The McGill Daily Vol105Iss3

Volume 105, Issue 3 Monday, September 14, 2015

McGill THE

DAILY

Commie rag since 1911 mcgilldaily.com

Published by The Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.

Labour Day demo

5

Against austerity, against capitalism

8

Editorial: pay McGill workers fairly

19

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September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Quebec launches mandatory sex ed pilot program

03 NEWS Quebec’s pilot sex ed program under spotlight Project documents nine years of immigration legislation Labour Day demo restarts anti-austerity movement AUS renews traditional territory acknowledgement Activists demand justice for deported youth

08 COMMENTARY On effective anti-austerity Disenfranchisement and the Fair Elections Act Sex ed needs to be a priority

11

FEATURES

There is no global LGBTQI community

14

SCI+TECH

Wifi as a carcinogen Mac campus student-run garden promotes sustainability

16

SPORTS

17

CULTURE

Women changing sports culture in 2015

Ladyfest Montreal does comedy, inclusively The Daily reviews: World War Free The Daily reviews: Radiance and Submission What to see at POP Montreal

19

EDITORIAL

A fair wage for McGill workers

20 COMPENDIUM!

3

Community groups prioritize early consent education Celia Robinovitch News Writer

I

n the upcoming year, sex education classes will be reintroduced in Quebec schools after being removed from the province’s curriculum in 2005. The sex education pilot project is to be mandatory for all students from kindergarten through high school, regardless of the student’s or their parent’s religious and personal convictions.

The sex education program will be introduced in around 15 schools in the province and will last two years. While the pilot program will affect only 8,200 students, the new program could be adopted on a provincial level by 2017. Sex education will be taught for at least five hours a year at the primary level and 15 hours each year of secondary school. According to the Canadian Press, the province invested some $860,000 into the management of the project.

Consent education According to Victoria Pilger, Funding and Partnerships Coordinator at Head & Hands (a Montreal non-profit organization that provides medical, social, and legal services to the city’s youth) one of the potential benefits of the program is informing Quebec youth about the importance of healthy sex. Furthermore, the concept of health extends beyond contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and encompasses body image, communication, boundaries, and consent as well.

According to Gabrielle Bouchard, Peer Support and Trans Advocacy Coordinator of Concordia’s Centre for Gender Advocacy, “If you want to talk about any area of sexuality, you have to start with consent.”

“There is no opting out of consent. Consent is mandatory, so knowing about consent should be mandatory also.”

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Gabrielle Bouchard, Centre for Gender Advocacy

Beauty tips from the abyss

“When you talk about these basic concepts of consent in a mean-

Marie Labrosse | Photographer ingful way […] that will already be a very useful tool for anybody thinking about sex and sexual relationships,” Bouchard continued.

Introducing an educational program about consent to students from a young age could greatly impact community groups like Head & Hands and the Center for Gender Advocacy.

“If the government of Quebec started doing [consent education], maybe we wouldn’t have to fight so much here at university to get consent workshops or [have] to deal with so much sexual violence and non-consensual situations at the university level,” added Bouchard.

“There’s no opting out of consent. Consent is mandatory, so knowing about consent should be mandatory also.”

Concerns of community groups Some of the concerns about the new sex education program regard the fact that it is mandatory. Some – like Lorraine Normand-Charbonneau, the president of the Quebec School Principals Federation, who spoke to the CBC – have already voiced their opposition to the program, citing cultural reasons andarguing that some parents “don’t want their teen to learn about masturbation.”

“While recognizing that norms about sex and sexuality vary across cultures and communities, what remains the same is that every youth deserves access to unbiased and truthful information to help them be informed and empowered to make decisions

about their bodies,” Pilger said.

Magaly Pirotte, Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances (FQPN) Project Coordinator, explained that sex education today tends to take a negative tone in talking about sex.

“A lot of the sex ed that we see happening talks about the risks of sexual activity and the possible negative outcomes of having sex when you’re young,” Pirotte told The Daily.

“It’s really important those educators have an actual grasp of youth sexuality and youth needs, and are trained so that they won’t be shaming youth.”

Victoria Pilger, Head & Hands “This is a pretty disempowering way to talk about sex with teenagers.

A lot of the time, notions of desire and sex positivity and consent are not part of classes, so we are not answering the needs and questions of the people.”

Pirotte also explained how critical it is that the pilot project not enforce heteronormativity. For ex-

ample, homosexuality is often taught separately, as if it were distinct from ‘normal’ sex life. “For now, we’re just wondering and hoping that it’s going to be there.”

Another concern has to do with the effectiveness of the program, which could be less than ideal if the government does not consult and partner with people and groups who are involved with sex education on a community level.

“Are these groups […] with their expertise and experience just going to be put on the side?” asked Pirotte.

Furthermore, Pirotte pointed out that most teachers haven’t been trained on how to teach sex education.

“Putting back a program is good, but if you don’t give the means to teach it in a meaningful way – [...] the teachers haven’t been trained to give this class,” she said.

Pilger noted that the delivery of the pilot project is a main area of concern for Head & Hands as well.

“It’s really important [that] those educators have an actual grasp of youth sexuality and youth needs, and are trained so that they won’t be shaming youth for what they’re doing because of the generational gap,” Pilger said. “[Head & Hands] thinks it’s really important that the government consults community groups to learn from us what we’ve learned from youth. [...]

We have access to a lot of honest information you might not otherwise have access to.”

4

News

September 14, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Immigration legislation exposed Multimedia project points out flaws in refugee system

Elroy Lee News Writer

S

eptember 1 saw the launch of a multimedia project titled Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration, which features a 10,000-word report as well as video interviews documenting nine years of legislative changes to immigration policy and their effects on Canadian citizens and immigrants. The project was created by No One Is IllegalVancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories, a grassroot organization.

The project focuses on recent actions of the Conservative government and various issues surrounding immigration, including the exploitation of temporary foreign workers, family reunification, and deportation.

The report includes many key findings. For instance, it found that between 2006 and 2014, 87,317 migrants were jailed without charge. It also found that there have been 111 new immigration policies since 2002; the majority of the policies are ministerial instructions from the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and thus require no parliamentary approval.

“This is not a new thing. It’s not

going to go away any time soon, not unless we act. It’s about actually challenging the legislation that creates this difficulty in people getting over here. It’s talking to our families, our friends, and our coworkers about the refugee plight and really creating awareness about what’s happening globally,” said Sozan Savehilaghi, a member of No One Is Illegal-Vancouver, in an interview with The Daily.

“We only value [immigrants] if we can exploit them,” added Savehilaghi.

Savehilaghi further stated that the series of legislations created in the past nine years have resulted in less permanent residents with fewer secure statuses, juxtaposed with an incredible increase in temporary migrant workers who can have their status taken away at a moment’s notice.

“These are workers who have been legislated to be paid less,” said Savehilaghi, pointing out that a foreign worker’s immigration status is wholly dependent on their employer, often leading to the worker’s exploitation. Workers are also forced to work more without overtime benefits.

“The government is really bulking up on the temporary foreign workers.”

Omar Chu, one of the co-authors

of the report, cited spousal sponsorship as another form of exploitation. “With spousal sponsorship, [the migrant’s] sponsorship is contingent on them staying with their spouse, which puts many women at risk [of ] having to stay in abusive relationships because of fear of [deportation].”

Apart from key fact findings, the project also includes graphic images, and several videos with titles such as “We are the silent slaves,” “I am not a terrorist,” “The whole process was hell,” and “The Canadian government killed my parents.”

Refugee system The multimedia report also sheds light on Canada’s treatment of refugees.

Since photos of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned while trying to reach Europe, were released on the internet on September 2, Canada’s immigration system has come under scrutiny. The criticism of the system’s slow and inadequate refugee process was intensified when it was revealed that Kurdi’s family had previously applied for asylum in Canada.

Various Canadian parties including the Liberals, Conservatives, and the New Democratic Party (NDP) have made pledges promising more

Stephanie Ngo | Illustrator refugees entry into Canada in the face of the upcoming elections. “[Politicians] only think about numbers and commit to [bringing] over a certain number of Syrian refugees. But that ignores refugees that are coming from all over the world. And the policy changes that have been made over the past nine years [...] need to be reversed.

[They] are causing huge harm to people out in the world,” said Chu. “[Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s] only response to the refugee crisis was to continue to bomb Syria, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Because it’s actually these kinds of policies, where we are engaged in

military operations abroad, that are destroying infrastructure, destroying [homes], and creating a culture of fear and subjugation in the areas where people are living,” stated Savehilaghi. “When these legislations were passed, none of the political parties actually stood against any of them,” noted Savehilaghi.

According to the report, the Conservative government set $15 million towards stripping refugee status off of 875 applications annually.

“It’s quite unfortunate that it had to take the death of children and [a] fatality that is quite high profile for us to become aware. But here we are. We are aware now,” Savehilaghi said.

News

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

5

Labour Day demonstration re-ignites anti-austerity movement Activist organizations to push for collective action

VP Finance announces additional deficit, interim Arts Rep appointed Rayleigh Lee News Writer

O

n September 9, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Legislative Council held its first meeting of the new academic year. After executive members, representatives, and senators updated the councillors on their work over the summer, Council discussed four motions, all of which were adopted.

In his report to the Council, VP Finance Mirza Ali Shakir mentioned that over the past year, AUS has suffered from accounting difficulties, including misclassified transactions, that have led to an inaccurate reflection of AUS’s financial position.

According to Shakir, there were many incorrect entries, one of which was “a double entry of [more than] $106,000.” In addition, the fact that there was no VP Finance in summer 2014 to oversee Frosh finances was another factor that contributed to the deficit.

“We started planning Frosh 2015 with the assumption that Frosh 2014 made a $10,000 loss.

However, midway through June we discovered that the deficit was actually [$30,250], so we had to adjust the Frosh budget by getting rid of many expenses,” Shakir said in an email to The Daily. “Because AUS is a student organization, it is even more important to demonstrate financial transparency.”

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily

Territory acknowledgement President Jacob Greenspon presented a motion regarding the adoption of a traditional territory acknowledgement, according to which AUS would acknowledge that McGill University is situated on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka traditional territory.

This was the second time such a motion was introduced to Council.

According to Arts Senator Erin Sobat, this is because motions passed at AUS “only apply for the mandate of that [particular] Council year, unless something is written into bylaws.”

The motion was first introduced last year as part of a “university-wide push” and a step toward “decolonization,” Greenspon told Council. “It really is a part of a push to get McGill to acknowledge more of the land it occupies.”

In an interview with The Daily, Sobat pointed out the importance of students acknowledging Indigenous territory. “I think it is a starting point for us to develop more initiatives and programs around Indigeneity and decolonization in consultation with Indigenous stakeholders.”

Sobat hopes student associations taking the lead will help improve the relationship between post-secondary institutions and Indigenous communities. “Part of the motivation […] was in looking for McGill to adopt its own

territory acknowledgement. It helps if we can point to student associations that are leading the way.”

SSMU also passed a similar motion last year.

The motion passed with a unanimous vote. The traditional territory acknowledgement is to be stated at all AUS Legislative Council meetings and featured on a prominent position on the AUS website.

Motion to hold by-election for Arts Rep to SSMU A motion to hold a by-election for an Arts Representative to the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) was passed in order to find a replacement for Samiha Sharif, who resigned from the position on September 3. Greenspon proposed a motion for a by-election for the new school year as it is a “more democratic” way to get “a wider pool of people to be involved” than electing from only the members of Council.

While Council voted to hold by-elections toward early October, it also appointed Kat Svikhnushin, who was the Director of Inclusivity and Equity for Arts Frosh and is the VP External of McGill’s Religious Studies Undergraduate Society, as interim representative to attend SSMU Council meetings.

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AUS renews territory acknowledgment

ily.

Ben Goodman, Concordia student

lld a

“Austerity is basically a proven ineffective measure.”

Harvest said, “We think that the real political power comes from the workers, comes from collective organization and direct action.” He added that despite the fact that IWW has no direct stakes in the federal election, it “still aims for an ‘automne chaud’ at the provincial level.”

Labour Day, as a first step toward this goal, saw IWW joined by groups including the Revolutionary Student Movement, the Front d’action socialiste, and Concordia’s Whalebone Collective.

Harvest explained, “I feel like the police basically saw our capabilities organizing May 1, and saw our capabilities of bringing people together and bringing a sense of community to those that don’t have privilege, and I think they’re afraid of that and I think the state is afraid of that. [...] When the state sees workers organizing, it tends to get scared.”

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Public sector workers hit hard by austerity The collective agreements of many public sector workers in Quebec expired on March 31, and a few have already started their renegotiations. The provincial government has expressed its conviction to reach a zero-deficit budget by 2015-16, which goes against the public sector unions’ demand of a 4.5 per cent salary hike per year over the next three years.

Speaking to The Daily, IWW member and acting spokesperson

Nicholas Harvest said, “The reforming of unemployment insurance at the federal level hits employees drastically.” He continued, “There’s huge compressions in the public sector, these teachers are living [in] horrible, horrible working conditions, and they will also find themselves out of a job. […] That, coupled with what’s happened to the [postal workers], it’s a general push towards privatization, we can see that very well.”

Goodman noted, “Austerity is basically a proven ineffective measure, and I think it is frankly silly that is in place.”

@m

at McGill starts actively involving the McGill population in what’s going on in the city that houses it.”

Students are also directly affected by the provincial austerity measures.

According to Goodman, austerity measures greatly affect students: “Especially as we start school, [with] the budget cuts that are going to be taking place [...] it’s frankly unfair.”

tim edia

O

n September 7, around 200 people gathered in Parc des Faubourgs to protest the austerity measures of the Quebec government. Groups of Service de Police de la ville de Montréal (SPVM) officers, some wearing riot gear, were also present, with more around the area in squad cars and vans.

The march launched from Parc des Faubourgs, with the demonstrators carrying picket signs with the words “PLQ dégage” (Parti libéral du Québec, get out!) and “Respect existence or expect resistance.”

The group then marched down Ontario until St. Hubert, continuing on to the entrance of the BerriUQAM metro station. The group largely dispersed after police barricaded the doors to the metro and occupied one of the platforms.

A smaller group of just over

100 people reconvened at a small park near the Frontenac metro station, at around 7:15 p.m.. They marched until Dézéry, then dispersed as SPVM officers arrived with over 15 vans, cars, and buses.

However, the anti-austerity activities in the park had started earlier that day. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) met to celebrate Labour Day with workers and public service employees, including nurses, social service workers, and postal service workers.

Some demonstrators were there because they are facing increasing economic insecurity. Others, like McGill student Connor Spencer and Concordia student Ben Goodman, were there in solidarity with public service employees.

In an interview with The Daily, Spencer said that things could change “if McGill starts paying attention and caring a little bit, if the student union

mul

Julia Bugiel News Writer

6

News

September 14, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

No justice for undocumented youth Solidarity Across Borders calls out Mayor Coderre

Vincent Simboli News Writer

S

olidarity Across Borders (SAB), a migrant justice network based in Montreal, held a rally in front of City Hall on September 4 to demand Mayor Denis Coderre to take a public position concerning the actions of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), namely entering schools to detain undocumented students. The demonstrators were escorted to the basement and told to leave by security. That same day, Coderre met with Green Party MP Elizabeth May and told her that Montreal is ready to welcome Syrian refugees.

“There [are] things he could do immediately, like ordering the SPVM never to go into high schools. [...] That’s making it safe for refugees here.

That’s welcoming refugees here.”

Mary Foster, member of “Bring Daniel Home” The rally was part of SAB’s “Bring Daniel Home” campaign, which was launched in March after the deportation of Daniel*, an undocumented minor, unaccompanied, to Mexico from a Montreal high school in October 2014.

As per SAB, Daniel and his family left Mexico in 2008 due to great insecurity in Mexico City.

Daniel, who is partially deaf, and his mother made the decision to come to Canada believing that life with a disability was significantly more difficult in Mexico.

The family applied for refugee status and was refused in 2010, but decided to stay in Canada as undocumented immigrants. In January 2014, after six years of living and attending public schools in Montreal, Daniel was told by his high school administration that if his mother did not pay registration fees, they would call Immigration

Kevin Da Silva Castanheira| Illustrator Canada. SAB explained that to be able to continue his education without fear of deportation, Daniel changed high schools.

According to SAB, most undocumented families are annually billed $6,000 for each child attending public school in Quebec, although this is applied intermittently.

On October 8, 2014, Daniel’s 17th birthday, he went to his old high school to visit his friends.

Immediately, he was targeted by security and the SPVM was called.

Daniel was arrested by SPVM officers before being taken to the Canadia Border Services Agency (CBSA), which subsequently detained him in solitary confinement for one week in the Laval Immigration Detention Centre.

Despite filing a permanent residence application on humanitarian grounds, Daniel was deported without his family back to Mexico on October 16, 2014.

“Bring Daniel Home” Mary Foster, a member of the “Bring Daniel Home” campaign committee, explained in an interview with The Daily her frustrations with the mayor’s “disheartening” response to the rally. “[The mayor’s team] didn’t show any interest. They didn’t seem to respect the point of view that the members of the Montreal community have. [...] We were basically treated like people who

are not community members, who the mayor was responsible to, but as nuisances – people that don’t have any voice.”

“People are not undocumented in Canada for no reason. They come to Canada as refugees, as people seeking a better life,” Foster said.

In an interview with The Daily, Noé Arteaga, another member of SAB and a former temporary migrant worker, explained that a common myth in discussions of international migration is that Canada’s laws make the process of immigration, seeking asylum, and integrating refugees into mainstream society simple.

However, according to CBSA statistics from 2013, Canadian immigration officials accepted only 5,790 people that year while deporting over 10,000 people, most of whom were refused as refugees. Others who take the risk to ignore deportation orders are estimated to number up to hundreds of thousands.

“The first and most difficult challenge to overcome is the linguistic one; a migrant worker will have a hard time understanding how locals speak and making themselves understood.

Moreover, the obligatory processes are difficult and bureaucratic, which the language problem makes harder,” Arteaga told The Daily in Spanish.

“Many of the people seeking refugee status either don’t know about, or don’t have the proper

documents needed to legally obtain immigrant or refugee status,” said Arteaga, adding, “These are things that maybe the refugees did have at one time, but were not prepared to bring with them to Canada to present to immigration officials.”

“Many of the people seeking refugee status either don’t know about, or don’t have the proper documents needed to legally obtain immigrant or refugee status.”

Noé Arteaga, member of SAB According to a SAB press release, the number of refugee claims in Canada decreased by 50 per cent and the number of accepted refugees dropped by 30 per cent between 2006 and 2012.

Foster noted, “[Refugees] end up non-status in Canada, because [the CBSA is] systematically excluding people from Canada.

[Coderre’s statement regarding

Syrian refugees] shows either a huge lack of understanding of the issue or a lack of will to understand the issue. It’s surprising to me that [Coderre] would not know that there are already many refugees right here in Montreal who are undocumented.”

Foster explained that the best way for Coderre to truly make Montreal “ready to accept refugees” is to make life less difficult for undocumented refugees already living in the city, especially minors.

“There [are] things he could do immediately, like ordering the SPVM never to go into high schools. [...] It’s within his power to do that,” Foster said. “That’s making it safe for refugees here.

That’s welcoming refugees here.”

Through the “Bring Daniel Home” campaign, SAB is demanding the federal and provincial governments to prohibit the SPVM from entering schools with the express purpose of detaining undocumented immigrants, and the extension of amnesty on humanitarian grounds for minors and/or people with disabilities who do not have papers.

SAB will be staging a large-scale public demonstration on October 10, at Norman Bethune Square to march against deportations, and to call attention to the local, provincial, and federal government’s lack of response to this situation. * Real name has been changed.

On

Thursday, September 17 will elect the rest of

the staff of

The McGill Daily

the 2015-2016 editorial board.

We hope you’ll consider running for one of our open positions. If you are interested in joining our nonhierarchical team, here’s a quick guide on the election process for becoming a Daily editor.

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Commentary

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

8

Recovering from austerity

Beyond reformist solutions and toward anti-capitalism Gregoire Beaune Commentary Writer

T

oday marks the beginning of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s antiausterity week, a series of workshops and events about austerity politics, their impact, and why they should be stopped immediately.

For some of you, austerity doesn’t mean much. For others, it means student strikes that push back your graduation date and scary speeches by politicians about the financial health of the province. For most of us, it means a worsening quality of life, decreasing disposable income, and the gradual destruction of the public services that we depend on as a society. In Quebec, the Liberal government, elected in 2014, has cut healthcare by 30 per cent and imposed huge budget cuts to the education sector, $45 million at McGill alone.

This draconian slashing of public services – in Quebec and worldwide – has a clear political purpose. In fact, austerity is one of the many tools of class warfare, waged by the economic elite on the rest of the population. In order to effectively fight back against austerity, we must examine its ideological justification and dispel some of the myths that are used to legitimize both austerity and the fundamentally flawed ‘solutions’ to austerity that are enacted within the capitalist system.

The neoliberal logic of austerity goes as follows. As debt becomes ‘unsustainable,’ public economic expenditures are cut back, and wages and benefits are decreased.

Corporate and financial taxes (which are currently at a historic low) can then be reduced, allowing private companies free reign to ‘stimulate economic growth.’ Governments are further pressured to privatize public services, roll back labour and environmental protection laws, and sell public land at absurdly cheap prices for resource extraction, as all this is deemed necessary for private companies to remain competitive and profitable.

We should ask who benefits from increased profits when wages are cut down, and when public services designed to, at the very least, limit an increasing level of inequality, are damaged irrevocably. It certainly is not the university student, who sees their tuition increase while their part-time job salary decreases, nor is it the new immigrant, nor the single mother, nor anybody else who fundamen-

tally depends on public services to mitigate situations of precarity.

Those who do benefit are the owners of the profiting companies, the economic and political elites, well-secured with six-, seven-, and eight-figure salaries. Decreased labour costs and corporate taxes can lead to a sudden surge in profits, as well as highly misleading statistical indicators like a growing GDP or decreasing unemployment.

They are misleading because the profits are never redistributed in any way, and remain squarely in the pockets of the bourgeoisie, and because the majority of new jobs are actually part-time, non-unionized, and provide a salary well under a living wage.

Since the 2008 economic crisis, inequalities have drastically risen, especially in countries where neoliberal ideology is well-ingrained, and where austerity policies have been in place for several years now. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) itself has stated that the policies it has implemented since the crisis were misguided and ineffective, highly reminiscent of the infamous Structural Adjustment Programs of the 1980s and 1990s – loans to countries in crisis in exchange for trade liberalization and decreased government intervention. Yet, this has not precluded the IMF from continuing to push similar policies now, irrational as this ideological thinking may be. Indeed, austerity is more than policies: it is an ideology that is entrenched in all spheres of society, from university campuses to government offices.

If we want to defeat austerity for good, we must attack its root cause: capitalism.

We must also remember that austerity is not new. The policies that accompany it have been influential for many decades, returning in times of crisis and fading into the background in times of relative stability. For example, in the U.S. recession of 1973-75, the bourgeoisie was fearful of inflation and demanded lower wages and lower government spending. The result, according to Canadian academic James Rinehart, was mass unemployment and the collapse of inflation-adjusted wages by 1985. If this

sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

Each time austerity is temporarily pushed back – by more ‘progressive’ capitalist policies, by mass resistance, or by a combination of both – it resurges more powerful than ever.

Bearded ghostly Marx would not be surprised. Indeed, he explained the reason for, and the potential outcome of, austerity politics more than a century ago. Marx argued that capitalist economic theories miss a fundamental point: the cause for economic crises and the systemic imperative for capitalists to push for ever more profits are fundamentally intertwined.

As the rate of gains in productivity decreases, Marx argued, the general rate of profit also decreases, as capitalists are able to extract less profits from the workers’ labour. In turn, through crises and economic slowdown, capitalism restructures itself to restore profitability, but at the cost of a drop in investment and an increase in unemployment.

The historical recurrence of austerity shows that Marx’s analysis was essentially correct. This is why challenging austerity by pushing for a fairer taxation system, higher corporate taxes, and public sector investment policies is only a temporary fix, a bandaid on a severed artery. If we want to defeat austerity for good, we must attack its root cause: capitalism. The only way to ensure that austerity won’t come back is to bury the system that makes it possible in the shameful depths of history.

Alternatives to austerity within the capitalist framework inevitably tend to have a productivist mindset, which means that they emphasize growth, even though, devastatingly, continued growth requires unsustainable use of resources. Social and economic justice cannot come about through means that also exacerbate climate change and environmental destruction, which already disproportionately impact people in disadvantaged communities through droughts, increased levels of migration, higher levels of violence over the control of resources, and increased food prices. According to Oxfam, 20 per cent of the world population will be at risk of hunger by 2050 due to expected drops in global food production. By allowing continued oil extraction from Alberta tar sands, Canada causes damage to its own environment, such as

Austerity banner.

Marie Labrosse | Photographer

by contaminating groundwater reserves. Even more importantly, Canada is also complicit in environmental destruction worldwide, with many of its mining corporations ruthlessly extracting resources across the world, particularly in Latin America.

Thankfully, such temporary reformist solutions are not the only choices at our disposal. As university students, we have much more power than we think. Economic disruptions, departmental strikes, occupations of public and private spaces – all of these can have a real impact. As students in Quebec, we can organize along with the labour movement through a combative student federation like the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ). By emulating organizations such as these, we can build autonomous and direct democratic local structures that control both economic production and public decisions. This can lead to a fundamental reorganization of society, based partly in international solidarity, in a way that

spells the end of economic exploitation, ecological destruction, and nationalistic thinking.

Anti-austerity is thus necessarily anti-capitalist if it is to amount to anything in the long run. It must radically disengage from mainstream politics, building alternative and direct democratic structures to prefigure the future. We must also remember that if our movements gain enough momentum to actually impact and alter electoral and parliamentary politics, then they also have enough momentum to radically change society outside of mainstream politics. So let’s help build that momentum. A good place to start is with the events scheduled throughout this week, which aim to demonstrate the real power we have as students and provide us with concrete examples of radical struggle.

Gregoire Beaune is a U3 Philosophy and Political Science student.

To contact him, email gregoire. beaune@mail.mcgill.ca.

Commentary

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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The Unfair Elections Act

How one piece of legislation could shape the federal election Erin Dwyer Commentary Writer

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ntroduced in February 2014, the Conservative-backed Fair Elections Act (Bill C-25), which aims to crack down on voter fraud, is now a fully enacted bill that raises major red flags for its disenfranchising effects. With the federal elections coming up in October of this year, many Canadians are questioning if this is actually the most effective method to ensure secure voting. The motivation behind the act seems fair enough, at face value. However, the implementation methods detailed in the bill have many damaging side effects, including the disenfranchisement of multiple vulnerable voting blocks, potentially giving the Conservative Party an unfair advantage in the upcoming federal election.

The objective of this act, according to the Canadian government, is to crack down on voter fraud. One of the central tactics it employs is changing the documents required to demonstrate voter eligibility. In April 2014, Minister of Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre claimed that “in a 21st century democracy, where people are required to produce ID to drive a car [...] it is common sense to expect people to show ID to demonstrate who they are when they vote.”

According to the Assembly of First Nations, there are 51 electoral districts, out of a total of 338 in Canada, where Indigenous voters could swing the results.

However, the bill treads in dangerously undemocratic waters by manipulating how, or even if, some Canadians can cast their vote. It eliminates the use of vouching – being identified by a person in your area if you lack proper identification or proof of address – or a voter information card as ways of identification at the polls. According to the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, 120,000 and 400,000 people respectively used these methods to cast a ballot in the last election. Vouching and voter info cards are primarily used by people who can prove their

Cassandra Ryan | Illustrator identity, but not their residence.

Many under the age of 25 find themselves shuffling between the different locations of home, school, and work more than two or three times a year, which can make having the correct ID that the Fair Elections Act now requires especially tricky.

Putting this into perspective, over one million people aged between 18 and 25 voted in the 2011 federal election. If many of these voters no longer have the correct identification, it could significantly sway outcomes toward parties less popular with the younger generation. According to the Globe and Mail, Canadians under 35 are more left-leaning than their older counterparts. This indicates that removing a large amount of these voters from the electoral picture could highly benefit the Conservative Party.

In addition to diluting the voices of Canada’s youth, elimination of vouching and the use of voter info cards gives people without an address little chance of making it to the ballot box. According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, in 2010-11 there were more than 62,700 admissions to the main homeless shelters in Montreal alone, and at least 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness in any given year, according to the CBC. It is common for homeless individuals to be victims of theft or lose their ID, or not have one in the first place.

The Fair Elections Act blatantly fails

to accommodate the displaced and those without addresses, negating the idea of democracy altogether.

This could affect the upcoming election, as these 200,000 voters are not randomly selected from the voting pool; in fact, there could be significant benefits to the Conservative Party with people who are homeless voting less.

As reported by the Toronto Star, “Social programs long valued by Canadians are in the Conservatives’ crosshairs.” This can be seen in cuts to federal healthcare, stricter criteria for receiving employment insurance, and cuts to the country’s national affordable housing strategy, which is an initiative to find housing for people who are homeless.

The overlap between people most likely to be negatively affected by these cuts and people most likely to be disenfranchised by the Fair Elections Act is hard to ignore.

The Fair Elections Act may have an innocuous name, but its effects in October will likely be anything but.

Indigenous people in Canada will be strongly impacted by these adjustments in identification re-

quirements as well. As stated in the Fair Elections Act, each citizen must have at least one ID that includes full name and address.

This can be particularly difficult for people who live on reserves, where individuals do not always have a specific address. Previously, a band chief could vouch for multiple voters. Now, voters who live on reserves need to obtain a letter from their band council that verifies their address. While many Indigenous leaders, such as Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, have been calling on Indigenous people to vote in the upcoming election, additional roadblocks on the way to the polls could compound their historically low voter turnout. According to the Assembly of First Nations, there are 51 electoral districts, out of a total of 338 in Canada, where Indigenous voters could swing the results. This amounts to the simple fact that the Fair Elections Act and its impact could decide the outcome of the election altogether.

With this in mind, many Indigenous people, and the non-Conservative parties that they are more likely than the general population to support, are concerned about what kind of voice they will have come October.

Voter ID restrictions that, in effect, prevent specific demographics of people from voting are not specific to Canada. Various voter

ID laws passed by American states prior to the 2012 presidential election, supposedly to prevent voter fraud, were criticized for disproportionately affecting Black Americans and Latino Americans. Is this something we want to have in common with our southern neighbours? Along with an unfair advantage for the Conservative Party come October, we should consider what the Fair Elections Act says about the quality of Canadian democracy. By passing this bill, the government is sending the message that it is fine with depriving certain citizens of representation in government.

The Fair Elections Act may have an innocuous name, but its effects in October will likely be anything but.

This bill will significantly impact Canadians across the country, particularly youth and already marginalized communities. With corrupt parties and sneaky politicians at every turn, voting is one of the few, if small, ways that Canadians can attempt to hold Ottawa accountable.

Legislation like the Fair Elections Act undermines the fundamental characteristics of a democracy, making it undeserving of its name and, more importantly, undeserving of the support of Canadians.

Erin Dwyer is a U0 Mathematics and Political Science student.

To contact her, please email erin. dwyer@mail.mcgill.ca.

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Commentary

September 14, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Bringing sex ed back

Mandatory sex education should be taught by qualified educators Maximillian Segal Commentary Writer

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t the end of the summer, the Quebec Ministry of Education launched a pilot project for the reintroduction of a sex education program in Quebec schools. In 2001, sex education stopped being taught as a standalone topic, and was instead integrated into other subjects at the discretion of school boards and individual teachers. In 2005, it was virtually removed from the curriculum entirely. This new pilot project, which trails similar initiatives in British Columbia and Ontario, will require 15 schools to incorporate at least five hours a year of sex education at the primary level and 15 hours a year in high school of mandatory sex education classes; the Quebec government hopes to expand the program to all schools by 2017. The reestablishment of mandatory sex education is good news. It is high time to start treating the topic like any other subject in schools – if anything, sex education will have more of an impact on a student’s daily life than the average academic class. At the same time, the rush for implementation should not impact the quality of the program: the sex education reform must be paired with an oversight body to set standards to vet educators and emphasize consent in class.

Sex education is a necessary part of the school curriculum, and has consistently been shown to help young people make positive decisions about sex and to adopt healthy sexual behaviours.

Although critics of mandatory sex education suggest that it is a matter best addressed within the confines of the home, this isn’t a realistic approach. In many families, the subject remains too taboo to be discussed with the openness required for effective sex education. The omnipresence of sex in media from online pornography, to advertising, to films makes access to accurate sex education classes all the more necessary to cut through the high levels of misrepresentative information that is

so available to young people. Sex is an industry, a science, a social concept, and a part of identity; it is too complex to remain a ‘household science.’

Despite its importance, sex education in Quebec is currently in an abysmal state. According to Marlo Turner-Ritchie, former executive director of Head & Hands, a community health and support organization for Montreal youth, the 2001 reform “has effectively eliminated sex education from our schools” – and there are consequences. The number of cases of chlamydia in Quebec increased by 55 per cent between 2005 and 2011, and the number of women between 15 and 24 who contracted gonorrhea between 2004 and 2008 increased by 400 per cent.

The lack of information on sexually transmitted infections available to young people has clearly taken a serious toll on public health. A drastic change in sex education is needed.

Sexual health requires that healthy behaviours be widespread among the population, and – much like vaccinations – full participation in the program is necessary for the best results.

Without a doubt, the most contentious part of this project is the ‘no exemptions’ policy: no exemptions from attendance will be permitted, for religious reasons or otherwise. There is no guarantee that parents who withdraw their chil-

Jason Da Silva Castanheira | Illustrator dren from sex education will provide them with comparable information at home. Yet, sexual health requires that healthy behaviours be widespread among the population, and much like vaccinations – full participation in the program is necessary for the best results.

Just as crucially, the program will include consent education; Ministry of Education spokesperson Pascal Ouellet noted “preventing sexual assaults [and] violence in romantic relations” as goals of the new curriculum. As children often learn and practice social norms of communication and interaction at school, where moral standards can be ingrained, it is thus the ideal place for consent education. While some argue that being forced to expose their children to information about sex and sexuality is a violation of their freedom of choice or religion, this argument is not applicable. Just as learning about different religions in school is different from being mandated to practice them, access to age-appropriate information about sex is not the same as the endorsement or encouragement of sexual behaviour and violates nei-

ther a child’s nor a parent’s freedom of religion or choice.

This initiative is not without drawbacks, however. While the Quebec government aims to treat sex education like a regular academic subject, teaching standards of the class remain vastly subpar.

The government offers only a half-day of training to school administrators, and a day and a half of training to those responsible for implementing the courses.

In turn, those people will decide what training is necessary for teachers in the classroom. This training will likely take the form of workshops, with a Ministry spokesperson having stated that “a few hours” would be sufficient.

Without further formal training, it’s likely that many teachers will be greatly underprepared.

Instead, these classes should be taught by qualified sex educators, for whom the certification process usually takes a week. Without teachers able to instruct students effectively, the program to aid Quebec’s collective sexual health is likely to be unsuccessful.

One way to ensure the quality of the program would be to estab-

lish a regulatory board, or other form of organized oversight, to make sure that curriculum guidelines are being followed effectively. While it might not be possible to have sexual health experts actually teach all the course content, such individuals should serve as points of both reference and enforcement to educators.

We should certainly hope that the pilot program will come to fruition and be implemented province-wide; however, the program will not be effective unless it is taught by qualified professionals and incorporates consent education at all levels. Sexuality is inevitably a part of the public discourse. Our education system has the opportunity to steer this discourse and its effects in a positive direction, but this will only be possible with an unwavering commitment to the comprehensive and competent teaching of the program.

Maximillian Segal is a U1 International Development Studies and Software Engineering student. To contact him, please email maximillian.segal@mail.mcgill.ca.

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Coming out of a white queer world Dismantling the myth of the global LGBTQI community

Written by Melis Ă&#x2021;aÄ&#x;an Illustrations by Lia Elbaz

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Features

September 14, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

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hen I started questioning my sexuality, I dealt with it the way I deal with everything in my life: I looked into it on the internet. I found online pamphlets about “how to accept your sexuality” and read articles that “proved that being gay was natural.” (Homosexuality is found in 450 species, homophobia is found in one, am I right?) I watched videos of people telling their stories of how “things got better.” That’s when I first encountered the term “coming out.” All the people in the stories I read, which I later realized were overwhelmingly white, told me “things would be better” once I told everyone around me that I’m gay, and if I did get rejected by my family and friends, all I had to do was find my “chosen family.” Being raised in Turkey, where sex ed doesn’t even exist, talking about my sexual orientation with my family seemed like the most uncomfortable thing I could imagine. But all the stories I read seemed to suggest that this “coming out” was a necessary part of being gay. This is an account of the unbearable whiteness of visible gay and lesbian narratives.

“The idea of a global LGBTQI movement is internalized even by those who do not have a say in this movement and are most of the time left outside of it.”

In contrast to some intersectional feminist movements, most white gay people do not identify as part of a subculture whose internal diversity requires acknowledgement and adjustment, especially recently. Rather, they locate questions of power and injustice firmly outside their community. This idea of a group that doesn’t have power structures within itself creates the illusion that there exists a global homogeneous LGBTQI community, made up of people that share the same ideas, the same values, and the same struggles that they fight for together. What is problematic about this global LGBTQI community (among many other things) is that its “agenda” – what it’s fighting for –

is determined for the most part by cis white gay men. And queer people of colour in Western countries, but also especially those abroad from the metropole of this queer hegemony, usually don’t have a say in it.

One example of the discrepancies between these different agendas and needs is the varying attitudes of queer people toward the military. In Turkey, one of the biggest issues for the LGBTQI movement is mandatory military service. All people who were assigned male at birth, who have a blue ID card (it’s literally blue, this is not a metaphor), have to serve in the military for about a year and a half sometime between the ages of 20 and 41.

This, of course, is a huge problem for queer

men and trans women who face a lot of violence from both their fellow soldiers and their commanders while they are serving.

There is one way to get out of military service, which is getting a statement from the military hospital that declares you unfit to serve due to what they call “a psychosexual anomaly.” Gay men have to go in front of a jury of five or six doctors and prove their homosexuality, which, more often than not, includes showing pictures of themselves having sex with another man. But that creates even more problems for most people, because many businesses ask for the military documents of men during the hiring process, and having “didn’t serve due to a psy-

chosexual anomaly” on your records doesn’t exactly increase your prospects of getting a job. Because of this, the LGBTQI movement in Turkey is pretty anti-military and argues for the government to grant people the right to not serve in the military as conscientious objectors.

This is in direct contrast with the LGBTQI movement in the U.S., which fought for and celebrated the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” doctrine, a U.S. military policy that allowed gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans soldiers to invade foreign countries or operate drones, as long as they did not openly talk about their sexuality or gender. What is interesting to me about this is that when this policy got repealed

Features “While words put you in a box and allow people to associate things with you that might not necessarily apply, actions allow you to determine the facets of your own identity and also allow it to change over time.” in the U.S., a lot of LGBTQI people in Turkey also celebrated – often the same ones who oppose mandatory military service and are against the military industrial complex. This serves to show that the idea of a global LGBTQI movement is internalized even by those who do not have a say in this movement and who are most of the time left outside of it.

But the fact that the military would be a part of this international gay identity is not surprising. Going back to the idea that white gays believe that questions of power dynamics exist only outside the community, they also tend to see communities of colour only as perpetrators of homophobia. Individual queers of colour are seen as “exceptions” who have liberated themselves from their “repressive cultures.” However, since they are a part of “those” communities, they need white gays to save them from their backgrounds.

This is what Jasbir Puar argues in her book, Terrorist Assemblages. She has coined the term homonationalism, which refers to a new “civilizing mission” based on the idea that how a country treats its LGBTQI population is a barometer for civilization. The idea that Muslim countries and/or African countries are inherently homophobic and misogynistic is used as a means to justify U.S. and European intervention in those countries. Afghanistan is

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily a great example of this because of the popular narrative of U.S. intervention having the aim of saving the women and, more recently, the gays of Afghanistan from the cruel Muslim fundamentalists. It also portrays Western countries as morally superior to these “backward” countries.

These assumptions of immorality have also influenced people’s ability to immigrate to Western countries. For example, in 2007, Germany introduced what became known as the “Muslim test” for immigrants, asking them questions such as “What do you think of gay people?” and “Would you beat your wife?”in an attempt to preserve what they called a German tradition of tolerance toward women and LGBTQI people. This is ironic, considering Germany began recognizing same-sex partnerships in 2001, so this was actually only a six-year tradition.

This white saviour complex is not only satisfied through military operations andgovernment policies, but also through humanitarian campaigns. Petitions to stop homophobia in “backwards countries” pop up daily on Facebook. One such campaigner, Peter Tatchell from England, is described in his personal webpage by one of his coworkers as follows: “Peter’s human rights campaigns have gone global. His successes mean he is deluged with requests for help from activists all over the world. To meet these demands he is working 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Such a huge workload is damaging his health and is unsustainable. We need to raise enough money to get Peter a fully equipped office and full-time staff support.” Now who exactly is demanding this service from Peter is unclear, but the undertones of “the white man’s burden” image are very clear.

What white gay activists refuse to understand is that, most of the time these campaigns backfire because they’re started without consulting the people who actually live in those countries. In 2007, African LGBTQI human rights defenders wrote a press release directed at Peter Tatchell that said, “Stay out of African LGBTI issues. You have proven that you have no respect for conveying the truth with regards to Africa or consulting African LGBTI leaders before carrying out campaigns that have severe consequences in our countries. You have betrayed our trust over and over again. This is neo-colonialism and it has no place in our struggle or in Africa.”

Aside from Western activists doing what they think is the right thing without gaining an understanding of the area in question, the work done by local LGBTQI rights activists in the Middle East and Africa are usually not

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recognized by the Western mainstream. For example, in Palestine, there are two main queer organizations. The first is called Aswat and focuses primarily on queer women. One of the most important things Aswat has done is translating publications on queer issues into Arabic and creating an Arabic glossary of queer terms to provide a common language for people to talk about their experiences.

This glossary is a form of activism in itself, as it aims to increase the presence of women’s sexuality and lesbianism in the Arabic language and culture, by forming an alternative vocabulary and a “mother tongue” with positive, non-derogatory, and affirmative expressions of different genders and sexualities.

The other group is al Qaws (which means “rainbow” in Arabic) and it focuses on the particular experiences of Palestinian queers living under occupation. Because of its intersectional understanding of Palestinian queer identities, al Qaws focuses its activism on fighting the patriarchal and heteronormative structures of the society the group exists in, as well as opposing settler-colonialism. The work al Qaws does opposing the occupation has gained respect throughout Palestine, allowing the group to hold forums on sexuality and host cultural events to raise awareness on queer issues, slowly changing conceptions of LGBTQI issues in Palestine. Both of these groups focus more on informing civil society and grassroots change, rather than legal changes such as marriage equality and adoption rights, which is different from the

tirety of these communities against queer rights in this “us, the liberal West versus them, the backward East” mentality, makes it harder to spread awareness and understanding in our own communities without being seen as brainwashed.

I did eventually come out to my parents like the people I read about on the internet. I spent weeks trying to find the right words to use, so that it didn’t sound like I “became gay” in Canada. Though it was hard for them to understand at first, since they’ve never talked to a queer person before, we’ve had many conversations since and have a great relationship now.

Yet even though there is a happy ending to my coming out story, if I could go back I wouldn’t have come out to my parents.

In my conversations with other queer people (especially other queer people of colour) in the past year, we have talked about the difference between actions and words in creating identity. While words put you in a box and allow people to associate things with you that might not necessarily apply, actions allow you to determine the facets of your own identity and also allow it to change over time. It encourages the building of understanding and respect without necessarily having to have conversations that would go against what makes sense for your relationship with someone. So, for example, while I will never talk to my grandmother about my sexuality – because you just don’t talk about sex with your grandparents in Turkey – I know that she has developed some sort

majority of Western LGBTQI rights movements. This might be one of the reasons why Palestinian queer activism is not recognized

by Euro-American liberals, since it is different from the narrative of progress accepted by these groups.

Placing communities of colour as inherently homophobic, and anti-homophobic dialogues as exclusively a white thing, is extremely detrimental to queers in said communities. Oftentimes, it’s even a racist phenomenon, considering the prevalence of Islamophobic and anti-Black sentiments among white gay activists. Pitting the en-

of understanding of who I am. I also know that she has learned to accept it, which she makes manifest through the clothes that she buys me for my birthday, getting me things that I actually like to wear.

Yet these stories never make it to the “it gets better” videos or pamphlets of mainstream queer associations in the West. So if white allies actually want to help create social change in countries and communities other than their own, instead of buying into the idea that LGBTQI people experience the same things no matter who and where they are, they can start by listening to our stories and respecting them.

“Placing communities of colour as inherently homophobic, and anti-homophobic dialogues as exclusively a white thing is extremely detrimental to queers in said communities.”

Sci+Tech

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Health concerns in the digital age

On wifi, radiofrequency fields, and possible carcinogen status

Sivakami Mylvaganam The McGill Daily

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n this day and age, life without wifi seems almost unimaginable.

We use it all the time for class, work, and at home – some of us even fall asleep with our phones on our faces – without thinking about any effects it may have on our health.

However, recent reports urge caution and recommend limiting use of wifi and other radiofrequency (RF) field-emitting devices, such as cell phones, baby monitors, and microwaves, and indicate a possible link between wifi and cancer.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified wifi as a group 2B “possible carcinogen.” In group 2B, it joins gasoline engine exhaust, lead, welding fumes, and talc-based powders as agents that could possibly cause cancer in humans. Though it is probably a good idea to steer clear of many of the 287 substances on this IARC list, some, like talcum baby powder, seem pretty harmless. Surely this reclassification of RF field-emitting devices as yet another thing that causes cancer is nothing more than public fear mongering?

Not true, University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Professor Anthony Miller tells The Daily. “There are numerous studies on cells and animals that show that low doses of [RF] fields can impair biological processes,” he says in an email. Miller believes wifi and RF fields should in fact be classified as group 2A “probably carcinogenic to humans,” putting it on par with inorganic lead compounds and DDT.

“We cannot confirm they are safe, [so] people should reduce their exposure to as low as reasonably achievable.”

Anthony Miller U of T professor at Dalla Lana School of Public Health Miller cites findings published in 2011 by the International Journal of Oncology and other journals in recent years that indicate a relationship between exposure to RF fields and cancer. “I would ask [the public] to carefully reconsider,” he responds when asked about those who dismiss warnings that wifi might be dangerous.

Miller is not alone. This year,

Conservative MP Terence Young has pushed to pass a bill requiring warning labels on all wireless devices sold in Canada, including cell phones, wifi routers and baby monitors. Young has pointed out that manufacturers including Apple, Motorola, and Blackberry already publish health warnings about their own devices, but these notices are not easy to find. He claims his bill would ensure the same warnings are prominently placed on the device or its package.

A primary concern is wifi equipment being installed in many public places, as this will mean an increase in the amount of RF fields the general public is exposed to. Due to this fear, France banned wifi in nursery and primary schools at the end of January. Frank Clegg, the chief executive officer of Canadians for Safe Technology (C4ST), a group aiming to raise awareness about public health issues, tells The Daily that this concern is well founded following “significant consultation with scientists.” He refers to a C4ST declaration signed by over 50 international scientists expressing concern over Canada’s current tech safety guidelines.

The research of neurologist Martha Herbert from Harvard Medical School indicates that radiation from cell phones penetrates deep into children’s heads and can

Tips for limiting your exposure to RF field-emitting devices

damage cells. Her research has also indicated a likely link between autism and RF field exposure.

Even so, many people still don’t take these concerns seriously. As U3 McGill student Joseph Yang puts it, “It’s fear mongering for sure. These days apparently anything can give you cancer, so I’ll take my chances.” There is general cynicism about the classification of certain agents as “possibly carcinogenic” even among scientists.

A 2013 article called “Is everything we eat associated with cancer?” published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition references other compounds listed under the 2B classification of the IARC. The paper found that while most of the food ingredients studied were associated with cancer risk by individual studies, when looked at more broadly, many of the studies contradicted one another, with one saying an ingredient was carcinogenic and another documenting its benefits. Not to mention, opponents of the reclassification of wifi point out that most research looks at the correlation between cell phone use and gliomas, or malignant tumors, and say the links drawn by most of these studies are negligible or have problems with their design.

Miller suggests the reclassi-

Jason Da Silva Castanheira Illustrator fication of wifi to a group 2B carcinogen and the proposed visible warning labels by Young have the effect of educating the public and taking precautionary measures.

“What is needed is a change of culture on RF fields. We cannot confirm they are safe, [so] people should reduce their exposure to as low as reasonably achievable, the same precautionary principle we have used for ionizing radiation [such as X-rays] for decades.”

Even if strong links between RF field-emitting devices and cancer have not yet been fully established, erring on the side of caution seems in the best interest of the general public until the long-term effects of RF field exposure, and its link to cancer, are established.

Though the link between RF-field exposure and cancer is not clear, Anthony Miller recommends that people try to reduce their exposure to wireless devices.

If you have a baby, try sleeping in the same room as it instead of using a baby monitor, or keep the monitor a bit further away in the room, as Use speakerphone, an earpiece, or a headset when talking on the opposed to right next to the crib. phone.

Don’t keep your wireless router near your kids’ Keeping your cell away from your body reduces your exposure, so rooms, and perhaps turn it off at night and when carry it in a backpack or purse instead of directly on your person. you are not using it.

Place your wifi router far away from your bed Sleep next to an outer wall, to minimize your proximity to both your router and other routers in your building if you live in an apartment Consider turning off your router at night and other times when you’re not using it.

Jill Bachelder | The McGill Daily

Sci+Tech

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Cultivating sustainability at McGill My experience with the Mac campus student garden

Chris Wrobel Sci+Tech Writer

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t was 7 a.m. and already hot when I visited the Macdonald Studentrun Ecological Gardens (MSEG) last July. It was harvest day at the gardens, where the group was growing over an acre of fruits and vegetables. The entrance to the project was marked by four herb spirals, which are vertically structured gardens that are highly productive and energy efficient, allowing one to stack plants to maximize space.

The MSEG garden was launched by a group of students, including myself, in 2010, and is meant to educate students and the greater community about sustainable food production. It now contributes food to the McGill and Montreal communities, and provides opportunities for students to do important research on agriculture and sustainability.

There are currently over sixty different crop species in this acre, arranged to produce a larger amount of vegetables per unit area in a more sustainable manner than the traditional row method in agriculture. Along with common vegetables such as carrots and kale, there are some new additions such as artichokes and okra; chickens lay eggs and consume previously harvested vegetables’ discarded biomass. On one side of the acre is a circular vegetable garden with paths and keyholes that divide it into segments like a pie. This segmented design is quite often used in permaculture to save time and resources, as its circular shape minimizes water waste on the fringes of the garden and watering the crops takes less time.

When I visited the garden in the summer, I was very happy to see how well this project had evolved from when it started several years ago. The garden had been supported by Chandra Madramootoo, former dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, even though its aim was to question the way in which agricultural practices were being taught at McGill with regard to water management and row planting. Before this proj-

Mac student garden at the McGill Farmers’ Market. ect, I had lost a few battles I had engaged in to enhance sustainability on both McGill campuses. But the MSEG succeeded.

The MSEG project began in 2009. Several of us students dreamed of having a student-run farm on the Macdonald campus.

The MSEG project, for which I was an advisor, was intended to do what some other universities had already done: set up a sustainable food production system with minimal inputs that would give students hands-on experience in growing vegetables.

In addition, it was intended to provide the McGill and surrounding communities with a demonstration site for workshops, and the opportunity for research in ecological agro-systems and resource use.

This project was also meant to help encourage new research opportunities at McGill in the growing global bioeconomy, an area that the University must continue to invest in since tens of thousands of jobs

Jill Bachelder | The McGill Daily

will be created in it in the future.

Conventional agriculture typically uses fossil fuel, water, and topsoil at unsustainable rates, resulting in huge consumption of fossil fuels.

In the systems of agriculture used

by MSEG, there is decreased use of water, fertilizer, and chemicals, and there is a lower emphasis on economic efficiencies that come with costs to the environment.

During the early years of the project, students also collaborated to design a permaculture garden on the eight plots they were allocated in the student gardens beside the EcoResidence on campus. The eight-plot garden produced a large amount of vegetables that were distributed freely to students.

After the Sustainability Projects Fund was created in the 2009-10 school year, Emily McGill, a past garden volunteer, worked with a group of students to apply for funds to start the permaculture garden project. The production area con-

sisted of the original eight garden plots in the student-run garden, along with a quarter acre in the Horticulture Centre.

The students faced some incredible challenges in the project’s first year. They had received a few thousand dollars from the Macdonald Campus Students’ Society to start the project, which covered seeds and equipment. What little money was left covered a small part of their salaries until the SPF paid them in full. However, in 2010 the money from the SPF did not come until the third week of July. This was mostly due to the time it took for the University to register the students as employees. Until then, they were left to manage their own living expenses, which put a strain on them. Since they had no transportation to take their produce to the market, they had to borrow cars from friends to accomplish this.

But by far, the biggest challenge that the students faced was the

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steep learning curve that they had to endure while doing the project.

They had to learn about the different types of produce they were growing. As an advisor to the project, I helped them as much as I could in the field. But even so, they were relatively unknown at the marketplace and therefore did not have enough clientele to sell the volume of crops they were producing. So even though the students managed the garden successfully and learned a lot, the project lost money.

In the following three years, land would be added to the project in the Arboretum and the farms; prepaid food baskets would be promoted and would be a means by which extra money would be raised for the project early in the season.

At 7:30 a.m., on that hot day in July, the six members of the MSEG crew started to arrive. They collectively decided what would be harvested for this day and what would be the composition of this week’s vegetable baskets and for their market stalls – one in the Ste. Anne de Bellevue market on Saturday mornings and the other on the downtown McGill campus on Thursday. This year’s production had been very good except for the infestation of cucumber beetles which caused the total loss of the cucumber crop.

The MSEG crew tells me about the future garden in the Arboretum that was planted in the spring and was designed by a second-year member of the MSEG – Lorine Dargazanli. It is self-sustaining and has everything from fruit trees and berry bushes to nitrogen fixing shrubs. Each element has been carefully planned – from roots, to ground cover, herbs, shrubs, trees, big canopy trees and vines – so that each is of benefit to the other, thus creating a stable eco-system which will be in full production in two to three years.

Chris Wrobel helped found the Macdonald Student Ecological Garden (MSEG) in 2010, and is a former Chair of the PGSS environment committee. To contact him, email scitech@mcgilldaily.com

Sports

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

16

Women shaking up sports culture This year marks a shift in media portrayal of women in sports

Victor Depois Sports Writer

P

ierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, said in 1896 that “no matter how toughened a sportswoman may be, her organism is not cut out to sustain certain shocks.” Tell that to the 1.35 million people who attended this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup. We now know that there is, in fact, no scientific physical obstacle, as suggested by Coubertin, to the practice of professional sports by women. However, there is a cultural barrier for women in sports that remains hard to break down. But 2015 may be a turning point – this year, women have been in the sports spotlight, earning more media coverage than in previous years. At the same time, this coverage has demonstrated how much still needs to change.

The refusal to accept Rousey’s muscular body demonstrates that traditional beauty standards and gender roles still often overpower women’s sports achievements.

Women are marginalized around the globe. Over the past century, women’s movements have focused on achieving basic rights, such as the right to vote and equal pay, as opposed to focusing on cultural activities such as sports. Nevertheless, sports are a significant means of building community and reinforcing cultural values such as strength and leadership. As long as women remain on the fringes in sports, the same will likely be true of women in society.

For example, while there have been many women in sports over the past fifty years, they rarely hold positions of power, such as the role of coach. The majority of coaches

Hammon, Williams, and Rousey. tend to be white men in their fifties, sometimes older. Nevertheless, this year, Becky Hammon, when hired by the San Antonio Spurs basketball team, became the first ever woman to hold the position of full-time assistant coach for any of the four major sports in Canada and the U.S. – basketball, football, hockey, and baseball. Not only is she the first, but she also led the Spurs to win the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas this summer.

She received massive media attention for this victory, from ESPN to the New York Times, and was congratulated by U.S. President Barack Obama. Hopefully, women sitting on the bench next to the court will only become more common, one day resulting in a woman becoming head coach of a NBA team.

In addition to the presence of women in fields dominated by men, women’s sports themselves, which have long been insufficiently covered, are starting to receive more attention thanks to figures like Serena Williams. While Williams has been talked about in the media for quite a while now, 2015 is perhaps the first year in which her skills and outstanding performances have re-

ceived more coverage than her attitude.

Though any number of men in sports are arguably more aggressive than Williams, their skills get all the attention, while their attitudes are shrugged off. For Williams, it has always been the other way around, as she’s faced harsh attacks on her personality and body. John McEnroe, another tennis star, reflected a couple of years ago that despite their great achievements, Williams and her sister Venus, another tennis pro, “have no respect for anyone in the game.”

This year, Williams captivated viewers with her on-court achievements, as she attempted to become part of the small group of players who have won all four Grand Slam opens in one year, otherwise known as a ‘calendar year Grand Slam.’ Despite Roberta Vinci ending Williams’ Grand Slam dream in the semi-final of the U.S. Open, the number of viewers per game for the tennis event averaged 1,218,000 this year, up 40 per cent from 868,000 last year. The link between this sudden interest in tennis and the possibility of Williams’ historic victory is extremely likely.

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily Media coverage of Williams has also begun to shift – she had the cover story in the April issue of Vogue this year, and there was a world of backlash against a July New York Times piece that explored why other women in tennis were choosing not to “emulate her physique.” Yet again, the fact that this piece discussing the disadvantages of Williams’ muscular arms was published is indicative of the attitude shift mainstream media still needs to undergo.

While Williams has been overcoming discrimination on the court, Ronda Rousey has been fighting it in the ring. Rousey became a worldfamous Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter this year, winning Best Fighter at the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly (ESPY) Awards, beating out several men. In the stereotypically masculine atmosphere of UFC fighting, Rousey’s fame is the exception to the rule.

As Rousey has garnered fame for her fighting, she, similarly to Williams, has been attacked in social media for her body. Some people have tweeted that her “features are manly,” or that she is “disgustingly manly” and “not sexy.” The refusal to accept Rousey’s muscular body

WRITE FOR SPORTS. sports@mcgilldaily.com

demonstrates that traditional beauty standards and gender roles still often overpower women’s sports achievements. Women in sports still face stereotypes; the ideal woman in media and pop culture is often portrayed as skinny and weak, and certainly not muscular, while beauty standards for men encourage them to be strong and athletic.

The increase in coverage of women in sports is undeniable, and demonstrates a real evolution in the Western cultural mindset: strong, powerful women have become more accepted. And the coverage is expanding outside of traditionally ‘feminine’ sports, such as gymnastics, dance, or horseback riding. Yet, representation of women in sports remains low, and more must be done in order for women and men to be seen as equals in sports. Rousey and Williams, who are lauded for their strength and simultaneously criticized for their muscular bodies, are only the most famous cases of such criticism. As for Hammon, she is the only one in her position. They each serve as strong examples of women in sports, and will hopefully encourage girls and women around the world to carry on their fight.

Culture

A night of representational comedy

17 Narcy – World War Free Now

Ladyfest Montreal carves out a space for women comedians

Iraqi-Canadian artist blends genres with new album

Kateryna Gordiychuk The McGill Daily

L

abour Day weekend in Montreal brought the first ever Ladyfest Montreal Comedy Festival. Hosted by Women in Comedy Montreal, a collective that supports women in stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, and improv, the festival kicked off with a night of stand-up at Théâtre Sainte Catherine.

In an interview with The Daily, festival co-organizer Katie Leggitt said that Ladyfest Montreal was intended to “recognize the people [who] are working hard on their comedy,” providing an alternate space to the Just For Laughs festival, which remains dominated by men. While women in comedy featured in the mainstream are often exclusively white and cis, Ladyfest provided a more accessible and anti-oppressive platform, resulting in a more diverse lineup.

The night was emceed by comedian Lise Vigneault dressed as a narwhal. What seemed like a random choice of costume was in fact quite purposeful. The physiology of the nearly extinct toothed whale served as a perfect analogy for women in comedy. Only 15 per cent of female narwhals grow the characteristic conical tusk, where-

Lise Vigneault, as a narwhal.

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

as almost all male narwhals do.

Women in comedy represent about the same proportion, making Ladyfest Montreal a place for women to “grow their tooth and break through the ice,” Leggitt explained.

The comedians poked fun at everything: sexuality, pop culture, religion, social inequality, romance and especially, the reality of being a comedian. No topic was taboo – women’s unequal representation in comedy was not left untouched during the show. Comedian Emma Wilkie noted how she was planning to start referring to men who do comedy as “men comics” in the same fashion that women are referred to as “lady comedians,” to illustrate the ridiculousness of emphasizing sex/gender.

Comedian Aisha Alfa was quick to criticize the hackneyed stereotypes about women of colour. This allowed her to define her own experiences as a women of colour in North America, putting her in control of her own comedic narrative before the audience could define her experiences for her and “put them in boxes,” as she put it.

Following in the same vein, comedian Eman quipped “Muslim women just have two things in life: marriage and waxing…” Jokes like this simultaneously highlighted the prejudice directed at Muslim

women and Eman’s empowerment through how she chose to relate that prejudice to others.

Trans comedian Tranna Wintour used a similar approach to draw attention to the cissexism she experiences in society. Pointing out the straight line some draw from sexuality to gender, Wintour told a story of an amorous heterosexual cisgender man “[having] a full out identity crisis” about his sexual orientation after finding out that the comedian had a penis, completely ignoring the fact that Wintour had remained the same woman the whole time.

Her “modern-day Cinderella” bit brought laughs after she described her struggle with one-night stands. After a night out, Wintour is always hesitant to take someone back to hers. “Imagine if Prince Charming woke up to Cindy with a full-fledged beard!”

Ladyfest Montreal’s opening event kept its focus on women in comedy and received a lot of encouragement from the public, filling the night with laughter, a great atmosphere, and unforgettable jokes. It’s worth adding, however, that veiled under the comedy ran a serious discussion of human hardship.

— With files from Subhanya Sivajothy

Jill Bachelder| The McGill Daily

World War Free Now Nadine Tahan Culture Writer

“

Who have we become/how will I ever return to where I am from/where it is ruled by the gun,” raps Montreal-based Iraqi-Canadian hip hop artist Narcy in “Tourist,” a song off his latest record, World War Free Now. The artist is a native of Iraq, a country that has been occupied by Western forces for decades. As a result of this background, Narcy does not shy away from using his work to comment on imperialism and violence in Iraq and abroad. A main theme of this record is survival: those subjected to injustices like targeted violence and inequality not only survive, but also triumph over their hardships. More than just upbeat tempos and clever rhymes, World War Free Now’s consciousness illuminates the lived experience of a part of the world, namely the Middle East, which is rarely discussed in mainstream hip hop.

Despite the heavy content discussed in the tracks, the record educates without overwhelming the listener. “Free (One Day)” paints a picture of a utopian world without war or violence.

The hypnotizing beat and smooth flow arguably make it one of the strongest songs on the record.

Narcy raps, “We live in hell or we live in heaven/honestly I can’t

even tell you the difference/we are the cause/we are effect/we are the blessed/and I also believe that we could be the best,” expressing hope in one day seeing a world free from unnecessary hardships caused by humankind.

World War Free Now blends Middle Eastern sounds with hip hop’s turntablism – pushing the boundaries of the genre. In “Love Me (Hate Me),” Narcy samples “Do You Love Me?” – a popular Lebanese song from the 1970s performed in English by the Bendaly Family. “Love Me (Hate Me)” retains the familiar Middle Eastern sounds of the durbakke and tambourine over a hip hop beat, adding a twist to the Western hip hop aesthetic. The track “Makoo,” gives a glimpse into the sounds of Narcy’s native Iraq.

The title roughly translates into “there isn’t” in Iraqi Arabic, and is repeated throughout the chorus, along with several other lines that are sung in Iraqi dialect.

Narcy fuses these sounds and political messages to create a perfect mix of Arabic and hip hop music that has rarely been produced.

World War Free Now stands out as a unique piece of media that adds another component to hip hop culture. After having shared the stage at Osheaga with hip hop legend Yasiin Bey (Mos Def ), there is no doubt that we will be hearing a lot more of Narcy in the near future.

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Culture

September 14, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

CFCF – Radiance and Submission

Montreal producer paints ephemeral soundscape with third album Sarah Shahid Culture Writer

T

he sounds of CFCF’s latest album, Radiance and Submission, mimic haunted whispers and old memories. The wispy tones of the songs require listeners to become introspective – the exact sort of perspective intended by the artist.

The Montreal producer’s third album opens with a

jumble of voices – a thousand indistinguishable strangers telling their stories – before easing into overlapping arpeggios. Slowly but surely, tracks start to gestate and individuate themselves through the musical primordial mist, developing throughout the rest of the album.

Standout tracks are “A Various Language (From the Same Hill),” which takes an eighties instrumental turn, and “Tethered

an Alternative pop guide September 16 – 20

Wednesday, Day

Kateryna Gordiychuk and Sonia Larbi-Aissa The McGill Daily

Thursday, Day

ART POP - Pillars: Voices to Look Up Chuggo + country + Denita & Sene + Samito To, by Miss Me x LOVE 12 p.m.

Quartiers POP Free!

Kick off POP with the presentation of “Pillars: Voices to Look Up To,” a collaboration between Montreal street artist Miss Me and local youth center Leave Out Violence (LOVE). Earlier this summer, LOVE led a leadership workshop with local youth, and the eight participants chose five of their role models to be depicted in Miss Me’s canonizing style. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Emma Sulkowicz, among others, made the list.

in Dark,” an electro-waltz composed of bells and chimes.

For first-time CFCF listeners, the penultimate track “La Soufrière” is the most approachable, with a strong melodic line through the composition. A lot of the tracks consist of thematic arpeggios that echo soft background vocals.

Much of the ambience of the eight-track album is generated by a constant buzz; sometimes with cicadas, sometimes with

2 p.m.

Quartiers POP Free!

Only at POP will a goth rock duo, a Mozambican-Canadian vocalist, a futuristic soul duo from Brooklyn, and a rapper best known for a stint in Montreal’s Bordeaux Prison play a barbecue. Come for the food, the music, or the cognitive dissonance that comes from sitting through a lineup as nonsensical as this one.

Regardless, it’s bound to be a good time.

electronic feedback.

This white noise of sorts weaves a meditative atmosphere that soothes the listener, creating the perfect sonic environment for reflection.

Radiance and Submission is an album for those who want to take time out of their day to relax. This Montreal producer explores experimental sound extremely well for those interested in avant-garde tunes.

Radiance and Submission

POP Montreal is back for its 14th year. Although a ‘hip’ pop festival sounds like an oxymoron, POP Montreal pulls it off, balancing the big names with emerging artists. Check out some of POP’s less known events and shows in this alternative POP guide.

Friday, Day

Saturday, Day

Sunday, Day

Pop Symposium: Indigenous Beats

Pop presents: Pop Arcade

Puces Pop: Record Fair

11:30 a.m.

Quartiers POP Free!

Join Dakelh McGill professor Allan Downey in a discussion with Indigenous artists and beatmakers Beatrice Deer, Mskwaankwad Mnoomnii, Mack MacKenzie, and Will E. Skandalz about decolonization, reconciliation, and resurgence.

11 a.m.

Quartiers POP Free!

Including Montreal’s video game industry in the festival for the first time, POP Montreal presents POP Arcade. Join 15 local indie game developers for a day of live demos, featuring new games and those still in development. Miscellaneum Studios, Heroes Never Lose, Burrito Studio, Illogika, Red Se3d Studio, and others will be in attendance.

11 a.m. Église St. Michel Free!

If you own a record player, a casette player, or just want to dig through crates of dusty records, spend your Sunday rubbing elbows with private collectors as you search for the next hidden gem or just want some retro album covers to decorate your walls with.

Wednesday, Evening

Thursday, Evening

Friday, Evening

Saturday, Evening

Sunday, Evening

Suuns & Jerusalem in my heart + jerusalem in my heart album launch + Hraïr hratchian

Princess EUD & Ded Kra-z + Lady Ace Boogie + Jai Nitai Lotus + Hvllowz +Aralune

Film POP: Twentieth Anniversary Showing of Showgirls

Tangente: The trouble with reality + NO FUN

Vinyl Williams + People Pretend + Bronswick + Radiant Baby

8 p.m.

Theatre Rialto Tickets $16 Find out what happens when an indie rock band cross-pollinates with a modern experimental Arabic audiovisual project at Suuns and Jerusalem in My Heart’s collaborative performance. Stay for Armenian duduk player Hraïr Hratchian’s for liturgical chants set to ambient electronic music.

9 p.m.

Balattou Tickets $10 If you haven’t partied the night away at Balattou on St. Laurent yet, now’s your chance. Princess Eud and Ded Kra-Z will bring Haitian hip hop beats, Hvllowz will set folk vocals to trap beats, and Aralune will blend nineties R&B with future bass sounds.

Midnight Cinéma L’Amour Tickets $10 If you still haven’t heard of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, give it a quick Google. The 1995 box office bomb has aged like fine wine, and has earned a place of pride at Cinéma L’Amour for its 20th anniversary midnight screening.

Watch Nomi Malone go from polelicking exotic dancer to Las Vegas showgirl at the adult cinema, and try not to think about all the different activities that have taken place on your seat.

Midnight Monument-National Tickets $23 Montreal has a world-class contemporary dance scene. See what happens when it meets rock ‘n’ roll music. Developed at Tangente, Montreal’s premier contemporary dance laboratory, this night of movement and misanthropy is guaranteed to push boundaries.

9 p.m.

Casa del Popolo Tickets $10 Finish off POP with a night of, well, pop at the darling of Montreal’s music venues. Be ready for experimental pop, synth pop, eighties pop, and any other derivation of the genre artists can think of.

Illustrations by Jehane Yazami

Editorial

volume 105 number 3

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

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Pay workers a living wage

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coordinating@mcgilldaily.com coordinating news editor

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Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily

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cover design Lia Elbaz, Ralph Haddad, Mert Kimyaci contributors Zapaer Alip, Gregoire Beaune, Julia Bugiel, Melis Çagan, Jason Da Silva Castanheira, Kevin Da Silva Castanheira, Victor Depois, Erin Dwyer, Kateryna Gordiychuk, Mert Kimyaci, Marie Labrosse, Elroy Lee, Isabel Lee, Rayleigh Lee, Sivakami Mylvaganam, Stephanie Ngo, Celia Robinovitch, Cassandra Ryan, Maximillian Segal, Sarah Shahid, Vincent Simboli, Nadine Tahan, Alexandra Villalobos, Chris Wrobel, Jehane Yazami

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318

The minimum wage in Quebec is just $10.55 per hour — not enough to live on. Many McGill employees earn little more than that, in addition to facing low job security, no benefits, and student debt. This past summer, five of McGill’s labour unions created 15 and Fair McGill, a coalition that fights back against these unjust employment practices and demands that McGill employees receive a minimum wage of $15. In so doing, these McGill groups are joining the growing Fight for $15 movement founded in 2012 by fast-food employees in New York. Earning a living wage is a right that our administration denies many of its employees; as students, we benefit from their work and have a responsibility to support their fight.

According to the Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques, the yearly cost of living in Montreal for a single individual is $24,532, whereas an individual working at minimum wage only makes $18,749 per year. The disparity between these two numbers means that a lot of workers at McGill who are paid close to minimum wage, including many of McGill’s support employees, need to choose between certain necessities in life in order to make ends meet. Unjust working conditions such as these also disproportionately affect those who are already marginalized in society, exacerbating other systems of oppression. In addition, McGill has imposed a hiring freeze on support staff and is replacing many full-time employees with part-time casual workers who have little job security.

In addition to denying its employees fair pay and secure work, McGill also has a history of crushing workers’ pro-

tests that address these injustices. In 2011, when the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA) went on strike, the University filed two injunctions against the union, severely restricting its ability to enforce the strike through picketing. The University also tried to get faculty members to replace striking invigilators during the one-day teaching assistant strike in April 2015. Additionally, it has recently surfaced that McGill might have been increasing executive salaries amidst the current budget cuts, violating provincial law. McGill has cited budget cuts to justify ignoring union demands, despite the fact that for the past two years, McGill has ended the fiscal year with an operating budget surplus.

This contrast between high salaries for a minority of executives and low wages for the majority of employees is an example of the administration’s culture of elitism, where all employees except senior staff are devalued and mistreated.

The issue is not that McGill can’t afford to raise wages, but that McGill sees inflating the already high salaries of executives as more important than paying all of its employees enough to live on. Calling out this classist practice will be particularly important in the months to come, as unions such as AGSEM — the teaching assistants and invigilators union — and MUNACA renegotiate their expired collective bargaining agreements with McGill. As we enter this bargaining period, supporting 15 and Fair is a first step in holding McGill accountable to its employees and ending the disenfranchisement of workers at McGill and beyond. ­—The McGill Daily editorial board

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19

Compendium!

September 14, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

20

Lies, half-truths, and an ethical beacon for the McGall community.

OkProf to revolutionize McGall professor dating scene Crobson Cup-winning project synergizes campus romance Zippy Blip The McGall Weekly

A

t McGall’s X-9000 startup demo show this year, one app stood out from the rest: OkProf. This mobile app aims to simplify the dating world for professors, guiding them as they struggle to navigate uncertain waters of the highly ambiguous moral guideline best summarized as “no sex with students.”

“I know you’re not supposed to sleep with students. But what if they’re, like, really cute? Do they still count as a student?”

Professor Seth Slithle To sign up for OkProf, users must have a staff mcgall.ca email address. This way, professors will only be able to swipe right or left on other compatible faculty members or staff, but not students. Jedi Valentino, inventor of the app and a U3 Synergistic Leverage student, hopes this will assist profs in elim-

inating the confusion experienced when determining with whom they can and can’t have amorous relationships and “optimize the dating experience,” as the app description proclaims. This innovative use of technology to provide desperately-needed services to the McGall campus is what won the young thought leader $1.8 million in seed money from the Crobson Centre for Innovation, Disruption, and Revolutionizing.

Valentino presented OkProf to a crowd of faculty, venture capital representatives, and journalists.

Adorned in a black turtleneck, wire rim glasses, and white New Balance sneakers, they addressed the crowd. “Never again will professors have to struggle to determine whether it’s okay to pursue a sexual relationship with a student,” vociferated Valentino.

They continued, “OkProf streamlines this confusing, taxing process by preventing you from matching with someone who might actually be a non-optimal partner, despite the fact that they regularly make eye contact with you while asking a question in class. With this empowering innovation, ‘no students’ has never been simpler.” The announcement received wild applause from faculty members in the audience, elated that they would soon have technological guidance when de-

s p i t y t u a e B from the underworld

How to contour your face and look like a nightmare creature Jezmekzel Bree

I

f you don’t have high cheekbones, thin lips, a sharp jawline, and pale skin – don’t worry! This contouring makeup tutorial will teach you how to completely erase your

termining who they can and cannot remove their pants around.

The app release comes at a time rife with allegations of misconduct by professors accidentally engaging in romantic relationships with students. According to Reading & Philosophizing professor and moral relativism expert Seth Slithle, identifying inappropriate relationships is quite a difficult task.

“I know you’re not supposed to sleep with students. But what if they’re, like, really cute? Do they still count as a student?” Slithle posed to The Weekly. “What if they keep coming to my office hours and talking to me about my research interests? Am I, a professor, really expected to have the self-control and critical thinking skills required to interpret such boldness as anything other than a blatant sexual advance? ‘No students’ is such an abstract standard.”

According to Valentino, this type of confusion is widespread among McGall faculty. “Obviously there’s a huge demand for a resource like this at McGall,” Valentino told The Weekly. “Developing this app is a public service really. Just because profs have PhDs does not mean they’re any more equipped to determine who is a student and who is not.”

Valentino told The Weekly that they are already working on

Samim Tujat | The McGall Weekly a new app. “Strategically leveraging the major ethical confusion among professors regarding

face and recreate European beauty standards, regardless of face shape or skin tone. Prepare to give in to the internalized racism and generations of white beauty standards that have been shoved down your throat with this simple fivestep tutorial.

Step one: Cleanse your face to remove all impurities.

Make sure to scrub away all confidence and self-esteem. Remember, you want your face to be a blank canvas so that your skin can easily absorb socially constructed ideas of beauty propagandized by methodically retouched CoverGirl ads!

Step two: Smear your face with a foundation that is five shades lighter to cover up blemishes and any shame you might have for not being related to Snow White. Blend your foundation evenly with a clean brush – this smooth coat of slime will be the mask that shields the world from ever knowing that your natural skin tone isn’t a plastic shade of Barbie beige.

Step three: Apply bronzer under your cheekbones, jawline, and the sides of your nose to hide all non-Western European features. The dark contouring will create angles and facial features you never knew you had, revealing your inner Kylie Jenner-esque nightmare creature when you look in the mirror. Don’t stop applying bronzer until you can feel the weight of a thousand souls sighing in resignation after a celebrity dons blackface in the name of fashion/their burst-

which research funding sources are acceptable could be a real game-changer, I think.”

ing ego/a pseudo-God complex, et cetera.

Step four: Apply highlighter on the bridge of your nose, forehead, above your cheekbones, and chin to make these newly unleashed angular features pop. For a modern twist on the classic white supremacist aesthetic, make your face look whiter than Taylor Swift’s in the neo-colonial safari mess that is the “Wildest Dreams” video. If you want to go for an ‘edgier,’ more ‘alternative’ style, look no further than Katy Perry – her candy-coloured hair and faux-rebellious image have allowed her to enjoy both her blinding whiteness and penchant for flagrant cultural appropriation.

Step five: Lightly dust your face with a setting powder composed of a crushed mixture of the lost dreams of soulless GQ image editors, the bone marrow disappeared from models retouched down to a size negative two, and the skulls of art directors who make Beyonce and Nicki Minaj look like brand ambassadors for skin whitening cream.

Bonus tip: If you want to make your cheeks pop, mix the blood of catcallers with some essential oils and sweep this budget-friendly (and super organic) blush over your cheeks! For an extra sense of empowerment, practice your biting street harassment comebacks in the mirror while waiting for your makeup to set. Now that you embody the spitting image of white colonial beauty, the world truly is yours.