Dentists’ deal
rotting away

Money has gotten in the way of a first-of-its-kind hybrid experiment in private and public dental health care. The Oral Health Centre, located in the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex (formerly known as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, until it was closed down seven years ago) in NDG, has been operating for three years as a dental clinic and residency program for recent McGill dentistry grads, offering services to the community at reduced fees. It was opened with a $100,000 investment on the part of the dentists, with a $40,000 pledge from McGill, and with the Health Complex offering $300,000 for equipment. The problem is, the Health Complex hasn’t coughed up its share, and relations between its administration and the clinic have become so strained that last week the Health Complex served the clinic an eviction notice.

“The Health Complex said we could lease the equipment until our fund-raising efforts could cover the entire amount,” says Dr. Norman Miller, director of the clinic’s residency program and a McGill dentistry prof. “And it’s been going very well. The Complex has raised about $3.2-million of the $3.4-million goal. But the funds have not been passed on.”

Miller also states that the first $35,000 of a three-year, $100,000 donation from Imperial Tobacco to purchase mobile dental equipment has yet to make it into the clinic’s coffers.

The fight isn’t over, Miller promises. “We’re not going anywhere,” he says. “We just need people to know about it.” : » Patrick Lejtenyi

Green light
for smart lights?

Ever sit at a red light flipping your high beams to test out that urban legend that suggests you can change a red light to green by emulating a flashing ambulance siren? Well, there may be hope for you. Smart traffic lights might be on the way to Montreal if the city can find a contractor to offer them in return for the $20-million they’re spending to upgrade the existing mechanical traffic lights. The city’s spending the dosh to keep the cars rolling. “The aim is to allow for a faster and more fluid traffic circulation in the city and make motorists wait less at lights than they do now,” says city traffic department rep André Lazure.

Currently, Montreal’s traffic lights are mostly equipped with alarm-clock technology that accommodates traffic patterns by varying the rhythm of the lights four times a day. With the upcoming system, motorists can expect the rhythm of local lights to vary up to 200 times a day as customized chronologies get put in to speed up the flow of cars. It’s also possible that Montreal’s upcoming system will incorporate sensors implanted in the ground or overhead that would detect the presence of a vehicle and might, for instance, allow motorists to enjoy a green light when no other car is nearby.

The city is currently studying tenders for the new light system and will start implanting the computerized light controllers next year in a job that should be completed in 2006. : » Kristian Gravenor

Gay jocks
going down
under

Lucky Sydney, Australia. Following the successful 2000 Summer Olympics, the sun-splashed city is now about to host 14,000 fit, buff, amateur athletes, most of them gay, for the 2002 Gay Games, as they represent their cities for the top honours in over 30 sports. Team Montreal will be sending its biggest delegation ever, with 200 athletes and 30 representatives of the 2006 Organizing Committee, whose hard work was instrumental in our super gay-friendly burg winning out to host the Games’ next installment four years hence.

“Sport is something we see less closely associated with our community, a lot less than the partying aspect,” says Montreal 2006 executive director Louise Roy. “But there has always been a strong sporting element here. It’s not new to Montreal.”

The Games, held like the Olympics every four years, will run from November 2 to 9, and will feature a lot more than just sports. Planned are 14 days of conferences and cultural activities with participants from 75 countries.

When asked which sport Team Montreal will excel in, Roy says without hesitation, “Hockey. The Montreal Dragons are a great team and won the silver in Amsterdam in 1998. We think they’re going for the gold.” : » Patrick Lejtenyi

Angel >> Gun control Homicides 2001, a Statistics Canada report, reveals that murders in the country are at their lowest rate in 25 years, in particular those committed by firearms. Overall murders have declined by 31 per cent since 1992, and firearm murders by 59 per cent—proof, gun control advocates say, that legislation enacted in 1991, after the 1989 Polytechnic massacre, and in 1995, is working. Nevertheless, warns StatsCan, firearms are still used in 31 per cent of all murders, down 5 per cent from 1991, and three-quarters of firearms recovered after a murder are unregistered.
Insect >> Pluto The discovery of a small planetoid in the Kuiper belt, the distant disk of debris whose chunks eventually formed the solar system, make Pluto’s chances of holding onto its status of bona fide planet weaker. Astronomers now are saying that the pygmy planet, between 4.5-billion and 2.7-billion miles away from Earth and only about one-fifth our size, wouldn’t even qualify as a planet were it discovered today. It is merely, they sniffed, the largest object in the Kuiper belt. That means that since its discovery 72 years ago, Pluto has fraudulently been posing as a pint-sized equal to such cool, popular celestial bodies as Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and of course, Earth.