Quote of the week:

“The girl was influenced by goths, who are rebels and marginalized.” - Donnacona mayor André Marcoux, on the 14 year old who stabbed her stepfather to death because he forbade her from seeing her 20-year-old boyfriend, in Tuesday’s Le Soleil.

Benny Farm,
empty as usual

After much talk and much less action, there is still no clear-cut plan for the 312 empty housing units at Benny Farm, the residential property in NDG that once housed veterans returning from the Second World War. At a press conference last Friday it was reiterated: the units can no longer remain empty, given Montreal’s lack of affordable housing. However, according to Sharon Leslie, a member of the grassroots group NDG Community Council, unless real action gets underway, “We risk seeing another July 1 [in 2004] come and go, and still nobody living there.”

The confusion surrounding Benny Farm, and just exactly what to do with it, has been going on for 13 years now. Last year the Tremblay administration had already made what can now be called an empty promise: that residents could live there by July 2003.

“The site’s priority is to offer affordable housing,” says Leslie, and a council meeting this past March with the Canada Lands Company, the Crown corporation that acquired the site in ’99, assured that 200 of the units would be part of a more heavily subsidized social housing program. But according to Leslie, despite the appearance of a consensus between Canada Lands and different NDG community groups, pressure must remain on the city if these plans are ever to materialize.

“It’s now time for the mayor and the city to really move things along,” she says. » Alexandra Spunt

Dirty St. Lawrence
overlooked

The St. Lawrence didn’t re-appear on the second annual National Endangered Rivers List (NERL), released by two conservation groups this week, but that doesn’t mean the river’s out of trouble. According to Stephen Legault, executive director of Wildcanada.net, the Canmore, Alberta-based non-profit conservation organization that co-released the NERL, it just wasn’t nominated by the groups that put it forward last year. It’s still as dirty as ever, and while it isn’t on the Top 10 list, it is still being closely monitored, he says.

“The St. Lawrence is a collector of the entire Great Lakes Basin, as well as the Outaouais and Saguenay rivers,” he says. “There are some major challenges facing it, and it is on our watch list. We’ll be turning our attention back to it in 2004.”

Teaming up with North Vancouver’s EarthWild International, the charity that put out the first list last year, Wildcanada.net will be developing a series of action plans to address the threats facing each of the rivers most at risk. Quebec’s Eastmain and Rupert rivers share the number-two spot, thanks to James Bay megadam projects. “Once the dams are completed, there won’t be any rivers left,” Legault says.

The two groups hope to raise public awareness and bring pressure on corporations and politicians to protect Canada’s rivers, 2003 being the UN’s International Year of Fresh Water. Action plans are being developed on a rolling basis, starting with Alberta’s Bow River (number 10) and concluding with New Brunswick’s Petitcodiac River (number one) by December. For more information on the project, see www.endangeredrivers.net. » Patrick Lejtenyi

The great Hydro
tree massacre

Christine Craton has been wandering around Wilson near NDG Avenue, head fixed downwards. “I was training myself to look down because looking up was a painful experience. Look up and it’ll absolutely make you cry,” she says.

Craton is bereaved by what she considers Hydro-Québec’s excessive amputation of limbs of the beloved trees in her area. The electricity monopoly trims branches every four to seven years in order to ensure that the wood doesn’t interfere with electrical lines. “A 20 year old with a chainsaw in a cherry picker went absolutely nuts, completely disregarding the fact that these are fantastic 70-year-old shade trees and they’re hacking at them,” says Craton. “One of the main reasons I live in NDG is because on these particularly hot days there’s nothing more wonderful than being on a completely shaded avenue. But I was shocked and concerned that these workers on my street were mutilating fabulous old trees, not for the health of the tree but so that they don’t touch hydro wires.”

Craton is apparently not alone in thinking the choppers chopped far too much wood. “I thought that I was being too sensitive or turning into a weird tree-hugger, but others have noticed it too.”

Craton has linked with others to lobby Hydro-Québec to go easier on the trees, so far without great results. “A Hydro official showed up to talk to me and basically patted me on the head and said, ‘Don’t worry.’”

» Kristian Gravenor

Rear view

12 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
July 11-July 18, 1991

On the cover: Ice Cube, on his role in Boyz N the Hood and being a young black male in what he calls the “Concrete Vietnam” of South Central L.A. In one violent scene, he says, “I was thinking of all the friends I’d lost in South Central. A lot of friends I grew up with are no longer here because of the violence. I thought about them, and it made me real sad.” Also interviewed is co-star Larry Fishburne.

• Black community leaders warn of a summer of discontent following the fatal shooting of Marcellus François by police. “Anytime you are dealing with a system where there is no safety valve, there will be an explosion,” warns Dan Philip, president of the Black Coalition of Quebec.

• Expanding on his “hobby” of disliking the French, The Sisters of Mercy’s Andrew Eldritch says, “The Québécois don’t like the French either. So there you are, we’re all on the same side.”

• An ad notes that Smashing Pumpkins will play Foufs’ Looney Tuesday July 23. Admission is $1.

Angel >> The Guardian’s U.S. edition The highbrow voice of liberal Britain is expected to appear on these shores sometime in the winter, in time for presidential-primary season, in the form of a weekly magazine. As a much-needed counterweight to the increasingly imbecilic, kowtowing and jingoistic American media, led by Fox, the magazine will feature 60 per cent content from the U.K.’s daily version, the rest coming from American writers. Circulation will be 100,000 and its publishers promise it will not be beholden to advertisers, since it draws on the Scott Trust that finances The Guardian.
Insect >> Heavy-handed assaults on housing activists Housing activists got a good dose of reality this weekend, first in Parc Lafontaine, when dozens of riot cops forcefully expelled the 100 or so squatters who had set up an impromptu tent city Saturday night. Then, in Val-David the next day, it appeared the homes of poor people can’t stand in the way of tourism, as the seven houses that made up Guindonville were razed to make way for a parking lot. The housing crunch may be easing little by little, but that is no excuse for busting people who want to keep the issue of affordable shelter alive.