The McGill Daily Vol105Iss23

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Volume 105, Issue 23 Monday, March 21, 2016

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News 3 NEWS

SSMU election results March against police violence sees no brutality Speakers compare Black Lives Matter and Palestinian solidarity Abby Stein discusses her experiences Panel examines physicianassisted suicide Over-incarceration of Indigenous people examined PGSS debates politicization

ELECTIONS 8 PGSS AND REFERENDA 10 COMMENTARY Finding space as a mixedrace woman

UN declaration no solution for racism Uber and worker exploitation SSMU ancillary fee endorsements

The Art Supplement THE 14 FROM ARCHIVES

17

FEATURES

19

SCI+TECH

Professor-student relationships under scrutiny

Uncovering the causes of schizophrenia

20 CULTURE

Rupi Kaur talks social transgression Culture picks Babely Shades reforms conservative minds Rococo and Baroque images for the modern “Other” The Flood Thereafter and magical realism

23 EDITORIAL Reaction to Cross Lake suicide epidemic too little, too late

24 COMPENDIUM! A smoker and a duck

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Ben Ger elected SSMU President

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Controversial “external and divisive” issues motion fails

Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

O

n March 18, Ben Ger was elected Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President for the 2016-17 academic year. Ger won against his opponent Jordan Sinder by a margin of 30.8 per cent or 859 votes, with a total of 1,828 votes cast.

The only other contested position, that of VP Student Life, was won by Elaine Patterson, by a margin of 52.8 per cent. All those running unopposed were acclaimed: Erin Sobat for VP University Affairs, David Aird for VP External, Daniel Lawrie for VP Internal, Sacha Magder for VP Operations, and Niall Carolan for VP Finance.

The voter turnout was 17.5 per cent, a marked decrease from last year’s 25.9 per cent.

Speaking to The Daily, Ger said, “[I am] unbelievably excited and thankful that the student body trusted me with this position.”

“I promise 2016-17 will be the best SSMU year we’ve had,” continued Ger. “I know there’s a lot of troubles and a lot of doubts about what we’re going into, but I promise the council reform committee will come through. I promise more voices will be included at the table, and I promise we’ll figure a way to balance this budget and make student life better.”

In an interview with The Daily, Jordan Sinder said that, despite his loss, he was proud of the campaign his team ran. “I think we raised important issues that needed to be raised. I think we drew a lot of attention to SSMU politics and our campaign engaged many students,” said Sinder.

“I’m happy for Ben and I know he’s going to be a great president next year and I look forward to working with him,” he continued.

“I think the arguments coming from the ‘no’ campaign [for the AVEQ affiliation] were rather inflammatory.”

David Aird, VP External elect

Allegations of personal attacks Like last year, this year’s elections also made heavy use of Facebook event pages for campaigning purposes.

In a post shared on his event wall on March 11, Ger said, “This campaign is grassroots-based. It focuses on the issues, not my oppo-

nent. [...] Personal attacks from my opponent will not be met with personal attacks from my campaign’s end, and we will continue to address critical problems on campus.”

However, on March 17, Sinder released a statement on his event page, alleging that members of Ger’s campaign team had been engaging in “personal attacks” against Sinder.

“My campaign team has not engaged in attacks against our opponent’s platform; many suspect the same standard has not been upheld on the other hand,” Sinder said, referring to the number of posts made on his event page by members of Ger’s campaign team.

Some commenters on Sinder’s post pointed out that this could be because students had genuine concerns about his platform. One commenter asked, “Have you considered that maybe the volume of questions and concerns that you have received as well as the opposition against you is due to issues in your platform, rather than a personal attack or a grand conspiracy?”

But at least one commenter sided with Sinder, saying that he was “supported by the majority, at least in political opinion.”

Referendum questions The constitutional referendum to create a steering committee to block “external and divisive” mo-

tions from appearing at General Assemblies failed, with 47.4 per cent voting for it and 52.6 per cent voting against it.

The event page for the “yes” committee was very active during the campaign period, with a steady dialogue between the proponents and opponents of the question.

Those opposing the referendum question brought up the fact that this steering committee would be obstructing student democracy.

Furthermore, a number of students were worried about the lack of clear definition of the terms “external” and “divisive.”

One student commented on the Facebook “yes” event, “And here we see the culmination of decades of de-politicization and apathy. [...]

Student groups and unions have a critical place in discourse and action on especially these kinds of ‘external and divisive’ issues, where greater civil society frequently fails to act, and I’ll be rejoicing when this vote fails.”

SSMU Arts and Science Representative Matthew Satterthwaite, one of the original movers of the motion to ask this referendum question, argued in a post in the “yes” event that the sheer number of opposing and other sarcastic comments on the event page made some students uncomfortable sharing their opinions on the page, saying, “Just because you yell louder, doesn’t mean you’re right.”

All of the other referendum questions passed, except for the question regarding affiliation with the Association pour la voix étudiante au Québec (AVEQ), which failed with 62.1 per cent votes against, and the question regarding the increase of the Student Television at McGill (TVM) fee.

David Aird, newly-elected VP External, who had vocally supported affiliation with AVEQ in his platform, explained the failure in an interview with The Daily.

“I think it was just hard to communicate the value of a student federation to the student body,” said Aird. “Most of what we had was just social media that only reaches so many people. The voter turnout was actually pretty low this year, too.”

“I think the arguments coming from the ‘no’ campaign [for the AVEQ affiliation] were rather inflammatory [and] not representative of the true value of joining a student federation. I think they failed to take into account a lot of things,” Aird continued, “which is why I’m going to revisit the question next year at some point, once we’ve had a better chance of seeing what could happen with AVEQ.”

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Marina Cupido & Xavier Richer Vis The McGill Daily

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Peaceful anti-police brutality protest “surprising”

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No arrests or kettling at the 20th annual march Many people present said that they had personally experienced police violence.

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t 8 p.m. on March 15, over 500 people gathered to participate in Montreal’s annual march against police brutality. In stark contrast to the previous year’s march, where more than 90 people were kettled, not a single protester was detained or assaulted by the police, and the event ended peacefully at around 9:30 p.m.

Meeting at Rachel and Garnier on the corner of Parc La Fontaine, protesters heard a series of speeches before marching southwest toward the downtown area.

Addressing the crowd in both French and English, organizers pointed to the fact that over 1,000 people in the U.S. alone were murdered by police in 2015, and made reference to the numerous instances of police violence committed with impunity against marginalized communities across the globe.

“Until the killing, the occupation, the profiling and the abuse come to an end, there will always be an anti-police brutality demonstration,” said one organizer. “We are not powerless. We will always outnumber them.”

“Until the killing, the occupation, the profiling and the abuse come to an end, there will always be an anti-police brutality demonstration.”

Protest organizer

“We’re here because we’ve experienced police brutality,” one protester, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Daily. “We think it’s unfair [...] that a certain segment of the population [...] is able to use violence against us when we’re doing nothing wrong.”

“Certain people are [attacking city property] but they’re a minority. [...] We don’t have the right to express our opinions, and I think that’s really sad,” the protester continued.

“But I’m really surprised,” another protester told The Daily,

roughly 45 minutes into the march, “because it’s unusual for [the police] to let us march for such a long time. [...] Last year [at the anti-police brutality march] I got pepper sprayed and hit with a police baton.”

Protesters adjusted their route when they were blocked by squad cars, police on bicycles, and riot lines. Marching west on Sherbrooke from La Fontaine to St. Denis, they briefly turned south before continuing west on Ste. Catherine.

Police presence was light compared to previous protests, although roughly a dozen officers on horseback followed throughout the march. Many activists expressed surprise at the police allowing the march to continue, since an itinerary had not been provided, making the event illegal under the controversial municipal bylaw P-6.

“It’s unusual for [the police] to let us march for such a long time.”

A protester According to the Toronto Star, “protesters didn’t have a planned march route because most of them

Journalists at the march. expected police to shut down the protest minutes after it started.” At last year’s anti-police brutality protest, riot police kettled the demonstrators at an underpass near Berri and Ontario, barely ten minutes after they began marching. On that occasion 95 people were arrested or ticketed, including student journalists from the Link who had been covering the event.

One protester, who also preferred to remain anonymous, expressed guarded optimism based on the police’s relative restraint. “I think that since the death of Fredy

Kevin Tam | The McGill Daily Villanueva, and the 2012 [student] strike, there’s been more open discussion [of police brutality] and a certain amount of anger against Quebec law enforcement. People are trusting them less and less, and to a certain extent, they’re no longer willing to [...] injure and kill as arbitrarily as they used to,” they said.

At roughly 9:30 p.m., the march ended peacefully at Cabot Square near the Atwater metro station.

No marchers were detained or assaulted, and no tickets were issued that night.

Panel discusses Black and Palestinian social justice movements Panelists emphasize solidarity between marginalized groups

Ayesha Talreja News Writer

A

s part of the Montreal Israeli Apartheid Week event series, activists Kezia Curtis, a member of Black Lives Matter Detroit, and Brittany King and Aja Monet, members of the Dream Defenders, a social justice group, spoke at a panel discussion called “Black Perspectives on the Question of Palestine” held on March 17.

The panel was organized by the Black Students’ Network (BSN) and McGill Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), and explored “transnational solidarity between the movements for justice for Black people in North America and movements for justice for Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories.”

Curtis and King highlighted their experiences as activists working within the Black and Palestinian

struggles, and emphasized the need to decolonize the mind in order for solidarity networks to thrive.

“If you see that my struggle and your struggle are the same [...] that will make that solidarity more attainable.”

Brittany King, member of the Dream Defenders

Ryan, one of the organizers of the event, told The Daily that he believes that “if [activists] are going to be successful in doing the work that we aim to do, then it is so important for us to engage in solidarity with other oppressed and marginalized groups.”

The panelists noted the historical parallels between the Palestinian and Black social justice movements, with both populations still facing statesanctioned racism and violence.

Curtis spoke about her experiences as a Black woman travelling within Palestine. It was like “looking at Detroit in a different part of the world,” Curtis said with regards to her trip to Palestine. Curtis also spoke about how violence was experienced on a very real, day-to-day basis, particularly at the university she visited.

Curtis and King also spoke about other related issues faced by both Black people in the U.S. and Palestinians, such as gentrification, limited access to land and farming, and militarization of settler-colonial states.

Curtis further noted a crucial difference between the U.S. and Palestine which she witnessed on her trip – the outright and explicit violence, guns, weaponry, and tear gas constantly being used against Pales-

tinians in Hebron, in contrast to the significantly less militarized nature of the violence in the U.S..

Anti-Black racism in solidarity movements The panel also highlighted the importance of challenging anti-Black racism within solidarity movements.

Ryan pointed out that “part of […] solidarity includes critical self-reflection in order to avoid being complicit in the oppression of other groups, especially in the case of anti-Blackness.”

King also stressed the need for self-reflection and critical thinking to challenge instances of global antiBlackness. King argued that social media and mainstream media act as ways that uphold anti-Blackness.

For example, King explained, the stigma that Black Muslims face in Muslim communities – a phenomenon perpetuated through social media – is evidence to this.

As a Black woman, she added, it

is important for her to stand in solidarity with other oppressed people.

“Anti-Blackness won’t stop unless we challenge ourselves,” King explained.

In an interview with The Daily, a student who attended the panel noted, “I thought it was encouraging that [the panelists] were working on the ground in their own communities to educate people on anti-Blackness and how to decolonize a mindset that’s been so largely ingrained in society.”

King added that a critical understanding of how colonization affects all people should unite seemingly disparate justice movements. “For me, it’s just all about education,” she said.

“If you see that my struggle and your struggle are the same […] that will make that solidarity more attainable.”

Michelle Blassou, a member of the BSN, told The Daily that the talk raised important parallels, and that “uniting around the idea that the colonial state will always be against both of us leaves a lot of work to do.”

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News

March 21, 2016 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Abby Stein tells students, “you are not alone”

Stein shares her experience to help others struggling with gender identity Rayleigh Lee The McGill Daily

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n March 14, around 150 people gathered in the McIntyre Medical building to attend a speech given by Abby Stein, a trans woman studying Women’s and Gender Studies at Columbia University.

Stein came out as a trans woman through her blog The Second Transition in August 2015.

Her posts about her struggles with gender identity as a woman from an ultra-orthodox background have gone viral.

The event was organized by Hillel Montreal, Ghetto Shul, Ga’ava, JQueer, and Queer Engineer.

At the event, Stein spoke about her childhood in an orthodox Hasidic community in New York City and how the community’s seclusion affected her experience as a trans person.

She told the audience, “I didn’t even know any gay people. The only way I knew gay people existed was because around 2005, when the battle for gay marriage started in New York, there were some people in the community who started fighting it.”

After she came out as a trans woman, Stein realized that this would impact not only her life, but also other trans people in orthodox communities.

“Even in very sheltered communities where they don’t know anything, [information] has to get out, and it has

to get in. People in the community should know that,” Stein said.

In an interview with The Daily regarding her outreach work, Stein said, “The main reason – and it’s the same reason why I’ve been doing a lot of outreach work – is first of all, just the fact of getting people to talk about these topics. [...] I would say the main part is the gender transition, but it’s also about raising awareness about the ultra-orthodox community,” she said.

“For students who are struggling, the most important message is to know we are here.”

Abby Stein Stein added that she is also speaking “for the Jewish community specifically, as well as the entire student community in general about these issues. As much as we think that there’s a lot in the media right now, a lot of it is misrepresented. I feel like it’s always good to hear from another student. I don’t think I have any authority here. I’m not coming here as a public figure, I’m just coming here as a student to talk to fellow students,” she said.

Abby Stein speaks to McGill students.

When asked about the main message she wants to give students facing similar difficulties to those she has experienced, Stein said, “For students who are struggling, the most important message is to know we are here.”

Stein continued, “Your feelings, emotions, whatever you feel, they are valid, you are not alone. [...]

Everyone is different. […] I haven’t

Rayleigh lee | The McGill Daily

seen two exact same trans stories.

We are all here, we understand and there are so many people who would like to help.”

Joanna Halpern, a U3 Software Engineering student at McGill and one of the organizers of the event, told The Daily, “So many of us have different identities. Each one is unique and each one needs to be

figured out and focused on. Abby is such an inspiration [for] being yourself and finding who you are. It’s a journey, it’s a process.”

When asked what she thinks McGill students’ role as allies should be, Halpern responded that it’s to “show that you are accepting and you’ll accept everyone however they are.”

Physician-assisted death remains difficult despite progress

Panel examines physician-assisted dying in wake of Carter v. Canada Tiran Rahimian News Writer

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n March 15, the Freethought Association at McGill hosted a panel discussion on the recent recommendations of Parliament’s special joint committee on physician-assisted dying.

The panel consisted of Susan Desjardins, head of the Ottawa chapter of Dying with Dignity Canada, Jean-Pierre Ménard, a lawyer specializing in medical responsibility, and Carolyn Ells, an associate professor of the biomedical ethics unit at McGill.

The panel discussed the legal, ethical, and philosophical implications of physician-assisted death in Canada. Topics included the expansion of end-of-life choices and the right to avoid unwanted suffering, as well as the evolution of Canadian legislation on medically-assisted suicide.

Labelling it “one of the key societal issues of our generation,” Desjardins underscored the societal duty to reflect on the right to die with dignity and the importance of continuing the discourse on palliative care.

Restricted eligibility Ménard discussed the history of Canadian legislation on assisted death. “In Quebec [...] we gradually realized, with the evolution of medicine, that the right to die can indeed be a human decision,” he said in French.

Passed in 2014, Bill 52, otherwise known as an act respecting end-of-life care, made Quebec the first province in Canada to legalize physician-assisted death.

While recognizing that Quebec is more advanced than other provinces in terms of legislation on euthanasia, Ménard stressed, “Quebec law is still more restric-

tive than what it ought to be. It doesn’t go far enough.”

“All Canadians should have the same right to avoid ‘[euthanasia] tourism’ in Quebec,” he added.

Euthanasia tourism, also known as suicide tourism, refers to people travelling to places where euthanasia is legal in order to receive physician-assisted death.

Ells, who testified before the Parliament’s special joint committee, analyzed some of the contentious eligibility criteria recommended by the committee’s report, which widens the scope of eligibility to potentially include capable minors, and states that mental illness should not preclude eligibility.

“I take the view that the people’s ability to consent should be the driving factor in whether they are granted the authority to consent on their own behalf to assisted death,” Ells said.

Sofia Voloshina, an International Development Studies student who attended the event, agreed with Ells.

Speaking to The Daily, Voloshina said, “I believe that individual[s] should be free to decide what to do with their bodies even if it is about ending their lives. When the quality of life is very low, when someone is in constant pain and suffering and there is no hope for their condition to get better, they should have a right to ask a physician [to assist] them to take their lives.”

Carter v. Canada In spite of the decision of Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) on February 6, 2015, in which the Supreme Court recognized the right to assisted death for competent adults suffering intolerably, the access to such medical assistance remains restricted in most Canadian provinces.

“The individual who meets the eligibility criteria in Carter still has to hire a lawyer to prepare an application and all the associated affidavits,” Desjardins explained.

She continued, “Our work is not done. Despite the court’s decision, the recommendations, and pending legislation, there are a minority of people who are still opposed to medical assistance in dying.”

The Supreme Court issued a deadline of June 6 for Parliament to enact a new bill, thus new legislation on the matter is expected to be enacted by this summer.

Mila Ghorayeb, Vice President of McGill Freethought Association at McGill and an organizer of the panel, told The Daily, “Something that we’ve been worried about lately is that the discourse on assisted suicide has been overly influenced by dogmatic thinking. […] So we need to take a step back and continue the conversation.”

News

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Panel discusses over-incarceration of Indigenous people Gladue principle seeks to “equalize” application of laws

Nadir Khan The McGill Daily

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n Tuesday March 15, a panel event called “Gladue Courts” was held at McGill’s Faculty of Law to discuss how Indigenous people are treated in the Canadian criminal justice system.

Organized by law students Lana Belber and Alice Mirlesse, with support from the Aboriginal Law Students’ Association and SSMU Indigenous Affairs, the event specifically sought to shed light on an often neglected aspect of sentencing in Canadian criminal law — the Gladue principle — which seeks to alleviate the over-incarceration of Indigenous people.

Among the panelists was Aidan Johnson, a former lawyer at Legal Aid Ontario who has regularly represented Indigenous people in the past. Johnson explained that the Gladue decision of the Supreme Court of Canada led to a change in the Criminal Code which requires judges and lawyers to pay particular attention to the unique history and circumstances of Indigenous people.

It particularly requires that alternatives to jail time be considered

when an Indigenous person is sentenced following a conviction.

“Concern for the over-representation of Aboriginal peoples in jails is a factor underpinning Gladue law,” Johnson explained. “Aboriginal people don’t get a fair shake in the justice system, the rules are not applied equally to them, so Gladue is an equalizing measure.”

“Concern for overrepresentation of Aboriginal peoples in jails is a factor underpinning Gladue law.”

Aidan Johnson, former lawyer at Legal Aid Ontario The panelists expressed frustration with the legal community’s response to implementing the Gladue principle. Vivien Carli, program manager of the Ungaluk Safer Communities Program at Makivik Corporation, explained that there are few people properly trained to write Gladue

reports, and that those who are face time constraints.

“To give you an idea, the Gladue writer is given 20 hours to write a report. [...] You have 20 hours to go in, often in a detention center, and talk to someone who you have never met before, and get them to open up and tell you about all their trauma and family history – maybe for the first time in their life. You can imagine the challenges.”

Wayne Robinson, who, with Carli, recently founded the First People’s Justice Centre (FPJC) of Montreal, explained the importance of community organizations filling in the gaps beyond Gladue reports.

“After the Gladue report [is written], the writer leaves, and we’ve opened up a trauma there and there’s no continuum of service,” said Robinson. “The FPJC provides a continuum of service from pre-offence to post-incarceration for Indigenous offenders, ensuring that Gladue is not just a tool to talk about sentencing, but as a more holistic approach.

Mirlesse, a second year law student at McGill, explained to The Daily that the original idea for the event emerged from an

Panelists at event.

Thy Anne Chu Quang | Photographer

assignment that second year law students were given regarding Gladue principles. The organizers wanted to “give an opportunity to reflect on these principles and what they meant for the community,” Mirlesse said. Mirlesse added that, without sufficient context, through which students could be made aware of the colonial and racist legacies of Canadian legislation, there was “too big of a risk for students to perpetuate stereotypes of colonization and racial prejudice.”

André Moreau, a Metis student in his first year of McGill law school who attended the event told The Daily, “I thought it was really nice to see different points of view, from the policing side to the community side, even a more legal side.”

“Gladue is definitely a starting point. There has to be some sort of method to address this issue when it comes to justice. However it is a broader issue with access to healthcare and education as well, because they all go hand in hand at the end of the day,” Moreau said.

PGSS discusses proposed political stances

Concerns arise at Council that proposed positions are not “originating from within” Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

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he need for the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) to increase its political presence was the main topic of discussion at the March 16 Council meeting, following the circulation of a list of proposed positions for an emerging student federation, the Association pour la voix étudiante au Québec (AVEQ). The Annual General Meeting (AGM), also scheduled for March 16, was cancelled due to lack of quorum.

Proposed political stances Secretary-General Danielle Toccalino explained that, because PGSS currently has very few political positions, it was difficult for her to represent PGSS in the elaboration of AVEQ’s political stances. Toccalino sought Council’s feedback on the proposed political stances that AVEQ had not yet adopted due to a lack of mandate from a majority of the associations

at the table. PGSS is not a member of AVEQ, but External Affairs Officer Bradley Por told Council that a referendum on provincial affiliation would likely be held in April.

Several councillors saluted Toccalino’s initiative in increasing PGSS’s political presence, but some noted concern that this list of positions, which covers a set of social justice and fiscal policy issues and does not include stances already adopted by AVEQ, was not a good starting point.

“It’s a reasonable idea on the surface that PGSS have a new position book, but [...] it’s being developed from ideas from AVEQ, which is an organization that we haven’t decided whether we want to be a part of yet, rather than coming from PGSS and PGSS members – it makes sense that our positions should be originating from within,” said Graduate Student Association of Neuroscience representative Brent Dawe.

Toccalino expressed that the list was not intended to be ad-

opted as is, and more substantive policies on the respective topics would be written if PGSS were to adopt them.

“I really want things to come from the ground up, but there’s been a history at PGSS of very few things coming from the ground up,” said Toccalino. “There are things [...] that other people bring from external parties that could be very well beneficial to our members, so [...] it’s simply to get the discussion started.”

Equity Commissioner Régine Debrosse emphasized that many of the proposed positions would require detailed and nuanced examination before potential approval.

“A lot of these positions have to do with equity questions [...] and reading these is a little bit hardcore,” said Debrosse. “I know that this document is trying to start a conversation, but I’m not sure it’s the right start, because it seems to me that a lot of these positions lack nuance – some of them are incomplete, some of

them go against the work of some people on campus, some of them take sides on very big debates. [...]

It’s going to be a complicated discussion if it’s framed in terms of this document.”

The discussion was tabled indefinitely, with the understanding that councillors would consult with their constituencies regarding next steps. In addition, as part of a set of bylaw amendments, Council adopted the separation of the Policy and Positions Manual into two sets of documents, one containing internal policies and one containing external political positions.

Other business Environment Commissioner Amir Nosrat brought to Council an updated version of the Environment Policy, the first such update since 2007.

The updated version was unanimously adopted.

“What’s happening here is an update of the language [...] that’s

needed to make the policy relevant to modern conceptions of environmental sustainability, and it also provides more specific actionable policy directives,” said Nosrat.

“Primarily, it’s co-curricular education that really drives the policy, and there’s also [...] advocating for policies that improve our communities, whether it be in a local setting or in a global setting.”

In the wake of an incident last November where a student was sued in order to destroy his Master’s thesis, Council adopted amendments to the University/ Industry Research Partnerships policy, introducing additional conflict of interest disclosure requirements and stating PGSS’s opposition to “efforts by private corporations to revoke research publications or theses.”

Council also passed a short mental health policy focused on advocacy, and a statement of solidarity with students arrested at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in India.

PGSS Elections

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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2016 PGSS elections and referenda

Sonia Ionescu | The McGill Daily

Executive candidates

Compiled by Ellen Cools, Saima Desai, & Cem Ertekin

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he voting period for the PostGraduate Students’ Society (PGSS) General Elections has started. Seven candidates are running for six executive positions. In addition, there are two referendum questions regarding fee levies for the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) at McGill and the Legal Information Clinic at McGill (LICM).

The Daily sat down with the executive candidates to discuss their platforms, the high number of unopposed candidates, and the future of PGSS. The voting period runs from March 16 at 9 a.m. until March 25 at 5 p.m..

Elections becoming a “formality” Of the six executive positions being elected, five have candidates running unopposed.

“It seems there has always been a disconnect between PGSS and its membership,” said Jenny Ann Pura, the Member Services Officer candidate. “Though this year reached an unprecedented low with regards to the number of candidacies, there have been only a few hotly contested elections in PGSS’s recent past.”

“An election where most of the positions are unopposed means that the election has turned into a formality,” said Mina Anadolu, current Internal Affairs Officer who is running unopposed for re-election.

“When they’re not given a choice, the majority of [voters] vote

for the candidate because [...] they think that a position is better filled than left empty,” said Anadolu.

“So that’s a problem because if someone comes in with very, very radical ideas, [...] if they give specific power to only a specific minority of members, if they don’t represent the membership, then PGSS is at risk, because they can do whatever they want with the membership fees that we collect; they can run their own separate agenda,” she continued.

Asked about the reasons for low voter turnout and a lack of candidates, Anadolu said that postgraduate student engagement “hits a low in March” since students are finishing research and writing grant proposals. Nicholas Dunn, the candidate for Academic Affairs Officer, added that “a lot of people work out of different campuses as well,” and rarely spend time in Thomson House.

Internal Affairs Officer Mina Anadolu is the current Internal Affairs Officer, having been elected in December after the resignation of former Internal Affairs Officer Sahil Kumar. She is a second-year PhD student in neuroscience, and has been a student at McGill since the beginning of her undergraduate degree in 2009.

Anadolu’s platform focuses on increasing collaborative efforts with clubs and services, fact- and

feedback-based decision making, and an inclusive events portfolio.

She told The Daily that she would collaborate with Walksafe and Drivesafe for events, especially to address the problem of students from the MacDonald campus getting home after nighttime events, once shuttles between campuses have stopped running.

She would also implement a category system for events, to ensure that one event per semester would be planned under categories such as equity, sustainability, and international student affairs. Finally, Anadolu seeks to offer more workshops regarding securing funding and professional development.

External Affairs Officer The position of External Affairs Officer is the only contested one in this year’s elections. Jacob Lavigne, a third-year PhD student in experimental surgery, and Vertika, a first-year PhD student in political science, are competing for the position.

Lavigne was heavily involved in student politics at his previous university, and is a founder of the McGill Additive Manufacturing Students’ Society. Vertika is also a veteran student activist, who initiated a campaign against “dragging” (an extreme form of bullying by senior students toward incoming students) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) during her undergraduate studies.

When asked about the most important part of the role, Lavigne said it was to “represent the views of [the] constituency, and find a middle ground with other student associations.” He emphasized that he has been visiting graduate student offices and labs to speak to students about his platform, but, when asked, admitted that he had spoken mostly to Science students rather than Arts students.

For Vertika, the most important part of her job would be building a coalition within the Quebec student movement. “I want to make sure that students have enough platforms to be informed of what is going on and to actually engage,” she told The Daily. Furthermore, Vertika argues that PGSS should be more political and wants “to make the political nature of the office visible to students and to encourage them.”

“My role is firmly standing against depoliticizing PGSS. Spaces for political expression are clamped down on. I would work with the student body to work against that.

If we’re just abstaining on most of the issues, that’s not going to help us,” she said.

Lavigne’s priorities include lobbying the government for increased research funds, as well as creating a PGSS award to recognize extracurricular involvement, which would be funded by industry or the gov-

ernment – he stressed that there is no need to use money from student fees. In addition, Lavigne plans on reaching out to his contacts in the Quartier de l’innovation de Montréal to organize events that could be of relevance to graduate students.

Secretary General Victor Frankel is a current Environment Commissioner to PGSS and has been the PGSS representative to the Biology Department for several years. He is pursuing a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology and has been a student at McGill since 2010.

Frankel stresses the importance of serving and engaging the students in PGSS as Secretary General. While he has not sat on the Board of Governors or the Senate, he often goes to these meetings to educate himself and understand the administrative processes involved. “I feel like what I want to do, most importantly, is serve the society, but I also feel like I bring qualities into it that are informed but also proactive in advocacy for students,” he added.

When asked what he will improve on as Secretary General, Frankel emphasized continuing the work of current PGSS Secretary General Danielle Toccalino in engaging students and re-establishing student confidence in PGSS. Consequently, he sees the role as one of ensuring a sense of continuity in

I

PGSS Elections existing programs while advancing new initiatives.

Frankel will also work on improving “the processes by which students at various faculties and departments can feel like they’re getting involved,” and ensuring that communications remain as transparent and streamlined as possible.

Regarding the large number of unopposed positions, Frankel pointed to the high level of responsibility and time commitment required. He also said that the “right people” are running for these positions and that students are confident in them.

Academic Affairs Officer Nicholas Dunn is a first-year PhD student in philosophy, with little experience in student government.

His priority is to increase the amount of work and study space for graduate students on campus, saying, “It’s kind of shocking how

little space there is on campus for grad students to work.”

Dunn believes that the proposed renovation of the RedpathMcLennan library complex, termed Fiat Lux, would create much more student work space. Dunn says he would lobby to have a significant portion of that space dedicated to graduate students, such as rooms for graduate students to hold office hours and group meetings, and lock up personal belongings.

Asked about how he would strive for more funding for graduate students in a climate of austerity, Dunn said he believes there is “not much that can be done,” since the majority of McGill’s budget is “untouchable” and the University’s “hands are tied.” Instead, he said he would explore alternate sources of funding.

Dunn also plans on paring down inactive committees, and promot-

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A

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ing committees that are more active in their place.

Financial Affairs Officer Mina Moradi is a second year student pursuing a Master’s degree in human nutrition and dietetics.

Her experience includes being head manager of the Loghman Hakim hospital in Tehran for two years.

In an email to The Daily, Moradi described her plans to resubmit the question to increase the PGSS membership fee to graduate students in Fall 2016, which was brought up earlier this year. “If it passed it would greatly improve the health of our finances and allow us to provide better services to our members,” she explained.

Moradi also noted the tension between preserving PGSS’s essential services and making necessary spending cuts. “I believe that my past work experience gives me the

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March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

9

Member Services Officer Jenny Ann Pura, a PhD student in experimental surgery, has been involved in PGSS since 2012, when she

was VP External of the Experimental Surgery Graduate Student Society and a representative at PGSS council.

In an email to The Daily, Pura explained that “In a time of austerity for universities and deficits for PGSS, the services offered to students are in peril.”

“More than ever, the [Member Services Officer] will have to be strong and creative to protect the budget lines dedicated to services and to make sure the funds are used as efficiently as possible,” she continued. “Student services are not a luxury; they are necessities.”

Asked about her plans for the role, Pura said she would offer professional networking and development opportunities to members, and would work closely with Lavigne, if elected, on his plan to “reach out to his contacts in the [Quartier de l’innovation de Montréal] to set up workshops and information sessions.”

The fee paid by PGSS students has not been increased since 1990, and Marilyn Venney, senior advocate at LICM, told The Daily in an email that the levy would be used to increase and improve existing services. “For example, we would consider moving the Legal Information Clinic to a bigger space, which would allow us to serve more clients on a faster timeline,” said Venney.

“If the fee levy doesn’t pass, we

might be forced to reduce some of the services that Student Advocacy currently provides to grad students,” Venney said.

These include representing graduate students in informal dispute resolution procedures when they face a breakdown in communication with their supervisor, and in accusations of academic offences like plagiarism or cheating, as well as helping them appeal withdrawals.

skill to manage this complex situation,” said Moradi.

After a four-year-long court case between PGSS and the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), PGSS has been left with a significant deficit. However, at last month’s Council meeting, councillors were unable to agree over the severity of the deficit, with some citing $277,779 and others citing $611,000. Asked about which number she agrees with, Moradi said, “I won’t venture to pick a side before looking closely at the numbers myself.”

“It is possible the waters may have been muddied by conflicting views over the years. I believe it would help to look at the situation with a fresh pair of eyes,” she continued.

Referendum questions

M

embers of PGSS will be voting on two referendum questions over the next week.

World University Service Canada Student Refugee Fee increase WUSC has brought forth a referendum question to increase the levy from $0.50 to $2.00 per student per semester. This increase would allow WUSC to continue their Student Refugee Program.

“Should the fee pass, we will

be sponsoring three students each year for [the] next five years,” said Sujay Neupane, a member of WUSC McGill, in an email to The Daily. “If the fee is not passed, we will be able to sponsor only one student every alternate year as of 2018.”

The sponsored students are funded in their first 12 months in Canada to cover their tuition fees, living expenses, food and a small stipend. “This year, we will wel-

come Syrian students for the first time,” said Neupane.

Legal Information Clinic at McGill fee increase The Legal Information Clinic at McGill (LICM)’s student advocacy service is a free, law student-run service providing McGill students and members of the Montreal community with legal information and referrals, as well as document certification.

The Daily’s referendum endorsements WUSC Student Refugee Program fee increase – YES

LICM fee increase– YES

The Daily endorses a “yes” vote to the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) fee increase referendum question.

Collected since 1986, this fee has supported the WUSC Student Refugee Program, which provides funding to students living in refugee camps to study at McGill. The fee currently amounts to $0.50 and has never been adjusted for inflation, which limits WUSC to sponsoring only one person each year.

Increasing the fee to $2.00 would allow WUSC to sponsor up to three students annually.

The Legal Information Clinic at McGill (LICM) provides essential services, many of which are specific to graduate students.

It represents graduate students in negotiating with their supervisors when professional relationships become strained, and in defending them against accusations of plagiarism. In addition, LICM helps graduate students appeal withdrawals. Undergraduate students currently pay $4.50 per semester for the same services, whereas graduate students pay $2.00 per semester, though in proportion to their numbers, PGSS members use LICM services more than twice as much as undergraduates. As such, The Daily endorses a “yes” vote to increase the LICM fee to $4.50.

—The McGill Daily editorial board

—The McGill Daily editorial board

Commentary

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Between places and spaces

10

Articulating my identity as a mixed-race woman

Francesca Humi Commentary Writer

“

Who are you?” I am a woman of colour. No, I’m a mixed-race woman of colour. My identity is constantly gendered and racialized. While I have come to be very comfortable with my gender identity as a cis woman, my racial identity is different.

My identity as a mixed-race person is constantly changing, felt with different strength according to time and place.

Growing up in Paris, I knew I was not white and not French. Both of these facts were made very clear to me in social interactions, starting at school, where my non-French, non-white sounding name was frequently mispronounced in French mouths and misspelt in French writing. It was picked apart and made fun of, from maternelle (kindergarten) to lycée (high school). It was other and alien, just as I was.

I knew I was not white because kids shouted “ching chong” at me in the playground, because I cried when a boy made fun of my eyes, because I was ashamed of my dark hair, my “almond” eyes, and my very non-white mother, whose French I always made fun of.

This was also made clear when, at age 17, I applied for French citizenship. Just before I was handed the official papers, the woman who had been handling my case said to my father and me, “Have you considered changing your name?

This would be part of your integration and assimilation into France.”

(Sounds colonial as fuck, right?)

“This is standard procedure for anyone with a name that doesn’t sound French. A lot of new citizens find it very helpful for employment opportunities, especially if their name sounds – you know – Arab.”

My father and I were both silent.

I think it took us a while to process what she had just said. I was born in Paris and had lived there all my life. All of my education had been in the French system. French culture was what was most familiar to me, in terms of habits and practices. Did my name really mean more than all of these experiences?

Although I was raised in France, I wasn’t raised French. My father is British and was educated in London, but his mother was Italian and his father was AustroHungarian. My mother is also British, but only because she gave up her Philippine passport when she was naturalized as a British citizen, after having lived in London with my dad for several years. My upbringing was a mix of British

pop culture, Italian and Filipino food, trips to the Philippines, and close relationships with my mom’s family – all in Paris, physically isolated from the places where all of these things came from.

When I arrived at McGill, people asked me all the time, “Where are you from?” Sigh. “I’m from Paris.” I’d say. “Really? You don’t sound French?!” Sigh. Oh, my family is actually British. “Uh? How does that work?” Sigh. “Well, if you you want the full fucking low-down…” And, a few minutes later: “Yeah, I figured you were a halfie.” This was the first time people had not labelled me as Asian, or Chinese, or another East Asian nationality. The concept of full and mixed race was new to me, after years of being asked if I was adopted when I was out alone with my dad, and years of people telling me I look just like my mom, which is highly debatable.

I had to think about what it meant to be mixed and, most importantly, being perceived as mixed-race Asian (even though a completely wrong guess at my ethnicity would crop up from time to time). In addition to this, I was being introduced to anti-racist language and so-called rad spaces.

These tools finally gave me the chance to express my identity in ways I couldn’t even fathom back home in Paris. This is how I came to identify as a mixed-race woman of colour, constantly racialized and constantly reminded of the colonial powers toying with my identity.

After my first year at McGill, I flew home to Paris for the summer. Suddenly, I felt erased and silenced in ways I had not felt before.

I didn’t have the language I use in English to say things like gendered, woman of colour, racialized, or mixed-race.

The main obstacle to the expression of my identity in French is the way in which race is conceptualized in France. Race is seen as non-existent – not only inexistent as a biological trait, but also in the sense that even the social construction of race is not viewed as real, because admitting to any kind of existence of race would somehow be racist, according to French society. The word “race” was recently taken out of the French constitution, supposedly to fight racism.

Furthermore, institutions like the Académie Française mandate what new words are permitted (or not permitted) to enter the French language, which creates a classist barrier for marginalized people who want to contribute to the shaping of national discourse on race and identity. These are just some ex-

Jennifer Guan | The McGill Daily amples of how French citizens are prevented from credibly voicing their racialized identities and their experiences with racism.

France’s motto is, after all, “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” We, as French citizens, are equal under the eyes of French law, but this equality is premised on sameness, which is required in order to really become a regular French citizen.

One must put aside their cultural, religious, ethnic, or racial identities for the sake of being a French citizen – unless they are white and Catholic, characteristics which are seen as the ‘normal’ or default description of a French citizen. No moniker of multiculturalism here.

How then, as a person whose identity has come to mean so much, can I possibly return to the place I (reluctantly) call home? It’s where my cat is, where the apartment in which I grew up is, and my family lives there. When I’m asked where I’m from, Paris is my answer. I’m from a place that rejects my identity and stifles my articulation of it.

I know that there are rad anti-racist communities in Paris, but they are mostly occupied by people whose experiences with racism and the French state have been so much

more violent or criminalized than mine. I had the privilege of growing up in a very upper-class area of Paris in a middle-class liberal family.

I’m not interested in appropriating a space that is not mine.

But even when I’m with my family, these conversations are very difficult to have. My mom doesn’t like hearing me say that I feel oppressed or that I’ve experienced racism. She says I shouldn’t think about it, and should brush it aside and think about all the great opportunities provided to me just from being raised in France. Aside from the paternalistic undertones of my mum’s assumptions about the French state, even if I am thankful for free education and accessible healthcare, that shouldn’t stop me from being actively critical of the systems and institutions I was born into.

Where do I fit in as a mixedrace woman? I’m not white, not truly Asian/Filipina. Where do I fit in terms of culture? I can never say I identify with French culture, because French culture has never wanted to identify with me. What do my citizenships even mean? I hold both French and British passports, but I’ve never lived in the

UK, and the French state seems determined to undermine how I express my identity.

Finally, in terms of language, although I’m bilingual, I can’t express myself like this in French. I just wouldn’t know how, which is why I’m writing this for The Daily and not Le Délit. Does this mean that whenever I’m in a francophone environment, I just have to put my identity aside? Not really interested in that either.

Here lies the crux of my dilemma. My existence and identities are caught in between spaces and places, as dramatic as that sounds.

Reconciling this is going to be difficult, and maybe impossible, but why the fuck is it up to me to do all this work to make myself fit into these spaces and places that have rejected me? Through the absence of nuanced language to refer to people whose identities are equally nuanced, the French state systematically excludes anyone who doesn’t fit the mold of the ideal French citizen.

Francesca Humi is a U3 International Development Studies student. To contact her, email francesca.humi@mail.mcgill.ca

Commentary

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Racism is real, and it is every day

Despite global recognition and UN recommendations, racism flourishes Inori Roy-Khan Minority Report

T

oday, March 21, marks the day proclaimed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to be the annual International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

On this day in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful rally against apartheid law in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. In 1966, this date was chosen by the UN to represent a call to nations across the world to commit to the fight against racism and discrimination. Alongside marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of this day, today also marks the 15th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Created in 2001 by the UN to outline an extensive and comprehensive framework of anti-racism action and legislation, the Programme was to be implemented globally to improve the state of affairs for marginalized racial groups.

The most crucial aspects of the Declaration focus on the acknowledgement of slavery as a crime against humanity, the role of the government in preventative and remedial work for racialized groups, a primary focus on the narratives of racialized groups, and the call for the involvement of individuals and groups from all walks of life – nongovernmental organizations, political parties, the private sector, the media, civil society, and more – to be engaged in anti-racism efforts. The Declaration also voices concerns about the increasing prevalence of religious discrimination, specifically anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

While the Durban Declaration may present itself as a neat and well-packaged ‘anti-racism 101,’ the truth is that the Declaration has been quite ineffective. UN scholars themselves agree that it has done little to nothing to combat growing hatred and xenophobia that have become apparent across the world today. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Mutuma Ruteere; the ChairRapporteur of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Mireille Fanon MendesFrance; and the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, José Francisco Cali Tzay stated in a March 17 press release, “Much more needs to be done by governments around the world to protect vulnerable groups and punish the

Sonia Ionescu | The McGill Daily perpetrators. Impunity has become the norm for what are heinous crimes and this is a very alarming situation. We see an alarming increase of hate and xenophobic speech echoing across the globe.

Political leaders, public figures and even mass media stigmatize and scapegoat migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and foreigners in general, as well as minorities.”

As disheartening as it feels to say this, they’re right. It’s been 15 years since the Durban Declaration was issued and it feels as if race relations across the world have neither progressed nor plateaued, but have rather regressed. Across the world, the state of inter-ethnic and inter-racial relations has gotten worse, with racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and outright apathy toward people of colour becoming more and more prominent every day. However uncomfortable it is for dominant racial groups to hear, and painful for some marginalized groups to acknowledge, the unfortunate truth is that racism and the legacies of colonialism still haunt people of colour and Indigenous people, shaping their lives and experiences and tipping the scales in favour of the white population.

Where the Durban Declaration has failed It isn’t necessary to look any farther than outside our windows to see how racism has impacted the lives of people of colour and Indigenous people. In Canada,

Indigenous women are three times more likely to be victims of violent crime than any other racial demographic, and at least six times more likely to be murdered. Between 1980 and 2012, 1,181 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women have been recognized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as being part of the epidemic of violence against these women. Even this number is considered to be a conservative estimate that does not take into account the hundreds of potentially unacknowledged cases.

This violence is not a result of independent, contemporary circumstances, but is part of a longstanding pattern of violence against Indigenous women that spans the last few centuries. This pattern is rooted in a legacy of colonialism and colonial patriarchy imposed on Indigenous communities, exhibited by institutions such as residential schools and legislation disenfranchising Indigenous women and taking from them their right to partake in Indigenous leadership. Added to this are a number of longstanding racist stereotypes internalized by the government and authority figures across the country, which render law enforcement ineffective in preventing or aiding in the elimination of violence against Indigenous women.

There is significant and obvious evidence of racism even outside the Canadian borders. In the U.S., patterns of racialized violence are enacted against black people

constantly. This epidemic of violence is most commonly associated with police brutality, as the most notable offenders have been white police officers who are almost never penalized for their crimes.

However, in the climate of hate exacerbated by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, average-Joe white supremacists are also being armed with the arsenal of hateful anti-black rhetoric they need to legitimize their preexisting feelings and violent actions. People of colour who – with an amount of courage I cannot even begin to fathom – protest at Trump rallies are met with malice and physical and verbal abuse that are sometimes reminiscent of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

While, for the first half of his campaign, Trump’s candidacy was treated like a joke, he insidiously built up the vile and racist constituency that has now put him ahead in the polls. Every time a late-night talk show host joked dismissively about Trump, someone watching was given yet another opportunity to internalize Trump’s message to validate their own prejudices. This was never a joke. From the moment it began, Trump’s treatment of people of colour has had tangible consequences – it has been considered the enabling factor in hate crimes in various parts of the country. As the American elections grow closer and the reality of Trump’s popularity becomes clearer, it’s difficult for some to imagine that this is a situ-

ation America has to face in 2016.

In the U.S. and Canada as well as in Europe, similar levels of hatred are being directed toward Muslims in reaction to the perceived threat of the Syrian refugee crisis and “terrorism” – which, in reality, is largely a pretense used to justify warfare in western Asia and profitoriented weapons trade. This was the case immediately after 9/11, and is still the case now. Indeed, there are definitely terrorist attacks that happen and that kill many, and leave families forever altered – but they are certainly not to the scale that the mainstream Canadian and American media like to portray.

According to several studies on causes of death in the U.S. and Canada, you are more likely to be killed by falling furniture, lightning strikes, or falling off a ladder than by terrorists. And in regards to rates of terrorism specifically, Americans are more likely to be killed by white extremists than by so called “Islamic” terrorists – the myth of Islam presenting a threat to the West is a gross misrepresentation of the reality of contemporary war, and is a propaganda tool that, in benefiting a select few white elites, has marginalized Muslims across the world.

This is the same ‘threat’ that has legitimized the closing of borders to refugees across Europe – refugees who are, in fact, often fleeing from the same threat they are believed to pose. Syrian Muslims are much more likely to be affected by Daesh than most Americans and Europeans currently are. And yet, refugees are being denied the basic human right to shelter because they share a religion with a terrorist group – a statement that is flawed in itself, as most Islamic leaders across the world have denounced the actions of Daesh and insist that the group is not representative of Islam. Despite this, Muslims all over the world have to pay for the crimes of a select few, and are often subject to spiteful rhetoric and hate crimes as a result.

These issues represent only a small selection of the most visible problems facing people of colour and Indigenous people around the world today, but the systems of racism and colonialism that cause them pervade all social structures and institutions, including McGill.

If the racially charged dynamics of life on campus are not apparent to you right now, that doesn’t mean they’re nonexistent; and if you do recognize the structures of racism and colonialism that influence the Continued on page 12.

12

Commentary

March 21, 2016 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

The problem with Uber

The app’s convenience is not worth endorsing precarious work Kiara Bernard Commentary Writer

E

ven though I am a taxi fiend, I have never personally taken an Uber. But a lot of my friends do, and when they hear I need to take a taxi somewhere, they offer to call me an Uber. I always politely decline. No thanks, I’ll just take any old taxi as long as it gets me to where I’m going.

I might be naive to think that there is absolutely no difference between a ride in a regular Montreal taxi and an Uber. However, the truth is, I don’t trust Uber just yet.

Calling a taxi from an app is cool, no doubt, and definitely beats waving down a taxi from the curb just to realize someone else is already in it. But the novelty of Uber – and its lower cost – is overshadowed by the harsh reality it has created for its workers.

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about the regulation of Uber in Quebec, with the debate primarily focused on the impact of Uber on the taxi industry.

Evidently, the hype around Uber has usurped customers from regular taxi service providers.

But the main problem, in my eyes, is not how Uber affects the taxi industry; rather, I can’t support a taxi service that exploits its workers. I’m not

behind the times or opposed to technological progress because I stand against Uber. Rather, I am simply acting in solidarity with its workers.

While the benefit of working for Uber is being able to choose your own hours, among other things, the company worth billions is reaping up to 28 per cent of each worker’s earnings. In addition, Uber does not cover its drivers’ gas or car upkeep expenses. On the job-rating site Indeed, Uber drivers have reported that, at the end of the day, they end up making less than minimum wage.

Uber’s drivers are not employed

by Uber – the company prefers to think of them as “partners.”

This means that they don’t have any of the benefits that a company employee would typically have, such as insurance or vacation days. Their work situation is also very precarious – they are at risk of being deactivated (in essence, fired) when their passenger rating dips below 4.7 out of 5.

I don’t want to economically support Uber, because by doing so, I would become complicit in putting the company’s workers in a precarious position.

I would, however, support a similar service where the workers would retain their fair share of earnings. It could still use an app, but

Sonia Ionescu | The McGill Daily its attraction to potential customers would not be limited to convenience and low cost; it would also include the social benefits of the service.

An example of an ideal company would be a drivers’ cooperative – one that ensures its workers’ security with employee benefits, is committed to its drivers, and provides them with a stake in the company’s man-

Continued: Racism is real lives of students and staff of colour, then you’ll understand the scale of the problem. To try to fathom the full extent of racism in this institution is daunting, to say the least. Where does one even begin?

James McGill owned slaves – that’s a place to start. From the birth of this institution until this very day, race has influenced the lived

experiences of all who enter these hallowed halls, by informing levels of privilege and marginalization, and determining the way students are treated by their peers and their institution. There’s no escaping or denying the impact race has on each and every one of us.

The UN may set up a thorough framework to combat racism, and

ratify it and celebrate it for years to come – but how legislation looks on paper and how it translates into real life are two very different things.

And the truth is, however comprehensive the Durban Declaration may have attempted to be, it has done little to nothing to improve the realities with which people of colour live. The reason for this

agement. While Uber is unlikely to reach this ideal, it must improve the working conditions of its drivers, and show the same loyalty to its workers as the workers do to it.

Uber’s workers are ordinary people who are looking to make a living; the convenience and lower price of Uber comes at the cost of these workers being taken advan-

could be due to the language and logistics of the Declaration itself, or due to the real-world application of these guidelines to lived experiences. The unfathomable scale of this aspect of our lives is perhaps the greatest barrier to overcoming it. To live within a legacy of racism and colonialism is to have your land, culture, and rights stolen, and

tage of. This is why I choose not to use Uber until it changes the way it treats its workers, and you should do the same.

Kiara Bernard is a U2 Philosophy, World Religions, and Communications student. To contact her, email kiara.bernard@mail. mcgill.ca.

to have to continuously fight to be free of the weight of that legacy.

This is what racism is – it is real, and it is every day.

Minority Report is a column that deconstructs racism through an intersectional lens. Inori RoyKhan can be reached at minorityreport@mcgilldaily.com.

Editorial: SSMU ancillary fee referendum endorsements The Students’ Society of McGill University ancillary fee referendum, which concerns mandatory fees charged by the University in excess of tuition, takes place from March 28 to April 1.

WUSC Student Refugee Program fee increase – YES The Daily endorses a “yes” vote to the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) fee increase referendum question. Collected since 1986, this fee has supported the WUSC Student Refugee Program, which provides funding for students living in refugee camps to study at McGill. The fee currently amounts to $0.50 and has never been adjusted for inflation, which means that only one student can be sponsored each year. Increasing the fee to $2.00 would allow WUSC to sponsor up to three students annually.

Renewal of the Access McGill ancillary fee – YES, WITH RESERVATIONS The non-opt-outable Access McGill ancillary fee amounts to $2.00 per student per semester and supports services for students with disabilities. The services it funds, such as invigilation for accommodated exams and payment for the peer note-taking program, are extremely important; however, these services should be provided by the University without supplementary student payment, particularly given the fact that McGill receives a government grant for students with disabilities. Because a “no” vote would leave students with disabilities worse off at this time, The Daily endorses a “yes” vote on the renewal of this fee, but does so with reservations.

Renewal of the McGill Writing Centre fee – YES The McGill Writing Centre ancillary fee supports the McGill Writing Centre, an essential resource for students that provides assistance on essays and other written communications and offers courses in academic and professional writing, specialized writing services, and a tutorial service.

This non-opt-outable fee of $1.50 per student per semester currently supports one-on-one individualized tutoring and small-group workshops, among other services, and the development of new initiatives on-site and online. While The Daily would prefer to see these services provided by the University at no cost to students, The Daily endorses a “yes” vote on the renewal of this fee to ensure their continuation.

—The McGill Daily editorial board

‘Untitled,’charcoal + acrylic, 2015 Maya SChade

ART SUPPLEMENT 2016

MAYA SCHADE

‘Equilibrium’ (2015) pencil + watercolour

‘Untitled’ (2015) charcoal + acrylic+ collage

‘Barco’ (2014) oil on canvas

‘Sardines’ (2015) acrylic on canvas

ALEJANDRA MORALES

JUSTINE TOUCHON

‘Paris Mon Amour’ (2015) photography

‘London Calling’ (2015) photography

‘Stockholm Syndrome’ (2015) photography

‘Hands and Hickeys: A Photographic Study Through a Rose-Tinted Lens’ (2016) photography

Magdalena Morales

Jasmine Lee

‘A Love Story Between Two Fruits’ (2013) photography

FRAEA GRAZIANI ‘Brightly Fade’ (2015) pencil crayon + graphite + marker

AMANDA FIORE ‘Borgund Stave Church’ (2013) ink

THéA SPRING digital art

JENNIFER GUAN ‘Beyond’ (2014) watercolour + ink

‘Koi Fish’ (2015) watercolour + ink

Sean Miyaji

Céline Kerriou

‘Hinterland’ (2014) digital photography

The McGill Daily 2016-2017 Elections

Want to become a Daily editor? On Wednesday, March 23, The Daily will be having its final round of elections to determine the editorial board for the 2016-2017 academic year.

The following positions will be elected:

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Archives

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Uncovering the Archives: A collaboration with the McGill Daily What tactics and strategies did McGill’s South African divestment campaign actually use? What led 300 students to occupy the James Administration building in 1967? And what on earth was the Women’s Student Union?

Recently, students on campus have begun creating a wiki to help document the rich history of student and labour mobilization on McGill’s campus. In doing so, we hope to be better able to answer these questions and more, preserve institutional memory, and strengthen our understanding of the recurring themes in movements on campus.

For the first launch of this wiki, join us as we search through The Daily’s archives, documenting the history of mobilization and organizing at McGill. Use this as an important opportunity to gain historical context for current events in the university sphere and gain inspiration from past organizers.

‘Uncovering the Archives ’ TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2016, 6:30 p.m.

Room 436, SSMU Building

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Archives

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Features

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Features

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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The vicious circle of professorstudent relationships A follow-up investigation of McGill’s policies on sexual harassment

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cross Canadian universities, sexual harassment of students by professors is slowly becoming a central and very public issue. An investigation by Le Devoir reveals that a number of reported cases of sexual harassment at Canadian universities have been mishandled, or even silenced, by university administrations. The most recent case was reported at Brock University, but cases at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) have also received media attention.

Although sexual harassment cases at McGill have not been as widely broadcast in the media, the reality is not much different than on other campuses. In September 2015, The McGill Daily published “Let’s talk about teacher,” (September 1, Features, page 11) a feature that looked at a student’s experience of a sexual relationship with her professor, including the negative emotional and psychological consequences that this relationship caused. The professor in question – let’s call him Professor A – was reported in this article to have been in many similar ‘relations’ with his female undergraduate students, in addition to soliciting unwelcomed sexual acts and making references to intimate behaviour.

Interestingly, no formal complaints or grievances about Professor A have been filed or submitted to the Dean of Students. Could this be due to the lack of faith in McGill’s capability in handling such cases and imposing real, meaningful sanctions? To answer this question, I turned to McGill professors, staff, and students for insight on how McGill deals with professors who have had intimate relationships with students.

Stephen Saideman was a political science professor at McGill from 2002 to 2012, and is currently the Paterson Chair of International Affairs at Carleton University. Saideman has a personal blog where he re-

By Geneviève Mercier-Dalphond | Visual by Marina Djurdjevic cently posted a piece regarding McGill’s handling of another professor, whom we will refer to as Professor B. Saideman wrote, “I have repeatedly referred to a particular serial sexual harasser [...] but obliquely so. Why obliquely so? Because I am not sure what the consequences are for me of violating the confidentiality agreements of a place I used to work and because I didn’t want people to speculate about who received this guy’s unwanted attention.”

Interestingly, no formal complaints or grievances about Professor A have been files or submitted.

According to Saideman, during his time at McGill, Professor B did, in fact, face some consequences following allegations of sexual harassment against him. In this case, a female graduate student had filed the complaint against the professor, and the complaint was taken seriously. However, the sanctions taken against Professor B were questionable, in Saideman’s view.

Saideman revealed to me that this is perhaps due to the fact that “[the University] did find in favour of the student, and the provost found that something inappropriate happened at the time, but that it did not fit the definition at the time of sexual harassment.” He added, “I do believe this is a failure on the part of that provost.” As a sanction, Saideman wrote on his blog post, “he [Professor B] got moved out of his office in a remote location and put next to my office. I apparently was supposed to babysit/ monitor him (which was

strange since I only learned of his behavior informally, not through the administration).” Moreover, Professor B was conditionally restricted from taking on graduate students following the investigation, but Saideman notes that “his ban of supervising grad students apparently has lapsed as well,” and it appears as though Professor B has taken on new female graduate students since the investigation. Inasmuch as Saideman could not publicly condemn Professor B’s behaviour, he resorted to other means of trying to protect students as a member of graduate admissions within the department.

Saideman wrote, “I tried to keep students who wanted to do [the topics he teaches] from coming to McGill because I had little confidence that they would stay away from him.”

In my conversation with Saideman, he told me that “the core problem is how McGill has handled it. It was all treated confidentially, which has the effect of protecting the perpetrator.” He noted that “the job of the University is to protect students,” but it would seem the administration has not done so in this case. Saideman concluded our conversation by saying, decisively, “I simply don’t understand why McGill has not fired him yet.”

lations, and sets an example for other professors that they can get away with this kind of inappropriate behaviour. Moreover, in the event that faculty members are indeed determined by the University to have conducted themselves inappropriately, as in the case of Professor B, it would seem remiss not to alert the students themselves – especially in the case that the faculty member is not fired or removed in some way from their role as instructor. For students who have experienced sexual harassment at the hands of a professor, we can imagine how this kind of story, even in the form of a “rumour,” could dissuade them from coming forward.

Regardless of whether professors such as A and B are in fact “pathological predators,” firing them is perhaps not the ultimate solution.

They can always go to another institution, and behave similarly toward the students there. McGill has a responsibility to deal with its faculty’s inappropriate conduct while employed here. It might be more conducive to think of real meaningful sanctions to impose on professors that might be regulated by some sort of ‘code of ethics’ with regard to sexual harassment from professors. These issues could be framed in terms of consent and ethical conduct, as well

McGill has a responsibility to deal with their faculty’s inappropriate conduct while employed here. It might be more conducive to think of real meaningful sanctions.

While confidentiality is valuable from a legal perspective in maintaining fairness and impartiality for an investigation, it can often create the sense among students that the administration fails to deal appropriately with professors like Professor B. On a broader level, it sends a message that normalizes student-professor re-

as repercussions on professors held accountable. In cases where professors have been known to take advantage of their position of authority to “treat their classrooms like real-life Tinder accounts,” as discussed in “Let’s talk about teacher,” we need to step up and protect our students.

In letting this behaviour slide without

consequence, we are all complicit in the silencing of these cases, and are putting students at the mercy of professors who use their power and privilege against them.

When we talk about professorstudent relations, often the argument comes down to one’s legal age and consent. However, we should not limit our discussion to these two assessors of legality. We cannot judge whether an action is moral or not based solely on our understanding of consent. In his letter (September 8, Commentary, page 11) in response to “Let’s talk about teacher,” Jason M. Opal, associate professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies, explains the “profound inadequacies of ‘consent’ as a moral and social category,” wherein “consent is better than coercion: that is the best thing we can say about it.

Otherwise it only asks what one person can persuade another person to do, without any concern for where they came from, what they need, and who they are.”

Shirley Katz, who was Associate Dean of Arts at York University in the 1990s, and wrote a policy on relationships between instructors and students at York in 2000, similarly articulates her reservations about “consent.” In her article, “Sexual Relations Between Students and Faculty,” published by University Affairs, Katz observes that critics of student-faculty relationships argue that consent can never be meaningful, because “professors have all sorts of power over students – the power to grade and evaluate the student’s work, the power to provide references for graduate and professional schools and for jobs, the power to serve as intellectual or career mentors and sometimes as role models.”

The student’s power in this dynamic is not comparable, and talking of equality between consenting adults in this case ignores the power differential on which the relationship is built. Katz adds that “because the

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Features

March 21, 2016 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

professor’s powers affect the student’s life in a significant way, [...] the student cannot say no to the relationship, so her consent is actually coerced compliance.”

As such, the initial consent provided by the student at the outset of the relationship eventually becomes intertwined in a power dynamic of reward or threat of punishment, giving the upper hand to authority, which renders the student vulnerable and thus transforms the relationship into an exploitative one.

How then, can we talk of consent when so many factors are pervasively rooted in the relation?

The student’s power in this dynamic is not comparable, and talking of equality between consenting adults in this case ignores the power differential on which the relationship is built.

In an interview, Yves Winter, assisant professor in the Department of Political Science, told me that “while I am wary of expanding the University’s already considerable regulatory power over its members’ intimate lives, I think sexual relations between faculty members and undergraduate students should be off limits.” McGill has a responsibility to protect its students by taking a clear position on consent, but also by better training faculty and staff on matters of sexual harassment.

Winter noted that “at the moment, there is no required sexual harassment training for faculty, and the University could take a much more proactive approach to such training. The Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) Office offers a series of Safer Spaces workshops that cover sexual assault and harassment, among other things, but in my experience, the level of faculty attendance of these

workshop tends to be quite low.”

On the idea of a policy and repercussions for faculty members, Opal proposed the idea in our discussion that in cases where faculty are not fired, there is a range of meaningful sanctions that can be imposed, such as to one’s salary. Something else to consider is preventive measures to protect students before they become victims of sexual harassment. According to Opal, this could take the form of an initiative to educate faculty on notions of respect and appropriate relationships, with the underlying idea of changing the culture around professor-student relations. We need to acknowledge the dynamic as “inherently problematic, usually exploitative, and often predatory,” asserts Opal. The goal of this approach is to make our learning environment a safer space that is pro-student, and one that aims to treat us as individuals with dignity, and not as sexual objects.

Similarly, Winter also discussed the limits of the current sexual assault policy. “The current policy is inadequate,” said Winter. “It fails to define clear limits of appropriate conduct; it does not specify sanctions; and it is too hard to actually impose sanctions.” Moreover, he pointed out that the policy only deals with cases that happened in the previous year, which imposes a time constraint on complainants. Winter emphasized that, in general, the whole approach needs to shift, because “the problem of these policies is that they are designed to protect the institution’s assets, namely faculty members.” While the policy must provide for due process, Winter argues that the University also needs to do a better job protecting victims “by changing the ways it handles information, and by enacting provisional measures, if necessary, while investigating a case.”

From this perspective, we need a new policy that offers meaningful change not only in the way complaints are handled when they are filed, but also in the whole bureaucratic system that currently protects faculty members through limiting measures with regard to time and confidentiality. We need a pro-student policy that is able to respond to the complexity and diversity of cases, and one that is proactive instead of reactive with meaningful measures such as training and

awareness.

Hasana Sharp, associate professor in the Department of Philosophy, is also of the opinion that there simply should not be relationships at all between professors and undergraduates. She proposed that we should also have “a rule against graduate students and [professors having] sex or relationships [for those] who are in the same department, not because of age, but because of the institutional relationship of power.”

Sharp continued, “It does not matter who initiates the first move, for the particulars of the relationship are irrelevant. These institutionally vertical relationships should simply be ruled out as a possibility, and it needs to be clear.” The form of inquiry in these cases “should really avoid interrogation of the state of mind of the student or try to assess whether a relationship is appropriate or not,” Sharp contends. It should not investigate the extent to which the student initiated intimacy or was receptive to it, for these are “all inappropriate forms of inquiry that mirror the way sexual harassment and rape is problematically investigated. We should avoid psychological inquiry altogether,” she said.

and responsibility and avoid putting the burden on complainants. “The administration too often goes after complainants like a court of law to invalidate their allegations because the University does not want to be accountable for abuse on the part of their employees,” she said. Given this, Sharp notes that each of us has to be very sensitive to the power professors have over one another, over graduate students, and over undergraduates.

Some faculty members are taking this issue seriously and are attempting to change the culture around professor-student relations.

Such is the case of Angela Campbell, who was appointed Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures & Equity) at McGill in 2015. Since taking office, Campbell has been working with Dean of Students, André Costopoulos and Liason Officer (Harm Reduction) Bianca Tétrault, among others, on finding ways to better implement the current policies that are in place through education and sensitization. Campbell emphasized the different vehicles, both formal and informal, that are available to students to disclose complaints of professorial improper behaviour. These include reporting to a professor, an

Until McGill comes up with a new policy that includes some sort of clear ethical guidelines with appropriate sanctions, our silence regarding harassment cases is complicit in sustaining a space where professors are permitted to pursue students without consequence.

Sharp also points to how, in academia, “professors in general need to be educated about how to conduct themselves in the context of a field in which reputation is extremely important, and determined significantly by evaluation of peers and superiors.” The issue of reputation and abuse of power in this sense touches professor-student relations, but also senior-junior faculty members. Senior professors have huge influence over promotion, tenure, and reputation in the field. Whatever the rules are, they should impose consequences on the party with institutional power

advisor, the Liason Officer (Harm Reduction), either through the Policy on Harassment, Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Prohibited by Law or through the Policy on Safe Disclosure. The latter, Campbell explains, allows for complaints by anonymous disclosure, via the Secretary-General, without having the complainant’s identity made known during an investigation. Campbell assured me that, where warranted, professors “can be disciplined for conflict of interest and failure to act according to duties set by University regulations and policies.” To facilitate commu-

nication with students, she emphasized her accessibility and openness to talk with anyone who wants to discuss experiences with professorstudent relations.

While there appears to be some willingness and desire to improve the University’s responses to this issue, these latter approaches do not challenge our actual policy or openly question the nature of professor-student relations. We might hope that these educational measures will open up more channels of communication between students, professors, and administrative members to fight the culture of silencing, and break the vicious circle of professor-students relations. Otherwise, until McGill comes up with a new policy that includes some sort of clear ethical guidelines with appropriate sanctions, our silence regarding harassment cases is complicit in sustaining a space where professors are permitted to pursue students without consequence.

Having said this, education, sensitivity, and training as the chief disciplinary responses to professorstudent relations are likely not the entire answer. At the end of the day, everyone should know that it is inappropriate to sleep with one’s students.

A training session won’t change people’s behaviours. We need to do more than just educate, because that assumes that the problem is caused by a lack of knowledge or self-awareness – which in the case of professors repeatedly taking advantage of their students, is unlikely to be true.

The voices featured in this article indicate that the new policy currently being drafted by the studentled working group on sexual assault and harassment on campus is much needed. Also clear is that this document should include a clause specific to professor-student relations, with clear guidelines and punitive sanctions. Clear ethical rules must be adopted by the policy and integrated into faculty and student orientations. Such a policy should place the responsibility on the professor to respect and follow these guidelines, not on the student. Whether this will happen or not, only time will tell. Until then, we must further open the discussion on hierarchical and genderbased abuses of power to make this issue more public, even in the midst of official sanctions occurring behind closed doors.

Sci+Tech

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Mysteries in diagnosis

Scientists struggle to find a genetic basis for schizophrenia

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Fernanda Pérez Gay Juárez Mind the Complexities

ccording to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) schizophrenia affects approximately 1 per cent of the Canadian population. The age of onset is typically during adolescence or early adulthood, and incidence of the disorder does not differ between countries. For centuries, the fluctuating mental state of people suffering from schizophrenia has remained a mystery.

Until 1908, its name was dementia precox, although it has nothing to do with either dementia or preconsciousness. It was psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler who coined the term schizophrenia, from the Greek words schizein (split) and phrenos (mind). He described a wide array of mental functions as being split in schizophrenia.

Despite new insights and understandings, schizophrenia remains elusive for researchers in search for a genetic cause.

In modern psychiatry, schizophrenia is viewed as a continuum, and belongs to a group of conditions called psychotic disorders.

Psychosis, by which psychotic disorders are characterized, is a state in which one detaches from reality and experiences objectively false beliefs (delusions) and altered perceptions (hallucinations) that one believes to be the absolute truth. While going through psychosis, most people with schizophrenia will experience distressing emotions such as anger or uncontrollable fear due to the intensity or the content of psychosis. This can potentially lead them to engage in behaviours they would not normally do in a non-psychotic state. Other common symptoms are disorganized speech and catatonia, the apparent unresponsiveness to external stimuli and emotional flatness.

To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, the aforementioned symptoms have to be present for at least six months and cause significant distress, impairing the patient’s life. Due to the potential of severe effects on patients, doctors and researchers have long dedicated their efforts to try to find a clear cause of and thus a potential treatment for schizophrenia.

So far, the only treatments we have are palliative – they treat the symptoms of psychosis, not schizophrenia per se, and have many potential adverse effects.

Nature or nurture?

Since the term was coined, the cause of schizophrenia has been the subject of heated debate. Some psychiatrists in the beginning of the 20th century, such as Bleuler and Carl Jung, believed there to be important sociological and environmental factors, while others such as the eugenicist Emil Kraepelin thought that the cause was solely genetic. This controversy still exists today, although the contemporary neuroscientific view of the disease considers both biological and environmental risk factors. The biological side considers genetics to be a predisposing factor that, when combined with environmental stresses, can trigger symptoms. With advances in genetics, neuroimaging, and molecular pathology, today most scientists and psychiatrists consider schizophrenia as a disorder of brain development. Genes influence the way our brains develop in utero, telling our neurons where and when to migrate to settle in their final spot in the central nervous system. Afterward, external factors like obstetric complications, perinatal incidents, urban residence, famines, and others sources of stress also contribute to this change in brain development and can affect our mental health.

In 2014, the biggest GWAS to date compared the genomes of nearly [150,000] people, finding 128 gene variants associated with schizophrenia.

Genes: where are we so far?

Genetics is a particularly appealing approach to diseases we do not understand completely, because it may shed light on causal biological mechanisms. Furthermore, in the case of schizophrenia, heritability is a clear trait of the disorder, as concordance rates of schizophrenia for monozygotic twins have been found to be about 40 to 50 per cent, and heritability – the probability of a child having the same condition as their parents – is estimated to be around 80 per cent. However, the link between particular genes and the disorder is

Maya Schade | Illustrator hard to establish given that schizophrenia does not have any single defining symptom or sign, and no known diagnostic laboratory tests can identify it so far.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) – made possible by the Human Genome Project – look for markers of common variation across the human genome, and can compare people that are diagnosed with the disorder to those who are not. In 2014, the biggest GWAS to date compared the genomes of nearly 37,000 people with schizophrenia with more than 113,000 people without the disorder, finding 128 gene variants associated with this condition. This study reinforced two ideas: the role of genetics in the development of schizophrenia and the polygenic and complex nature of this role.

GWAS do not identify specific genes. Rather, they pinpoint bigger areas of the genome that contribute to risk. This kind of research has been useful in the past to detect causes for other complex diseases, such as diabetes or Crohn’s disease, but the lack of biological markers for mental illness futher complicates schizophrenia.

Synapses and genes Finding genes that are associated with a disorder does not mean that we understand how they are implicated in its development.

Nonetheless, this year, a team of scientists from the Broad Institute and Harvard Medical School participated in what could be a breakthrough in schizophrenia genet-

ics. This team found the strongest association between a single gene and schizophrenia so far.

In previous GWAS, one of the genomic regions associated with schizophrenia was a region in our sixth chromosome. Each region has many genes. In this study, researchers decided to focus on a single gene within this region, the so-called C4 gene. In order to understand and corroborate what this gene does to our brain, the researchers conducted genetic experiments; comparing what would happen to mice that had this gene “blocked” (the so-called knockout mice).

We should not forget that the genome is like a recipe for building living machines: every gene codes for a protein with a specific function. C4 codifies two proteins localized in neurons. These proteins eliminate the synapses (neural connections) that are not needed during postnatal brain development.

This process is called synaptic pruning. The greatest rate of synaptic pruning in humans, at least in the prefrontal cortex – which is important for executive processes, judgement, and decision making – happens during the teenage years.

Our brain connections are constantly developing and are critical to becoming who we are. Synaptic pruning helps to eliminate those connections that are redundant or that we do not need.

The discovery of the C4 gene accounts for the first time that a single gene with a specific function in the brain has fit the biological theories of schizophrenia – which

focus on brain development and maturation – as well as neuroimaging findings – which report neural connection patterns in patients – and with schizophrenia presentation – with symptoms beginning in the late teen years. These exciting results have led to many scientific articles claiming we may be closer to explaining schizophrenia.

However exciting these results may be, this is only one gene of the 128 that have been associated with the disease so far. Schizophrenia heritability is not monogenic, but a complex, polygenic disorder, the biology of which is far from being well understood. Furthermore, we should not forget that genetic risk assesses only one side of the disorder development model, and it happens to be the one factor we cannot change. At the same time that we develop research to advance our biological understanding of schizophrenia, we should also study the equally complex characteristics of environmental and other external factors involved. In the meantime, working on the development of better intervention strategies and building education campaigns to reduce stigma will assure a safer and more inclusive environment for people living with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.

Mind the Complexities is a column exploring how scientific knowledge can be applied to the various problems with mental health experienced in our society. Fernanda Pérez Gay Juárez can be reached at mindthecomplexities@mcgilldaily.com.

Culture

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Resilience, womanhood, and survival Khatira Mahdavi Culture Writer

Rupi Kaur’s powerful poetry reaches McGill crowd

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n March 10, something revolutionary took place in the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Ballroom. So many curious minds were eager to embrace the poetry and spoken word of a female Punjabi artist, Rupi Kaur, that some had to be turned away at the door. The event aimed to correct the underrepresentation of Black and Brown women as leaders and independent artists. It did so successfully; the overwhelming crowd of approximately 400 people was a true manifestation of how valuable their work is. As a woman of colour, it is very rare that I get to experience the thrill of seeing my identity represented by an inspirational artist of colour in a dignified way, so Kaur’s performance and the reception of her poems was a triumph for me personally and for what seemed like an inspired audience.

Based in Toronto, Kaur released her first book of poetry and prose, milk and honey, in 2014. Since then, she has been touring within Canada and internationally to share her art with a broader audience. SSMU Equity invited Kaur to host a night of poetry, but she did much more, engaging the crowd in the themes of violence, abuse, feminism, love, and identity. During the show, she performed three spoken word pieces: “broken english,” “the art of growing,” and “liberation” – all of which can be found on her YouTube channel – as well as by readings of several poems from milk and honey. I sat in the crowd and my heart swelled as I witnessed this artist take the stage with brilliance.

Kaur explained the title of her book by referring to the collective struggle and healing of the Punjabi

Sarah Meghan Mah | The McGill Daily women she identifies with. milk and honey is used as an analogy for the heart-soothing method of brewing milk and honey to soothe ailments, which the artist noted to be a common Indian cultural practice. Kaur’s poetry is infused with themes of intersectional womanhood and celebrating Brown identities, all of which resonated deeply with me as an audience member.

The artist’s poem “woman of colour,” which she performed at the event, draws on this theme: “our backs / tell stories / no books have / the spine to / carry.” In this work, Kaur expresses solidarity with other women of colour who carry the burdens of racism and sexism on their backs while moving through their lives with grace and success. This

type of acknowledgement of burdens and struggles is more commonly geared toward white women, which is why the poem’s sentiment was especially striking to me, It felt refreshing to not only see a female poet commemorate women of colour and encourage them to celebrate their identities, but to see the poem receive a warm reception among the crowd.

Nadine Tahan, a Lebanese woman and a U3 Political Science student told The Daily at the event, “I appreciated how the audience was mostly women of colour. It felt good to be surrounded by others who share similar experiences as you.”

It is important to note that Kaur purposefully does not use capitalization in her poetry. She says it is a

way of paying homage to the written version of her mother tongue, Gurmukho, which does not use capitalization. Developing these themes of homecoming and cultural struggle, she performed the spoken word piece “broken english.” The room growing quiet, and music, which accompanied all of her spoken word pieces, filled the empty spaces between audience members.

The sound of bells cascaded through the crowd as Kaur spoke about the language and cultural barriers that first-generation immigrant mothers struggle with: “so how dare you mock your mother / when she opens her mouth and broken english spills out / her accent is thick like honey / hold it with your life / it’s the only thing she has left from home.”

Experiencing Kaur’s performance was cathartic for me because so often feminine expressions are silenced and women of colour are often robbed of opportunities to amplify their voices, and yet here was a young Punjabi woman with jet-black hair slicked into a braid reading promiscuous poetry to a crowd of 400. Ayesha Talreja, an Indian woman and U3 International Development Studies student, was impressed with Kaur’s performance, but had criticism to spare. “[Kaur’s art] made me think [...] how [struggles of ] people of colour [...] within and outside our communities are often glossed over and subconsciously or consciously made to fit for wider mainstream acceptance. I began to think more about who is burdened with always having to talk about race, identity, femininity, and migration, and wondered why I expected this [discussion] from her. Just because she is a fellow woman of colour? Just because she is a fellow migrant?”

With her poetry and spoken word, Kaur advocates strongly for an open concept of femininity, reminding women to acknowledge the strength in themselves and each other, as she says in her book: “we all move forward when we recognize how resilient and striking the women around us are.” Kaur’s poetry night was all about encouraging women of colour to recognize their beauty against homogenized and whitewashed standards. Kaur demonstrated the role of poetry in engaging with the issues of female resilience and social transgression, and how crucial it is for these ideas to come from the mouth of a woman of colour.

Her work is not a metaphorical representation of identity and struggle, but stems from her lived experiences.

Kaur’s poetry and spoken word is proof of her survival.

It’s nice, but what is it? and Her Side of the Story Culture picks from The Daily

It’s nice, but what is it?

Her side of the story

e all have that one friend who will look at us skeptically when we talk about abstract art, their expression communicating a lack of excitement and frank confusion. Sometimes we ourselves wonder how to appreciate modern artists’ representation of reality when it’s depicted conceptually. What if, instead of comparing the elegant forms of Michelangelo’s High Renaissance to abstract vision, we accept abstract art for what it is and learn more about it?

emember that insightful review we published in February of Imago Theatre’s Pig Girl? Well, Imago is back at it with an event series featuring some crucial perspectives of female artists, writers, and activists.

Imago Theatre’s “Her Side of the Story” festival running in May will put you in the right mood for the summer while giving you a chance to meet women creatives from throughout Canada. It’s about time to speak frankly about women’s issues, be reflective, and even outrageous.

Imago’s festival offers a space to engage in an insightful conversation and share experiences.

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“It’s nice, but what is it?” aims to make abstract art fun and accessible. After the success of the first edition of the exhibit last year, the gallery is launching its second installment, hoping to dissolve the myth that modern abstract art is incomprehensible. Write down your questions and visit the exhibit, which includes Andrew Agostino’s expressionist art, Myriam Paradis Lalancette’s urban sketches, and Jade Picard’s expressive paintings. You can meet the artists during the vernissage on March 27 from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m..

“It’s nice, but what is it?” runs from March 23 to April 24 at Le repaire des 100 talents.

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“Her Side of the Story” runs May 13 to 14 in the Imago Theatre.

Culture

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Babely Shades talks healing and accountability Ottawa collective creates support for artists of colour Jedidah Nabwangu Talk Black Babely Shades is a selfdescribed “collective of artists and activists of colour and marginalized genders from the Ottawa area.” The truth is, Babely Shades is doing some of the most radical work at the cultural level that this nation’s ultra-conservative capital has ever seen. They’re breaking barriers left and right, giving queer people of colour (POC) and marginalized folks the opportunity to express themselves freely in artistic spaces that have historically excluded them.

I chatted with two members of the collective, Corrina Chow and Kelsey Amanda, who together gave an in-depth look at what Babely Shades is all about.

The McGill Daily (MD): Can you tell me more about what you do? What artistic or other types of areas are you most active in?

Corrina Chow (CC): I would say what brought us all together is feeling that we didn’t necessarily belong in the Ottawa arts scene just because we never saw bands or other artists of colour that we could kind of relate to. [...] We have a ton of people who have formed their own bands [...] and then others who are visual artists and a lot of musicians [and] poets.

Kelsey Amanda (KA): Illustrators, writers. [It’s] pretty much a big conglomerate for us to all kind of support each other and be able to feel visible.

CC: On top of that we do a lot of bookings, events where the venue would be in a safe space – where racism, transmisogyny and ableism wouldn’t be tolerated. [...] It’s been difficult to find venues that [can] accommodate that in Ottawa, but we found a couple, particularly Pressed Cafe.

KA: We’ve also even created some DIY venues that we use that are pretty much houses where they are really open to having shows and holding up our mandate.

MD: And would you say the Babely Shades zine spreads the same message?

KA: I would say that our zine is kind of more personal in the sense that we’re creating it for ourselves.

I feel like it’s a very healing thing.

We’re not out there to teach as much as to kind of reclaim ourselves.

CC: Yeah, the zine really lets people know that we’re people too, like we do the same stuff that everyone else does.

KA: We’re creators and we want to have the same opportunities to create, the same funding opportunities, and the same space.

MD: The number of members

Rahma Wiryomartono | The McGill Daily in the collective is now over a hundred. You even gathered attention from the Ottawa Citizen and Vice.

Did you ever think you would get this big and how do you feel about this attention?

Our zine is more personal in the sense that we’re creating it for ourselves. I feel like it’s a very healing thing.

CC: When I first joined we didn’t really think that it would receive this much attention because I guess we’re not really accustomed to achieving that much attention in the first place. [...] It’s great in the sense that people actually recognize that these issues exist, but at the same time you’re kind of putting yourselves out there as a target.

KA: I really just thought it was going to be a small group of friends just supporting each other. But [...] the work and the activism and things that just came to be because of that support and that network has blown my mind.

CC: Yeah, [like] being invited to the Black History Month reception…

KA: Oh yeah, Parliament Hill!

Yeah, we met Trudeau!

MD: Is there a particular time or event with Babely Shades that you are most proud of?

CC: There’s a two day event at Pressed [Cafe] called #DIYSpring.

KA: It’s basically a collective of some of the artists that are already in Babely Shades and people of colour that we know [...] putting on this two day festival to celebrate artists doing it themselves; and obviously specifically queer people of colour. So that’s a really exciting thing that we’re doing, [...] we’re presenting artists from the U.S. and all over.

Shoegaze legends!

CC: They’re quite established and they’re also people of colour, and it’s really exciting to have them come to Ottawa and play with Everett, which is [the founder of Babely Shades’ Elsa Mirzaei’s] band.

MD: In terms of the bad times that have been a little more rough for your group. You started a petition against The Queers who claim to engage in the “reclamation of queer identity” while actually being a white, hetero, cisgendered group, and faced backclash from their fans in return. How did you cope with that negative, even threatening, incidence of cyber bullying?

KA: Yeah, this is a really sensitive topic. I think overall we really stuck to each other and really reached out to people who [had previously] reached out to us. [...]

We were literally targeted and we were threatened. [...] I think in the end it’s just being there for each other and knowing that people are only coming against us because we’re doing something that is going to displace them in their comfort.

CC: This was positive in the sense that [those] people on Facebook that kind of just float around and you never really interact with them [...] messag[e] you in solidarity, being like, “Hey, I really appreciate [the work] you’re doing. This isn’t necessarily my space but even if any of my friends say or do anything that could damage this community, I’ll be sure to call them out [...] and bring attention to your group.” And yeah [they could be the same] people who would [...] take away space or occupy space in a community that doesn’t belong to them.

People who are marginalized and oppressed don’t owe you an education.

MD: So the people who were offering their support then turned out to be the ones who were spreading the hate?

CC: Yes and no. There are some people who you could genuinely call allies but then there are people who declare themselves as allies but then take up all the space. [...]

It’s certainly white feminism. It’s trying to equate something that white women experience [...] to something women of colour would experience or trans women of colour even.

KA: They just don’t get the intersectional aspects of it and that’s damaging in itself.

MD: If people did their research, this wouldn’t even be an issue.

CC: Yeah that was another thing that was elicited during the [incident with The Queers].

These people want you to spoonfeed everything directly to them when this isn’t my job, I’m not paid to do it, and it’s actually quite exhausting.

KA: People who are marginalized and oppressed don’t owe you an education.

MD: Would you say most people in Ottawa are like this or are more open and accepting to the cause?

KA: It’s weird because that’s not even the first incident. [...]

Initially, we took a stance against The Queers in such a passive, online petition way and it just [ended] up blowing up. I think the reaction to it can kind of [point to how] people are still not that ready and willing to make the foundational changes.

MD: Why do you think it’s important to have collectives like Babely Shades active at the local level especially?

CC: I think it’s making these things accessible to marginalized people.

KA: At least at a local level, it’s nice to kind of hold people accountable and if they don’t want to be accountable for their actions or whatever they’re doing, [we will influence them to change that].

CC: If [the change] is happening at a local level, then maybe it can spread along.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

22

Culture

March 21, 2016 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Lost at sea, bewitched by song

Magical realism in Tuesday Night Cafe’s The Flood Thereafter Harrison Brewer Culture Writer

T

he Flood Thereafter has a sense of the supernatural intertwined with a seemingly mundane setting. This results in a moving, intimate, and almost tragicomic production. Put together by the Tuesday Night Cafe (TNC) Theatre, the play is permeated with the themes of family, love, innocence, and bewitchment. Cleo da Fonseca, co-director of the play, told The Daily that the genre of magical realism lies at the basis of the production.

The Flood Thereafter is set in a Quebec fishing village on the lower St. Lawrence River where the men can no longer fish because they are ensnared by the beauty of the mermaid Grace (Daphné Morin), who has washed up on the shore. Grace leaves to open a shop with her daughter June (Camille Banville), whose father is one of the fishermen, causing the village to slump into poverty as the fishermen refuse to work due to their despair.

However, the fishermen find unexpected solace in June, whose dancing at the grungy village bar brings the men to tears.

The play is an reinterpretation of the tale of Odysseus and the Sirens, in which the Sirens attempt to lure Odysseus away from his journey home using their beauty and entrancing songs. There is a quasi-Odysseus character in Dennis (Jérémy Benoit), a traveller going home who is bewitched by June’s

spell. The Siren character type, portrayed through Grace and June, are ambiguously supernatural, leaving the audience spell-bound. Although there are slightly heavy-handed references to the original story, writer Sarah Berthiaume and directors da Fonseca and Daphné Morin manage to mould the epic theme of homecoming to the Quebecois setting.

Quebecois slang is weaved into the English-language narrative through Grace, who dips in and out of French throughout her dialogue with June. Ultimately, the play’s translation to the St. Lawrence region is not entirely out of place with the setting of the original tale – as it links together seafaring in both The Odyssey and The Flood Thereafter. Da Fonseca spoke to The Daily about the importance of the Greek epic futher. “Greek mythology is real in some ways, it is present in our lives. [...] The Odyssey is so tragic and the idea of leaving home and coming back is something that is common to a lot of people. The idea that the fisherman is someone who is always lost at sea is a very powerful thing that everyone can relate to,” Da Fonseca said.

As the Sirens’ spell attracted the fishermen, the acting in TNC’s production pulled the audience into the drama. June and Grace are both superbly performed. They manage to depict a dichotomy of innocence and maturity through their motherdaughter relationship. It becomes impossible to differentiate the actor from her role as Banville plays June’s character masterfully. Dennis, the

Courtesy of Marina Miller wandering driver who enters the bar during one of June’s bewitching dances, takes a little while to adjust to his role, but once in full flow, the passion and the role come through in waves as he becomes by the particular spell of the village.

Another intriguing coupling within the play lies in that of Homer (Pierre-Luc Senécal) and Penelope (Amalea Ruffett). Their relationship resonates with the drama of the play, where Homer, a fisherman

taken by June’s dancing, is in conflict with Penelope, his wife, who finds herself jealous of June’s captivation of Homer.

The Flood Thereafter has many qualities of a “Great American Novel” feel, drawing parallels between the public sphere and its impact on familial relations. As in Ancient Greek tragedy, the message is muddled by the tragicomic episodes of woe played out on stage.

The production plays with the

importance of homecoming, drawing familiar feelings of faithfulness toward what’s dear to us. The viewer becomes one of the play’s characters, swept along by the authentic acting and dialogue, and by an occasional feeling of quirky relaxation, a sentiment that the The Odyssey definitely did not evoke of Ancient Greek viewers at the time.

The play runs March 23 to 25 at 8 p.m. at Morrice Hall.

Opulence, public spaces, and pastel colours “We, ‘Other’” deconstructs Rococo and Baroque with contemporary touch

Camille Queen Culture Writer

“

We, ‘Other’” was held at the POPOP gallery from March 8 to March 18, as part of Art Matters 2016, a student-run festival showcasing Concordia artists. The theme of the show was inspired by the French historian and critical theorist Michel Foucault’s words, “We other Victorians.” In “We, ‘Other’,” curator Miles Petrella constructs a space in which the artistic traditions and themes from the Rococo and late Baroque periods of visual art are in conversation with the audience, the modern “Other.” The audience, the artists, and the artwork are a synthesis of late 18th and 19th century aesthetic ideals of decadence, materialism, and luxury – all put into a modern contemporary context.

Petrella chose pieces that depict the time period in a way that prompt modern understandings of those artworks. In an interview with The Daily, Petrella said,

“To me, all the pieces have something signifying opulence, decadence, or taste-levels and have a sexuality component to them too.”

The layer of contemporaneity was then laid over the pieces as they were situated in decidedly modern and postmodern contexts.

“We, ‘Other’” is infused with the visual echoes of 18th and 19th century art. Pastel colours, reminiscent of the idyllic garden scenes characteristic of the Rococo era repeatedly appear throughout the exhibit, and one of the walls of the gallery is painted a bright pastel pink. The pieces that comprise the show are diverse in style, subject matter, media, and degree of naturalism. The show includes and displays this diversity under an umbrella of shared qualities; “We, ‘Other’” as a whole does not profess a specific critique, but rather allows the pieces to speak for themselves and their own manifestations of opulence, decadence, and sexuality.

One of the central themes of the exhibit is the portrayal of the

The audience, the artists, and the atwork are a synthesis of late 18th and 19th century aesthetic ideals of decadence, materialism, and luxury – all put into a modern contemporary context. human body as subject matter, a frequent theme found in much of Baroque and Rococo art. Brent Morley Smith’s Shag is a brilliant piece of textile work depicting a young man with an Adonis-like

physique in the midst of masturbating without any seeming awareness – or care – of the audience’s observation. The musculature and classical flawlessness of the figure as well as the decadence of its rich fibers certainly speak to the figure’s dedication to opulence. A McGill student who attended the exhibit described the piece as “beautiful, but I wouldn’t hang it in my living room.”

Works varying in media adorn the room, but not every piece makes the link between the present and the past explicit or worth exploring. One such artwork is Monica Rekas’s XXX Source Footage, which is steadfastly modern by virtue of being in the form of video. Dizzying geometric squares are organized by categories of fetishes. In the description of the video, Rekas states that the piece’s goal is to “explore the curious irony of our private-public sex lives.” Although impressive and provocative, XXX Source Footage does not suggest an obvious link to the 18th and 19th century art that

the show aims to connect with in its greater theme, aside from the shared motif of sexuality.

Exploring the representation of the female body in art throughout time, Cindy Phenix’s triptych Play With Me 1,2,3 depicts the invasion of women’s spaces and the transformation of their bodies into an object of the public gaze. Soft pastel colours are present, but it’s the faces of the women that draw attention – they are illustrated with huge black eyes, massive lips and bushy eyebrows. One of the paintings depicts a woman holding her hands out in a “stop!”

In a critical and flexible manner, “We, ‘Other’” combines the themes typical to 18th and 19th century artwork with modern interpretations, thus deconstructing and dismantling “Other” as sexual mores. Hinting to audience why art indeed matters, the exhibit develops a balance of styles, artists, media and tones that engage with the viewer on historically significant issues, all through a contemporary lens.

Editorial

volume 105 number 23

editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

23

Reactive measures not a solution to Cross Lake suicide crisis

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com

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cover design Amanda Fiore, Fraea Graziani, Jennifer Guan, Céline Kerriou, Jasmine Lee, Sarah Meghan Mah, Sean Miyaji, Alejandra Morales, Magdalena Morales, Maya Schade, Théa Spring, Justine Touchon, Rahma Wiryomartono contributors Thy Anne Chu Quang, Kiara Bernard, Harrison Brewer, Marina Cupido, Marina Djurdjevic, Amanda Fiore, Fraea Graziani, Jennifer Guan, Ralph Haddad, Francesca Humi, Fernanda Pérez Gay Juárez, Céline Kerriou, Nadir Khan, Jasmine Lee, Rayleigh Lee, Sean Miyaji, Alejandra Morales, Magdalena Morales, Jedidah Nabwangu, Khatira Mahdavi, Camille Queen, Xavier Richer Vis, Inori Roy-Khan, Maya Schade, Théa Spring, Ayesha Talreja, Kevin Tam, Justine Touchon, Dana Wray

T

he Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba, also known as Cross Lake, declared a state of emergency on March 9, in the wake of six suicides over the past two months and over 140 attempts in the community of 8,365 in the last two weeks alone.

Previous requests for provincial and federal aid have been met with inadequate assistance; last month, a meeting with Manitoba’s Minister of Health resulted in one mental health worker being sent to the community for a single eight-hour shift. The suicide crisis, however, cannot be resolved without considering the other hardships affecting Cross Lake, including the destruction of its land by a Manitoba Hydro station and a lack of economic security with an 80 per cent unemployment rate. In order to seriously confront Cross Lake’s suicide crisis, the government must, in consultation with the Nation, address the systemic roots of this crisis.

While the government has made some efforts since the state of emergency was declared, they are inadequate and overdue. Following the declaration of emergency, the community asked for at least six mental health workers, a child psychologist, a family therapist, counsellors, and physicians; the provincial government dispatched several federally funded emergency mental health workers and counsellors on a temporary basis. However, in a community where 170 students in a school of 1,200 are on a suicide-watch list, these reactive measures will not fulfill the Nation’s long-standing need for basic facilities, such as a hospital and recreational facilities for youth. The standard of only reacting to a marginalized community’s needs when it is in a state of emergency is grossly inadequate.

The government should have been proactive in providing the re-

quested resources before crisis status was reached. That it didn’t do so is evidence that the Canadian state continues a historical pattern of treating Indigenous people as expendable.

While not all Indigenous communities have comparable suicide rates, suicide continues to disproportionately affect Indigenous communities. According to Health Canada, First Nations youth die by suicide five to six times more often than non-Indigenous youth, and Inuit youth 11 times more often; suicide and self-inflicted injuries are the leading cause of death for First Nations youth and adults up to 44 years old. Many of those who have attempted or died by suicide have connections to the genocidal residential schooling system or the foster care system, which have both resulted in the loss of the identities and cultures of many Indigenous children. The root causes of the suicide epidemic at Cross Lake – which include poverty, overcrowded housing, and intergenerational trauma and abuse – stem from the past and ongoing injustices of colonialism.

The government has a responsibility to address these structural causes. Instead of only reacting and apologizing when things reach a point of crisis, the government needs to provide substantive resources to fulfill Indigenous communities’ expressed needs, such as economic security, sustainable mental health facilities, and employment programs. As well, all settlers have a constant part to play in pushing the government to act – it should not take a state of emergency to get Canada to notice.

—The McGill Daily editorial board

Errata The description of Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) presidential candidate Ben Ger (“President,” March 14, SSMU elections pullout, page 3) said that Ger reduced the number of signatures required to hold a referendum from 100 to 50. In fact, Ger reduced the number from 500 to 100.

The Daily regrets the error.

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Compendium!

March 21, 2016 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGall Daily

24

Lies, half-truths, and a portait of the smoker as a young man.

Smoking on the terrace

A discussion with the Duck of the McGall Library Nicholas Wroe The McGall Weekly

“

You look unhappy.”

That is the Duck of the McGall Library – all of a sudden speaking to me. I hadn’t noticed her approach me while I stood smoking on the terrace outside the McLemon Library.

She challenges me with an expression of frustration and disappointment, as I feel my confidence limping away along the tip of my cigarette.

“You mustn’t smoke here, young man. This is a Non-Smoking Area.”

I’m standing between two columns against the wall of McLemon, trying to find shelter from the pouring rain of a stormy late-April finals-fuckyou. According to the Duck of the Library, this cold alcove constitutes part of the Non-Smoking Area. Briefly, I look at the raindrenched smoking area down the stairs and beyond the bridges. Not my first choice.

“The smoking area is over

The Duck of the McGall Library. there, young man.”

The Duck of the Library happens to catch me at my best: I’ve been awake 37 hours studying for

Crossword Katrina Kairys | The McGill Daily

Samim Tujat | The McGall Weekly

exams I will fail. My speedy gaze of worldly concern travels through eyes bloodshot and irritable.

“Young man...”

The Duck of the Library waits for me to submit to her courteous authority. Before me, the glorious terrace of McLemon is all but

empty, except for the Duck of the Library, and maybe twenty plastic “no smoking” signs.

“You know, I quit smoking forty years ago, so I recognize how you might feel.”

She is extending an olive branch with all the lumber of a Trojan horse: the Duck of the Library empathizes with my situation, yet asserts her moral superiority over me by disclosing a previously overcome nasty habit.

“Your attitude is unbecoming, young man.”

The Duck is beginning to come out of her shell, so to speak.

“YOUNG MAN!” The rain continues to splatter the sandwich boards of segregation. I take another drag from my cigarette, unsure of what to do next. The Duck of the Library is taking a stance on principle, intending to enforce the law of the library complex.

But it turns out that, while we discussed, I actually smoked my Camel Blue to the filter. I toss my butt in the direction of a nearby “no smoking”... suggestion!

Across

Down

1. Brighter 6. Collapsed 12. Freud’s daughter 13. Juice detox 14. Sounds pulse 15. Payment 16. Dad on That ‘70s Show 17. Playground insult 22. Sanctuary 25. Toys in the Attic rockers 26. Mode 28. Post-workout ailment: abbr.

31. Amy’s onscreen “sister” 32. Prairie university: abbr.

33. It’s used in a duel 34. It’s found on Levi’s 35. Type of pear 37. Curved letter 39. U.S. Polo ____ 40. It can be rolled up to win 43. Land lot 45. ____-haw 47. ____ too many 48. Lamp oil 50. Insurance corporation: abbr.

51. Winter driving nuisance 53. Martial art: ____ Bo 54. Notes are placed on it 55. Bear ____ 56. Social with crumpets

1. Deplete 2. Montreal’s brain research hub: abbr.

3. She’s rather ragged 4. NYC-based clothing line: ____ & bone 5. Acclaim 6. Sandwich 7. They’re needed for fishing and films 8. Rower’s wood 9. Bow 10. It comes after R 11. Final 13. Canada’s largest fair: abbr.

16. Fine arts school: abbr.

17. Dillon and Damon 18. Uncanny 19. Stars on Ice locale 20. Not well known 21. Where you can buy a misto 23. Sings in the alps 24. Missing 27. Demon of Buddhism 29. ____-____ surgery 30. Daybed 32. Marxist-Leninist state 36. General on the lunch menu 38. Hires employees 40. Criticize 41. ____ ____ to win it 42. Smaller than giga44. ____ Pak 46. Good guy’s adversary 49. Perform 52. Province home to Gravenhurst: abbr.