Tiff MCGILLTRIBUNE
Tuesday, March 10, 1987
Published by the Students' Society of McGill University
Volume 6, Issue 21
Students Condemn FAE’s, Demo Next Monday by Chris Flanagan
As five active members of the Little Red Wagon settled into their second day of occupation of Vice Principal (Research) Gordon Maclachlan's office, a more subtle mode of protest was being carried out in the Union Building. The Ad Hoc Committee for Responsible Research held a press conference to promote awareness of the weapons research at McGill and to drum up support to end a fuel air explosives (FAE) contract that McGill has had with the Department of National Defence for the past six years. "W e are launching a petition which w ill be presented to the Board of Governors meeting on March 16," explained David Schulze, Graduate Student representative to the Board of Governors. "W e're asking the University to put a halt to this research; this is research to create a better way to kill people and This is not an appropriate use of the University's funds." Fuel Air Explosives are chemical weapons that use the air, rather than an detonating agent, to ignite. The intensity of the blast has been described as "2-3 times higher than that required to kill 99 percent of the population." FAEs were used by the United States Army in Vietnam and although the claimed purpose was for the defoliation of trees, the Times of London reported in 1975, that FAEs left "hundreds and perhaps thousands of corpses ove zones of several acres." Victims are said to die of asphyxiation as membranes of the lungs are ruptured. According to Lee Iverson, member of the Senate and the Ad Hoc Committee, the research into FAEs is not only an "issue with a clear moral objective," but also a breach of international trust by the Canadian Government. "Canada has signed a number of treaties which forbid nations to research chemical weapons with offensive or destructive uses," said Committee Member, Marc W ills at the Press Conference. Those in favour of continued FAE research argue that FAEs are used for defense purposes only, such as in the clearing of mine fields. The important issue in the offensive versus defensive argument for FAEs is the question of detonation. McGill Professors R. Knystautas and j.F. Lee, of the Department of Engineering, are working on a contract with DND for the "Study of formation and detonation by turbulent mixing and transition from deflagration to detonation." FAEs have faced several detonation and spreading problems, which if overcome, would make the weapon much more effective and much more deadly.
Anthony Paré, Responsible Research Committee members and founding member of M cG ill Employees for Nuclear Disarmament, expressed hisdesire to establish research ethics committees. "W e would like to see a research Committee in each department that w ill decide whether or not any research is ethical, said Paré. Ideally all research would have to be passed by said committees." Paré has met with indifference and opposition to this proposal in the past. He approached the Board of Governors in 1984 with a petition signed by over 300 staff members but was told that BOG did not address "personal complaints". Paré told The Tribune that the Board of Governors felt the issue was "to o p o litica l" and "to o deep a question". McGill Students' Society is fully supportive of the committees efforts to eliminate offensive weapons research at McGill. "Last Tuesday, a resolution was passed which condemned FAE research at M cG ill," said Stud Soc President, Paul Pickersgill.. "S tudents' Society is
formally calling a resolution which condemns and opposes the research." Pickersgill is optimistic that the Board of Governors w ill react to this protest in the same manner as they did to the Divestment issue of last year. "The Board rarely deals with a resolution put forward by the students," David Schulze stated, "but hopefully a precedent was set last year, when they approved divestment." The ad hoc çommittee and the Little Red Wagon however, are in no way connected. "W e were not consulted by the members of The Little Red Wagon," Schulze said of the occupation but he did not concede that the two shared the same goal. One occupant of the Dean's office is David Lennox, who told The Tribune: "W e want to stay until our demands are met but we could not be moved out by force before then." According to a second occupant, Robert Todd, of Concordia University, the only demand they have is "the cancellation of the contract". To acheive continued on page 3
Sign of the times. Protesters occupying V.P. Machlachlan's office were forc ed to leave early Monday morning with the help of ten policemen. Demonstrations against FAE weapons research will continue as planned.
C an didates O u tn u m b e r S tu d en ts Inside by Michele Dupuis "I'm sorry for disturbing your lunch," apologized Andrew Dinsmore, Student Society's Chief Returning Officer, when he announced the commencement of Wednesday's all candidates meeting. Most of the students present in the Mc Connell Engineering Building's Com mon Room ate lunch with their backs turned away from the candidates -and talked among themselves as the can didates addressed the group and answered questions. The all candidates meeting is a pre election tradition at McGill, as is the students' lack of interest and participa tion in the event. While those in atten dance at Wednesday's meeting did not pay attention, Thursday's all candidates meeting (there was one yesterday as well) was a repetition of last year where Tribune coverage noted that the can didates at the meeting outnumbered observers, including the press. At Thursday's meeting, Marc Wills, a leader of last week's student protest against Fuel Air Explosives Research in the Engineering Faculty sought the opi nion of the Presidential candidates on this "hot potato." "I think it's dangerous, telling Pro fessor Lee (one of the professors conduc ting the research into a detonation device for the controversial weapon) what he can and cannot do in a universi ty atmosphere — it's anti-academic," Presidential hopeful Ian Brodie said. The other four candidates; however, stated that they believed that academics should take responsibility for the im plications of their research. "Basically, I've always been against that kind of thing — just today I signed a petition," said Presidential candidate Keith Foun tain.
A questioner from the floor asked all the candidates to plainly state their policy in relation to tuition fee increases. M o st c a n d id a te s fa v o u re d a "legitimate" increase; a fee increase that is combined with an overhaul of the cur rent loans and bursaries programs which would ensure accessibility to education for all students. According to Presiden tial candidate Daniel Tenenbaum, such an increase is "inevitable."
VP External candidate Francis Lacombe did not agree. Lacombe sees a re-working of the funding formula used by both the federal and provincial governments as a solution. "If tuition fees go up, it should only be as a supple ment" to the new system, he said. During Thursday's question period, the VP External candidates expressed very different attitudes about McGill's continued on page 3
Kodo Tradition............................p.9 Babb at Douglas H all.................p.6 Sports, Season’s Finals, .p.10 & 11
U n iversity to H o ld Funds: PGSS by Jennifer Mori The Post Graduate Students' Society voted last Wednesday to place their fees to the Students' Society in escrow until the PGSS comes to an agreement with the Students' Society regarding its membership, pending the results of the PGSS referendum to consider negotiated secession. PGSS has yet to approach Senate and the Board of Governors concerning the proposal to have the university hold their funds. If no agreement is worked out between the two student societies, the funds would be released to the PGSS in October. "This is designed to hold the Students' Society to negotiation,” said Stephen Fraser, PGSS Speaker and newly elected Graduate Rep to Students' Council. "There is a big temptation to stall (on the part of StudSoc) and this is a test o f good faith." The PGSS attempted to get constitu tional amendments regarding propor tional representation for faculties, a new StudSoc executive m em ber (VP Graduate Student Affairs), fee reductions for graduates proportional to use of Stud
Soc facilities, and bi-monthly meetings between PGSS and StudSoc executive presented at the Feb. 24 Council meeting. The PGSS did not provide proper notice of motion to the Students' Coun cil, thus preventing the PGSS from get ting the amendments on this week's ballot. Fraser attempted to appeal the notice of motion ruling to the Students' Society judicial Board but the hearing was cancelled. According to Students' Society President Paul Pickersgill, there w ill be a hearing this week to determine whether the Fraser hearing w ill take place at all. The Students' Society executive can didates addressed PGSS Council, forego ing usual prepared speeches to answer questions about their position on PGSS secession. All the candidates but Jordan Waxman (Pres.) expressed a desire to keep the PGSS within the Students' Society and to try to negotiate an agree ment. Waxman felt that the PGSS might be better off as a.separate organisation. When asked about their opinion on proportioanl representation by Mark Readman, PGSS VP University Affairs,
Ian Brodie, Randy Flemmings, Daniel Tenenbaum (Pres, candidates), and Fran cis Lacombe (External Affairs) agreed with it in principle with reservations about the size and manageability of the Students' Council. Fountain (Pres.) claimed that the new VP Graduate Stu dent Affairs would handle graduate in terests while Waxman (Pres.) and Steven Lightfoot (Internal Affairs) supported it, "even If Council became a zoo." On the fee question, all but Brodie agreed with fee reductions conditional upon completion of the facilities usage survey. Brodie was the dissenter, claim ing that Students' Society membership means more than services, citing such intangibles as external affairs representa tion. The PGSS also voted to oppose fuel-air research at McGill. Although the con sensus was that McGill should not be associated with this kind of research, doubts about the judgement were raised. "It's difficult to make a judgement about a supposed motive for research," stated Geneviève Tanguay, PGSS Presi dent. "M cG ill did not accept the con tract necessarily for defence purposes.
M cG ill is a public university and should accept public research." "It takes away the individual resear cher's right to make a living," added J.1 Sheppard, Chemical Engineering Rep. "If ethics get involved every time we have research there are serious implica tions for research and development at M cG ill." Producing a copy of Monday's Daily, Chris Lawson, Daily news editor, rose and appealed to the PGSS to support the Daily fee increase. "The Daily is a tabloid," said Lawson. "It has an 80% advertisement ratio and has had no substantial fee increase for the past ten years." "It is no longer a question whether you like the editorial position and prin ciples of the Daily," added Joe Heath, Daily co-coordinating editor. "It's a mat ter of survival, whether or not you want an independent autonomous newspaper on campus." According to Heath, if the fee increase passes, the Daily "w ould be able to publish another fifteen issues and decrease the ad to copy ratio." We continued on page 3