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News 4 Interview with Investigative Journalist Jonathan Montpetit Once More, On The Chopping Block
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Once More, On The Chopping Block
In the face of looming deficits, McGill recently announced that they would be initiating drastic budget cuts over the next three years. During a town hall held on February 7, Chancellor Deep Saini, Provost Christopher Manfredi, and Vice-President Fabrice Labeau proposed slashing up to $45 million from the university’s 2025-26 budget. According to Manfredi, most of these cuts would come in the form of hundreds of layoffs and abolished positions. He also announced a new initiative called Horizon McGill, which would supposedly conduct “a re-examination of the university’s budget model” in the name of improving efficiency.
For McGill students and faculty in the Arts, these cuts will have disastrous consequences. McGill’s announcement is the latest blow in years of major rollbacks to the Arts department. In 2013, the university scrapped 100 Arts classes for the 2013-14 academic year, in what our Editorial Board then described as “a deprioritization of the Arts program at McGill and a disregard for student feedback.” A 2016 article by the Bull&Bearexamined the trickle-down impact of provincial and university funding cuts on the Arts department. These cuts hindered the department’s ability to hire new faculty and teaching assistants (TAs), grant McGill undergraduates access to proper advising resources, and provide the necessary courses for students’ programs of study.
The 2024-25 academic year has been no exception to this alarming trend. In the wake of the Legault government’s tuition hikes targeting anglophone universities like McGill, as well as the federal government’s restrictions on study permits for international students, the ensuing slew of cuts was all but guaranteed. At the beginning of the Fall term, rumours circulated of more Arts classes possibly being dropped. This term has seen the university push for a 15 per cent reduction in Arts TA hours, which the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) — the union representing TAs at McGill — is urgently organizing against. The TA dearth in the Arts is especially dire following years of austerity measures, with reports of some 100-student classes being assigned a singular TA.
This disheartening mentality — that somehow the humanities are expendable, that they must always be the first on the chopping block when it comes to tightening the fiscal belt — is a notion that is neither new nor unique to our university. Over the last decade, the humanities have been in decline across North America.
According to Statistics Canada, post-secondary enrollment in the humanities has dropped by 18.5 per cent between the 2002-03 and 2022-23 academic years. A 2018 article in The Atlantic discussed a similar decline in the United States, with the percentage of humanities majors with respect to degrees in the US dropping from approximately seven to four percent between 2010 and 2017.
03 to 142,000 in 2022-23. In the same timeframe, the number of business and management majors increased by 60 per cent, and the number of health-related majors by nearly 50 per cent. This combination of financial stresses and peer pressure has fuelled a vicious cycle against the humanities: the lack of students leads to further cuts in the Arts by government and university administrations, thus driving the next berth of aspiring humanities majors away from gutted programs. “Students and their parents have increasingly come to see a college or university education as vocational training,” observed Paul L. Jay, Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago, in his 2014 book The Humanities“Crisis”andtheFutureofLiteraryStudies. “[People] want maximum value for the high cost of higher education, and that value is increasingly measured in utilitarian terms.”
To challenge this decline, some North American universities have taken to mandating a basic Arts curriculum for all undergraduate students, regardless of major. The Core Curriculum at Columbia University, in place since 1919, consists of a shared five-course syllabus in the humanities for all undergraduates. The Curriculum aims to “introduce cornerstone ideas and theories from across literature, philosophy, history, science, and the arts,” setting up a baseline in the Arts that is absent for non-Arts majors at many other institutions. Similarly, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology upholds the humanities, arts, and social sciences (HASS) requirement, especially important considering its critical role and reputation as a STEM-focused university.
Unfortunately, McGill — and Canadian institutions as a whole — are falling behind. Just last year, Queen’s University implemented catastrophic cuts to their Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). A January 2024 report by Queen’s Journal detailed how, supposedly in response to Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford’s tuition freeze, the university cut “undergraduate classes with less than 10 students and graduate classes with less than five students” in the FAS, while further shuttering “admissions to Arts and Science Online degree and certificate programs.” These cuts were implemented despite months of student campaigning, and following a $100 million donation by alumnus Stephen Smith to the very engineering department named after him.
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Drew Faust, former President of Harvard University, attributed this decline to “the pressure that students are feeling and being subject to about finding jobs and making sure their financial investment in education is going to pay off.” Her assessment is evidently reflected in enrollment trends for other, more financially lucrative subjects. Concurrently to the humanities’ crisis, the number of post-secondary students in science, engineering, and business has seen unprecedented growth. In Canada, the annual number of mathematics and computer science majors nearly doubled from 78,000 in 2002-
The fate of Queen’s University’s FAS could be a harbinger of what awaits McGill’s Arts faculty and students. Provincial funding cuts? Check. An administration that seems hellbent on kicking the “less profitable” departments to the curb when it comes to distributing those cuts? Check. Such a mindset — that in order for a department to be successful, they must bring monetary benefit to the university — is abhorrent and in direct opposition to McGill’s very mission statement preaching “the advancement of learning and the creation and dissemination of knowledge.” The very purpose of universities is to enable intellectual pursuits that would not be possible elsewhere. We are not Wall Street venture funds: we are places where passionate people gather and teach and learn. Universities and governments should be doing everything possible to make the humanities more accessible. Nonetheless, when faced with the prospect of austerity cuts, the McGill administration is once again throwing the Arts under the bus. Once more, the Arts are on the chopping block — and it is up to us, the students of McGill, to defend it.
Investigative Journalism: An Endangered Pillar of Democracy? An
interview with Jonathan Montpetit, Senior Investigative Journalist at CBC
Aurelien Lechantre News Contributor
On February 10, I met Jonathan Montpetit, Senior Investigative journalist at CBC. Operating at a national level, he works on social movements and democracy — his ‘beat,’ as he describes it — focusing on far-right activism, populist politics and the intersection of tech and politics. Over coffee, we were able to talk about the vitality of investigative journalism in modern democracies.
The following interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.
Aurelien Lechantre for the McGill Daily (MD): As a national investigative journalist, how do you work? What is it like to investigate a right-wing activist movement for example?
Jonathan Montpetit (JM): Most of my research starts online, not surprisingly: I monitor a lot of different Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, Telegram chats, that kind of thing, and I try to get a sense of how certain themes, policy issues are being talked about, and then as much as possible, I try to, from that research phase, go and talk to people.
MD: Do you go to movements presenting yourself as a CBC investigative journalist to interview them?
JM: One of the things that journalists avoid, whenever possible, is hiding our identities. I’m accountable for my behaviour as a journalist: I don’t want to trick you, I want to hear what you have to say. That’s kind of like our main approach. What happens sometimes though, and I think particularly in investigative journalism, is that you’re trying to get information that would not otherwise be public, and there are people, institutions, or organizations, who are actively preventing you from trying to make that information public. If you believe that information is of public interest, that it’s essential that it be made public, then you can use different methods to gather that information. For instance, I did a story about a political movement of Christian fundamentalists in Canada. They were holding conferences, discussing their policies and strategies. They would not let me attend as a journalist, and so the next time, I simply bought a ticket, still in my name, and went unofficially. I had my recorder on me, paid attention to being discreet, and observed. However, there has to be a very, very high threshold for an investigative journalist to disguise their identity, because it should be our last resort. There have been some excellent examples of journalists
disguising their identities and infiltrating right-wing extremist movements. On my part, the reporting I have done on rightwing groups has always been, “I’m John, I work for the CBC, can I talk to you?” and sometimes people accept. However, there’s an increasing suspicion of the media, and gaining that level of access has been increasingly difficult.
MD: Do you think this poses a threat to investigative journalism? Would you, as a journalist, have to take more and more risks for inquiries and hide your identity more frequently?
JM: I think there are general risks to being a journalist. You know, press freedom is not a straight line moving forward, and I think we’re at a moment where press freedom is certainly on its heels in a lot of different ways.
I think one of the threats to reporting on the far right that’s emerged over the last, four or five years is that there’s a very gendered and racialized way that a lot of these groups deal with media coverage of their activities. Many of my colleagues who, whether they are journalists of color or women or a sexual gender minority, face tremendous backlash online anytime they report on the far right, sometimes going as far as death threats and stalking.
I can deal with it because I work for a large news organization that has resources to protect its journalists. A lot of journalists work independently, and freelancers are a lot more vulnerable to that backlash. Pursuing journalism as a freelancer takes a tremendous amount of courage, but our information environment is richer because of the risks they take on a daily basis.
MD: You mentioned how you thought freedom of the press and journalism were on their heels today: do you think this applies to Canada? Do you think this backlash many journalists suffer from is increasing and poses a risk to journalists today?
JM: I’m a hopeless optimist when it comes to the future of journalism. However, I think there’s no question that journalism in Canada is at a moment of tremendous uncertainty: every journalist, every news organization in Canada has uncertain sources of revenue and is re-evaluating their relationship with audiences. In those uncertain moments, it is easier for some political actors to try to avoid the accountability mechanism that is the press. Because journalism as an institution is going through this period of change, our mechanisms of accountability are weakened and it’s easier for the powerful to do things with less of the pressures of transparency that the
press imposes. For example, Meta has barred news links in Canada on all their platforms. Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook’s millions of users in Canada are deprived of reliable information while misinformation spreads like wildfire.
MD: So would you say social media and the tech giants that handle them are a big threat to press freedom and investigative journalism?
JM: I would say that, if you look at how many news organizations are deciding to no longer post on X because they view it as hostile to their “raison d’être.” The recent decision by Meta to end factchecking on posts, and explicit animosity towards fact-checkers, shows the fraught relationship between big tech and journalism. I think big tech companies see mainstream journalism as a competitor or a threat, and I think certainly in the comments made by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, there are attempts to delegitimize mainstream journalism.
MD: And do you think the fact that the media relies partly on social media is a risk? Do you think there’s a need to change, to evolve from the revenue system that relies on ads for journalism to be preserved?
JM: While mainstream media had long relied on advertising as its prime source of revenue, social media has revolutionized the ad market. With the advertising revenue becoming less reliable, a growing number of media outlets are experimenting with a subscription-based model.
At CBC, colleagues of mine who work on the social media desk constantly have to monitor algorithm changes, as suddenly your audience can change radically. So the struggle for journalists is to both exploit the audience potential of social media without becoming overly reliant on social media.
MD: You mentioned how CBC was less affected by the ad-revenue system because of federal government funding. How does that align with the role of investigative journalism?
JM: I think one of the challenges of investigative journalism is that it’s resource heavy: it requires a lot of people, it can be expensive, and takes a long time. When the media market places the emphasis on producing content, investigative journalism can seem kind of crazy: who says, “I’m gonna employ these three people and they’re gonna produce one story every six months? This makes investigative journalism one of the first things to get cut. I think having a source of revenue that is independent of advertising has allowed CBC to commit to investigative journalism when other news organizations
“I think liberal democracy thrives when you multiply mechanisms of accountability. And if you remove investigative journalism, you’re removing an accountability mechanism essential to democracy ”
would not be able to.
MD: Do you think committing to investigative journalism is a priority today? Should it be?
JM: It is difficult for me to conceive of a flourishing liberal democracy without a robust culture of journalism. Maybe I just lack imagination, but I think liberal democracy thrives when you multiply mechanisms of accountability. And if you remove investigative journalism, you’re removing an accountability mechanism essential to democracy.
Investigative journalism should be part of our conception of how information flows in our society. If you suddenly were not to have that flow of information, you have citizens who are less
informed, who know less about the consequences of public policy, who know less about the consequences of corporate power, who know less about what their politicians are up to.
MD: Is there anything you would like to add before winding up our exchange?
JM: I think the modern challenge for journalists is to grapple with the role of technology in the media, and to think creatively about technology: how can we use these new tools creatively to get more information, to build relationships and enhance our possibilities as journalists without relinquishing the human aspect of reporting.
Image Courtesy of CBC News
“RIPPLES”
TEDxMcGill showcases no impact is
too small
to provoque structural change
Lhassa Le Gall Di Renzo News Contributor
“ If your journey through life was a body of water, every ripple would change your direction.”
This is how Erica Mandato, one of the speakers for this year’s TEDxMcGill event, started off her speech, perfectly encapsulating the essence of the theme ‘Ripples.’
On Sunday, February 9, TEDxMcGill’s yearly speakerseries event took place in the historic space of Le National. Amidst the rustic ambiance, creaking floorboards, and centenarial architecture, bright and innovative ideas were shared with a captivated audience. TEDxMcGill is an independently operated event organized under the umbrella of TED, with the goal of highlighting ‘ideas worth spreading’ by inviting innovative speakers to share their insights with the world in 18 minutes or less.
Selected from a pool of 125 applicants, the most competitive year yet, this year’s event featured the talks of seven individuals: Charlotte Spruzen, Michael Zegarelli, Yasmin Elmi, Charlie Scholey, Asmaa Housni, Erica Mandato, and Iyngaran Panchacharam. The speakers were diverse in experience and perspectives, ranging from undergraduate, masters and PhD students at McGill, to career professionals.
When asked about the choice of the theme ‘Ripples,’ TEDxMcGill’s Chair Katherine Squitieri said they wanted “to express the diversity and variety of information that you can find in a TED talk and make sure that speakers had the freedom to express their ideas without feeling constricted to one theme or narrative.” And so just as ripples spread when a drop hits the surface of the water, each speaker had the opportunity to illustrate how their ideas and experiences can create ripples throughout our collective lives. These ripples took many different forms, and just as the executive team had intended, each speaker molded the theme to fit their experiences.
Charlotte Spruzen kicked off the event by introducing the notion of uniformitarianism,
discussing how geological principles affect the past in the same way they do the present. She illustrated this with a picture of sand waves shaped by the wind next to a fossil of similar sand waves from millions of years ago, frozen in time. In a geological era so influenced by human activities that we’ve named it the Anthropocene, after ourselves, it is critical to understand how these ripple effects can permeate through time at a much larger scale. Spruzen highlighted that the negative effects of climate change can and will affect our planet for thousands of years to come, and we must come together to fight it.
Michael Zegarelli, VP of project management at Colliers Project Leaders, continued the discussion by focusing on adaptive design. He emphasized that the time for turnkey, traditionally master-planned cities is over: we must incorporate human creativity and freedom into city planning. He showed participants that our cities must be flexible systems that can adapt and change in needs over time, empowering individuals to shape the space that they call home. He concluded by saying that we must “stop building cities that answer a question and start building cities that spark a thousand new ones.”
Audience members were then immersed in Yasmin Elmi’s story of refusing an acceptance into medical school, in protest of the ripples of structural racism permeating the systems of the healthcare industry. Yasmin shared that the echoes of laws banning people of colour from attending medical school, as well as victims of discrimination by the healthcare industry have inspired her to refuse to participate in this broken system. Instead, she chose to follow her ripple, and now advocates for diversity and inclusion within the healthcare system.
The conference then changed beats when speaker Charlie Scholey came onstage to share the benefits of comedy – while stepping on a fart cushion and throwing it off stage. Next up was a serendipitous performance by the Soulstice A Cappella group, sending melodic ripples through the crowd as their voices filled the walls of Le National. And if that wasn’t enough of an energy
Pearce-Taï Thomasson | Visuals Contributor
And so just as ripples spread when a drop hits the surface of the water, each speaker had the opportunitiy to illustrate how their ideas and experiences can create ripples throughout our collective lives.
boost, the United Groove group showcased their dance skills with an upbeat performance to today’s most trending songs.
The following talks were then very diverse in nature, representative of the diverse experiences of the speakers.
Asmaa Housni talked about the paradox of knowledge, concluding that power isn’t inherent to knowledge but rather stems from how we engage with it.
Erica Mandato followed up with how her experiences with death have shaped her understanding of life and the social connections we create through it. Mandato expressed to the crowd that loneliness is the new silent killer, as more of us feel isolated in modern life. She stressed that social connection is more important now than ever. “We must reconnect as a community. Every meeting with a stranger is an opportunity to open our minds and hearts,” she shared during her speech. Finally, Iyngaran Panchacharam concluded with a talk about AI, stating that through self awareness and literacy, advocacy, and resilience, “we all
have a vital role in producing and controlling the ripples of AI.”
One of the many goals of TEDxMcGill is for “people to be inspired throughout the year and continuously engage with these ideas beyond the event itself,” said Squitieri. It is the executives’ hope that the talks held during this year’s speaker series go beyond the event and have thought-provoking effects on the broader TEDx ecosystem. This is the fundamental idea behind the ripples theme: for ideas to spread and ripple across our community.
“TEDx is the network of people, the dedication that everyone has; all collected under this essential idea of sharing things we’re passionate about and connecting with others through words and speeches,” said Squitieri. She adds that “It’s inspiring to see speeches take on a life of their own outside of the event. We’ve had quite a few talks take off and TED’s platform and reach people far beyond Montreal outside of Canada. And something stemming from something so small as what we’re doing and hearing feedback from
people on a different continent is really interesting.”
After the conference ended, TEDxMcGill staffer Le Thuy Dong Nguyen told the Daily that “what’s really important is to pass on knowledge to drive action in the world […] I hope the audience can take away important lessons from the insights shared and bring it to their communities.” And they really did. Audience members described the event as “inspiring and emotional.”
One member even told the Daily that these talks sparked an inspiration to incorporate some of the discussed subjects into his artwork.
This conference showcased how no ripple is too small. In this time of uncertainty, social disconnect, and adversity, we all have a role to play in bettering our society. In the words of an African proverb, ‘if you think you’re too small to have a big impact, you’ve never spent the night with a mosquito.’ And as Yasmin Elmi shared in her speech: we should all strive to “be the mosquito.”
McGill Announces $45 Million in Budget Cuts for the Upcoming Academic Year
Sena Ho Managing Editor
ACorrections made in light of provincial financial pressures
t a town hall meeting on February 7, McGill President Deep Saini, VicePresident Fabrice Labeau, and Provost Christopher Manfredi announced a $45 million budget cut for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal year. The university has been facing financial pressures from the Quebec government that have led to the current $15 million deficit. These include the financial repercussions for the tuition increase on out-of-
province Canadian students, the recalibrations of grant funding for Quebec universities, the clawback in tuition revenues, federal and provincial caps on international student admissions, level-five French requirements for out-of-province students, and restrictions on the use of capital grants which fund infrastructure maintenance and operating costs.
Critically, the brunt of these costs are expected to ripple through employment at the university. Manfredi stated in the town hall meeting that “staffing costs account for 80 per
[I]n the town hall meeting, there was little discussion about how these job cuts will directly impact this student-led position, especially since TAs are often a first point of contact for students.
cent of our operating expenses, so most of the adjustments are going to come from reducing our staffing costs.” While faculties and other major administrative units at the university have received budget targets for the upcoming year, which gives them the discretion to eliminate activities that may accrue additional costs, approximately 250 to 500 jobs will be cut in the process of this $45 million correction. McGill has yet to release details on which specific jobs they are targeting. In order to account for the full repercussions of these financial pressures, administration has announced plans to launch a multi-year initiative in two key phases. This initiative seeks to not only balance McGill’s budget for the upcoming years, but almost optimize administrative services, review the current management of academic programs, and launch plans for strategic enrolment. Phase One of this initiative is geared towards implementing immediate corrections in the coming years,
Adair Nelson| Visuals Contributor
which include cutting $16 million and $14 million from the budget for the 2027 and 2028 fiscal years, respectively. Phase Two entails what Manfredi claims to be a “major transformation of McGill.” This phase will be carried out predominantly through an international benchmarking initiative titled UniForum, which observes the measures other universities have taken to increase efficiency under reduced operating costs due to financial pressures.
The immediate impacts of these budget cuts will be felt most drastically in the academic lives of McGill’s students. In December 2024, McGill imposed a hiring freeze in light of the financial impact the tuition hikes had on enrollment rates. Manfredi stated in an email to the Montreal Gazette that “the goal of this measure is to reduce the number of employees in the short term through attrition rather than cutting positions held by current members of our workforce.” Now, however, it appears that this is no longer a short-term solution, and that the university will begin implementing layoffs. In the town hall meeting, Manfredi claimed that McGill will ensure equal treatment across all employee groups — but it has already become evident that the most vulnerable employee groups, such as teaching assistants (TAs), will become the first source of reduction for the university’s operating costs.
Last winter, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) initiated a month-long strike asking for a pay increase comparable to the hourly rates of other Canadian universities. They ultimately came to an agreement with McGill on a 15.5 per cent increase over the next four years, with their hourly wage increasing from $33.03 to $38.46, effective as of August 1, 2026. This means that TAs now are still facing the same conditions in which they began their strike. Moreover, with McGill’s new policy of attrition, the university will not be replacing the positions of those TAs who choose to leave. This leaves many faculties potentially understaffed as they try to navigate this semester and the upcoming school year. However, in the town hall meeting, there was little discussion about how these job
cuts will directly impact this student-led position, especially since TAs are often a first point of contact for students.
Saini admitted that “it just really is impossible to say how many jobs, because we won’t know that until individual units — faculties, departments and so on — come up with their plans on how they are going to achieve the reduction in salary mass.” Deferring the judgement on financial planning to the
The immediate impacts of these budget cuts will be felt most drastically in the academic lives of McGill’s students.
faculties themselves leaves TAs unable to go directly to McGill administration about their grievances. Saini, Manfredi, and Labeau emphasized how they are trying to maintain the reputation of McGill among the world’s leading universities. Manfredi assured students that they want to make sure that “McGill remains a place that provides [students] an educational experience that led [them] to choose McGill.”
However, these promises were made without a thorough explanation of how the budget cuts would directly impact the education students receive at McGill. TAs and professors work together to make sure that students are understanding course material in the most optimal fashion. It becomes difficult to “thrive in [one’s] research and scholarly endeavors,” as Manfredi put it, when one TA is assigned to large courses, often responsible for hundreds of students at once. The reduction in academic staff is guaranteed to put students’ educational experiences in jeopardy.
Romantic comedies will always be a popular genre. They’re fun, exciting, dramatic, and eventually result in a happy ending. Whether it be on the screen or in the books, they are widely appreciated.
The rise of the romcom empire is often attributed to 1989’s WhenHarry MetSally, known as a classic to this day due to its status as the blueprint of the rom com genre. In turn, this sparked a public desire for more films of this type, and Hollywood invested accordingly in these kinds of big-budget romantic comedies throughout the 90s and 2000s. At the same time, the Hallmark Channel officially launched in the early 2000s, producing lower budget holiday films popular for their recycled plot lines, predictability, and cheesiness. Nevertheless, they remain appreciated, despite our mockery, for their heartwarming and happy endings.
However, in recent years, many argue rom coms have been declining in quality, and I believe Wattpad and social media to be influential factors. Wattpad’s launch in 2006 initially intended to provide access to ebooks through mobile devices, but the app’s popularity began to rise around 2011 when it gained one million users as it was paired with the invention of the iPhone. This allowed anyone to read, write, and publish stories in an instantly accessible manner. In 2014, many film channel companies began producing adaptations of Wattpad novels, turning them into series and movies.
Though these adaptations were appreciated at the start, this did not last very long. Reading and watching a film are two very different experiences, and perhaps adapting certain stories into visual media simply ruined the magical, distant quality of them. Maybe viewers realized how ridiculous some of these stories were, or felt like their representations on screen were trying too hard to push a reality that does not exist. On the other hand, reading and imagining your own world for the characters is more enticing, especially because as the reader you position yourself as the narrator/main character. Some examples of these are The Kissing Booth and After, for whom the audiences that enjoyed the books did not like the movies.
Even though these Wattpad films received a lot of backlash, one could argue that they are just like cheesy Hallmark movies: those who enjoy these films enjoy them for their nonsensical and asinine plots. And yet, Wattpad movies are not necessarily held to the same comforting, amusing regard as Hallmark movies are.
Alongside this, social media, and our phones in general, have weaseled their way into our idea of culture and social survival. With our unlimited access to other people’s lives and opinions, as well as streaming services and podcasts, we tend to be overexposed to everything at once. When there is immediate
Below the Surface
The Evolution of Romantic Comedies
From When Harry Met Sally to Rye Lane
negative feedback on a film, there is naturally less incentive for audiences to go see it, and perhaps a decline in the enjoyment of such reused tropes and plotlines. The focus on “authenticity” and constant comparison brought forth by social media might also push audiences away from more classic tropes, as they portray unrealistic expectations of love and romance that people cannot relate to, making idealised rom com scenarios less digestible. However, these Wattpad movies don’t constitute the whole of the rom com genre. In fact, there are many more recent romantic comedies that are good: Set It Up (2018), La La Land (2016), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Palm Springs (2020), Plus One (2019), Rye Lane (2023), and the list goes on. How these films differ from Wattpad movies is that the characters have a
personality aside from only seeking love, and the obstacles they encounter are convincing and relevant. The characters are complex, goal-driven, and authentic in their emotions and actions, both good and bad, and usually grow and change over the course of the movie. Furthermore, there is greater acknowledgement of the lack of diversity in romantic comedies, and it is important for such a strong genre to share stories from different perspectives that deviate from the heterosexual white ones. Therefore, can we really say rom coms are declining in quality? On one hand, yes, time and money are invested in romantic comedies bound for public backlash because of their bad plots, unlikable characters, etc (such as the After films). The rom com genre is not perceived as a ‘serious’ one, leaving less takers for such roles, and thus less good-quality romantic comedies. However, our cultural ideas of romance, gender
TOPICALS heralds equity in skincare products
Riley Davies Culture Contributor
In a world where mainstream skincare often overlooks the skin essentials for people of colour, one brand is shaking up the beauty industry with its unwavering commitment to inclusivity and bold marketing. TOPICALS is a gamechanging skincare brand founded by Olamide Olowe and Claudia Teng. Olowe graduated from the University of California as a pre-Med student and with a B.A. in Political Science, Teng graduated from the University of California, Berkeley as a preMed student and a B.A. in Women’s Studies. The brand rapidly gained traction for their effective and clean solutions to chronic skin conditions. TOPICALS focuses on reducing inflammatory skin conditions such as hyperpigmentation, psoriasis, and scarring. These conditions differently affect people with darker skin and have long been ignored by mainstream skincare companies. Launched in 2020, TOPICALS was born with the mission of catering toward all skin tones and types,
but with a special focus on people of colour. Mainstream skincare brands have overlooked the diverse requirements of black and brown skin, leaving an opening in the skincare market for Olowe to fill.
Olowe, who has personally struggled with her skin insecurities, realized the lack of options that were available and relatable. The brand’s hero products – such as Faded, a treatment for hyperpigmentation – resonated with consumers seeking resolutions for their own skin insecurities. Unlike traditional brightening serums, which often contain harsh ingredients not suited for darker skin tones, Faded has the ability to gently reduce dark spots on melanin-rich skin, solidifying TOPICALS as the leader for inclusive skincare.
The rapid growth of the company can be largely attributed to its bold and atypical marketing.
TOPICALS has relied on Gen Z-focused marketing, participating in meme culture and social media engagement to create a relatable
brand. The company has mastered Gen Z marketing through TikTok and Instagram, which align with amusing trends and speak directly to Gen Z consumers. Specifically, their advertisement for the CLEARLY acne treatment sees people in an office with the acne solution applied to their skin, emphasizing the practicality of the product in everyday life. With products backed up by scientific evidence and internet engagement, the brand continuously moves toward increased sales. By maintaining a strong presence online, TOPICALS has become communitydriven, speaking directly to young consumers. This online approach has proven to be highly effective, as products sell out quickly at launch.
TOPICALS is more than just a skincare brand. It has stationed itself as a brand concerned with mental health, empowerment, and self-love, focusing on making you comfortable in your own skin. Their slogan, “Who Cares? Looks Fade,” emphasizes the importance of embracing one’s
natural beauty rather than obsessing over unrealistic beauty standards.
The company acknowledges the emotional battle of chronic skin conditions by donating a portion of its profits to impactful mental health initiatives, supporting organizations that provide necessary resources for those struggling with mental health and body image. This combined approach of highlighting physical and psychological wellbeing fosters an identity of self-love and empowerment for those who struggle with skin insecurities.
Brune de Dreuille Culture Contributor
roles, and love are ever changing. When we look back at some cult classic rom coms, despite our love for them, there are some questionable aspects: rigid ideas of what femininity and masculinity should look like, unrealistic beauty standards and expectations, offensive jokes, and white-centred perspectives.
I believe social media has ruined our idea of romance, and perhaps it will grow too difficult to relate to the light-hearted, glamorised love stories of the 90s and 2000s knowing that our generation does not really function this way and probably never will. Although rom coms will always remain close to our hearts, it is interesting to see how much the genre has evolved and how much its significance grows parallel to our shifting ideas of culture and social media. From the cheesy romances to the more grounded ones, there will always be an appreciation for a sensitive, heartwarming love story.
With science-focused formulas, a strong digital presence, and overall focus on inclusivity, TOPICALS is set to reshape the beauty industry. By challenging beauty norms and advocating for diverse skin support, the brand has established itself as far more than a skincare company, but a catalyst for change in the beauty industry. TOPICALS continues to set standards for what beauty companies should represent, not only transforming skin but redefining Black beauty and confidence.
Nikhila Shanker | Visuals Editor
Iolanthe: Or, the Peer and the Peri in a Word
Away We Go to Fairyland
Food is Political: Thoughts while watching Netflix’s Mo
Youmna El Halabi Commentary Editor
Amelia H. Clark Culture Contributor
Iolanthe; or, the Peer and the Peri was, in a word, “magical,” according to seven-year McGill Savoy Society member Michael Quinsey. During his second year, Quinsey performed ensemble in the Society’s 2018 production of the musical; five years later, he’s reliving the experience from the director’s chair.
“Last time I did the show is what made me fall in love with theater,” Quinsey said. “The audience will be transported to another world, although a lot of it takes place in the British parliament.”
Iolanthe originally opened in 1882 at the Savoy Theatre in London. It was the eighth collaborative work of Gilbert and Sullivan, the duo who’s also responsible for Princess Ida and The Pirates of Penzance.
The comedic operetta follows Strephon (Matthew Erskine), a half-fairy, half-human man rising through the ranks of British parliament — going from a simple farmer to an even simpler chancellor. With a little magic from his fairy aunts and mother, Strephon is able to get any bill passed in his nondescript British city.
Despite this newfound political power, Strephon is miserable. Phyllis (Aniela Stanek), the girl of his — and the whole town’s — dreams, is contemplating several marriage proposals from his subordinates. In order to regain her sole admiration, Strephon must utilize both his manhood and his fairyhood to run both the parliament and the forest.
Due to asbestos issues in Moyse Hall, this production was performed at the Plaza Theatre. As a result, the orchestra, which usually performed in the pit, played alongside the actors on stage. This had to have been the best unintentional incorporation of the two most essential parts of musical theatre I’ve ever seen. Iolanthe was worth a watch purely to see the look of ecstasy on musical director, Noah Century, as he conducted the band.
“It’s extremely demanding and stressful while it’s happening, but then when we
Nikhila Shanker | Visuals Editor
get to it being put together, and we’re performing it ... everything sounds fantastic. It’s so worth it. It’s so perfect,” Century said, watching the orchestra rehearse on stage.
“They sound amazing up there, and we haven’t even started.”
“Whimsical” was the word Century thought encapsulated Iolanthe. Like Quinsey, his directing process was tinged with deja-vu; in 2018 he’d performed this operetta as a pit musician, and was now acting as the musical director.
From the costumes, to the sets, to the performances, Iolanthe was certainly whimsical. The chancellors and the fairies were all elegantly and outlandish dressed, the “peers” (chancellors) wearing flowing velvet robes and the “peris” (fairies) flowery brown dresses. While some may imagine fairies as peaceful tree-hugging ditzes, the winged girls of Iolanthe live in a magical forest where the go-to penalty for crime is execution. Meanwhile, the nondescript British town their forest is located in follows the traditional British government structure, all under the control of the broken-hearted Lord Chancellor (Samuel ValentimGervais), who lies awake at night, teddy bear in hand, wondering why he’s been single for the last twenty-five years.
Iolanthe was, in a few words, “sublime,” and “wonderful,” and also “brilliant” according to lead
actor Matthew Erskine. His performance, funnily enough, was also sublime, wonderful, and brilliant.
Magical character work and physical comedy intertwined in a hilarious and stage-stealing performance from Erskine, who played both a convincing fairy and parliamentarian. Iolanthe had some of the most creative and original comedy I’ve seen; the whole cast executed the satirical writing of Gilbert and Sullivan with complete dedication. Erskine and Stanek portrayed star-crossed lovers, separated by the former’s fairyness, with the overdramatic flare of Romeo and Juliet and the airy goofiness of a ‘90s romcom. Their chemistry was truly a treat to witness and something I’d be lucky to see again.
Iolanthe; or the Peer, and the Peri, was, in a word to me, “spirited.” The energy in the Plaza Theatre was unmatched, the performances were energetic and fun, and the plot was fantastical and comprehensive. All in all, it was a truly unique work that managed to make an audience laugh, and perhaps hope that forest fairies infiltrate the British parliament.
“ Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go” — Anthony Bourdain.
My mind kept going back to that quote as I binge-watched the second season of Mo on Netflix.
Mo is an American comedydrama television series that premiered on August 24, 2022 on Netflix, starring Mo Amer as the titular character, Mo (Mohammad) Najjar. The series is loosely based on Amer’s own life as a Palestinian refugee living in Houston, Texas.
In Season Two, Episode One, Mo is desperately trying to get a laissez-passer: a permit allowing him to get back into the US in order to make his court hearing. During his time in Mexico, Mo was selling falafel tacos from a cart – a fusion platter, combining his Palestinian and Levantine heritage with Mexican cuisine.
Fast forward a few episodes later, and Mo is back in the US, to find his Mexican ex-girlfriend is dating a new man. Not just any man, however, but an “Israeli” chef named Guy, who owns a “Middle Eastern restaurant.” Mo is livid: he cannot shake the feeling of betrayal. Not only is his ex dating another man, but she chose to be with someone whose identity is at the core of Mo’s suffering.
In another episode, Mo is sleeping over at his childhood friend Nick’s house. In search of a midnight snack, he opens the fridge, and to his horror, sees a takeout bag from Guy’s restaurant. And what does he find? There, wrapped in aluminum foil, were falafel tacos.
Before knowing who Guy was, Mo had met him outside a housewarming party Guy was catering. While sharing a cigarette, he noticed the Middle Eastern food, and Mo shared that he had spent time in Mexico selling those tacos. Seeing his stolen invention in his best friend’s fridge drives Mo to the brink of insanity. Nick doesn’t understand his outburst and calls him overdramatic, blaming his anger on his jealousy.
This part made me angry. Partly because I have experienced similar dismissal from friends who did not share my cultural background, did not understand what it is like to have a colonial
entity steal your culture and claim it as their own.
One of my favourite Lebanese dishes is called moghrabieh, a pearl couscous dish with chickpea, chicken, and chicken stock. The name moghrabieh is in reference to the Maghreb, as in Morocco, to give credit to where the platter’s rolledup dough comes from. When I would describe it to people, their faces would express confusion first, before exclaiming proudly, “Oh! You mean Israeli couscous?!” No. No, I do not. And whenever I would react to this statement, I would be met with the same dismissal as Mo. They would claim that Arabs are too sensitive about food (have you met Italians?), and it wasn’t that deep, considering the Levant shared the same type of food in different varieties.
Granted, people from the Levant do share the same food. But there is a difference between sharing and appropriating it. Slapping your name on it and saying we’re alike. Slowly and cunningly seeping into a culture that is not yours and calling it your own.
In the Levant, food isn’t just something you enjoy — it is a form of resistance.
Take the Palestinian Maqluba, for example: In December 2017, Palestinian women would serve the national Palestinian dish to protestors in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the Israelioccupied East Jerusalem, during a demonstration against Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
One of the women, Hanadi al-Halawani, said, “I made sure to serve maqluba to the young protesters as a way to underline that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, with all its people, food and culture.” The dish would then be called the “dish of spite” by both Palestinians and Israelis. To some of us, food is recipes that stood the tests of time and oppression. It is our grandmother’s hands rolling the vine leaves. Our grandfathers picking out the olives from the trees. Our mothers’ hands mixing the parsley with the tomatoes and the onions. Our fathers standing on the grill, making sure the meat is cooked just right.
Because when your literal existence is being erased, everything you do is an act of resistance.
Algerian Literature: Voices of Resistance and Identity
Exploring the Writers Who Shaped Algeria’s Cultural and Historical Narrative
Maria Hamdaoui Culture Contributor
Iwould like to discuss Algeria, with a particular focus on its rich and diverse literary tradition. However, before one assumes that this discussion will involve Albert Camus, I would like to clarify that this is not the case. While Camus is a name many associate with Algeria, his relationship with the country that shaped him is, at best, complicated — and, frankly, frustrating.
So, let’s focus on the writers who stood with Algeria, defended its people, and celebrated its culture. Algeria is the largest country in Africa, a land steeped in history and bursting with cultural richness. Its literary landscape reflects this diversity: blending Arabic, Berber, and French influences into a unique and powerful tapestry of voices. From the works of Assia Djebar, who vividly captured the struggles and triumphs of Algerian women, to Kateb Yacine, whose Nedjma is a cornerstone of modern Maghrebi literature, Algeria has no shortage of authors who deserve the spotlight. These writers don’t just write about Algeria: they write for it, giving a voice to its people and its soul.
Understanding Algerian literature is to understand Algeria itself — a nation marked by resilience, resistance, and an unyielding spirit. It’s a reminder that literature is more than just beautiful prose or philosophical musings; it is a tool for advocacy, for truth-telling, and for preserving identity.
Kateb Yacine – Nedjma. Nedjma by Kateb Yacine (1956) is a profound exploration of identity, colonialism, and resistance. The novel follows four young men — Lakhdar, Mustapha, Rachid, and Mourad — whose lives are intertwined with the enigmatic Nedjma, a woman symbolizing Algeria itself: beautiful, elusive, and deeply connected to the country’s history. Written in a fragmented, non-linear style, Nedjma mirrors the disrupted reality of colonial Algeria. Yacine weaves together myth, history, and personal trauma, reflecting the cultural and political struggles of his homeland. Rooted in Algerian oral traditions and Berber heritage, the novel also subverts French literary forms,
using the colonizer’s language as a tool of resistance. More than a novel, Nedjma is a powerful statement on Algeria’s resilience and the enduring complexity of its identity, making it a masterpiece of postcolonial literature.
Assia Djebar – Women of AlgiersinTheirApartment.Assia Djebar’s WomenofAlgiersinTheir Apartment (1980) is a collection of short stories that vividly portrays the lives of Algerian women. Inspired by Eugène Delacroix’s famous painting of the same name, Djebar delves into their experiences of colonialism, war, and the aftermath of independence. The stories in the collection explore themes of oppression, resilience, and solidarity. Djebar portrays women who are not only survivors of colonial violence but also active participants in their country’s struggle for freedom. She highlights the intimate, often untold stories of their sacrifices, fears, and triumphs, challenging stereotypes of silence and submission. Through her innovative narrative
poignant portrayal of rural life in the harsh mountainous regions of Kabylia. The story follows the protagonist, Fouroulou Menrad, as he navigates the challenges of poverty, tradition, and the limitations imposed by colonialism. Despite his difficult circumstances, Fouroulou dreams of education and personal growth, viewing knowledge as a path to self-liberation. His journey reflects Feraoun’s own life as a teacher and intellectual who remains deeply connected to his people. The novel goes beyond personal narrative to address broader themes of social inequality, cultural alienation, and the resilience of Algerian identity. Feraoun depicts the dignity and solidarity of the Kabyle community while subtly critiquing the colonial system that perpetuates their hardships. Published just a few years before the Algerian War of Independence, The Poor Man’s Son stands as a testament to the spirit of resistance and the enduring hope for a better future.
Understanding Algerian literature is to understand Algeria itself — a nation marked by resilience, resistance, and an unyielding spirit.
style, Djebar blends personal memories, oral histories, and poetic language, crafting a deeply layered exploration of identity and resistance. Women of Algiers in Their Apartment is a poignant and powerful act of cultural and feminist resistance, offering a window into the inner lives of Algerian women and the complexities of their struggles. It remains a vital contribution to both Algerian and feminist literature.
Mouloud Feraoun – The Poor Man’s Son. Mouloud Feraoun’s The Poor Man’s Son (1950), is a semi-autobiographical novel that captures the struggles of growing up in a poor Kabyle family under French colonial rule in Algeria. Written with striking simplicity and honesty, the novel offers a
Mohammed Dib – The Algerian Trilogy Mohammed Dib’s The Algerian Trilogy, composed of La Grande Maison (1952), L’Incendie (1954), and Le Métier à Tisser (1957), is a foundational work of Algerian literature that vividly portrays the struggles of ordinary Algerians under French colonial rule. The trilogy is a poignant and unflinching depiction of life in the working-class neighborhoods and rural areas of Algeria in the 1930s and 1940s. The trilogy follows the life of Omar, a young boy growing up in a poor family, as he witnesses the deep inequalities and hardships faced by his community.
In La Grande Maison, Dib paints a bleak yet empathetic picture of poverty and resilience in a colonial society. L’Incendie shifts focus to
the countryside, where tensions between colonial authorities and oppressed Algerian farmers rise, foreshadowing the coming revolution. Finally, in Le Métier à Tisser, the trilogy captures the struggles of laborers and the growing awareness of collective resistance against the colonial system. Dib’s narrative style blends realism with lyricism, drawing from Algerian oral traditions and weaving in rich descriptions of the landscapes and lives of his characters. His work is not just a chronicle of colonial oppression but also a celebration of Algerian culture and the indomitable spirit of its people. The trilogy is deeply political, offering a critique of colonial exploitation while highlighting the seeds of rebellion that would grow into the Algerian War of Independence. Mohammed Dib’s The Algerian Trilogy remains a cornerstone of postcolonial literature and a testament to the power of storytelling as resistance.
In exploring the works of Algeria’s literary giants, we uncover a rich tapestry of voices that speak to the nation’s struggles, triumphs, and enduring spirit. Their stories transcend mere fiction; they are acts of resistance, reflections of identity, and declarations of resilience in the face of oppression. Whether critiquing colonialism, exploring post-independence struggles,
or confronting extremism and authoritarianism, these writers have given Algeria a literary voice that is as profound as it is vital. Algerian literature is a testament to the enduring human spirit and the power of storytelling to illuminate, resist, and inspire. Let us honor these writers for their invaluable contributions, ensuring their voices continue to resonate far beyond the borders of Algeria.
Algerian literature is a testament to the enduring human spirit and the ability of storytelling to illuminate, resist, and inspire
photo of Kateb Yacine circa 1956
Sustainable Development or Sustained Colonialism?
The “New Vic Project” and McGill’s role in the colonial apparatus
Sophia Brohman
Commentary Contributor
McGill has been using its finances to side with imperialist powers since its founding. Our institution has a long history of perpetuating — and in some instances creating — a colonial narrative. Nowhere is this more evident than in the $870 million investment
McGill has dubbed the “New Vic Project,” a planned expansion of McGill’s campus specifically for sustainability studies, onto the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital.
The New Vic Project has been swept under the rug by McGill for a reason. The institution’s discriminatory and deliberate colonial bias is evident once you dig into the history of the site being used for their planned renovation. During the Cold War, it was previously known as the Allan Memorial Institute, where Dr. Ewen Cameron (the first chairman of McGill’s psychiatry
department) performed “mind experiments.” These involved torturous methods like lobotomies and shock therapy on vulnerable members of the population under the CIA project MKULTRA. Many of these victims were Indigenous children funnelled directly from the residential school system.
The Mohawk Mothers, a group of Kanien’kehá:ka women, have protested McGill’s development of this site because there remain Indigenous children buried on the grounds as a result of the experiments. Despite multiple scent dogs detecting human remains on the site in 2023, members of the Mohawk Mothers say that McGill and the Société Québécoise des Infrastructures have repeatedly used improper methods of excavation and have refused to use forensic tools to avoid seriously examining the site.
Philippe Blouin, a PhD candidate at McGill University who is closely affiliated with the Mohawk Mothers,
At every opportunity, McGill has invalidated, dismissed, and flat out rejected the concerns of the Mohawk Mothers – all while peddling the narrative that they are working in tandem with Indigenous communities and are committed to integrating Indigenous experience into the design of the new project.
spoke to me about the evidence found on the site. One of the cultural monitors at the site, Llyod Benedict, observed bone fragments and two fragments of a child’s shoe from the early 20th century. Upon this discovery, however, Blouin explains that “McGill and the SQI refused to further examine the matter immediately, moving the piles elsewhere without consulting
the Mohawk Mothers.” When they finally decided to examine the piles of excavation, they used a mechanical sifter for quarries and mining, an improper tool to be handling delicate evidence like bone fragments. Blouin says that this was “the first time [this tool] has ever been used for archaeology in Canada.” McGill has also utilized the court system in its efforts to
discourage a proper investigation of the site. The university has cherry-picked aspects of the settlement agreement made in 2023 to avoid archaeological examination and has fought the Mohawk Mothers in numerous Courts of Appeal. On January 16, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected an appeal from the Mohawk Mothers to hear their case. Blouin noted that the
Zach Cheung | Visuals Contributor
It reflects a fundamental attitude of the colonial state that treats Indigenous grave sites as if they were disposable, refusing to respect the dignity of the deceased and the sacred traditions that should govern their rest.
court system, “regardless of all its promises to implement reconciliation, is unable to enforce the rights of these Indigenous caretakers who are the Mohawk Mothers.”
At every opportunity, McGill has invalidated, dismissed, and flat-out rejected the concerns of the Mohawk Mothers — all while peddling the narrative that they are working in tandem with Indigenous communities and are committed to integrating Indigenous experience into the design of the new project. The barriers to information around the investigation and lack of proper excavation methods undoubtedly oppose McGill’s claims. The institution’s refusal to pause excavation or integrate the Mohawk Mothers into the archaeological process, as well as what Blouin refers to as a “lack of forensic caution,” exemplifies a historical failure to view Indigenous communities as autonomous people with rights, dignity, and spiritual traditions. By not allowing the Mohawk Mothers to find out the truth about their children, McGill and Quebec continue to systemically dismiss Indigenous spirituality and sovereignty.
Kahentinetha, a member of the Mohawk Mothers, told me in an interview that the Mohawk people are “suffering as a result of not knowing what happened to [their] children.” This is not just a local issue. It reflects a fundamental attitude of the colonial state that treats Indigenous gravesites as if they were disposable, refusing to respect the dignity of the
to shared goals benefiting colonizers.
How can McGill justify building a “hub of the future” here while it denies its past? How can McGill expect students to learn about sustainability, cooperation, cross-disciplinary respect, and mutual trust while it ignores the systematic violations of all these values that have taken place under their feet? And what, given the history of the site, and McGill’s denial, could ever be meaningfully accomplished on it?
deceased and the sacred traditions that should govern their rest. Colonial refusals to allow victims of Canada’s genocide to be acknowledged and laid to rest deny Indigenous experience and existence, treating them as if they are simply part of the soil rather than a body that deserves respect in death. McGill’s treatment of the Mohawk Mothers uses the tool of deniability that has allowed the colonial state of Canada to thrive for so long.
McGill’s actions are far from simply a few errors in judgment. Since its formation, every single one of McGill’s departments, from Psychology to Biology to Political Science, have assisted in colonial activities, specifically through the scientific and theoretical study of Indigenous resistance and evaluating the “assimilability” of Indigenous peoples. According to Blouin, “the values of the university do not fit the values of the younger generation right now. [McGill] must be one of the worst places in Canada for that... because of its close alignment with the colonial apparatus.”
The New Vic Project is simply another example of our institution’s attitude towards Indigenous peoples, an issue that has been going on through generations of administrations and students without obstacles. If the project is based on “dissolving boundaries between disciplines, communities, and institutions to focus on shared goals benefiting all of humanity,” it is clear McGill is only alluding
The New Vic Project isn’t just hypocritical, it is horrifyingly and disturbingly colonial. If it succeeds, it will disavow McGill of any of its remaining credibility and legitimacy as a leading university working towards meaningful, Indigenous reconciliation, which involves more than just putting a land acknowledgment on every page of the project website. These pages read as more than just hollow — they are insulting beyond words. It is mind-blowing how McGill, in the same breath, blatantly disregards Indigenous people and then lies through their teeth about respecting Indigenous wishes. If you look through the New Vic Project website and believe their intentions are to include Indigenous voices, that is precisely what the colonial institution intends. McGill thrives by spouting empty words about inclusion and diversity, relying on the fact that its student body will not dig deeper. As Blouin describes it, this is exactly how the burial sites were “abandoned with the clear intention that no one would remember it, and that no one would come looking for it.”
As students with access to McGill’s archival records, we have a responsibility to go “looking for it.” We have a responsibility to confront the injustices of the New Vic Project and fight for the Mohawk Mothers to receive the justice they deserve. Otherwise, we remain complicit in McGill’s system.
There can be no moving on, no reconciliation, without access to information. If McGill wishes to maintain even a shred of its reputation as a liberal and open-minded institution, and if we as its students expect to be proud of our site of learning, we have to hold our university accountable for every injustice it has committed. We have to draw attention to the injustices committed by the institution since its inception. Recency bias has allowed McGill to fly under the radar and actively erase Indigenous history less than a mile away from us, while we choose the causes we are passionate about based on the news cycle.
Protests on campus are not an isolated event for an isolated cause — they are a symptom of the continuous wrong choices McGill makes at every single turn when confronted with historic injustices. The remnants of McGill’s colonial past are present all around us. When we pay attention to the evidence, we can see that the New Vic Project is not about sustainable development — it is about sustained colonialism.
What exactly is McGill trying to teach its student body with its repeated efforts to marginalize already-historically disadvantaged voices? Blouin notes that McGill now stands the test of time: “Will they side with colonialism both in Canada and in Palestine, or will they change their approach and abide by ethical, anti-colonial values?”
The only way forward for McGill is to admit its role in the colonial state apparatus. They must make space for Indigenous voices to turn McGill into a true centre of learning by engaging with Indigenous concepts, history, and existence. McGill’s actions deliberately impede this and perpetuate an “unfinalized genocide,” in Blouin’s words.
The ghosts of McGill’s past will never go away. They continue to make their presence irrefutably
known. McGill’s denial of them only makes them more inescapable. The land we stand on, the university we attend, and the projects McGill undertakes are constant reminders of their historic violence against Indigenous communities. And despite McGill’s best efforts, Indigenous resistance refuses to be stifled. As Kahentinetha says, “We’re here because of Creation, not because you’re keeping us alive. What’s keeping us alive is what’s put in our mind by Creation, by the laws of nature.” McGill, a colonial institution essentially devoid of this connectivity, doesn’t stand a chance against the tenacity of Indigenous struggle. It will only continue to be confronted with its past.
If McGill doesn’t recognize its wrongdoing and take steps to correct them, where does it end? Our institution is building on the sites of the systemic killing of Canada’s Indigenous people, and we’re letting them. What kind of dystopian, hypocritical atmosphere has McGill cultivated that doesn’t allow students to protest the injustices happening before our very eyes? What kind of world does McGill want its students to create?
You can learn more about the Mohawk Mothers and their cause on their website, www. mohawkmothers.ca, as well as on Mohawk Nation News Red Nation Podcast has a great episode with members of the Mohawk Mothers entitled “MKULTRA and the kidnapping of Native children w/ Mohawk Mothers.” Additionally, the Mohawk Mothers are having a benefit concert in La Sotterenea on 26 February. Tickets can be found on their Facebook page.
The Mohawk Mothers are extremely welcoming to students who would like to learn more about their work. Simply submit an inquiry form on their website asking how you can learn and help their cause.
Emma Bainbridge | Visuals Contributor
Emma Bainbridge | Visuals Contributor
AI Summit in Paris: National Interests in a Global AI Race
While the main rhetoric of the summit centred around public interest, the race for AI dominance exposes the interests of attending nations
Aurelien Lechantre Sci+Tech Contributor
Inside the nave of the Grand Palais in Paris, on February 10 and 11, France hosted the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, bringing together global leaders and representatives from over 100 countries, as well as scientists, researchers and tech industry executives. In this two-day summit cochaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, discussions centred around 5 themes: building AI for public interest, the effects of AI on work and productivity, building an innovative sustainable AI hand-in-hand with cultural and creative industries, ensuring trustworthy development of AI systems, and shaping an efficient and inclusive framework for the global governance of AI.
The sentiment shared by many is that there is a need to build a more ethical AI domain. In light of this, the subject of “opensource AI” was at the heart of conversations. According to the MIT Tech Review , an opensource AI system is, as the name implies, open to everyone: it can be used for any purpose without special permission or payment. This means that researchers can freely inspect the system’s components and functioning.
Seeing these benefits, Macron announced the launch of Current AI, a foundation aiming to raise $2.5 billion to reshape the landscape of AI. It aims to expand data-set access, develop open-source tools, and make AI more transparent overall, including in measuring its environmental impacts. Along
the same lines, tech industry leaders also gathered at the summit and launched Robust Open Online Safety Tools, or ROOST, to develop and provide free open-source safety tools.
While open-source AI was developed to enhance transparency in the domain of artificial intelligence, it also has a negative side: the “opensource” aspect means anyone may use the system “for any purpose,” without any control whatsoever regarding the intentions of the developer.
David Evan Harris, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, warns about the dangers of such tools that can create “dangerous information, like a bomb recipe,” deepfakes, and violent pornographic content. Additionally, expanded access to AI tools may deeply weigh on the environment, as the energy consumption of AI is already high.
But if so many countries seek to invest in an AI model that seems to relinquish economic profit, there must be some underlying motives behind this. Open-source AI is viewed as an opportunity to share benefits and stimulate innovation, but also as a way for some countries to “catch up” on AI development. Indeed, fostering investment in AI is “one of the most pressing projects” France wishes to undertake, not so much for the sake of promoting an ethical AI industry, but rather to further
its own national interests and influence.
What the summit in Paris really showed was that a global race for AI dominance is already well underway, and national interests were at the core of
trustworthy.” J.D. Vance, Vice President of the US, declared that excessive regulations could “kill a transformative industry.”
However, this American aggression over AI regulation does not come out of nowhere:
[F]ostering investment in AI is “one of the most pressing projects” France wishes to undertake, not so much for the sake of promoting an ethical AI industry, but rather to further its own national interests and influence.
the debates surrounding the development of AI.
In the early weeks of his presidency, the Trump administration broke the 2023 consensus about AI development by massively investing. Trump promised to dedicate $500 billion to the industry, placing the US in a leading position in terms of AI development and research. To add to this, the US refused to sign a regulation declaration to “ensure AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and
the tech rivalry with China has led to a real AI race, with both countries competing to develop the most advanced model. China is successfully expanding its AI industry through the development of state-backed tech giants, and the worldwide success of DeepSeek, one of the AI systems that democratized open-source tools, only confirms their advancement.
As the US and China race for dominance over the AI industry, Europe seeks to enhance its AI capabilities. Thus, during
the summit, $150 billion was allocated to “AI Champions” by 20 European corporations, led by General Catalyst, to boost the European AI industry over the next five years. Seizing the opportunity of the summit, Mistral AI, a French start-up, and Helsing, a European defence corporation, announced their partnership to build a European AI defence. Gundbert Scherf, co-founder of Helsing, claimed that “Europe needs to assert its strength as a geopolitical actor, and AI leadership is the key to that strength.” To attract further investment, Henna Virkkunen, the EU digital chief, promised to simplify regulations and make an AI-business-friendly Europe, a sentiment echoed by Macron in his speech.
This “three-way race” for the dominance of the AI industry between the US, China, and Europe does not foreshadow anything good for the average AI user. Driven by economic and national interests, governments seem little inclined to regulate AI systems. Instead, they are preferring to maximize its development through massive investment and minimal regulation – as seen in the US and UK’s refusal to sign the AI regulation declaration of the summit. These developments in the world of AI policy will lead to more intense competition among nations alongside increased technological advancement.
