Volume 43, Issue 11

A Reason to Keep Fighting

Iranian Students in Montreal Fear for Their Families Back Home

Sidra Mughal

Disclaimer: For the safety of the students and their families, anonymity and pseudonyms were granted upon request.

Multiple failed attempts to contact her family have left Zahra feeling hopeless.

Her mother-in-law, who lives in a small town on the outskirts of Shiraz, Iran, does not have access to a virtual private network in order to bypass the social media ban. Consequently, she cannot speak to her loved ones in Montreal on a regular basis.

Though they used to video chat frequently, Zahra and her family have resorted to using calling cards to keep in touch. Her family members worry for her very much, as they aren’t able to speak with her often.

And the feeling is mutual. Zahra’s brother-in-law was among the first protesters arrested at the start of Iran’s feminist revolution in September 2022. “They found a conversation in his WhatsApp telling his father about the protest. The court says he should be in prison for five years,” Zahra said.

He was travelling back home from work when he was stopped by the police. They asked to check his mobile device without reason. The officers confiscated the device following his refusal to comply with their demands. He was then arrested.

Failure to keep in touch with the latest news from her family has been devastating for Zahra. As a Concordia student who im-

migrated from Iran two years ago, she has watched as state violence has continued to ravage protesters across her home country.

Zahra is one of many Iranian students in Montreal who have been isolated from their loved ones because of the ongoing protests in Iran.

Since the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police on Sept. 16, 2022, uprisings have broken out in dozens of cities around the country. Amini’s death was the tip of the iceberg—a response to decades of repression and systemic violence against women.

Despite the ongoing efforts of Iranian students residing in Montreal to constantly organize protests in support of their families back home, the situation has taken a serious toll on their mental health and wellbeing.

Watching their families suffer from the civil unrest, government crackdowns, violence and economic turmoil has caused them a great deal of stress.

On Sept. 21, mobile network carriers in Iran began halting users' Internet access daily from 4 p.m. until around midnight. As of Sept. 30, this routine was still being enforced.

In order to control its activities and intensify censorship, the government blocked Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, Twitter and other social media networks.

On Dec. 18, the Iranian regime gave Meta Platforms, an American company that owns

WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, 10 days to establish offices in Iran if they wished to have their applications unblocked.

“When you’re outside of Iran, it is challenging because I want to do something but felt like I could do nothing,” Zahra said. “Every day I heard bad news in Iran, I couldn't concentrate. I felt that many of my friends had the same issue and couldn't even work or study.”

For Reza, a fellow Concordia student from Iran, it has been very hard to keep in touch with his family. Given that the government is consistently monitoring conversations by utilizing digital surveillance, he feels unsafe communicating with them.

He said that his family members in Iran used WhatsApp to communicate with him, but the government blocks communication even there. Forced to adapt, his family must switch between apps to keep in contact.

“It’s hard to watch and listen to the news every day. One of the reasons I’m not up to date is that I feel that it will get to me, and so I disconnect,” Reza said. “My parents are always watching the news and keeping up to date, but it's tough.”

Safety is one of the biggest causes of concern for Iranians watching the crisis from abroad. International bodies such as the United Nations and various non-governmental organizations such as the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center and the Center for Human Rights in Iran have been highly condemnatory of Iran’s judicial system and

its mass human rights violations since the uprising began.

“The justice system in Iran is rigged,” Reza said. “For the people who are sentenced to death, the judge would purposefully give them a bad defender, someone who is not good at their job. They do this to give them the image that they have a justice system but they simply don’t,” he claimed.

Going against the Iranian regime can result in severe injury or death. Prisoners and detainees are often tormented and deprived of their fundamental rights, according to Amnesty International.

In dealing with the anxiety of watching the turmoil unfold, a feeling of hopelessness has been stirring in the students living away from their loved ones. For Kiana, an Iranian student from Dawson College, “to a certain degree, it almost feels like a forced exile.”

However, students like Zahra endeavoured to find a way to be a meaningful voice for Iran. In one of her classes, she spoke to her professor about her family’s situation back home, and was allowed to change her assignment in order to connect it to the ongoing movement.

“In this way, I did my assignment and was a voice for Iran,” she said.

Since September 2022, pro-Iranian protesters have taken to the streets of Montreal on a near-weekly basis to denounce the death of Mahsa Amini and to support the uprising, largely led by Iranian women. Students have played an integral role in maintaining the protests in Canada.

Though the protests by the Iranian diaspora have sparked conversations in Montreal and Canada, students like Kiana have found that the responses from local, provincial and federal governments have been performative at best.

“If this was something in their best interests, I feel that more would be done,” Kiana said. She found that “it’s mainly the Iranian diaspora” who has been taking concrete action in support of the Woman Life Freedom movement.

“We have to keep pushing them, we have to give them a reason to care,” Kiana added. “It takes a lot to go to the protests.”

Kiana hopes that continuing to hold protests in Montreal will create a snowball effect down the line. “Even if a few attend, more people will join because people will become curious, and it will increase in attention. By showing our faces, we are asking them to keep on going.”

This also applies to higher education institutions, Zahra added. According to her, Concordia has not taken enough action.

“When the movement started in Iran, my friend and I went when Concordia had a welcoming meeting at the beginning of the semester,” Zahra said. “We felt that they didn't do anything, and we asked them to do something, but they didn’t do much.”

Although the Iranian students of Montreal fear for their families back home, they remain hopeful and will continue to fight for them until change is achieved.

GRAPHIC LYNA GHOMARI AND MYRIAM OUAZZANI

Not An Exception

How Quebec’s Prison System Killed Nicous D’André Spring The Link

Content warning: This article contains graphic details related to violence, death, and prison conditions which may be difficult for some readers.

“I n your last piece of strength, you're screaming, ‘I need help, I need help, I need help,’ and they don't help you—and then you die in that cell.”

This is how Nicole Celleste George imagined what the last few moments of her late friend, Nicous D’André Spring, looked like. “This is something that should have never happened,” she said.

age, sentence length or gender.” The report also indicated that Black inmates are more likely to be “labelled or treated like gang members” and targeted by staff. Investigators found that Black inmates were more frequently written up for discretionary offences and punished more severely.

Christophe Lewis, an advocate for prison reform, is critical of how the prison system operates in Canada. He said that the inhumane conditions prisoners are forced to live in, as well as the continuous violation of inmates’ human rights, is reflective of how violent the system is.

ously blamed him for the incident, he recounted. For Lewis, the use of excessive force is not the only indicator of a broken system. These problems are not unique to Ontario prisons. Having served time in Quebec, Lewis emphasized that the conditions in prisons, like Bordeaux, are extremely harsh.

“I’ve seen people get the life beat out of them in prison. I've seen people get shot and killed by the guards in provincial prisons,” he said.

All inmates are vulnerable to this type of treatment, but people of colour are disproportionately affected, Lewis described. “There's

Resources within the prison system are allocated to punitive practices over rehabilitation programs. For Telemaque, this approach severely harms inmates. They are “not getting any programs […] that could benefit them when it comes to rehabilitation,” he said.

Additionally, the seclusion of inmates further harms their mental health, he adds. The prison’s high suicide rates illustrate this best. A 2021 report from Quebec’s bureau department stated that Bordeaux alone had 15 suicides and 32 attempts since 2011.

This reality, coupled with inmates’ limited access to loved ones, furthers the harm of isolation. “Specifically at Bordeaux, it's hell just to get a [family] visit,” Telemaque added. “People are basically secluded to their cells 18 to 20 hours a day [to maintain order],” he said.

Seven weeks later, an Inuk man named Bobby Kenuajuak was found dead on the floor of his cell after having been neglected for 11 hours by correctional officers, despite showing symptoms of heavy perspiration, shortness of breath, and being in a state of confusion.

On Dec. 20, 2022, Spring was admitted to Bordeaux. Confidential documents given to Radio-Canada by prison officials provide a detailed report of how the incident allegedly played out, involving nine correctional officers.

Spring died on Dec. 25, 2022 in a hospital. The day prior, he was pepper sprayed and hooded with a spit mask while at Bordeaux prison in Montreal. He was supposed to be released on Dec. 23, making his detention illegal at the time of his death. He was 21 years old.

For many in the Black community, Spring’s death is unsurprising; it represents yet another person of colour killed by Quebec’s justice system. Despite his family’s pleas for justice, accountability, and systemic change, barriers within state institutions have made their fight nearly impossible.

Spring’s death, his family, friends, and supporters have argued, represents a larger cog in a machine designed to oppress, marginalize, and dehumanize Black people. For decades, Quebec’s prison system has acted as the ideal breeding ground for racial violence and subversion of human rights.

On Nov. 1, 2022, the Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada published its 2021-22 annual report illustrating the disproportionate and discriminatory treatment of Black people within the prison system.

The investigation found that 12 per cent of Black inmates reported being “over-involved in use of force incidents, regardless of risk level, security level,

He believes that the problem is rooted in how the system views inmates. “[Prison guards] look at prisoners as their adversaries. So when you're dealing with your adversaries, you're never going to be completely kind to them,” he said.

Lewis is all too familiar with the excessive force used on inmates. In 2012, while at Millhaven Institution, a federal prison in Ontario, Lewis was brutally assaulted by approximately 30 correctional officers. He was pepper-sprayed and put in an illegal chokehold, unable to breathe until he passed out.

In his blog, Freedom is a Must, Lewis described this threeminute attack as “unprovoked, vicious, and excessive.”

some ruthless staff members that just don't care, and look at Black lives as a nuisance” he added.

For him, the brutality of the Bordeaux correctional officers towards Spring is almost routine. “I was fortunate to walk away with my life. A lot of people are not fortunate to walk with their life,” Lewis told The Link. “Case in point, someone like Nicous Spring wasn't fortunate. He was killed in the hands of those that are there to protect him.”

Bordeaux is one of Quebec’s largest and most infamous detention centres.

According to Svens Telemaque, the support services counsellor for DESTA, a Black Community Network that works closely

The lack of systemic support to reintegration contributes to the 55 per cent recidivism rate for provincially sentenced offenders in Quebec.

Telemaque, alongside many prison reform advocates, agree that incarceration should never be a death sentence.

According to the documents, correctional officers were called in to diffuse an altercation between inmates in which Spring was allegedly involved. Officers managed to return the inmates to their cells but allegedly struggled to get Spring to cooperate. They claimed that he tried to headbutt officers and spit, though it is unclear whether it was intentional or not.

An officer then forced a spit mask on Spring. A prison supervisor ordered that Spring be pepper-sprayed while still wearing the mask.

Another guard then used MK-9 pepper spray, one of the “most powerful crowd control pepper

Lewis described being forced to live in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day at the mercy of his assaulters. Most of the officers involved in his assault kept their jobs, got promoted and continu-

with current and former inmates at the prison, the conditions inside Bordeaux are abhorrent.

As of 2021, Quebec’s Public Security Ministry disclosed that Bordeaux contained 1,021 inmates.

Reports have found that deaths in custody across Canada are on a steady increase. Statistics Canada documented 963 reported deaths in federal, provincial, and territorial prisons between 2009-2019 alone.

Telemaque said that Spring’s death reinforces the systemic problems at Bordeaux. “I already know people personally that have been abused in the prison system, so I wasn't surprised that someone died,” he asserted.

In recent years, Bordeaux prison has been attributed to several high-profile deaths. In 2016, Michel Barrette died in his cell after being beaten for 23 minutes by three other inmates. In May 2020, a 72-yearold inmate died of COVID-19 after being refused medical treatment for his worsening symptoms.

spray and designed to immediately inflame the sensitive membranes of the lungs, eyes, and nose to instantly disorient and immobilize assailants,” according to a pepper spray manufacturing company.

Spring allegedly refused to take a decontamination shower, at which point, he was pepper-sprayed for a third time. The report then states that Spring’s body went numb soon after, and guards carried him to his cell. They believed he was faking his condition.

Once he was in his cell, nurses were brought in and reported that Spring had no vital signs. They immediately requested and used a defibrillator and performed CPR. Spring was then transported to a hospital. Within the same hour, he was pronounced dead.

“

I’ve seen people get the life beat out of them in prison. I've seen people get shot and killed by the guards in provincial prisons.”

Christophe Lewis

“My family is demanding the video [of the altercation] to be released to us and the public because it’s been over a month now that we’ve been waiting.”

— Sarafina Dennie

“Spring is not the first person who has died [because of a spit hood], and certainly when used in combination with pepper spray.”

—Tanya Monforte

The report indicated that the victim likely died of heart failure.

The Red Coalition, a lobby group formerly representing the family, demanded an independent autopsy to confirm the cause of death, in addition to the video being released. “Our goal remains to increase transparency of what happened to Nicous,” said Alain Babineau, director of racial profiling and public safety for the organization.

Babineau does not believe that achieving this is enough. “The coroner’s public inquiry, that will be published, is a good thing. But at the same time, it may not be as rewarding as people think in terms of uncovering the greater issues of racism and discrimination,” he said.

The lobby group filed a public inquiry with Quebec’s Ombudsman, as announced in a press release on Jan. 5. “We met with [the Ombudsman] last week and had a great conversation,” Babineau said.

The approach taken by Bordeaux correctional officers towards Spring has since been under scrutiny. “Some of the things that have been reported, if true, are really indicative of a serious problem,” said Tanya Monforte, a political science professor at Concordia University with a background in human rights and law.

Inmates’ rights are protected under Quebec law, which states

that all incarcerated people have the right to an intervention performed “by competent and honest personnel [...] with the necessary and required limitations in accordance with the laws and regulations in force.”

For Monforte, the “egregious use of different restraining devices” is the “most problematic.”

She said that such devices should be used with caution, especially when “at the disposal of

we’ve been waiting,” Dennie said in a media release. “We need answers and we need justice for my brother.”

Brandon Ragain, a close friend of Spring, demanded that politicians take accountability.

“This is really a deep-rooted issue. It really is systemic racism, and Mr. Legault is really trying to tell us that systemic racism is not a thing,” he said at a vigil held in Spring’s honour.

“A white man would not have

family, Spring left an impression on everyone he met.

The first time George met him, she was immediately charmed. She reminisced about how he gave the best hugs and always had a “nice bright smile.” From the day they met, the two were “inseparable,” she described. “Anywhere I went, I had to bring him with me.”

Others described him similarly. “He was a very loving and outgoing kid,” an acquaintance who wished to remain anonymous told The Link. Stephen Hennessy, a friend and mentor of Spring, told the CBC in an interview that he was a “gentle giant” and was a “teddy bear [who] was just very loving and caring.”

To date, Quebec’s Public Security Department has suspended a correctional officer and the jail’s manager. But for some, this still does not constitute justice. “They should all be criminally charged and their names should be released to the public, like every other person,” said Lewis.

In Quebec, resources like the Indemnisation des victimes d’actes criminels, a provincial compensation plan that provides victims with benefits to help them recuperate from injuries resulting from crimes, are mandated with mitigating the financial aftermath of criminal acts and traumatic events.

someone that already has control over someone’s liberty and body.”

She was particularly critical of the spit hood. “Spring is not the first person who has died [because of a spit hood], and certainly when used in combination with pepper spray,” she said.

Sarafina Dennie, Spring’s sister, is insisting that the officers be held accountable.

“My family is demanding the video [of the altercation] to be released to us and the public because it’s been over a month now that

died in that cell,” said George. “The fact is that they have the option of grabbing a spit mask and pepper spray [...] because these inmates are handcuffed. There have to be prison reforms and there has to be a different way to go about this.”

George emphasized how Spring’s story is more than a piece of a broken prison system. “He was passionate about enjoying life, he never wanted to miss out on good moments,” she said. According to his friends and

Dennie described her brother as being “sweet, generous, kind, handsome, and loving above all, […] he was always seen with a smile on his face.”

Among many things, George said Spring was someone who always kept family and friends “very close.” She mentioned his love for children and how he would always be willing to babysit for those around him.

However, his absolute passion was for music, she said. Spring, who went under the stage name, YK Lyrical, posted his work on his Youtube channel.

“In the future, he was going to go far,” said George.

However, accessing these funds is a challenge for those who require them most. Compensation is often refused on arbitrary grounds, effectively leaving the burden of funeral costs on victims’ families.

As Spring’s family continues putting pressure on government officials to take accountability, they are taking steps to ensure that his name is not forgotten.

Dennie has since created a GoFundMe page in honour of her brother, and as a means to cover funeral expenses.

Additionally, friends, family and supporters will be gathering for the Justice for Nicous March & Rally, taking place at McGill’s Roddick gates on Feb. 10 at 1 p.m.

COURTESY SARAFINA DENNIE

“

There have to be prison reforms and there has to be a different way to go about this.”

—Nicole Celleste George

How to Fight the Right Activists Map Out Left-Wing Strategies in SCPA Panel

Philippine d’Halleine

From the elections of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro in the Americas to the rise of the Sweden Democrats and Brothers of Italy in Europe, there has been a revival in the prominence of rightwing parties around the world.

How did these parties reach power? Through a populist approach.

On Jan. 31, students from Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs launched their annual panel series. The first of these was Rise of the Populist Right: Charting a Strategy for the Left, organized by students Emilie Cunial, Hana Sherafati Zanganeh, and Caleb Woolcott.

The event was moderated by Becca Wilgosh, vice president of the Teaching and Research Assistants at Concordia union and took place at the Hive Café Solidarity Cooperative in the Hall building.

Four activists involved in the fight against the extreme right took to the microphone in front of dozens of students.

The panel was composed of Terri Givens, a McGill professor and author, speaker and consultant on immigration, systemic racism and inclusion; Nora Loreto, a writer, activist and podcaster engaged in social movement organizing; Maya Menezes, a climate justice and labour campaigner at STAND.earth; and Mostafa Henaway, a community organizer for migrant workers at

the Immigrant Workers Center in Montreal.

Even though populism is very complicated to conceptualize because of its many approaches, the speakers managed to formulate a concise definition. The concept of populism emphasizes the idea of “the People,” which is set in opposition to “the Elites” that can be found either in the left or in the right wing.

Givens highlighted that populists “try to reach out to those who are left behind.” She said that populists take advantage of isolated people who don’t feel represented enough and that start to lose confidence toward current institutions.

Moreover, populist approaches are usually very similar to one another. Menezes emphasized how their communication is overwhelming. Right-wing populists present solutions to each duress that could be brought up from other parties. In a world full of insecurity and doubts, this movement is here to comfort individuals. “It makes sense that they're really scared and no one is going to offer them alternative solutions,” added Menezes about people who vote for or support populists.

In Canada, populism is also gaining traction. Demands for the removal of Amira Elghawaby by Quebec’s National Assembly, the Freedom Convoy in 2022 and the leadership of Pierre Poilievre in the Conservative party are examples of this rise.

As new statistics about popular vote projection have been published, the Conservative Party of Canada may win the next federal election. The party has garnered 35 per cent support against approximately 31 per cent for the Liberal party.

However, the right wing in Canada is not the only beneficiary from the approach of populists. The panelists agreed that liberals have a real profit from the rise of right-wing populists, a well-balanced critique the audience appreciated.

“Justin Trudeau can go around all day saying how much he loves refugees and how much he loves migrants,” Henaway said, “but the Liberals have no desire to have uncontrolled migration on our borders. The farright populists have a more co-

herent narrative at this moment.”

On top of that, speakers raised the fact that the population tends to only focus on the last stage of problems—the outcomes—but must understand and acknowledge that the real problem is that “the system is broken,” as Loreto said.

How can other political parties act to fight against right-wing populism with inclusion and without being reactionary? The panelists agreed on multiple ways that would help constrain the impact of extremists, among which are coalition, union and solidarity.

Henaway highlighted his belief that unions are at an impasse due to the lack of action and risk-taking on their part: “We don't need to water down our politics,” he said, affirming the need to make people’s voice heard by making smart de-

Pinching Pennies Will Quebec’s Minimum Wage Boost Calm the Cost of Living Crisis?

Ivan de Jacquelin

the amount of the average hourly salary. As the cost of living rises, the salary of non-minimum wage workers has risen too, which explains why the two figures compare.

cisions accompanied by actions. Through activism, solidarity will be created and will make a stronger group with a stronger capacity to achieve goals, he added.

Woolcott described why it is important for discussions like this one to take place. "We decided to host this panel because so far, it's Trudeau and the Liberals who have been benefiting the most by responding to the far-right—and their response has been to applaud the free trade and policing systems that we know have failed.”

“We wanted to foster a strategy session on responding to the far right in a way that also addresses the problems with our neoliberal status quo and actually pushes for transformative, systemic change," Woolcott said.

On Jan. 18, Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet announced a one-dollar increase to the minimum wage to help the 298,900 Quebecers working low-paying jobs in the fight against inflation.

Effective May 1, the minimum wage will rise from $14.25 per hour to $15.25—a seven per cent increase.

Considering the annual con-

sumer price index in Quebec for 2022 had gone up 6.7 per cent, such a measure would seem to make sense. But unlike other provinces in Canada, Quebec doesn’t adjust its minimum wage according to that indicator.

Experts agree that the provincial government ensures the minimum wage doesn’t go above half

“It is a method of calculation which seems to us within the coalition quite outdated,” said Virginie Larivière, spokesperson for Coalition Minimum 18, a group of unions advocating for a significant increase to bring minimum wage up to speed with the cost of living and help get people out of poverty.

Larivière explained that the current system is based on studies by Pierre Fortin, a renowned Quebec economist, at the end of the 1990s. “The labour market context was completely different [back then],” she said.

The coalition, as per its name,

wants minimum wage to be set at least at $18 per hour—even though Quebec Premier François Legault admitted in December 2022 that even $18 “wasn’t enough to make ends meet.”

“Eighteen dollars is what it took in 2021,” said Larivière, adding that the coalition was soon going to be even more ambitious with its demands.

According to minister Boulet, setting minimum wage to $18 would put the competitiveness of Quebec’s business sector at risk. But in the midst of the labour shortage, businesses are under increasing pressure to improve wages, even without the government’s guidelines on how to attract workers.

“The numbers show it, seven per cent of workers are affected [by

the raise],” said Alexandre Leduc, Québec Solidaire deputy for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Across all industries, from restaurants to retail, fewer and fewer businesses are sticking to the minimum wage.

“For sure, the labour shortage puts a rising pressure on wages, and that’s a good thing,” said Leduc. “The more we wait, the less people the raise will affect.”

What was praised by Boulet as “the highest percentage increase since 1995” is an adequate measure due to an inflation crisis not seen since 1983, when it reached a high of 8.1 per cent.

Although the province’s minimum wage keeps rising, experts agree that there is no end in sight for Quebec’s cost of living crisis.

THE HIVE CAFE WAS FULLY PACKED ON TUESDAY EVENING, JAN. 31—PHOTO IVAN DE JACQUELIN

PHOTO IVAN DE JACQUELIN

Ever Deadly: A Cinematic Exploration of Tanya Tagaq

New Film Captures Inuk Artist’s Visceral Musical Experience

India Das-Brown

The opening seven minutes of the concert documentary Ever Deadly are captivating enough to be a short film on their own. In the foreground are Tanya Tagaq and fellow artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, face-to-face, standing close enough to kiss. Also in frame is Tagaq’s homeland of Iqaluktuuttiaq (Cambridge Bay), Nunavut, as the two women perform the traditional improvised call-and-response of Inuk throat singing.

The remainder of the film chronicles a live improvised performance of Tagaq’s shot by Maya Bankovic in Toronto. “The reason I love improvisation is that it’s only going to happen once this way, ever,” are Tagaq’s first words to those in attendance. The film bridges Tagaq’s performance with pencil-drawn animated illustrations from fellow Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona; lines from Tagaq’s 2018 novel, Split Tooth; her intergenerational pain, and the effects of colonialism on her family. There is a poeticism to the way Tagaq and Chelsea McMullan, her co-director, link each frame together.

Tagaq’s live performance is visceral and the word “singing”

does not fully encapsulate her soundscape. Her throat singing switches from haunting, soaring howls to deep, grunting and guttural. Her movements flow from swaying and snakelike to wild and spasmodic. At one point, she collapses to the ground in highpitched near-sobs. The sound shifts between soft and loud and her voice from agony to ecstasy. The rawness of her physical and artistic expression is palpable throughout. “Sound can heal, sound can kill, sound can be a spear, or a needle,” says Tagaq, quoting Split Tooth. And her singing is evidence of this.

Tagaq’s relationship with Nuna (the land) is intimate. Ever Deadly interlaces concert footage with footage filmed in Nunavut—scenes like ice rising and cracking, a white bird pecking at a red carcass against a snowy landscape or the Aurora Borealis, green against the blackness of the night sky. “I like that it’s not a safe place, but it’s a real place. And it’s where the music comes from,” says Tagaq of her homeland. And Nuna contributes its own organic score. “I love the sound of the foot on the shell. I want to rework it

and put it on my next album,” she says, laughing.

Also intimate are scenes of Tagaq with her family and community. In one instance, she sits with two small children on a tall rock by the ocean. “It’s so nice to see kids free, eh?” she says. Scenes of Tagaq’s mother, Mary, speaking in Inuktitut are powerful. She explains how she and her family were relocated from Pond Inlet to Resolute Bay so the Canadian government could settle their own people and claim water rights in the Northwest Passage. Shots of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls demonstrations are woven in and out of Tagaq’s performance. “I’d like to know why our people, our mothers, our children are being murdered at such a high rate!” demands an unnamed demonstrator. Sounds of protest morph into Tagaq’s throat singing as the film cuts back to her performance. And there is a moment of silence—the first and only one of this performance—as Tagaq looks up to the sky. Rage, grief, healing and resistance are epitomized in these scenes and in the way they are interwoven.

The film ends as the camera closes in on Tagaq and she rocks back and forth, eyes shut, chest heaving, oscillating her voice between breathy and guttural. As throughout the performance, everything is enveloped in bluish

purple light. The audience erupts and Tagaq ends her performance by hugging her musicians. Before the scene cuts out, Tagaq’s face fills the frame and she tucks her hair behind her ear, smiling. The image sticks with you.

Sofia Duhaime’s Crescendo to Stardom

Concordia Musician on Basement Recordings and the Struggle of Snagging Gigs

Hannah Scott-Talib

The music industry in Quebec is widely recognized to be unique: folk music has historically been and still remains a core element of the province’s culture. Today, hundreds of musicians across Quebec work to keep that flame alive, and one local artist in particular manages to bridge the gap between modern and traditional through her own music.

Sofia Duhaime is an up-andcoming indie/folk singer-songwriter hailing from Gatineau, Quebec. She is currently living in Montreal to pursue her studies in Film Production at Concordia, while also navigating life as a musician in the vast and

unpredictable Canadian music industry. She has been gaining success over the past two years through her expanding discography and extensive career as a performer—having opened for well-known Canadian artists such as Diane Tell and Serena Ryder.

From a very young age, Duhaime had a passion for the musical arts. As a child, she became interested in musical theatre and attended summer camps that strengthened her love of song. In her early teenage years, she taught herself the guitar and then later began to focus more on the art of songwriting. By her second year of high school,

she was participating in music events and competitions such as “Secondaire en spectacle.”

However, over the past couple of years, finding gigs hasn’t always been an easy task for her. She has never had any close contacts with anyone in the industry, so the hunt to find venues and spaces that would welcome her has been a solitary experience. She recalled what it was like at the beginning of her career to reach out and contact people for gigs.

“I just kind of sent so many emails to random venues,” she said. “The hardest part wasn’t

Continues on p. 8

COURTESY FRA LAURIER

Continued from p. 7

even the ‘no’s, it was the people who didn’t answer.”

Out of all the gigs she has done to date, Duhaime remembers the one that stood out to her the most. It took place less than a month ago, on Jan. 12— opening for Olivier Faubert at L’Escogriffe bar. She described the lively energy at the venue, as well as the fact that she was able to perform new, unheard songs. She received an encore for her

performance. She said this was an environment she hopes to experience again in her upcoming performances this year.

Duhaime released her first-ever single on music platforms in March of 2022—a delicate piano track entitled “Miraculeux.” It is currently her number one song on Apple Music and her second-most listened to song on Spotify. In October 2022, she released what she described as her biggest project yet: the 5-song EP L’enfant. This EP was created with the help of two others—her

boyfriend and bandmate Andrew Schmidt, who plays guitar and bass, and Nicolas Charette-Côté, who plays drums and keyboard. The trio recorded L’enfant in Charette-Côté’s home studio.

“We’re so proud of what we did because it sounds professional,” said Schmidt.

The amateur setup in Charette-Côté’s basement was far from being a professional studio, yet the band is incredibly pleased with how high quality the EP sounds.

There are two particular songs off L’enfant that Duhaime holds close to her heart. The first is “Berce-moi”, a jazzy yet somber instrumental paired with her smooth vocals. She feels that this is one of her more well-written songs and adores the complexity of its backtrack. Next, there is “Nature’s Daughter,” an upbeat folk song about a mysterious girl and her connection to nature. Duhaime enjoys that this song—unlike most of her other tracks which are more melancholic—has a happier melody.

Schmidt believes that Duhaime has taken a unique and effective approach to her music career. According to him, Duhaime’s choice to write lyrics in both French and English has allowed her to garner a larger audience. He recognizes that her ability to network and find valuable gigs for the whole band is noteworthy and shows her dedication to her career as a musician. “In a few years, there’s nothing stopping her from having a proper following,” Schmidt said.

MONUMENT: A 91-Page Love Letter to Mumtaz Mahal

Manahil Bandukwala’s Debut Poetry Collection is Modern and Assertive

In her debut poetry collection MONUMENT, author Manahil Bandukwala weaves a 91-page love letter to Arjumand Banu, dedicating every poem to her muse.

Popularly known as Mumtaz Mahal (The Chosen One of the Palace), she was one of five wives of Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram, more famously known as Shah Jahan, the Mughal Emperor of India in the early 17th century. Her husband gave her the name of Mumtaz Mahal to show she was his favourite wife.

When Arjumand died, Khurram commissioned the construction of the Taj Mahal to serve as his wife’s tomb. In her book, Bandukwala provides an empowering retelling of Arjumand’s life, which ended abruptly at 38 years old following the birth of her 14th child.

Khurram’s reign was marked by a hunger for power and expansion.

In MONUMENT, Bandukwala explores this duality with her skillful use of imagery and compelling poetry by delving into themes of death, power and beauty.

Though Arjumand died just three years into her husband’s reign, her legacy was one of kindness and compassion. According to historians, she used her influence over the Mughal empire to promote humanitarian programs for vulnerable and underprivileged people.

Bandukwala, who was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, wrote MONUMENT while she was completing her Bachelor of Arts in English at Carleton University. It was published in September 2022 by Brick Books.

Carefully constructed, the book is divided into eight sections: the prologue, BRAID, LOVE LETTERS, OFFSPRING, THREADS, UNRAVEL, LAST WORDS and PLAIT. Each section ends with an illustration of the Taj Mahal hanging upside down from the top of the right-hand page.

The first drawing illustrates the mausoleum intact beside a poem that starts with the line: “If love is a mausoleum, tear it down / brick by brick […].”

Every subsequent drawing shows the Taj Mahal crumbling more and more, until the last one is simply a pile of bricks at the bot-

tom of the page. This visual element gives Bandukwala’s already potent imagery an even stronger presence.

The poem “Restart” uses the allegory of an island from the video game Animal Crossing to describe the construction of the Taj Mahal in a sinister, almost macabre way. Bandukwala vividly describes the changing of seasons, the withering of apple trees, the wilting of carnations and “fields teeming with crickets.”

Hints of death lurk throughout this poem and permeate the book as a whole. The ending of “Restart” is especially poignant and hints at anger for Arjumand’s inhumane burial.

Bandukwala uses MONUMENT to describe how Arjumand’s final resting place was anything but peaceful. In the poem “Petrify,” the poet recounts how the empress’ “body did not decompose into dust / but began a slow petrification.”

The same poem compares Khurram to Medusa and shows how he robbed his wife of a dignified death. The final two stanzas are almost even more impactful than the aforementioned couplet:

“soul squeezed out of the tips of your marble fingers, you are alone, the incorporeal part of you the texture of stone.”

Bandukwala also writes powerfully about empire. “1628,” a love letter Bandukwala pens to Khurram as Arjumand, opens with the words: “On your back I kissed empire then / smudged it off, tasted

dirt on tongue tip.” The result is a bitter commentary on the emperor’s abuse of power throughout his rule and how Arjumand was voiceless in their relationship— an important undercurrent in MONUMENT

The final two stanzas of “1628” are especially poignant:

“[...] I bit the word off your bicep but you had it tattooed below skin.

I could brush it off myself, but you—I could not dust you off.”

In all, MONUMENT is a resounding expression of frustration with Arjumand Banu’s fate. Bandukwala offers insight into a rich historical period without sacrificing any of the work’s poetic qualities.

There are elements of Arjumand’s rich life that could have been elaborated on. An exploration of Khurram’s four other wives, for instance, is lacking. Bandukwala does, of course, mention that the empress lived with these women, but readers never learn their names or how they might have felt about Arjumand being Khurram’s favourite.

Doing so might have given readers more insight on Arjumand’s influence and provided agency to these other wives, though it might also have taken away from her narrative being reclaimed. In terms of reclaiming a legacy reduced to stone, as Bandukwala writes in “Monsoon,” this book is entirely effective.

Sophie Dufresne

“Here is your story in another language, speaking you alive.”

Manahil Bandukwala

COURTESY NATALIE OLSEN

At The Beginning of Time: A Reflection on AIDS and Loss

New Play by Steve Gallucio Explores Elderly Gay Men in Little Italy

Philippine d'Halleine

F

rom Feb. 21 to March 12, Centaur Theatre Company will present At The Beginning of Time—the newest production by playwright Steve Gallucio. Directed by Peter Hinton-Davis, this play takes place in March 2020, featuring three old gay friends in their 50s (played by Richard Jutras, Michael Miranda and Stephan Lawson) who encounter each other in an emergency room.

Walking the line between reality and fantasy, Michael Gianfrancesco, set and costume designer, hopes to immerse the audience in Montreal’s Little Italy of the 1970s.

The characters explore their past and reminisce about their experiences of joy and loss in a long, introspective discussion.

“It’s about how love evolves in a person's life,” said Gianfrancesco.

According to Hinton-Davis, this collaboration between himself and Gallucio is a work of

artistic evolution. Hinton-Davis explained the script features a mix of comedy and drama that will immerse the audience in a new world without disconnecting them from the current reality.

Hinton-Davis added that working with Gallucio on this story was an “obvious” choice. The two men are similar in age to the play’s characters and are both gay—thus connecting them to the production’s themes. Even though each artist has a completely different approach to their craft, Hinton-Davis explained this as a positive. “[It’s a new] dance,” said Hinton-Davis. “It's a difference I'm interested in—not to fight about it, to embrace it, to grow, to become changed by it.”

Hinton emphasized that this play represents a period of reflection everyone goes through at some point in their lives: the importance of remembering what one has experienced and how each

person chooses to understand and heal from their suffering.

Stephen Lawson is a part time professor in Concordia’s Theater Department and actor who is playing the role of Patricio. He pointed out how his character “takes life on a very deep level” despite the hardship he has been given. “It makes you think about what it means to be who you are in this world,” said Lawson.

Hinton-Davis explained that the show is in some ways a reflection on the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the characters lived through the AIDS pandemic, and parallels are drawn between these two tragedies.

Tarot Tells the Story An Exploration of Tarot and the Creative Process

The participants at the event had varying degrees of experience. “I have a deck, but I’ve never done a guided workshop,” said Talia Amaru-Kapantais, one of the writers. Genny Methot, another writer at the event, had a little more experience in tarot. “I have a few decks. I’m so fascinated, especially when they’re woven into books,” she said. While she had heard of using tarot for literature, she had never tried it herself.

On Feb. 2, Argo bookstore hosted a workshop by Phoebe Tsang— playwright and author of the recent short story collection release Setting Fire to Water. Tsang ran a creative writing class with a twist, adding tarot into the mix. Tsang’s goal was to teach writers how to integrate tarot into their writing practice— be it to cure writer’s block, advance plots, or provide information about a poetry collection or character.

The event attracted writers from virtually all mediums—including poetry, prose fiction, video games and teleplays. Everyone brought something different they’d been working on to experiment with.

“Tarot is something that entered my life a decade ago,” said Tsang. “When my father died, I wanted to know [where to turn for answers], that’s where the tarot came in.”

Tsang began the evening by inviting the writers to use tarot in order to explore their personal relationship with writing. The first exercise began with Tsang instructing participants to draw one of the major arcana cards and brainstorm as many associations with it as they could in two minutes. “The goal of this is to loosen your mind,” Tsang explained. This exercise was meant not only to prepare participants for writing, but also to warm up the deck.

“It's a really wonderful sort of window [into] a generation that lived through the AIDS crisis, and I think it's important to keep those stories alive,” said Gianfrancesco. He added there are few major plays that deal with gay folks navigating AIDS during the 1980s.

"A lot of advocacy had to be done and a lot of fights had to be fought to recognize the value and importance of health care for people, for gay people, for LGBTQ people, for all people,” explained Hinton-Davis, reflecting on his own experiences.

The play is an occasion for young and older generations to

reflect about their current, past and future lives as part of communities and the world as a whole, according to Hinton-Davis.

“It's a very funny, touching and moving script that I think can really be enjoyed by anyone,” said Gianfrancesco. “For people who weren't alive at that time or aren't connected to somebody who lived through that experience, it's a really great way to kind of understand that generation and what happened.”

“It tries to open your heart to a compassionate view of the world, and a critical one, too, ” said Hinton-Davis.

Tsang then proceeded to ask the participants a series of questions. The writers were encouraged to use the same card they had picked for the first question and observe its details. Tsang explained that this exercise was meant to slow participants down. “We’re so focused on the end result that it makes us freeze, but the single card deep dive makes us feel that there’s no pressure,” she said. She encouraged participants to not only apply this concept to this exercise but to the art of writing as well.

In the second activity presented by Tsang, writers could use their whole deck—including both major and minor arcana cards. Participants were encouraged to shuffle their cards until it felt as if the cards were speaking to them, then choose the card that stood out the most when answering each individual question as prompted aloud by Tsang. Some participants drew two cards, others only one. In either case, the writers answered questions surrounding their personal relationships with writing and how the way they think of writing influences their practice.

Writers of all types agreed that Tsang’s workshop was helpful to their creative processes. “It’s not

really difficult to get into. We were all there with our cards and suddenly, we were writing non-stop,” said Methot.

Amaru-Kapantais also had a positive experience. “I think I’m always looking for new sources of inspiration, and I like that this overlaps and intersects with something I had an interest in. The intersection between creative writing and tarot [are] both things I’d like to learn more about and do more with,” she said.

The final activity was given for the writers to take home with them and specifically addressed writer’s block. The exercise explored “How to unstick your story” and prompted writers to reach for tarot to answer questions such as “What is the main obstacle? What is the root? What or who can support me? How can I take action to unstick my story?”

Tsang encouraged participants to seek out literature involving tarot and writing. “When I started doing this three or four years ago, there weren’t really any books on tarot for writers out there,” she said. “Now, there’s so many great options.”

Tsang’s book Setting Fire to Water is available for purchase online and at Argo Bookstore.

COURTESY ARGO BOOKSTORE

Kathleen Champoux

Concordia’s Lack of Sports Students Create Opportunities For

Themselves

Valentine Alibert

"Concordia has its official varsity sports teams, but where are the options for people like you and me who want to play recreationally?" asked Julie Tran, a student at Concordia University.

Tran is one of three students looking to address this concern. Along with David Ruiz and Karam Hamwi, the inception of the Concordia Recreational Sports Club will run with investment from the Concordia Student Union. This club will allow students to do different sports regardless of their level, including volleyball, beach volleyball, bouldering, skating, bowling, among others not yet offered at the university.

The trio recognized the disparities between Concordia University and other institutions across the island of Montreal.

“Our club is really there as an opportunity to get people out, offer a variety of sports for Concordians and for them to make friends and stay active,” Tran explained. The group thought that the sports clubs at Concordia

were a bit niche and wanted to offer different sports mostly during the weekends when all students would be more available.

Using volleyball as an example, Ruiz said that it is not easily accessible at Concordia. If you want to play this sport, you can sign up for the intramural league, which offers volleyball games one day a week for Concordia students, alumni and people outside the university. Other than that, there aren't many options; no drop-ins and no varsity leagues, whereas McGill, Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à TroisRivières all have a varsity team.

Costs for funding a varsity team include at least one coach, support staff (assistant coach, doctor, therapists, etc.), travel costs, a physical rehabilitation therapy program, fundraising costs—and, most importantly, the availability of a gym for a few days of practice and games per week. For intramural teams, the situation is also painstaking. The process for implementing new recreation teams is only functional if there’s a possibility to garner

enough participation, rent spaces and collect enough money from teams looking to participate.

If, for financial reasons, Concordia does not plan to create more volleyball activities, then they need to be better at communicating the alternative sports available. “It would be easier if there were a hub with some sort of schedule to show what is going on every week,” said Ruiz. Despite a schedule set up on the Concordia website, navigating to get to the page is difficult and does not include all options for events across all intramural and recreation clubs.

The club seeks to collaborate with other clubs at Concordia, such as ultimate frisbee, roller skating,and skiing, to make connections with other sports communities.

Let’s talk Stingers…

Women’s Hockey: Currently first in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec division

Throughout the year, the consistent narrative has been that the Stingers’ women’s hockey program is not one to mess with. A defending National Championship squad with aspirations to keep the good times rolling—and over the weekend, they cemented the first step in post-season excellence by securing a spot in the 2022-23 playoffs.

On Feb. 2, in the game against the McGill Martlets, the Stingers handily claimed a 6-2 victory thanks to a four-goal second period. Despite the win against a struggling Martlets team, 12 different Stingers contributed at least one point in the game.

This feat, compared to the Feb. 5 game against the Bishop’s Gaiters, was a walk in the park.

In this match-up, Concordia sacrificed a decisive win for an exciting 3-2 final-frame comeback. The Stingers’ slew of shots, an average of 35.0 shots per game, usually launched on-goal was absent in the second period, as they only compiled a total of three shots. The Gaiters did not perform much better, having mustered a total of six shots in the frame, although forward Neleh Vigneau Sergeant was able to bury a go-ahead goal four minutes in. Stingers’ forward Émilie Lavoie batted a bouncing puck off the end boards out of the air and into the back of the Gaiters’ net, tying the game at 2-2. With less than eight minutes remaining, forward

Jessymaude Drapeau played the hero when she fired a loose puck rebound into an open cage.

The team amassed a regular season record that currently stands at 18-3-1. With 37 points in the win-loss column, even if the Stingers lose their last three games, they would still finish as a top-two team in the division. This conference stronghold has significance considering the next phase of the campaign is the provincial playoff run.

As any fan of the Quebec division would tell you, the playoffs are the make or break of a seemingly blemish-free season. In a best-of-three series, anything can happen. The Stingers’ themselves experienced an early exit in the 2019-20 circuit when they were sent packing at the hands of the Université de Montréal Carabins. Knowing this, and given their juggernaut status, many teams will be gunning to dethrone this Julie Chu-coached squad. The Stingers will need to rely on their depth and veteran defence to generate momentum and garner wins if they are looking to move on to the next rounds. First things first, the regular season still needs to play itself out.

Next game is against UdeM on Thursday, Feb. 9 at 8 p.m.

Men’s Hockey: Currently second in the Ontario University Athletics East division

If comebacks are trendy, then this past weekend shows that the Stingers’ men’s team recoined the term.

In their first endeavour against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, the Stingers refrained from light-

ing the lamp until the third period. Forward Maxim Trépanier led the charge, recording a natural hat-trick and sealing the 4-1 Stingers victory.

Game two came and went on Feb. 4 when the Stingers found themselves trailing late in-game once again. With under four minutes left on the scoreboard, the Stingers amped up the volume of shots on goal. The big forward Isaiah Campbell muscled for positioning in front of the Ravens’ crease, isolating himself to pot home a stray rebound. As time dwindled past the two-minute mark, Stingers’ defencemen Marcus Tesink fired a wrister into the top-right corner of the Carleton goal that proved to be the game-winner.

With a record of 18-7-0 and thanks to their win over Carleton, the Stingers’ have earned a temporary sigh of relief because they are granted a first-round bye in the playoffs. The team sits at 36 points on the year, only trailing the defending National Champions the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes with 39 points.

Coach Marc-André Elément’s team has developed together for almost two full seasons. The collection of rookies from last year acclimated themselves to the U Sports level of competition, building up a dynamic chemistry along the way. The team’s depth means scoring can be found by anyone on the roster. A utilizable strength, but will it be enough with the tough adversaries that await on the horizon?

Next game is against the McGill Redbirds on Friday, Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m.

RSEQ Announces Division 2 League

Conor Tomalty

T he Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec announced the men’s division 2 collegiate hockey league that will commence in the 2023-24 season. The launch announcement was made in a written statement that was sent out on Feb. 3.

Three university teams will be added to division 2 along with 13 collegiate-level division 1 programs. All teams will play 12 games in the regular season. The three university squads will hail from Con-

cordia University, the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi and the École de technologie supérieure.

“We are beginning to implement the recommendations of the report from the Comité québécois sur le développement du hockey,” wrote President and General Director of the RSEQ, Gustave Roel. The original message has been translated from French. “We believe that vertical development will allow college student-athletes

to pursue their studies and passion at the university level.”

Despite the Concordia team lacking affiliation with the Concordia Stingers Athletics program, the Head Coach of the Stingers’ men’s hockey team Marc-André Elément played a key part in getting the division 2 league off the ground.

“I started [the project] two years ago to give more guys an opportunity to practice every day and play a sport they love,” Elé-

ment said. “I’m happy the project is expanding and that there is a will from the RSEQ and the provincial government to implement hockey for university players.”

Following the good fortune that came from the 2021-2022 collegiate division 1 men’s all-star game, the RSEQ is delighted about the partnership’s continuation. The league’s written announcement stated that they are confident that the initiative will be successful and

that the project’s goal should help to advance the growth and progression of hockey in Quebec.

“[The division 1] league is so good right now that we recruit all the [Quebec Major Junior Hockey League] and [Canadian Hockey League] players,” said Elément. “But there are so many other leagues that funnel players. So, the more teams you add, the more opportunities that players will get to play the sport that they love.”

GRAPHIC JACKSON DUNNIGAN

The Predatory World of Montreal’s Nightlife

The Dangers of Being a Woman in Montreal's Nightclubs and Bars

Michelle Ilunga

Existing as a feminine-presenting person in a world that has long waged war on women is a daily feat of its own that is only exacerbated when going out at night.

As a young woman who goes out every now and then in a buzzing metropolitan city like Montreal, I know firsthand the stress and grief that ensues when out at night in spaces like clubs and bars. Being only 18 and new to the city, the nightlife scene was very unfamiliar. After a couple unsolicited grabs, some light hounding and harassment, I quickly learnt what it meant to be a woman existing in these spaces. Widely recognized as one of the

country’s cultural and creative hubs, Montreal’s nightlife has been said to have a heartbeat of its own. The city’s scene has the ability to be wildly liberating and gratifying by giving people room to let loose and express themselves while getting together. This is seen with inclusionary events like Queer Night at Barbossa, invigorating throwback music at Rockette bar and more. However, this same positive scene can quickly become a breeding ground for misogyny and rape culture.

Rape culture has been defined as a subset of values, beliefs, and behaviors in a society that trivializes or normalizes sexual violence, including rape. Slut-shaming, vic-

tim blaming and sexual objectification are all pillars of this culture. Unfortunately, rape culture is so deeply ingrained in our society’s psyche that these types of actions have become normalized and most people are unlikely to act when confronted with them. This bystander effect leads to attackers feeling entitled to inflicting harm due to the lack of backlash whilst also isolating victims. Thus creating a perpetual cycle of mistreatment and oppression.

When tackling the prevalence of rape culture in our social circles and practices, the factors and systems that empower this culture must be dissected at the root. For example, it’s very common to pass clubs that promote occasional “girls get in for free” policies. What may seem like a lucky money-saving opportunity is actually the active objectification and commodification of the women who oblige. This practice prompts the popular idea that if the product is free, then you’re the product. Thus making women the product, male guests the consumers and those in power—who

What’s the Whoredeal?

The Cultural Appropriation of Sex Work

Bri Kang

E very time I scroll through my cursed Instagram feed and see a pole fitness enthusiast with pleaser heels who isn’t a sex worker, I cringe a little.

Call me a little prejudiced, but I can’t get over the amount of pole fitness folks who refuse to acknowledge the roots of their favorite hobby. They caption their posts with #NotAStripper because God forbid anyone confuse them for some of the biggest heroes of our country! Personally, I prefer #YesAStripper posts because I love a good challenge of the Madonna-Whore dichotomy.

If you look at pop culture and cinematic depictions of people who work in the sex industry, you will see that sex workers have always been turned into caricatures. Racialized sex workers especially have been the butt of many jokes that degrade them. Simply think about Full Metal Jacket’s “Me Love You Long Time” scene or how Black Trans women are often portrayed in different series and films.

Grand Theft Auto is another example, especially since it literally gives the player an option to brutalize strippers. The dehumanization of sex workers is heavily normalized and feeds into the stigma that contributes to this disconnect many pole fitness folks perpetuate.

Yes, little polerina, it is true that you are not a sex worker. You get to do your little spins on your pole without worrying about the physical, sexual, verbal and systemic violence that strippers and other sex workers are put through on a regular basis. You get to adopt sex work aesthetics without the stigma that typically accompanies it. You also occasionally appeal to the male gaze, except strippers actually profit off of it while you do it for free or even lose money doing it.

Your so called art of fitness has really made things trickier for sex workers! You know those cute little outfits that you wear? Well, some people actually need those for work rather than leisure. Now, they’re becoming less affordable

are often other men—the sellers in this context. This causes the buyers and sellers to feel entitled to the product. Giving them the power to stare, grab and, fuck the product they’ve purchased.

The effects of this predatory system is bred through the prevalence and acceptance of rape culture in our society. These effects are epitomized with the popular St. Laurent Blvd. TRH-bar. This club, known for its indoor skate bowl, is a magnet for young people, but recently, it has built a reputation for its alleged mistreatment of the women in the space.

In 2018, the bar found itself in the center of controversy when it was revealed that they held a fundraising party for their former bouncer Steve Bouchard. Bouchard had been convicted of three counts of sexual assault and three counts of armed assault against his ex-girlfiend Martine Beaudet-Aune. He was then sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2017. Baudet-Aune attested that she felt like they were laughing in her face and that it exhibited a lack of respect for victims of sexual assault. This unashamed

support for somebody who has severely hurt a woman exemplifies the bar’s skewed priorities.

Many women have come forward to tell their stories about their alleged experiences of sexual harassment or assault at TRH-bar and the staff’s incompetence in these situations. Nineteen-yearold Carleton University student Chloe Hayes described watching a young girl who was visibly heavily intoxicated be escorted into the club with men significantly older than her by the bouncer. Luckily, she recognized the danger in the situation and went in to watch over the girl who needed help while the staff turned a blind eye.

Stories like this one are not uncommon; many young girls familiar with the city’s nightlife either have a similar story to tell or know someone who does. Despite the popularity of similar incidents, the club still thrives and we have to ask ourselves why. To me and so many others, it seems like it’s because those in this city’s nightlife do not care enough about the safety, enjoyment, and humanity of the women it exploits to thrive.

than they already were in the midst of a recession.

It’s currently becoming trendy to reap stripper benefits without facing any of the potential consequences such as barriers to future employment opportunities, being outed in dangerous situations,and even worse: violence and murder, which especially impacts full-service sex workers. It’s kind of like how thrift stores used to be a thing for people who needed to buy affordable clothes but became gentrified by Plateau hipsters or how white women colonized Black women’s hair products.

It is crucial to acknowledge the privilege of being able to pole and wear pleasers for fun versus having to do it to put food on the table.

I have to ask, why do you get grossed out and defensive when people think of it as a stripper sport? It looks like internalized whorephobia to me, but what do I know? What is wrong with being a sex worker? Please enlighten me!

As my good friend and performer Mina Minou once beauti-

fully said, “Denying the inherent sexuality of pole dancing is kind of classist and undervalues the work of poor Black and brown women and femmes who have struggled for physical autonomy for generations and by perpetuating the separation of fitness with strip culture, you’re undermining their labour.”

How can you appropriate elements from sex work culture, yet have such negative perceptions of this same culture that paved the way for you to be able to practice your passion? Next time someone asks if you’re a stripper, feel honoured that someone could have mistaken you for one.

GRAPHIC RENEE KENNEDY

BLUE DOG AND ITS NEIGHBOUR BARBOSSA ARE SOME OF STUDENT'S FAVOURITE BARS ON ST.LAURENT—PHOTO MICHELLE ILUNGA

I Am a Gay Man And I’m Tired of Dating Apps Cis Gay Men Are the Weakest Link of the Queer Community

Nelson Graves

Over the years, I’ve made my rounds on the dating apps in Montreal: Tinder, Hinge, even the dreaded Grindr.

Coming from small-town Arkansas, the abundance of queerness in Montreal was a joy, albeit overwhelming at times. Being thrown into a sea of jargon and tacit rules on these apps was enough to make me delete them. But like many others, I always came back.

As a cis gay man, using these apps has allowed me to reflect on my relationship with my community. However, they have also revealed to me the way cis men, like myself, can often interact with other members of the queer community negatively.

While some may call me a selfhating gay for critiquing some of these problematic behaviours, we need to acknowledge that the fight for queer liberation is often sidetracked by cis gay (typically white)

men without much critical insight.

This lack of insight stems from our proximity to heteropatriarchal structures, leading many gay men to see their queerness less as a part of a larger community and more an individual peculiarity.

For example, we could look at the case of marriage equality. While marriage became an issue that queer people of all identities fought for, it allowed for gay men to easily enter into a traditionally hetero-exclusive space—that of the traditional nuclear family. Rather than seeking to eschew capitalist and patriarchal pressures, cis gay men can easily assimilate rather than question these values due to our proximity to patriarchal structures.

Once gay men got this win, they neglected the needs of other members of the queer community, such as trans individuals struggling to get affirming healthcare. As evidenced by a

GRAPHIC NADINE ABDELLATIF

2020 report by Trans Pulse Canada, only 26% of the surveyed group of trans and non-binary individuals had all their affirming care needs met.

While many queer people see the community as home, survival and strength, some cis gay men see their queerness as an obstruction to joining the boys’ club—an attribute that can be removed by replicating the oppressive structures seen in heteronormative spaces.

In my experience, this attempt to replicate these structures happens most saliently on dating apps, particularly Grindr. Most shocking to me was a noticeable disdain for certain body types (including racialized bodies), ethnicities, and gender expressions. For some, their preferences become a list of what they are not looking for rather than what they are: no fats, no femmes, etc. Furthermore, ascribing too

much to rigid roles can often perpetuate the same sorts of binary thinking found in gender essentialism—the idea that gender carries strict prescriptive roles.

Heteronormative gender structures, like the dominant man and the obedient woman, are reflected in traditionally gendered roles: masculine and feminine, active and passive, top and bottom.

I find these rigid roles to be exclusionary tools even if occasionally pragmatically helpful. These terms ignore how gender expression and one’s sexual proclivities are not exclusively tied.

I don’t want my critique of a culture developed and sustained in the gay community to be taken as a total condemnation of these apps. I have also met some fantastic men and had great experiences. Still, I’m weary of the problematic norms that have become standard practice on these dat-

ing apps—body shaming, transphobia, and racism to name a few.

These digital spaces became an extension of queer in-person spaces during the pandemic, for instance. Though at times they amplify some of the worst aspects of gay life, these apps are important for developing and exploring a community that may not be readily accessible. These apps need a shift towards a more encompassing idea of community: being open and welcoming to all under the queer umbrella.

Rather than seeking to separate ourselves from the rest of the queer community, cis gay men should see our wider part in the fabric of queerness by supporting members of the queer community that aren’t just gay cis men. We should acknowledge our proximity to patriarchal power and utilize this position to help, rather than hinder, the overall fight for queer liberation.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

From Feb. 3 to 4, temperatures in Montreal went down to -42 C with wind factor.

Such low temperatures allow for sublimation to occur. This phenomenon happens when a solid instanteneously becomes gaseous, without even being liquified first. On those days, the ice on the St. Lawrence river becomes fog in the blink of an eye.

PHOTO THIBAULT PORET

@fujithib

Honouring the Hidden Black Gems of Canadian History

Do the names Viola Desmond, Lillie Johnson, Fred Christie or Dr. Clement Ligoure ring a bell?

Their names remain rarely uttered in classrooms as their stories and accomplishments are often overlooked or forgotten. Yet, each of these individuals had a great impact on Canadian history and, arguably, the world.

It is unsurprising that many would shrug at the mention of Dr. Ligoure. Still, this did nothing to deter the members of Development Options Halifax and Friends of the Halifax Common from rallying and campaigning to honour Black history and apply for heritage designation.

On Jan. 24, the Halifax Regional Council voted unanimously to designate Dr. Ligoure’s home a heritage property. Dr. Ligoure was Nova Scotia’s first Black doctor. Born in Trinidad in 1886, Dr. Ligoure graduated from Queen’s University in 1916. Following his move to Halifax, he aided in the recruiting for the No. 2 Construction Battalion—Canada’s only all-Black unit to be deployed during the First World War.

Dr. Ligoure was turned down for the role of battalion medical officer. It was usual for white soldiers to refuse to fight alongside

Volume 43, Issue 11

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their Black counterparts.

After being denied hospital privileges in Halifax despite his licensure, Dr. Ligoure responded by opening his own clinic in his home which he named after his mother, Amanda.

Beyond his role as a doctor, Dr. Ligoure was also the editor and publisher of the first Black newspaper in Nova Scotia, the Atlantic Advocate, which he also published from his home.

One of Dr. Ligoure’s most heroic acts was on Dec. 6, 1917. Following a blast from a naval collision that killed almost 2,000 people and injured another 9,000, Dr. Ligoure worked tirelessly treating hundreds of victims and saving countless lives; free of charge.

Advocates are now suggesting to the Nova Scotia Health Authority to transform his home into a clinic but nothing has been decided as of yet.

Sharon Brown Ross, a member of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, was among those gathered on the morning of Jan. 24 ahead of the decision.

"Please don't be coerced in repeating yet another historic erasure of a segment of Black African history in Halifax," stated Brown Ross.

Dr. Ligoure’s heroic act of selfless-

ness saved hundreds of lives and his contribution to Canadian history and Black Canadian history should not be erased or understated.

In history classes, Canadians often sit on our few laurels. We recount our history as saviours rather than culprits. We prioritize our involvement in the underground railroads and start our history in the 19th century, all while wilfully omitting our own 200 years of slavery.

Too often, we ignore the racial injustices that Canada perpetrated, even in recent years like the Indian Act, Chinese Immigration Act, The West Indian Domestic Scheme or the history of Africville.

One may be unknowing of the African-Canadian village called Africville. It was a predominantly Black community on the outskirts of Halifax. Overtime, it became a thriving tight-knit community with the Seaview United Baptist Church as its social and spiritual epicentre.

Discrimination and poverty caused many hurdles for the community of Africville. The city of Halifax refused to provide basic amenities and services on multiple occasions, including waste management or even access to clean water.

Taxpaying Africville residents were instead further burdened by

the city’s decision to build many unwished-for developments such as a prison, a dump and an infectious disease hospital in and around the community.

To make matters worse, in January 1964, the city of Halifax opted to relocate Africville residents, rather than to improve their current standard of living without any meaningful consultation with the community.

Despite claiming that this was done to improve their quality of life, it was reported that more than 80 per cent of residents were never contacted or consulted by the group in charge of consulting the community: the Halifax Human Rights Advisory Committee.

After years of persecution by local government and property developers, Africville was ultimately destroyed. Residents who could prove ownership of their properties were offered a lump sum payment allegedly equal to the value of their home. Those without proof of ownership were offered a mere $500. This was for the instances that did not involve threat of expropriation, bribery, intimidation and other forms of coercion. Despite the resistance and resilience shown by the community of

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Africville, the last remaining home was destroyed in January 1970.

Africville is a symbol of Black resilience and solidarity in Canada. But its history of discrimination and suffering is far from unique. Like many other thriving Black communities—such as Tulsa, Rosewood, Oscarville, Priceville, Hogan’s Alley—Africville was a beacon of hope for Black liberation and unity that simply posed too great a threat to white supremacy and colonialism.

In 2010, a settlement was reached and a public apology from the Mayor of Halifax was issued for the destruction of Africville. Although not all residents accepted the apology, part of the settlement was used to rebuild Seaview Church, which is now the Africville Museum.

This is why honouring the likes of Dr. Ligoure is vital to combating white supremacy. Though this rich history is now buried in its past, remnants of its glory prevail. The plans for the future of his home may remain uncertain, but the past heroism of Dr. Ligoure and all those who fought for Black Canadians will be forever remembered through time as part of Canadian history.

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Corrections for Vol. 43, Issue 10: In “Fridge, Please!” p.4, it was mentioned that Concordia knew about the community fridge, when in fact, the university did now know. Additionally, the food donation process was incorrectly explained. As of the time of publication, only unopened packages and sandwiches can be donated. In “Reggie’s on the Verge of Collapse” p.5, it was incorrectly stated that Shylah Wolfe became president of Reggie’s board of directors in May 2022. Wolfe became president in July 2022. Additionally, it was mentioned that Nick Kisil and Robert Henri were asked to step down, but this information is disputed by the board members. In “CSU Drop-In Daycare Receives Government Funding” p.6, it was stated the university had jurisdiction over the daycare. While the daycare carries Concordia’s name, it runs independently from the university. The Link regrets all the above mentioned errors.

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