The McGill Daily Vol104Iss22

Volume 104, Issue 22 Monday, March 16, 2015

SSMU ELECTIONS PULLOUT INSIDE

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Contents 03 NEWS

12 FEATURES

Palestine solidarity divestment motion fails at GA

New religious movements in Quebec

Police kettle anti-police brutality protesters Post-grads talk women-only gym hours

SSMU adopts family care policy

Increasing antibiotic resistance threatens modern medicine

Panel: global police brutality

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Mental health policy recommendations

Concussions in the NHL

09 COMMENTARY

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On gentrification in Montreal

Reviewing Miss Me’s glorification of musical saints

Why McGill needs to decolonize

Israeli Apartheid Week exhibit portrays the occupation of Palestine

Plan Nord is unfair and unsustainable

Behind the scenes of the MainLine Gala for Student Drama

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How neuroscience could one day end humanity

Letter: SNAX and sandwiches

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Quebec students vote to strike

AUS Council supports sexual assault policy

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EDITORIAL

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Palestine occupation divestment motion fails by 64 votes at Winter GA Quorum lost for motion on accessible education policy

Marina Cupido The McGill Daily

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n March 15, students gathered in Leacock 132 for the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Winter 2015 General Assembly (GA). Motions on the table concerned unpaid internships, an accessible education policy, and divestment from companies profiting from the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The event was scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., but due to the high number of attendees, proceedings did not begin until noon.

The first motion discussed concerned the nomination of RSM Richter as the auditor for SSMU. VP Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley explained that the auditor’s contract is renewed every three years, at which point a vote is necessary. The motion passed with 259 votes for, 6 against, and 4 abstentions.

Divestment from the occupation of Palestine The motion concerning divestment from companies profiting from the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories sparked intense debate. The motion called upon SSMU to “divest and refrain from investing in companies that pose social injury by contributing to the continuation and profitability of the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.”

Moved by petition, this proposal was endorsed by several campus groups, including the Black Students’ Network (BSN), Divest McGill, Midnight Kitchen, QPIRG-McGill, the Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE), and the Pakistani, Jordanian, Syrian, African, Egyptian, and Arab student associations.

The motion proved contentious, with students speaking strongly both in favour and against.

A U2 Management student asked those in attendance to “[move] away from rhetoric and [look] at the actual words in the motion,” and said that “voting yes will institutionalize this deep divide.”

Several others opposed the motion on the grounds that it was affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an international campaign that aims to put economic pressure on the state of Israel in protest against its occupation of the Palestinian territories in violation of international law.

U3 Arts student McKenzie Kibler said that to argue that the motion was unrelated to BDS was “in-

sulting the intelligence of students.”

U3 Management student Dina El-baradie responded that the motion did not include an academic or cutural boycott of Israel, and added that the motion in no way questioned Israel’s right to exist, instead merely seeking McGill’s financial disassociation.

“We’ve picked a side – we’re invested in these companies,” she said.

“Divesting means disassociating [ourselves from the occupation], and we’re going to be neutral afterward.”

“As McGill students, we are not neutral,” agreed Science student Zain Ali Syed. He cited SSMU’s constitution, which states, “SSMU commits to demonstrating leadership in matters of human rights [and] social justice.”

Muhammad Anani, a U2 Science student, said that as a Palestinian, he is directly affected by the issue. “As a Palestinian at McGill, I am complicit in oppressing my own people.”

Zahra Habib, a U1 student in Middle Eastern Studies and Urban Planning, called on students to question their reason for attending the GA. “I want people to do a lot of self-reflection on why [you are] here,” she said. “If you’re against violence against innocents, you’re for this motion – I have no doubt everyone here is.”

After roughly 45 minutes of debate on the motion, a motion to end debate passed. Syed motioned for a secret ballot, voicing concerns that students might face hostility from their peers based on their choices.

This also passed.

After an hour-long voting procedure, the main motion was defeated, with 212 votes for, 276 against, and 9 abstentions. After the results were announced, the vast majority of students present left the GA. Laura Khoury, member of the “yes” campaign for the motion, spoke to The Daily after the vote.

“Nobody was able to dismiss the fact that the occupation and expansion of settlements was illegal, and nobody could refute the fact that we are complicit in aiding illegal actions. I call on everyone to reflect on their vote to stay complicit, because while you do have a home to go back to every day, many Palestinians don’t as a result of our complicity.”

Jordan Devon, a member of the “no” campaign, also reacted to the outcome of the vote.

“After two failed motions regarding this particular topic this year alone, I hope that students who stand on the other side of this debate understand that two pages

Andy Wei | The McGill Daily of ‘whereas’ clauses accompanied by 18 citations do not summarize the complex realities of geopolitical conflict, and that passing motions like these will change nothing in the Middle East.”

Unpaid internships The assembly continued by addressing the issue of illegal unpaid internships with a motion calling on SSMU to stop promoting such positions and lobby McGill to do the same. The motion was brought forward by NDP-McGill and several SSMU councillors.

The final ‘resolved’ clause, which mandated SSMU clubs and services not to “promote, recruit for, or facilitate any internships that contravene applicable employment laws,” sparked considerable debate.

Some expressed concern that this would provoke further frustration on the part of club members, some of whom already resent the breadth of SSMU regulations.

SSMU Engineering Representative Scott Conrad brought forward a motion to strike this clause, still expressing concern over the potential negative impact of such a proposal on SSMU’s relationship with its affiliates. He later changed his amendment to only strike clubs, not services, from the clause. This amendment failed.

Attendees eventually decided to divide the question, voting on the section pertaining specifically to clubs separately. Both parts of the motion passed with the first segment garnering 75 votes for, 8 against, and 19 abstentions, and the second also taking a clear majority.

Accessible education The final motion on the table concerned the financial accessibility of education, calling on SSMU to adopt a policy in support of accessible education.

VP External Amina Moustaqim-Barrette spoke to the motion, noting that SSMU’s current accessible education policy is about to expire, rendering this proposal particularly urgent.

Several of those who opposed the motion mentioned the recent decision to raise tuition for students from France to the level of those from out of province. They argued that, given the provincial government’s current deficit, this measure had not been unreasonable.

Moustaqim-Barrette responded to these concerns, reminding those present that the decision to raise French students’ tuition had already been made, and that the current motion addressed the imminent prospect of tuition deregulation for all faculties and for outof-province students.

Speaking against the motion, Kibler accused Moustaqim-Barrette of “fear-mongering.” Out-ofprovince tuition was unlikely to be raised significantly, he said, as competitive fees were useful for attracting students. He also argued that the clause mandating SSMU to mobilize against austerity was dangerous, as it would enable SSMU to create a mobilization committee, join the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) student federation, and eventually call a strike GA. Moustaqim-Barrette dismissed

Kibler’s allegations. The administration has already announced its intention raise tuition to the highest levels allowed by the market, she said. She also noted that an anti-austerity mobilization committee has already been formed within SSMU, and that SSMU is not eligible for ASSÉ membership because it lacks a “sovereign GA.” SSMU Medicine Representative Joshua Chin also expressed concern, wondering if the motion would specifically mandate SSMU to organize a strike GA. One Law student argued in favour of the motion. He noted that many other Quebec universities have taken action against austerity, and called the motion a “really benign” way for McGill students to participate in the collective struggle.

A motion by Chin to divide the question on the grounds that the resolved clauses were fairly unrelated failed. The main motion passed, but as there were only 97 voters present, the 100-person quorum requirement was not met. The motion will thus be brought to SSMU Council for debate and approval.

A motion to “stand in solidarity with students and protesters demanding democratic government worldwide, in particular, Hong Kong,” tabled at the Fall GA, was expected to be moved from the floor. However, some of the movers withdrew their support and the motion was not brought forward.

Most remaining students dispersed at this point, and the assembly adjourned at 5:00 p.m. after hearing the executive reports.

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Anti-police brutality march ends in kettling

Organizers to hold another protest this week Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

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round 100 demonstrators gathered yesterday at the intersection of Berri and Ontario to participate in the 19th annual anti-police brutality march. Alain Magloire, a man who was homeless and mentally ill, was shot and killed by a Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) officer in February 2014 at this location.

“There is a [large part] of society that approves of police brutality, unfortunately,” one demonstrator, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Daily. “They think that it’s being done for them. It’s [as if ] they live vicariously through the killings of others, carried out in their name by the authority.”

While the demonstration was planned to start at 3 p.m., more than forty police officers had already taken their places around Berri and Ontario by 2:30 p.m., including one squad of police on horseback and at least two squads of police on bikes.

At 3 p.m., the SPVM announced that the demonstration was legal because its location had been disclosed to them beforehand. However, the SPVM also declared that marching would be illegal, as a clear route itinerary was not provided.

Under municipal bylaw P-6, groups wishing to organize marches must provide their itinerary to the SPVM at least 24 hours in advance. During last year’s anti-police brutality march, nearly 300 demonstrators were kettled and fined $638 for participating in a march declared illegal under P-6.

Roughly ten minutes after the announcement that the march was illegal, the demonstrators attempted to march west on Ontario, but were forced to change their path as police had already blocked that route. The group then attempted to march north on Berri, at which point the SPVM announced that the demonstration was illegal.

Riot police trapped the demonstrators at the underpass nearby, where they were kettled for the rest of the protest. Two student journalists from the Link, Zach Goldberg and Jonathan Cook, were among those who were kettled.

As the kettling took place, two other demonstrations were happening elsewhere: one on the corner of Maisonneuve and Berri, and another on St. Laurent. A total of 95 people were arrested, 92 of whom were arrested under article 500.1 of the Highway Safety Code, which makes it illegal to “occupy the roadway [...] so as to obstruct

vehicular traffic.”

According to the SPVM’s Twitter account, the demonstrations were dispersed around 4:30 p.m..

The kettling on Berri had ended and the street was re-opened to traffic by 5:30 p.m..

The Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COBP), which organizes the annual anti-police brutality marches, is planning to hold another demonstration on March 22, called La St-Patrak, to coincide with Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

According to COBP’s website, La St-Patrak will take place on the same day as the parade because the organization wishes to “denounce the fact that we no longer have a right to protest in Montreal.”

Speaking at a news conference on March 12, Montreal mayor Denis Coderre hinted at possible repression of the demonstration. “Let’s be clear, [the parade is] a celebration and nobody, nobody, will prevent this magnificent celebration,” he said.

“People who are going to attend the parade have nothing to fear from us,” COBP noted on its website in French. “But they should, maybe, be wary of the police officers, who are known to be armed and dangerous to the population, especially to those who are activists or marginalized.”

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Large police presence at the anti-police brutality march.

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Post-grads discuss gym hours controversy Board officially reports CFS disaffiliation referendum results

Marina Cupido The McGill Daily

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n March 11, the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) held both its March Council meeting and its Annual General Meeting (AGM) for Winter 2015.

Women-only gym hours The AGM included a general discussion of the proposal to institute women-only hours at the McGill fitness centre, as PGSS may want to take a stance on the issue in the future. Sebastien Forte, a PhD student in Economics, expressed emphatic disagreement, calling the idea “a step backward in terms of thinking about gender equality.”

“What’s going on here is that you have individuals that normally have access to the public space, and that’s taken away based on their gender,” said Forte. “The [Canadian] Charter of Rights and Freedoms says that you can’t be discriminated [against] based on gender. The decision not to access the gym because there are men around – that’s a choice, whereas the decision not to access the gym because you are banned from it based on your gender is not a choice,” he added.

Stéphanie Bergeron, McGill Graduate Association of Political Science Studies representative, offered a different perspective. “I [think] some people feel they don’t have access to public space because of their gender or orientation, and that’s what we should focus on right

now,” she said.

Postgraduate Philosophy Students of McGill University Association representative Frédérick Armstrong agreed, arguing that “a legitimate proposition […] should be phrased in terms not of withdrawing rights from people but allowing people to do things they wouldn’t […] be able to otherwise.”

“So if women and LGBTQ [people] feel threatened, feel uncomfortable, or feel they are in a male-dominated space,” said Armstrong, “they should have the right to voice their opinions, and they should be able to have whatever is given free to men, because they don’t have to deal with other things that LGBTQ [people] and women have to deal [with] constantly and daily.”

PGSS External Affairs Officer Julien Ouellet concurred, stating, “One of the reasons why the gym is available is to make sure that the student population is healthy. Chunks of the student population cannot benefit from the gym because they feel it’s an uncomfortable environment, and I think dedicating a sliver of time [to them] is not too much to ask.”

Other speakers noted that precedents exist for this proposal, citing the fact that the McGill pool already has women-only hours every week, and several other universities across Canada and the U.S. have instituted similar policies in their fitness centres. One student in attendance noted, “If it’s really illegal, we should have heard something by now.”

Andy Wei | The McGill Daily Ultimately, no conclusion was reached, and it was decided that an online platform would be created for PGSS members to voice their opinions on the subject.

Post-grads discuss implications of decision to leave CFS During the AGM, the PGSS Board of Directors reported the results of the referendum held in January, during which over 95 per cent of participating members voted to leave the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). They explained that while

these results were certainly a positive development in PGSS’s ongoing struggle to end its CFS membership, the legal fees incurred during this process have been extremely high.

“We’ve got the amount that we paid to lawyers, and we’ve also got the very hefty amount of fees that we paid to the CFS under protest, in order to […] actually have this referendum and get the really awesome results that we did,” Financial Affairs Officer, Nikki Meadows, noted at the meeting.

Meadows said that she hopes to get back at least a portion of the

fees in the future, and that currently PGSS is running a deficit. The ideal solution to this, according to Meadows, would be “to increase PGSS student fees for around five years.”

Meadows also reported on the ongoing lease negotiations between PGSS and McGill, explaining that the rent for Thomson House would be increasing incrementally, and that the administration had asked PGSS to assume part of the cost of the building’s utilities. PGSS’s building fees will be increased in order to help offset these new expenses.

Strike votes reach 30,000-student tipping point Student pressure against austerity to escalate in the coming weeks

Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

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wenty-nine Quebec student associations – representing over 32,000 students and spread over six campuses in Montreal, Quebec City, and Chicoutimi – have voted to go on strike in the next two weeks to protest the Liberal government’s cuts to education and other public services. Although start dates vary, most students will be on strike from March 21 until April 2, at which point strike reconduction assemblies will be held.

Attained last Thursday, the 30,000-student threshold is significant because many of the strike mandates include a clause making the strikes conditional upon reaching this level of support province-wide.

Moreover, the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Arts Faculty Student Association (AFÉA) was mandated to hold an early strike launch

assembly in the event that the threshold was reached; the association, representing 3,843 students, could thus go on strike as early as today.

The strike votes did not go without resistance at UQAM, which houses over 20,000 of the to-bestriking students. In a letter sent to the UQAM community in late February, the dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Law, as well as 13 political science professors, claimed in French that acts like “disturbances of meetings and conferences” and “repeated strikes” create a “climate of intimidation” at UQAM and hurt the public image of the university.

Students responded with an open letter denouncing the conflation of intimidation and political engagement, and law professors passed a departmental resolution distancing themselves from the views of their colleagues in political science.

A student in the same faculty also attempted to request a court injunc-

tion to prevent the holding of a strike general assembly, arguing that the obtainment of his degree would be unfairly delayed. The Superior Court of Quebec rejected the argument.

Intercampus communication and coordination during the strike votes was done largely through the Comité Printemps (Spring Committee) 2015 Facebook group and website, which includes an up-to-date strike vote tracker. The Comité Printemps – a decentralized hub to coordinate mobilization efforts between students, unions, and other community actors – has also called for a “popular demonstration” on March 21 to mark the beginning of the strike.

The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), to which most of the striking student associations belong, has expressed support for the March 21 demonstration.

In addition to the student associations with renewable strike mandates, over 14,000 students will be on a one-day

strike for the ASSÉ-organized demonstration on April 2. An additional 125,000 students across the province are to be consulted on this matter in the coming days through strike assemblies or referenda.

“[Austerity] is an issue that students want to mobilize on in the next two weeks.”

Camille Godbout, ASSÉ spokesperson “It’s not quite a surprise that there are that many people having strike votes,” ASSÉ spokesperson Camille Godbout told The Daily. “For us, seeing that many student unions mobilizing against austerity, it really shows that [austerity] does have a huge impact on the quality of our

education and [...] all public services, and this is an issue that students want to mobilize on in the next two weeks.”

A demonstration will also take place in Quebec City on March 26, to protest the presentation of the government’s budget planned for that day.

At ASSÉ’s February 21-22 congress, the federation’s member associations voted to frame the April 2 protest as an “ultimatum” to the Liberal government, demanding that the government roll back its cuts to public services and social programs.

Based on developments in their local general assemblies, member associations are expected to crystallize ASSÉ’s course of action at the next ASSÉ congress on April 4 and 5.

“We want to send a clear message to the government that they need to reinvest in all public services – for us that should be a priority,” said Godbout. “After that congress, we should have a clear idea of what should happen in the spring.”

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Council votes for better family care SSMU discusses potential creation of new student federation

June Jang News Writer

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t its March 12 meeting, the Students’ Society of McGIll University (SSMU) Legislative Council passed a motion regarding the SSMU policy on support for family care.

Council also heard some clarifying remarks about a proposal for women-only gym hours and the potential creation of a new student federation in light of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ)’s struggle to maintain its membership.

Family care policy VP University Affairs Claire Stewart-Kanigan presented a motion regarding SSMU’s policy on support for family care. The motion mandated SSMU to adopt a stance of support for efforts to research and expand childcare services for SSMU and McGill community members, and advocate for the particular needs of queer and single parents in this process. The motion also mandated the VP External to advocate that the Quebec government to expand the provision of

daycare permits.

As noted in the motion, there are over 700 children currently on the waiting list for the McGill Childcare Centre.

The motion was amended to include the accommodation of international student parents before being passed.

Budget presentation VP Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley presented a revision to the 2014-15 SSMU budget.

According to Bradley, the Nest’s financial situation is “improving drastically,” with a projected deficit of $12,000 after the cafe’s third semester of operation. In response to a question from Law Representative Vincent-Pierre Fullerton, Bradley said that she expected the Nest to break even next year.

Gerts, however, experienced increased competition and lower sales last semester and only has a projected $9,050 profit. “If you think Ace [bar at EVO residence] is the place... I don’t know. It hurts your student society, so come to Gerts,” said Bradley.

Bradley also mentioned that

SSMU had high legal fees. However, she emphasized that it would be able to make its annual transfer to the Capital Expenditures Reserve Fund (CERF). “Financially, we’re doing quite well.”

Clarification on women-only gym hours Fullerton spoke briefly to Council on behalf of his constituent, Soumia Allalou, whose recent proposal for women-only hours at the McGill gym has sparked controversy.

“Soumia is a student who started this initiative and she asked me to bring some information here for students to take note of and prevent [the] animosity that can be created by this whole thing,” said Fullerton.

According to Fullerton, Allalou recently met with the gym administration to arrange a separate room for women to use a few hours per week, meaning that the main gym would be open to all genders at all times.

Fullerton clarified that Allalou had brought her idea to a staff member at McGill Athletics before speaking to other student groups or the media.

He also noted that the desig-

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nation “women only” would be trans-inclusive.

New student federation Created in 1989, and currently representing 125,000 university students with 13 member associations, FEUQ is an organization that aims to defend the rights and interests of students against governments and private interests.

Nursing Representative Rebecca Medvedev is involved in preliminary discussions about creating a new, distinct federation. She explained that FEUQ “work[s] every day of the year on policies that affect students,” such as unpaid internships. She also pointed out some areas that the future student association will need to improve on.

“There are a lot of issues with student federations in general, but in particular, what they can change is that currently FEUQ is researchheavy. Honestly, there are so many things. There are a lot of people who are disappointed with how it is tied to the PQ [Parti Québécois] historically. There [are] a lot of people who think that [it lobbies too much]

to different officials, but [doesn’t do] enough mobilization of students for student-related issues.”

Medicine Representative David Benrimoh also voiced his excitement about the prospect of a new student federation, as it would have the power to have students’ voices actually heard by the government.

“I want to say from what I understand and [from] consultation I’ve had so far, I’m very excited at the prospect of forming a new student association,” commented Benrimoh.

Engineering Representative Anikke Rioux, however, emphasized the need to join only if the other student unions have agendas similar to SSMU’s.

“Historically, we didn’t see eyeto-eye with a lot of student associations. If we were to pay to what we don’t believe in, it’ll be just a waste of money. I’d be interested in finding student associations that believe the same thing.”

Medvedev confirmed that a number of universities will convene next weekend to discuss the plans.

“Everyone is involved and considering the next step,” she stated.

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AUS endorses sexual assault policy

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Arts Senators to attend Arts and Science assemblies for better representation Arianee Wang The McGill Daily

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ast Wednesday, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Legislative Council opened its biweekly meeting with a moment of silence for former VP Internal Roma Nadeem, who passed away recently.

President Ava Liu also announced that the VP Finance Li Xue had effectively resigned, as she has not been working since February 26.

Liu mentioned that other members of Council have stepped up to fill the void left by the absence of a VP Finance, but made no mention of a concrete reason for the resignation.

Sexual assault policy Council discussed at length the endorsement of the sexual assault policy currently being drafted by the Sexual Assault Policy Working Group. AUS Equity Commissioner Isabel Lee said, “Although there is currently a sexual harassment policy [at McGill], this policy is quite weak. [...] It is a purely bureaucratic approach.”

“We want to show that McGill University acknowledges that sexual assault is a unique kind of violence,” she continued.

Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP University

Affairs Claire Stewart-Kanigan described to Council some of the main points of the proposed policy.

“What we’ve seen on campus is that the University’s attention to sexual assault comes in waves with the latest media scandal and disappears,” she said.

According to Stewart-Kanigan, the policy aims to institutionalize proactive measures. Another objective of the policy is to be of service to everybody, including McGill students, members of faculty, and people outside the McGill community who have been assaulted by a McGill student.

For example, the policy might provide resources for a student to transfer residences or drop a class, providing “immediate interim safety measures,” StewartKanigan explained.

Women-only gym hours Council also discussed the recent controversy surrounding a proposal to have women-only hours implemented at the McGill fitness centre.

A Women’s and Sexual Diversity Studies Student Association (WSSA) representative expressed concern over the potential gender policing that could fall under the policy of women-only hours, and asked “if there’s a way that we can

of the students’ concerns to Senate as possible.

Andy Wei | The McGill Daily put policies for folks who identify as women.” Arts Representative to SSMU Eddie Lin responded that he supported SSMU’s “definition of ‘female’ [as] anyone who identifies as female.”

Lee also commented on the proposal. “It’s kind of sad, because it feels like a very huge compromise to say that there’s only one hour a day when you can feel safe going to the gym,” said Lee. Nevertheless, Lee supported the women-only hours.

Financial Management Committee Representative Rona Hunter voiced support for the women-only hours. “I have no religious needs to exercise on my own, but I would definitely utilize women-only hours in the gym,” said Hunter.

Representation in the Arts and Science assembly Council passed a motion that “strongly recommends that the Arts Senator[s] attend bi-weekly Arts and Science assemblies for the 201516 academic year on a rotational basis with the Science Senator.”

As a result of the allocation process for Senate seats, Arts and Science only receives a seat during years in which other faculties leave an extra seat vacant; this past year, since all seats were filled, there was no Arts and Science representative at Senate.

The motion is meant to help increase communication between Arts and Science students and their representatives, making sure Senators are able to bring as many

Other motions passed Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas Director Paul Yachnin addressed Council about a motion to support the proposed Masters program in Public Life of Arts and Ideas.

According to Yachnin, the new program would be a two-year research degree which “brings together the humanities with Arts management and cultural policy.” The motion passed with two abstentions.

The AUS Equity Committee presented a motion to amend equity policy bylaws. Per the motion, the term “officer,” which is currently used to refer to those on the AUS Equity Committee, is to be replaced by “commissioner.”

Lee said that the term “officer” “has a connotation of enforcement and authority.” Council voted to pass the motion.

Council also approved the Arts Student Employment Fund summer allocations, endorsed the formation of a “yes” committee to advocate for the Arts Internship Office fee referendum, and approved the imposition of a fee to help pay for the Panama Field Studies Semester program.

Police violence from Ferguson to Palestine Panelists note similarities in police behaviour, resistance tactics

Nadir Khan News Writer

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panel titled “Racial Profiling & Police Brutality from Ferguson to Palestine” kicked off this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week.

Held on March 10 and organized by the Centre for Gender Advocacy as part of its Thick Skin event series on race, gender, and political resistance, the panel discussed the connections between police violence in Palestine and in Canada and the U.S..

This was done by inviting the unique perspectives of three activists – Nargess Mustapha, activist from the Montréal-Nord Républik collective; Ahmad Abuznaid, a cofounder of the Miami-based Dream Defenders; and Cherrell Brown, from the juvenile and criminal justice advocacy organization Justice League NYC. Two of the event’s organizers, Talia Joundi, a law student at McGill, and Maya Rolbin-Ghanie, from the Centre for Gender Advocacy, introduced the event and explained the importance of drawing parallels between these different experiences.

Joundi noted that “making the connection to people in North America is important to make the lived reality of Palestinians more understandable.”

Rolbin-Ghanie added, “We are by no means saying the struggle is the same – the differences need to be respected. But there are definitely parallels between who the police is profiling and what kinds of colonial mentality are produced by the police in general.”

As the audience filled the Moot Court room in Chancellor Day Hall, some were excited to learn practical skills.

“I came to increase my knowledge of racial profiling and get some tactics to apply to my own life,” explained U1 Biology student Alice Salim.

Others came out of curiosity.

“I was in Ferguson in the fall, and saw the early solidarity with Palestinians,” explained Julie Norman, professor in the Department of Political Science, whose research focuses in part on prisoner resistance and prison and detention policies in Palestine.

“Though they are different con-

texts, there are definitely similar situations in terms of mass arrests, mass incarceration, profiling certain populations, difficult interrogation tactics, and the pressure to confess for a lighter sentence. All these things are very similar,” commented Norman.

Mustapha, speaking in French with live translation, began by discussing the difficult realities faced

by Montreal North residents, saying that “police harassment and racial profiling [are] a part of everyday life.”

Mustapha next discussed how the murder of Freddy Villanueva in 2008 – who was shot by Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) officer Jean-Loup Lapointe, who confronted Villenueva and his friends as they were playing dice in Parc HenriBourassa – was an example of the worst of the SPVM’s practice of profiling in minority communities.

“In 2010, the internal SPVM report by criminologist Mathieu Charest, which La Presse acquired, showed how common [racial profiling] is,” said Mustapha. “Since 2001, identity checks in Montreal

North had gone up by 126 per cent.

In 2006 and 2007, 30 to 40 per cent of young black men were being stopped and frisked, while non-racialized Montrealers were stopped and frisked at a rate of 5 per cent.”

Brown spoke next, discussing state violence by sharing stories from a recent trip to Palestine with members of Black Lives Matter – a movement dedicated to combatting racist police violence against black people – and emphasizing the power of social media in sharing tactics.

“That’s the beauty of social media, we have people in another country [who] some folks in Ferguson [have] never heard of, but these are the people tweeting us and telling us how to survive this occupation right now, [with advice like] ‘walk with the wind and not against it,’ or ‘use milk of magnesia and not water when tear-gassed,’” Brown explained.

Having witnessed police brutality and profiling in Palestine firsthand, Brown stressed, “We have to imagine safety and security for ourselves. [...] We must imagine something entirely different for ourselves and our children. It will

probably be our greatest art project – to imagine a truly liberated world, outside of the scope, definitions, and parameters given to us by our oppressors.”

Next, Abuznaid shared his personal story of returning to Palestine, his birthplace, and rediscovering his roots after a childhood in the U.S..

“At Ben Gurion airport, I was seven years old, and we were taken to a back room where myself and my mother were strip-searched,” Abuznaid recalled. “There were guns and military soldiers everywhere. Immediately, alarms went off in my head that something was not right.”

A lively question and answer period followed, covering the problem of charismatic male leaders in movements, attitudes toward violent resistance, and the on-campus mobilization for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to increase pressures on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territory.

After a standing ovation at the event’s conclusion, one student, beaming, told The Daily, “It was absolutely amazing. I loved it.”

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News

March 16, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

multimedia content online!

Progress slow on mental health recommendations Students call for university-wide commitment

Jasreet Kaur The McGill Daily

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he recommendations of McGill’s Mental Health Working Group (MHWG) regarding proposed changes to mental health and wellness services at McGill, submitted in June 2014, are currently being implemented by the administration. The general recommendations were to create a more supportive environment on campus, to optimize the use of existing resources, and to review and harmonize mental health service delivery.

The MHWG made its recommendations based on surveys given to focus groups of “stakeholders,” composed of staff members deemed to have constant interactions with students, as well as one graduate student. The stakeholders were surveyed to determine what they thought was lacking and what they thought had to change with regards to mental health services at McGill.

Marilyn Fitzpatrick, chair of the MHWG and an associate professor

and program director of the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill, spoke to the lack of student representation in the stakeholders surveyed. “[Executive Director of Student Services Jana Luker] wanted to take something that they could begin to take action on quickly and to do a survey of students would have taken much longer than we had,” said Fitzpatrick. “So we surveyed people [who] we thought were stakeholders from the perspective of stakeholders in delivering services.”

According to Luker, the MHWG was initiated due to concerns expressed over the years regarding increasing wait times and inadequate staff to counter that issue.

“We didn’t have the staff to get a response in a timely way, the wait time was increasing, [so] we wanted to look at the whole structure and make sure that we had an idea of access to care,” she told The Daily.

Luker said that the goal is to “continually and sustainably maintain a two-week waiting time,” and

recognized the importance of creating more of a “culture of wellness across the whole university proactively, so people aren’t waiting and going into crisis.”

“The big picture is to create a more supportive and proactive culture of wellness,” Luker added.

timeline of implementation, at least 15 of these are currently underway, eight have yet to be started, and two have already been completed.

Luker expressed concern about the recommendations that would require faculty who do not meet certain standards to undergo a

“Student mental health issues cannot be addressed by Student Services alone. It requires a commitment from all members of the McGill community, the faculties, and administration.”

Chloe Rourke, Arts and Science Senator A timeline of recommendations publicly available on the Mental Health Service’s website outlines next steps and includes status updates of the projects for the month of February, with another update to be provided in April.

There are 36 projects to be completed. According to the projected

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING The AGM of the Daily Publications Society (DPS), publisher of The McGill Daily and Le Délit, will take place on th

Thursday March 19 , McConnell Engineering , Building, Room 204, 5:30pm Members of the DPS are cordially invited.

The presence of candidates to the Board of Directors is mandatory.

CALL FOR CANDIDATES The Daily Publications Society (DPS), publisher of The McGill Daily and Le Délit, is seeking candidates for

student directors on its Board.

Positions must be filled by up to eight (8) McGill students duly registered during the current Winter term and able to sit until April 30, 2016. Board members gather at least once a month to discuss the management of the newspapers, and make important administrative decisions.

Candidates should send a 500-word letter of intention to chair@dailypublications.org by 5:00 PM on March 19th.

The nomination period opens on March 12th.

faculty mental health training program, saying that suggestions could be made instead of making training mandatory.

“It is hard to tell [faculty that] they have mandatory training for all faculty,” Luker told The Daily. “I can’t say you have to do it, but I can recommend it.”

Arts and Science Senator Chloe Rourke agreed with Luker that the topic of mental health should be tackled not only by the administration, but by the student body as well. Rourke added that the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) was also aiming to address the issue with its own mental health policy plan.

“Ultimately, student mental health issues cannot be addressed by Student Services alone. It requires a commitment from all members of the McGill community, the faculties, and administration,” Rourke wrote in an email to The Daily.

Luker noted that the issue of mental health is serious and relevant to the whole university. “Student Services of course is one of the primary drivers of this because this is our mandate, because that’s what we do, we support students in mental health – it’s a huge component in what we do. The feeling is really that everyone has a responsibility around this, and that’s what we are trying to do.”

Have you been dying to contribute to the News section all year?

The time is now.

Our last contributor meeting of the year will be on

Thursday at 5 p.m.

Shatner B-24 news@mcgilldaily.com

Commentary

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Alienating neighbourhoods

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In Montreal, the working class are being pushed out of their homes Rayleigh Lee Commentary Writer

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entrification is the process of renewing low-income areas by transforming them into modern neighbourhoods.

This urban renewal draws an influx of wealthy or middle-class residents, which ends up displacing lower-income tenants who can no longer afford to live in the area. This is often justified under the pretense of ‘positive public investment,’ which supposedly revitalizes the economy in these neighbourhoods. In reality, however, gentrification not only fails to solve the housing crisis, it also risks making it worse, as it causes hikes in rent prices. With that in mind, a government that fails to respond to the needs of its most vulnerable people fuels class conflict, since gentrification hits working-class neighbourhoods the hardest. Such a government must be reminded of its responsibility to create legislation that protects the rights of displaced people, such as the subsidization of social housing to offset the harms of gentrification.

Gentrification usually starts on a small scale and occurs in stages. The ‘renewal’ of one building provides the justification for changeing the surrounding buildings. The idea is to increase the land value of the overall neighbourhood in order to attract members of the upper-middleclass. As such, if one building in a neighbourhood is ‘improved’ in this way, the rest of the area gradually undergoes change suitable to upper-middle class standards.

For example, a pawn shop may be replaced with a Starbucks. The small pawn shop may initially be reluctant to close; however, eventually, it will lose its traditional customer base. This change is inevitable, and the effects of gentrification are not limited to an increase in property value. Gentrification is a gradual and lasting change that transforms the identity of an entire neighbourhood.

In Montreal, the earliest instances of gentrification were seen in Old Montreal and in the Milton-Parc area. From there, it spread northward toward the Plateau, and southward toward Verdun. Neighbourhoods that used to house most of the city’s working class such as Griffintown, Verdun, and St. Henri, are being rebranded. Griffintown, which was inhabited primarily by Irish immigrants and their descendants, was taken over by luxury condo

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily projects. This kind of change is really racial conflict; the population driven out often consists of ethnic and racial minorities with little economic power.

Understandably, the recent condo projects in southwest Montreal have been criticized by the neighbourhood’s original workingclass inhabitants as inaccessible.

In response to gentrification in the area, protests took place at the St. Henri metro station in February 2014, demanding social housing units for the 2,800 households paying more than 50 per cent of their monthly income in rent. Protesters demanded that housing be made available to the entire community, not just the rich.

Other demonstrations have been more direct, with anti-capitalist slogans spray-painted on billboards advertising new condo developments, smashed windows in four upscale restaurants in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

It’s important to draw a distinction between gentrification and positive public investment.

Defenders of gentrification argue that development projects will revitalize the economy, and that investment in infrastructure should be made despite the risk of alienating a neighbourhood’s inhabitants. The influx of wealthier residents is seen as a positive addition, because a wider range of goods and services are made available on their behalf.

While this may sound accept-

able at first, the issue lies with how accessible these goods and services are. Most of the vaunted improvements – such as swanky bars or gyms – are restricted to those who can afford them. Rents, of course, are also affected. Longtime tenants who are already struggling to keep their housing are pushed further from the downtown area. Private investors only get richer from such profits, while the working class are kicked out of their homes. Buzzwords such as ‘economic revitalization,’ and ‘renewal’ incorrectly glorify gentrification and disguises its reality.

Students are also complicit in this process too. For example, rents prices in the Milton-Parc area, which used to be a workingworking-class neighbourhood, have climbed dramatically since the 1990s. As McGill students started moving into the neighbourhood, investors began to cater to their needs. In a similar vein, McGill has been expanding its residence network by converting hotels into residences over the past few years to account for the growing student population.

However, even with more students in residences and less demand for rent, there seems to be little effect on rent prices.

Has anything been done by those in power to counteract the effects of gentrification? The provincial government implemented a moratorium on converting apart-

ment buildings into condos in 1975 to decrease the vulnerability of renters, and that moratorium is still in place. However, according to research led by Concordia professor Ted Rutland, this policy is ineffective. Looking at the La-Petite-Patrie neighbourhood, the research project found that certain building ownership models actually led to a decrease in available rental property, despite the moratorium. Co-owned rental properties could be converted into condos, avoiding regulation. To date, the Quebec government has left this loophole unaddressed.

The government doesn’t protect low-income renters. Landlord harassment or eviction of long-time tenants is not unheard of. Often, tenants don’t take legal action against exploitative landlords because they are unaware of their rights. The lack of policies that protect people from gentrification and the absence of education surrounding tenancy law calls into question whether the government’s priority is pandering to wealthier residents, or the protection of vulnerable residents.

Instead of leaving it to the ‘free market’ to resolve the housing crisis, the government must open its eyes to the marginalized residents, who are at risk of being driven out of their homes, and increase accessible housing.

If this is not possible through the current policy alone, subsidized social housing must be provided.

Outside policy-making, this is the only way to compensate for a lack of affordable housing. Indeed, this is a position supported by Quebec housing rights organization Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain, which pressures the federal government to keep funding social housing.

It’s easy to be swayed by the fantasy of a luxurious ‘urban renewal’ and forget that these changes are only desirable for a select few.

Gentrification leaves the most vulnerable to face economic precarity, social alienation, and physical displacement. The government’s efforts since the moratorium in 1975 have produced poor results; it needs to act to help people facing the threat of displacement. It’s also important to examine our own complicity in gentrification. As students at McGill, we are often oblivious to the economic troubles of other Montrealers. Milton-Parc wasn’t originally a community carved out for McGill students; it became the ‘McGill ghetto’ we know today through gentrification. While we may not be able to directly stop gentrification, we can hold the government accountable. We have a responsibility to stop being oblivious to social injustices, and actively work to end class disparities.

Rayleigh Lee is a U1 Political Science student minoring in International Development Studies.

To reach her, please email rayleigh0801@gmail.com.

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March 16, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Decolonize McGill

Commentary

Why McGill should recognize the Indigenous land on which it stands Jasreet Kaur The McGill Daily

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olonialism was, and continues to be, one of humanity’s greatest evils. A process fuelled by greed, it threatens to annihilate existing cultures through the forced imposition of another – supposedly superior – culture. Colonization is the act of encroaching on and claiming lands where others already live, and enforcing one’s own cultural practices upon the inhabitants.

One understanding of decolonization as a movement that aims to undo the impacts of colonialism by re-introducing pre-colonial cultural frameworks to those affected by colonization. It aims to give back recognition and respect to people from whom it was viciously stripped. As students at a colonial institution, the onus is on us to assist decolonization efforts by being allies to Indigenous people. At McGill, this partly entails acknowledging the Indigenous history of the land on which the university is built.

We live on a continent where a vibrant Indigenous culture was attacked by colonization a few hundred years ago, when Europeans began to explore the globe and claim what lands they stumbled upon as their own. Throughout the Americas, Europeans asserted their ownership of Indigenous lands in different ways, whether through physical aggression or emotional manipulation, and forced the displaced natives onto increasingly smaller strips of land. During this period, vast numbers of Indigenous peoples were decimated, both through genocide and the introduction of European diseases, facilitating the successful establishment of European colonies. Many Indigenous people were enslaved or coerced into intermarriages where they were forced to adopt European culture. These occurrences, combined with the arrival of missionaries who preached European culture and values, served to nearly extinguish the rich Indigenous cultures of the Americas.

The residential school system in Canada was the physical embodiment of cultural genocide, whereby European colonizers forcefully imposed their culture upon Indigenous children. Indigenous people were forced to attend these schools, which sought to completely erase their culture through physical and emotional abuse – speaking in their native tongue or even acknowledging their Indigenous heritage war-

ranted severe punishment. There were also many reported cases of sexual abuse at these schools, the psychological impacts of these abuses have spanned generations.

With the last residential school only closing in 1996, and an estimated 80,000 people alive today who attended residential schools, the ruinous effects of the colonizers’ crimes are clearly not a thing of the past.

In order to compensate for the brutal actions of those who created the society in which we live today, we have to mitigate the lasting damage caused by colonization. Being an ally asks that we, as people with privilege, recognize that privilege and listen to the needs of those who are marginalized by the same system from which we benefit. The process of being an ally involves building long-term relationships with marginalized groups, and working together toward goals that confront and mitigate ongoing oppression.

With regards to decolonization specifically, we as settlers can start as allies by being aware of the history of the land on which we stand and acknowledging that history publicly.

It is common knowledge that McGill is one of many educational institutions formed by beneficiaries of British colonialism. Even the name of the university is indicative of its colonial nature – James McGill was a wealthy British colonizer who donated the funds that allowed McGill to flourish all those years ago. What is not widely known, however, is that McGill was built on traditional Kanien’kehá:ka land. The lack of public awareness and effort by our university to own up to

The Hochelaga Rock. enous land.

The issue of territorial acknowledgement was one of three proposals put to the McGill administration, which aimed at creating a more welcoming environment for Indigenous students.

As students of a colonial institution, the onus is on us to assist in the efforts of decolonization by being allies to the oppressed by acknowledging the Indigenous history of these lands. its past serves to create an oppressive environment for Indigenous students, whereby the atrocities committed against their ancestors are simply swept under the rug. In conversations with The Daily last October, Kakwiranó:ron Cook, the Aboriginal Outreach Administrator at McGill, recalled when his sister was a student at McGill.

Despite having historical ties to the land, his sister felt lonely, both due to a lack of diversity in the student body and the absence of acknowledgement of the Indig-

The proposal called for McGill to publicly acknowledge on its website and in email signatures that McGill is built on traditionally Kanien’kehá:ka land. The second proposal called for a relocation of the Hochelaga Rock, which commemorates the Indigenous history of the land. It can currently be found shoved in a corner near Roddick Gates, but the proposal called for it to be moved to a more prominent area on campus, such as in front of the James McGill statue. Finally, the third proposal

Andy Wei | The McGill Daily asked that the Hiawatha belt flag, which symbolizes the unity of the five original nations in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, be raised over the Arts building on National Aboriginal Day and during the annual Indigenous Awareness Week held at McGill in September.

All three proposals, although initially well-received, have faced opposition from members of the administration and are now unlikely to be implemented. The first proposal was said to potentially expose McGill to land claims, which, considering its colonial history, is a little ironic. The second proposal, according to the administration, was too costly to implement – however, SSMU VP University Affairs Claire StewartKanigan told The Daily she heard how some in the administration thought the rock’s relocation in front of the James McGill statue would be “too prominent.” Finally, according to Dean of Students André Costopoulos, the third proposal could not be accepted as written, as he personally believed it would not serve the purposes of increasing visibility of Indigenous

culture. The Dean cited weather as the culprit, saying that, “If it’s a rainy and dull day with no wind, nobody’s going to see [the flag].”

McGill, for its part, has allowed strides toward acknowledging the Indigenous history of its land with its annual Indigenous Awareness Week, a week where Indigenous culture is celebrated and shared with the Montreal community.

The Indigenous Studies minor, a program discussed as early as the 1980s and finally implemented in Winter 2015 due to mounting student pressure, also takes McGill a step in the right direction. These actions, however, pale in comparison to what should be done based on the violent history upon which McGill owes its success.

We, as students of a colonial institution, should work toward acknowledging our university’s colonial history and help it progress further toward decolonization order to make this institution a welcoming environment for all.

Jasreet Kaur is a U2 Accounting student. To contact her, please email jasreet.kaur@mail.mcgill.ca.

2015 SSMU ELECTIONS

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It is once again the time of the year when candidates compete for the six executive positions at the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). It is crucial that those elected to these positions, which are paid upward of $27,000 annually, can competently represent students, lobby for student interests, and uphold SSMU’s political mandate on issues of equity and social justice.

Disappointingly, the trend of political apathy evident in past years among the student body continues to take its toll, as evidenced by the particularly low number of candidates.

Three positions saw their nomination periods extended, and yet still three candidates are running uncontested. Perhaps most tellingly, not a single candidate is running for the VP External position.

Carrying great political weight, the VP External position is crucial for mobilizing the McGill population on issues that matter to students, and bridging the chasm between McGill and the rest of Montreal and Quebec. This vacancy is not only symptomatic of a student body that is indifferent to the community that surrounds it, but also especially problematic at a time of increasing province-wide student mobilization against austerity. A by-election to fill the position will be held before the end of the year.

The flip side of student apathy is a lack of effective engagement and communication with constituents on behalf of the representatives. This is a problem that each candidate has recognized and plans to improve on.

To profile the candidates, The Daily spoke to each of the seven candidates about their relevant experience, their goals for the position, and how they envision SSMU’s political role. The interviews have been condensed and paraphrased to give an overview of each candidate, and the endorsements represent the consensus of The Daily’s editorial board.

Take the time to make an informed decision, and do not neglect to vote. The voting

The McGill Daily | SSMU Elections

period runs between March 18 and 20.

PRESIDENT

PAGE 3

VP INTERNAL

PAGE 4

VP CLUBS & SERVICES

PAGE 5

VP UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS

PAGE 5

VP FINANCE AND OPERATIONS

PAGE 6

REFERENDUM ENDORSEMENTS

PAGE 6

PRESS DEBATES

PAGE 7

PRESIDENT

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The SSMU President is the leader of the SSMU executive team. Just as importantly, the President is a key player in interactions with the administration: the role involves coordinating negotiations with the administration, sitting as the only undergraduate representation on the Board of Governors, and sitting on Senate. The portfolio also involves the oversight of Elections SSMU and Human Resources at SSMU, and the coordination of the SSMU handbook, among other tasks.

KAREEM IBRAHIM

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areem Ibrahim is a long-time student politician in the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) and in SSMU. This year, he is an Arts Senator and Senate Caucus Representative to SSMU Council. He is also a floor fellow, an ECOLE board member, and a QPIRG-McGill board member. He was the AUS VP External in 2013-14. Ibrahim has been a vocal presence in defence of students’ interests at Senate on issues like mental health and consent, and has been very active in his Council seats.

A centrepiece of Ibrahim’s platform is improving communication with constituents and creating new consultation channels, particularly through social media. He also spoke about fostering dialogue between groups on campus in order to ensure inclusivity and accessibility at SSMU, although his platform remains vague on the concrete implementation of those goals. Perhaps the strongest portion of his platform regards advocating for students in dealing with the administration on issues like budget priorities, Indigenous land acknowledgement, and student-run food operations.

Ibrahim emphasized that he sees the President position as a coordinating position informed by listening to students, councillors, executives, and SSMU staff. Nonetheless, he recognized the leadership aspect of the position as well as SSMU’s role as a political actor and a strong advocate for students’ rights. For Ibrahim, SSMU’s responsibility to create accessible forums to engage students in discussion is complemented by students’ responsibility to take advantage of those forums and voice their concerns. He indicated that he would not remain idle in his position if adequate consultation efforts yield little response.

ALEXEI SIMAKOV

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unning as a self-described “typical McGill student,” Alexei Simakov has no experience in SSMU or any other student unions. He is a current member of Conservative McGill, and has been active in conservative causes on campus such as opposition to the 2011 MUNACA strikes and the 2012 tuition strikes through Mod PAC, as well as the PIRG opt-out campaign targeting QPIRG-McGill. Simakov has argued that his lack of experience with SSMU does not make him an unsuitable candidate, pointing to his clearly-defined vision as qualification enough.

This vision is to “depoliticize” SSMU, with Simakov telling The Daily that he believes SSMU has been forced to become a political actor in service of only one particular agenda. He has been very vocal about avoiding taking stances on potentially “divisive” issues, such as women-only gym hours. Instead, Simakov said that he will focus on issues that have broad student support, such as how cold the McLennan library is, the ban on SNAX sandwich sales, and the sexual assault policy.

For Simakov, the main aspect of the President’s role is to be a credible student representative to the administration. Although he denounced “meaningless” rhetoric around engagement, accountability, and communication, he noted that it’s important for SSMU to communicate its failures to students.

T

he Daily endorses a vote for Kareem Ibrahim due to his substantial experience working in SSMU as well as AUS. Ibrahim’s proven ability to be an effective student politician makes him a good fit for the demanding and bureaucratically complex position of President. In addition to his list of titles, his experience also includes a history of vocal stances in defence of students’ interests.

We commend Ibrahim for prioritizing student voices in his advocacy and representation goals, as well as in his attention to inclusion and accessibility. Ibrahim’s support for SSMU’s mandate on equity, safe spaces for marginalized groups, and accessibility is encouraging. Too often, student politicians argue that their job is to represent all students equally, leaving this mandate of equity in the dust; we think that Ibrahim will be able to successfully navigate this tricky terrain.

We are, however, disappointed with the vagueness of Ibrahim’s platform, which, although oriented toward the right priorities, lacks actionable policies and does not elaborate on details of implementation. We fully support Ibrahim’s goals and remain confident in his ability to fulfill them, but hope that the ambiguity of his platform does not translate into a failure to take strong stances on clear policies and actions when the time to govern comes.

The McGill Daily | SSMU Elections

ENDORSEMENT: KAREEM IBRAHIM

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VP INTERNAL The VP Internal oversees events and communications for SSMU, such as Frosh events, the 4Floors Halloween party, the SSMU listserv, and the Old McGill yearbook.

LOLA BARALDI

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ola Baraldi has been active in student politics since arriving at McGill. As the current AUS VP External, she sits on the Students’ Society Programming Network (SSPN) – SSMU’s eventplanning committee – as well as on AUS’s community engagement and Grad Ball committees.

Baraldi was previously an Arts Representative to SSMU Council and the VP Communications for the Inter-Residence Council (IRC).

Baraldi’s campaign platform focuses on a much-needed reinvigoration of the VP Internal portfolio. Proposed changes include using SSMU communications channels for awareness campaigns, collaborating more with other on-campus groups such as the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office, as well as the re-absorption of the responsibility for francophone affairs (currently under the VP External). She also has concrete ideas for changes to Frosh, including more comprehensive consent training, crisis training, inter-faculty collaboration, and preventative work with the administration and the Milton-Parc community. She also intends to create an event-planning guidebook emphasizing inclusion and accessibility.

Baraldi recognized that SSMU has a political mandate and that this includes a leadership role, and also indicated that she intends to reconcile SSMU’s disconnect with the student body through increased consultation and on-the-ground feedback channels. Additionally, she plans to increase transparency by making executive reports more accessible to students.

JOHANNA NIKOLETOS

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The McGill Daily | SSMU Elections

n her current position as AUS VP Social, Johanna Nikoletos has mostly focused on the reworking of Bar des Arts (BDA) and the restructuring of the events mandate. She has been active in student politics since the 2011-12 academic year, when she was VP Communications on the AUS First-Year Events, Academic, and Representative Council (FEARC). She has been a staff member at Gerts since 2013, and was an Arts Frosh Coordinator in 2014.

Nikoletos’s platform includes reworking the communications strategy in order to make SSMU more relevant to students’ everyday life, but exact strategies to achieve this goal remain unclear.

Nikoletos also aims for more efficient outreach to existing student groups, such as the First Year Council (FYC). This relates to another point on her platform, which is the creation of a student engagement committee, even though a Council committee with that purpose already exists. She intends to foster an overarching common identity for SSMU and McGill.

Nikoletos emphasized her background in operations and logistics as necessary for a smooth and successful Frosh, leaving room for others to focus on university-wide efforts for inclusivity and safety.

She failed to offer constructive ideas on the latter point in her interview with The Daily.

Out of concerns that political stances could potentially alienate students, Nikoletos indicated that SSMU should avoid taking them on, instead building a shared apolitical identity.

ENDORSEMENT: LOLA BARALDI

B

araldi has put forward a strong platform, especially with respect to the much-needed diversification of the portfolio of VP Internal – a position that has, historically, been somewhat static and less active in SSMU’s broader initiatives. She also wants to bring francophone affairs back into the Internal portfolio, demonstrating initiative in the position and recognizing SSMU’s position within Quebec. We commend Baraldi’s desire to integrate SSMU’s political mandate into her portfolio and applaud her commitment to institutionalizing inclusion and accessibility in event planning beyond Frosh, as well as her concrete suggestions regarding transparency. As such, we warmly welcome Baraldi’s refreshed understanding of the VP Internal’s role within SSMU.

VP CLUBS & SERVICES

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The VP Clubs & Services represents, supports, and coordinates SSMU’s many clubs and services. The portfolio also involves managing the Shatner buildin, coordinating Activities Night, and working with staff such as the Interest Group Coordinator and Activities Night Staff.

KIMBER BIALIK

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imber Bialik has extensive experience with the Clubs & Services portfolio, as evidenced by a long list of current positions. With three years of experience as a member on the Interest Group Committee, Bialik is the current SSMU Interest Group Coordinator, working directly under the current VP Clubs & Services. She is the president or co-president of three clubs (Making Waves Montreal, McGill Pre-Law Students’ Society, and Beyond Me), and the president of the International Development Studies Students’ Association (IDSSA). Bialik also sits on the Services Review Committee and the Club Hub Committee. The Club Hub is an online portal for clubs that is currently under development.

Bialik’s platform is focused on connecting with students, on matters from advocacy to consultation to representation, and conceptualizes the VP Clubs & Services position as a facilitator for student expression and student life on campus. Her goal of representation ranges from working with the Clubs and Services Representatives, respectively, on Council to working with the VP University Affairs to fight for the right to the McGill name for clubs and services in Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) negotiations. She also places high priority on reconsidering the use of space in the Shatner building, proposing increased storage space for clubs, long-term plans for opening up the fourth floor, and consultation on the reorganization of space after commercial tenants’ leases expire.

Increasing consultation with clubs on policies that will affect them is also a priority of Bialik’s, as she believes there is currently low accountability and consultation on such matters. In addition to better communication with clubs on this issue, Bialik wants to improve visibility for clubs and services on the SSMU website and on social media.

Bialik also emphasized that she wants to wants to be apolitical in the role, providing space for SSMU clubs and services to be political instead.

ENDORSEMENT: KIMBER BIALIK

B

ialik’s wealth of experience with the portfolio – perhaps more with clubs than with services – makes her a good fit for the position, which involves an enormous amount of management and organization. Bialik also wants to increase the online presence of this position to better the management of the myriad of clubs and services.

As the position with the most direct impact on student life and experience at McGill, her focus on representing and advocating for students is incredibly important.

However, while she has said she will support clubs that have political mandates, we want to emphasize that the VP Clubs & Services is still a member of the SSMU executive and Council, and so should strive to uphold and further SSMU’s directly political mandate.

VP UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS The VP University Affairs represents SSMU and its constituents in interactions with the administration, making this position incredibly important for student advocacy. The VP University Affairs sits on Senate along with the President and other SSMU Senators, oversees the SSMU Library Improvement Fund, and is responsible for SSMU’s mental health-related projects and advocacy.

CHLOE ROURKE

C

ENDORSEMENT: CHLOE ROURKE

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ourke has diverse and relevant qualifications for the position obtained through her past work in student government. She has demonstrated an enthusiastic and genuine commitment to the issues that fall under the VP University Affairs portfolio. Even though it lacks innovation, her platform is driven by the continuation of a variety of strong initiatives that The Daily would be happy to see further developed. We encourage Rourke not be hesitant to put forward firm stances on issues relevant to her position, especially in the context of negotiating with the administration – strong positions make for strong advocacy.

The McGill Daily | SSMU Elections

hloe Rourke has demonstrated considerable involvement with student government and advocacy. As the current Arts and Science Senator, she has been part of this year’s very vocal Senate caucus, and sits on the academic policy and student services committees. She is also a Senate Caucus Representative to SSMU Council and sits on the SSMU Mental Health Committee.

Rourke was previously the VP Student Affairs of the First Year Council (FYC), and has training in active listening, equity, and sexual assault survivor support.

Rourke’s platform largely rests on the continuation of initiatives from this year. She has emphasized a desire to maintain this year’s strong student presence in the Senate caucus so as to continue pressuring the administration on issues of mental health, equity, and the development of the sexual assault policy. She also wants to further the development of SSMU mental health resources, building on groundwork laid this year. Rourke values transparency in negotiations with the administration and wants to make the work of student senators more accessible to the student body.

While she recognizes SSMU’s political mandate, Rourke also says that some students’ negative perception of SSMU stems from the use of this mandate to take “controversial stances.” She is an advocate for broad student consultation, which she says is necessary to take meaningful stances and lobby the administration according to students’ interests.

6

VP FINANCE AND OPERATIONS The VP Finance and Operations is responsible for SSMU’s annual budget, revenue-generating operations, such as the Nest, and other financial decisions within the society. The VP Finance and Operations is the go-to person for financial matters, and works closely with the General Manager and the other executives to ensure long-term financial sustainability.

Z

ZACHERIAH HOUSTON

acheriah Houston is currently a Science Representative to SSMU Council and a member of the SSMU Board of Directors. For the past two years, Houston has sat on the SSMU Funding Committee, and is also acquainted with the operations side of the portfolio through his work at the Nest since its opening in January 2014. He was also active on the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) Financial Committee in 2013-14, and was a member of the SUS General Council the following year. While Houston has not yet managed budgets as large as SSMU’s, he is currently the VP Finance for McGill Huntington’s Awareness Students’ Association (MHASA), and was the VP Finance on the First Year Council (FYC) in his first year.

Houston’s platform includes increasing transparency of SSMU’s finances by continuing current VP Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley’s efforts to present the budget to the student body in an accessible and relevant way. He also intends to work with the Funding Coordinator and the VP Clubs & Services to increase funding accessibility at SSMU and simplify the process. Additionally, Houston wants the position of VP Finance and Operations to serve more as a support and information role for students as well as other executive members. He hopes to provide greater assistance to clubs and improve the club audits by clarifying the instructions.

A significant aspect of Houston’s platform is the development and long-term sustainability of the Nest, the student-run cafe. In addition to his plans to make the Nest’s budget break even, Houston is committed to working toward making the cafe a space run by students for students, as opposed to a space shared with commercial tenants.

While the position of VP Finance and Operations is rather apolitical, Houston does see the role of SSMU as an institution to be political in accordance with its history and policies.

ENDORSEMENT: ZACHERIAH HOUSTON

H

ouston’s diverse experiences in clubs, operations, and finance make him a solid candidate for this position. He has shown strong engagement with financial roles at McGill since his first year, and active involvement with SSMU and its operations. His platform builds on the work of his predecessors, further developing the accessibility and transparency of SSMU’s finances. We also commend Houston’s dedication to student-run spaces such as the Nest. He has concrete ideas regarding the improvement of the cafe’s role on campus, as well as the experience necessary to effectively engage with the space.

REFERENDUM ENDORSEMENTS ECOLE Project Fee – YES

The McGill Daily | SSMU Elections

The Daily advises its readers to vote “yes” to the creation of a student levy for the Educational Community Living Environment (ECOLE) Project, which would create an opt-outable fee of $2 per semester for all undergraduate students for three years. With its pilot year over, the ECOLE Project’s funding from the Sustainability Projects Fund (SPF) has expired. ECOLE has proven in the short space of a year to be an invaluable space on campus: from its student-initiated and student-run model; to its community-based learning space; to the wealth of workshops, skill-shares, and other events and resources it offers.

Renewal of the SSMU Access Bursary Fund – YES The Daily endorses a “yes” vote on the renewal of the SSMU Access Bursary Fund for the 2015-16 year. The opt-outable fee is $8.50 per semester for full-time undergraduate students and $4.25 per semester for part-time undergraduate students, and is matched by the University and alumni. The Access Bursary Fund is an important part of SSMU’s commitment to supporting accessible education at McGill, which The Daily wholly supports.

Addition of an MSE Representative on SSMU’s Legislative Council – YES The McGill School of Environment (MSE) was created in 2004, but it has no representative on SSMU’s Legislative Council despite having an enrollment of over 500 students; faculties and schools with fewer students are represented. Larger representation for students, especially those at faculties and schools with unique needs like the MSE, is important on Council. The Daily thus endorses a “yes” vote on this question.

Referral Services Fee Renewal – YES The Daily encourages its readers to vote “yes” on the renewal of the Referral Services fee. This opt-outable fee is $1.75 per student per semester, and funds Queer McGill (which gets $1), Nightline (which gets $0.40), and the Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE) (which gets $0.35). All three are crucial services for the student body: Queer McGill is a space for resources and support for queer students and allies; Nightline offers an anonymous, volunteer-staffed phone service that provides information and support to students; and the UGE is a trans-positive feminist space that organizes anti-oppression projects and provides resources such as a library, zines, and a co-op with affordable sex toys and feminine hygiene products.

SSMU CANDIDATES DISCUSS PLATFORMS IN FIRST ROUND OF DEBATES

7

SSMU executive hopefuls answer questions from the press, audience JILL BACHELDER AND EMILY SAUL

L

ast Thursday, the candidates for the upcoming SSMU executive elections convened at the Carrefour ballroom to participate in this year’s SSMU Press Debates. Candidates were invited to give an opening statement, after which they answered questions from student press and audience members.

VP CANDIDATES

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES The presidential debates began with opening statements from each of the two candidates, Kareem Ibrahim and Alexei Simakov. The statements were followed by general questions from the press and from each of the candidates, and ended with audience questions and closing remarks.

Ibrahim went first, highlighting “strong advocacy on issues students care about” as important to him, especially in light of impending austerity cuts that might harm student services.

“I really want to prioritize student interests,” Ibrahim said.

Simakov asserted that he will go against the grain and take a different approach to SSMU presidency. “If you want a student government that is beyond an Orwellian micro-aggression enforcement policy, then I want to be your president. If you want a student government that focuses on services, on fiscal responsibility [...] then I want to be your president,” he said.

The ensuing portions of the debate focused on a number of issues, including addressing budget cuts and student needs, increasing communication with students, and representing student opinion in the case of a student body as large and diverse as McGill’s.

Audience questioning was heated, with spectators leveling questions at both candidates. In one instance, SNAX employee Vivian Feldblyum approached the mic and accused Simakov of “piggybacking” on the efforts of others and of having a superficial understanding of the situation at hand.

Another student asked if their strong personal stances could affect the policies they choose to pursue as president.

Both candidates emphatically declared that their personal opinions would not impact their decisions as president. “I know that what I believe in is not going to be what the student body believes in,” said Simakov. “I swear to God, I will spend the next year as president, you guys will not know my opinion on anything. I will have that on

top secret [...] That’s the kind of president I want to be for you.”

Ibrahim also noted that, when it comes to political stances, he would make sure these are informed by student opinion and not his own. “I think all students’ opinions should be considered, and when it comes to SSMU taking stances, that is something that we should make sure represents the majority of the student body,” he said.

In regard to how he would do this given the “inclusion and accessibility” portion of his platform, Ibrahim said that some of the changes he would make as president would not necessarily be informed by majority opinion. For example, the accessibility changes he has proposed to the SSMU website would not affect the students who are not visually- or hearing-impaired, but would make the website more accessible for those who are.

Closing statements were brief, with Ibrahim saying, “I genuinely care about student life. I’ve found my passion, this is my passion. [...] I have the experience, I have the drive, and I am not dedicated to my opinion, but yours, and I know I can do so because I am experienced in that field.”

Simakov reiterated the ways in which he is different from a typical SSMU president. “I’m going to answer your questions, I’m going to expose myself, my values, my beliefs. Look at my page, and it’s going upset some of you, and some of you will think I’m wrong, but I’m going to show my opinions and my beliefs. I have principles and I have stands, and I have very clear core positions that go beyond empty rhetoric.”

Following the debate, Nicholas Renzetti, U3 Arts student and member of Simakov’s campaign staff, said he felt the event went well.

“I feel that Alex demonstrated strongly the positions that he wanted to make on fiscal responsibility, on political neutrality, and what he thinks he would be able to do as a the president,” Renzetti told the Daily.

He continued, “Despite the fact that people claim he has not had the experience his opponent has, that he is still a strong presidential candidate.

That the experience that Ibrahim has is not the most constructive or helpful in representing all of the students’ views equally.”

Francesca Humi, a member of Ibrahim’s election committee, felt differently. Humi stated, “I think in [Simakov’s] concluding remarks, a lot of the irregularities and a lot of the fallacies of his platform were made evident.”

Amy Miller, a U2 Arts student, told The Daily, “One of the candidates seemed incredibly condescending, which is not in the spirit of what you’d want to see from this kind of debate, but overall I found it incredibly informative for that reason.”

One student, who prefered to remain anonymous, told The Daily that instead of crystallizing his vote, the debates had left him undecided.

“I don’t know who I’m going to support at this time. I’m torn in between. That being said, for me, the most important thing is that they will be neutral in the sense of not letting their own opinions affect the policy that is made by SSMU.” The next series of debates will be held March 17, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., and will be catered by the Nest.

The McGill Daily | SSMU Elections

The two candidates for the VP Internal position, Lola Baraldi and Johanna Nikoletos, both demonstrated an interest in accessibility and student awareness of events. In a statement read on behalf of Baraldi, who was unable to attend due to a personal crisis, the candidate expressed an interest in increasing the general awareness of what SSMU is doing, making information needed for event planning more accessible, and working with other non-francophone campus groups to expand the impact of the Francophone Affairs Commission (FAC) beyond the French-speaking community.

“I want to breathe new life into this portfolio, revive communications and outreach, propose dynamic initiatives, and institutionalize sustainability, accessibility, and inclusivity within event planning at McGill,” she wrote in her statement.

As VP Internal, Nikoletos said she would hold events accessible to everyone by increasing accommodations for non-drinking students at larger SSMU events, as well as creating smaller events targeted at smaller groups, to create a “common student identity.”

“We all do have one thing in common, and that is the fact that we are students,” stated Nikoletos.

She also plans to implement a “Frosh scholarship” to combat the financial inaccessibility of Frosh, as well as discuss with the FAC possibilities for making Frosh more accessible to francophones.

Regarding off-campus students, she expressed an interest in providing bus services for students who live far away from downtown, so that they don’t have to worry about transportation during Orientation Week. She also suggested that Rez Project be present in events such as Discover McGill for students who live off campus. Nikoletos noted that she supports current VP Internal Daniel Chaim’s proposal for a fee levy to fund SSMU publications, and would be interested in putting together a SSMU publication to better communicate with students.

VP Clubs & Services candidate Kimber Bialik cited consultation of clubs before policies are implemented as a top priority, and that if elected, she will continue to work on expanding Club Hub to be a resource for students organizing clubs.

She said she hopes to liaise with the VP University Affairs and the President to make sure that clubs and services are not overlooked in negotiations over SSMU’s Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the University, especially considering the loss of the use of McGill’s name in SSMU club names.

VP Finance and Operations candidate Zacheriah Houston made it clear that financial stability of the Nest, the student-run cafe, is one of his top priorities. He further stated that he intends to achieve this by increasing catering at events within the SSMU building, exploring the possibility of catering outside the building – currently prohibited

by SSMU’s MOA – and increasing food offerings.

He voiced strong support for creating a campaign with the other executives to raise awareness about how student fees are used, thus increasing transparency. He also stated that he will do as much as possible to make the budget more comprehensible to students by holding office hours and making the documents more accessible on the SSMU website.

Chloe Rourke, the candidate for VP University Affairs, said that mental health will be a priority for her, as she finds the current lack of resources at McGill compared to the huge demand for mental health services disturbing. “That is an indication to me that there is a much bigger conversation that needs to happen on why that demand [for mental health services] is increasing so quickly and what can we do as a community to address it,” she said.

Rourke also said that she will take hard line stances in her negotiations on issues that, in her opinion, overwhelmingly benefit students, and that for other issues that are controversial or political, she will go through many consultation processes before adopting a stance.

THURSDAY, APRIL 2 will elect the rest of

The staff of

the mcgill daily

the 2015-16 editorial board If you’re interested in joining our non-hierarchical team, here’s a quick intro to how to become a Daily editor, how the election process works, and how to get in touch with us.

the basics Unlike most student newspapers, our editors are elected by Daily staffers rather than hired by committee.

To run for an editorial position or to vote in the election, you must be Daily staff.

To be staff, you must have contributed six points. Articles, photos, graphics, and illustrations count for one point each. Writing a feature or coming in for a production night counts as two points. If you’re not staff yet, there’s time before the election, so email an editor to get involved!

the positions Twenty editors share equal voting rights on issues, and work together to produce the newspaper every week. Each editor receives a small monthly honorarium.

For more information on individual positions, contact each section editor (emails can be found on page 19 of this issue). You can also stop by The Daily’s office in Shatner B-24.

deadlines The Daily requires all candidates to submit a one-page application, including your qualifications and interest in running, as well as one sample of writing, photos, illustrations, or design.

Final applications are due to coordinating@mcgilldaily.com by March 31 at 11:59 p.m..

Rundowns and elections are April 2 at 6 p.m..

the editors Sports Multimedia (Video) Photos Illustrations Design & Production

candidate statement

candidate rundowns & elections

March

April

31

02

Submit a one-page application to coordinating @mcgilldaily.com.

All staffers who want to vote in the election must attend rundowns in Shatner B-24.

Candidates will interview in front of all voters at the election in Shatner B-24.

11:59 p.m.

6:00 p.m.

Commentary

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Exploitation in disguise

11

Plan Nord is unfair and unsustainable

George Ghabrial Commentary Writer

P

lan Nord is an economic development project for Northern Quebec originally introduced

by Jean Charest’s Liberal government in 2011. After a 19-month hold during the tenure of the Parti Quebecois, the plan was revived by Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard in 2014. Despite the official rhetoric, the government’s current approach to northern Quebec land and its Indigenous inhabitants is economically self-serving and environmentally destructive.

The plan is the second-largest mining development project in the history of Canada, just after the tar sands development in Alberta. If successful, 72 per cent of Quebec’s land will be transformed over 25 years.

The aim is to develop the region to facilitate resource extraction and to make profit. The plan also entails developing infrastructure in northern Quebec, such as roads, airports, hydroelectric facilities and housing.

Couillard calls it “an exemplary sustainable development project,” and a report in Canadian Mining Journal estimates it will create and sustain 20,000 jobs, as well as $80 billion in public and private investment: $47 billion to renewable energy and $33 billion to mining and infrastructure. Bringing jobs to Northern Quebec is an aspect the government is particularly keen to stress; however, Quebec’s mining industry stands to benefit most.

The government does have a fund of $1.2 billion set aside for infrastructure development, but this is mainly meant to make it easier for mining companies to access resource-rich areas. Moreover, since the program’s revival in 2014, the government has been offering economic incentives for Quebec-based mining companies. Because the Quebec government is effectively subsidizing interested contractors,

the plan has managed to attract the interest of both domestic and global mining companies.

While job creation for under-developed regions is good, the government’s plan has serious and potentially harmful problems. The way the government is treating Northern Quebec’s Indigenous communities under the plan is a particularly acute problem. As it stands, Plan Nord targets resource-rich areas that will generate the most money, which will almost certainly result in huge wealth disparities between different Indigenous communities.

However, if the argument is to develop northern Quebec, everyone should be included equally. What’s more, the fact that Canadian mining companies have a history of exploiting the communities in which they operate is troubling.

The other question to ask is why the government is pursuing infrastructure development only in tandem with resource extraction. Compared with non-Indigenous land, many of the areas that Plan Nord targets suffer from a lack of infrastructure. The land is only really being developed now in the pursuit of profit, and as it stands, many Indigenous communities won’t see any, anyway.

Even where governments make specific commitments to Indigenous communities, they have a history of making similar deals that they subsequently fail to uphold. As The Daily reported on February 23 (News, page 6, “Algonquins of Barriere Lake file lawsuit against government, managers”), the Algonquins of Barrière Lake recently filed a $30 million lawsuit against the federal government for failing to honour its commitments. This is in no way an isolated incident: numerous instances of hollow guarantees on land use have meant that profit is effectively stolen from Indigenous people. In many cases, the only way forward has been direct action.

Now, under Plan Nord, Northern

Indigenous communities face a difficult decision. Either they support the plan (with minimal consultation) in the hope of guaranteeing a form of economic security, or they reject the plan, perhaps for cultural or environmental reasons.

Indeed, the danger Plan Nord poses to the environment is serious, and numerous organizations have raised concerns. Although the government has allocated 50 per cent of the designated area for conservation by 2035, activists point out that this number is arbitrary and open to corporate manipulation. As Bruno Massé, general coordinator of the Réseau québécois des groupes écologistes, an environmental organization, told The Daily on October 31, 2011 (News, page 7, “Environmental and First Nations groups criticize Plan Nord”), the exact area covered by this figure

has not been determined. This leaves open the possibility of boundaries shifting according to new resource discoveries, which suggests that the guarantee is meaningless.

What’s more, even if half the land is protected, this just means that the other half will be destroyed.

The promises made by the government on behalf of mining companies are only meant to hide how destructive the mining industry actually is. In 2014, huge amounts of metals mining waste were accidentally released in Mount Tolley, British Columbia, contaminating local water supplies and the surrounding environment. The type of mine dug in Mount Tolley is strikingly similar to what’s being proposed all over Northern Quebec.

McGill’s own fossil fuel divestment movement, Divest McGill, has

the current situation to avoid the spread of misinformation.

First and foremost, negotiations have not failed. They are ongoing, and have been since first semester.

The Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) executives are still meeting with members of the administration, and will continue to do so until an agreement is reached. We have made progress: the original issue of liability is now a moot point

thanks to the efforts of AUS execs and SNAX management.

Second, the sale of sandwiches was never a right held by SNAX. About a decade ago, we began selling sandwiches. Last fall, the administration requested that we stop selling them. It is now our goal to include sandwiches in the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), since they were not included in the first place.

Third, I would like to highlight the ways in which students can get involved in the sandwich issue.

The Food Coalition meets every week, and aims to draw studentrun food initiatives together. This group is open to everyone, and currently includes a representative from SSMU, VP Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley. There are petitions posted at SNAX for those who would like to have their say.

Jonathan Reid | The McGill Daily

issued a statement opposing Plan Nord: “Quebec’s Plan Nord involves some of the largest, dirtiest companies on the planet and provides for extraordinary environmental destruction across huge swaths of Northern Quebec. Much of this will occur on Native land, as the voices of Indigenous peoples fall on the deaf ears of politicians.”

And indeed, not listening to Indigenous voices is exactly what the government is doing. The area under consideration in Plan Nord is inhabited by a number of Indigenous communities, including Inuit, the Innu, the Cree, the Naskapis, the Algonquin, and the Atikamekw. These communities have reacted differently to the plan. It’s supported by Inuit and the Cree, but opposed by the Innu, whose traditional territory covers one-third of the land slated for development by Plan Nord. Facing diverging interests, the government has attempted to establish a comprehensive consultation framework under the Société du Plan Nord. Opposition comes at a price, though: communities that have not agreed to Plan Nord are excluded from the legal framework within which their interests can be protected, including recognized territorial and resource-use rights.

The obligation of government at the most basic level is to ensure equal dignity, respect, and protections to all citizens. In Northern Quebec, the government’s obligation should be to provide economic security to all the communities who live there, as well as to protect the environment. Both the environmental and social fairness of the plan need to be improved.

Northern development should mean sustainable development for all, rather than unbridled profits for a few mining companies.

George Ghabrial is a U1 Joint Honours student in Political Science and Philosophy. To reach him, please email george.ghabrial@mail.mcgill.ca.

Letters

Submit your own: letters@mcgilldaily.com SNAX and sandwiches I am excited to see that SNAX and the sandwich issue have been brought up so often in the past week as a result of the upcoming student elections. This is everyone’s cafe, after all – without student interest, we will not be able to convince the administration to change their minds about sandwich sales. That being said, I would like to clarify

And every email to Deputy Provost Ollivier Dyens will make a difference. He can be reached at: ollivier. dyens@mcgill.ca.

We have not accepted defeat.

We are not done fighting for the rights of students. And we appreciate the support of McGill students and staff who have worked with us over the past year.

—Emma Meldrum, SNAX Assistant Manager

Features

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

12

G N I Z I L A U T P E C RECON ) S ( R E W O P R E HIGH WRITTEN BY YASMINE MOSIMANN VISUAL BY ANDY WEI AND ALICE SHEN

M

EXPLORING NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN QUEBEC

ontreal’s religiosity, both past and present, seems to be permanently etched into the city and its people.

Mount Royal emerges from a grid of streets blessed with the names of saints most beloved by the ultramontane Catholic Church, which played a dominant role in the province’s history. These snowy roads are dotted with buildings that insinuate faith, whether they be places of worship, like synagogues, or symbolic details in the mouldings of the interior. The province’s citizens use the religious instruments of Catholic mass – such as tabernak, osti, calice – as curse words in Quebecois French. The Quiet Revolution has without a doubt influenced the rapid secularization of the last fifty years. The Catholic and Magisterial Protestant churches have seen a decline in membership, but does this necessarily mean that there will soon be no place for religion in Quebec?

RELIGION AND SECULARIZATION After the fall in 1960 of the ultra-conservative political party, the Union Nationale – which had protected the status quo of the Catholic Church and controlled many of the province’s social services – and the Liberal party’s rise to power, Quebec went through a process of rapid secularization. This period, known as the Quiet Revolution, involved a major reconceptualization of French Canadian identity, which, aside from becoming more closely tied to Quebecois nationalism, disassociated itself from its foundation in Roman Catholicism. Public services, such as education and healthcare, were taken out of the hands of the church and became the government’s responsibility.

Theories of secularization follow two main streams of thought with respect to religion. When dominant religious orga-

nizations undergo transformations from their traditional and ritualistic systems of teaching to appeal to modern audiences, members may choose to branch off into a sect, seeking to restore the faith to its original form. Peter L. Berger, a sociologist of religion, suggests that this splintering will weaken the establishment of the dominant religion and lead to its demise as a whole. However, given the persistent importance of religion to society, it seems far more likely that religious pluralism strengthens religion in general. Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, sociologists of religion and the authors of A Theory of Religion, argue that these schisms will actually reinvigorate the religion from which they stem. These various smaller groups will fulfill the various nuances followers need while providing a new outlook and way of presenting the same

material. However, there is a threshold for what can be changed within a religion for it to still be considered under the institution’s umbrella. When the core beliefs and material are changed, the new religion can be labelled a ‘cult’ – a term often considered derogatory by people involved in these religions.

Susan Palmer, a sociologist focusing on new religious movements in the department of Religions at Concordia, alleged in an interview with The Daily that Quebec is a comparatively good place for new religious movements to start and grow.

“Quebec is a really good place if you are a new prophet and you want to set up your religious organization. [...] There is a kind of void that new religions rush into opportunistically,” says Palmer, describing the state of the province since the sixties.

Unlike the stances of many advocates

Features for religious minority rights, who often experience the provincial government’s policies on religious minorities as xenophobic and racist, Palmer seems to take a very positive, idealistic attitude toward the policies. She claims that there are attempts at accommodating and providing a safe space for the growth of these religions and that the diversity in Canada has a large influence on the variation within these new religions’ doctrines and practices. “You have communities from the Middle East or India or Latin America in Montreal, and they bring in their religions with them and their religion’s experts. [...] They want to find ways of translating their virtues, or making [them] attractive, or hooking up with issues that they are interested in. And you know, sometimes it has [an impact] on their religious rituals or beliefs, so in fact there are religious communities that are transformed by society, compromising their beliefs, and then they’ll be called cults because they are somehow a bit different from what they were originally.”

Palmer suggests that the predominant Roman Catholicism in Quebec is generating “quasi-Catholic groups that you wouldn’t necessarily have in [British Columbia] or Alberta.” Like other mystics and messianic figures, these were “people [who] were naturally inclined toward spiritual experience or [who] seek religious solutions to personal [and social] problems,” says Palmer. Some of the most prominent of these “outstanding Quebec messianic figures” include Jean-Gaston Tremblay, whose quarrels with the Catholic Church led him to split from the institution and establish the Apostles of the Infinite Love. There he would set up the “new Vatican” in St. Jovite, Quebec, and be declared Gregory XVII, the legitimate Pope of all Catholics, by his followers. Also splintering off from the Catholic Church was Marie-Paule Giguère, who founded the Army of Mary or the Community of the Lady of all Nations. She is believed to be the incarnation of the Virgin Mary, directly contradicting the Vatican’s belief in Mary’s bodily ascension into heaven and their rejection of reincarnation as a whole.

Both movements have been rejected by the Vatican and deemed “heretical,” but who still choose to align themselves with Catholicism as a whole.

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily “NOT REAL RELIGION” Despite these new religious movements being sociologically very similar to the institutionalized ones, they don’t seem to be granted the same legitimacy by the public.

Sara Parks, director of McGill’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life (MORSL), explains this in an interview with The Daily, by stating that “many of these religions are the same as any other.” She continues to explain that although there is not an abundance of people with new religious faiths seeking out services at MORSL, the organization is still very willing to make the space accessible to those with beliefs alternative to the mainstream. A large part of this seems to be our conception of what a ‘real’ religion constitutes. The established religions “claim [these new faiths] are not religions or they are ‘heretics.’ So you will find Christian ministers saying Scientology is not a religion, because they do not even believe in God, [or that] the Raëlians don’t believe in God or the soul.

You’ll have [people] criticizing Pentecostalism, because [it is] a different type of Christianity,” says Palmer.

These attitudes are reflected in public opinion and are fueled by the mainstream media, which stamps them with the ‘cult’ label. This does not necessarily reflect the sociological sense of the word – which just distinguishes a new faith – but seems to carry adverse implications, and is applied in a derogatory fashion to connotate illegitimacy and inferior morality. Palmer highlights the “brainwashing argument” as often-used. She says, “Another criticism is that they somehow get people to join through illicit, sneaky means, or undue influence. [...] So, the criticism is that people do not choose to join, they are kind of tricked to through technology and brainwashing. The brainwashing theory has been heavily criticized by psychologists, there is nothing valid or scientific. The whole point is, when a ‘weird’ new religion gets people to join, they are brainwashing, but if a ‘nice, respectable’ old religion like the Catholic Church gets people to join, then that is a deep, spiritual conversion.”

We forget that many of the religions we consider legitimate and demand tolerance for today were in their early years accused of the same immorality and heresy and not considered “respectable.” Palmer compares Quebec’s situation to the anti-

WE FORGET THAT MANY OF THE RELIGIONS WE CONSIDER LEGITIMATE AND DEMAND TOLERANCE FOR TODAY WERE IN THEIR EARLY YEARS ACCUSED OF THE SAME IMMORALITY AND HERESY AND NOT CONSIDERED ‘RESPECTABLE.’ Another interesting manifestation of new religion stemming from Quebec is in groups that associate themselves with Quebecois nationalism and environmentalism. “For example, we have this group [...] that believes that Quebec was protected from ecological disaster and that the francophones would exist after the rest of the world had been destroyed. [...]

They say that Quebec is the safest place in the world because it has a solid bedrock,” says Palmer.

cult movement in France, which enshrines these attitudes at the government level, as there is a ministry to suppress cult formation. “There is very heavy persecution of religious minorities going on in France, and to some extent this is important to Quebec, because there are attempts to import these kind of attitudes. You find visits from these ministers, who are part of the ‘anti-cult ministry,’ who come to Quebec and work with election groups. And you find certain journalists who have contacts

here, and you have Quebec journalists who follow the lead of French journalists. Another thing is that groups that were heavily persecuted in France have fled and are now in Quebec, where they have a more tolerant climate,” says Palmer. She mentions that she is unaware of any major organized initiatives similar to those in France. “There is a kind of anti-cult organization in Montreal called Info-Secte, but the director [...] seems more interested in cult awareness.”

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Raël for brainwashing his followers and stealing their money. Critiques specific to Raëlism include claims that the movement stirs up controversy for media attention and to increase membership. Examples of such controversies include the use of the swastika in order to reclaim its historical meaning of good luck and peace and claims of successful human cloning. While Palmer suggests the claim of controversy for the sake of membership, to Bertrand this is “completely false.”

DESPITE THESE NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS BEING SOCIOLOGICALLY VERY SIMILAR TO THE INSTITUTIONALIZED ONES, THEY DON’T SEEM TO BE GRANTED THE SAME LEGITIMACY BY THE PUBLIC. RAËLISM IN QUEBEC The Daily contacted several newer religious movements in Montreal to learn about their experiences trying to establish themselves within the larger community.

The Church of Latter Day Saints, a Mormon church and the River’s Edge Community Church – both in Notre-Damede-Grâce – and the Church of Scientology were contacted, yet none seemed as eager to be interviewed as the representatives from the Raëlian movement.

After going through several levels of communication, I finally got to speak with Raëlian Bishop Nicole Bertrand, who has been part of the [Raëlian] movement since 1980. She discussed her abandonment of Catholocism with The Daily. “I was raised in a Catholic family and then I took my distance when I was a teenager. When I was allowed not to go to church, around 18, I stopped going. [...] I was told by my parents, by my teachers, ‘stop asking questions, the questions are too complicated.

Some theologians, they study for years and years and years and they still don’t have answers. It’s too complicated.’” However, she mentioned her continued curiosity in humanity’s creation. “I was always wondering: Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is the purpose of life?”

The Raëlians believe that human beings and all life on earth were created by the Elohim – extraterrestrial beings. They left life forms on Earth with what Bertrand called “intelligent design,” which would evolve into all the present life forms. Raël, top leader or the “Guide of all Guides,” says that he is the last prophet in a long stream of prophets including Jesus, Moses, and Buddha, who he claims mistook the Elohim for god(s) and angels.

Although adherers of these religions may disagree, Bertrand says, “This is why this is a universal message that can give light to all of the past religions.”

Bertrand’s opinion on the receptiveness to their new religion in Quebec contrasts directly with Palmer’s view that the province is a generally positive place for these faiths. “In the beginning, in 1980, it was growing very fast. And now, in the past ten years it has stabilized. [...] Because of the media mocking Raëlians about ten years ago, we are targeted all the time.” As with many new faiths, the media attacked

Bertrand explains that the media’s attack on Raël’s followers is demeaning and that the situation is portrayed as “the intellectual manipulation of poor, fragile, vulnerable people who are in a ‘depressed’ state of mind. [This] doesn’t hold because we all have jobs, we all have a family, we all live in our private space. We gather once a year and we have some meetings on the weekend to which we are allowed to go or not go. So we have our total freedom. Our colleagues and family members don’t see unbalanced people, ‘crazy’ people.” She defends her choice to donate money as well, “When people ask me, ‘Do you give money?’ I say ‘Yes, I give money. And? Do you have a problem with me giving my money?’

It’s my money. [...] It’s my freedom and I’m never forced to give any money. I give what I can, when I can. We all do. And there is no consequence. If one year I cannot contribute, there is no consequence.”

Bertrand alleges that such accusations have tarnished the reputation of Raëlians in the public opinion and have led to persecution. “Canada and Quebec brag that they are nations that respect democracy and human rights. Not in your workplace. [...] Some of us lost our contracts when they found out we were Raëlians,” says Bertrand, who herself lost a job because of her religion. The employer told her she should have brought up being a Raëlian, and when she said he was not even allowed to ask her about her religion, he said that his company “doesn’t want to be associated with Raëlians.” Of the incident, Bertrand states, “It shows you how narrow-minded people are. We question. We try to understand the story of God, we try understand the nature of God. We can question the singularity of God. Those people go to church and say God is one, but we say God is many. They say God is immaterial and we say the Gods are material. They say we are evil and they cancel our contracts.”

The Raëlian movement exemplifies the persisting antagonism that new religious movements still experience in today’s supposedly ‘tolerant’ society. While Quebec may be a healthier environment compared to other places, it does not negate the fact that there is very real persecution of religious minorities, especially ones which have not been established or that the public does not recognize as real religions.

Sci+Tech

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Simulating the human brain

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A scientific pursuit so ambitious it might end humanity Trent Eady Sci-Tech Writer

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euroscience advances in step with the tools that researchers use to study the brain.

Last month, on the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre — a research hub equipped with cutting-edge brain scanners — leading neuroscientists from around the world gathered at the Montreal Neurological Institute to discuss how emerging technologies for studying the brain will push neuroscience forward. They also discussed how these technologies might one day enable robots to take over the world.

Henry Markram, a neuroscientist based in Geneva, passionately laid out his vision for the future of neuroscience. Markram leads the Human Brain Project, an ambitious global effort to create a full, biologically realistic simulation of the human brain using a supercomputer. The Human Brain Project was launched in 2013 after being chosen as one of the European Union’s flagship science projects for the decade. With a budget of $1.3 billion, the goal is to complete the simulation by 2023. Although based in Europe, the Human Brain Project has attracted the participation of research institutions around the world. BigBrain, the first major accomplishment of the project, was a joint effort between the Montreal Neurological Institute and the Jülich Research Centre in Germany.

BigBrain is the world’s most accurate 3D map of the human brain to date. A team of researchers coled by McGill Neurology and Neurosurgery professor Alan Evans created the 3D map by slicing the healthy brain of a deceased 65-yearold organ donor into ultra-thin layers of brain tissue. The researchers then took extremely high resolution images of each slice and used the images to reconstruct the brain in 3D. The map is nearly detailed enough to see each individual brain cell. This 3D map, and future maps that capture the brain in even greater detail, will be used in the Human Brain Project’s simulation.

BigBrain helps to illustrate why the Human Brain Project is unlike anything that neuroscientists have attempted before. The tools that exist today allow the biology of the brain to be modelled at an unprecedented level of detail. Markram is insistent about capturing all the biological richness of the brain. He sees each individual neuron within the brain as a complex machine made up of thousands of parts, all of

Ceci Steyn | Illustrator which have to be simulated.

Among philosophers who think about the mind, the majority view is that any sufficiently advanced computer simulation of the brain will

its intended purpose — to perform scientific experiments — without consent, just as it is unethical to perform experiments on fleshy human beings without consent. During the

“Maybe it would be better if the human race, instead of transmitting itself forward by means of biology, transmitted itself forward by means of artificial creation and left as its successors these beings.”

Douglas Hofstadter, cognitive scientist be capable of all the same experiences as an actual brain — including thought, emotion, pleasure, and pain. A simulation of a human brain would be, for all intents and purposes, human. In that case, it would be unethical to use the simulation for

conference, the former director of the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre Albert Gjedde asked Markram, “If your simulated brain ultimately gets to the level where it becomes conscious, are you allowed to turn it off?” Markram responded that the

rights of a future brain simulation is “a topic in the ethics part” of the Human Brain Project.

There is a rationale behind thinking about the ethical issues concerning these beings, which may someday gain consciousness, before these issues actually arise.

History is cause for concern. Human beings don’t have a good track record with beings outside of our species boundary. Until the twentieth century, animals were routinely vivisected — dissected while alive — either because they were considered incapable of pain or because their pain wasn’t believed to matter.

Today, it is still common for humans to treat animals with the same indifference that they treat inanimate objects (on factory farms, for example). Moreover, there are countless examples of humans treating their fellow humans with shocking cruelty simply because they are slightly different from themselves. It is not

a stretch to imagine that biological humans might fail to respect the rights of their computer-based counterparts. With artificial humans, there is the opportunity for the first time to ensure the rights of a group before they are oppressed.

During the conference’s panel discussion, conversation turned toward the ‘Singularity,’ which is, as Markram put it, a predicted point in the future when “technology will surpass the human capability.”

One version of the Singularity is that computer-based humans will quickly surpass biological humans in intelligence, ending humanity’s tenure as the dominant life form on the planet, and perhaps ending the human species itself. Not everyone despairs at this prospect.

In an interview for the documentary Victim of the Brain, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter mused about the potential upside of such a change.

“Maybe it would be better if the human race, instead of transmitting itself forward by means of biology, transmitted itself forward by means of artificial creation and left as its successors these beings. We want things to be good, but on the other hand we aren’t so good ourselves. [...] If it turns out that the creatures we created were creative, and very, very altruistic, and gentle beings, and we are people who go around killing each other all the time and having wars, wouldn’t it better if the altruistic beings just survived and we didn’t?”

The panelists agreed that the Singularity is not on the immediate horizon. Evans expressed his view that “we’re a long way from any organized computational system reproducing the human brain at the level of consciousness.” Markram elaborated on the same point. In the near-term, he said, “the detail” of brain simulations will be “still by a factor of billions simpler than what there is in biology.” He added, “I’m not afraid of the Singularity.”

However, Markram also stated that at some point in the future, all the biological detail of the brain will be simulated. “In terms of implementing that [detail] in technology,” Markram said, “eventually yes, in 100 years, it will be.”

That point will be the beginning of the end of humanity. Some people fear that end as a form of apocalypse. Evans, for example, joked about Skynet, the artificial intelligence from Terminator bent on exterminating all humans. Others foresee a happy ending, like the scenario Hofstadter imagines: humanity passing the torch to beings better than ourselves.

Sci+Tech

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Invisible war against bacteria

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The rise of antibiotic resistance

Christian Gualtieri Sci+Tech Writer

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We are fighting evolution… and we are losing.” These are the stark words of Bob McDonald, the host of CBC Radio One’s weekly science news program Quirks and Quarks, as he starts off his show featuring “Beyond Antibiotics” in 2014. Within the 25-minute segment, listeners heard what many would consider utterly frightening.

A majority of scientists and healthcare professionals believe humans are at the cusp of an era where antibiotic use will be a thing of the past for the human race. Some even believe we already are in that ‘postantibiotic’ era.

Antibiotics are specific antimicrobial biological molecules that target bacteria and help us fight infections. In 1928, Alexander Fleming serendipitously discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin, which is a molecule secreted by a particular species of fungi that he grew in a petri dish. This was a hallmark moment for humanity. Soldiers in World War II were able to survive bacterial infections that were once lethal. The postwar fifties and sixties brought the ‘golden age’ of antibiotics as new molecules were discovered at an astounding rate.

But it was Fleming himself, the pioneer of antimicrobials, who was concerned about this new precious resource. He noted in his own research that complacency, overuse of antibiotics, and the use of lessthan-adequate doses to kill the bacteria in infections would lead to bacteria building a tolerance.

Society has failed once again to adequately manage and preserve a vital resource, such as antibiotics. We are now facing the consequences.

In 2012, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research claimed that 8,000 people had succumbed to infections they picked up during their hospital stay. That figure is equivalent to the number of deaths in Canada annually from breast cancer, AIDS, and traffic accidents combined. Methicillinresistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE), and Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are just a few ‘superbugs’ that are giving many hospitals an extraordinarily difficult time in trying to contain their spread to patients. Further, these superbugs are strains of bacteria which are resistant to several types of antibiotics, making them very difficult to treat, if not impossible.

A realistic future without antibiotics would severely affect modern medicine. Everything from or-

Katrina Gibbs | The McGill Daily gan transplant surgery, to cancer therapy, joint replacement, and childbirth would be very difficult endeavours without the aid of antibiotics. At first, scientists and doctors were always a step ahead of these bacteria, but now they no longer have the upper hand. With increasing exposure bacteria have evolved faster than the rate at which new antibiotics were found.

To defeat this imminent crisis, a new and smarter approach is needed. Researchers are taking a look at history and going back to the drawing board to find solutions. Many scientists believe that we have exhausted all the possible paths to search for compounds known as broad-spectrum antibiotics, which were once readily available during the sixties. These are molecules that have the power to kill a wide range of different pathogenic bacteria. They were especially convenient since doctors could simply prescribe them to patients suffering from infections without knowing what specific pathogen was the culprit at work.

Now, even these broad-spectrum molecules are becoming increasingly futile as their circulated use in society has exposed many microbes to their presence. As a result, they have evolved to resist the drugs’ bacteria-killing mechanisms.

Some experts believe that there is a need for a more targeted, narrow-

spectrum approach when it comes to antibiotic use. There have been many advancements in medical diagnostic machinery, and perhaps in the near future scientists will be able to use genomic diagnostic machinery to detect individual pathogens causing the infection through DNA analysis. A doctor could then prescribe an antibiotic geared toward that specific species of bacteria. This would be a more responsible and effective use of antibiotics and would hinder resistance.

create new antibiotics. This has been done in the past, as most antibiotics are derived from bacteria themselves. However, future work will mean having to look in novel places. Others feel the best course of action is to pursue entirely different mechanisms for killing pathogens, of which host defence peptides and bacteriophages are just some examples.

It is going to take a lot of willpower for humanity to succeed, and many changes need to be made to

A realistic future without antibiotics would severely affect modern medicine. Everything from organ transplant surgery, to cancer therapy, joint replacement, and childbirth would be very difficult without the aid of antibiotics.

Alternatively, there are also scientists who believe the future of antibiotics involves looking into the wonders of nature to find new antimicrobial molecules through bio-prospecting. This means scientists must go and investigate life on this planet to find molecules naturally developed by living organisms that allow them to fight infection. These defence mechanisms could then be exploited to

the mindset used in research. Governments need to step in and help with policy decisions, and alternative methods for funding antimicrobial research are a necessity, since antibiotics offer very little return on investment for pharmaceutical companies. Unlike long-term prescription drugs used to treat psychiatric conditions, when people have infections, they take an antibiotic only for a ten-day period and then

they no longer require the drug.

Not to mention the fact that many new antibiotics that reach the market become useless within a few years of due to antibiotic resistance. This makes pharmaceutical companies dread pursuing drug discovery in that area even more.

Pharmaceutical companies are much more interested in funding drugs targeted toward long-term conditions, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Until scientists are able to find a viable alternative to the currently diminishing supply of antibiotics, or another mechanism to prevent antibiotic resistance, governments will need to intervene and incentivize pharmaceutical companies to produce novel antibiotics. There has to be a ‘delinkage model’ that recognizes that return on investment from volume of sales is inappropriate when it comes to antibiotics. Presently, pharmaceutical companies are only rewarded for the amount of sales they make, but this is a conflict of interest, as the overuse of antibiotics directly fuels antibiotic resistance. This leaves doctors rationing what few antibiotics that still work. New alternatives need to be found quickly. The reality is that many lives are at risk due to the careless management of antibiotics and it will only get worse until a new system is adopted.

Sports

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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The repercussions of concussions Changing the culture of head injuries in sport

Madison Smith The McGill Daily

suggests that for young adults, even one concussion can have measurable long-term effects on the brain.

These studies, published in the Journal of Neurosurgery, indicate that the brains of college players who were concussed during the season exhibited damage that persisted at least until the end of the season.

Specifically, the players’ white matter was shown to have sustained damage. White matter is important to brain functioning because it is the medium through which different parts of the brain communicate with each other. While there is not yet enough research to know whether the damage caused by one concussion is permanent, the evidence that multiple concussions cause irreversible damage is indisputable. Paul Echlin, an Ontario

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or a long time in hockey, players who became concussed during the course of a game were dismissed as merely “getting their bell rung” by a coach and sent back on to the ice after a few minutes of rest. Times have changed. As the long-term effects of repeated concussions have become known, the prevalence of concussions in hockey has come under more scrutiny by fans and the press. As a Daily article (“The NHL’s headaches”, October 16 2014, Sports, page 16) pointed out, the National Hockey League (NHL) has been taking measures to try to protect players from injuries. This most prominently involves instituting rules against hits directed primarily at the head, as well as other hits thought to put players at a high risk of brain injury. In fact, in many ways the NHL has been a leader on this issue. It began studying the effects of concussions in 1997, long before any other sports league was paying attention to the issue. Unfortunately, the league did not implement an updated concussion protocol until 2011. This protocol mandates that any players suspected of having a concussion be brought into a quiet room to be administered a cognitive performance test. While this is a step in the right direction, sometimes concussion symptoms do not develop until hours or even days after the injury, and the onus is still on players to truthfully report their symptoms.

In any case, for many former NHL players, these measures are too little, too late. Over 200 retired players have now signed onto a class-action lawsuit that accuses the league of willfully withholding information about the long-term health effects of repeated head trauma and encouraging dangerous behaviour.

This lawsuit is very much in the vein of the successful suit brought against the National Football League (NFL) in 2013 by several thousand former players that resulted in the league paying out a $765 million settlement to the plaintiffs. The NHL has responded to the players’ claims by stating that players should have learned about the long-term effects of concussions from publicly available sources and “put two and two together” about the dangers of the sport they played in.

Whether or not the NHL players’ suit will succeed like that of the NFL players is up in

While the concussion issue is often presented as a problem with professional sports, it actually affects players on all levels of play.

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily the air. There may be issues with the statute of limitations, since most of the players involved have long been retired. Additionally, the players will have to prove that the long-term health issues

Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the long term illness caused by concussions, happens because of the cumulative effects of repeated trauma, and most NHL players have been getting hit in the head

While the players may be able to prove that they are suffering from depression, forgetfulness, and other symptoms of CTE, it will be very hard for them to prove that the NHL alone is responsible. that require treatment they are hoping the league will pay for were caused by their time in the NHL rather than from injuries sustained in other causes. This will be difficult to do, as Chronic

since their youth hockey days.

While the players may be able to prove that they are suffering from depression, forgetfulness, and other symptoms of CTE, it will be very hard for them to prove that

the NHL alone is responsible.

This raises the most troubling aspect of the brain injury issue in hockey: no matter how well the NHL deals with concussion issues in the future, youth hockey players are still beating the crap out of each other, perhaps even more than the professionals do. According to hockeyfights.com, in the 1,230 games of this NHL season, there have been 421 fights. In the Canadian Hockey League, a junior league with teen players (ages 1620), there have been 1,449 fights in 1,928 games. While it is important to note that fighting doesn’t cause all the injuries that lead to CTE, the fact that youth hockey is so much worse than the NHL in this measure of violence is worrying.

Furthermore, three recent studies focusing on college hockey players

sports medicine physician, said to the CBC of patients suffering from the effects of head trauma: “[it] affects their school, their occupation, their forward progress in society. It will lessen their ability to achieve the things they want academically or work-wise and often relationship-wise.” Of the 45 student athletes who participated in the white matter studies, 11 were diagnosed with concussions over the course of one season. If that rate of concussions is anywhere close to representative, then it is very likely that many young hockey players have had grave and permanent harm done to their brains even before graduating from university.

While the concussion issue is often presented as a problem with professional sports, it actually affects players on all levels of play. To prevent young hockey players from doing irreversible harm to their brains, swift action must be taken to regulate and prevent fighting and dangerous hits in youth hockey. While the game of hockey itself may have to be changed a great deal, we are at the point where we must choose between preserving the game of hockey we know and preserving the minds of young Canadians. Only the foolish would think the former more important.

Culture

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Tupac, Nina Simone grace Ste. Cat Street artist Miss Me opens first solo show

Sonia Larbi-Aissa The McGill Daily

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Siberian tiger curls at the feet of a shrouded Nina Simone – this is the unmissable wall mural adjacent to the Fresh Paint gallery on Ste. Catherine.

Above the tiger flies a parrot, wings stretching to brush the masterfully shaded drapings that characterize street artist Miss Me’s inimitable artistic style. Flanked by two birds of paradise, a glowing Black Power fist protrudes from Simone’s chest. The artistically canonized ‘Saint of Soul’ towers over the gallery-goers with an inscrutable but unmistakably powerful gaze as they enter Miss Me’s exhibit of the same name.

The Nuit Blanche opening of “Saints of Soul” marked Miss Me’s transition out of the Montreal streets and into the formalized art world. Having previously worked primarily with paint and wheatpaste, a street art style named after the glue used to paste posters to surfaces, Miss Me has transferred her now-recognizable canon of saints onto mixed media for this exhibit. Instead of peering out from behind MTL Blog’s St. Laurent offices, Saint Pac – her portrait of legendary rapper Tupac – scrutinizes gallery-goers from singed planks of wood flecked with gold paint.

Saint Billie, a piece in Miss Me’s “Saints of Soul.”

If Saint Simone and Saint Pac weren’t impressive enough, a giant Miles Davis bores holes into art enthusiasts, his presence looming above. Painted directly

Sonia Larbi-Aissa | The McGill Daily

onto the gallery’s ceiling, Miles is vertically framed by two expertly shaded curtains. The immortalized jazz giant stares out from beneath furrowed brows with the

fierce dignity that Miss Me depicts in all of her subjects. In each of the “Saints” featured in this exhibit, each a black musician that has shaped the history of art and

song, Miss Me translates their music into a visual representation that is both strikingly beautiful and dauntingly powerful.

A small back room is separated from the main gallery space by a thick black curtain. Inside, two shrines to Nina Simone glow with the light of electric candles. The 2D wall mural at the entrance to the gallery pushes into three dimensions, with gold trim and saturated reds, blues, and greens to bring out the now-green fist emerging from Simone’s chest. The result is a beautifully-rendered homage to the artist and activist.

Miss Me recently made waves in the Montreal community with her Pussylluminati bus posters depicting herself as masked and defiantly flashing the viewer with a breast shaped as a unicorn. She subdues her rebellious feminism in these stately depictions of artistic icons, immortalizing them in the streets and, now, on the gallery wall. But in a world where influential black women rarely receive the recognition they deserve, this exhibit is in fact a powerful act of rebellion, elevating Nina Simone to a godly state, and indicating that Miss Me might soon become our next pop culture saint.

“Saints of Soul” is on at Fresh Paint gallery at 256 Ste. Catherine until March 25.

As it should be seen

Exhibit tells of Palestine through fact and experience Anna Tyshkov Culture Writer

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rt can “show the world as it’s supposed to be seen,” according to Javier Hoyos, one of the curators of “Visualizing Palestine,” an exhibit held at Concordia last week as part of Israeli Apartheid Week. The exhibit showcased a collection of images from the non-profit research group that gives the exhibit its name, as well as the work of Palestinian artist Nidal El-Khairy. With these works, “Visualizing Palestine” showed the Palestinian liberation struggle and the reality of living under occupation as it should be seen – free of propaganda and rooted in the voices of the oppressed.

Presented as poster-size reproductions of his original inkon-paper images, El-Khairy’s art provides powerful visual critiques of current events in Palestine and the Middle East. El-Khairy, whose family was displaced from Jordan in 1948, possesses an intimate

perspective of the occupation that is palpable in each image. One striking piece called Cirque du Soleil exposes this oppression with jarring symbols that would likely strike home for both Palestinian and Canadian viewers. In it, an acrobat from the Canadian circus company of the same name practices contortion on an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) tank. A crowd surrounds the base of the tank, watching the acrobat’s mesmerizing performance.

For anyone who has attended a Cirque du Soleil performance, the image comes as a slap to the face, a stinging wake-up call, clearly alluding to the company’s Tel Aviv tour in 2013. With the caption “You might be flexible, justice isn’t,” the piece calls out the company and the uncritical international public that is failing to question this complicity. This unexpected marriage between the graceful entertainer and the violent vehicle emphasizes the link between a seemingly innocent act and the perpetuation of war.

El-Khairy’s work also addresses police brutality and Indigenous solidarity, drawing on his experiences of living in Canada and the U.S.. His piece From Ferguson to Palestine links global systems of colonization, white supremacy, and imperialism. The image portrays a man of colour holding an ignited torch in an unidentified setting and a police officer clasping a machine gun. The man has braided hair and wears a effiyeh, and is thus symbolically tied to two different

El-Khairy’s vivid stories but instead use hard facts and statistics.

The images include charts, graphs, and maps that reflect Gaza’s water crisis, the demolition of Palestinian homes, illegal Israeli settlements, and ceasefire violations.

Providing an accurate alternative to the mainstream media’s biased statistics, the graphs also avoid the dehumanization that usually accompanies these numbers. Rather, they are infographic narratives that utilize imagery to

“Visualizing Palestine” evades explicit, gory photographs, yet still resonates with painful realities. identities that share a common oppressor. The setting’s anonymity plays into the universality of racial oppression and the destruction of bodies of colour, while the lit torch is an empowering beacon of resistance and solidarity.

Infographics from the research group Visualizing Palestine echo

accentuate the scale of damage inflicted on Palestinian communities. In a diagram of water supply appropriation in the West Bank, for example, the thickness of the water pipes shown stretching from an aquifer to Palestinian or Israeli homes indicate the drastic inequities of supply.

Another powerful graph shows a bulldozed Central Park. The caption reads: “Uprooted. The number of uprooted Palestinian olive trees = 33x the trees in Central Park.”

Presenting the destruction of a site beloved by many, the image evokes a strong, personal response from the viewer.

With carefully chosen symbols, visual storytelling thrives in this exhibit. “Visualizing Palestine” evades explicit, gory photographs, yet still resonates with painful realities. Without sensationalizing, it communicates facts and individual experiences side by side, and gives a collective group the recognition it deserves. Most impressive in the exhibit was the facilitation of a dialogue between the oppressed and those complicit with the oppressors, providing a non-violent medium for communication. As Hoyos tells The Daily, “[Art] has no borders; it has the power to challenge the status quo, which is to silence, erase, abuse, and oppress the Palestinians.”

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March 16, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

From script to the stage

Culture

The Daily talks playwriting with MainLine Student Gala participants Kateryna Gordiychuk The McGill Daily

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hile schools like McGill and Concordia have thriving theatre communities, it is often a challenge for students to find a platform for their art off campus.

During the cozy evenings of March 5 to 8, one of Montreal’s most prominent anglophone theatres, MainLine Theatre, presented its solution to this problem: the fifth annual MainLine Gala for Student Drama.

The gala is an open space that gives young artists a chance to showcase their work, as well as connect with an enthusiastic crew of producers, actors, and event organizers.

The organization of the MainLine Gala lies completely in the hands of students. Having heard that there was no one prepared to take responsibility for this year’s Gala, Laurent Pitre and Kenny Streule, both working in Montreal theatre, decided to take up the mantle. “I [couldn’t] stand around and let that opportunity for young students disappear,” Pitre told The Daily. In order to get their plays produced, students had to submit scripts to a panel of judges – including Pitre – who then made the tough choices. Three diverse plays were chosen for production, each written by a woman; the playwrights jokingly refer to the event as a “girl-power gala.”

After selection, the production process was up to the playwright’s preference. Writing a good play is one thing, but it is another challenge altogether to have that play assessed by a creative team. As Calla Wright, one of this year’s playwrights, explained, one of the main features of the Gala was fostering a “non-threatening approach” to sharing one’s art. Two of the writers, Darragh Kilkenny-Mondoux and Rhiannon Collett, found directors to help them through the process of staging their

written works.

Speaking to both the importance and difficulty of the director’s role, Kilkenny-Mondoux said, “More than the cast, finding a director that gets it is the trickiest part. They get full control of your baby.” She worked with director Mitchell Cohen to bring her baby, Form of Flattery, to life. The play, which tells the story of the rise and fall of Athena, touches upon the theme of rethinking societal values through a philosophical lens. Form of Flattery portrays the transfer of power away from the dominance of the mythic old world, Ancient Greece, to a more modern society concerned with material possessions, exploring how a people choose what is important. KilkennyMondoux and Cohen’s collaboration treats this play as a combination of intellectual exercise and contemporary humour, which makes the philosophical concepts easier to wrap your head around.

Kilkenny-Mondoux acknowledged that this collaboration was helpful given the developmental nature of the production process.

In theatre, there is a constant reshaping of the work before and after opening night, subjecting it to the reactions and comments of the audience and letting it be reborn. “Unlike the permanence and eternal nature of film […] theatre is like liquid,” she explained. In the MainLine Gala, this liquidity is an essential part of the appeal for the playwrights. “I think there’s a difference between your brainchild and your experiment, and I thought the gala would be a perfect opportunity to workshop,” Kilkenny-Mondough said. “I don’t think [the organizers] wanted a clear vision of like, ‘this is the way it’s got to be’; you had to be open to work with the space.”

While Collett also chose to bring in an outside director in order to develop her play, Girlhouse, she did

Matthieu Marin | Courtesy of MainLine Theatre so to develop some personal space from it. Similarly to Form of Flattery, Girlhouse leaves much open to interpretation, but treads the line between dream and reality instead of old world and new. The play is less an experience of theoretical contemplation and more one of catharsis. Written and performed by Collett and directed by Amanda Goldberg, the one-woman show focuses on a young woman, Cassandra, who remembers a traumatic experience in her childhood associated with a male nanny.

“My play exploded out of me as a monologue that made very little sense,” Collett said. “What I realized through the experience of writing this play was that it was a topic that

didn’t make sense. [...] And so my goal with it was to try and find empowerment and resolution, but also understand that that’s a story that lives on.”

To find closure, Collett decided to act in the play. “I wanted the play to be an exorcism,” she said. “It had to be active [because] by the time I got to the rehearsal process I couldn’t think about it anymore. [...] Having Amanda come in as a director was amazing because she took it through her brain and then fed it back to me, so I’m able to perform it, but there’s also this distance,” Collett explained.

On stage, Girlhouse impresses with its sharpness in conveying emotion. While playing with the division between truth and imagi-

nation, what it makes very clear is the undeniable wrongdoings that we, as humans, are prone to, and the lasting effect they have.

Like Collett, Wright also chose to play a part in the production of her play, How I Show Love. Directing the play herself, Wright cast a friend who had been instrumental in the writing process as the main character.

Her play follows Kenneth, a barista who is tired of his thankless job and begins to wish evil on his customers. Wright drew the storyline from her personal experience in the food industry, feeling the attitude toward personnel and work conditions at minimum wage jobs needed public discussion. A play is perhaps the best way to address this issue, which is a huge one for young artists trying to create while still earning a living.

Even as the play’s director, Wright expressed her amazement at the enthusiasm for collaboration she’d experienced throughout the project. “Just the amount of people who want to give their all, to bring their own costumes, to create a set around it, is absolutely mindblowing,” she explained. “It’s not something we do by ourselves at all.

We lay the egg and then we need a bunch of fertilization.”

Though each of these plays feature different content and context, they all similarly serve as a critique of and resistance to modern society and the contemporary human condition.

Themes of rebellion and empowerment ran through all of the performances, whether set in Ancient Greece or a 21st century coffee shop.

Perhaps most striking is the parallel between the strength of the characters in these plays and the strength of the ambitious students writing them.

In giving three young playwrights the opportunity to tell these stories of empowerment, the MainLine Student Drama Gala is, in turn, empowering young artists in Montreal.

Vagina puppets & Hip Hop Week Niyousha’s Pick: Vagina Puppetmaking and Performance Workshop With Freud’s banner waved in every lecture hall and phallic symbols pervading our daily lives, here’s your chance to assert (for the millionth time) that, contrary to popular belief, the phallus is not the centre of the universe. The Centre for Gender Advocacy is hosting two vagina puppet-making workshops this week, so bust out your papier mâché skills and make a giant vagina – no experience required. There’ll also be a

chance to create performance pieces to complement the papier mâché vaginas. The options for performance are endless; anything from storytelling to a sound piece is fair game.

If you’re feeling a creative block, please, act out time travel and slap Freud with a giant vagina. If time travel isn’t your thing, the workshop facilitators will still offer a unique history lesson, talking about the history of both puppets and vaginas.

Don’t miss out on this perfect bundle of art, creation, and education.

Rosie’s Pick: Hip Hop Week For those who like to listen, make some time in your schedule this week for a Montreal music event that is not to be missed: Hip Hop Week. Since its inception 35 years ago, hip hop has been revolutionizing popular culture, from Grandmaster Flash to Kanye. But what does this genre, which has undergone internal revolutions of its own, mean today? Through speakers, panels, showcases, and more, Hip Hop Week Montreal

will explore the current state of the genre in relation to politics and society at-large, and will also be looking ahead into the genre’s future. Must-attend events include “Big Booty Hos: Panel on Gender, Sexuality & Feminism in Hip Hop,” and “Fight the Power: Panel on Hip Hop, Activism and Revolution,” not to mention performances from influential MCs Jean Grae and Rakim. Plus, the week raises funds for No Bad Sound, a local studio that sup-

ports aspiring artists. Hip Hop Week Montreal gives you the chance to hear something a little different from your Monday morning lectures.

The vagina puppet-making workshop is Monday, March 16 and Thursday, March 18 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 10 Des Pins, #414.

Hip Hop Week Montreal runs from March 15 to 21 at various locations. Head to hiphopweekmtl.com for more details.

Editorial

volume 104 number 22

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

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Women-only hours are not discriminatory, the reaction is

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Dana Wray

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

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Cem Ertekin Emmet Livingstone features editor

Alice Shen | The McGill Daily

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science+technology editor

Zapaer Alip

sports editor

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illustrations editor

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cover design Alice Shen contributors Hera Chan, Marina Cupido, Trent Eady, Lia Elbaz, George Ghabrial, Katrina Gibbs, Kateryna Gordiychuk, Christian Gualtieri, June Jang, Jasreet Kaur, Nadir Khan, Sonia LarbiAïssa, Rayleigh Lee, Matthieu Marin, Emma Meldrum, Yasmine Mosimann, Shane Murphy, Jonathan Reid, Madison Smith, Ceci Steyn, Anna Tyshkov, Arianee Wang.

T

he McGill campus has recently been in uproar over a proposal to create women-only hours at the gym, submitted by law students Soumia Allalou and Raymond Grafton. The initiative gained support from a number of women who felt uncomfortable with the fitness centre’s male-dominated atmosphere, whether because of intimidation, religious reasons, or otherwise.

The request has drawn significant media attention both on and off campus, in part due to massive online backlash. This violently reactionary response should disgust any student reading it, and in fact proves how much this safer space is needed.

Discussion of the proposal began and grew in comment sections of the McGill Tribune and on social media, and has mostly taken the form of uninformed sexism and outright misogyny from a vocal and predominantly male group of students. Some who have sought to defend their sexist arguments have used blatant Islamophobia, describing the request as religiously-motivated and invoking secularism as the reason for their opposition. To do so implies that, in the absence of religion, women would have no reason to request a safe space, denying their valid feelings of being threatened. Already, the scale and swiftness of the backlash has likely silenced the voices of those who would benefit most from women-only hours at the gym.

The severity of the reaction belies the fact that this kind of request is not unusual. Private women-only gyms are common in Montreal and nationwide. Univer-

sities across Canada, including the University of Toronto, York, Ryerson, and the University of Ottawa, have instituted women-only hours at their gyms, while Queen’s has a women-only section. In fact, McGill’s swimming pool already has women-only hours. Women-only gym hours are not an example of sexism; instead, they create a safer space for women who might feel uncomfortable in the fitness centre, whether because of religious reasons, harassment, intimidation, or discomfort. Women are a systemically disadvantaged group, and like other marginalized groups, deserve safer spaces. Women-only gym hours help to overcome a history of male domination in athletic pursuits like weightlifting.

Contestation of women-only hours by a majority does not mean the hours should not be implemented.

The safer space that would be created is not for this majority’s use; it would serve the needs of a minority of students who feel marginalized in a space that they, as students, have every right to use and feel comfortable in. The Daily strongly supports creating these kinds of spaces when a need for them is made known. SSMU, as part of its mandate on equity and safer space, must seriously consider the proposal and consult with affected groups. It is also the responsibility of the student body to treat such requests with basic respect rather than responding with infantile comments and vitriol.

—The McGill Daily Editorial Board

Errata 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318 advertising & general manager Boris Shedov sales representative Letty Matteo ad layout & design Geneviève Robert

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dps board of directors Joseph Boju, Juan Camilo Velásquez Buriticá, Alyssa Favreau, Ralph Haddad, Molly Korab, Rachel Nam, Hillary Pasternak, Dana Wray All contents © 2015 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.

ISSN 1192-4608.

In the article “The victims of brutal minds” (January 19, Commentary, page 11), the late French cartoonist Stéphane Charbonnier was incorrectly quoted as saying that “it is our job to defend freedom of speech.” In fact, Charbonnier said “it is not our job to defend freedom of speech.”

In the article “A year of nothing” (February 23, Commentary, page 12), incorrectly stated that City Year follows the ‘whole school, whole community, whole child’ model. In fact, City Year follows the ‘whole school, whole community’ model.

The Daily regrets the errors.

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19

Compendium!

March 16, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

20

Lies, half-truths, and an opinionated stance on neutrality.

Portal to hell still in Lower Field Demons hijack souls, make campus a better place

Herald of the Dark One The McGall Weekly

T

o the annoyance of many students, demons have been sighted at McGall, going around campus, occupying desks at McLemon Library, creating huge lines at Subway, being keeners in conferences, and generally being rather rude.

In an attempt to provide a relatively safe learning environment for its students, the University has been attempting to exorcise the unholy forces tearing the veil between the real and unreal.

Eating a sandwich at SHNAX, Deputy Provost for Student Gripes and Weed Trololollivier Bitumens told The Weekly that the admin was “literally” doing its best to find the source of this demonic invasion.

“We literally looked everywhere. Like, everywhere. In Shtaneer, Mecock, the James Defenestration. Nowhere. There is nothing wrong absolutely nowhere; yet still… There are some superpowered student politicians flying around with Swords of Justice and cutting people’s conformist hats? Something

Abby

wicked our way comes.”

When casually asked whether they had checked the portal to hell in Lower Field, Bitumens answered, “Lol, we totally forgot about that place.”

On September 16, 2013 (Compendium!, page 20, “Rankings drop, portal to hell appears on lower field”), a portal to hell opened in Lower Field, much to the chagrin of students of Faculty of Plumbers, who use the field as an ice rink during winter.

“What these demons are doing is totally unacceptable,” said Torque Kang, speaking on behalf of Plumber Students’ Society (PSS). “Like, one of them, wearing a suit, came up to one of my friends the other day, and asked him to sell it his soul in exchange for a research grant for sustainable development technologies in some field that does not involve explosives.”

“This is unacceptable! We are not at McGall to learn about making the world a better place,” Kang added.

Ever since the demons began pouring from the guts of hell itself, McGall researchers have stopped doing bad things in gen-

Anarchist Aunt Abby An anarchist solves your problems!

Dear Anarchist Aunt Abby, I’m the newly appointed course lecturer in SHMU studies and an armchair anarchist. As well as being emotionally devastated by presidential candidate Cream Overhim’s class treachery, I’m facing a serious family problem that’s affecting my health.

I’m a single father of two toddlers, but I also have deep ideological opposition to hierarchical structures. I treat my children as equals in our family collective, and all collective decisions must be decided by consensus.

Aunt Abby, please tell me what to do. We haven’t been able to reach consensus over what to have for dinner for a couple of weeks now, so I keep submitting to the majority opinion. All we’ve eaten for two weeks are Reese’s Pieces and lollipops.

I, regrettably, am wasting away, and I worry that my children might be too, though they protest otherwise and demand yet more Reese’s Pieces.

On top of that, they’ve been kicked out of the McGall nursery because they can’t abide the overwhelming shame that comes with wearing bright onesies or being leashed to their fellow toddler comrades like cattle. To make things worse, they can’t see Candidate Overhim’s

eral. Speaking to The Weekly in a telepathic exchange, a representative of the demons, who have since 2013 been unionized under the name Demonize McGall, said that they will not stop until McGall becomes the “happiest place on earth.”

“Demons are misunderstood,” boomed the demon’s voice in The Weekly’s collective hive-mind.

“Sure we drink human blood every now and then, and we consume the flesh of sinners, but we actually have your best interests at heart.”

The Weekly has interpreted this vision to mean that the demons are planning to take peaceful direct action to stand up, or perhaps sit down, for their rights. We are not really sure, but we are almost certain that it’s either about the sandwiches, or provincial budget cuts that have resulted in a hiring freeze, cancelled courses, a reduction in TA hours, and an overall drop in the quality of education. Not to mention the myriad social implications that the overall austerity regime has outside McGall, ranging from the government reneging on collective agreements to

cuts to social services.

It’s probably just the sandwiches, though.

Quebec Political Action and Research Group on Humanism McGall (QPARGH-McGall) has recently released a video on its Facebook page declaring its support for Demonize McGall.

Speaking in unison and perfect harmony, the thirteen members of QPARGH-McGill’s board said that their “support for the demons” was “eternal.”

“We, out of our free will and volition declare that the demons are striving to represent the public will of society. That is why we must strive to give them more.

Peace, love, and non-violence are things for which we must all strive. Striving is what we must do. Only if we strive shall we succeed in defeating those who strive for bad things.”

Regardless, Bitumens informed The Weekly that the portal to hell will possibly be closed in the upcoming days, due to fears that the intense heat of hell might be a fire hazard.

At press time, the demons of Lower Field were last seen hanging out around the portal to hell,

obvious attempt to appeal to the campus ‘bro vote,’ and have made a mockery of academic work.

Abby, I’m malnourished and ashamed. How do I reconcile my anarchism with my wellbeing?

—Professor Doge Sanscomic, SHMU expert and meme escapee Dear Professor Sanscomic, I sympathize, comrade. This is indeed a challenge to our revolutionary praxis. Of course, if you switched allegiance to Leninist Vanguardism, you wouldn’t have this problem – but then again, we don’t all have the luxury of choosing between competing radical dogma. The dogma chooses you.

I remember when anarchism chose me, back when I was a young stripling, awkwardly mingling at the high-school disco, so full of zest for the little things in life. Anarchism strode over to me, asked me to dance, and whispered sweet nothings of class oppression and hierarchical structures into my ear. My life was changed forever.

I digress. As a fully autonomous member of the family collective, it’s your responsibility to adequately express your concerns. I suggest you first bring your concerns to each toddler individually. If that doesn’t work, perhaps you should examine why your opinion is so different from theirs, and whether this is the best collective for you.

There might be more congenial toddlers who would share your food preferences at the McGall nursery. I’d wager many of them also crave freedom from the leash, and would welcome the chance to swap their ‘toys’ – mostly tools of capitalist indoctrination – for the liberating challenge of dense political theory.

As for your revolutionary contribution to the study of Cream Overhim – I think it has value. There’s a special rung in secular hell for leftists who drift toward the centre.

Just look at Tony Blair. I counsel you to let things run their course: the devil knows his own.

singing along to Bob Dylan’s famous song, “Masters of War.” The Weekly’s resident demonologist Kitty “Hellfire” Brandhel managed to infiltrate the circle of demons, seeking infernal wisdom. After spending an entire night among the hellspawn, Brandhel emerged from the pit, her eyes like two scarlet rubies.

Speaking to The Weekly in an interview, Brandhel characterized the experience as, “Whatever.”

According to Ophelia Moustache-Beret, SHMU VP Isolation and Obliviousness, McGall is the only university in Montreal that is plagued by demons.

“In full disclosure, however, we do not really know what is happening anywhere else in Montreal. As per the policies of SHMU, McGall students are mandated to keep themselves isolated from the rest of the world and to not care about society at all. For all we know, there might be around 30,000 students out there in various other universities, all voting to go on a strike or something.

What matters the most, however, is that we fight these demons among us. I mean, who cares what happens elsewhere, right?”

(Non)fictional assholes: answers Across

Down

3. Dolores Umbridge

1. Romeo

4. President Snow

2. Joffrey Lannister

5. Draco Malfoy

8. Bill O’Reilly

6. Barney Stinson

10. Slim Shady

7. Sauron

11. Regina George

9. Christian Grey

13. Walt Disney

12. Frank Underwood 14. Satan

?

Can’t write No sense of humour?

Questionable hygiene?

Poor social skills?

Come to The Weekly!

We’re the only ones who’ll love you.

compendium@mcgilldaily.com