La Patrie
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...
A pastor for Jeanne Le Ber
By P.A. Sévigny on October 2, 2008
When Darryl Grey realized he couldn’t think of anybody he would want to vote for, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t run for parliament. As the pastor for Little Burgundy’s Imani Family and Full Gospel Church, he knew why he had to run for parliament...
Pour en finir avec l’âge de la déraison
By David Simard on September 18, 2008
Voici donc qu’on découvre que la candidate conservatrice dans Saint-Bruno/Saint-Hubert, Nicole Char- bonneau-Barron, est membre d’un groupe sectaire catholique et profondément réactionnaire, l’Opus Dei...
Why our elections highlight the need for a true Canadian Republic
By Beryl Wajsman on September 18, 2008
rime Minister Harper’s frustration with a recalcitrant opposition was understandable. An opposition that sabre-rattled with weekly regularity yet supported the government on some forty confidence votes.
Un pacifisme de tout repos
By Pierre K. Malouf on September 18, 2008
La campagne électorale vient à peine de débuter (j’écris ces lignes le 8 septembre) que déjà les sondages pleuvent...
Concordia back at the table
By P.A. Sévigny on September 18, 2008
Just days after classes resumed at Concordia, the university’s part-time faculty association is getting ready to pull the rug out from under the administration’s feet...
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...
The “Gentling the condition” Concert
By Beryl Wajsman on September 4, 2008
The most satisfying thing for me about combining the social activism of the Institute for Public Affairs and the journalistic advocacy of media is the ability to help more people more effectively. It has also brought many more people together to do well and gentle the condition...
Tout ne va pas si mal
By Pierre K. Malouf on September 4, 2008
En santé publique, le Québec vit en régime de pénurie, surtout en ce qui touche les ressources humaines. Le nombre de médecins peut paraître suffisant, il y en a chez nous 215 pour 100 000 habitants, la moyenne canadienne étant de 190...
Police walking “thin line” in Montreal North
By P.A. Sévigny on September 4, 2008
Only days after the shooting of Freddy Villanueva and the ensuing riot that ripped through the streets of Montreal North, SPVM Police Chief Yvan Delorme said the city’s police were doing everything possible to re-establish law, order and “a sense of security” in the district...
Safe injection facilities: compassionate or enabling?
By Dan Delmar on September 4, 2008
The ongoing debate over whether or not to provide Montreal drug addicts with clean syringes and a safe place to shoot up pits the tough love crowd against a more sympathetic, mothering approach; long-term solutions versus short-term relief...
What constitutes appropriate force?
By P.A. Sévigny on September 4, 2008
Canadian police and other law enforcement officials will have to wait until 2009 to answer questions posed about the safe and efficient use of their ubiquitous ‘Taser’ stun guns...
Ottawa “Human Dignity Rally” an inspiring success
By Beryl Wajsman on August 21, 2008
The Ottawa rally for rights in China, that we have encouraged Mon-trealers to support over the past few weeks, was held last Thursday and was a resounding success. Finally dubbed the “Human Dignity Rally”, it saw hundreds of demonstrators from Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto gather in front of the Chinese Embassy, a hulking grey-stone monolith on St. Patrick St., and demand an end to Chinese tyranny, oppression, expansionist ambitions and human rights violations...
Garneau still holds healthy lead
By P.A. Sévigny on August 21, 2008
With only three short weeks to go before polling day in the Westmount-Ville Marie by-election, Liberal candidate Marc Garneau seems to have a healthy lead and there’s no reason why he should lose it before election day...
Permis d’espérer
By Pierre K. Malouf on August 21, 2008
Le 29 mars 1999, le GROUPE DE TRAVAIL SUR LA PLACE DE LA RELIGION À L’ÉCOLE formé en 1997 par Pauline Marois et présidé par Jean-Pierre Proulx déposait son rapport devant le ministre François Legault...
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...
Ces « poètes » de brousse…
By Louise V. Labrecque on August 21, 2008
Ils parlent tous du contexte… Le contexte dans lequel ils ont grandi, par exemple. « Très jeune, je voulais devenir écrivain », pour reprendre du même souffle : « l’école – c’est-à-dire la société -, ne semblait pas répondre à ce rêve »...
Mark Bruneau—raw
By Dan Delmar on August 21, 2008
It is apparent from the start that Mark Bruneau, who is seeking the Liberal party nomination in the south-west Jeanne-Le Ber riding, is different. And not the kind of “different” that is bandied about by most politicians who want to set themselves apart from so many of their dull and mediocre colleagues. Bruneau, 47, is an eccentric, in-your-face, heavy-set multi-millionaire with razor-sharp wit and, he says, a desire to spend the next quarter-century serving his country. In short, he breaks the mold...
Holding China accountable
By Beryl Wajsman on August 7, 2008
Several weeks ago Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the international human rights campaigner, called me up with an idea. She said that though a boycott rally of the Beijing Olympics was fruitless, she thought it was important to make some kind of demonstration for human rights in China on the eve of the Games’ opening...
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...
Occulter des absurdités
By Vincent Geloso on August 7, 2008
L’été est normalement une saison politique assez calme. Les députés sont rentrés chez eux, les ministres n’annoncent pas de grand projets et le premier ministre fait quelques petites visites ici et là, mais rien de plus...
Les nonos cocasses
By Pierre K. Malouf on August 7, 2008
Loco Locass a causé un certain émoi au dernier spectacle de la Saint-Jean en interprétant, devant un public en délire, Libérez-nous des libéraux, la toune qui constitue à ce jour son plus grand succès. Les patriotes avinés qui assistèrent à cette performance hurlèrent de joie, mais d’autres ressentirent un certain malaise...
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...
Je suis Canadien-Québécois !
By Michel-Wilbrod Bujold on August 7, 2008
e n'ai jamais éprouvé de malaise identitaire. Mais je jongle depuis longtemps avec la nature complexe de mon identité. Mes ancêtres viennent de France. Une fois parvenus ici, ils ont voulu former une société distincte : ils étaient fiers de s'appeler les Canadiens...
Omar Khadr and the straining of Canadian virtue
By David T. Jones on August 7, 2008
So Omar Khadr cried. And he wanted his mommy according to much publicized, recently released interrogation transcripts...
Notre politique linguistique. Une vache sacrée, une bête noire
By Julius Grey on July 10, 2008
Manifestement injuste et exagérée lors de sa promulgation en 1977, la loi 101 a été modifiée et améliorée à tous les niveaux des cours de justice, y compris celles des Nations unies, ainsi que par le législateur...
Morgentaler: It’s about liberty, not libertines
By Beryl Wajsman on July 10, 2008
French social critic Hervé Juvin's book “L'avènement du corps” (The Elevation of the Body), argues that our ability to live longer has seen the birth of the hedonism of self-preservation replacing the hedonism of self-indulgence...
Why Harper got it right on McCain
By David T. Jones on July 10, 2008
Cynics are inclined to conclude that a government that makes the right decision is akin to the proverbial blind pig finding an acorn. But such pigs do find acorns and, in the instance of the decision by the Harper government to see Senator John McCain during his June 20 visit to Ottawa, the Tories got it right...
La barbe des barbus
By Pierre K. Malouf on July 10, 2008
Richard Martineau, le 7 juin, sur le hidjab : « Comme on pouvait le prévoir, l'ineffable Françoise David, ex-féministe qui fait maintenant des courbettes devant les extrémistes religieux (du moins, ceux qui ne sont pas d'obédience catholique, « ouverture » envers les autres communautés oblige), Mme David, donc, applaudit la décision des augustes commissaires à quatre mains [sic]. »....
Criminalizing the homeless
By Jessica Murphy on July 10, 2008
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...
Ticketing our trash
By P.A. Sévigny on July 10, 2008
Last December, shortly before taking a taxi to the airport for an early-morning flight, Montreal writer Alan Hustak dropped a small bag of garbage into one of the city’s garbage cans in Old Montreal. Only a few days after he came back from his Christmas holiday, he received a letter from the Ville Marie borough authorities with included a $187 ticket for having broken one of the borough’s new municipal garbage by-laws...
Funding cuts will behead entrepreneur program
By Isaak Olson on July 10, 2008
Government funding for a local program dedicated to young entrepreneurs will be cut at the end of August—a move that, according to program officials, will have an economic ripple effect on the region...
The soft jihad
By Michael Ross on June 26, 2008
I’ve walked into the aftermath of a suicide bombing, a meeting with a terrorist from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and a dank cell in Azerbaijan holding the al-Qaeda masterminds of the African Embassy bombings, but it only took an hour in Robson Square Provincial Court Room 105 in Vancouver to make me realize how fundamentally the nature of Jihad is truly changing and evolving...
Marc Garneau et « la cohesione sociale »
By P.A. Sévigny on June 26, 2008
When Marc Garneau flew in space, he could see the entire country from coast to coast and then some. Years later, now that he’s Stéphane Dion’s Liberal candidate in Westmount-Ville Marie, he’s still gets to cover a lot of territory but this time it’s on the ground as he gets to know the streets of his riding...
