Montreal Mirror - The Front Page : News

In the last four weeks language cops have threatened two more allophone small business owners with prosecution unless they perfect their abilities to speak la langue de Molière. The latest batch of accusations suggest that the shop owners could be prosecuted under Sections 2 and 5 of Bill 101, which deal with the language of the workplace.

The two new recipients of the government threats -who have asked that their identities remain confidential for fear of reprisal-raise to four the total of immigrant shopkeepers threatened with prosecution this year. Earlier this spring, Pieros Karidogiannis, a dry cleaner, and Yvonne Friedman, a 72-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor, were dealt similar threatening government missives.

“Initially we thought this was so ridiculous and beyond the pale that it had to be the work of one overzealous tongue trooper,” says Alliance Quebec president Brent Tyler. “Then we saw that these letters were signed by different agents, so we realized it’s a systematic attempt by the management of the Commission (pour la protection de la langue française) to continue to use these provisions of the law as a means of harassing ethnic merchants.”

Tyler says he sent his “standard fuck-off-and-die” letter back to the tongue troopers inviting them to try to enforce their threats. “There’s no attempt to prosecute these merchants. Once the accused lawyer up, then the language police go away. The letter is an instrument of harassment only,” says Tyler, who claims to relish any future opportunity to challenge the law. :
-Kristian Gravenor

When the Shriners’ Circus comes to Montreal on August 16, don’t expect to be seeing any elephants. The pachyderms have been yanked off the bill and put in quarantine because of prolonged exposure to tuberculosis.

The elephants, which are owned by the Missouri-based Tarzan Zerbini Circus, had been contracted by the Shriners to perform shows across Canada this summer, but were deported back to the U.S. last month after Agriculture Canada learned they had previously been exposed, through sustained contact to a TB positive elephant, and are considered to pose a significant health risk.

“The strains of TB in these elephants are transmissible to humans,” says Andrew Plumbly, director of animal rights group Global Action Network. “This just adds to the long list of reasons why people should steer clear of circuses that exploit animals.”

Plumbly maintains that testing is not an accurate determination of whether an elephant is TB positive or not. “Even the USDA admits this much,” he says.

“If these tests come back negative in September, the Shriners will immediately try and get these animals back up into Canada,” warns Plumbly. “And in this day and age, when the World Health Organization has defined TB as being a global emergency, the last thing we should be doing is allowing elephants that could potentially contain TB into the country.” :
-Chris Paré

Remember the Gulf War, whose sequel now seems to be in the works? Less reported has been the devastating effect on the Iraqi population of 12 years of sanctions-over a million dead, according to some estimates-slapped on after Saddam’s tanks stormed into Kuwait in August 1990.

Voices of Conscience, a Montreal-based group dedicated to lifting the sanctions, is hoping to increase awareness of the issue. Last Tuesday’s march, their third annual demonstration marking the sanctions’ anniversary, is this year being complemented by an art exposition highlighting the crucial supplies being blocked by U.S. sanctions.

“The art is symbolic of objects that are either forbidden or are in insufficient quantities, from food and drugs to books and pencils,” says Voices of Conscience spokesperson Julie Mongeau. “There are some things, like fire trucks, that we obviously couldn’t show, but it is a way to get people interested.”

The exhibit runs until August 31 at Espace 418 (372 Ste-Catherine W.), Wednesdays to Saturdays from 12 to 5 p.m. :
-Patrick Lejtenyi

Angel >> Positive government meddling For once, the Feds stick their noses into the public’s personal business and get it right. A little known government policy forcing producers of flour and pasta to fortify their products with folic acid has succeeded in reducing birth defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly by 50 per cent since its introduction in 1998, according to research published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. It’s long been known that folic acid, the synthetic equivalent of vitamin B9, will help produce healthy babies, but getting it into your diet is not always easy. It still takes approximately eight slices of white bread to get the recommended daily dosage of 0.4 milligrams.

Insect >> The Brossard Citizens Coalition In an act of what can only be described as thinly veiled racism, an ad hoc group of concerned South Shore residents has sprung up to oppose the construction of a mosque and community centre for Ismaili Muslims in the heart of beautiful downtown Brossard. The Brossard Citizens Coalition, citing concerns that the privately owned site of the proposed mosque should be reserved for all Brossardians, and not just the community’s roughly 1,000 Ismaili Muslims, presented a 925-signature strong petition to borough council last month attempting to block the project. Coalition members have been quoted in the media as saying that the mosque, if it is to be built at all, should be constructed on the outskirts of town.