QUÉBEC UPDATE

March 9, 1995

_______________________________________________________________________________________ A selection of news from Québec published by the Ministère des Affaires internationales, de l'Immigration et des Communautés culturelles.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

COMMISSIONS ON THE FUTURE OF QUÉBEC WIND UP HEARINGS

With the exception of the special commission for older citizens, the Commissions on the Future of Québec wound up their hearings the first weekend in March and have begun writing their respective reports.

The 18 Commissions were designed to provide a public forum on the draft bill proposing that Québec become a sovereign country through the democratic process. When they have submitted their reports in two weeks, a "super commission" made up of the regional heads will present the reports to labour unions and business groups before writing its own report.

The Commissions' scoresheet shows that 388 meetings were held across Québec with 53 425 participants, 4 595 written briefs were received and 2 673 briefs were presented at the public sessions.

While the main focus was sovereignty and government, many Quebecers used the public platform to address special concerns. The commission for older citizens, for example, heard many briefs making recommendations on policy on aging, specifically on housing, income security, the right to receive services, the development of alternative housing and home services.

The special commission for young citizens (18 to 30 years of age) heard comments, among others, on tuition fees and Québec's role in NATO, NORAD and the Commonwealth.

The Montréal Council of Women, for its part, raised questions about accessibility to health care, moderately priced housing, pensions, guarantees for children's rights and maintaining immigration programs for women.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER SIGNS SIX AGREEMENTS WITH INTERNATIONAL NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of International Affairs, Immigration and Cultural Communities, Bernard Landry, acting on behalf of the Government, signed six agreements recognizing international non-government organizations (INGO) on March 6.

The organizations are the Mondial de la publicité francophone (the international French- language advertising competition), the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, the World Confederation of Productivity Science, the Conseil francophone de la chanson (the French-language council on song), and the Fédération mondiale des grands concours internationaux de vins et spiritueux (the international federation of major international wine and spirit competitions).

Under the agreements, the INGOs will enjoy the tax benefits the Québec Government offers and have more ready access to international and national financing. They will be eligible, in particular, to receive foreign government support in the form of personal loans. Most of the organizations set up their offices in Montréal with the assistance of the international conference centre corporation of Montréal.

The Québec Government has recognized 17 INGOs to date.

BOMBARDIER BUYS GERMAN RAIL-CAR FIRM

Bombardier will be in a good position to take advantage of what it considers a strong national market for transportation equipment, officials said in announcing the company will buy Waggonfabrik Talbot of Aachen, Germany for $130 million. The transaction is expected to close by the end of March.

Located near the Dutch and Belgian borders, Waggonfabrik Talbot was founded in 1838 by Johann Talbot. It produces double-deck passenger rail cars, undercarriages for passenger and freight cars and specialty freight cars for carrying commodities such as grain.

Talbot's principal markets are in the Netherlands, Germany (it recently obtained an order for light vehicles for Cologne), Switzerland and Scandinavia. It employs about 1250 people and has sales of about $300 million.

Bombardier's Eurorail division, whose headquarters are in Bruges, has plants in Belgium, Austria, France and Britain manufacturing a variety of passenger rail, tram and subway equipment as well as the cars used to transport buses and automobiles through the Eurotunnel.

GERMAN TRAM CONTRACT AWARDED TO BOMBARDIER EURORAIL

Bombardier Inc. said its Bombardier Eurorail unit in Belgium has received a $630-million order to build 15 double tramcars for the Sarre Suburban and Regional Mass Transit Authority, in Germany. The order includes an option for another 13 cars.

The articulated tramcars, to be delivered at the end of 1996, are fed with two power currents so that the cars can roll on both urban tram lines and rails. A similar system has been running in Vienna since 1989.

Bombardier-Wien Schienenfahrzeuge (BWS), Bombardier's Austrian subsidiary, will carry out the project with Bombardier Eurorail, which is headquartered in Bruges.

Bombardier Eurorail has built urban rail transport vehicles for cities such as Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne, The Hague, London and Vienna, as well as new-generation cars for the Paris subway.

ATS AÉROSPACE SELLS VIRTUAL RADAR SYSTEMS TO SWEDEN AND HOLLAND

ATS Aérospace has sold virtual radar systems to both Sweden and Holland. Integrated with screens, the system helps train air controllers in a virtual control tower. Each contract is worth about $1 million.

ATS has installed its systems in India, China, Malaysia and Austria and has delivered products to Transport Canada's Training Centre in Cornwall, Ontario, where many students from other countries undergo training.

The company has also branched out into niche products, ATS vice-president Amy Friend said. When the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) gave it the contract to repair the signal light gun controllers use to communicate with small aircraft that have no radios, ATS chose to design a better model. It has since sold "over 200 a year in the United States, not to mention Sweden and other countries."

MESA AIR GROUP OF NEW MEXICO BUYING DASH 8S

Mesa Air Group of Farmington, New Mexico, announced it intends to buy 25 Dash 8, Series 200s from Bombardier's De Havilland operation in Toronto, and to take an option on another 25.

Mesa plans to operate the planes through its Mountain West Airlines division in United Express livery between Denver and other Rocky Mountain destinations.

The twin-engine Dash 8, Series 200, which costs about US$10-million, carries 37 passengers. De Havilland will start delivering the planes at the rate of two a month next February.

U.S. PUBLICATION TOASTS DE HAVILLAND

De Havilland has become the world's first regional aircraft manufacturer to receive the American periodical Air Transport World's Technology Achievement award.

The Bombardier subsidiary was cited for products that have "evolved with the industry" at the awards ceremony in Washington. The absence of appropriate aircraft was one of the main obstacles to the expansion of the regional air transport industry in the 1960s. De Havilland improved its basic aircraft as technology evolved.

De Havilland of Toronto has build some 7400 aircraft since its founding in 1928.

NATIONAL BUYS THE CANADIAN ASSETS OF BURSON MARSTELLER

Montréal-based National Public Relations, Canada's public relations firm, and Burson Marsteller, the world's largest PR firm, have agreed to merge Canadian operations, the companies announced.

Burson Marsteller, whose head office is in New York, will transfer its Canadian assets to National and will become a minority partner in the company. National will have offices in Montréal, Québec City, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.

In exchange, National will join Burson Marsteller's network of 63 offices, including 25 in Europe and 15 in Asia and Australia.

QUÉBEC KNOW-HOW TO THE RESCUE OF PHILIPPINE DAIRY HERDS

Aghitec Canada of Laval has secured a $17-million contract to make dairy herds in the Philippines more productive.

The Québec firm will export specialized animal feed and genetic material to the Philippines to improve the physical qualities of Philippine herds, comprised of Holsteins, in order to achieve higher milk production levels within three years. Aghitec will also form a corporation called Aghitec Philippines to continue to oversee its export activities and advise local diary farmers on how to use nutritional products.

Several Québec experts and specialists have contributed to the project. Among them are the Coopérative fédérée du Québec, Université Laval and the Centre d'insémination artificielle in Saint-Hyacinthe.

SITQ IMMOBILIER ANNOUNCES ITS FIRST INVESTMENT IN THE U.S

.

SITQ Immobilier announced it is investing $33 million in real estate in Charlotte, North Carolina, a city it said is experiencing great expansion.

In partnership with the Harris Group of real estate developers of Charlotte, SITQ Immobilier is investing in two office buildings with "tremendous development potential" in the SouthPark area.

This initial investment in the United States is part of the geographic diversification strategy pursued by SITQ Immobilier, a member of the Caisse Real Estate Group, which is a unit of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the agency that invests Québec pension funds. This strategy has already been implemented in Europe and Mexico.

HYDRO-QUÉBEC'S ELECTRIC CAR TECHNOLOGY SELECTED AS FINALIST BY DISCOVER MAGAZINE

Dr. Pierre Couture, director of research at Technologies M4, a subsidiary of Hydro-Québec, has been selected as one of the finalists of the 1995 DISCOVER awards for Technological Innovation for the development of the Couture Powertrain. The concept is based on a set of four motors included in the wheels of a car and powered by a battery linked to a generator- motor, all computer-controlled.

The finalists were chosen from almost 4 000 innovators in seven categories, from around the world. Among other finalists in the Automotive and Transportation category are Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corporation.

Winners and finalists will be on prominent display at DISCOVER Magazine's interactive showcase at Innoventions, a new pavilion at Epcot '95 in Florida.

HIGH PERFORMANCE FROM HYDRO-QUÉBEC'S GENTILLY-2 NUCLEAR POWER STATION

Gentilly-2, Hydro-Québec's 675-megawatt nuclear power station near Trois-Rivières, recorded the highest performance levels of all CANDUs in Canada in 1994, with a capacity factor of 97.26 percent. It should rank 6th or 7th in the world. This performance, the best in the station's history and a source of pride to the company, also brought in additional revenues of some $10 million.

Gentilly-2 has surpassed other performance records in the areas of industrial safety, simulation training and labour relations as well.

THE MICROTURBINE, A QUÉBEC INNOVATION IN HYDROELECTRICITY

Two young Québec engineers, Normand and Robert Lévesque, have developed a microturbine capable of producing between 20 and 100 kWh with a flow of as little as a cubic metre of water a second.

According to the Montréal daily Le Devoir, the microturbine means it is not necessary to build a dam on a waterway and thereby impede the migration of fish to and from their spawning grounds. The microturbine also costs less (between $50 000 and $250 000 for a turnkey installation) and is less polluting than current diesel turbines, is easily installed and makes less noise than a small waterfall. Fabricated in moulded polyurethane, it will last 25 years.

The Lévesque brothers created a small business called Microturbines Technologies Inc. last summer to fabricate and market their product. Nouveler, a subsidiary of state-owned Hydro- Québec, has acquired 33 percent of the Boisbriand company.

Microturbines Technologies Inc.'s initial target market is outfitters and isolated mining and logging camps in various regions of Québec. But several foreign countries such as Costa Rica have already expressed an interest. This Québec invention could be a godsend to developing countries and the ecologically-minded because villages with several hundred homes with basic electrical needs could be electrified at low cost.

BABY'S FIRST SKIS

Pushing a baby stroller through winter's snow and slush is tough slogging. Now Québecers can snap on Sherbrooke engineer Paul Lambert's recent invention, BB-Skis, and off they go!

The two-piece moulded plastic skis, which retail for about $28, can be lengthened or shortened to fit the stroller's wheels. Each ski attaches to the stroller with an elasticized cord and plastic clamp.

BB-Skis are available at two hardware chains and baby-goods retailers in Québec, and at selected baby shops in Ontario, Vermont and New Hampshire. Consumers snapped up 13 000 pairs out of a production run of 16 000 this winter. The company's focus for next year is finding a national retailer and then moving into the American market, said Linda Setlakwe from BB-Skis' Montréal sales office.

SEVEN INTERNATIONAL AWARDS FOR THE DAILY LE DEVOIR

The Montréal daily Le Devoir won seven awards at the 16th annual competition of the Society of Newspaper Design (SND), an international association dedicated to promoting better design in daily newspapers and information magazines. Some 300 publications entered the competition this year.

Le Devoir won the coveted Overall Design award in the category of dailies with a press run of under 50 000. It also received the gold medal for its Saturday Les Arts section, a silver medal for a special section of the national public administration school (ENAP) and another silver medal for its front page the day after the solar eclipse in May 1994.

Lucie Lacava, who redesigned the paper, and Roland-Yves Carignan, the current artistic director, won silver and gold respectively for the presentation of a portfolio of several of the daily's pages. Christine Houde received an award for the typographic excellence of her page Formes.

PRIX QUÉBEC-PARIS GOES TO SERGIO KOKIS

The 35th Prix Québec-Paris has been awarded to Sergio Kokis for his first novel Le Pavillon des miroirs published in Montréal by XYZ. Kokis received the Prix de l'Académie canadienne- française and the Grand Prix de Montréal in November for the same work.

The 50-year-old author recounts his "tumultuous" childhood and youth in the Brazil of the 1950s in Le Pavillon des miroirs. The jury praised Kokis' "simple and effective narration" and the quality of his prose.

Sergio Kokis was born in Rio in 1944 and immigrated to Québec in 1970 following a stay in Europe. After earning a doctorate in clinical psychology at Université de Montréal, he taught until 1975 when he began working part-time at a children's hospital and devoting himself to painting and writing.

The Prix Québec-Paris will be presented officially in April at the Salon du livre de Paris. Created in 1958 as the Prix France-Canada, this literary award became the Prix Québec- Paris in 1982. Its first winner was Anne Hébert for Les Chambres de bois. It has since been awarded to Yves Thériault, Antonine Maillet, Réjean Ducharme, Michel Tremblay and Paul Zumthor, among others.

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL BEGINS TWO-YEAR EUROPEAN TOUR

After entrancing North America and Asia, the Cirque du Soleil's Saltimbanco has begun a two- year European tour of over 600 performances. It opened in Amsterdam on March 9.

The show will play in 12 cities in Holland, Austria, Germany, England, Belgium, Denmark and France. It premiered in April 1992 in Montréal and subsequently visited 12 North American cities before playing Tokyo for six months in 1994.

Alegria will have a similar five-year lifespan, a Cirque spokesperson indicated. It will be performed in Japan in 1996 after a two-year tour of North America. Alegria will then replace Saltimbanco in Europe in 1997-98.

QUÉBEC CIRCUS PERFORMERS HONOURED IN BELGIUM

Three students at l'École nationale du cirque de Montréal, Québec's fully-accredited circus school, won bronze prizes at the 9th Festival de cirque "La Piste aux espoirs" in February in Tournai, Belgium. Fifty-seven "rising stars" from 18 countries participated in the festival.

Mercédes Chénard won a third place for her contortionist act, while Samuel and Laurence Tétreal won for their hand-on-hand balancing act.

QUÉBEC CHOREOGRAPHER INVITED TO LA SCALA

Jean Grand-Maître is the first Québec choreographer to be invited to stage one of his works at the prestigious La Scala Theatre in Milan. Il Mastio degli Angeli (Vigil of Angels), created for the theatre's ten-member contemporary dance group, will premiere on April 26.

Il Mastio degli Angeli focuses on an elderly woman nearing death. The angels around her recount her life in a series of scenes lasting 75 minutes.

The former dancer from Aylmer has created a dozen short choreographies for the National Ballet of Canada of Toronto, the British Columbia Ballet of Vancouver and the Pennsylvania Ballet of Philadelphia. Frames of Mind, a recent choreography for the National, was a critical success in Toronto and at the Nijinsky International Festival in Hambourg. It was there that La Scala's artistic director, Elisabetta Terabust, first saw Grand-Maître's work and invited him to Milan.

- 30 -

Janet Pernaa Coulombe, MAIICC (Québec), Direction des communications, Tel.: (418) 649- 2345