Transportation manners: depends whom you ask

Tanya Boyce

Ryan Watkins, an 18-year-old CEGEP student, is accustomed to a large crowd using public transportation. But it’s only now that he considers it a large and impatient crowd. In October, he recalls a gentleman with a cane struggling to get down the stairs with his bags. “He managed to make it down and then the metro finally came. Everyone just shoved forward. He got so frustrated that he actually jabbed me with his cane, pointed at his bags, and grunted. No one even bothered to notice him and so no one helped him.”

Although the station was filled with people, not one of them helped the obviously struggling man. Watkins grabbed the man’s bags and followed him onto the metro. “I held onto his bags for only two stops. He looked at me briefly, took his bags, and got off without saying a word,” Watkins says.

Watkins was surprised. “At first I expected a thank you or at least a smile but then I realized I didn’t deserve it. I did exactly what everyone else did – ignore what was inconvenient,” Watkins says.

Watkins thinks that common courtesy is no longer a priority, especially among youth.

“We’re just so caught up in our own lives and overwhelmed by the whole idea of growing up and becoming individuals that we end up ignoring things that aren’t connected to us,” Watkins says.

Watkins hopes that the youth will become less self-absorbed. “People move at their own pace and whenever that pace is interrupted is becomes an inconvenience. We should become more considerate and aware of other individuals around us regardless if they have a connection to our lives or not.”

Tyler Colmars, 21, thinks that the amount of consideration should be based on the conditions in a particular situation. “Some days I’m exhausted. And I’m sure a lot of other people are too but when I’m that tired – I just have to focus on myself,” he says.

The public transportation system has a set of posted and unwritten rules he says. “Everyone knows the basics. If someone is pregnant, injured, or ridiculously old – you let them sit down or at least move out of the way for them,” says Colmars. Apparently there’s more to it than just that. “No guy is going to get up for a girl, it just doesn’t happen anymore. It’s first come first serve. And whoever is already sleeping, forget it. Sometimes there’ll be an older lady staring at me the whole bus ride and I won’t budge.” Colmars is not easily persuaded to give up his seat. “People who are capable of standing will just have to stand. If she was there first then I would have stood.”

Marielle Dubenois takes her grandchildren on the bus to the Fairview Pointe-Claire shopping mall. “Sometimes we’ll all get a seat and sometimes I’ll have to stand so that the kids can sit down,” she says.

Dubenois does not mind the loud or rowdy students on the bus. However, she finds their lack of consideration for those around them irritable. “I get tired and my grandchildren have trouble standing on a moving bus,” Dubenois says. “They can obviously see this but sometimes no one does anything about it. It’s disappointing. An adult or another elder seems more likely to give me a seat than someone young.”

Dubenois will visit friends downtown on a regular basis. They take walks around the area and often browse through stores. “I walk slower than others. I would figure that it’s expected and understandable. My legs don’t move as smoothly as they used to,” she said with a smile. “People will rush by us and rudely ask us to step aside. It’s rare that I’ll hear someone genuinely and politely say ‘Excuse me.’”

Dubenois explains that the majority of people seem to be constantly distracted. “I don’t expect an abnormal amount of courtesy from others. But, holding a door open or giving up a seat on the bus is barely inconvenient for anyone. I don’t understand it,” she says.

Dubenois thinks that this lack of etiquette is not due to selfishness. “I believe people are generally good and sincere. Sometimes they just aren’t fully aware of the things around them.”

She believes that people are overly preoccupied. “This sort of thing sometimes leaves my grandchildren and me standing on a bus. It’s an unfortunate but somewhat understandable lack of consideration.”

Local charities feel the pinch

Busier volunteers, longer lines, and emptier shelves illustrate the scope of the economic crisis at Share the Warmth (photo: Robert Galbraith)

Adam Desaulniers

“The recession has hit as far as we’re concerned,” says Sun Youth founder Sid Stevens. “We normally average about 200 families a month that we give food to. We’re adding 250 families to that list.” For the first time in 50 years the organization had to do a food drive during the summer just to keep up. “There’s banks in trouble, but you have to include food banks now too.”

Generations Foundation’s Adrian Bercovici concurs. “It’s an unusual kind of creeping poverty. I wouldn’t be surprised, in the next month or two, as things keep going downhill, if we get stockbrokers’ families asking for help.”

He sees the signs daily. “There’s a lot more kids that need clothing, extra school supplies – we’ve never had to give out school supplies this time of year, ever.” And the phenomenon touches every community he serves: “This week you’ve got two more kids in one school, next week three more in another school... so when you look at it, you think, what’s one more kid? It’s not like a hundred kids in one place.” But, he says, “It’s a creeping thing, once you start adding it up across the island – a few people lose their jobs, it’s harder to take care of the kids – they have a little less, so they tend to rely on us for breakfast or lunch… or they’re taking a cut in pay, or maybe they’re laid off for a couple weeks.” The recent crush on the frontlines, in his experience, “seems to be more of a middle class thing.”

No charity in Montreal has been spared the current climate’s triple squeeze – increased demand, rising costs, and dwindling contributions.

At the Salvation Army the numbers are causing “quite a shortfall” according to spokesman Michel Tassé. “Since April our requests for food assistance have doubled,” he estimates, with donations “about the same as last year.” A similar equation hampers efforts over at Share the Warmth, where Associate Director Lise Lalande observes “more people are coming to us for help who don’t normally do so – people coming in who have never come for help before, but now they just can’t manage. Their income just doesn’t make it anymore.”

The lineups at Sun Youth’s food bank are only the beginning, predicts Emergency Services director Tommy Kulczyk. “The peak will only be seen in about four to six months,” he says, noting that those thrown out of work mostly start to show up once unemployment benefits run out. “I hope people understand we’re helping people who have no margin of error. It’s not a question of reducing something. These people have to cut on basic, essential items. They can’t cut the rent. They can’t cut their heating. They have to cut food.”

Adrian Bercovici of Generations Foundation (photo: Peter McCabe)

And while those ranks are swelling, supply is shrinking. “Every food bank in Montreal has said the same thing the last couple of months,” he maintains. “Donations went down 30% during the summertime.” A hundred-dollar contribution this year, he calculates, amounts only to about two-thirds as much food as last year. “Everything went up. Basic food – pasta, rice, it all went up 30 or 40%. Beef went up 40%. Even packaging went up 18%.”

The belt-tightening hurts on multiple fronts. “There are less and less food suppliers and distributors that give us stuff,” says Lalande. “We used to have quite a lot that would give us their surpluses. But I think everyone is producing closer to what they really need to – companies don’t seem to have a lot of overstock, and that’s what we normally benefit from.”

Meanwhile, heavyweight contributors are coming up empty. “Most bigger donors are foundations or companies, and if their profits or returns are down, it’s going to affect all the [charitable] organizations, so we count on everybody trying to give a little bit more to make the difference.”

That same problem is making for “a very long year” at Sun Youth: “[Foundations] take a sum of money and invest it and distribute the interest, and a lot of the interest is 50 to 60% of what it was last year,” notes Kulczyk, “so the foundation finds itself with less revenue, and people have to make a choice – reduce the number of groups they give to, or cut down the amount they give to each group.”

That deficit may sink many programs. Stevens relates how even after the special summer food drive, which collected 90 bins of food and raised $90,000, “We spent it all by September 1, and had to go to our Board of Directors for a supplementary budget of $50,000.” It’s hard to see how they’ll make it through another year with even less foundation money. “We see no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Gift bears, anyone? Share the Warmth's Lalande (photo: Robert Galbraith)

“It’s been very difficult,” says Peter Desmier of Epona Foundation, a nonprofit that keeps kids in school through tutoring and equestrian activities. “People are having a hard time of it in their own business and personal lives… So they can’t give as much as they did last year.” Desmier notices things getting tighter “definitely since September,” not only finding trouble getting new contributions but in fact sliding backwards.

“Donors weren’t able to fulfill their commitments and it really hurt us, so it’s tough. That was money that we were anticipating, that would have got us through, but now we’re really scrambling. It’s caused us to be more conservative in our giving and how we manage our program and our resources. So it’s forcing the charities to start streamlining, and we’re having to develop more fundraising activities this year.”

Even coach Jackie Poirier, of the foundation’s equestrian program at Free Spirit Stables in St-Lazare, has been recruited in their financial efforts. “She’s finding because we’re having such a hard time, she has to go and get involved in the fundraising herself. So she’s doing the Musical Ride this year, and asking people in the equestrian community to come see it and participate.” The event begins 7 pm Wednesday, December 10 at Free Spirit Stables (freespiritstables.ca).

Share the Warmth will also be getting musical fundraising help – from the McGill Chamber Orchestra, with a performance at 7 pm Thursday, December 11. Santa visits Saturday, December 20 with kids 10 and under, and toy donations as well as food and money are welcome. Lalande notes also that “we always need volunteers, especially during the week of December 15.”

For the athletically inclined, the Salvation Army’s Santa Shuffle takes place on Mount Royal Saturday, December 6, organized by The Running Room. Participants in the 5 km run or 1 km walk will collect pledges to help raise the Army’s daunting $500,000 Christmas fundraising target.

For early risers, Generations Foundation holds its holiday fundraising breakfast from 6:30 – 10 am Friday, December 5 at La Stanza, featuring guest speakers and prizes for kids.

And throughout December, Sun Youth will be running their Christmas campaign, which, says Kulczyk, “[funds] about 80% of the food distributed through the 40 different programs we offer the community. Most of the time – whether we’re helping fire victims, victims of crime, or just people having problems with their budget – the first thing we do, usually, is feed them. So that campaign enables us to help 18-20,000 people during the whole holiday period.”

Stevens asks that holiday revelers not let philanthropy bear the brunt of fiscal restraint. “We’re asking people to be a little more generous than they have in the past – although we appreciate what they’ve done in the past – we’re hoping they can do just a little more. If they just add one additional can, we’ll still be ahead. And if they haven’t given, we’re asking them to really do the best they can to start.”

Epona Foundation:
514-421-7433 or eponafoundation.com

Generations Foundation:
514-933-8585 or generationsfoundation.com

Salvation Army:
877-488-4222 or armeedusalut.ca

Share the Warmth:
514-933-5599 or sharethewarmth.ca

Sun Youth:
514-842-6822 or sunyouthorg.com

Liberal catch Weil "not a policy wonk"

(photo: Robert Galbraith)

Adam Desaulniers

NDG Liberal anointee Kathleen Weil is an expert’s expert – a self-confessed fan of policy wonks who insists she’s not one herself, thrice courted by senior officials before accepting her express ticket to the National Assembly and a virtually guaranteed cabinet post.

A walking encyclopedia of civic demographics after eight years at the head of the Foundation of Greater Montreal and three years publishing Vital Signs – an annual statistical analysis of each of the region’s neighbourhoods – her grasp of the city’s changing composition is clearly unrivaled, and no political novice ever brought to the table more compelling expertise in the intricacies of healthcare funding and social service delivery on the ground.

“Certainly being at the Foundation, you look at a community in a very integrated way,” she says. “Your transport plan, your environmental plan, your healthcare plan, your economic plan – you see them all as interrelated.” The FGM, created with a strategic $20-million pooled investment fund between the Montreal YMCA, Centraide and Red Feather, networks with charities and funds community projects, “getting to know what kind of initiatives the community is proposing and supporting those initiatives” with grants and other resources.

Foundations, she explains, don’t do fundraising – they create endowment funds that allocate investment returns to various charitable causes, a sort of “permanent nest egg for the community.” In her time at the FGM, she brought a rigorously scientific approach to measuring the needs of communities and defining metrics for the social returns on their investments – the genesis of her exhaustive Vital Signs compendium. “What are the numbers you have to look at?” she asks. “What’s the socioeconomic breakdown, the age breakdown, the number of immigrants? I always start with learning about a community, whether it’s the greater Montreal community, or NDG – I like looking in depth,” taking statistics from various Ministries, crunching the numbers, and looking at social trends – “and then you have a better sense of whether the programs that exist are adapted to their needs… because the needs change, the data constantly change, populations change.” And are they adapting? “Well,” she says with serene self-assurance, “that’s what I’m going to find out, obviously.”

Not much of a political animal on first impression, she’s never taken a run at public office before. “This is my first, and I actually have never been involved in political organization, I’ve always been more on the policy side,” she admits, though she denies being a textbook policy wonk: “Well, I’m not a policy wonk, really – I like policy wonks, but I’m not one. No, there’s another caliber of person that’s a policy wonk, really – because I really love people, and I love hearing their stories and what their challenges are, and then making the connection with the policy wonks, with the planners.”

The previously reluctant candidate explains her prior refusal as mostly a question of timing. “When your kids are young – especially four of them – jumping into politics would be a little irresponsible,” she says. “And the career choices I made at that time were too interesting for me to abandon.”

Now things have changed for her family and her career. “This time around the youngest is 13 and the oldest is 22,” and the experience she’s accumulated in the meantime, she contends, has made her more formidable as a candidate. “I’ve been building the Foundation now for 8 years, and previous to that I was the chair of the Regional Health Board, and very involved in healthcare reform.” By very involved, she means where the rubber hits the road, not just compiling reports. She becomes passionately animated talking about future developments in healthcare, having seen, she says, the cutting edge of innovation right here in Montreal.

“I see some interesting changes. You now have these CSSSs (Centres de Santé et de Services Sociaux), to better organize your primary healthcare structures in your communities. They do planning [based on] data that StatsCan puts together: What’s the poverty level? How many seniors do you have? How many do you have over 75? And what’s coming up – how many baby boomers do you have? So they do that kind of planning, and emergency care, and connecting with the hospitals in their particular area. The other big change I’ve seen is that there now are these Groupes de Médecine de Famille, and the idea behind GMFs is you have doctors working in collaboration with other healthcare professionals, where once a patient is admitted to a GMF, on a permanent basis they have their family doctor in that group. It’s about one third of Montrealers who don’t have family physicians, so the idea behind GMFs is that they’re given some resources and money, and access to information technology and diagnostic technology.”

The GMFs, she says, “clearly are part of the solution in recruiting new doctors,” admitting that “obviously in the medical schools, there’s a lot of work to be done, in terms of making it known that this kind of medicine can be very attractive, with more tools at their disposal and better results.”

“My father was a doctor before the days of Medicare,” she recalls. “He’d say, ‘Okay kids, hop in the car,’ and we’d go down to Verdun and the whole Southwest,” where she and her siblings would wait patiently during his housecalls.

“We saw a lot of poverty. They’d come out with whatever gifts the family could muster because they didn’t have the money to pay – and he was always making us aware of poverty issues.”

It shaped her perspective, she maintains, and it’s a reassuring one to hear from the kind of person who isn’t always thought of as putting faces on the numbers. “I have a strong social justice background,” she says. “Most people know me as that, and my parents were the same. I think I’ll be very enthusiastic about any mandates I’m given – whatever commissions I’d be asked to sit on,” she muses, leaving aside any further speculation. With her predecessor enjoying a 61-to-16 percent victory over Green candidate Peter McQueen, she can be forgiven a bit of complacency.

“There’s a meet-the-candidates night next week, so that’ll be my first time meeting Mr. McQueen,” she says at the time of her interview, mere weeks after accepting the invitation to run, and literally minutes before her inaugural door-to-door canvassing trip. “I’m just starting up. I’m getting our pamphlets today. That’s how quick this is…” – they in fact arrive as she speaks – “…I guess it’s been about three weeks or so since I made the decision, and everything then happened so fast.” A compelling moment to witness in the infancy of this assuredly high-profile political career, it’s greeted with the same air of quiet competence as the rest of the bustle around her freshly-minted campaign office. If any of her upcoming itinerary is giving her nerves, it doesn’t show as she makes her way outside to pound the pavement.

“I’m looking forward to it!”

Voting takes place 9:30 am – 8 pm Sunday, December 8. Polling station info: 888-ELECTION or monvote.qc.ca

NDG Legion metamorphosis draws on community

Dave McCrindle – First Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Kris Petersen – Danish Navy, Branch Vice-President Frank Stanway – Second Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Jim McCann – First Canadian Parachute Battalion, Branch President Stuart Vallières – RCAF Bomber Command Sixth Group 427 Squadron, Helen Miller – Widow of navy photographer Eugene Miller, and Bob Venor – First Batallion PPCLI (photo: Robert Galbraith)

Adam Desaulniers

NDG’s Royal Canadian Legion has felt the pinch of demographic shift and declining membership as much as any other. Now, after taking stock and revamping, it’s rebounded in the neighbourhood with a fresh facelift for the premises, more community events, and an opening up of the ranks.

“We had too few people doing too much,” says Branch President Stuart Vallieres of their efforts to cope. “In the past we’ve been seen more as a place exclusively for veterans, centered around, you know... drinking.” But that’s the old Legion. “Now it’s more of a community centre, a little more ‘dignified.’ We opened up the rules a lot. You don’t have to have any military affiliation – in the past you had to have served.”

Since a bit of outreach was in order, “we examined our options and figured our greatest asset is the building, and that if we made it more appealing that there’d be opportunities for renting it... so we put a lot of effort into improving the property. When you walk in, it doesn’t smell like a dirty ashstray anymore.”

The makeover has attracted a slew of bookings as a reception and performance venue, but the mainstay of the establishment remains the fifty-plus crowd. “For seniors it’s a wonderful place. They can come here Friday afternoons, the most popular day, and make a meal of it, and they have comfortable surroundings and activities that are senior-friendly,” he says, citing bingo, darts, and cribbage as top draws.

The higher profile is “probably one of the best things that’s happened to NDG,” according to the branch’s barkeep and Booking Officer Serge Lewenszpil. “It’s kind of giving it a resurgence. We went through a dry spell, with the policing actions all over the world... people who served in Cyprus or the Middle East,” he says, haven’t exactly swelled the membership rolls. “The guys who come back from Afghanistan are a lot like the vets from Vietnam – shell shocked, quite a few committed suicide – PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] is a big problem... a lot of them don’t realize that the Legion is the one place they can come out and relax, and I think it’s going to take another year or two before they actually find their way into the Legions. A lot of them are still in the service, so they haven’t come out yet.”

An impromptu roundtable on the Afghanistan mission finds every position on the spectrum represented.

For the dean of the group, 96-year-old Arthur Cochrane, it’s a matter of respecting alliances: “If the Americans are there we should be there. If anything ever happened to us, we would lean on them.” Compatriot Jim McCann concurs on the importance of supporting the US, “because Canada’s its number one ally.”

“It’s a UN-backed war,” says First Batallion PPCLI vet Bob Venor, referring to the Security Council resolutions that sent troops in originally. “These are fighting soldiers that are in there, well trained guys – they want to go, and they’re all volunteers.”

But such sentiments have dwindled well into minority territory with this group. “Why we’re there is a wonder to me,” says Vallieres, citing prior failures of the British and Soviets to exercise control over the area. “Why would anybody else get involved?” Having gone in “because they thought a lot of human rights were being abused,” he says, “now we’re finding out the people we’re trying to help are the very people that are keeping the war going.”

Branch VP Frank Stanway shares that disillusionment. “I don’t think they’ve figured out a way to win it. They don’t seem to have, because we’re still there after all this time... and we don’t seem to have done a great deal of good promoting our own image, with the Taliban making us out to be a bunch of bandits and murderers.”

Others were never on board in the first place. “My view hasn’t changed – I was against it then, I’m against it now,” says the West Nova Scotia Regiment’s Mickey Laughlin. “There’s no purpose for the war in Afghanistan – just following along with the Americans.”

Thin support on the home front doesn’t help recruitment either. “It’s hard to get the younger people,” Venor says of Afghanistan vets. “Sometimes they like to make a cut and forget about it, to say ‘I’m finished with it...’ When I came back I didn’t want anything to do with the Legion... but later on you realize, this is where you can find brothers in arms. The Legion might not exist in 20 years – a lot of them are closing. In the small towns it’s very active, but in the big towns there’s too much going on. A lot of us have reached a stage where we’re less mobile and less able to get here.”

Still roughly 200 strong, the NDG Legion remains active with youth outreach as well, with efforts at Canadian military heritage preservation, scholarships for students, awards for RCMP cadets, and sponsorship of a cadet squadron. Their hall is “a very good space” for public functions according to Vallieres, and available cheap at around $200 a night including bartending. Saturday, November 8 at 7 pm the branch holds its annual Remembrance Dinner Dance, and Sunday, November 9 at 2 pm a march to the cenotaph at Girouard Park will be followed by an open house. A second open house follows Tuesday, November 11 at 1 pm. Senior bingo is every Friday at 1:30 pm, and cribbage and darts are every Tuesday from 7 pm. The NDG Legion is at 5455 de Maisonneuve W.

Info: 514-489-9425

Pistols and blue berets?

Retired general and military historian speak out

Adam Desaulniers

This Remembrance Day will be observed by Canadians deployed abroad in over a dozen countries – many in UN contingents that wouldn’t fill a minivan. When it comes to tackling modern conflicts like the Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan, has the political expediency of Canada’s peacekeeping image left our soldiers fighting – and losing – yesterday’s war?

“The politicians who make these decisions – who decide for instance, ‘We’re going to declare the [Afghan] war over in 2011, folks’ – do not usually get challenged with the consequences,” observes military historian Desmond Morton of McGill University. “These small [UN] operations that have two guys or a sergeant and a corporal are cheap, and they can say ‘We were involved in 93% of all UN operations.’ When they want two Canadian staff officers to go to Goma or some such place, it seems like a small commitment and a little bit of profile.”

But such peacekeeping posturing excuses neglect on the ground. “Successive governments have created this myth – of both political stripes,” maintains retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, who detailed the aftermath in his recent memoir Soldiers Made Me Look Good, “because you can slash and burn the defence budget if the country is convinced that we’re just peacekeepers and we only need pistols and blue berets. Nobody much complains... Northern Uganda, the Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda, and it just went on and on and on... the only way to save money was to cut personnel.”

“Today the infantry is 2000 smaller than the Toronto Police,” he laments. “As far as the army itself goes, it really has to be rebuilt – it needs at least five years. I say it’s broken because it’s turned itself inside out. The army commanders have a horrendous challenge these days. There’s very high attrition. A lot of soldiers are on their fourth tour, and when they come home they’re only with their families for two weeks. You do that for five or six years, and your spouse looks at you and says, ‘You’d better make up your mind.’”

The theory that a peacekeeping nation does more with less takes its toll on fighting cohesion too, according to MacKenzie: “It used to be that soldiers slept, trained, and fought together for three years. Now we have units we patch together from all over the country – a lot of them are reservists. The troops call it ‘plug and play.’ And then when we bring them back they disperse.”

At the same time, much of the Forces’ infrastructure is getting outsourced. “A general told me recently he was working on his business plan,” says Morton, recounting cost-cutting efforts that required trainees to return to the mess hall mid-day rather than cook in the field. “That’s what I mean about privatization,” he says. “Generals who have to think about nickels. The military have lost all their battles in Ottawa since the early nineties.”

The Pearsonian myth has done worse than send peacekeeping-equipped soldiers to do counterinsurgency work, insists MacKenzie – it’s politicized the treatment of war dead as well. “In the Balkans when we had 27 killed and over 100 seriously injured, nobody but nobody except for the families in Canada knew about it. In fact bodies were brought back in the hours of darkness as a matter of policy, and sent to the home towns where they were buried with proper dignity and military funerals. But it sure as hell wasn’t a media event, because it was deemed – erroneously, what we were doing – as peacekeeping. But it wasn’t – it was two factions fighting each other. That was not deemed to be in Canada’s image, so there was a blackout as far as media reporting, that went on for about two years.”

Warring factions with no clear lines of authority are the players in many modern conflicts, notes MacKenzie, not warring states capable of brokering a truce. “Factions don’t have a flag in front of the UN, they don’t have a delegation, and if you broker a deal with them, there’s a very good chance that you’re not even going to be able to find them... Because they’re factions. And as a result – I know people are critical of me for saying it – but when we go into missions like this now, we have to be strong enough to say to the factions: ‘Keep the peace or we’ll kill you.’ That’s the only way to control these bullies and drunks and war criminals. You can’t go in and negotiate, like you used to be able to do with countries when they went to war. Not many countries are going to war these days­.”

A case in point being Kosovo, where both experts agree Canada failed to act in its own interest. Says MacKenzie: “We got sucked into protecting a state run by a terrorist organization... Now it’s sort of a mini-state with, unfortunately, prostitution and the slave trade and drugs and foreign troops as their source of income.” Says Morton: “CNN wanted war – it wanted people to go to Kosovo for various news-type reasons, and it presented Kosovo as a shocking case of Serbian genocide on humble, beautiful and lovable Albanians. The media went along with it.”

Where opinions diverge is on the lessons to be applied to the situation in Darfur – MacKenzie favours another NATO intervention, where Morton sees more of the same, merely “a crude Sudanese attempt to put down a separatist insurrection” with bad actors on all sides.

MacKenzie believes it’s possible and necessary to secure the refugee camps. “We’re not going to put [soldiers] into Sudan and fight the Sudanese army and occupy Khartoum,” he says. “The UN decided to augment the African Union force that’s there, and that’s where General Dallaire and I have a lot of significant debate, because before he became a senator he was very much on the side of NATO forces assisting [in Darfur] but then the Liberal Party changed its mind, and decided that they’d only send some armored vehicles and a few staff officers, and it was declared that that was enough. And I still very much disagree with that.”

“The area’s so large and the force is so small, they’re spread so thin that they’re vulnerable – a number of AU troops were ambushed and killed just over a month ago. Aside from the country and the challenge, it just can’t be handled by the AU troops because they just don’t have the transportation or the communication or the means to do detailed patrolling. So we’re supporting a UN resolution and a UN mandate, but it’s frustrating in the extreme because it’s not effective.”

Both veterans still see value in Canada’s wafer-thin UN deployments. “It’s tokenism, but they’re valuable assets on the ground,” MacKenzie asserts.

Morton agrees. “They do useful work. They speak English or French – useful languages in much of Africa and elsewhere – and Canadians have a good reputation for taking these jobs seriously, and doing them pretty well. I encounter people even here at McGill who’ve met Canadians in Africa and come to Canada because of it.” And past glories continue to pay diplomatic dividends, with Canadians still counted on to get the ball rolling: “There’s a feeling that if Canada’s involved, we’ll involve others, we’ll pull the rest of the lot in.”

But foreign policy under Stephen Harper could change all that. “I don’t think he cares very much about Canada’s profile among the right-thinking people of the world, to put it mildly.”

Fading from blue to black

Kristine Berey

As the weather changes and there is more darkness than light to our days, it’s not unusual to feel somewhat grumpier or a little discouraged. Most of us carry on and get through it as best as we can. But when sadness, exhaustion and hopelessness refuse to lift, interfering with daily activities, they may signal an underlying depression.

Here is how Jason Finucan, 33, describes his bout with this illness: “For me, depression descended suddenly, like a plexiglass prison from which I could see and be seen in a world I could no longer touch, smell or feel.” This dark mood could last for months, then lift suddenly, he says. “When depressed, all of my basic physical, emotional and cognitive abilities were severely muted so that everyday life ranged from difficult to impossible.” Finucan, who had experienced heart surgery, says the complete loss of joy he had felt made his operation seem like “a trip to the dentist” in comparison. “I have never experienced anything more painful or daunting or terrifying, before or since.”

This chronic condition ranges from mild to severe, touching approximately 1 in 10 Canadians within their lifetime. In 2007, over 27 million prescriptions for antidepressants were filled across the country. According to the World Health Organization, depression will become the second leading cause of disability worldwide by 2020.

The problem with depression is that it may worsen if it is ignored – which is a pity, since there are many forms of help available in the community if one is informed.

To raise awareness, the CSSS Cavendish is organizing a free “Singing the Blues” concert on Wednesday, November 26. Award-winning singer and songwriter Rob Lutes will be on hand to lift spirits with his soulful, bluesy ballads.

Before the concert, community organizations will display information on the services they offer for those living with mental illness and to their families. Psychiatrist Floriana Ianni will speak on how to distinguish a passing phase of “the blues” from clinical depression and Jason Finucan will share his insights in navigating this sometimes crippling disease.

The event begins at 6 pm at River’s Edge Community Church, 5567 Cote-St-Antoine.

Running their own lives

St. Patrick’s Square tea party (photo: Georgia Remond)

Marilynn Vanderstaay

On a Sunday afternoon in October, residents of St. Patrick’s Square enjoyed an autumn tea organized by the St. Patrick’s Square Seniors Recreation Association. The next afternoon a group of knitters at Place Kensington finished blankets, scarves, and mittens they will present to Father Emmett Johns of Dans la Rue on November 12.

At Manoir Westmount, resident volunteers are organizing a bazaar that annually supports 10 local charities.

Outside volunteers are crucial at residences like St. Margaret and Father Dowd. But at independent residences it’s tenants who plan social events and fundraisers.

Residents at St. Patrick’s Square prepare their own meals in their apartments. While the administration organizes programs including speakers and events, the tenants have created a recreation association that organizes social activities and other inside events.

The association coordinates mixed pool tournaments, dinner dances, line dancing, and religious services, based on suggestions from tenants, and informs them through a monthly calendar.

The committee meets monthly assess, but to consider suggestions – and complaints – from the residents. “We consider each idea,” said Rita Halliday, secretary of the committee. “And then we look at its feasibility. An overnight trip was not very practical for us, but a Chinese food takeout dinner was.”

A Christmas dinner with two sittings, a New Year’s Eve party and a Christmas Fair are all in the works.

At Place Kensington retired social workers Miriam Berger and Elinor Cohen realized the residents were not socializing outside of planned events by the program department. And they realized many of them were knitting alone in their apartments. So they invited the women to meet one afternoon a week to knit together over a cup of tea. Today the women enjoy fellowship that has extended to knitting with the McGill Knitters and students from Westmount Park Elementary School. Residents on the assisted living floors are able to participate as well by helping wind balls of wool.

Other activities at Place Kensington include a Saturday international movie afternoon, a welcoming committee and a talent show.

Dewey the cat loved books and book lovers

Vicki Myron and Dewey

Molly Newborn

Last week I wandered into Studio City’s Bookstar bookstore in Los Angeles, California, where I reside and was directly drawn to a picture of a beautiful bright orange cat looking straight back at me on the cover of a book called Dewey.

I have many wonderful books on the shelves at home waiting in line to be read, but there was something about the way this cat was looking at me that told me I had to learn of his story.

This is the true story of a library cat in the small town of Spencer, Iowa. One bitterly cold January morning in 1988, Vicki Myron, director of the Spencer Public Library, found a near frozen kitten shaking uncontrollably in the book return box. His frostbitten paws didn’t stop him from hobbling over to each member of the library staff to show them his gratitude for saving his life. They named the kitten Dewey, after Melville Dewey.

This is the story of Vicky Myron, a single mother who survived an alcoholic husband and numerous medical hurdles including breast cancer. This is the story of a woman who persevered through the toughest of times. This is the story of The Spencer Public Library, and the humble town of Spencer, in farm country Iowa that had suffered a major economic downturn during the farm crisis of the 1980’s.

Did you know that it is a common practice for libraries and used bookstores to adopt homeless cats? Dewey was adopted by the town of Spencer and called the library his home for over 19 years. He won the hearts of the staff and the patrons not just with his good looks, but also with his ability to know who needed him most. He soon became the most famous resident of Spencer. As word spread of this lovable library cat in the local newspapers and radio so did his fame to the nearby towns, then states, then all over the country and the world.

Why would people travel all the way from Japan to meet a cat? How can a friendly feline touch the lives of countless people around the world? You’ll just have to read this New York Times bestseller to find out! I am the self-proclaimed slowest reader in the world. I polished off this book in just a couple of nights. I even tried to slow down my reading, to stretch out and enjoy every Dewey moment. I read while sipping my hot chocolate at Starbucks, laughing out loud and then choking back my tears. Myron writes the story of Dewey with heart, humor, and sincerity. This book is for anyone who has been blessed with the love of an animal, and for everyone else who has yet to know this love.

Housebound seniors can stay active

Craig Cormack

Icy roads make walking treacherous for seniors during the winter months. Many of you find yourselves housebound and lacking the outdoor activity you get easily in better weather. But staying in shape at home is possible by doing a few targeted exercises. Pump up your health with a little determination and a small investment in time and equipment.

Strength, stamina, balance and flexibility are the cornerstones of any health program. As you age you may lose strength, balance and some flexibility in the extremities and joints. You may find yourself easily winded because you don’t get enough cardio training.

Strength exercises usually consist of resistance training using weights, floor exercises and swimming or water aerobics. Basic leg lifts using leg weights (which can be purchased at Canadian Tire) are good training for the quadriceps. Dumbbells can also be used to strengthen your arms (biceps). Exercise elastics (used in Pilates) are useful for resistance training.

To improve stamina a treadmill excellent choice, however a more economical alternative is to purchase a rebounder which is a small trampoline. According to NASA rebounding is 68% more efficient than jogging. There are many benefits to bouncing up and down which include: fighting fatigue, relieving neck, back and head pain, improving blood circulation and oxygen flow and promoting weight loss.

To work on improving your balance try the following exercise.

Stand perpendicular to a kitchen chair with its back facing you. Hold on to the back of the chair with your right hand for support.

Make sure your feet are side by side and a shoulder-width distance apart. Advance your left foot ahead by two feet.

Transfer your weight by pushing your right heel down into the floor and shifting your weight over to your left leg (make sure you bend your left knee). Do not lift your right heel during the transfer.

Push down on your big left toe back through your left heel and transfer the weight back to your right foot. Repeat this weight transfer movement a number of times.

Repeat weight shifting on the other leg.

To boost upper body flexibility, try this exercise. Start with your feet together. Interlace your fingers together and stretch upward by pushing your palms up to the ceiling. Do this for 3 times and then relax.

Always warm up before you start an activity and if you feel pain or you are out of breath, take a rest. Don’t over do it and don’t forget to cool down after you exercise.

If you are experiencing any health problems such as: arthritis, heart or circulatory disease, kidney disease, lung disease or osteoporosis, or have not exercised in over a year, consult your physician before starting an exercise program. Once you have been cleared for exercise keep in mind some basics: drink a lot of water, wear comfortable clothes and proper footwear.

A few good exercises are all you need to stay in shape. Look into making them part of your daily routine.

Is your apartment too cold?

Susan J. Sokol, J.D.

Many people think that a landlord is only required to heat an apartment during a certain time of year. This is not true! If the lease provides that the landlord is responsible for heating, the temperature must be maintained at 21 degrees Celsius all year round.

For those who believe that their apartment is too cold, there are many steps that can be taken. The first is to measure and record the actual temperature of the apartment. The Rental Board recommends that a person check the temperature in his/her apartment by placing the thermometer in the centre of a room, 1 metre above the floor (for example, by placing the thermometer on a chair). It is also recommended that the temperature be measured indoors and outdoors so that the two can be compared.

After finding out how cold the apartment is, the next step would be to advise the landlord. Sending a letter by registered mail (and keeping a copy) can help a tenant prove to the Rental Board and to the City Inspectors that the landlord was informed of the problem, in case this later becomes necessary. If the problem continues, a tenant should call in the City Inspectors, file an application with the Rental Board, or both.

To file a complaint with the City Inspectors, the tenant should make another copy of the letter and mail or fax it to the borough Division des permis et inspections, with a cover letter stating that the apartment is still cold despite the fact the landlord was notified. The inspectors will then contact the landlord and ask him or her to take care of the problem. Next, the City will mail the tenant a form letter to find out if the problem is fixed. The tenant must complete the form letter and return it to the City Inspectors. The inspectors will then schedule an inspection of the building.

To find out how to contact your local City Inspectors office, call the 311 Montreal information line.

At the same time, it is also possible to file an application with the Rental Board. To start a case, the tenant can make another copy of the same letter and take it to the Rental Board office with a copy of the proof of registered mailing. The clerk helps applicants complete the paperwork at the Rental Board. On the application, the tenant can ask the Rental Board to order the landlord to provide sufficient heat, to order a rent reduction, ot to force the landlord to pay for space heaters to heat the apartment until the problem is fixed, etc.

The Rental Board is at Olympic Village, Wing D, 5199 Sherbrooke East, Unit 2095.

Because the Rental Board can take a very long time to schedule hearings for these kinds of cases, if the situation is urgent, other actions may need to be taken in the meantime. If the apartment is freezing cold with no heat at all, a tenant can try to go to the police as well as to the City Inspectors, who may contact the landlord personally about the problem. In addition, a tenant in this situation who files an application with the Rental Board should state that the situation is very urgent, and ask that the case be expedited. If, in an extreme case, it becomes necessary to abandon an apartment, it is important to first have the City Inspectors visit the premises and witness the problem. This will help in case the landlord later tries to hold the tenant responsible for the rest of the lease.

Gay seniors historically marginalized and isolated

Shannon Rose

Aging can be hard enough without being childless, estranged from family and marginalized by society.

“Until 1973, homosexuality was on the list of mental illnesses,”says Karen Taylor, Director of Advocacy and Training for SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment). “If we look at the timeline of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual) senior, a 70-year-old person would have been brought up to believe that homosexuals are sick, mentally ill, and could be institutionalized.

Taylor explained that SAGE is very important because we [as a society] pay very little attention to older people, especially minorities and the challenges they face.

“SAGE is the largest organization in the United States serving LGBT seniors,” says Taylor. “Our mission is to provide greater quality of life to the aging LGBT community and to promote positive images of LGBT life in later years.”

This past October SAGE hosted their fourth annual conference for gay seniors in NYC. The keynote address was delivered by the AARP President Jennie Chin Hansen, who discussed the spirit of inclusion. There were 75 workshops and presentations aimed at encouraging cooperation with conventional senior organizations to deal with LGBT issues.

By 2030 the number of gay seniors in the U.S. is expected to grow to an estimated 4.7 million, according to the SAGE website.Taylor emphasizes that gay boomers’ needs can only be expected to increase as their as their numbers surpass previous generations and are more accepting of their sexuality.

“LGBT seniors have different life experiences and challenges,” she says. “They are twice as likely to live alone and four times less likely to have children. Between those two things, elders are treated differently. Healthcare services assume that there is at least one person at home.” This assumption hinders the ability of gay seniors to recover after a hospital stay.

“There is a longstanding history of isolation for LGBT seniors,” Taylor notes. The attitudes with which they were raised often make it tough for them to be honest about their sexuality. This becomes a significant problem when being placed in residences where most of the residents are heterosexuals. “Their heterosexual counterparts were brought up the same way, so it’s challenging for LGBT seniors to go to regular community centers and residences without feeling ostracized.”

Montreal is home to one of very few retirement homes for gay men. Urban Home Papineau (urban-home.ca) is an autonomous and semi-autonomous residence featuring secure access, a concierge, an infirmary, and a full-service dining room. Montreal also has an English-speaking phone counseling service, Gayline, which offers support from trained volunteers about sexual orientation issues. They can be reached from 7 pm to 11 pm daily at 514-866-5090.

Candidates show at Generations breakfast

Shannon Rose

Thursday September 18, St. Viateur Bagel on Monkland was filled with morning diners. But none of the profits were going to the restaurant. Everyone who decided to buy their breakfast that morning between 6 and 10 was helping feed 7000 Montreal kids.

It would look like an average bustling restaurant if you didn’t notice the presence of Q92 and four federal election candidates – Irwin Cotler, Marlene Jennings, Anne Lagacé Dowson, and Claude William Genest.

Ironically, “Generations gets no government funding whatsoever,” according to co-founder Natalie Bercovici.

Every year St. Viateur hosts a breakfast where all the proceeds go to Generations. This year $15,000 was raised. The foundation has come a long way since it began in 1999. “It started in our basement where it was for two years,” recalled Adrian Bercovici. “Now we occupy a building on Notre-Dame and serve children in 75 schools and centers across the island.”

Kids receive breakfast, snacks or a hot lunch. “There are no limits,” Adrian said. Adrian and Natalie were inspired to start Generations because they have always felt that “an empty stomach can’t think – how can we expect them to meet the challenges of their day if they haven’t eaten?”

“All the evidence shows that kids who haven’t eaten properly don’t last till lunchtime,” said Anne Lagacé Dowson, NDP candidate for Westmount–Ville-Marie. “They can’t concentrate. The evidence is incontrovertible – a seemingly small thing can make an enormous difference.”

“I’m a big supporter of Generations Foundation,” said Marlene Jennings, Liberal candidate for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Lachine. “I thought it was important that I come and show my support.”

Staff from the Monkland RBC branch were sitting on the terrace. “Our boss told us about this cause several years ago and we love to come and show our support,” Patricia Rodriguez said. “Kids need to eat when they go to school.”

Generations runs a summer camp program for the students. “The Foundation helps send approximately 350 kids each year to summer camp,” Adrian said. “Kids go for a minimum of two weeks to two different camps where they learn various life skills. They have to make their beds, clean their area and they make friends. It’s a bridge between the end of one school year and the beginning of another.”

“We recently started a program with the Montreal Juniors [hockey] where NHL players donate money to Generations which is used to purchase tickets for Junior Hockey games,” Adrian explained.  “So far this year we’ve sent close to 350 kids to hockey games. By the end of the season, we expect several thousand kids to attend the games.”

“To help these kids we must keep them off the streets and we must definitely keep them out of metro stations, where they get into trouble with gangs,” Adrian said. “It’s all about the kids.”

Conversation with Peter Deslauriers

Kristine Berey

Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Lachine NDP candidate Peter Deslauriers says there are good reasons to vote NDP but fear is not one of them. 

“One thing that makes me very angry is the way [other parties] play on the fears of elderly people in particular,” Deslauriers says. “It’s not hard to whip up fears. It borders on the unconscionable.” He cites Harper’s “get tough on crime” policy as one example of fear mongering: “Violent crime is in fact going down.”

The current American economic upheaval doesn’t change the NDP’s vision fiscal vision. Deslauriers suggests that though there are implications for the Canadian economy, voters keep things in perspective. “Certainly none of what I said [about NDP plans] is meant short term.”

The “big-picture” issues like climate change preoccupy Deslauriers, a retired history and economics professor. He sees the NDP Cap and Trade proposal as the most efficient way to combat fossil fuel emissions. “The environment has been neglected for 20 years. We need rigorous legislation in place,” he says, describing the NDP plan that requires multinational companies to trade a limited and gradually shrinking number of carbon credits, in effect paying for the permission to pollute and being penalized if they exceed their quota. The revenue collected would promote green alternatives over time. Deslauriers rejects critics who say the plan takes too long, saying it’s a matter of months, not years. “A lot of the infrastructure to implement a Cap and Trade system already exists. There is a carbon trading centre in Montreal at Place Victoria in the old stock exchange tower.”

He criticizes Stephane Dion’s Carbon Tax. “The Liberals are relying entirely on market forces and taxing individuals regardless of their income.” Targeting “big polluters” makes sense, Deslauriers says, since 55% of emissions come from corporations, 10% from cars and 9% from home heating. There is no danger of oil prices increasing, as these are determined by world market prices in which oil companies must remain competitive. 

Provided incentives to use greener technology, these companies may discover other savings, Deslauriers says, adding that oil companies now make $20 billion a year while polluting. “The Tar Sands in Alberta need a lot of energy to extract oil, which must be heated in order to remove it from the solid material it’s embedded in.”

Deslauriers dismisses as “nonsense” Dion’s warning that NDP intentions of rest­oring previous tax levels to large corporations —“we’re talking 22%” — would be a job killer. “Since taxes were cut, has there been a benefit?” he asks rhetorically, adding that banks made $20 billion last year. 

Deslauriers says corporations benefit from the presence of government and gave as one example the hiring of skilled people trained in the public education system. He said the $50 billion in re­venues generated by restoring taxes would enable the government to better assist people.

“It’s important to recognize we know exactly where money would come from,” Deslauriers says, citing the pulling of Canadian troops from Afghanistan as another significant source, up to a billion a year.

He says the NDP supports the military but questions the nature of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, originally supposed to end by February 2007. “The presence of NATO troops makes things worse because we are essentially taking sides in a civil war — because that’s what’s going on there, like the Americans did in Vietnam. We know that when Americans withdrew, the total level of violence dropped and once [the Vietnamese] were left to resolve their own problems, they did.”

Collecting can tabs for charity

Rachel Lau

Solomon Isenberg has been collecting can tabs for Mount Sinai hospital for the last six years.

“I’m giving back as a senior citizen,” Isenberg, 90, said of his charitable contribution. He takes these can tops to the Mount Sinai Hospital where they are sent to an aluminium factory, weighed and converted to their cash value. They are then given back to the hospital in order to buy walkers, canes and “whatever they need for handicapped people,” Isenberg said.

His collection is up to 3000 can tabs, which he will bring to “the fellow that works in the food court,” to be sent to the hospital. 

“I don’t have a car anymore, so sometimes they have to come and take them from me,” Isenberg said. “Everybody recognizes me. A lot of them are patients too.”

Living in Côte St-Luc since 1966, Isenberg has kept himself busy. He has been a member of the Côte St-Luc Seniors Men’s Social Club for the last 18 years. He attends the weekly meetings and the end of month breakfasts. He collects around 50 can tabs a day.

To help Solomon Isenberg with his collection of can tops, go to Cavendish mall food court or the Côte St-Luc Seniors Men’s Social Club and he’ll surely be there to accept donations.

Fighting for children’s rights runs in the family

Marilynn Vanderstaay

EMSB school commissioner Ginette Sauvé-Frankel is not satisfied with just championing the rights of children and youth locally. A year into her second term, her efforts are focused on Canada’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and creation of a Children’s Commissioner for Canada.

Sauvé-Frankel’s life has been dominated by her passion for children’s rights since she herself was a child. “[As] a grade five student at boarding school I witnessed a little girl who had been tied to a chair by the teachers and was just crying. I couldn’t believe what I saw and I can still see her there sobbing. I don’t know what was worse, seeing her tied to the chair or realizing I had not done anything to try to stop it,” she recounts.

Sauvé-Frankel grew up in a family actively involved in social changes in Quebec, particularly those concerning education. Her grandfather was Arthur Sauvé, MNA for Two Mountains and leader of the Quebec Conservative Party before becoming a federal politician and later Postmaster General and Senator. Her father, former Quebec premier Paul Sauvé, was also the first ever Minister for Social Welfare and Youth, and her mother Luce Pelland was president of the Conservative party in Quebec in the 1960s.

Sauvé-Frankel was studying fine arts at the Ecole des Beaux Arts when she met and fell in love with one of her professors, celebrated photographer Hugh Frankel, 25 years her senior. The two would later marry and raise two sons.

After pursuing a career in the arts and completing an MBA at Concordia, Sauvé-Frankel settled down to run her own graphic design business. What altered her career path was an exhibition in 2003 featuring her family’s heritage of service to the province, which prompted her to think about how she too could make a difference.

Shortly after, longtime School Com­missioner Joan Rothman told Sauvé-Frankel she was retiring, and encouraged her to run for the position.

Sauvé-Frankel ran an effective campaign and won with a strong majority. She spent the first year getting to know the schools and finding out specific needs. As an advocate of literacy, she became particularly involved in trying to increase librarians’ hours. “I didn’t see the sense of pouring money into books in libraries if there wasn’t a trained librarian available at all times to teach the students how to use it.”

Sauve-Frankel has been on the board of the Quebec English School Boards Association for the last five years, and is the commissioner who introduced the inspiring Roots of Empathy program to inner city schools. The Vancouver-born program brings 3- to 4-month-old infants into the classroom in monthly sessions with a trained facilitator, who helps students learn about child development firsthand over a nine-month period. The results are impressive, reducing levels of aggression among students by increasing social competence and empathy skills.

Looking back, Sauvé-Frankel can credit her own unhappy school experience with motivation to help ensure it’s not repeated for others. “I’ve become a fierce defender of children,” she says, “giving them the voice that little girl in the boarding school didn’t have.”

The unusual suspects

Kristine Berey

Almost daily there is a new report linking chemicals in our everyday environment to cancer, from our shower curtains to the canned food we eat. This illness has been steadily on the rise since the 1950s.

Consider these facts, published by Health Canada and Canadian cancer agencies in 2004:

• In the 1930s, 1 in 10 Canadians could expect to develop cancer over their lifetime.
• By the 1970s, that number was 1 in 5.
• By 2004, 1 in 2.4 Canadian men and 1 in 2.7 Canadian women may be diagnosed with cancer.

Over 23,000 chemicals are present in Canadian industrial and consumer goods such as pesticides, cleaning products, food, personal care products and plastics. Not all chemicals in all products have been tested adequately, as even when safe levels are established for a substance, time or length of exposure and interaction with other chemicals is not always taken into account.

The good news is that as public awareness grows, the rules change. Health Canada is in the process of compiling a "hotlist" of suspected toxins. And cosmetics companies must now declare the ingredients that make up their products.

For now a consumer's best defense is to read the label. Here are a few substances to avoid, from the Cancer Smart Guide published by Vancouver's Labour Environmental Alliance Society and available locally from from Breast Cancer Action Montreal:

• Bisphenol-A, an endocrine-disrupting chemical present in plastic bottles and containers identified by the number 7 in the recycling triangle symbol on the bottom.
• Benzyl Violet, also listed as Violet 2 or 6b, is a colouring in various products including nail treatments, and a possible human carcinogen according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
• Coal tar derivatives, present in products such as hair dye.

Although the link between dark hair dyes and cancer has been debated, a study published in the International Journal of Cancer (2004) stated that "in women, use of rinse-type hair dye was associated with a modestly elevated risk of bladder cancer." According to the Cancer Smart Consumer Guide, a 2001 California study found that longer-term use of hair dyes increased the risk of bladder cancer in hairdressers, who were five times more likely to develop the illness after working for 10 years or more.

More info is available from the Breast Cancer Action Montreal website at bcam.qc.ca or by calling 514-483-1846.

Canada 55+ Games celebrate

On your marks! Senior competitors get read to rumble at opening ceremonies (photo: Gary Black)

The 6^th annual Canada 55+ Games wrapped up in Dieppe, New Brunswick August 31, with a record 1503 participants competing in 20 categories, from track and field, swimming, and hockey to more sedentary activities such as cribbage, scrabble, and bridge.

Athletes of note included Florence Storch of Alberta, javelin gold medalist in the women's 90+ competition, and Doreen Erskine of Saskatchewan, silver medalist in the women's 85+ shot put.

Formerly the Canada Senior Games, the event was renamed in 2006 due to "too many participants complaining about being called 'Senior!'"

Info on next year's games will be available at 506-382-2008 or canada55plusgames.com.

Goldilocks goes mattress shopping

Bonnie Sandler

When I moved into my condo I decided to treat myself to a new mattress. There was nothing really wrong with my old mattress but it was 10 years old and I had it topped off with a memory foam pad. I disliked having the foam topper separate from the mattress so off I went mattress shopping.

I visited a few locations of a major mattress chain, did some web research and followed the advice of salespeople. I was torn between the semi-firm and the plush model. I was told that as a side and occasional stomach sleeper, I'd be better off with a firm mattress. I specifically said I didn't want a mattress that retains body heat.

Each mattress comes with a warranty, but if there is any stain or tear it voids the warranty even if defective. The only way to have the warranty upheld is to buy a protection plan. I opted out.

Many stores guarantee the best price and will undersell any competitor on an identical bed. But manufacturers rename the mattresses for different stores so comparison shopping is almost impossible.

After a few nights of poor sleep, the verdict was in on my new mattress. I hated it. It was way too firm. I needed a mattress that relieves pressure points. This one didn't. On returning to the store, the softer model felt good, but how can one know after just minutes of lying on it? You're only allowed one comfort exchange, What would happen if I hated the second mattress too?

There were no marks on my first mattress and I was able to exchange it for $35. I talked myself into loving the softer mattress the first few nights. But who was I kidding? It was way too soft. I was beginning to feel like Goldilocks. It was impossible to turn around in the bed without being fully awake since it required sitting up to do so. No matter how I slept I ended up down in the sagging middle which felt like a steam bath. After sha­ring my problem with customer service, I was sent an inspector, who after one glance at the mattress declared it to be defective.

Back to the mattress store. Not wanting to take chances this time, I opted for the newest mattress – full latex, no springs – and took the middle model, semi-firm. My full-body pain disappeared within a couple of nights. But the upgrade cost close to $600.

After a few weeks of sleeping on a latex mattress I can say that it's as cool as promised. However, I began to notice a sag in the middle and began experien­cing lower back pain. Thinking I was going mattress crazy, I took a long, straight wooden stick and performed my own inspection. Sure enough, the stick did not lie flat across the middle of the bed. At this point I would do anything to have my old mattress back.

I phoned customer service and was told the inspector would contact me in a week. A week later I left a voice message. After finally speaking with customer service I was told that there was no record of my request. I sent off a cranky e-mail to customer service and with the aid of a store manager I was offered an immediate exchange. Now it's a matter of deciding whether to just switch it for the same brand or go with a different make and model. The online reviews are very mixed for all brands, and difficult to read when sleepy and in pain.

I've never felt so confused about a purchase, worried about making a choice with such impact on my quality of life. My helpful store manager told me she'd try to work something out to my satisfaction and get back to me early next week. So the story ends in suspense. If it doesn't all work out I may end up sleeping on the floor.

Kids having kids

Natacha Tremblay

Claire (not her real name) is 16. In two months, she will graduate from high school at the top of her class. This summer, she will travel abroad on an internship with Doctors without Borders. In September, she will begin studying Pure and Applied Science at Dawson. In October, she will give birth to a baby boy.

"I've always been more mature than most people my age so I don't see a problem with having a baby," Claire says. "The way I see it, if I start having kids early, I finish having kids early too and I'm not too old and ugly to have fun by the time my kids go away to college."

Claire says she is going to work as the manager of a Shell gas station and move out of her house to marry her boyfriend, who is 26, as soon as possible.

According to Angela Freeman, a pediatric psychologist, the phenomenon of teens wanting to become parents is neither a new trend nor a rare one.

"I've dealt with cases where 12-year-olds came to me, telling me they felt they were ready to become parents," Freeman said. "Most of them don't go through with it, but sometimes it happens." Freeman explained that this usually appears when a child did not have a real family life, or had a bad one. Having an older significant other is also a reason teens may resort to having children. She says that being involved with an older person and trying to keep the relationship interesting is a lot of pressure.

"Teens often agree to do things per the demand of their older significant other, but the drastic decision of having a child at 15 or 16 usually indicates that the person has extremely advanced emotional dependency," Freeman said. "The most likely scenario is that these teens have never felt loved by anyone until they met this man or woman and they are not willing to give that up."

Claire, who is already four months pregnant, says she decided to have a baby because she felt it was the right time in her life. Her parents say the young girl never showed any signs of emotional instability and claim they were not aware she had been dating an older man for over a year.

"I knew they wouldn't approve of my boyfriend and that they wouldn't approve of me having a baby, that's why I didn't tell them," Claire said. "It has nothing to do with me being ashamed. I am so proud of being pregnant. It's the only good thing that's ever happened to me." After meeting Claire, Freeman says she is not surprised by her decision. She was an overachiever being run into the ground.

"Often, overachieving teens feel like the love of their parents depends on their achievements and they seek the unconditional love a child will give them," Freeman said. "They feel the need to start a family so that they can avoid making the same mistakes with their children that they feel their parents made with them."

Freeman says teens will continue having children younger and younger as family values disintegrate in North America due to the lack of family bonding or parental presence in a child's life. "I was never very close to my parents and I really want to be very close to this baby," Claire said. "I want to be like the Gilmore Girls with my son. Yeah, that would be nice."

Chinatown belongs to everyone

photo: Rachel Lau

Rachel Lau

Chinatown, the place to discover Asia in Montreal.

At least, that’s what I thought until I found out that the small streets near metro Place d’Armes no longer accommodate only Chinese, but are filled with Montrealers of all backgrounds itching for an oriental experience.

“On some days there’s a half and half mix,” says Kico, an employee at Commerce Chung Fung. “But I have mostly Caucasian customers.”

They are attracted to Chinatown by the current craze in Japanese fashion and cartoons. There’s no better place to buy jewellery, clothing, books and more, directly from Japan, Taiwan and Korea.

“There are somany white Harajukus, Bishies and Otakus,” he says – Harajuku and Bishie are two styles of Japanese dress, while Otaku is a derogatory term for someone obsessed with Japanese cartoons. Outside the Japanese community people seem to be proud to call themselves Otaku. “It’s odd to see French kids wearing J-Rock outfits. Mainly they buy plushies, stickers, Japanese dramas and posters with Naruto or Final Fantasy on them.”

The first time I went to Chinatown, two of my friends took me to a small café called L2. For someone who was brought up in a traditional Chinese family, I have to say that for once in my life, I had no idea what I was eating. This is because some restaurants have had to westernize their menus to accommodate Western diners.

“They always want to eat General Tao Chicken,” notes Xiu-Lan, a waitress at Magic Idea. “Sometimes they bring their Asian friends and even they ask for General Tao. It’s funny, because we’ve westernized Asian children.”

The original dish is General Tso’s Chicken, dating back to the 1600’s Qing dynasty. The modified version is a popular dish introduced to North America in the early 70s as an example of Hunan and Szechuan-style cooking. Unlike our beloved sweet, honey-covered General Tao Chicken, traditional Hunan meals are quite spicy and not very sweet.

Xiu-Lan says that the influx of Westerners into Chinatown is good for business. “Every day I get more and more Caucasians coming in. They come here to try something different. Like bubble tea, they don’t know what it is and they come here to find out.”

One amusing result of the intermingling is the sight of non-Asians fluent in Chinese or Japanese addressing us in our “mother” tongue and getting nowhere, since some of our families haven’t spoken it in generations. Montrealers, thinks Xiu-Lan, are exceptionally open to other cultures and quick to adopt some of their features. “People who come from Asia dress like Caucasians and try to fit into the society. But people from here are trying to find something different so they can stand out. I think it’s definitely a good change.”

Today’s Chinatown, like much of the city, has become less an ethnic enclave than a multicultural marketplace. For those who haven’t been lately, it’s worth a trip to see the change firsthand.

Larry's Shoes closes after 68 years

Al Levy

Byron Toben

Larry's Shoes, a fixture on Queen Mary since 1940, closed its doors on August 31.

Back in the 1920s, Alan Levy's grandfather, a recent immigrant to Montreal, founded M. Levy Shoes on St-Laurent near Napoleon, not far from Moishe's Steakhouse. His son Larry followed Horace Greeley's famous advice to 'go West, young man' and opened the Queen Mary location in 1940. Alan joined in 1961 and assisted until 1986, when Larry retired at the age of 86. Alan then ran the shop on his own for 22 years. Until now – truly the end of an era.

The store was always family oriented. In 1997, the focus shifted to seniors, reflecting the changing demographic of the neighbourhood. In this age of Asian imports, Al Levy reminds us that Quebec was once a center of quality shoe manufacturing with brands like Slater, Tetrault, McFarland-Lefevbre and White Cross. In the 1970s, the U.S. invaded with names like Florsheim and Brown. More than shoe offerings are disappearing with this closing. Al Levy is known in the district for his humourous schmoozing and recollections of history. Larry's was always good for shoes and sympathy, and will be sadly missed.

"Summing it up, my clients were my extended family, and many are upset. When you build up a lot of trust, it goes a long way — the handshakes and the hugs hurt. This is the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another."

Westmount--Ville-Marie spoilers like their chances

Lagacé Dowson talks with constituents Ginette Carrier and Carole Henelly

Adam Desaulniers

At press time it seems certain that the four byelections scheduled for September 8 will be canceled, and a general election called for October 14, following Thanksgiving weekend. Two Westmount—Ville-Marie candidates visited The Senior Times prior to the call, when it was still the only race in town, to talk in depth about policy differences and their shot at victory.

What emerged was a picture of unprecedented scale, presence and funding for the NDP and Green campaigns. Both have targeted the riding with an expectation of record gains, at the very least.

If there's any seat in Canada to which the Grits feel entitled without a fight, it's Westmount—Ville-Marie, red since 1962 under its former names and boundaries and home to institutions like Don Johnston and the departing Lucienne Robillard. But after the Liberals' 2006 slide to under 50% in the riding, and the stunning NDP upset in Outremont, massive resources are pouring into previously moribund campaigns, betting on the possibility of a protest vote — against the Opposition.

Much-hailed CROP and Léger numbers showing the Liberals and NDP neck and neck on the Island — at a dilute 18 and 19 percent respectively — make anything seem possible. "We saw what happened in Outremont with Thomas Mulcair last year, a supposedly untakeable Liberal bastion — it's a little bit the same kind of phenomenon," declares the familiar voice of CBC Radio Noon. "I think they have this feeling that all this time voting Liberal hasn't served them necessarily as well as they were hoping, especially with this last minority government — they voted Liberal and they've gotten a de facto Conservative majority."

If the sound is newly partisan, it's because that voice, Westmount's Anne Lagacé Dowson, has been freed from the bonds of journalism and thrown into the race on behalf of the New Democrats, aimed squarely at the Liberals' opposition record and the once-assured seat of former space chief Marc Garneau. On leave from the CBC as rotating guest hosts take her place, Lagacé Dowson puts forth a soaring critique of the Dion era: "The Liberals are not the party they once were. On 43 confidence motions they've absented themselves. People feel taken for granted by the Liberals — they didn't send them to Ottawa to pass Conservative legislation. The NDP is a party that's been steadfast in its resistance to the Harper agenda."

She discounts any concerns over splitting the federalist vote in the riding, citing Bloc candidate Charles Larivée's low-profile, barely existent campaign. She sees the meager Bloquiste vote (13% in 2006) as up for grabs and uses the phrase une perte de vitesse as an apt summation of their woes. The same lack of returns felt by longtime Liberal voters, she says, is felt among Bloc support, with a "sharing of progressive values" making her party the likely beneficiary.

On the environment, Lagacé Dowson argues that the NDP's Five-Point Green Agenda is "more all-encompassing" than the Liberals' Green Shift plan, but eschews the infamous Carbon Tax, which has been "a mixed success elsewhere" in reducing emissions. "Rather than going after people with less latitude to fix the problem," she says, the NDP Green Agenda puts the burden where it belongs — on polluters. The plan also calls for a transfer of one cent per dollar of the gas tax to municipalities, and the development of so-called "green-collar jobs" through funding and tax incentives.

Clearly more self-assured than the average neophyte, Lagacé Dowson makes the case that "journalists have made good MPs" and know how to listen. Their presentation skills are often above average as well. But what about actors? The spoiler to the spoiler is former Sirens star, current host of the cable series Regeneration: the Art of Sustainable Living, and Green Party deputy leader Claude William Genest, a veritable Gatling gun of eco-soundbites and, as a fifth-time candidate, the veteran of the race.

No "shackles and handcuffs to special interests" — Genest

No longer a contender for first Green MP, with Saturday's announcement of ex-Liberal Blair Wilson's jump to the party, Genest could nonetheless see such "momentum" — a term that comes up frequently — raise his chances even further in an especially Green-friendly area. "This is the greenest riding in Canada," he says. "Our highest numbers. Second place Green finish provincially. It's our biggest campaign in the history of Quebec, by orders of magnitude. We're the second choice of 50% of Canadians. We're the only party that's growing, nearly doubling every election. People respond to us," he professes, "because they see we're citizens looking to take responsibility, not politicians trying to take power."

With the Liberal Green Shift and the NDP Green Agenda on the table, have the Greens not been marginalized on their own issue?

"Everybody's green now. It's more of a green veneer on things." The Liberal plan, he maintains, is insufficient. "You can shift taxes till the cows come home. Without ending subsidies to Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, you're still rewarding polluters and rewarding excess consumption. Scandinavians use one-third to one-half the energy per capita we do. Why? They're not better people. They've made policy choices that make them competitive. Why aren't we at those levels? Where was Liberal green policy all those years we fell behind?"

Genest's disdain extends left as well: "I'm so disappointed with the NDP," he says. "They take Thomas Mulcair, this supposedly great passionate advocate for the environment, and what do they do with him? They make him Finance Critic just to shut him up."

NDP policy neglects innovation in his opinion. Countering the notion of giant green bureaucracy, Genest overflows with market-oriented ideas that he urges those on fixed incomes in particular to consider simply for economy's sake. Green windows, lightbulbs and appliances are just a start. The slow adoption of hybrid technology is curious to him. "My Prius gets me 45 miles to the gallon. That's money in my wallet. People talk about investment when they really mean speculation — like the stock market. This is a real investment, with returns that are guaranteed, starting right away, aside from the ecological benefits." Genest also cites leadership in "net metering" initiatives elsewhere — Germany, California, and now Ontario and BC — which require electricity providers to purchase back power generated by customers who use solar and wind installations, which feed surplus electricity back into the grid, typically at night. "It's your meter literally spinning backwards. That's money in your wallet too. Why aren't we doing this everywhere?" he posits rhetorically. "In Germany, they have to buy it back at eight times the billing rate. And guess who has the highest rate of solar-generated power in the world now?"

Reducing consumption and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy isn't just an environmental imperative but a "tremendous economic opportunity," says Genest — and an alternative to mounting ecological costs, mounting waste, and further resource extraction that won't pay off for years. "It's more of the same," he insists with evangelical fervour, "versus pots of gold under our nose tomorrow! It takes policy choices. The Green Party doesn't have the shackles and handcuffs to special interests that keep it from happening."

Election day in Montreal will hinge on the recovery of the Liberal machine and its ability to get out the vote. For the Garneau campaign to match NDP and Green efforts in this respect is a tall order. Whatever the result, Westmount—Ville-Marie constituents can count on sending a star MP to warm the benches this October.

Polling station info will be available online at www.elections.ca and tollfree at 800-463-6868.

To our Shirley Cohen on a special birthday!

Congratulations to our beloved Shirley Cohen, who celebrates her 80^th birthday September 13.

Shirley has been a devoted member of The Senior Times team for 15 years, coming out of retirement to learn and master the art of selling for a market she knows formidably well, along the way endearing herself in particular to our Members of Parliament and Members of the National Assembly.

Shirley is always positive, hard-working, and insistent on ensuring that our paper grows and prospers with every issue. We miss her dearly when she vacations in Florida for three months each year, but even from Florida she manages to stay in touch with her clients and make sure they don't miss an issue of The Senior Times.

Shirley never fails to call and check up on those in trouble and in need of a kind word of support. She has been a great and loving care giver to her husband Marvin as he has undergone serious health problems. Her eyes sparkle with love and pride as she shows us pictures of the latest brilliant moment of her youngest grandson or recounts the achievements of her older grandchildren.

Marlene Jennings, MP for Notre-Dame-de-Grace–Lachine, has these words to say about Shirley in a special message for the occasion:

"Those who know you well and are fortunate to be close to you day in and day out speak of you with great admiration and respect. Your love and commitment to family and friends never fails to impress them.

"For my part, I can vouch for the fact that you are a salesperson extraordinaire! We hear from you, in my office, as regularly as the seasons change. From what my staff tell me, you master the art of friendly persuasion. Yes, you know how to shower them initially with warmth and poetic kindness, but they know that when Shirley Cohen beckons, she has a mission, and the earth trembles! It is very difficult to turn you down!

Happy Birthday to a great and wonderful lady. We love you, Shirley. Many happy returns!"

And from each of us at The Senior Times, past and present, our warmest wishes and deepest appreciation for all the Herculean efforts, exemplary patience, and kindhearted wisdom.