Quote of the week:

"I laughed!" - John Williams, president of the Public Accounts Committee, after hearing Alfonso Gagliano's claim that he is being targeted in the sponsorship scandal because he is Italian, in Tuesday's La Presse. Gagliano appears before the Committee on March 18 and 19.

Touring against Wal-Mart

Seven Montreal students might not stand a chance against the world's largest retailer, but they're trying. Armed with a minivan and 230 pounds of informational material, überCulture Collective, a Montreal-based activist group, will travel from Quebec City to Vancouver this May, stopping at one Wal-Mart per day and informing local residents and employees of Wal-Mart's alleged human-rights abuses.

The Wal-Town Tour, supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Quebec Public Interest Research Group, Amnesty International Concordia and U.S.-based CorpWatch, will focus on small communities on or near the Trans-Canada highway. These delicate economies are hardest hit, according to überCulture co-founder Ezra Winton, who watched a Wal-Mart change his hometown of Courtenay, British Columbia.

"Basically, there was a year of economic growth in the town," he says. "After that first year it just started going downhill - a lot of local business started closing. It used to have a thriving merchant economy, and since Wal-Mart was built it's become a suburb of a city that doesn't exist."

The pattern has continued across the country, with over 225 Wal-Marts popping up since the company first entered Canada in 1994 - one new outlet every 16 days. The key to this success is unfair labour practices, both locally and abroad, according to Winton, who hopes this campaign will help change that.

The Wal-Town fundraiser happens at La Sala Rossa on Wednesday, March 24, with performances by Holy Moly, Eric Hanson and Anna Daigenault. Tickets are $5. For more information, contact Ezra Winton at ezra@uberculture.org, or visit www.uberculture.org. » Jason Gondziola

Fringe parties unsatisfied

Obscure, fringe or oddball political parties have as much chance at a seat in the National Assembly as a beggar at a cigar lounge. So Quebec's non-mainstream political actors have lobbied hard for proportional representation, an electoral system that rewards parties with a number of seats based on their take of the popular vote. Proponents of prop rep say it could rekindle voter interest, increase diversity and promote popular involvement in politics. It would also benefit the governing provincial Liberals, whose urban votes get short-changed in the riding system - the Liberals lost the 1998 election in spite of earning more votes than the Parti Québécois. So after consulting the proponents of prop rep, the Charest Liberals have floated a plan to implement the system here, but the proposal doesn't tickle the fancy of the smaller parties.

"Charest's idea of proportional representation really has no prop rep in it at all. It's a system that will help them correct the imbalance of the PQ advantage but it won't promote diversity in Parliament," says Paul Cliche of the Union des Forces Progressistes, who has lobbied hard for prop rep. Charest's system favours candidates that almost won their ridings and proposes an untried formula. Cliche says the proponents of prop rep will continue to fight for a system similar to that in New Zealand, Scotland and Scandinavia, where once-unknown parties have had their voices heard. » Kristian Gravenor

Transsexuals get
pride day

Montreal-area transsexuals and their friends have a new date to mark on the calendar: the Transsexual Day of Pride, March 20. The first-time event coincides with the spring equinox, a day that has special significance to transsexuals, according to Joëlle-Circe Laramée, the event's co-ordinator and co-founder of Canadian Transexuals Fight for Rights.

"Once we begin transitioning and changing our bodies to align themselves with our core genders, it's like a re-birth," says Laramée. "We fully become who we always knew we were."

On the itinerary are workshops and presentations on transsexual history, healthcare, harassment at school, police harassment, transitioning and how to cope with coming out to family and in the workplace. For those think themselves savvy in particulars of transsexuality, there's transsexual trivia, a who's-who of famous trans-folk throughout the ages. The event is free and open to the public.

The Trans Health Network, a coalition made up of transsexual youth support group Project 10, Canadian Transexuals Fight for Rights and the Trans/Gender Alliance, will also be unveiling an online petition demanding from the provincial government access to sex-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. Currently in Quebec, the $20,000 surgery is only covered by medicare if performed by a doctor in a public hospital, not a private clinic, which most MDs are unwilling to do, says Laramée.

Get your transsexual facts right Saturday, March 20, at the Batshaw Centre (6 Weredale), 10 a.m.–6 p.m. followed by a party at 7:30 p.m. For more information, call 488-1512 or visit www.ctffr.org. » Shannon Devine

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

10 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Mar. 17-24, 1994

On the cover: A naked, spread-eagled man with a large "X" covering his genitals, supposedly representing Generation X in the theatre, as Gaëtan Charlebois interviews director Bruce Smith for his play Critical Mass. "Gen-X theatre right now is a bunch of artists without a following, and we have to find places in which to perform that will bring the subject to its target," Smith says.

• The Mirror announces that it is appealling a Quebec Press Council decision that criticizes writer Julianne Pidduck for inciting hatred against men in an Aug. 20, 1992, column, in which she fantasized about branding, humiliating and killing men who commit violent or offensive acts against women. Pidduck and Mirror editor Peter Scowen argue she was being satirical.

• Montreal dancehall king DJ Ray discusses his three Juno nominations, even though he's overshadowed by Scarborough's Snow, whose "Informer" is a world-wide hit.

• "I mean, Jimmy [James] Woods just got car-jacked!" says Randy Quaid, in town shooting Esperanza, on why he wants to move from L.A. to New York.

Angel >> The Great Antonio's monument After a number of bureaucratic hurdles, the famed local strongman and oddball, who passed away last September at age 77, will get a lasting statue in his honour this summer. The statue, to be built free of charge by local sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, will stand in Beaubien Park, in Antonio's home neighbourhood of Rosemont-Petite-Patrie, where his hulking figure and wild hair were daily sightings. Despite his fame, Antonio died penniless, but an outpouring of public sympathy following his passing ensured he was given a proper burial. He is the second Montreal strongman to receive his own statue: Louis Cyr (1863–1912) has his own statue in St-Henri.
Insect >> Voluntary labelling of GMO The federal government's plan to allow voluntary labelling of genetically modified organisms (GMO) is setting off alarm bells across the country, especially in Quebec. Critics, including the Bloc Québécois, Greenpeace, l'Union paysanne and consumer groups, say voluntary labelling will only create confusion among consumers, and that Canada's proposed minimum standard to be considered genetically modified - a product must contain five per cent of GM material - is far above the European minimum of 0.9 per cent (which happens to be the figure agreed upon by the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Nutrition). A final decision will be announced in mid-April.