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Ahmad Moujtahed

Maya Lach-Aidelbaum

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NDG

Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough residents will lose an essential service after Montreal police announced that station 11 in NDG will close and integrate into station 9 in neighbouring Côte Saint-Luc.

According to the SPVM, the integration of both police stations is for operational purposes, since the goal is to form a greater “critical mass.”

NDG borough mayor Sue Montgomery said she was disappointed to learn of the closure of  station 11, especially that the station has been “breaking barriers and building trust with residents of NDG, especially newcomers.”

The exact date of the integration of the two stations is still unconfirmed. 

Report: Divest McGill

Members of Divest McGill, a student-led activist organization, congregated around the James Administration building on Tuesday Feb.18, blocking all five entrances.

Here is Maya Lach-Aidelbaum’s report on this story. This report was created for CJLO News on Wednesday Feb 19.

Reporter: Shanellie Marie

Stories: Luca Caruso-Moro

WET’SUWET’EN 

VIA Rail has cancelled most of its routes as protests in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs continue.

It’s an expansion of earlier train closures between Toronto and Montreal after Tyendinaga protestors barricaded rail passage.       

Protestors in Wet'suwet'en territory are fighting the construction of a pipeline on their traditional territory.

The BC Supreme Court has passed an injunction barring people from blocking access to the BC legislature.

It came one day before a planned Saturday protest in Victoria to block access to government buildings.

Government security officers have been allowed to arrest people for disrupting access.

NATIONAL

About 144,000 Canadians have been victims of data breaches in the past two years

at the hands of government agencies.

According to a new report tabled in the House of Commons, the breaches range from minor mishandling to major disclosures of personal  information.

The report also did not offer a reason for the breaches.

Ahmad Moujtahed

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Quebec's Controversial Bill 40 

The Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ) has voiced its opposition to the tabling of Bill 40, the controversial new legislation that abolishes Quebec’s school boards and replaces them with service centers.

The CAQ government added a series of last-minute amendments to Bill 40. One of the amendments gives the new service centers the power to force municipalities to give up public land if its needed to build new schools.

According to the UMQ, the Government of Quebec’s approach is unacceptable, in the way the expropriation amendment was added discreetly to the bill without prior discussion with the municipalities. The union also worries what this amendment will mean for a city or town’s debt and how it will affect taxpayers.

Montreal mayor Valerie Plante said this is something that was thrown on mayors in the province. She also added that she does want more schools in the city but wants to work with the Quebec government to make it happen.

Wet’suwet’en Protests

Protests over the Coastal GasLink pipeline project continue to grow.

After the B.C. Supreme Court granted Coastal GasLink an expanded injunction against the Wet’suwet’en Nation members who were blocking access to the project, tensions started to escalate. Canadian police began enforcing the injunction last week, and have since made 28 arrests, according to BBC. 

Experts sounded the alarm on what they called “unlawful and unjust” arrests while Indigenous advocates said the conflict goes well beyond pipeline opposition: it’s a rights issue.

The ongoing conflict prompted several solidarity protests across Canada. In Ottawa, Indigenous youth and supporters gathered just blocks from Parliament Hill on Monday and said they’ve given the federal justice minister 24 hours to respond to their demands or they’ll consider reconciliation dead.

In Quebec, Trains on Exo's Candiac line have been cancelled for two days in a row due to  protests in Kahnawake.

During a news conference in Senegal, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the blockades and said

 “We recognize the important democratic right and we will always defend it of peaceful protests. This is an important part of our democracy in Canada. But we’re also a country of the rule of law, and we need to make sure those laws are respected. That is why I am encouraging all parties to dialogue.. to resolve this as quickly as possible.” 

Even a glance at the lineup snaking around the block outside L’Olympia on a Sunday evening was enough to signal that something out of the ordinary was happening. Attendees waiting in anticipation of experimental folk band, Heilung. Fans arrived to the venue in full Norse-influenced historical attire – standing in the queue. I watched a parade of pelts, face paint, and bones march around me. A pair of show-goers close to me carried a massive pair of moose antlers. Clearly, this was not going to be just a concert, but an event.

Of German, Danish and Norwegian roots, Heilung has won a large and feverishly dedicated fan following for their unique sonic and aesthetic style – they’ve coined a new term for their unique brand of Nordic revival music, calling it “amplified history”. Their work uses traditional hide drums, bone horns, clay rattles, and antique spiritual items. They sing lyrics in a blend of ancient languages, sometimes quoting old Norse runic poetry. The name Heilung (German for “healing”) speaks to the ideals of the group. The listener should be left in a state of meditative relaxation, lulled by purposefully repetitive chants. 

This is Heilung’s first-ever North American tour, and it is a long-awaited one. The group began selling out dates as soon as they were announced. They performed songs from  their latest musical offering, 2019’s Futha. Heilung’s live shows bear a reputation for being much more than just concerts. In fact, they are referred to as “rituals”, and feature all the theatricality that title suggests.

A reverent, almost spiritual, energy pervaded the space even before the show began (half an hour late, to accommodate the massive lines outside). The stage, draped in smoke, featured an arrangement of percussion, bones, and bare branches, with a large hide drum hung from a wooden frame as the centrepiece. The crowd, already buzzing, howled like wolves as a hooded figure appeared on stage. Silence fell as the figure wafted incense across the room to signal the beginning of the ritual. The members of Heilung – German vocalist Kai Uwe Faust, Danish producer Christopher Juul, and Norwegian folk singer Maria Franz, and others – filed out onto the stage, dressed in hides and antlers, sombre and mysterious. They began the show with their trademark call-and-answer group invocation, and the crowd shouted the words back at them wholeheartedly.

And then the symbolic drum glowed red, and the ritual began. 

I have not seen a crowd with so few cell phones visible in recent years, nor have I stood in an audience so raptly transfixed. It was difficult to do much besides stand and witness as Heilung led the crowd into their Bronze Age fantasy. The night was filled with pounding drums, smoke and even flame at one point. Faust’s hypnotic throat singing, blended with Franz’s powerful howls and delicate falsetto, cast a trance-like spell. The stage was invaded at points with warriors sporting shields and spears, and everything from a mock ritual sacrifice to a fire dance with flaming antlers was summoned forth by the horned performers. True to their reputation, Heilung delivered a show that was both sonically and aesthetically unforgettable. (Even if it did seem to lack direction at points – but then again, perhaps this is intentional, as the group does not wish to emulate any particular religious or political affiliation). 

By the time the light behind the ritual drum faded and the ritual was closed with incense once more, the audience had been taken on a 90-minute journey to a completely different time and place. Unfortunately, the popularity of the group meant that the crowd was jolted back into reality by an incredible bottleneck leaving the venue (definitely the biggest and most frustrating negative point of the evening). But, even with the logistical nightmare of leaving the theatre, the mood amongst show-goers was largely positive and reverential. “I feel like I just witnessed something really special,” said the woman standing next to me in the crowd as we left. It’s true that I had never seen anything quite like it. Heilung had succeeded at amplifying history for us for the evening, and the reverberations of their ritual lasted well beyond the set length.

Renita Bangert is the host of 5 Songs With…, the talk show that’s part music history, part trivia, and part play-along mystery. Tune in each week to listen to 5 different songs and explore the unexpected ways they connect. Tuesdays at 3PM EST, on CJLO 1690AM!