Quote of the week:

"What I know of Stephen Harper and what I know of Paul Martin, I have to believe Paul Martin would be less dangerous to the country." - dispirited ex-Progressive Conservative PM and leader Joe Clark, in Monday's Globe and Mail.

TV for all

Laval-east Liberal MP Carole-Marie Allard says she didn't know the RCMP was going to bust nine Quebec City residents for satellite piracy the day before she was to hold a press conference, but the timing helped. She wanted to speak out against Bill C-2, a proposed law that would punish people found stealing satellite TV signals, but when the RCMP announced that they had seized satellite equipment, computers and fake cards (along with guns, a small amount of drugs and $50,000 in cash), at five residences and three businesses, the opportunity arose to make the issue a big one.

Laval-East is fairly mixed ethnically, says Allard, and as such many of her constituents want to watch foreign-language public television. The problem, says Allard, is that Bell ExpressVu (which cooperated with the RCMP in the raids, along with Industry Canada and the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association) isn't offering enough ethnic TV to satisfy even modest demands, and are therefore at least partly responsible. Allard, the spokesperson for the new Coalition pour un village global, is calling for a scrapping of C-2 and wants the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to order BEV and its only Canadian competitor, Star Choice, to carry more foreign-language channels.

"We should try to curb piracy, but we have to do it differently," she says. "We can't force people to watch Canadian programs if they don't want to, and we have to be realistic about that."

The good news for TV-hungry minorities is that C-2 will die if not passed before an election is called. » Patrick Lejtenyi

May Day is Pot Day

The fifth annual Million Marijuana March is all set for this Saturday, May 1, and federal Marijuana Party leader Marc-Boris St-Maurice is gearing up for the political battle of his lifetime. "I'm gonna be running in beautiful LaSalle-Ville-Émard," he says. Which also happens to be the seat of a certain Liberal parliamentarian named Paul Martin. "I have a history of taking on leaders," says St-Maurice, noting that he ran against Gilles Duceppe and Stockwell Day in previous federal campaigns (albeit unsuccessfully).

The Marijuana Party is currently fielding close to 100 candidates across the country, with around 40 in Quebec. St-Maurice says he is looking forward to meeting Paul Martin and asking him what he thinks about the pot issue.

"I honestly don't know where he stands," St-Maurice says. "There's been a little bit of talk, but I'm not sure how much of it was sincere. Most of the stuff we've discussed is a hold-over from what Chrétien launched."

St-Maurice also notes that, because the Million Marijuana March takes place around the world on the first Saturday of every May, this puts it, on occasion, at odds with the annual May Day festivities. He wants to point out that he isn't competing or expropriating the international day for workers.

"We're not appealing to the same crowd at all," he says. He said he would be happy to join in their march, but "there have been no discussions between us and the unions. I'm still waiting for the phone to ring." » Patrick Lejtenyi

No Athens for windsurfer

People up where the three rivers meet are in a frothy lather against the Canadian Olympic Committee for refusing to let local windsurfing heroine Dominique Vallée compete at the upcoming Olympics. "I've been working full-time for six years to get there," says Vallée. "Now I'm 29. It's no joke."

Male windsurfing has been a medal event since 1984 and a female one since 1992. Twenty-eight countries are invited to send one man and one woman to compete. As things stand, no female surfboarder will be representing Canuckistan at the Olympics, for although Vallée passed the international standards test, she missed Canada's standards test due to a broken foot. That's a big deal, because Canada is a rare country that demands its athletes not only to be up to international standards but also meet national criteria, a fact Vallée says makes no sense.

"A few countries like Germany use national standards but their athletes are supported, they have coaches, funding, teams - there's so much support there that they demand a criteria. But Canada's not like that."

So far attempts to get the Canadian Olympic Committee to reconsider have fallen into the drink, which has left Trifleuviens outraged, according to windsurfing school instructor Claudia Lesmerises, who credits Vallée with the resurgence in popularity of the sport in Quebec.

"It gives a terrible image to youth that see her efforts - knowing that she's good enough, but still can't go to the Olympics," she says. » Kristian Gravenor

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

18 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
May 1–May 21, 1986

On the cover: Nine Québécois singers, as the Mirror warns that Quebec music is an endangered species. As evidence, it notes that the CRTC recently dropped mandatory francophone content from 65 per cent to 55 per cent on French radio stations. "It won't help the Quebec or Canadian industries, but will only increase the American and English percentages. And where will the trend stop?" wonders France Lafleur, director of the Canadian Association of Performers and Composers.

• As the issue falls on May Day, the Mirror runs a three-page spread on the left in Quebec. Most of the parties on the left are indépendantistes, but they are finding they are having a "hard time finding something to say that Quebecers didn't hear 20 years ago, and haven't already rejected," writes Brian Topp.

• "A dead script in a dead land by a Hollywood which wants, maybe even needs, to depict the world's most advanced repressive state structure as cuddly teddy bears," writes Julian Samuel in a review of Off Beat, starring Judge Reinhold.

Angel >> Conseil permanent de la jeunesse This provincial agency dealing with youth matters unveiled a study this week that called for the decriminalization of prostitution, saying that crackdowns and confrontational attitudes are effectively useless as deterrents. Based on the testimony of 19 young prostitutes - eight female, 11 male - the study highlights the dangers and hostility street hookers face on a daily basis, including sexual assault and beatings by police. It also calls for more resources to help prostitutes escape the lifestyle. It does not, however, call for a legalization of prostitution: the Conseil feels it would create separate classes of prostitutes and do little to ease the plight of streetwalkers.
Insect >> Wind power letdown The company running electricity-generating wind farms in Quebec, Axor, announced that the five-year-old experience has been less than positive. Electricity production in its Matane and Cap-Chat farms was 40 per cent below expectations and the cost much higher. The electricity sold to Hydro-Québec is also more expensive than that generated by more traditional methods like water and gas. The company says that the 133 generators are only surviving because of debt restructuring, rationing and increased investment. However, the company doesn't want to abandon the practice, and hopes new technology will improve the return on investment.