Foundation and the Toronto People With AIDS (PWA) Foundation are in the fourth edition of their Défi Vélo/Bike Rally, culminating this Friday, August 2, when 170 cyclists arrive in Montreal after having pedalled the 660 kilometres between Toronto and Montreal to raise funds for the fight against AIDS. This year, however, Farha and Divers/Cité are working together for the first time, and the result might help give weary cyclists that extra boost they need to cross the finish line.

As the pack heads toward the finish line at Place Émilie-Gamelin (aka Berri Square), they will be greeted by a throng of Gay Pride revellers—a sight that will no doubt elicit a few double-takes among participants unaccustomed to the fanfare.

“It’s the first time we’re making a media event of the arrival,” says Farha spokesperson Françoise Lyon. “It’s a big deal this year—it’s the first time in four years there will be this much media attention.”

At 5 p.m. Friday evening, a welcoming ceremony will be co-hosted by Canadian swimming legend Mark Tewkesbury, along with a handful of provincial and federal ministers and assorted glad-handers. To be able to take part, each rider was required to raise a minimum of $2,000 in sponsorships. Coordinators put this year’s total at $400,000 so far. :
—Chris Paré

Amateur sporting events—the Olympics, or the on-going Commonwealth Games—are often remembered for who got booted for using banned substances rather than for athletic achievements. So when Canadian triathlete Kelly Guest was expelled last weekend from the Commonwealth Games because a drug test found traces of nandrolone, a banned substance, it was the same old circus. Guest failed his second test on Tuesday, and faces an automatic four-year ban from competition.

One local company, Fitness Nutrition, thinks Guest is the victim of a chronic nutritional supplement industry problem—poor product labelling—and believes that he ingested nandrolone unintentionally. Because there is no one international standard on labelling the ingredients of nutritional supplements, Fitness Nutrition thinks many athletes are ingesting something they would otherwise avoid.

The Laval-based supplement retailer is hoping to get all supplement manufacturers to agree on certain standards that oblige the listing of all product ingredients, note which have been approved by the International Olympic Committee, and ensure that the approved products have not come into any possible contact with banned substances. They are also calling for the establishment of an industry working committee with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), based in Montreal.

“The IOC tested 634 different supplements, 240 of which are made in the U.S.,” says Dermod Travis, communications director for Fitness Nutrition. “Ninety-four of them contained substances that weren’t labelled but would have led to a positive doping test.”

Travis says the company will be in contact with WADA and major supplement manufacturers to address the industry’s problems. :
—Patrick Lejtenyi

Local cycle advocates have been popping joyous wheelies—uh, in a proverbial sense anyway—since receiving a letter from the city promising $8,781,000-worth of government cash for new bike paths.

The recent missive from LaSalle councillor Manon Barbe, who handles the megacity bike dossier, satisfies a big portion of the bike activists’ wish list. The promises include a new path on the north side of Côte-des-Neiges between Queen Mary and Remembrance, as well as another on Argenson that would connect the Lachine canal to the Aqueduct, which should relieve some of the bike traffic from the popular Lachine Canal path. A third project will improve the path on Notre Dame east of Pie IX, while the letter also includes a vow to extend the path alongside the CPR train north of Van Horne tracks. The trackside path currently starts at Îberville and ends at St-Urbain but will, in the future, end at Gouin. “That one will really play a functional role for transport towards downtown,” says Claire Morissette, co-founder of the cyclist lobby group Le monde à bicyclette. The city and province have agreed to pay one-third of the costs of the new paths, while the fed cash commitment is expected to come any time.

“It’s very encouraging because they’re making solid promises and concrete financial commitments,” says Morissette, who aims to “Amsterdamize Montreal.” “It’s time for the cycling network to grow again, because not much happened under Mayor Bourque,” she says. :
—Kristian Gravenor

Angel >> Recognition of Canada’s slave-owning history : The municipal council of Saint-Armand, a border town, recently passed a resolution recognizing a nearby slave cemetery as a historical site. The cemetery, the resting place of between six and 20 slaves who lived and died on the Luke family plantation in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was discovered almost 50 years, when a farmer unearthed human bones. It lies at the foot of a large boulder locals once called Nigger Rock. This little-mentioned aspect of Canadian history has garnered the interest of National Geographic, a documentary filmmaker and a book. Canada outlawed slavery in 1833.

Insect >> Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon : For no good particular reason, the federal Ministry of Justice announced Tuesday it will fight a July 12 ruling in an Ontario court that recognized same-sex marriages under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Critics say the feds’ fight will cost millions, and in the end, they’ll lose anyway. Cauchon says that because the ruling constitutes a “profound and not an incremental change in the law,” the government must “seek further clarities on these issues.” Good grief. What does it take for the feds to get on with it, and grant every Canadian citizen the civil rights they deserve?