News

Community involvement was the theme of Thursday’s Youth Action Montreal conference. Hundreds of Concordia students and Montrealers gathered at Palais des Congres to hear from keynote speakers about the economy, climate change and the AIDS pandemic. Speakers like David Suzuki, Stephen Lewis and Craig Kielburger offered suggestions for way to start making a difference in the world, starting at home.

A Quebec company is looking to launch a new pay by the minute car sharing service in Montreal.

Communauto is hoping the success of the Bixi bikes in Montreal will translate to a success in the car sharing business. The Bixi’s and the car sharing service work similarly.

The plan is to spread about 400 cars downtown in areas like the Bixi’s. These cars could be taken without reservation or limit. After they could be parked at one of many designated parking locations, or any legal parking spot. A smartphone then helps customers looking for the nearest available car.

In a turn of events, Concordia’s Judicial Board has reversed the disqualification of Your Concordia from the CSU election. The team is now able to act as Concordia’s Student Union next year and is no longer banned from running for or holding office for two years, as prescribed in Chief Electoral Officer Oliver Cohen’s ruling. Action, however, was not so lucky. The board upheld their disqualification.

In federal election news, the Liberal and NDP parties may need to consider merging the centre left, according to one Liberal senator. Sen. Larry Campbell told reporters in Vancouver Tuesday that this may be the only solution to beating conservative leader Stephen Harper.

Campbell said that when the Conservative party merged with the Canadian Alliance in 2003, they had little in common. However, he suggested that there is a lot of agreement in the major points of both Liberal and NDP parties.

The new pay-your-own-way highway will be opened to traffic a month before an earlier target on May 20th.

It’s the highway 25 extension to highway 440, from Henri-Bourassa Boulevard East in the Rivieres-des-Prairies district of Montreal to the Duvernay district in Laval.

Despite the long protests, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is still resistant to step down. This comes after accepting a plan where his resignation would keep him from being prosecuted. While other parliament parties agree with the plan, protesters want him to step down immediately.

The Sûreté du Québec is investigating the discovery of three bodies this weekend 
on a property in the community of Ste. Florence, east of Montreal.
Police are trying to determine whether the deaths were a murder-suicide.

The bodies of a grandfather and his grandson were found on Saturday. 
The grandfather was discovered in a wooded area off a rural road, while the grandson was found in an apartment at an isolated property nearby. And on Sunday morning, police found the grandmother in a ditch along Highway 132.

Investment Management students will soon see their tuition rise. Concordia's board of Governors voted Thursday to hike tuition in three of the Goodman Institute's programs. Those include one diploma program and two Masters'.

Students will see their tuition rise $2,000. They will now pay $18,000 a year.

The Board also approved their tentative operating budget. The budget projects a $530 million increase in revenue over three years. Just less than half of that will come from tuition increases. The majority of the rest will come from increased government funding.

With the federal election less than two weeks away, party leaders are continuing to squabble about the threat of a potential coalition government.

On Thursday, Conservative leader Stephen Harper tried to distance himself from the big “c” word.

In an interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, Harper again denied claims from the NDP and Bloc Quebecois that he had been willing to ally with the two parties to seize power from the Liberals in 2004. Harper also said that if the Liberals or the NDP won the May 2nd election, he wouldn’t try to re-take power through a coalition.

The wife of former Habs captain Vincent Damphousse pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of assaulting him with a weapon. Damphousse pressed the charges against his wife, Alanna Henderson, after being himself accused of 6 counts of assault against her.

The two filed the assault charges against each other. Their accusations stem from alleged incidents that occurred in March. According to Damphousse's lawyer, the charges are linked to divorce proceedings.

Neither Henderson nor Damphousse is speaking publicly about the allegations, but both are maintaining their innocence.

Read by Sarah Deshaies

Produced by Nikita Smith

Stories by Sarah Deshaies, Marcin Wisniewski, NIkita Smith

The vote mob movement has reached Concordia University. Seventy students joined in a friendly protest at the Hall building terrace Tuesday afternoon.

Students at universities across Canada have staged vote mobs in recent weeks. The first one took place at the University of Guelph. The idea is to encourage political candidates to campaign on issues that are relevant to students. Political leaders are accused of not targeting the youth vote.

Only 37.4 per cent  of people aged 18 to 24 voted in the last federal election in 2008.