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Jessica Murphy

Resurrecting Chabanel

By Jessica Murphy on July 22, 2010

Five years ago, textile and apparel quotas were completely eliminated for all WTO member countries, including Canada.
Montreal - alongside New York and Los Angeles - is one of the top three fashion production hubs in North America and the city has been scrambling to ensure the industry’s continued existence despite the pressure of loosening trade regulations. 
It launched a glitzy campaign to showcase Montreal as a ‘fashion city’ filled with a creativity and passion for the craft. 

Quebec’s Celluloid Revolution

By Jessica Murphy on June 10, 2010

“Film is a vision, a point of view,” said Quebec director Michel Brault in 2003. 

Brault and his peers - Quebec cultural giants the lot - were at the forefront in helping the province establish a national cinema distinct from the rest of Canada. They told stories from the viewpoint of les Quebecois. They gave a nation a voice in its own language on screens big and small.

The leaking begging bowl

By Jessica Murphy on April 23, 2010

Ottawa spends some $5 billion on foreign aid every year. Countless numbers of people also give millions in personal donations to global relief efforts. It's no wonder generous Canadians want to know where their money goes. A spate of recent news stories has cast doubt on the accountability and transparency of humanitarian aid.

Haiti can rise

By Jessica Murphy on February 11, 2010

In 2006, Canadian-Haitian intellectual Georges Anglades penned the tongue-in-cheek novella, 'What if Haiti declared war on the USA?'
It explored a Haiti so totally destroyed in a war against imperial powers it's given a chance to climb out of three centuries of adversity by starting from scratch.
Sadly, Anglades and his wife Mireille died in the January earthquake that ravaged the country they loved and worked throughout their lives to improve...

École polytechnique: Remember, remember the 6th of December

By Jessica Murphy on December 3, 2009

Just after dark on Wednesday, December 6, 1989 - a drizzling and foggy early winter day in Montreal - Marc Lepine walked through the doors of Universite de Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique with a hunting knife and a .223 Remington concealed in a bag.
He was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and Kodiak boots...

Federal Court throws out prison smoking ban

By Jessica Murphy on November 4, 2009

Hardened criminals enfeebled by severe nicotine fits have won their court battle against a sweeping prohibition on smoking in federal penitentiaries.

On Oct. 23, Federal Court Judge Luc Martineau overturned the total ban enacted by Corrections Canada in May, 2008.

Ending homophobia

By Jessica Murphy on September 2, 2009

Quebec’s wide-ranging, inter-ministerial action plan against homophobia, years in the making, is expected to be tabled this fall.

The action plan uses as its framework the recommendations put forward by the Quebec human rights commission’s 2007 report into homophobia in the province.

Will the real Richard Bergeron please stand up?

By Jessica Murphy on August 6, 2009

Projet Montreal’s website seems to have whitewashed an element of its leader’s history.

While it trumpets a number of books Richard Bergeron has published - “Le livre noir de l’automobile” and “L’économie de l’automobile au Québec” - there’s no mention of his most recent treaty, “Les Quebecois au volant, c’est mortel.” The book deals primarily with Bergeron’s favourite bugaboo - the car - and how it has caused millions of deaths and injuries since its invention..

“Montreal needs the main”

By Jessica Murphy on July 2, 2009

Surrounding Cabaret Café Cleopatre is a sex store and a nightclub, a vacant lot and sagging, boarded-up buildings with decades of grime ground deep into concrete and stone. On cloudy days the corner looks squalid. Sunny days don’t suit it. 
To get inside, you push through a gaggle of tough-talking strippers on a smoke break and through the music and black lights filtering from their ground floor establishment...

Justice for Anas? (DATE DE PARUTION 30 OCTOBRE 2008)

By Jessica Murphy on June 18, 2009

Bizarre circumstances surround the shooting death by police of Mohamed Anas Bennis on Dec. 1, 2005.
This summer, the family, who has been fighting for almost three years against government stonewalling, thought they would finally learn the facts about that day in Cote-des-Neiges...

The ‘killing’ of Justin St-Aubin (DATE DE PARUTION 7 AOÛT 2008)

By Jessica Murphy on June 18, 2009

Justin Scott St-Aubin  was 25 when he died of a heart attack in the Rivieres des Prairies detention centre in Nov. 2007. The young Montrealer had been held in isolation for five days, never receiving the emergency psychiatric care recommended by two doctors...

Boroughs gone bonkers (DATE DE PARUTION 13 NOVEMBRE 2008)

By Jessica Murphy on June 18, 2009

Last September, The Metropolitain reported on merchants along Parc. Ave being hit with a number of fines under Montreal’s cleanliness bylaws. At the time, property owner Bill Vasilios Karidogiannis complained that the street was in disrepair despite merchants pressuring the borough to contribute to its upkeep. So when the borough sent a team of workers to clean the streets a couple of weeks later, he was overjoyed.
What he didn’t realize was that he would have to foot the bill...

Don’t clean weeds and butts? You pay! (DATE DE PARUTION 4 SEPTEMBRE 2009)

By Jessica Murphy on June 18, 2009

Montreal merchants say they’re being fined under the cleanliness bylaws while the City remains in disrepair.
Bill Vasilios Karidogiannis, a property owner on Avenue du Parc, is the recipient of one of those fines - $260 for not maintaining the weeds around a city tree. The weeds in front of his property had grown higher then the 20 centimeters allowed under a Plateau bylaw.

What happened to the honour system? (DATE DE PARUTION 2 OCTOBRE 2008)

By Jessica Murphy on June 18, 2009

Revenu Quebec has played hardball for far too long. According to a partner and chartered accountant with a prominent Canadian financial management firm, the provincial revenue ministry has dropped the honour system and started to treat the average citizen like a crook...

Criminalizing the homeless (DATE DE PARUTION 10 JUILLET 2008)

By Jessica Murphy on June 18, 2009

Despite recent steps by Montreal and the Ville Marie borough to alleviate problems surrounding homelessness downtown, ongoing policies continue to marginalize the very people they’re trying to help...

Battle lines drawn on Turcot

By Jessica Murphy on May 28, 2009

The battle lines have been drawn over the Turcot Interchange redevelopment project between a government that wants a new highway and Montrealers who seek a cleaner, greener version of their city. Residents turning out for the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement hearings on the Turcot Interchange redevelopment plan. For the most part, they agreed something must be done for the decades-old structure crumbling under the weight of hundreds of thousands of vehicles each week. But they don’t believe a few trees make a project green...

Canada and Afghanistan

By Jessica Murphy on April 9, 2009

Afghanistan is a mess - increasingly violent, facing major hurdles in development and a severe food shortage - but according to a panel of experts lined up by the Canadian International Council, NATO needs to see its engagement through...

IMAGINE

By Jessica Murphy on April 9, 2009

John Lennon and Yoko Ono created a brand of fame 40 years ago that remains strikingly contemporary – shades of which can be seen in both the earnest activism of U2’s Bono to the self-obsessed flashbulb frenzy surrounding today’s vapid starlets...

EI for the self-employed

By Jessica Murphy on March 19, 2009

Chris Hopkins never really wanted to be an entrepreneur. But facing dire job prospects after moving to Prince Edward Island, he started a home business that eventually failed. Now, Hopkins is using his free time to spearhead a campaign to allow entrepreneurs to opt into the federal employment insurance program...

Who controls the Internet in Canada?

By Jessica Murphy on February 26, 2009

Net neutrality hasn't yet made an imprint in Canada’s national dialogue, but the controvery addresses nothing less than who acts as the gatekeeper to the most powerful communication tool we have. Net throttling – also called traffic shaping – can be defined as  the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize performance, or the alteration of traffic on a particular connection to increase efficiency throughout the network...

Madoff’s Montreal effect

By Jessica Murphy on February 26, 2009

Among the victims of Bernie Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme were a number of prominent Canadians, including former Westmount resident Phil Robinson.
Robinson, part-owner of the Gray Rocks and Mont Blanc ski resorts, lost about $4 million to the accused Wall Street swindler, according to a report by The Globe and Mail newspaper. His extended family lost upwards of $13 million...

Quebec’s poverty wall

By Jessica Murphy on February 5, 2009

Quebec gets both top marks and failing grades when it comes to fighting poverty in the province...

The New Frugality

By Jessica Murphy on January 15, 2009

Will 2009 be the year we finally learn financial common sense? History and the emerging field of behavioural finance suggests that we won't..,

Caregivers or victims?

By Jessica Murphy on December 18, 2008

Pinay, The Filipino women’s organization in Quebec, have opposed aspects of Canada’s Live-In Caregivers Program for over a decade.
In November, the McGill school of social work released a report that supports what they’ve been saying for years: the women coming to Canada as domestic workers are often victims of exploitation...

“It’s a matter of dignity”

By Jessica Murphy on November 27, 2008

When Quebec’s 38th legislature was dissolved on Nov. 5, the work by the national assembly’s standing committee on social affairs came to a halt...

Decision Quebec: riding round-up

By Jessica Murphy on November 13, 2008

 

Boroughs gone bonkers

By Jessica Murphy on November 13, 2008

Last September, The Metropolitain reported on merchants along Parc. Ave being hit with a number of fines under Montreal’s cleanliness bylaws.

At the time, property owner Bill Vasilios Karidogiannis complained that the street was in disrepair despite merchants pressuring the borough to contribute to its upkeep. So when the borough sent a team of workers to clean the streets a couple of weeks later, he was overjoyed.,,

Justice for Anas?

By Jessica Murphy on October 30, 2008

Bizarre circumstances surround the shooting death by police of Mohamed Anas Bennis on Dec. 1, 2005. This summer, the family, who has been fighting for almost three years against government stonewalling, thought they would finally learn the facts about that day in Cote-des-Neiges...

Excited delirium

By Jessica Murphy on October 16, 2008

The concept of 'excited delirium' is igniting the debate on stun gun use by police forces across Canada. Defenders of the term call it an unrecognized health and policing crisis while critics fear it could be used to whitewash police brutality...

 

What happened to the honour system?

By Jessica Murphy on October 2, 2008

Revenu Quebec has  played hardball for far too long. According to a partner and chartered accountant with a prominent Canadian financial management firm, the provincial revenue ministry has dropped the honour system and started to treat the average citizen like a crook...

Election 2008 - Montreal: riding by riding

By Jessica Murphy on September 18, 2008

 

Don’t clean weeds and butts? You pay!

By Jessica Murphy on September 4, 2008

Montreal merchants say they're being fined under the cleanliness bylaws while the City remains in disrepair...

Turcot tensions

By Jessica Murphy on August 21, 2008

Forty years ago, Montreal looked to the future. Now, one of the iconic structures of that era—the Turcot Interchange—will be rebuilt, freeing the Turcot Yards for development. The Yards are now one of the largest empty urban spaces in North America. Whatever is built there will have a huge impact on the city...

The ‘killing’ of Justin St-Aubin

By Jessica Murphy on August 7, 2008

Justin Scott St-Aubin  was 25 when he died of a heart attack in the Rivieres des Prairies detention centre in Nov. 2007. The young Montrealer had been held in isolation for five days, never receiving the emergency psychiatric care recommended by two doctors...

The troubles with Turcot

By Jessica Murphy on August 7, 2008

The provincial government has agreed that it will pick up the tab for the new Turcot Interchange. But it's Montrealers who may end up paying the highest price...