Volume 45, Issue 7

Volume 45, Issue 7 • January 14, 2025 • thelinknewspaper.ca

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CONCORDIA’S INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION SINCE 1980

News Q&A with ConU President p.5

Fringe Arts Meet ConU's Spider-Man p.9

Sports New men's hockey starting goalie p.11

Opinions Feeding students mould for gold p.13

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Over 250 students have petitioned for a special general meeting of all Concordia Undergrad students. The meeting is to vote on the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement (BDS) at Concordia.

Students are demanding Concordia: disclose, divest, defend, and declare.

View the motions here!

Bring your student ID or proof of enrollment to vote.

Save the date! The location will be announced soon!

Follow @CSU_Campaigns for the location reveal, more info about the SGM, and all things related to Concordia student activism!

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Reggies gets a facelift

QUICKIES

New menus, decor and cocktails bring in increased student clientele Geneviève Sylvestre

A

fter a complete redesign, new menus and longer opening hours, Concordia University’s student bar, Reggies, is reshaping its image. This comes after years of financial controversy.

Operations manager Alex Rona said that Reggies’ old sterile interior was one of the main reasons why the bar was no longer appealing to students.

“It had to be done,” Rona said.

“The whole place was neglected and we needed to bring it up to par to get to that next step of Reggies.”

Over the summer, the space was fully remodelled. Rona and the managing team replaced some of the old furniture and worked with local artists to decorate the restaurant and bathroom walls. According to Rona, they plan to add more to the space in the future.

In 2011, the student bar was deemed “un-auditable” by an accounting firm and separated from the Concordia Student Union (CSU) in 2015 to become a solidarity cooperative.

In 2023, Reggies faced another financial crisis after taking out loans to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.

@gen.sylvestre “In 2023 when I [first] started, it became pretty apparent within, like, a week that Reggies was not going to be able to reopen in September of 2023 if it didn't get a bailout,” said Eduardo Malorni, the current general manager of Reggies who was hired to evaluate the bar’s finances in 2023.

According to CSU general coordinator Kareem Rahaman, Reggies approached the student union and asked for a sum of money to stay afloat. After an uncertain future, Reggies was able to reopen for the 202324 school year and effectively broke even by the end of the academic year.

Reggies financial reports from June to October 2024 show that the bar turned a profit for two out of the three months provided for the fall semester. According to Malorni, they are on track to end the school year in the green.

Reggies is now open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and hosts several events from Tuesday Trivia to Thirsty Thursday, with DJs and discounted drinks. For Rona, that diversity in offerings is important to make all kinds of students feel welcome at Reggies.

“We want Reggies to be the number

one spot for events on campus,” Rona said. “It's really creating that community on campus, which I think is really vital to your university experience.”

According to Malorni, the changes made over the summer, such as the new signature cocktail list with offerings like the Shuttle Bus and the St. Germain Spritz, have been very successful for the bar, with cocktails becoming one of their best sellers.

As a solidarity cooperative, no single person owns Reggies, which Malorni says allows them to offer students lower prices compared to other downtown businesses.

Loblaws selling underweight meat “We're not trying to scam students, we're giving you the best price,” Malorni said. “Yes, I have to cover my costs, but if I make a huge profit, that doesn't come to me and it doesn't go to anywhere else, it just stays in Reggies.”

Rona said he knows that past financial scandals have left a stain on Reggies reputation, but he wants students to know that the bar is changing.

“If there is something I want to reiterate, it would be: We've changed, we're different now, those were things that happened in the past,” Rona said.

“If you're a Concordia student, there's a spot for you [at] Reggies.”

REGGIES REOPENED FOR THE 2024-25 SCHOOL YEAR WITH BRAND NEW ARTWORK. PHOTO ANDRAÉ LERONE LEWIS

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@gen.sylvestre cordia 50th anniversary logo.

This comes as the university is facing what it refers to as “significant financial difficulties” following the Quebec government’s tuition hikes for English-language universities.

Concordia has implemented cuts of 7.8 per cent to meet its financial objectives. Some of the cuts have included reducing the shuttle bus service schedule, implementing and maintaining a hiring freeze, and cutting classes with enrolment deemed too low.

The September demonstration came four days after a student walkout in support of Palestine where police officers aggressively handled students and three protesters were arrested.

Eleventh cases of measles in Quebec

Ireland joins ICJ case against Israel

The glass was vandalized during a demonstration in September

oncordia University has spent a total of $289,238.01 to conceal and repair broken windows in the lobby of the Henry F. Hall Building.

Protesters shattered the windows during a demonstration on Sept. 29.

The demonstrators had spray-painted pro-Palestine messages on the windows and carried a banner featuring the symbol of anarchy.

According to information acquired by The Link, Concordia spent $277,262.21 to supply and install new windows and $9,642 on wooden boards to temporarily hide the vandalism. The university also spent $2,333.80 at the Concordia Print Store on black panels to further conceal the damage featuring temporary signage with the Con-

According to a CBC investigation, the company Loblaws was overcharging customers by selling underweight meat for a period of time that ended in December 2023.

Additionally, CBC reporters visited seven different grocery stores across three provinces and found underweight meat in four of them.

The eleventh case of measles has been declared in Quebec, with the government naming Montreal, Laval, Laurentians and the Montérégie region as areas with exposure sites. According to the Montreal Gazette, the most recent positive case was announced at Carrefour Laval on Jan. 7.

Concordia spends close to $300,000 to replace Hall building windows Geneviève Sylvestre

NEWS

According to Concordia deputy spokesperson Julie Fortier, the university will continue to call on the SPVM when people or events become violent.

“We need the entire community’s collaboration to help us maintain a peaceful study and work environment at Concordia,” Fortier said. “That’s why we called on all community members and groups to denounce violence, including vandalism of our buildings.”

The increase in political demonstrations at the university comes following over a year of genocide in Palestine. At the end of November, over 11,000 students at Concordia and 85,000 students across Montreal went on strike in support of an inter-

national university strike movement for Palestine.

Student demands for the university include: Disclosing and divesting from companies investing in Israel, ending employment partnerships with companies complicit in genocide like Lockheed Martin and Bombardier, and publically condemning the ongoing genocide.

The Concordia Student Union and nine other student associations have also formerly called for the university and Campus Safety and Prevention Services to end their relationship with the SPVM. As of the day of publication, the new Hall building windows no longer display the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced on Jan. 7 that Ireland had officially joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. The case was filed in December 2023 under the premise of Israel committing genocide in Gaza.

According to CNN, the Irish government has been increasingly speaking out against Israel’s actions in Gaza. Ireland is part of a dozen nations defending this genocide case.

Emergency warming station closes in Montreal On Jan. 9, the city of Montreal closed an emergency warming station that served more than 1,000 people. According to CTV News Montreal, the city’s reasoning was that the temperature outside was not cold enough to justify it being open. The shelter was being run out of a YMCA in Ville-Marie and was used by an average of 108 people for 12 nights between late December and early January.

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Concordia hires external security firm founded by ex-Israeli soldier The university spent over $30,000 on external security Maria Cholakova

@_maria_cholakova_

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rom Sept. 30 to Nov. 22, 2024, Concordia University spent $33,683 on external security hires.

On four different occasions, the university spent the money to hire the external company Perceptage International for a total of 14 days of work.

What is Perceptage International?

The security consulting firm Perceptage International was founded in 2008 by Adam Cohen, an ex-Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldier, the national director of community security for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), and the director of community security for Federation CJA. Activists have heavily criticized all three companies for “anti-Palestinian practices.”

Perceptage itself has been accused of hiring ex-IDF soldiers and having ties to the Israeli government.

In a now-deleted section of their website, Perceptage listed a total of nine security agents using only initials or pseudonyms and highlighted each member’s training, where all nine agents had completed an “Israeli Close Protection Course.”

Currently, agent details are not available on the Perceptage website.

Students have also raised concerns about Perceptage’s connection with the security consulting company Moshav Security Consultants, a central division of Perceptage. Moshav is managed by Eyal Feldman, a reserve major in the Israeli army and a former special advisor to Israel’s Ministry of Defense. At the time of publication, Moshav’s website is unavailable.

Perceptage declined The Link’s request for an interview.

According to Concordia deputy spokesperson Julie Fortier, the university has had no contact with Moshav.

Fortier also claimed that all Perceptage agents hired by the university were Canadian armed forces veterans.

Hiring of Perceptage According to records acquired

by The Link, the university hired the security company for 14 days during the Fall 2024 semester. The number of agents varied from day to day, from two to eight per shift.

Agents were asked to wear beige pants or jeans, a black polo with no logos and a vest. Concordia provided the agents with velcro patches

with the Concordia Safety and Prevention Services (CSPS) logo.

The university hired the largest number of agents during the student strikes for Palestine, on Nov. 21 and Nov. 22. On those days, a total of eight agents were stationed across the campus per day, costing the university a total of $12,141. The agents' duties were described as “crowd control and special intervention.”

The second largest number of agents hired was from the period of Sept. 30 to Oct.11, 2024, where four agents were stationed per day, costing the university over $20,235. Concordia hired the agents for “crowd control and special intervention” in anticipation of protests on Oct. 7.

The only occasion where the university hired the company for an event not in direct relation to a Palestine demonstration was for a farewell event for Chancellor Jonathan Wener, hosted in the Eaton Centre on Nov. 6. Wener was Concordia’s chancellor since 2015.

Interactions with security during protests Perceptage agents have been accused of physically assaulting students while stationed at pro-Palestine demonstrations. According to a video posted on Solidarity for Palestine's Honour and Resistance (SPHR)’s Instagram page on Nov. 22, during the student strikes for Palestine, Perceptage and other CSPS officers were seen aggressively pushing students away from picketing actions and into the stairway of the Henry F. Hall building, all the while, students shouted: “Don’t touch them, don’t shove them, these are Concordia students.”

According to Fortier, “CSPS intervened after receiving a complaint when a group of protestors attempted to block access to a class where students had not voted to strike and wanted to attend class.”

“CSPS intervened to prevent an escalation between students,” Fortier said.

Student criticism and concern Students have criticized Concordia’s decision to hire Perceptage.

According to ex-SPHR general coordinator and current Palestinian Youth Movement member Zeyad Abisaab, he feels the decision to hire Perceptage highlights the lack of care

VOLUME 45 • JANUARY 14, 2025

CONCORDIA HIRED SECURITY AGENTS FROM FIRM FOUNDED BY EX-IDF SOLDIER. GRAPHIC TAM BEDARD

for student safety.

“The main function of security is to provide safety and a sense of security to students,” Abisaab said.

He believes that if you were to ask students how they feel around unknown mercenaries, students would not feel safe.

Concordia Student Union (CSU) external affairs and mobilization coordinator Danna Ballantyne believes that the hiring of Perceptage was a way for Concordia to silence Palestinian voices on campus.

“I think the university throws around the word ‘apolitical,’” Ballantyne said. “None of their actions show that from the emails that they send the student body, to the force that they use against us, to where they put their money.”

According to Fortier, the university makes security-related decisions to ensure the safety of the community.

“CSPS can hire other agents to support them depending on security needs for some events,” Fortier said.

“This was the case last fall after aggressive behaviour, assault and van-

dalism occurred during recent demonstrations and as we knew larger demonstrations would take place.”

Ballantyne disagrees. She thinks that the university only considers events violent when they disrupt those in power. She continued by saying that Concordia did not publically consider it violent when the SPVM attacked Palestinian students on campus.

“What we see is psychological warfare against students,” Ballantyne said. “At the end of the day, by consistently pinning a certain demographic of students as violent, as assaulters, as agitators, you’re

enabling violence against them, whether it be at the hands of security or whether it be at the hands of other students.”

Moving forward, Abisaab thinks the university should release the names of the security guards who assaulted students and commit to never hiring Perceptage agents again.

“The students of Concordia reject Perceptage being on campus,” Abisaab said. “The university needs to commit to never hiring them again and prohibiting them on campus.”

With files from Dana Hachwa

"None of their actions show that from the emails that they send the student body, to the force that they use against us, to where they put our money."

- Danna Ballantyne, CSU external affairs and mobilization coordinator

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NEWS

In conversation with Graham Carr The Link sat down with Concordia’s President to answer the student body’s pressing questions Geneviève Sylvestre & Hannah Vogan @gen.sylvestre

@hannahvogann

Disclaimer: Answers have been edited for clarity.

As we enter the winter semester of Concordia University's 50-year anniversary, how are you looking to improve the university for current and future students?

For me, the big question as we enter the new year, as we enter any year, is how we can make the university better.

I think Concordia has been on a pretty good growth trajectory, but obviously, the challenges are growing for us, in part because of government policies which severely affected our recruitment from the rest of Canada and created instability with international students; and both of those communities are pretty critical to Concordia’s identity.

Unfortunately, that situation is only worsening this year because of Bill 74—which all universities in Quebec opposed—which has really put a chill on international student recruitment, not just for Concordia, but for others as well; and I think it sent an unfortunate message on behalf of Montreal.

I've been at Concordia a long time. We've been through challenging periods before. I think that we've always been an innovative university that has a very distinct place in Montreal, and a very distinct place in Quebec. We have to remember that, notwithstanding the challenges that are out there, fantastic things go on at this university all the time. And we need to continue to tell that message. Although we're going to experience a decline in international students this year, and we saw a decline in students from the rest of Canada, we need to continue to convey the message that we still want those students, and we're going to do everything possible to encourage them to come. I think that diversity has always been one of Concordia's strongest assets, and we need to keep that going forward.

Since the announcement of tuition hikes, Concordia has been forced to make cuts and limit spending, including the reduction of the shuttle bus service schedule. What would you have to say to students who are frustrated about not being able to access services that they were promised when they enrolled?

My answer is not just for students, my answer is for the whole community that uses the shuttle bus service to move back and forth between campuses. My answer to that goes beyond the specific case of the shuttle bus, because there are a lot of things that we've had to stop doing or slow down.

Obviously, a direct impact of reducing the schedule of the shuttle bus is that people need to find an alternative way to go between campuses because the shuttle is not available. But, there are a lot of indirect impacts of the budget cuts that are less visible but equally tangible within the university.

We've essentially frozen hiring for the last year, both in terms of new faculty recruitment, but also in terms of staff recruitment. That means we have a lot of staff positions that are unfilled, which means that some people are being asked to try to pick up the slack and do extra work.

We are in a significant deficit situation. I know it's a cliché to say hard decisions have to be taken, but we are having to make decisions which are not about growth. There are decisions about: “Okay, can we do without this?”

What I'm heartened by is the efforts that faculty, staff, students and others have made to try to work within the new parameters that are in front of us. We're invested in this place. We know it's a great place, we want it to be even more successful, and we're going to do our part to help that happen.

I can't be naive and not say we have a vertical climb ahead of us. If we lose a cohort of students last year, we've lost that cohort of students for four years, and the same is true this year; it has a compounding effect.

We need to become as creative as possible in our thinking about how we deal with the financial situation.

It can't just be about where we're going to cut, it has to also be about what can we do differently, and where we can find new opportunities to generate revenue.

There have been videos circulating on social media of students being assaulted by Campus Safety and Prevention Services (CSPS) agents and SPVM officers on campus. How will you ensure, going forward, that students are kept safe while protesting?

Our duty is to keep the whole community safe: that’s students, staff and faculty. It's very painful to watch

videos of conflicts and violence happening, whether it's verbal violence or physical violence. We don't want that on campus. Our campus safety officers are individuals who worked on, for the most part, the university campus for a long time. They're as committed to this place as we are, and there are limits to what they can't do. They’re a small number of individuals, they've been asked to do an awful lot over the last 16 months or so which is out of the ordinary. We need to realize that some of those CSPS agents have also been the victims of incidents.

As a community, we have to say that certain things are unacceptable, and obviously, violence is one of those things. Keeping the community safe is a priority. I'm always very troubled and hurt when people say: “I don't feel safe coming to campus.” Whether that's a student, a faculty member or a staff member.

I'm really saddened by events that have happened over the last 16 months or so. I'm saddened by the vandalism that's happened at the university. I'm saddened by the fact that there have been occasions when we have called the SPVM onto campus. CSPS agents are not bouncers. This is not a nightclub.

It's a last resort to call the SPVM, and the SPVM doesn't want to be on campus either. It's really concerning to me that this has become, over the last several months, a point of discussion, because it seems to me that we as a community have the capacity within ourselves to create the environment where we can express ourselves, but do so in a way that doesn't feel intimidating.

We've unfortunately seen incidents that are really regrettable here.

For over a year, students have been demanding that the university divest from companies funding the genocide in Palestine, including, but not limited to, BMO. This has culminated in 85,000 students going on strike in support of Palestine in November 2024. What do you have to say to students who feel that their demands are not being met or listened to by the administration?

I think two things. There's one part of it around BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), and one part of it is around investment strategy.

I'll start with the investment strat-

GRAHAM CARR IS THE PRESIDENT AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY. COURTESY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

egy. The investment strategy of the university refers to the investments that are made by what used to be called Concordia Foundation, and is now the Concordia University Inter-Generational Fund (CUiF).

Those are funds that are raised as a result of philanthropy; there's no student funding in there. In 2019, in collaboration with the president of the then Concordia Foundation, we agreed that we would set an objective, that between 2019 and 2025 Concordia would become the first university in Canada to fully divest from fossil fuels, but also to double the investments that we were making in social equity investing, supporting educational initiatives abroad, clean water initiatives, and so on.

I think the university as a whole should be really proud of that action, because that's a differentiator for us.

A lot of the pathway to get to that decision was a result of students concerned about climate change. We've just turned the page into 2025, and we're going to meet that target. The CUiF will meet its target of being 100 per cent invested in sustainable and social equity investing this year.

There's no other university in Canada that can make that claim, and I think that's something that the community should be really proud of.

Somehow it isn't landing with the entire community. It's like people are still assuming that we're investing in

things that we're not investing in.

We have no investments in the arms industry. We have no investments in the munitions industry. That's not the pathway that we've been on. I think we as a university should be looking at our investment strategy as a point of pride for Concordia and as something which I think other universities would be envious of achieving, and other student organizations would be envious of achieving.

Based on Concordia’s ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) status, why does the university still partner with weapons manufacturing companies like Bombardier and Lockheed Martin, which have a high ESG risk rating through programs like Co-op or workshops?

One of the initiatives that has helped make Concordia a destination university for students is our commitment to experiential learning and work-integrated learning.

Last year, we had about 5,000 students who were in paid internships or Co-op programs at Concordia. That's a huge number. Those are optional for students. Nobody's forced to be in an experiential learning program. Students have the right, and should have the right, to choose where they would like to do work. I don't think it's for me, or for others within the university, to tell THELINKNEWSPAPER.CA

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students that they shouldn't work for a company, because that's a field that they're interested in working in.

Being able to demonstrate the added value that students get coming to Concordia, getting a great experience in class, but also having the option to pursue work-integrated learning, is a huge advantage for us.

We made the commitment two years ago, and it took a lot of work to get to this point. Every single undergraduate program in the university had to find a pathway to experiential learning for students in their program.

Now, based on the success of the last two years, we'll be able to announce next year that students, if they want, can have two experiential learning

opportunities within the context of their program. Students who have had the benefit of work-integrated learning experience step more quickly into better-remunerated positions after graduation.

If students are pursuing paid internships or Co-ops, two things have to happen. First of all, they have to choose where they would like to go and interview for those positions, and then they have to be successful in getting the interview. We're not the ones who are matchmaking. We're not the ones who are saying this student is going to work with this organization or that company.

It's important to understand that this is about student choice and that we're simply trying to make that choice avail-

able to the widest array of students possible within the university.

Students have requested that Concordia disclose all of its investments to increase transparency between students and the administration. Is this something that the current administration would consider?

Absolutely—I'd say two things about that. One is, we have been disclosing, in the sense that CUiF has a public report that they publish every year, that information is already public. I mean, it's essential—it's important to understand that the point of the CUiF is to raise money,

the vast majority of which is used to support students, to provide student scholarships, etc. We need to be sure when our fund managers are making their investments, not only that they're meeting the investment criteria that we set around sustainability, but they're also yielding a return, because we want to be able to grow that fund to be able to support more students in the future.

We also set up an informal meeting group with students from the Concordia Student Union and with the head of our fund management program to try to explain in more detail how the investment strategy and structure work. Investment at this scale for large institutions is very

complex. We have a number of fund managers who manage Concordia investments, but all those fund managers are given certain parameters, and those are the parameters around sustainable and social equity investment, and that we judge their performance based on the revenue that they generate. I don't think we have any problem being transparent about this, because this is a good story for Concordia to tell. The more we can tell that story about our investment strategy, and the more widely that's circulated, I think it will be a factor that will encourage students to come to a university that's invested in sustainability and social equity.

Canada’s ‘ugly vegetable’ problem Strict cosmetic retail standards for produce lead to food waste Zachary Cheung

C

@cheung.zach_

anada wastes $58 billion worth of food each year that could be used to feed those in need, a number that rose by 6.5 per cent since 2019, according to data released by Second Harvest in October 2024.

The report found that a large portion of this waste is avoidable and occurs during production, often due to farmers discarding edible "ugly vegetables" that fail to meet Canada's strict cosmetic retail standards.

“The food is still perfectly good to eat, but it might have a little blemish,” said Kiera Tofflemire, vice president of innovation at Second Harvest. “The retail specifications are so high around the cosmetics of produce that [some vegetables] don't actually meet the retail specs.”

For fruits and vegetables in Canada to be sold from producer to retailer, they must meet certain aesthetic standards of size and shape, and must also be free of physical blemishes. Carrots, for example, must have a minimum length of 4.5 inches and look similar to other carrots in the same bag.

According to Tofflemire, there are many reasons why farmers sometimes struggle to meet these standards. She said that more frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves and floods can damage crops and make them unsuitable for retail.

“Changing weather patterns aren’t just decimating crops,” Tofflemire said. “They’re creating cosmetic blemishes that, at

the retail level, make [vegetables] unsellable.”

In response, some local initiatives have started up in an effort to redistribute avoidable food waste to those in need.

Rais Zaidi, also known as the “Food Pirate” of Montreal, is the founder of The Green Pirates, a food bank in the east end that redistributes surplus food from food banks and grocery stores.

According to Zaidi, the Green Pirates’ summertime donations often come from farms whose produce cannot be sold due to not being up to par with cosmetic standards.

“Whichever law regulates what your carrot should look like is a stupid law,” Zaidi said. “That's at the base of food waste because it's not like farmers don't want to get rid of their food.”

However, aesthetic standards for produce don’t stop at government regulations; private cosmetic standards are also set by businesses.

Supermarkets use these standards to compete with other retailers in the hopes of appearing to offer fresher food than the competition next door. “[Supermarket] quality standards are sometimes very harsh to local production,” said Patrick Cortbaoui, managing director of the Margaret A. Gilliam Institute for Global Food Security. “So what ends up happening is that [local producers] end up losing their food to the landfill.”

Cortbaoui said that local producers often get swept away by large industrial farms that can

VOLUME 45 • JANUARY 14, 2025

consistently supply big supermarkets with flawless produce. These industrial farms are often located outside Canada, with around 80 per cent of fruits and 60 per cent of vegetables being imported from other countries in 2023, according to the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute.

Cortbaoui added that there are no policies in Quebec aimed at intervening on stringent grocery store cosmetic standards, often leaving local farmers with no choice but to send their malformed vegetables to the compost bin.

“We have all the natural resources to produce enough food [locally]. But due to some inappropriate policies, we don't do that,” Cortbaoui said. “We'd rather rely on the mega-farms or the mega-companies worldwide to provide us with food.”

Zaidi had a similar experience when he operated a small farm in Montreal’s South Shore. He said that private cosmetic standards made it difficult to sell the produce he had grown to local retailers.

“The local grocery stores [weren’t] interested in what we had because it was just organic, regular, deformed, malformed vegetables,” Zaidi said.

Instead of letting the harvest go to waste, he left the produce out in front of his farm, inviting anyone to take what they needed.

The Green Pirates food bank operates in a similar fashion, redistributing excess food to anyone who needs it with no questions asked—just food for the taking.

“I don't want to know where

“Whichever law regulates what your carrot should look like is a stupid law. That's at the base of food waste because it's not like farmers don't want to get rid of their food.”

- Rais Zaid, founder of The Green Pirates you're from, how much money you make or how struggling you are,” Zaidi said. “I don't care. I

want to get rid of the food here. I want it to be eaten. So everybody is welcome.”

STRICT COSMETIC STANDARDS IN CANADA HAVE LED TO SIGNIFICANT FOOD WASTE. STOCK YULIIA CHYZHEVSKA

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McGill University used herbicides in 2024 without public disclosure, report confirms Herbicides Roundup and Destra were used in the university’s production of corn Zachary Cheung

M

@cheung.zach_

cGill University used both Roundup and Destra herbicides on the school’s Macdonald Campus Farm in 2024, despite stating in a sustainability report earlier that year that no herbicides were used on campus at all, according to an access to information (ATI) request obtained by The Link.

According to Macdonald Farm management, there are currently no publicly available sources that disclose the university’s herbicide use.

“We don't publish it on a website,” said Macdonald Campus Farm’s general manager Janice Pierson, referring to the farm’s use of weed killers. “But if people come and question us, we explain to them what our practices are.”

ATI documents reveal that Roundup and Destra, two widely used herbicides in commercial agriculture, are applied on the Macdonald Campus Farm to control weeds while cultivating corn, which, according to Pierson, is used primarily as feed for the university’s research dairy cows.

This information contradicts a McGill sustainability report published in January 2024 under the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS), which initially stated that “no pesticides or herbicides are used on the campus.”

The university’s STARS report was revised in September 2024, near the start of this investigation, to clarify that its herbicide-free practices apply only to McGill’s downtown Montreal campus.

The STARS report also excluded any assessment of the sustainability practices conducted on Macdonald Campus’s experimental agricultural land in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.

According to Pierson, only students attending courses as part of the university’s farm management and technology program are informed outright of McGill's use of Roundup and Destra on Macdonald Campus.

“We disclose that information to the students because it's part of their learning experience,” she said.

Additional details relating to the Macdonald Farm’s use of Roundup and Destra, such as quantities used, are submitted annually to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ) in a sustainability report called the Agri-environmental Support Plan (PAA). However, Pierson said that, as far as she is aware, the Macdon-

ald Farm’s PAA is not available to the public.

Copies of the Macdonald Farm’s PAA and receipts for Roundup and Destra purchased in 2024 were withheld from The Link following a second ATI request. Among other reasons, the decision was made on the basis of protecting third-party “industrial secrets” or “confidential information” that could “likely hamper negotiations in view of a contract” or “reduce the third party’s competitive margin.”

Information obtained through ATI confirmed that in 2024, the Macdonald Farm sourced all chemical herbicides exclusively from Synagri, a crop input supplier headquartered in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec.

Why was McGill’s herbicide use excluded from their STARS report?

Administered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, STARS is intended to enable comparisons between higher education institutions worldwide using a standardized set of metrics. STARS reports are published every four years, and all data included is disclosed voluntarily by the relevant institution.

STARS participants are evaluated on 18 categories ranging everywhere from a school’s support for sustainability research to their landscaping practices. Ranked out of a score of 100 points, an institution may be awarded a STARS Bronze (minimum 25

points), Silver (minimum 45 points), Gold (minimum 65 points) or Platinum (minimum 85 points) rating.

In its latest report released in January 2024, McGill’s overall score rose by around 10 points, boosting the school from a STARS Gold (76.32 points) to Platinum (86.26 points).

McGill’s report of its landscape management practices consisted of analyzing around 60 hectares of land managed by the school’s groundskeeping team. According to associate director of the Office of Sustainability Shona Watt, this includes everything that is cut, mowed and watered on the McGill campus.

However, what is not included within the report is any McGill-owned land not managed by the school’s groundskeeping unit. Close to 1500 hectares of land, including the Macdonald Campus Farm, were excluded from the report.

“Most universities or colleges don't have this type of scenario that McGill has, where they have agricultural research,” Watt said. “That's why it falls out of the scope of STARS.” Why were Roundup and Destra used and how do they affect the environment?

ATI documents show that the Macdonald Campus Farm employs no-till farming practices when producing corn. Rather than overturning the topsoil before planting, any residue

“Most universities or colleges don't have this type of scenario that McGill has, where they have agricultural research. That's why it falls out of the scope of STARS.” - Shona Watt — Associate director, McGill operations from past crops, weeds or animal matter is left on the surface of the field.

According to the ATI, this approach helps reduce soil erosion and contributes to biodiversity by protecting insects and microorganisms.

However, as a result of being unable to physically remove weeds, herbicides like Roundup and Destra are sprayed onto the farm’s corn fields instead.

“There are certain weeds, like broadleaf, that can really, really take over certain fields,” Pierson said. “You have to have some type of solution to be able to work against that.”

But Roundup comes with some risks of its own. Its active ingredient, glyphosate, can harm certain organisms it wasn’t specifically designed to target, according to Zachary Stahlschmidt, professor of ecology at the University of the Pacific. He said that glyphosate exposure can reduce biodiversity by causing declines in some species of pollinators, like honeybees.

“Even if we have a few of them in decline, that translates into the [lack of] pollination of dozens of plant species,” Stahlschmidt said.

Aquatic animals are especially

vulnerable to glyphosate exposure because, unlike land animals, they lack certain defences against it, according to Stahlschmidt. Destra, which is added to the Roundup spray used on the Macdonald Campus Farm, can also be harmful to aquatic life and is labelled a "marine pollutant" by its manufacturer, Corteva Agriscience.

“Certain adaptations for living in water require you to be able to absorb things from the water,” Stahlschmidt said. “Those chemicals leach into the groundwater or […] run right off into, say, a river.”

The Macdonald Campus Farm has implemented additional techniques to control weeds alongside its herbicide use, such as planting cover crops. Beans, for example, are planted alongside rye to drown out weeds that would otherwise be targeted by weed killers, according to Pierson.

Despite aims to reduce its use of inorganic products, Pierson said that fully adopting organic practices is not feasible since it would significantly limit much of the research conducted on the farm.

AROUND 60 HECTARES OF LAND WERE ANALYZED IN MCGILL'S STARS REPORT. INFOGRAPHIC MARIA CHOLAKOVA

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NEWS

8

Quebec is deficient in diagnoses Updating iron reference ranges could improve women's health, but some Quebec laboratories are lagging behind Hayley Carolan

I

n the summer of 2023, Sarah Al Ani, a special education teacher in Montreal, began experiencing near-constant fatigue.

With school out of session for the season, she wasn’t working and there was nothing she could point to as the source of her exhaustion.

It was clear that something was wrong.

She’d started having trouble getting up in the morning, had lost the motivation to cook for herself and was often lightheaded. She felt like everything she did was in slow motion, finding it difficult to begin tasks and stay focused on them.

These symptoms remained as the school year began, leaving Al Ani so tired that some days she was unable to go to work, instead spending hours in bed badgering herself to just get up.

“I was upset with myself, I knew I was capable. Why don't I go eat something?” she says. “It was like an internal battle with myself.”

She sought help at the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) in Montreal. She was told that because of a shortage of family physicians and the low urgency of her concern, she would have to wait several months to see a doctor.

Months later in Qatar, where she holds residency, Al Ani discovered she was iron deficient. In Quebec, she might not have received the same diagnosis.

Iron levels in the body are assessed by measuring ferritin, a

protein that stores iron. Low ferritin levels indicate insufficient iron stores. Without enough iron, cells struggle to produce energy, which can reduce organ function, particularly impacting the heart and skeletal muscles. If iron levels fall too low, the body can no longer produce a healthy amount of red blood cells, leading to oxygen shortages throughout the body.

Unlike some Canadian provinces, such as Ontario—where ferritin minimums were recently increased and standardized across the province so that levels below 30 micrograms per litre (ug/L) now indicate an iron deficiency—Quebec’s thresholds vary widely by testing site. This means that each laboratory in the province decides what level of ferritin indicates a deficiency.

Some labs in Quebec, including the large private laboratory Dynacare, have updated their limits to be in line with Ontario’s. However, many remain with significantly lower minimum normal levels.

For example, at the MUHC, women’s iron levels are not flagged as abnormal until ferritin levels dip below 10 ug/L. At another Montreal hospital, Santa Cabrini, an 11 ug/L cutoff is used.

Notably, in Ontario, male and female patients are diagnosed with iron deficiency when their levels fall below the same minimum value. In many Quebec laboratories, women’s iron levels must fall substantially lower than men’s for

an iron deficiency to be indicated.

Dr. Grace Tang, a hematology researcher at the University of Toronto, says there is enough scientific evidence to support diagnosing and treating iron deficiencies in women when ferritin values fall below 30 ug/L. Working alongside hematologist and Hemequity founder Dr. Michelle Sholzberg and other researchers, Tang spent over four years advocating for this change across Ontario, with the team achieving success in September 2024.

She says that prior to the update, many laboratories in the province were basing their ferritin minimums on outdated World Health Organization recommendations from flawed studies conducted over 40 years ago.

“I would propose that the World Health Organization is kind of mysterious,” Tang says. “They just tell you the cutoff. They don't tell you the data that was behind it.”

She says that the guidelines have not been revisited because iron deficiency in women is widely normalized.

“It's so common that no one really is looking into it because it's just everywhere or people don't believe in women and their symptoms,” Tang says. “They don't believe women are having heavy menstrual periods because they don't know how to ask about heavy menstrual periods.”

Some women have turned to social media to tackle iron de-

DOCTORS ADVISE THAT THOSE INTERESTED IN IRON SUPPLEMENTATION CONSULT WITH A HEALTHCARE PROVIDER BEFORE BEGINNING TREATMENT. PHOTO ANDRAÉ LERONE LEWIS

VOLUME 45 • JANUARY 14, 2025

ficiency on their own. The Iron Protocol, a Facebook group with over 150,000 members, promotes high-dose iron supplementation for women experiencing symptoms they attribute to iron deficiencies—not all members have formal diagnoses. Posts in the group range from advice on dosages and formulations to tips on minimizing side effects, as well as personal stories about feeling overlooked and dismissed by healthcare providers.

While support from others experiencing iron deficiency can be important, doctors maintain that iron supplementation should be done under the supervision of a medical professional.

Dr. Mathieu Hanna, a family physician in Montreal, says that iron deficiency is not the only reason for a patient to experience fatigue. He says it is important to first investigate other likely causes, especially when the patient doesn't present with other hallmark symptoms of iron deficiency, such as paleness and shortness of breath.

“If in a month or two, she's still tired and she has treated her depression, anxiety, I'm going to test it,” Hanna says. “We don't have to test everybody.”

But some researchers disagree with this practice. Dr. Cory Dugan, a nutrition science researcher at the University of Western Australia, says iron deficiency is often misdiagnosed as anxiety or

depression, especially in women.

He wants to see doctors consider all possible causes for women’s fatigue, rather than quickly attributing it to mood disorders.

For Al Ani, she says she is glad she made the trip to Qatar to get to the bottom of her fatigue.

In addition to finding out about her iron deficiency, she learned that it was being caused by underlying endometriosis, a condition where uterine tissue grows outside of the uterus, which can cause pain and reduce fertility. The endometriosis had resulted in a 16 cm cyst on one of her ovaries, which had triggered heavy menstrual bleeding, leading to depleted iron stores.

In Qatar, her treatment was swift; within a month she had had surgery to remove the cyst. She was advised to eat iron-rich foods and to take an iron supplement.

In a few months, her energy levels returned to normal. She doesn't think that she would have gotten the same care in Quebec.

When Al Ani’s ferritin was tested in Qatar, it was 15.4 mg/L, an amount that would have been too high to be flagged as abnormal in test results from the MUHC where she sought care.

“When you're dealing with a broken system, you're just getting more hopeless and then you start to disregard your health,” Al Ani says. “And so then you're going to get something that's going to escalate. I think that's the issue.”

9

FRINGE ARTS

Spider-Man reimagined Concordia students are creating a new vision of Peter Parker Maya St-Antoine

O

@acrossthemayaverse

n set, the excitement can immediately be felt from a team of passionate actors, extras and crew.

A group of filmmakers and actors are currently filming their newest project titled The Outstanding Spider-Man, their first feature film following the life of the beloved Peter Parker. Directed and co-written by film production student Emi Martínez-Zalce, this project is full of passion and dedication.

The project idea originated in the fall of 2023 among a group of friends and was later developed

by Martínez-Zalce and Jonathan Libman, who co-wrote the script.

They will play Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker, respectively. The main cast also features Nathan Bois-McDonald as Peter's friend Harry Osborn; Elias D’Onofrio as bully Flash Thompson; and Sofia Timotheatos as Gwen Stacy, usually one of the titular characters' rotating love interests, who will be portrayed differently in this version.

The film is primarily being produced and directed by Martínez-Zalce through Something Great Films, formerly Four Media Films. It is also produced by assistant director Ethan Levy, who spoke about the devotion shared by the team.

“We’ll finish four days of shooting, 12 hours each day, and by the end of it, we’ll say, ‘What's next?’” Levy said.

Their enthusiasm has not gone unnoticed. At Montreal’s Comic-Con last summer, the team presented test footage that generated significant interest in the project. It was also where they met D’Onofrio, whom Libman described as “the best Flash of all time.”

At the convention, the team connected with professional suit designers who agreed to design and create their Spider-Man suit, which had originally been handmade alongside all the props.

They also met Zeb Wells, for-

mer writer for The Amazing Spider-Man comics and a screenwriter for Marvel, who has been a strong supporter of the project from the beginning.

The team has been working on the film for over 15 months and began filming last fall. They expect to finish shooting by the summer of 2025 and plan to have a teaser ready for the San Diego Comic-Con. Both Libman and MartínezZalce have always been avid Spider-Man fans, whether through the movies, comics or video game adaptations, making this project and their roles a dream come true.

“We know these people inside and out, this is a passion project— as true to the word as possible," Libman said.

The excitement can be felt on set, where the actors deeply embody their characters’ roles in the story. Both cast and crew work long hours because they believe in the project’s potential.

The inspiration for the script varies in different media forms.

It is inspired by the Spider-Man movies, the PS4 video game and the Ultimate Spider-Man comics.

The main inspiration is the 2008 animated show The Spectacular Spider-Man, which the writers said greatly affected how the team looked at the characters and wanted to portray them.

Martínez-Zalce said the film will be more of a character-based story than an action movie, almost a coming-of-age, as it will focus on exploring the main characters’ lives and expanding on them beyond their usual portrayals.

As a woman director, she mentioned how rare it is for women filmmakers to work on superhero movies. Martínez-Zalce is intent on giving depth to characters like Gwen and Mary Jane outside their usual portrayal as Peter Parker’s love interests.

“I’d say the main message of our film is about learning to embrace who you are while also

working on yourself,” MartínezZalce said.

For most of the cast and crew, The Outstanding Spider-Man marks their first foray into feature filmmaking. While MartínezZalce started acting at 15 years old, this is her first time directing and producing a feature film, and Libman’s first time as an actor.

Despite learning a lot about filmmaking at school, they also mention how much you can learn on the set of a project this big, which Libman calls “the best education possible.”

The filmmakers say that already knowing the environment of a set is useful and that, although time management is a big challenge when they have to consider school and outside obligations, their work on previous sets means they already know how precious time is when filming.

According to the director, her experience with short films allowed her to feel more confident in her abilities and to build a strong team.

“Emi is an amazing director.

She knows how to bring out the best in everyone,” Libman said.

The team is expecting to release the movie in the fall. It will be available on YouTube after its premiere events and screenings.

The producers have been organizing fundraising events such as a Spider-Man-themed trivia

night. They also take donations which go directly to helping the production of the film. For fans eager to get involved, the team is still looking for extras and can be

contacted via Instagram.

As the team swings closer to this year’s release, their version of Spider-Man promises to deliver a film written by fans, for fans.

BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTO OF EMI MARTÍNEZ-ZALCE AS MARY-JANE WATSON (LEFT) AND SOFIA TIMOTHEATOS AS GWEN STACY (RIGHT) CHATTING IN A HALLWAY. COURTESY ALICE LARRIVÉE

THE OUTSTANDING SPIDER-MAN TEAM ON SET. PHOTO MAYA ST-ANTOINE

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FRINGE ARTS

10

Wandering into the periphery The Wandering Eye Project displays the world through a symbolic lens Sarah Housley

B

rígida Cristina Maestres Useche spreads a jumble of well-loved sketchbooks across the table in front of her at the Concordia University Sir George Williams campus, their dog-eared pages brimming with drawings.

In Montreal from September to December 2024 as a visiting scholar from the Open University of Catalonia, her sketchbook reveals her recently completed collection of stair drawings inspired by her strolls around the Plateau-Mont-Royal.

“I’ve been very impressed by the stairs,” Maestres Useche says, describing how the staircases remind her of squid legs. “It's as if a huge squid has swallowed all the houses in Montreal.”

Reimagining how we view the world is central to Maestres Useche’s The Wandering Eye Project. The project seeks to challenge social constructions of the “correct” way to see with our eyes, by introducing the peripheral world using drawings, video and percussion to showcase the world as she perceives it.

“The peripheral world concerns the fact that my peripheral vision is better than my central vision,” Maestres Useche says. “I am trying to depict more or less the way I see.”

For Maestres Useche, the peripheral world is a metaphor for the way her own vision—and perspectives like hers—are often pushed to the side by science. She critiques what she calls “ocularcentrism.” She describes this as the tendency for science to examine vision using a specific scientific method. This cre-

ates a blind spot where vision falling outside this paradigm, such as her own, is not validated.

The Wandering Eye Project began in 2015 when Maestres Useche asked her friend, photographer Ángela Bonadies, to help her capture the world through her own eyes.

“The challenge was to describe it in a positive way, not using blurred or fused,” Maestres Useche says. “You know, these negative categories.”

The end result includes old distressed film obstructed with light splotches, wavy distorted images of blue tile and colourful geometric drawings layered over a face. The result touched Maestres Useche because it reflected so accurately the way she sees, and inspired her to expand the project to involve other mediums.

According to Maestres Useche, the peripheral world is more than just vision; it's a metaphor for perspectives overlooked.

“If science looks at the periphery, it's in the sense of underdeveloped countries that are the periphery; Black people, the others,” Maestres Useche says. “There's the prototype of normality, and then the others.”

Growing up in Venezuela, Maestres Useche was known as the “girl with thick glasses.” Doctors never used the term “disability” to describe her condition, but this lack of label meant there was no institutional support. Her parents were told she may not even be able to

finish her schooling.

Maestres Useche describes being abandoned to experiencing real life.

On one hand, it was tough as she was forced to deal with things on her own.

On the other hand, she was plunged into the world, which helped her adapt and learn to survive.

Yet, as she grew older Maestres Useche quickly discovered the label of disability comes with a whole new set of challenges.

In 1998, after completing a BA in sociology, Maestres Useche moved to Barcelona to complete her PhD in social psychology. There she encountered what she describes as “the other side of the problem” regarding societal discourse on disability.

In Barcelona, institutions exist to help people like Maestres Useche.

However, they use labels like “low vision,” “disabled” and “visually impaired” to define her.

“They always need to acknowledge you as a disabled person,” Maestres Useche says. “Even though these are institutions that are attempting to help, or balance society, you are kept by these policies—you cannot live your life [outside of] them.”

As a social psychologist, Maestres Useche now explores how disability policies and labels like “disabled” shape how those affected see themselves and how others perceive them. Through her work, she illustrates how the eye can construct and define its own reality.

“In my case, with my vision, I didn’t lose anything. I’ve never seen

BRÍGIDA CRISTINA MAESTRES USECHE’S SKETCHBOOK REVEALS HER RECENTLY COMPLETED COLLECTION OF STAIR DRAWINGS. PHOTO JULIA CIERI

VOLUME 45 • JANUARY 14, 2025

BRÍGIDA CRISTINA MAESTRES USECHE DRAWS THE WORLD AS SHE SEES IT, THROUGH THE PERIPHERY. PHOTO JULIA CIERI

otherwise,” Maestres Useche says.

The artist also experiences nystagmus, giving her a “wandering eye” that can capture multiple images at once. In 1988 she underwent cataract surgery in her right eye, and strabismus in her left eye.

This operation left her with double vision, and she began seeing the world in two dimensions. Instead of feeling limited, she embraced imagination as a tool to “dimensionalize” the world.

This approach is what she calls “the animism of the wandering eye.”

For her, animism means giving a soul to something that's not objectively there, connecting the senses to the imagination and using imagination to dimensionalize the world.

Arlene Sanchez, a PhD student studying social and cultural analysis at Concordia, met Maestres Useche during the first week of her doctorate. She describes those first weeks as the beginning of a journey of discovery of how she sees and interprets the world.

“Distorted lines being drawn in a big notebook caught my attention. I started to follow that black ballpoint pen with apparently no direction other than maybe the joy of moving through the notebook,” Sanchez says. “Entering to the wandering eye of Brígida is also as moving apparently with no direction other than the mere joy of moving freely.”

For Sanchez, The Wandering

Eye Project shows the importance of creating work that puts your own voice and life experiences into the world. It's also a reminder that it's cool to simply have fun.

“It's cool to just be wandering,” Sanchez says. “I will not follow what people say.”

Sanchez describes how she and Maestres Useche took a walk together through the Plateau-Mont-Royal, allowing their eyes to wander to the peripheral as they saw those squid-legged stairs.

“We were just imagining and thinking the weirdest things and trying to create a story,” Sanchez says. “It's been so playful that I actually think I’m connecting more to my creative side.”

“I find her artwork really interesting [...] to represent not just what she sees, but how,” says Nick Wees, who attended Maestres Useche’s talk during her time at Concordia.

The Wandering Eye Project encourages free flowing movement and forces us to question the socially constructed reality surrounding sight. “[People with residual vision] have this deep world, full of images, as many other people. Why don’t we explore this aesthetic?” Maestres Useche says, pointing to one of her drawn stairs. “Why can’t this stair be a symbol of Montreal? Why do you not identify yourself with the way I see, if you are also a living being?”

11

SPORTS

Nikolas Hurtubise: Twice the gain The Concordia goaltender discusses his journey to becoming the foundation of a breakout Stingers squad Samuel Kayll

@sdubk24

N

ikolas Hurtubise knows he’s a little bit crazy.

Before each game, the Concordia University second-year men’s hockey goaltender performs the same warm-up routine—twice.

“It’s nothing special, but it takes a long time,” Hurtubise admitted, adding with a smile, “I get [to the rink] way too early.”

Yet in Hurtubise’s case, a double warm-up seems to be perfectly in character. That same hard-working mentality led to his rise from the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) to his position as Concordia’s starting netminder. And as the Stingers continue their conference-best start to the season, it’s impossible to ignore the contribution and stability Hurtubise has brought to the team.

“He’s had a really good first half to the season,” Stingers head coach Marc-André Élément said. “He’s a key, key player for our program.”

Early adversity and QMJHL success As a child in Mirabel, Que., Hurtubise gravitated towards hockey at an early age. His father played in the QMJHL as a goaltender, so the choice was natural.

“I told my dad, ‘I want to be like you,’” Hurtubise said. While his hockey journey started at five years old, he moved into the net around seven. From there, his career took off.

“When I started playing, I was probably average,” Hurtubise said. “I became good compared to the other kids around 12 years old, so peewee, and it took off from there.”

Hurtubise’s talent led to major

interest from junior hockey programs, but the journey wouldn’t come easily. At age 17, Hurtubise entered training camp with the Victoriaville Tigres, looking to earn a spot. Instead, he was cut.

“I was coming off a great year in triple-A, and I got cut,” Hurtubise explained. “They had a 20-year-old and an 18-year-old, and they needed time to trade one of them to make me a spot.”

On top of that, Hurtubise suffered an injury that limited his availability for over three months.

Hurtubise admitted he took the setback “pretty hard.” But he was called up a few times during that span and played well enough to earn the team’s attention.

“It took a lot of mental toughness to go back and show them that I deserved a spot,” he added.

Once Hurtubise arrived in the QMJHL, he thrived. As Victoriaville’s starting goalie in 2020-21, Hurtubise ended the regular season with a 10-4-1 record, then helped guide the Tigres to their first QMJHL championship since 2001-02.

The following year, Hurtubise was traded midseason to the Saint John Sea Dogs. The same season, the Sea Dogs won the Memorial Cup, with Hurtubise being named to the tournament all-star team and winning the Most Outstanding Goaltender award at 18 years old.

Hurtubise credits his coach in Victoriaville, Carl Mallette, as a major influence on his hockey career due to his trust in Hurtubise’s abilities.

“Usually the teams that win in the Q[MJHL] have goalies that are either 19 or 20,” Hurtubise said. “We had a great team and we were try-

HURTUBISE HAS A .909 SAVE PERCENTAGE IN THE 2024-25 SEASON. PHOTO ANDRAÉ LERONE LEWIS

ing to win, and he trusted me at my highs and lows.”

After so much success in junior hockey, Hurtubise was ready to take the next step. At Concordia, he would find the perfect fit.

Concordia comes knocking When Hurtubise finished his final year of junior hockey in 202223 with the Sea Dogs, his first step was to get closer to home. With Concordia offering an obvious destination, the second step involved head coach Élément.

“I had a meeting with Coach Élément, and he was high on me,” Hurtubise said. “I could see the trust and the excitement that he had to get me here.”

Hurtubise also acknowledged the team’s recent success as another factor. “[Concordia’s] a good program—they’ve been good the past ten years,” he said, “so for me to come closer to home in a great program was the main reason.”

Elément pointed to Hurtubise’s junior hockey success as a key for Concordia’s pursuit.

“He’s someone who we’ve been after for a while,” he said. “He’s a winner, he’s a gamer. We were after him big time.”

After a rookie season spent sharing time in net with Jordan Naylor, Hurtubise entered the 2024-25 season ready to secure the job. With the team’s full support, Hurtubise and the Stingers started the season on fire, holding a record of 17-1-2 and Hurtubise recording 13 wins and a .909 save percentage.

Naylor witnessed Hurtubise’s ascension first-hand. The fourth-

NIKOLAS HURTUBISE HAS STARTED 16 OF THE STINGERS' 20 GAMES THIS SEASON. PHOTO ANDRAÉ LERONE LEWIS

year goaltender has noticed a sizable jump not just in Hurtubise’s skills on the ice, but in his mentality as well.

“Seeing how he’s grown from last year, his confidence and his level of play have risen so much,” Naylor said. “He’s been incredible this year.”

Hurtubise credited the team and coaching staff as a major reason for his success.

“When members of the team trust you, you feel a bit bigger in net,” he said. “The whole team has been playing awesome, so to have the trust of my teammates and coaches has been huge to me.”

Hurtubise described the team’s goal to play unified when working out of tough scenarios.

“If you go out there as 20 people, it’s like flipping a coin. You can have three guys playing great, three guys playing bad and the rest playing average,” he said. “We always try to go out there as one, which is huge in big games because we can work our way out of trouble.”

Naylor’s relationship with Hurtubise reveals a close bond between the netminders.

“We’re close in the room, we’re really good buddies. We’re on the ice with our goalie coach every day so I can see how he works and he can see how I work—it’s healthy competition,” Naylor said. “I’m really happy to see him doing well.”

When it comes to the rapid rise

of the Stingers this season, Hurtubise isn’t coy about taking pleasure in proving people wrong.

“I think a lot of people thought McGill would be the top team in Montreal and probably in the [Ontario University Athletics (OUA) conference],” he said. “So every day we come here and we work and we win and win, that feeling of proving people wrong makes me feel in my place here.”

But don’t mistake Hurtubise’s excitement for resting on his laurels.

The goal for him—and the Stingers— is very much clear to the whole team.

“For us, it’s clear that we’re trying to win nationals,” he said. “I think we showed that we’re a top team in the country, not just the OUA. We showed the OUA that when we play well, no one can play with us.”

And to do so, Hurtubise emphasized the willingness to reset, in victory and defeat.

“It’s still the same because, win or lose, we try to reset and restart,” he said. “We come back to practice and try to build our game.”

A top seed, conference championship, national title—it’s all on the table for the Stingers. And Hurtubise’s performance will no doubt be scrutinized on a larger scale by the end of the season. But for a player who prepares twice before every game, perhaps the pressure will come half as hard.

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SPORTS

12

Six Concordia hockey players representing Canada at FISU Games Women’s and men’s teams hope to win gold after dominant performances at 2023 Games

T

he International University Sports Federation (FISU) is holding its 32nd edition of the FISU Winter World University Games.

Six municipalities will host 11 sports over the course of 11 days of competition between Jan. 13 and Jan. 23 in Italy’s Piedmont region.

Games is an international multisport event, organized for university summer editions of the games are national multi-sport event for student-athletes. women’s hockey players selected to participate this year are forwards Émilie Lussier and Émilie Lavoie, defender Alexandra-Anne Boyer, and goaltender Jordyn Verbeek.

“I was honoured to be selected,” Verbeek said. “It’s a goal that I’ve had

to represent the country for a very long time. I learned about the FISU games when I was about 12 or 13 and ever since I’ve had a seed planted in my head that it was an event I wanted to be a part of.” players selected to participate this year are defenceman Simon Lavigne and forward Mathieu Bizier.

“I was very happy and honoured to get a chance to represent my country and wear the maple leaf on my chest in a big event like that,” Bizier said. “I feel pretty excited to play.

It will be a fun event for me and for the guys on the team.”

There are over 2,500 student-athletes from over 50 countries who participate in the games every year. It is also broadcast to more than 100 countries, reaching over 300 million viewers.

“I feel good going into the Games,” Lavoie said. “I think we have a great team out there and that we will

be able to succeed all together.”

every day in Italy will also be great.”

Canada has the most medals won in ice hockey at the games with

year's games include alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, curling,

on the podium with four gold and three silver.

Both teams aim to add to Can-

ski mountaineering, ski orienteering, snowboarding, and ice hockey.

team looks to get their sixth gold medal at the tournament, while the

nament at the games took place in 1962 in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland, and featured Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Sweden and Switzerland. In 2009, the women’s ice hockey tournament was added, where Canada, China, Finland, Slovakia, Japan and Great Britain competed in Harbin, China.

“I look forward to a lot of things, but for sure to represent my country and university and bring back a gold medal,” said Lavoie, who was named one of Team Canada’s alternate captains. “Meeting a bunch of new people, playing my best every game and being the best version of myself

will remember forever, and with this

Social media’s tendency to fuel egocentrism rans women constantly face discrimination when practicing professional sports. Now, political powers are making that discrimination law.

In recent years, United States lawmakers have pushed legislation to shut trans people out of organized sports based on their gender identity.

Given President Donald Trump’s recent election, the new Republican-led Congress now has more opportunity to legislate against trans athletes.

Republican Congressman Greg Steube vowed to “save” women as he reintroduced the Protection of anti-trans athlete bill would ban transgender athletes from competing in cisgender men’s and women’s sports.

Steube’s bill proposal was included in the House of Representatives’ new rules package as a priority to be

the House on Jan. 3. It had passed by the House in 2023 but was never brought to a vote in a majoritarian Democratic Senate. recognized solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

It also aims to ban any athletic organization that receives public funding that does not operate within the bill’s partracked,” meaning no amendments could slow down the voting process and it will be voted on “as read.”

Implementing this bill so quickly into Trump’s second term as president sends a clear message of the priorities of the new Republican-led Congress. health care among others. Fast-tracking this bill gives the impression of a transphobic and anti-feminist agenda pushed by Republican politicians disguised as legislation made to “save” women’s sports.

THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS IS PUSHING TRANSPHOBIC RHETORIC BY FAST-TRACKING A BILL TO BAN TRANSGENDER ATHLETES FROM WOMEN'S SPORTS. GRAPHIC JUDE M.

VOLUME 45 • JANUARY 14, 2025

of the bill are pretty clear, as Steube consistently misgendered trans

@emily.douris

team, I think we have the ability to have a lot of success so I just can’t wait to get started,” Verbeek said.

South Korea 11-0. Bizier scored two women’s team defeated Chinese Taipei 16-0. Lussier had two goals and one assist, and Lavoie had one goal and one assist.

Both teams play their next game on Jan. 15 at 2 p.m. EST. The men's team will play Kazakhstan, while the women's team will take on Slovakia.

STINGERS FORWARD ÉMILIE LAVOIE IS AN ALTERNATE CAPTAIN FOR TEAM CANADA AT THE 2025 FISU GA

Shut Up and Dribble: New US Congress prioritizes transphobic bill T

Emily Douris-Blondin

Anthony Maruca

athletes in a statement released the same day the House passed the bill. “[Americans] do not want men stealing sports records from women, entering their daughters’ locker rooms, replacing female athletes on teams, and taking their daughters’ scholarship opportunities [...] men have no place in women’s sports,” Steube said.

The notion that “men” are attempting to ruin women’s sports is wrong in two ways. Firstly, it misgenders any trans athletes who don’t identify as male who wish to participate in women’s sports. Secondly, the notion that trans athletes would ruin women’s sports is simply untrue. In “Transgender Women Athletes and Elite Sport: A Scientific Review”, the authors found that there isn’t any conclusive evidence of trans women having an advantage over cis women in sports.

Additionally, and as history has proven, banning trans athletes from sports invites unfair gender policing based on whether an athlete is “too masculine” to be a “real” woman. reinforce anti-feminist stereotypes that women are weak and in need of protection. Female athletes are more than capable of competing at high levels athletically, even among other trans athletes. According to

@_maruca27

Dr. Joshua D. Safer of Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, an individual’s internal and external reproductive anatomy is not a useful indicator of athletic performance.

Safer also states that the only testosterone level established athletic advantage males have over females is tested to reduce testosterone, which is common in transitioning individate this biological advantage.

For several years now, the National Collegiate Athletics Association has allowed trans athletes to compete in high-level athletic events, and no disruption to women’s sports can be perceived. In fact, according to a CNN article published in mid2024, an estimated fewer than 40 athletes were known to identify as transgender, which would come out to less than 0.01 per cent of a total estimated 500,000 athletes. letes promotes discrimination and a lack of inclusion among their peers.

Sports are a beautiful thing, and part of that beauty is how they bring people together. To exclude anybody from that community due to their gender identity would be shameful and unfortunate.

13

The innate politics of literature

OPINIONS

Jocelyn Gardner

@jocelyn.lhg

Writing has a natural ability to impact political beliefs

A

ll writing has the capacity for influence, yet the degree to which a person is impacted varies greatly. Readers may observe and interpret them uniquely, but there is always intention woven into the author’s words.

Some may find a book to be profoundly meaningful and representative of their worldview, while others remain unmoved.

The faltering distinction between fiction and nonfiction, as writer Mohsin Hamid notes in his New York Times article “Does Fiction Have the Power to Sway Politics?”, is undeniable. Hamid explains how fabricated political writings claiming to be nonfiction are immensely powerful over people’s interactions with and perceptions of one another.

For example, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a manufactured document published in Imperial Russia in 1903, detailed the plans of a non-existent body of Jewish elders to control world politics, the economy, media, education and more.

This notable piece of propaganda fuelled European antisemitism in the decades before the Holocaust, despite being exposed as fraudulent in 1921 by British newspaper The Times, and in 1924 by German newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung.

Additionally, Hamid highlights the significant political influence of self-admitted fiction, providing the 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe as an example. The text examined the unjust treatment of humans as property and challenged the dominant American cultural beliefs about the emotional, physical and intellectual capacities of Black people. Her novel strengthened resistance to slavery and is said to have helped enable the war resulting in its abolition.

Both writings shaped understandings of the world and its population. While one fostered empathy and humanization, the other instigated discriminatory beliefs and hateful inclinations. In both cases, however, the presumed intentions of the authors prevailed.

“We all write in reaction to something,” states Helon Habila, author of the 2019 novel Travelers, in an interview with writer and professor Kenechi Uzor. “I think the best, and the most relevant writing, is always an act of protest. A refusal to keep quiet in the face of whatever seeks to dehumanize us.”

In a climate of such conspicuous politicization of humanity and agency, the very act of writing is a

political endeavour. Habila goes on to explain the long history of protest writing in Africa and other former colonies, emphasizing the effectiveness of language as a tool with which humans can express themselves.

Words are powerful and dynamic instruments that motivate creation and, as stated in a Morehouse College article, “Writings can be used to shape conversations in times of change and crisis.” Literature as a form of protest reflects and humanizes the world’s grievances through stories and characters that readers resonate with while also bringing forth hope that inspires action.

In acts of resistance, authors harness the power of words to address inequality, spark conversations and encourage empathy.

Across the United States, books have been banned from libraries and school curriculums to limit youth access to narratives deemed “inappropriate” or “offensive” by parents, school districts, state officials and other community members. In the 2023-2024 academic year, PEN America recorded 10,046 instances of book bans in 29 states and 220 public school districts.

These bans include titles such as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Hunger Games tril-

The bitter taste of convenience

ogy by Suzanne Collins, The Color Purple by Alice Walker and many more.

As illustrated by journalist Elizabeth Yuko in Reader’s Digest, this censorship is about controlling access to education, specifically regarding the US’s history of discrimination and the experiences of marginalized peoples. In other

words, the government seeks to mitigate the spread of political ideas misaligned with their own.

The intensity with which the US government aims to control and regulate books accentuates the political influence of literature. But despite limited accessibility, reaching even a handful of people is enough to set change in motion.

THE VERY ACT OF WRITING IS A POLITICAL ENDEAVOUR. GRAPHIC BÉATRICE PELLETIER

Ryan Assaker

@ryaaker

How Concordia University chooses convenience over nutrition for their students

I

f you’ve ever lived at Grey Nuns or any of the other Concordia University residences, you know the story.

The meal plans are mandatory, but the food? Well, it leaves much to be desired.

I’ve heard countless complaints about the mouldy bread, uncooked meat and a lack of options for students with dietary restrictions. This isn’t just student grumbling, it's a systemic failure in how Concordia handles its food services.

At the heart of this issue is Aramark, a global corporation that provides food services to universities and US prisons. In April 2021, Concordia’s Board of Governors renewed Aramark’s contract until 2026. For the next year, thousands of students will be trapped into meal plans that feature a history of low-quality, overpriced food.

Aramark’s reputation is problematic.

The company is notorious for cutting costs at the expense of quality, which has led to numerous food safety violations in prisons and schools across North America.

In California, inmates sued Aramark for serving food infested with rodents and insects. And here at Concordia, students have taken to social media—on accounts like @ greynunscaf—to showcase photos of undercooked chicken, mouldy sandwiches and meals that no one should have to pay for, let alone eat.

Yet, despite these obvious issues, Concordia’s administration insists on its website that Aramark provides a "healthy, safe, sustainable dining experience" for students. I would challenge anyone who’s lived in residence to support that claim.

What’s even more frustrating is that the request for proposal process, which led to Aramark’s contract renewal, was purportedly "transparent"

and "competitive." Only four large multinational companies competed for the contract. Smaller, more sustainable providers didn’t even stand a chance. Concordia is home to a brilliant network of sustainable and local food organizers and makers—why not take advantage of this strength?

This system isn't just bad for our taste buds; it's bad for our wallets. The mandatory meal plan for students living in residence costs a staggering $6,225 for the academic year. That’s more than most of us can afford, especially when many of us find ourselves paying out of pocket for food we can actually eat off-campus.

And that’s the core of the issue: Concordia’s meal plan, designed to feed thousands of students a day, isn’t built for us, it’s built for corporate convenience. We must rethink this system and give students the flexibility they need.

Concordia should let students

decide how to spend their dining dollars. An actual Flex Dollar program would allow students to use their prepaid meal plan funds at a variety of campus dining locations—including student-run options like the Hive Café, The People’s Potato and Le Frigo Vert. These organizations offer affordable, locally sourced and often more culturally relevant meals than anything Aramark has to offer.

I would like to see a campus where you can support student-run initiatives that align with Concordia’s stated values of sustainability and diversity. Institutions like McGill University and the University of British Columbia (UBC) have already implemented flexible meal plan systems that let students choose where their money goes. The result seems to be happier students, less food waste and a greater emphasis on supporting local food producers.

There are always concerns about costs or logistics when proposing change, but let’s be real: this is about priorities. If McGill and UBC can make it work, so can Concordia.

They have the resources and the infrastructure to make this happen.

But will they?

I’m tired of hearing about diversity and inclusion when it’s not reflected in the day-to-day experiences of students. If Concordia truly cares about its students, it’s time to show it.

Expanding the Flex Dollar program isn’t just about food, it’s about giving students the freedom to choose, the power to support local initiatives and the respect we deserve.

It’s time for Concordia to start walking the talk.

CONCORDIA'S MEAL PLAN DISTRIBUTOR IS PROBLEMATIC. PHOTO IVAN DE JACQUELIN

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OPINIONS

14

I’m Just Saying: New year, same old disappointments Why wait till January 1st to be a better person?

Irmak Afşar

@whosirmak

E

very year, we rush to scribble down our goals, establishing new ways of becoming the best version of ourselves. The idea of new hopes and resolutions is exciting, and starting the new year with a clean slate appeals to many.

Rebranding yourself as soon as the clock hits midnight is evidently impossible, but that’s the thing with relying on arbitrary dates: we get to be excited about things. Much like deciding to start a diet on a Monday, it’s the belief in a fresh start that drives us, even if the timing is ultimately unpredictable.

Unfortunately, that excitement alone isn’t enough to carry us through. Too often, these resolutions fail not because we’re unmotivated, but because they’re built on shaky foundations. We tend to set these resolutions in response to external pressures rather than our own genuine desires. For instance, weight loss or workout goals often stem from unreachable societal standards

rather than personal wellness objectives. A study by the Fisher College of Business shows that only nine per cent of Americans actually achieve their New Year’s goal, while 23 per cent of people quit by the first week, and 43 per cent quit by the end of January.

Why are we obsessed with changing everything overnight?

How has social media and endless self-improvement content pressured us to constantly perform these changes?

Simultaneously, industries are cashing in on our constant desire for change, offering quick fixes that rarely stick. They don’t make us fail, but they profit off the hope that we’ll succeed. They thrive on our obsession with reinvention.

They capitalize on our insecurities by creating an endless cycle of promises, selling quick fixes that rarely deliver sustainable results.

As soon as the clock turns to midnight, we get bombarded by ads for niche workout programs

promising that if you start on Jan. 10, you'll see results by March 3, or some other oddly specific timeline. “In a week, you’ll feel it; in two weeks, you’ll see it; in four weeks, you’ll hear it.” What a convenient opportunity presented just in time for the new year. It sounds like the perfect resolution.

Except you’ll take the first two classes, proud of your initial commitment, then life will get in the way and you’ll never return.

Resolutions don’t fail simply because of capitalism. They fail because they tend to be unmeaningful. Social media and marketing campaigns exploit our desire for change, selling us the idea that transformation can be immediate if only we buy into the right thing.

Sure, it’s nice to start a new period of your life feeling motivated, but let’s be real—the resolutions we choose are things we haven’t done before for a reason. And, shockingly, that reason isn’t just that it wasn’t New Year’s. New Year’s is indeed just an

arbitrary marker. Resolutions, however, don’t have to be.

Achievable and sustainable

goals aren’t dictated by dates or hype but grounded in what truly fits our lives.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS ARE UNREALISTIC AND OUTDATED. GRAPHIC MIRA DE KOVEN

How student unions have shaped Quebec, one battle at a time

Adam Semergian

Student unions in so-called-Quebec are engines of political change Disclaimer: These opinions are my own and do not reflect any official positions of student organizations I am affiliated with.

O

ver the course of four years, I have been involved in the Quebec student movement, and I have seen many political campaigns come and go, some more successful than others.

The common thread of these campaigns has been the extensive support of entrenched student unions here in so-called Quebec.

Students and their unions have the power to create positive political change, which can be challenging at times, but not impossible.

Student unions work in Quebec for various reasons. The first province-wide student strike occurred in 1968, advocating for education reform. This led to the creation of the Université du Québec system, with fully government-funded universities, including Montreal’s Uni-

versité du Québec à Montréal.

Over a decade later, the Act Respecting the Accreditation and Financing of Students’ Associations was introduced, which would give student unions a legally recognized framework to operate under. This is the single biggest piece of legislation that sets Quebec apart from the rest of North America. This legislation allows student unions to be legally recognized on a similar level to labour unions. It reinforced the belief that students are intellectual workers, and without them, Quebec wouldn't function in the near future.

Neutrality often serves as a guise to maintain the status quo. The notion that student unions should remain politically neutral is a contradiction of their very purpose. Student unions exist to advocate for the rights and interests of their members, inherently involving political stances. For example, the victory over the 2012 tuition hike in Quebec was due to explicit political action taken by student unions.

VOLUME 45 • JANUARY 14, 2025

At Concordia, the growing politicization of student unions has been met with criticism by a select few.

Some dissenting students have resorted to misusing the justice system to void political decisions and harass executives and the like for executing mandates. Despite this, student unions must embrace their role as catalysts for change, championing causes that matter to their members.

Anglophone student unions have seen positive changes in the past five years. At institutions like McGill University, Concordia University and Dawson College, unions are beginning to prioritize advocacy over social events, and electing representatives committed to union goals. For example, the Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) allocated over $20,000 for mobilization this academic year.

Additionally, democracy within student unions has improved. In many francophone unions, critical decisions such as budget allocation

STUDENT UNIONS HAVE PLAYED A VITAL ROLE IN QUEBEC EDUCATION REFORM. PHOTO ANDRAÉ LERONE LEWIS

occur in general assemblies where all members have a vote. At anglophone institutions, decisions are often made by representatives in closed-door meetings. However, strike votes require direct student input, leading to more general assemblies and increased student engagement. This has sparked the very interesting cascade effect of students questioning union operations and mobilizing to hold representatives accountable to their political mandates, including attempting to impeach student union representatives who stray from this goal.

The history of Quebec student unions demonstrates their critical role as platforms for collective action and political advocacy. It is important to recognize student union executives not as "leaders" with unilateral-direct power, but as facilitators

of collective decision-making. Mislabeling them as “leaders” not only misrepresents their role, but also undermines the democratic principles at the heart of student unions, and allows administrators and the government to persecute them for actions taken by their members.

Our recent efforts to push Concordia and the Quebec government to divest from and sanction Israel exemplify the collective power of students. Despite facing intense repercussions from said authorities, students and their unions remain committed to the cause.

This work highlights why it is vital for all students to engage with their unions by running for representative positions or participating in general assemblies. True change stems from collective action from the masses— and it begins with you!

15

EDITORIAL

To make matters worse, Concordia still fails to truly address any Palestine-related matters and take action.

In that same interview, Carr deflected a pointed question about Concordia’s ties with companies such as BMO, which is guilty of funding Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Instead of directly addressing this, Carr opted to speak about the university’s 2019-25 initiative to divest from fossil fuel companies—essentially stating that staff and students should be proud of the climate change efforts that the university has been making, all while ignoring the root of the initial BDS-related question.

When asked about Concordia’s involvement with notorious weapons manufacturing companies such as Lockheed Martin and Bombardier, Carr iterated that it is “the student’s choice” to select where they conduct their Co-op placement, as opposed to acknowledging Concordia’s partnership with the two companies. In doing this, he actively shifts the blame away from the university for having ties with such companies, instead highlighting that it is the students who choose to work for such companies through Co-op.

Carr equally failed to provide solutions to the violence and harassment from Campus Safety and Prevention Services (CSPS)

officers that many students have reported during on-campus protests, particularly in the latter half of 2024. According to him, CSPS is made up of “a small number of individuals,” who have been “asked to do an awful lot over the last 16 months.”

He went as far as to explain that CSPS are not “bouncers” in a “nightclub.” What he failed to mention, however, is that students have been racially profiled, assaulted, shoved, pushed, yelled and screamed at. Only because they stood up for Palestine. Once again, Concordia has proven, through Carr’s expert media training, that the university refuses to denounce the status quo at the price of students’ safety.

The Link continues to condemn Concordia’s inability to listen to the resounding concerns of its student body and its inaction regarding its ties to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. We particularly denounce the allocation of funds and working relationships with repressive entities such as Perceptage, Lockheed Martin, Bombardier and BMO, companies so blatantly involved with a genocidal state.

Lastly, The Link denounces the overall hypocrisy of the university when it comes to its recent financial decisions, despite being in “extraordinarily challenging times.”

Less resolutions, more sound solutions.

A

s we ring in the new year, Concordia University is heading into 2025 with its fair share of questionable, yet predictable decisions poorly sheathed in a veil of “neutrality.”

Throughout 2024, student movements have made it abundantly clear what many are looking for from the university’s administration: To address and commit to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement; to permanently remove police officers from campus; and to prioritize the safety of students on campus.

And yet, instead of addressing these urgent calls to action, the administration has chosen to allocate hefty sums towards hiring a deeply problematic security consulting firm and increase President Graham Carr’s salary. All the while, the university sweeps signs of student discontent under the rug by spending an egregious amount on repairing the Henry F. Hall Building windows. However, the university addressing the smashing of the windows cosmetically, in the form of repair, is not enough to mend the bridges between student demands and admin. Direct communication, active listening, and negotiating with student activists is the institution's first step to reconciling with the political tension felt on campus.

To repress student activism and expression, the university spent

Volume 45, Issue 7 Tuesday, January 14, 2025 Concordia University Library Building, Room LB-717 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. Montreal, Quebec H3G 2V8 Editor: 514-848-2424 x. 7407 Arts: 514-848-2424 x. 5813 News: 514-848-2424 x. 8682 Business: 514-848-7406 Advertising: 514-848-7406

over $33,000 on hiring Perceptage International, an external security consulting firm founded by an ex-Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier. Concordia hired Perceptage on four separate occasions from September to November 2024 to monitor Palestine-related demonstrations, during which its agents were accused of physically assaulting students.

Students who had democratically mobilized to demand Concordia to divest via demonstration were later head-locked by security agents, dragged down Concordia stairwells, and pushed and shoved while attempting to strike in the Hall building. To make matters worse, not even two weeks later, Concordia was unable to restrict ex-IDF soldier and staunch anti-Palestinian activist Yoseph Haddad’s presence on campus, with CSPS silently watching and refusing to remove the guest from the university grounds.

We have to question, does the university really not take a side in this “conflict”?

To make matters worse, President Carr received a salary increase of over $30,000 in 2024, making his total salary over $520,000 a year, a salary higher than that of Canada’s Prime Minister.

And of course, to punctuate the trifecta of egregious spending, the university spent nearly $300,000 to replace the Hall building’s front

windows, which were damaged during an autonomous demonstration on Sept. 29. Over $9,000 was spent on temporary wooden boards to hide the vandalism and over $2,000 was spent on branded replacement black panels to conceal the damage. Over $270,000 was spent on the sourcing and installation of replacement windows.

All of these significant expenses come at a time when the university has been implementing cuts to valued resources—notably, reducing the campus shuttle bus hours, placing a freeze on hiring new staff and faculty and cutting courses with low enrolment—to reach its approved deficit of $34.5 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

On the university’s Budget Updates webpage, it is written that Concordia “continues to face significant financial difficulties.”

And, in an interview with The Link on Jan. 9, Carr said that Concordia now needs to look outward for new revenue sources as a result of the increasing deficit and losing money from tuition hikes, a statement that comes in stark contrast to the university’s spending over the past months, which includes Carr’s own salary raise. Granted, according to Concordia’s media team, Carr and other senior administrators donated their increases back to the university. However, this begs the question: “Why did they receive it in the first place?”

The Link is published twelve times during the academic year by The Link Publication Society Inc. Content is independent of the university and student associations (ECA, CASA, ASFA, FASA, CSU). Editorial policy is set by an elected board as provided for in The Link 's constitution. Any student is welcome to work on The Link and become a voting staff member. Material appearing in The Link may not be reproduced without prior written permision from The Link. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters 400 words or less will be printed, space permitting. The letters deadline is Friday at 4:00 p.m. The Link reserves the right to edit letters for clarity and length and refuse those deemed racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, libellous or otherwise contrary to The Link 's statement of principles.

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Coordinating Editor Creative Director Co-News Editors

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2024 - 2025: Voting Members: Jessica Hungate, Miriam Lafontaine, Iness Rifay | Non-Voting Members: Hannah Vogan, Varda Nisar, Jonathan Cook.

TYPESETTING by The Link PRINTING by Hebdo-Litho.

CONTRIBUTORS: Zachary Cheung, Hayley Carolan, Maya St-Antoine, Sarah Housley, Emily Douris-Blondin, Samuel Kayll, Anthony Maruca, Ryan Assaker, Adam Semergian, Jocelyn Gardner, Irmak Afşar, Tam Bedard, Jude M., Béatrice Pelletier, Mira De Koven, Caroline Marsh, Julia Cieri.

House Ads: Panos Michalakopoulos, Myriam Ouazzani, Maria Cholakova Cover: Myriam Ouazzani, Panos Michalakopoulos. Mockup courtesy 4thperspectivemockup.

Features Editor Fringe Arts Editor Sports Editor Opinions Editor Photo Editor Video Editor Graphics Editor Copy Editor Business Manager

Corrections: In the Contributors section on p. 15, The Link mistakenly omitted two valuable contributorsʼ names. The Link wants to thank Olivia Shan and Naya Hachwa for their work. The Link regrets this error.

The article "FedUp Concordia calls for food sovereignty on campus" on p. 5 stated that Aramarkʼs contract gives them complete authority over the food served on campus. Aramark provides the food services in the residences and in six retail locations on Concordia campuses and does not have complete authority over food served on campus. The Link regrets this error.

HANNAH VOGAN ALICE MARTIN MARIA CHOLAKOVA PANOS MICHALAKOPOULOS GENEVIÈVE SYLVESTRE HANNAH SCOTT-TALIB CLAUDIA BEAUDOIN INDIA DAS-BROWN JARED LACKMAN-MINCOFF LORY SAINT-FLEUR ANDRAÉ LERONE LEWIS MATTHEW DALDALIAN MYRIAM OUAZZANI DANA HACHWA VARDA NISAR

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