In Ottawa’s Byward Market bronzed and well-bellied French Canadian men, all stripped to the waist, sit on white, plastic chairs. Glistening in the sun, they all sport a money belt—as if a military armband of belonging– around the sweat-damp rim of their colourful shorts. Each pouch containing the treasures and necessities of the individual man—cigarettes, suntan lotion, peanuts, an unexpected transistor radio or photograph of a granddaughter.
