Quote of the week:

"Lots of variety, but few extremes. Montreal is the weather winner here - the ‘quintessential' Canadian city!" - Environment Canada's study on the weather in 100 different Canadian cities, in which Montreal ranks first as the City for All Seasons. For more go to www.on.ec.gc.ca/weather/winners/.

Planning the
Plateau's future

Attention Plateau residents past, present and future: get your gripes in order and be ready to voice your complaints, because today, Thursday, Oct. 2, and again on Sunday, Oct. 5, your elected representatives will actually be in a position to listen to what you, the resident, have to say about the future of your 'hood.

These are actually the last two of the five meetings the borough hosts this week in order to develop a functioning five-year urban plan to manage the Plateau's future. It's the first since 1992. On topic will be issues like density, covering the height of buildings and basement apartments; public domain, which addresses the role and design of streets and greenspace; heritage, which means recycling buildings into apartments and condo conversion; transportation arteries, like widening of sidewalks and the ever-pressing parking question; and the mixing of certain areas for residential and industrial/commercial use.

"This mechanism makes it possible for citizens of all boroughs to have a say in the way they want their city managed," says Plateau city councillor and executive committee vice-president responsible for housing Michel Prescott. "They have a chance to indicate what they want to keep and what they want to change."

Many people will undoubtedly have a lot of opinions, not all of them friendly, on rising housing costs and the lack of low-cost housing. Prescott says he is listening, and, because the urban plan covers zoning bylaws, input can make a difference. For more information and to reserve a seat, see www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/plateau/ » Patrick Lejtenyi

Montreal peace talks

Although the war in Iraq has come and gone, anti-war activists still have their work cut out for them. They didn't stop the war, but a two-day conference this weekend may help educate some world peace shock troopers and shape any upcoming mobilizations against the global military juggernaut.

"We want to raise awareness of the serious infringements on democratic rights around the world, including here in Canada, and the serious thrust towards a war economy," says Raymond Legault, spokesman for Échec à la guerre, the anti-war group organizing the conference. "A good part of the conference will address the current reality of the occupation, how life for the average person on the street has worsened, and the nature of what it is we're seeing there now." The weaponization of space, and the upper atmosphere as battleground, will be discussed as well. Legault also denounces Canadian companies that are jockeying to scoop up expensive military contracts and cash in on what he considers the renewed arms trade.

To explain how kindred American anti-war brethren are faring, representatives from U.S. peace groups ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice will be speaking at 7:30 Friday evening at the Auditorium Le Plateau (3700 Calixa-Lavallée). The conference continues all day Saturday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at UQÀM's Auditorium Alfred-Laliberté (405 Ste-Catherine E.). The event ends with a concert/party at Club Soda (1225 St-Laurent) at 8 p.m., Saturday. All events rely on voluntary contributions. » Patrick Lejtenyi

East Enders
crave water

Monique Désy-Proulx lives on Théodore, real close to the wondrous, raging St. Lawrence River. But she'd be a lot more enthusiastic about it if the authorities that run the port didn't put up fences and guards to keep her from it.

"Until last year I was able to find a hole or two in the fence so I could ride my bike around there, but now even those are blocked up. It's like a foreign country and we don't have passports," she says. "It's a real shame because the river is part of our heritage, it's something that belongs to the collectivity."

If she could snap her fingers and change stuff, the area between Viau and the Jacques Cartier Bridge would be opened up to citizenry. "I understand that east of there are containers and big machinery, but this section is empty, there's nothing happening, just a bunch of things rusting."

Normand Robert of the Table d'aménagement du quartier Hochelaga-Maisonneuve agrees. "It's known as one of the rare ports in the world that doesn't give some sort of access to the water," he says. As part of the rebuilding of Notre-Dame (Highway 20), the Transport Ministry promised a sort of super-duper lookout onto the water at Morgan, but that's on hold as the whole project has been sent back to the drawing board.

"At the very least we'd like to see three or four spots in the east where people could just walk in and enjoy the river," says Robert. » Kristian Gravenor

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

16 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
October 2-October 15, 1987

On the cover: Canadian heavyweight author Michael Ondaatje, in town touting his novel In the Skin of a Lion and speaking to the Mirror for the annual literary supplement. Although the book is set in pre-Depression Toronto, he says, "My books aren't about the past at all. I find I'm writing about issues and obsessions I have had at any specific point… Although set technically in the past, every historical novel says more about the present."

• "I will expect [justice] only once people demand it - only with enough public pressure," jailed U.S. native rights activist Leonard Peltier tells the Mirror.

• Tom Waits says that, when dealing with the press, "I guess the best thing to do is send somebody out there for you, while you're laying out at La Costa with a Manhattan and a couple of dames."

• "Seems this house is haunted only by the ghosts of tackiness past, present and future," reads the ghoulishly nasty review of horror-themed restaurant La Maison Hantée.

Angel >> Tolerant Quebec A first-of-its-kind StatsCan study on visible minorities and immigration, released Monday, contains some revealing results about Canada's racial harmony. Quebec's visible minorities, it turns out, report the lowest level of discrimination in the country - 69 per cent of visible minority respondents said they have never been discriminated against in the last five years, four percentage points above the national average. The bad news, however, is that 19 per cent of them said that they experience discrimination based on ethnic background sometimes or often, while 12 per cent answered rarely. Work remains to be done, apparently, here and elsewhere.
Insect >> Speculator-friendly red tape When l'Association Bénévole Amitié, a group that helps people suffering from mental illness, tried to get its hands on an old downtown hotel, all they got for their efforts was a nasty lesson in bureaucratic mismanagement. For over a year the group had been hoping to convert the Hotel Saint Malo into a support home for its clients, and optimistically enlisted the city's aid. Though the city supported the project, subsequent red tape and bureaucratic hold-ups took so long that the group lost the bid. The price on the building was then upped by $200,000, far beyond the group's means. Bureaucratic foot-dragging is a big reason behind the lack of low-cost housing, many activists say, and the St-Malo saga is just another example.