NEWS “In conversation with Kevin O’Leary” pg. 02
FEATURE “Beyond semantics: The colorful story of Milton-Parc ” pg. 8-9
The McGill Tribune
EDITORIAL: McGILL ADMINISTRATION MUST SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENCE OF STUDENT SOCIETIES pg. 05
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2017 VOL. 36 ISSUE 20 PUBLISHED BY THE SPT, A STUDENT SOCIETY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY
McGILLTRIBUNE.COM
McGill administration and SSMU meet to discuss Igor Sadikov Fortier reminds Executives of constitutional standards for representatives Domenic Casciato Staff Writer
The Pirates of Penzance’s cast mastered effortless physicality. (Alex Gardiner / The McGill Tribune)
Kitsch, tongue-twisters, and true love
McGill’s Savoy Society presents ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ Niklas Kaemmerer Contributor It shames me to admit that before The McGill Savoy Society’s presentation of The Pirates of Penzance, I had never seen a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. Although I was familiar with the general tone and the plot of the operetta, I entered Moyse Hall with an open mind. Upon reading that the Savoy Society
director, Roger Andrews, had directed this specific operetta four times—yes, four separate times—I knew I’d be in good hands. The two-act operetta follows Frederic (Sebastian Comtois), a pirate’s apprentice finally free of his servitude after 21 years of loyal labour. Mistakenly conscripted to the Pirate King’s (Aaron Meredith) boisterous gang at the fragile age of eight, Frederic struggles with choosing between his intense sense of
duty towards his adopted family and his love for the Major-General’s (Scott Cope) beautiful daughter, Mabel (Sevan Kochkarian). The resulting conflict between both groups involves exactly the campy sort of tomfoolery one would expect from a Gilbert & Sullivan classic: A chorus of cowardly policemen, a surprisingly haunting interpretive ballet performance from a grown man in a nightgown, and an unfortunate technicality involving leap years.
PG. 10
Study shows correlation between heavy snowfall and heart attacks
Montreal researchers offer health justifications to avoid shovelling snow Angelina Giordano Contributor Shovelling snow is a winter chore generally met with dread. But, as Dr. Nathalie Auger and her team at the Quebec Public Health Institute recently showed in a study published by the Canadian
Medical Association Journal on Feb. 13, there may be real health risks involved. Auger’s study hits home for a lot of Canadians, especially in Quebec, for whom snow is a huge part of everyday life. The study was designed to discover if, during the winter months of November through April
from the years 1981-2014, the amount of hospital admissions or deaths due to myocardial infarction (MI)—known colloquially as heart attack— increased as a result of heavy snowfall in Quebec. Auger’s team collected thousands of medical records and then analyzed the data to find out whether or not their hypothesis held.
PG. 13
On Feb. 17, protesters demonstrated around the James Administration Building in response to the McGill administration’s alleged threat to terminate the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) if SSMU did not release a public statement calling for the resignation of Arts Representative Igor Sadikov. Sadikov caused controversy after posting a tweet reading “punch a zionist [sic] today,” on Feb. 6. At a meeting on Feb. 13, the SSMU Board of Directors (BoD) made the executive decision to censure Sadikov, who is also a Director on the BoD, but not to impeach him. The BoD posted a press release that included a formal apology from Sadikov. Protesters claimed that sometime after SSMU’s decision, a meeting was held between Principal and ViceChancellor Suzanne Fortier, Sadikov, and SSMU President Ben Ger. It was alleged that during this meeting, Fortier threatened to revoke all funding from SSMU if the Society did not publicly call for Sadikov’s resignation. Kyle Shaw, U3 Arts, and protester said that this threat is a breach of student democracy. PG. 03