Quote of the week:

"Never have we been so wrong for so long in so many parts of the country." - Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips, on meteorologists' consistently incorrect predictions for hot, dry weather this summer, in Tuesday's Globe and Mail.

Catholic closures decried

For seven years our English elementary and high schools have been in one happy EMSB family, except for the lingering impression that the union of former Catholic and Protestant boards has been weighted in favour of the Protestants, as almost all school closures have been former Catholic schools. Those suspicions have been reignited by the English Montreal School Board's (EMSB) new proposal to close St. Ignatius of Loyola in NDG, St. Gabriel in Pointe St-Charles, St. Patrick in the Plateau, McLearon in Pointe aux Trembles, St. Pius X in Ahuntsic and Wagar in Côte Saint-Luc. All but Wagar are former Catholic schools.

"It's the old [Protestant board] clique dominating the EMSB; they're shutting down the old Catholic network," says Giuliano D'Andrea, who has waged a long legal battle to keep St. Patrick's alive. "I think it's a hostile takeover. They realized they can't change Bill 101 so they said, ‘Why don't we take advantage of the situation as best we can?'" D'Andrea is also displeased that EMSB Chairman Dominic Spiridigliozzi refused to abstain on the vote even though his wife works as secretary at Bancroft, which is slated to remain open at St. Patrick's expense.

"I hope after seven years that we can get away from this Catholic and whatever," Spiridigliozzi says. "We are the English Montreal School Board and that's the way we should be looking at things."

Consultations take place Dec. 7 and, on Jan. 19, the 23 committee members vote on the fate of the schools. » Kristian Gravenor

New $50 slammed as racist

Canada's $50 bill will soon be replaced by images that have been attacked as racist and elitist, depicting portraits of the Famous 5 (Judge Emily Murphy, Louise McKinney, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby and the Montreal-born Henrietta Muir Edwards).

Starting next month, the women's rights activists from Alberta will appear on the bill alongside Québécoise activist Thérèse Casgrain. While the five won major gains in the legal status of women in Canada, they were also hostile to Asian immigrants and supported the sterilization of the less-bright among us. Calgary Sun columnist Michael Platt describes them as "white supremacists," pointing out that "Judge Murphy, in her 1922 book on drug abuse, The Black Candle, claimed narcotics are a conspiracy by blacks and Asians to bring about the degeneration of the white race."

But Frances Wright, whose Famous 5 Foundation lobbied for the bill, thinks differently. "The good things the Famous 5 did greatly outweigh any mistakes that they might've made," she says, explaining that The Black Candle was written after Wright consulted 500 "police chiefs, judges and politicians in the British Empire about the growth of drugs in the world. We believe they are the pre-eminent democratic champions of Canada, because they're largely responsible for Canadian women's right to vote and run for office."

Says Fo Niemi of local anti-racist Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, "We can celebrate what these women did but we still have to acknowledge their racist past, which is a reflection of their times." » Kristian Gravenor

Con U gets Santropol

Concordia students can expect massive, strangely-named and curiously composed sandwiches on campus next year, thanks to an arrangement signed this week between Café Santropol and CUSACorp, the Concordia Student Union's for-profit commercial wing. The eclectic restaurant at the corner of Duluth and St-Urbain, known for its odd collection of sandwiches and free-trade coffee, will move into the Hall building's mezzanine space currently occupied by Java U. Phil Ilijevsky, who will operate the Concordia Santropol Project, as it's now known, is the first person awarded a franchise in the restaurant's 25-year-history. He hopes to have it up and running by August 2005.

When Ilijevsky began the project last spring, he says, he simply hoped to bring fair-trade coffee to the downtown campus, and approached Santropol as a potential ally. After a series of meetings, Santropol granted him a franchise. He was hoping to begin operations as soon as next week, he says, but lease problems delayed it until next year. Nevertheless, the 34-year-old Arts student has high hopes the operation will prove successful, thanks in large part to Santropol's popularity among student gourmands.

While he says the menu may be "streamlined" a little bit compared to the original, he says that, "It will still be a Santropol sandwich. I want to provide a place on campus where students can get quality food."

Not to mention a somewhat more decent wage than they might get at another McJob. Ilijevsky says he'll pay workers $8.50 an hour - $1.05 more than the legally mandated minimum wage. » Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

11 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Sept. 2 - Sept 9, 1993

On the cover: A film reel going through a meatgrinder, as the Mirror defends the revisionist three-part NFB/CBC WWII documentary The Valour and the Horror from angry vets and their $500-million lawsuit. The vets, writes Bill Dodge, are particularly incensed over the "Death by Moonlight" episode, which casts a highly critical eye on the European bombing campaign and set off a countrywide brouhaha.

• A headshot showing Me Mom & Morgentaler trumpet player Adam Berger's black eye is featured in an editorial. Berger was allegedly punched by a Corvette-driver while biking down St-Urbain, and the Mirror accuses the police of bungling the case.

• Kalifornia, The Wedding Banquet and The Punk are considered among the best bets at the World Film Fest.

• Matt Johnson of The The, opening for Depeche Mode, lost his edge when he found God, writes Chris Yurkiw, but that may explain his Stateside popularity. "The cynical and dry disposition of the British has no place for our hero's earnest, Siddarthic quest for the truth."

Angel >> Peace It seems counter-intuitive, but over the past decade the world has become more peaceful rather than less, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq et al. notwithstanding. According to two institutes, one Swedish, the other Canadian, there has been a decrease in the number of armed conflicts around the world since the early to mid '90s. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says 19 major conflicts racked the world in 2003, compared to 33 in 1991. Canada's Project Ploughshares, with a more expansive definition, says there were 36 in 2003, down from 44 in 1995. Increased international cooperation and peacekeeping missions are credited with contributing to the drop-off. Casualties are also the lowest they've been in decades.
Insect >> Hells Angels in uniform Last year, the Canadian military quietly operated 29 investigations into soldiers suspected of being linked to the Hells Angels. The military said it feared the bikers were infiltrating the Forces in order to secure access to explosives and arms and to possibly transport drugs using military transportation; the Hells say they're just patriotic Canadians, and, like all good citizens, support our troops abroad. They also point to their own military roots, saying the outlaw motorcycle club was founded by alienated ex-servicemen after WWII and named after a USAAF squadron serving in East Asia. The Department of National Defence is currently wondering how to square their investigations with freedom of association provisions in the Charter.