THE FRONT
Turcot redesign still problematic >> Projet Montréal’s anniversary >> G20 protests crank up >> Performace artist/AIDS activist Tim Miller at Concordia.
by MIRROR NEWS
November 11, 2010
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I love playing poker so much.” —Boucherville poker player Jonathan Duhamel, after he’d won the $8.9-million World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
Halve Turcot
Standing as a reminder of the days when spaghetti junctions optimistically symbolized humanity’s smooth cruise into an inevitably automobile-based future, the crumbling, 40-plusyear-old Turcot interchange has become the site of a battle over the continued omnipresence of the car in Montreal.
Transport Quebec’s new plan to tear down and replace the interchange, released earlier this week, doubles the original 2007 project’s price tag to $3-billion and adds two years to its ETA, with a completion date set for 2018. Although the new plan includes some concessions to public transit, including a reserved lane for buses and a possible tramway, it would still bring the highway down to street level, and some home demolitions.
“The plan doesn’t respond to the needs of citizens,” says Patricia Viannay, of Mobilisation Turcot, a coalition that was formed in opposition to the original plan. “It doesn’t propose to reduce automobile use in favour of public transit, and there will still be about 100 expropriations. It’s the next 100 years that are at stake, so we can afford to wait another six months and do it differently.”
A demo demanding the province take another look at alternatives takes place today, Thursday, Nov. 11 from 1:30–4 p.m., starting at Lionel Groulx metro (2515 Delisle).
—MATT JONES
Meet your Projet Mtl
In a year that saw Tea Party cretins seize the U.S. House of Representatives and the insult to good taste that is Rob Ford waddle into Toronto’s city hall, it would appear that the oil, God and double cheeseburger crowd is indeed in the ascendant. But not in the confines of the Plateau, where the progressive Projet Montréal is running the show. The party swept to power a year ago, and as part of its avowed commitment to openness and transparency, the borough administration is taking part in a meet, greet and dialogue session organized by Plateau community group la Maison d’Aurore and the Centre de formation sociale Marie-Gérin Lajoie.
“We want to create space that is different from a borough council meeting,” says la Maison d’Aurore’s Annie Pelletier. The evening will include a presentation by the PM team, listing their achievements, followed by a Q&A session.
Projet Montréal’s tenure has been more controversial than usual—there have been issues over snow removal, parking and Project Noise, an initiative that increased fines levied against bars over noise complaints. “At least people are talking about municipal politics,” she says.
The event takes place tonight, Thursday, Nov. 11 at la Maison d’Aurore (4815 de Lanaudière) at 6:30 p.m.
—PATRICK LEJTENYI
Family activism
If you’re looking for an activity your entire clan can enjoy without running the risk of being arrested, beaten or tear-gassed this Friday, Nov. 12, then the Anti-Capitalist Convergence of Montreal has just the thing for you: why not bring the kids along to participate in the self-proclaimed “family friendly” (i.e. non-violent) Anti-Capitalist Demonstration Against the G20 getting underway at 5 p.m. at Cabot Square (corner Atwater/Ste-Catherine)?
Professing “solidarity with the dozens of people still facing charges from the demonstrations held in Toronto against the G20 summit last June,” the group has organized Friday’s demo to coincide with the G20 meetings taking place in Seoul over the weekend, and will be consistent with similar demonstrations being organized around the globe.
According to CLAC2010’s event manifesto, “While we face an economic, social and environmental crisis, Prime Minister Stephen Harper promotes the stabilization of financial markets, imposing austerity measures that go against the interests of workers, the unemployed and the poorest of the planet. In response, we take to the streets to demonstrate our rage against the capitalist system and show our refusal to submit to those who enrich themselves on our backs through theft, exploitation and repression.”
For more, go to clac2010.net/en.
—CHRIS BARRY
Virus talks
California-based performance artist, gay rights protester and frequent arrestee Tim Miller is no stranger to controversy. His semi-autobiographical works gained international attention in 1990 when he and three colleagues got their National Endowment for the Arts funding vetoed by a chairman who thought their work was too gay. Although an eight-year struggle that led to the Supreme Court finally got them their money back, Miller spent much of the ’80s and early ’90s, the peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, engaging in direct action against a government that didn’t want to have anything to do with gay issues.
“I was making pieces in a country where our then-president Ronald Reagan did not say the word AIDS once until 80,000 Americans had died,” he says. “Civil disobedience was incredibly central. It is a transformative experience, especially for nice middle-class white kids, to be arrested and kept for 72 hours. I felt that on every level, the U.S. government was trying to destroy my community by doing nothing while tens of thousands died and trying to stop safe sex education in public schools.”
Miller performs his Sex/Body/Self/Virus piece as part of Concordia’s HIV/AIDS lecture series tonight, Thursday, Nov. 11 (1455 de Maisonneuve W., H-110), at 6 p.m., for free. For details, see aids.concordia.ca.
—MATT JONES
REAR-VIEW MIRROR
16 YEARS AGO – NOV. 10–17, 1994
On the cover: AC/DC tribute band Wall of Angus, for an investigation into the city’s clone act scene. It’s a controversial topic: indie promoter Dan Webster says people who like cover bands are “fucking losers.” And band members are often found to be self-loathing: “I have to be drunk, and if I can arrange it, doped up, to be Jim [Morrison]. Otherwise I’d kill myself,” says one Doors cover singer.
• The Mirror reprints a cover of Dawson College student paper The Plant, showing a naked man holding an unrolled condom in one hand and an (impressively large) erect penis in the other. The CEGEP administration pulled every issue until the editors agreed to spraypaint the penis, condom and hand holding the penis black.
• “What would I write about if it weren’t the juicy, inflammable subjects of sex, race and money?” asks Dany Laferrière.
• Nick Auf der Maur spent municipal election night at Jimbo’s rather than his old haunt Grumpy’s because of “a running bar bill,” according to an “ex-Grumpy’s regular.” ■
ANGEL: Ex-veterans’ ombudsman Pat Stogran Wednesday, Nov. 10—the day before Remembrance Day—was Pat Stogran’s last day on the job. The former army colonel, told in August he wouldn’t be rehired, was an outspoken advocate for vets seeking redress for compensation and disability claims, too outspoken apparently for the federal government. The feds claim that the ombudsman’s position was a three-year non-renewable appointment (it isn’t). But Stogran’s willingness to go to the media to press claims of unfair treatment—usually after being stonewalled by bean-counting Veterans’ Affairs upper management—was an undeniable embarrassment to the image-conscious, spending-wary Harper government. Maybe he was too effective for their liking: In September, the feds announced they were setting aside over $2-billion to care for wounded vets, after Stogran had raised another public stink.
INSECT: The Police Brotherhood’s self-serving survey The police union, fighting city hall over a $35-million budget cut, is making some wild claims to bolster its case. Last month it commissioned a survey of Montrealers and the results are, at first, startling: 69 per cent say they feel unsafe in parts of the city and 36 per cent say the city was safer 10 years ago—in the midst of the biker war. Public security boss Claude Trudel called the poll a scare tactic, saying internal police polls show 90 per cent of Montrealers feel safe in their neighbourhoods. The cops may be right to question the cuts—especially since the city announced a $77-million surplus in October—but manipulative polling is a lousy way to make your point.
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