>> Novabus nastiness

>> Fair trade coffee

>> Tear gas and your health

>> Development riles Carré St-Louis residents

>> The Kristian Perspective : Griping comes easy

>> People : Daily doses of abuse and neglect

Ahoy, the filthy rich: Montreal welcomes the good ship The World this week as it makes a
stop on its non-stop global tour. The floating condo complex for the silver-haired jet set rents out apartments ranging in price from a stupefying $2,100 to $7,200 (U.S.) per day. Aboard the 110-unit boat is a full-sized tennis court, a full-shot driving range, a putting green, a spa,
a gourmet market, and four restaurants. Room service is also available.

Photo by Jason Felker >>

How to eat your greens

The good people at Greenpeace want to make sure you eat right. And that means food without all the weird foreign genes running around in it. How to find out just who’s putting what in whatever it is you’re putting in your mouth? Check out their brand new comprehensive English shopping guide, launched on Tuesday outside the Loblaws-Provigo-Maxi corporate HQ. Therein you will find about 1,000 products available at your local supermarket, brand names and all, that are ranked according to their level of genetic modification.

The decision to launch the English-language guide, with a simultaneous event in Toronto, in front of Loblaws was based on that particular retail giant’s steadfast refusal to label any of its products as genetically engineered, says Greenpeace genetic engineering campaigner Eric Darier. “They say that because the government doesn’t require them to label their products, they don’t have to,” Darier says. He notes that Canada and the United States are just about the last holdouts among industrialized countries that do not make this kind of labelling mandatory.

The government’s legislative inertia on the issue, however, isn’t a good enough excuse for Greenpeace. “They have the power to either label or remove genetically modified food,” he says.

The guide, already available online in French, can be viewed at www.greenpeace.ca, or can be ordered by phoning 1-800-320-7183. They are asking for a small donation to cover costs. :
-Patrick Lejtenyi :

Church victims split in election fracas

The tortured saga of the Duplessis Orphans, abandoned children confined to Catholic-run insane asylums in the 1940s and ’50s, continued in its regular contentious form last Sunday. A committee election that day pitted the oft-criticized longstanding committee president Bruno Roy-who negotiated what many victims feel was an inadequate compensation settlement last year-against Hervé Bertrand, who is seeking increased retribution for the victims. The incumbent Roy curried votes by busing supporters in from Quebec City and writing a letter suggesting that further compensation payments could be jeopardized if he wasn’t re-elected.

Roy ended up trouncing his challenger 120-49. Now Bertrand is crying foul. “I had no right to verify the vote, or check the members list, I had no right to do anything. Roy controls the sun and the rain and elections too,” says Bertrand, who plans to contest the results in court.

If he eventually wrests control of the orphans’ committee, Bertrand promises to fight for more cash compensation for a wider spectrum of victims of religious abuse. He aims at trying to score federal cash rather than re-open the settlement pact that saw victims receive between $10,000 to $25,000 each last year. Bertrand also wants alleged abusers tried in a court of law, including a former institution employee named Noël Cloutier, who Bertrand claims assaulted him as a child. “The judge laid an arrest warrant out for him but nobody knows where he is,” says Bertrand. :
-Kristian Gravenor

Death, be
not worried

It’s okay, you can go ahead and die now and not have to worry that you’ll be buried in a cardboard box. Recent media reports that an imminent coffin shortage, the possible result of a labour dispute between the United Steelworkers of America and Cormier et Gaudet, the Canadian arm of Batesville Casket Co. of Batesville, Illinois, appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

The approximately 65 workers of Cormier et Gaudet, based 145 kilometres northeast of Montreal in Sainte-Gertrude, walked off the job last week after contract negotiations broke down with management. The company, which produces approximately 250 caskets a week to over 500 funeral homes across the country, is one of Canada’s largest suppliers of burial caskets. But an informal survey of local funeral homes reveals that few, if any, funeral directors are concerned that they will soon be forced to bury their clientele in paper bags.

“There are plenty of casket suppliers in Canada,” says Martin Gamache of Kane and Fetterley Funeral Home, echoing the sentiments of three others contacted by the Mirror. “I can’t honestly see how this strike could lead to a significant shortage in supply.”

Batesville Casket spokesperson Joe Weigel further confirms that consumers shouldn’t be too concerned about the situation-even if the strike should continue indefinitely. “We have an adequate supply of caskets at the present time and are perfectly capable of taking care of the needs of our customers in the short term, as well as the long term.” :
-Chris Barry :