The McGill Tribune Vol. 36 Issue 5

STUDENT LIVING “A library that stands the test of time” pg. 10

FEATURE “A walk through Auschwitz” pg. 08-09

The McGill Tribune

EDITORIAL: BROADENING THE SCOPE OF SUSTAINABILITY AT MCGILL pg. 05

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2016

VOL. 36 ISSUE 5

PUBLISHED BY THE SPT, A STUDENT SOCIETY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM

MONTREAL PITBULLS VICtims of impulsive decisionmaking Albert Park

Features Editor

SSMU Council met to discuss the 2016-2017 budget report and executive reports. (Christopher Li / The McGill Tribune)

#ConsentMcGill teaches students about consent

Speaking panels, workshops, and other activities cover related topics Domenic Casciato, Julia Metraux, and Sara Cullen Contributor, Staff Writer, and News Editor The #ConsentMcGill campaign kicked off its third year with a week of speaking panels, workshops, and other activities designed to educate mem-

bers of the McGill community about consent, sexual violence, and how to build healthy relationships. Events were scheduled from Sept. 26 to 30 and covered a variety of topics related to consent on the university campus. Included in the week’s programming was a workshop on how to intervene in cases of sexual assault and a symposium that

covered the topic of caring for survivors of sexual violence. Other events included a pottery class that promoted therapeutic self-care and a speaking panel on the power dynamics that contribute to sexual violence at the university.

Coordinated by the Office of the Dean of Students, #ConsentMcGill has been hosting the annual week-long

campaign since 2014. The initiative works with students, staff, and faculty, and seeks to promote the three key principles of consent: Ask, listen, and respect. Organized largely by Liaison Officer (Harm Reduction), Bianca Tétrault, #ConsentMcGill is run by volunteers year round.

PG. 03

Accessory fees: Canada’s medical grey area

Quebec promises to abolish healthcare accessory fees by early 2017

Clare Fogarty Contributor On Sept. 14, Quebec Minister of Health Dr. Gaetan Barrette announced that as of Jan. 2017, Quebec doctors will no longer be allowed to charge accessory fees—additional fees on services already provided by the Quebec health insurance.

Accessory fees have generally been charged for services such as eye drops, injections, and stitches.

According to Barrette, these fees sum up to approximately $83 million dollars in charges per year, guaranteeing a large profit margin for physicians who pay less than one-seventh of that cost to provide these services.

Many argue that this violates the

principle of “accessibility” outlined by the 1984 Canada Health Act (CHA), which states that all medicallynecessary services shall remain freeof-charge for Canadian citizens.

The Canadian government provides this funding in the form of Federal Health Transfers to the provinces on the condition that they respect the principles of the CHA.

pg. 11 - 13

Dr. Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, Canada Research Chair in Policies and Health Inequities and associate professor in the Departments of Sociology, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, explained that since the end of the 1980s, the federal government has done little to monitor the provinces’ compliance.

PG. 14

Last week, the Montreal City council passed a bylaw that will prevent the city’s residents from adopting any new pit bulls and introduce a set of rules governing existing pit bull owners. This decision has garnered much attention, mainly in the form of outrage and criticism: Montreal residents have set up petitions imploring the city council to reverse its decision, and various publications have presented facts and expert opinions that challenge the effectiveness of the ban.

Simply observing the messy aftermath of the decision would lead one to believe that the majority of the public is fundamentally opposed to the bylaw. However, it is uncharacteristic of Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre—who is notorious for his populist politics—to push a decision that would go against the general public’s opinion. According to an online poll conducted in June 2016 for La Presse, two-thirds of Quebecers were in favour of a ban on pit bulls. While the bylaw may seem justified in this context, its inception and development was marred by a signature characteristic of Coderre’s decision-making—impulsiveness.

In essence, the bylaw is a rushed and limited band-aid solution that is meant to assuage the general public’s fear of dangerous dogs without adequately addressing the issue in the long run.

Leadership entails making difficult choices in a decisive manner, and Coderre has made great efforts in this area; however, leaders must remain critical and think about the long-term implications and practicality of their decisions. They should not make the mistake of bending to the fickle wishes of segments of the population they represent. The Coderre administration’s failure to meet this criteria is clear when it comes to the bylaw.

PG. 05

2

NEWS

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Dr. Cindy Blackstock to join McGill’s School of Social Work Renowned activist to begin teaching in Fall 2017 Alexia Martel-Desjardins Contributor Dr. Cindy Blackstock will be joining McGill’s School of Social Work starting in Sept. 2017.

Dr. Blackstock is famous for her work as an advocate for indigenous children, namely during a case brought before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal regarding equal access to child and family services for indigenous children.

Dr. Nico Trocmé, director of the School of Social Work and Philip Fisher Chair in Social Work, are pleased that Dr. Blackstock is joining the department.

“This builds on a longstanding collaboration between [Dr. Blackstock and I], from the work we have done on the overrepresentation [of] indigenous children in [the] child welfare [system, and] documented by the Canadian Incidence Study of reported Child Abuse,” Dr. Trocmé said.

As Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada (FNCFCS), Dr. Blackstock worked to end the Canadian government’s discrimination against First Na-

tions children in the child care system.

“Going back decades, the federal government has provided less public funding for services like education, health care, and child welfare [for First Nations children] than all other Canadians receive [...],” Dr. Blackstock said.

“Depending on the program, 50 [...] to 70 cents on the dollar for First Nations kids.”

In Jan. 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal recognized the FNCFCS’s claim. The Tribunal ordered the Canadian government to end the discrimination against indigenous children in the provision of government services.

“We said that failures to act on the available solutions and the perpetuation of these inequalities for children is racial discrimination, and in Jan. 2016 the Tribunal agreed with us and ordered Canada to stop,” Dr. Blackstock said.

Since then, the Tribunal has issued two orders concerning the lack of action to end the underfunding of child and family services for indigenous children.

“We [sent] a compliance

order [in April] to Canada that [notified them that] they failed to comply with the January order […] and then we have another compliance order that was issued on [Sept. 16] again because Canada failed to comply,” Dr. Blackstock said.

If the government does not respect the order, Dr. Blackstock and the FNCFCS plan on taking the issue a step further.

“We are always hoping that Canada […] complies with these orders, but if it fails to do so, then we are within our rights to file an application for contempt in federal court […] because we simply cannot allow 163,000 children to suffer,” Dr. Blackstock said.

“It’s been shown and sold out to audiences all over Eastern Canada, and this week is going to Calgary,” Dr. Blackstock said.

Dr. Blackstock is currently completing speaking engagements and will begin to teach at McGill next September. She will teach a course about advocacy and changing public policy in changeresistant environments.

“I don’t think very many people in academia actually have

those skills because they’ve never learned how to actually create systemic change [....],” Dr. Blackstock said. “Without those skills, we can’t really expect people to be able to make those changes.

So I want to be able to pass along what I do in 20, 30 years to another group of folks on how you change things in peaceful, respectful ways.”

According to Dr. Trocmé, in addition to the advocacy course, Dr. Blackstock will contribute to the development of an indigenous social work course–the first of its kind in the province of Quebec.

“We also are the first school in Quebec and one of the first in Canada to add a required Indigenous Social Work course to our [Bachelors of Social Work] program; [Dr. Blackstock] will play a major role in developing this course,” said Dr. Trocmé.

Moreover, Dr. Blackstock intends to seize every opportunity she has to pass on her knowledge in order to raise awareness and engage Canadians in the fight for the protection of indigenous children’s rights.

“I’m also blessed with the

frequent opportunity of being in the media, both in written media and in broadcasting, and so I take whatever opportunities I have there to spread the word,” Blackstock said.

Dr. Blackstock also starred in the movie We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice, following the story of the tribunal case. Produced by Alanis Obomsawin, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in Sept.

2016.

Despite being one of only a few indigenous-Canadians to be hired at McGill, Dr. Blackstock remains focused on her advocacy.

In her new role as a professor, she is motivated to bring the unfair treatment of indigenous children to public consciousness.

“I really do believe that our students at McGill and people in the Canadian public more generally would be appalled if they actually knew that there’s racial discrimination that is going on and would stand up against it,” Dr. Blackstock said. “But it’s been so normalized in our society that people make excuses for it or they minimize it.”

3

NEWS

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

McGill launches pilot initiative for budding startups

Office of Innovation to provide startup space for student entrepreneurs at McGill Raseel Ghoul Contributor Over the summer, the McGill Office of Innovation began working on realizing a new McGill Startup Space, a physical place for student entrepreneur groups to come together and develop ideas and initiatives. The Office is launching the space through their partnership with the Notman House, a non-profit organization that offers office, event, and conference space to a large number of entrepreneurial startups in the Montreal community.

The motivation to establish the startup space came from research conducted by the Office of Innovation in the summer of 2016. According to Associate Vice Principal of Innovation Angelique Mannella, an important finding was the need for a startup space on or near campus; a place where McGill-based entrepreneurs could discuss ideas, work on logistics, and network within the greater Montreal community.

“The idea to launch the initiative came from feedback I received from many students and researchers that highlighted the desire for

a startup space on campus [...],” Mannella wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “While there are some great initiatives [at McGill], such as [the McGill] Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship, we definitely need to take things to the next level.”

Campus Director at the Notman House, Emma Williams, discussed the role of the organization in assisting entrepreneurs in the local community, particularly through the numerous services it has to offer.

“The Notman House was created to offer the startup community a physical place to assemble,” Williams said. “It houses offices, event spaces, [and] eight ‘services for startups,’ such as Investors, Accelerators, [as well as] a public café.

Its goal is to remove barriers to entry to entrepreneurship by providing startups with an open and collaborative environment where everyone feels welcome.”

Williams also mentioned the value that universities such as McGill bring to the Notman House and to the greater Montreal community, outlining her appreciation for student initiatives in the area.

Notman House provides a space for the strartup community to assemble. (Noah Sutton / The McGill Tribune) “We wanted to work with McGill because it’s important for us to have strong partnerships with local universities,” Williams said. “Our main mission is to help develop and promote entrepreneurship in Montreal and we recognize that the next generation of founders and builders are coming out of institutions like McGill.”

A student and entrepreneur, Zoey Li, U4 Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, applauded McGill’s efforts at creating spaces dedicated to entrepreneurs, outlin-

ing the importance of a guaranteed physical space for entrepreneurs juggling the challenges of school and running a business. Li is the founder of YUMiBOX, a startup that provides the delivery of whole grain products to customers in order to motivate consumers to base their diets on healthier carbohydrate choices. The foundation of Li’s startup came from her participation in McGill’s Dobson Cup. “Entrepreneurial initiatives at McGill like the Dobson Cup gave

my team the confidence to move forward with our startup,” Li said.

“The Notman House space is an amazing idea. Ultimately, every startup needs a place to start and grow, and having a designated place for your business takes off a lot of pressure for student entrepreneurs trying to balance between their initiatives and their schoolwork.”

The McGill Startup Space initiative launched on Saturday, Oct. 1 and will support three to four entrepreneurial groups as a pilot initiative until Jan. 2017.

#ConsentMcGill campaign teaches students about consent Speaking panels, workshops, and other activities cover related topics Domenic Casciato, Julia Metraux, and Sara Cullen Contributor, Staff Writer, and News Editor Continued from page 1.

Consent McGill Panel The Consent McGill Panel consisted of four speakers, each with different experiences with sexual violence and power dynamics. The speakers included Adrienne Piggott, one of McGill’s harassment assessors; Jason Opal, an assistant professor from the Department of History; Nina Hermes, a floor fellow at RVC and sexual violence survivor; and Claire Michela, the president of the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE).

The panel’s topics ranged from the responsibility of faculty to create a safe space for students to the efficacy of the university’s sexual harassment policy, as well as the role of witnesses of sexual violence.

“From a professor standpoint, it should be said particularly of professors that whether they like it or not [...] they are in a position of privilege,” Opal said. “That privilege therefore means that you have to generate

healthy boundaries, and guard healthy boundaries and be there as a form of respect and service to your students.”

Students were invited to ask the panel questions and participate in discussions. Aside from the speakers’ prepared introductions, the conversation was spontaneous with new questions being posed by both the host, the Equity and Diversity Commissioner of PGSS, Angela Yu, and audience members. Students participated in discussions about the role of McGill’s drinking culture, the role of parents in teaching their children about healthy relationships, and the effectiveness of McGill’s policies.

One of the central topics of the night was about the ability of McGill to pursue allegations of sexual harassment. Piggott is directly involved with the investigation of harassment complaints and with redrafting the university’s sexual harassment and discrimination policy. “[The harassment policy] was written by people, so we adjust as we go,” Piggott said. “We don’t necessarily get it right the first time we draft.”

In response to one of the final questions of the night, however, Michela pointed out

that this is not a hopeless message.

“Work together,” Michela said. “Speak up. It took that straw that broke the camel’s back for people to finally get together and be like ‘alright, we’re going to work on [the policy….]’

Make enough noise and you can maybe get that.”

How to Respond to and Support Disclosures Workshops On Sept. 28 and 29, two workshops, titled “How to Respond to and Support Disclosures,” were hosted by Tétrault.

Tétrault, who has been running this campaign for three years, said it is essential to hold workshops like these because it is important to be prepared to support a survivor of sexual violence.

“Students look to certain members of the community,” Tétrault said. “It’s important to be prepared to support a student.”

In Tétrault’s presentation, she emphasized the importance of supporting survivors, whether as an active listener or as a source to help them to find the right resources. Tétrault also highlighted information on rape kits and important legal details, such as McGill’s current process

The Panel on Sexual Violence and Power Dynamics took place on Sept. 29.

(L-A Benoit / The McGill Tribune) pointed with the gender disparfor dealing with sexual violence. ity of the attendees. Around 15 Susanne Baumann-Moroy, people attended the Sept. 29 human resources advisor in the workshop, but only two were Department of Engineering, said male. that the information shared in the “It really speaks to who the “How to Respond to and Supadvocates [for] those who are port Disclosures” presentation assaulted are [at McGill],” Téshould be more widely known trault said. among the McGill community.

Baumann-Moroy believes “Information for people that presentations like “How to who are sexually assaulted, like Respond to and Support Disclo[the fact that you] only [have] sures” should be mandatory for 72 hours to get a [rape kit], is the McGill community. very important and should be “What we learned today was common knowledge,” Baumannnot only about sexual assault, Moroy said. but also about respecting each During the workshops, Téother,” Baumann-Moroy said. trault noted that she was disap-

4 Professor Philip Oxhorn named first McGill Associate Provost (International) New portfolio includes overseeing international outreach and research

Philip Oxhorn is McGill’s first Associate Provost (International). (L-A Benoit / The McGill Tribune)

Lanya Feng Contributor On Aug. 21, Philip Oxhorn, a professor in McGill’s Political Science Department and the former director of the Institute for the Study of International Development, was appointed McGill’s first Associate Provost (International).

The portfolio of Associate Provost (International) includes strengthening international partnerships and overseeing international outreach and research.

Oxhorn plans to add more innovative graduate programs in international development in order to attract more faculty and students from around the world.

He also hopes to foster an environment that encourages students to participate in the internationalization of McGill by sharing their cultures, completing internships abroad, and bringing global awareness to the campus. According to Oxhorn, developing an international strategy will be a large part of his work.

“As for the first six months, I am working on developing an international strategy,” Oxhorn said. “There is lots of learning—especially with the abundant resources we have—on how to utilize these resources and bring units together.

Another defining feature of the strategy is to seek and create genuine partnerships around the world.”

Recognizing the diversity of cultures on campus, Oxhorn feels stronger communication between departments is necessary for fostering a community with global mindsets.

“McGill has many great resources and many strengths, but the right hand may have no idea what the left hand is doing,” Oxhorn said. “So the problem is how to bring [departments] together and centralize them to make McGill a better place.”

Oxhorn plans to introduce a series of new curricula that focus on globalized learning and developing students’ appreciation of diverse culture and perspectives.

“It is important to comprehend the meaning of global citizenship in the 21st century,” Oxhorn said.

Oxhorn was appointed by Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi after an extensive interview and evaluation process. Manfredi has faith that Oxhorn will successfully carry out all the mandates for advancing McGill on the world stage.

“As the former director of the Institute for the Study of International Development and with an excellent track-record in teaching and research in this field, Professor Oxhorn will bring valuable skills and expertise to this new role,” Manfredi said.

Erin Sobat, the VP University Affairs of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), expressed concerns about the value of the new position for undergraduate students and its potential impact on international student affairs.

“We’re interested to see how exactly the portfolio shapes up,” Sobat wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “And particularly if International Education (exchanges, study away, etc.) will remain under the Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning). Otherwise, it’s unclear exactly what impact or added value this role might have for undergraduate students.”

Chenghao Liu, a U1 Science student from China, hopes the new position will help improve the experience of international students at McGill.

“The administration at McGill [is] disappointing at times,” Liu said. “They [seem] fragmented. I need to run around the campus in order to get what I need.

It is great to hear that there is a position created to unify, coordinate, and oversee the international aspect of the University.”

NEWS

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

SSMU Council discusses the role of sponsorship in budget report GA attendance accomodations discussed Emma Avery Opinion Editor At the Sept. 29 Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council, an initial report on the Society’s budget was presented by Vice-President (VP) Finance Niall Carolan. Additionally, executives gave reports on the formation and progress of various committees as well as upcoming plans for the year.

2016-2017 SSMU budget overview Carolan reported on the budget, which will be finalized and presented at the Oct. 13 Council meeting after SSMU has been audited. Carolan addressed issues of sponsorship, the Student Run Cafeteria (SRC), and Gerts.

“Sponsorship is something that we’ve always used at the SSMU, and [...] it has [...] come into public light recently,” Carolan said. “However, I just want to provide a little context [....] There are two main allocations of sponsorship [....]

A small portion of sponsorship is [for] general administration, and that’s used to pay for our sponsorship coordinators [....] The remaining portion of the sponsorship revenue goes directly to the events that it’s used to [...] sponsor. And then more general sponsorship [...] around the building and [...] specific tabling events [....] goes directly into offsetting the costs of running this building.”

Carolan acknowledged one of the challenges with sponsorship lies in figuring out its impact on the student body. According to Carolan, the goal is to add to the student experience, not to detract from it. “[Balancing that impact is] something we’re focusing on acutely now, after hearing input from students and [...] campus media,” Carolan said. “Also, finding ways to make

sponsorship more student-centred and ultimately [...] ways that sponsorship can add value to students’ lives on campus[....] Some opportunities we have include getting students more involved in the reviewing of sponsors, and again, just trying find ways to add value to students’ lives through sponsorship.”

According to Carolan, SSMU has been exploring avenues to make the SRC more profitable. Although sales more than doubled in 2016 to approximately $221,000, this was accompanied by a rise in expenses, which in turn led to a deficit of $120,000 in the same year.

“A lot of [why that happened] is to do with how the SRC was set up,” Carolan said. “Advertising, for instance, as per [its Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), the SRC is] not allowed to advertise anywhere on campus. This heavily restricts our promotional capacity to McGill students [....] Other issues are some of the mandates the SRC has [....] Things like using locally-sourced produce, sustainable produce, [and] paying workers fair wages. All of those things are good mandates, however, [they do] restrict our ability to be profitable.”

In order to regain profits in the SRC, SSMU is tracking sales on an hourly basis. Carolan emphasized that making the SRC profitable is a priority for all of the executives this year.

“I think having a student operation in this building is [...] of paramount importance and I’ve always said that having a profitable student-run operation is always our [...] top goal,” Carolan said. “However, we have been working through just about every executive portfolio and permanent staff member available [...] on ways we can increase sales and more accurately attribute our costs to those sales.”

Other current and planned initiatives for the SRC include targeting off-campus sales, increasing catering, and introducing McGill ID card scanners to draw in first-years.

Council members voted to approve the agenda at the Sept. 29 meeting. (Christopher Li / The McGill Tribune) Executive Reports VP Internal Daniel Lawrie addressed some of the positive feedback regarding this year’s Frosh. He also identified aspects of Frosh that could be improved for next year.

“We came up with a few key things that we could work on for next year. We found that [the] communication between all our faculties had improved significantly, but we could still work on that further [...],” Lawrie said. “We also had a meeting with the administration about the street teams.

Again, that was extremely positive.”

Lawrie also explained his upcoming projects, namely Four Floors and the McGill app. Lawrie plans to integrate SSMU services like the listserv into the app, as well as use it for event ticketing this year.

VP University Affairs Erin Sobat commented on the current state of the Draft Policy for Sexual Violence, which will be presented at the Oct. 19 Senate meeting, and voted on at the Nov. 19 meeting.

“We’re doing a wide range of consultation on this,” Sobat said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of focus groups that have been happening last week and this week until about

[Oct. 3], which we are going to be compiling a report on to take to Senate.”

President Ben Ger explained a possible new initiative to increase attendance at the General Assembly (GA) by providing academic accommodations during the assemblies.

“The idea of potentially having some sort of academic amnesty, which would mean that [students] could not be graded during days in which the GA is happening,” Ger said.

“That would be a McGill policy so that students could come out to attend the GA without fear of [...] grades or missing class [....] The other option is having all classes cancelled or moved that day—with the exception of some [...] labs.”

Ger explained that Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures, and Equity) Angela Campbell and Provost and VicePresident (Academic) Christopher Manfredi both seemed receptive to the idea.

“Having more representation at the GA was something that they were behind—more engagement with debates on campus [...],” Ger said. “ Moving forward, it will be brought to the Student Life and Learning team, as well as some other areas.”

5

Opinion

Tuesday, October 4th, 2016

e d i to r i a l Editor-in-Chief Julia Dick editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Natalie Vineberg nvineberg@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors April Barrett abarrett@mcgilltribune.com Nicholas Jasinski njasinski@mcgilltribune.com News Editors Jenna Stanwood, Sara Cullen, William Pang news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Emma Avery & David Watson opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Lydia Kaprelian scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Living Editor Audrey Carleton studentliving@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Albert Park features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Selin Altuntur & Evelyn Goessling arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Zikomo Smith & Aaron Rose sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Domitille Biehlmann & Daniel Freed design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor L-A Benoit photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editor Noah Sutton multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Clare Lyle webdev@mcgilltribune.com Daniel Lutes online@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Areni Nicoghosian copy@mcgilltribune.com

Broadening the scope of sustainability at McGill On Sept. 23, McGill hosted the first in a series of open forums to discuss sustainability with members of the McGill community. The forums were agreed to in the wake of Divest McGill’s sit-in at the James Administration Building in Winter 2016. The forums were structured to include segments on sustainability on campus, in academic research, and in investment practices, yet the majority of the conversation was focused on McGill’s investments in the fossil fuel industry.

The issue of sustainability at McGill is a complex and multifaceted one in which the administration, faculty, and students all have a role to play. In assessing McGill’s progress in sustainability, it is necessary to examine the wide range of initiatives and policies adopted at all levels in the university community.

In an email sent to all students on Sept. 25, McGill announced that it has received a Gold rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)—an upgrade from its 2012 Silver rating. The timing of the announcement stood in contrast to the other two events that took place within the same week—the Open Forum on Sustainability and Fossil Free week— both of which stemmed from dissatisfaction among certain student groups.

The university highlights developments in several key areas as the reason

off the board

Business Manager Mingye Chen business@mcgilltribune.com Advertising Executives Richard Blaser, Alexander Beaumont, Zain Hussain ads@mcgilltribune.com Publisher Chad Ronalds

TPS Board of Directors

Mingye Chen, Julia Dick, Audrey Carleton, Shrinkhala Dawadi, Arman Bery, Clare Fogarty, Arden Li

Staff Writers

Christopher Li, Margaux Delalex, Morgan Davis, Julia Metraux, Arman Bery, Nicole Spadotto, Joe Khammar, Alexandra Harvey, Lauren Benson-Armer, Eric NobleMarks, Ariella Garmaise, Jacqueline Houston, Calvin Trottier-Chi, Cherry Ng, Holly Cabrera, Ava Zwolinski, Andy Wang, Isabella Siemann, Justine Touchon, Ceci Steyn, Alissa Zilber, Cordelia Cho, Madeline Kinney,

Contributors

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Albert Park Features Editor Continued from page 1.

Leadership entails making difficult choices in a decisive manner, and Coderre has made great efforts in this area; however, leaders must remain critical and think about the long-term implications and practicality of their decisions. They should not make the mistake of bending to the fickle wishes of segments of the population they represent. The Coderre administration’s failure to meet this criteria is clear when it comes to the bylaw.

Critics and colleagues of Coderre are quick to point out the impulsiveness that pervades many of his administration’s political pursuits. In particular, there are glaring similarities between the story of the recent bylaw and Coderre’s

for its high rating. These include the maintenance of the Sustainability Projects Fund—the largest of its kind in North America—to provide funding to student and faculty sustainability initiatives; the inclusion of sustainability in the curriculum through a variety of Arts,

“

McGill should be commended for the areas in which it has successfully implemented sustainable practices, and held accountable for those where progress is lacking.

”

Science, Engineering, and Management programs; as well as sustainable food sourcing, energy conservation, and procurement services. The extensive and diverse criteria in the AASHE report—including categories of academics, engagement, operations, planning and administration, and innovation and leadership—is a reminder of the numerous ways a university can strive to be sustainable.

Judging McGill’s commitment to sustainability by considering only one

criteria—such as divestment—would be a mistake. Instead, members of the McGill community must take a holistic approach to sustainability. Indeed, the McGill Office of Sustainability acknowledges that sustainability is multifaceted and complex. Its vision is framed around five key concepts—research, education, connectivity, operations, and governance and administration. McGill should be commended for the areas in which it has successfully implemented sustainable practices, and held accountable for those where progress is lacking.

For example, in the AASHE report, McGill scores notably low in certain criteria—specifically, sustainable investment, water use and rainwater management, and waste minimization and diversion. These are areas in which students can demand to see an improvement from the administration and expect an active response to.

Members of the McGill community should keep in mind that sustainability is a shared responsibility. While conversations about sustainability at the university can centre heavily around the administration’s role, faculty and students are also an integral part of McGill’s sustainability efforts. As the foundation of the university community, students are in a unique position to implement grassroots initiatives to promote sustainable, environmentallyfriendly practices at McGill. Successful

projects such as Plate Club, Fight the Power, and the Arts Undergraduate Society’s Snax’s on-site compost were all the result of mobilization at the student level.

A sustainable university is not just the result of administrative decisions, but of the efforts of all members of the university community. Administrators can set long-term sustainability goals— like McGill’s Vision 2020 Sustainability Strategy, faculty can incorporate sustainability into their research and course content, and students can work at the grassroots level to create sustainable campus initiatives. In turn, faculty and administration should encourage students to continue pursuing such initiatives; however, at the same time, students can and should continue to lobby the administrations on its big picture decisions, whether or not it chooses to listen. All three of these pistons must be firing for McGill to make substantial progress on the road to sustainability.

On campus, conversations about sustainability must acknowledge the many ways in which it can be achieved, and the roles of all members of the university community in working towards it. A proper assessment of McGill’s progress on this issue needs to take all relevant criteria into account. Administrators, faculty, and students must be aware of the unique ways in which they can each promote sustainable practices at McGill.

Montreal pit bulls victims of impulsive decision-making proposal back in May for a one-year ban of horse carriages, which came in response to a carriage accident.

Ultimately, the moratorium had to be cancelled due to a ruling by the Quebec Superior Court, which judged that the City did not have the authority to put carriage drivers out of work under such short notice. This mirrors what is happening today with the bylaw: The Quebec Superior Court Justice Louis Gouin has temporarily suspended the ban until he can make an official ruling on Oct. 5, citing the potential difficulty pit bull owners would have in complying with some of the restrictions in the bylaw.

Both initiatives were well-intentioned, and sought to ensure the safety of Montreal residents. Yet, both exhibited a lack of refinement and neglect towards the people that the laws would ultimately affect the most—carriage drivers and pit bull owners. Much like the carriage ban, hastiness was another definite factor in the creation of the recent bylaw: The controversy around ownership of dangerous dogs only came into discussion this June, after Christiane Vadnais, a citizen of Montreal, died after being mauled by a dog that was initially reported to be a pit bull—later revealed to be possibly

“ In essence, the bylaw is a rushed and limited bandaid solution that is meant to assuage the general public’s fear of dangerous dogs without adequately addressing the issue in the long run.

of a different breed. It only took around four months for a concern to manifest itself into a law.

The mechanism of the bylaw also suggests that insufficient effort was made to ensure its effectiveness and feasibility. Even those who support the general sentiments behind the bylaw question the enforceability and validity of a system based on banning specific breeds of dogs— primarily because breeds are often difficult to identify. A governmentappointed advisory panel, which made recommendations on how to curb the dilemma of dangerous dogs in Quebec, suggested a case-bycase approach, making no mention of a universal ban on pit bulls.

While the bylaw was developed with the safety of the general population in mind, the insufficient planning behind it has produced a policy which is an unproductive knee-jerk response at best. The municipal government often introduces reactionary, large scale changes in response to relatively insignificant issues, such as its decision to spend $950,000 on an anti-littering campaign in an effort to “unequivocally target bad behaviour.” Ultimately, the pit bull ban is a byproduct of this kind of impetuous overzealousness of the Coderre administration.

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OPINION Commentary

Grey Gunning Contributor MTL Blog is a normally benign clickbait website known for publishing articles such as “The Whole Foods Market Close to Montreal You Have To Road Trip To ASAP.” Recently, however, the blog moved away from think pieces on snow and poutine, and engaged in truly tasteless journalism.

Two of the pieces in question, which have been retracted, were titled “12 of the Hottest Concordia University Guys on Instagram” and “18 of the Hottest Mcgill Girls on Instagram.” The articles featured photos linked from the Instagram accounts of 30 students without their consent. The existence of these ar-

Commentary

Diana Little Contributor When entering their first classes of the semester, students are often apprehensive as they wait to hear the professor’s policy on laptops in class. While insisting on handwritten notes is not the norm at McGill, some professors nonetheless present students with articles and studies that explain how writing notes by hand improves memory, helps with the absorption of information, and is generally the

Tuesday, October 4th, 2016

MTL Blog’s repurposing of Instagram content highlights grey area of control on social media ticles—though brief—was exploitative because it violated the control that Instagram users have over their own content.

MTL Blog neglecting to ask users for consent is a failure in ethical journalism.

Instagram images belong to the users who put them up, but the public nature of the website allows these images to exist somewhere between the public and private domains. Because anyone can view a public account, an image can be a simultaneous expression of a user’s private life and a part of the public domain. On the internet, theft is not easy to define and even harder to punish. Social media users might find that they do not have the grounds to take legal action against those who would repurpose their images.

Even highly public cases of image theft fall into this grey zone. In 2015, artist Richard Prince’s “New Portraits” exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City repurposed images from personal Instagram accounts—primarily, sexually suggestive photos of young women. By removing the captions written by the account users and replacing them with his own, he also removed

“

The defining aspect of social media is the ability to create and control a public persona. Image repurposing takes away this control, which is crucial to existing safely in the internet grey zone.

”

the user’s ability to dictate the portrayal of his or her image. Just like MTL Blog, Prince placed the images in a new context, robbing the users of their control.

Applications like Instagram enable people to put their lives on display, but this does not mean that the users featured in the MTL Blog articles or Prince’s exhibition invited their own exploitation.

Such an interpretation would ignore the fact that social media is as bound by ethics as anything else. Social media is used to engage with a peer group: When university students put images of themselves online, it is for themselves and their ‘public’—a wider network of people they may not know personally. It is not an invitation for MTL Blog to swoop in and repurpose the image without permission. Although today’s youth are seemingly comfortable existing in public spheres such as Instagram—posting photos that anyone can see—the issue here is not publicity, but control.

The appropriation of internet content—especially personal images of a user—can have frightening repercussions for the original poster. Ruby Mae Landry, one of the girls featured in “The

18 Hottest McGill Girls on Instagram,” said in an interview with the CBC that she received unsolicited Facebook messages from men saying they “saw [her] on the blog” after the article’s publication. On Instagram, a user can control their content output and block other users. Once an image is taken out of the Instagram context, the user loses these safeguards. The most worrying implication of the added visibility created by artists like Prince and media platforms like MTL Blog is that it has the potential to make young people, especially women, susceptible to unwanted and even dangerous advances. Decisions like these are callous. An individual’s safety is more important than an artist’s career or the number of pageviews on a website.

Social media has changed the way people express their identities: The defining aspect of social media is the ability to create and portray a public persona. Image repurposing takes away this control, which is crucial to existing safely in the internet grey zone. All MTL Blog had to do was ask. It is a disservice to the online community it relies on that it did not.

In defence of laptops: Students must not be forced to take handwritten notes best way to become a successful student.

The campus culture that classifies handwritten notes as ‘best’ or simply ‘better than’ typed notes homogenizes education and labels a student’s learning process as either right or wrong. While taking notes by hand benefits some—possibly even most—students, insisting upon it can create stressful and even inhospitable learning environments.

Despite its alleged positive impact on memory, handwriting notes lacks the accessibility of computers. While professors make exceptions for students with learning and physical disabilities, simply having messy or slow handwriting can disadvantage a student in the classroom. For those accustomed to typing their notes, taking notes by hand can be a grueling process that actually inhibits the absorption of information. Given that today’s students type much faster than they

can write, handwritten notes often devolve into a game of catch-up with the professor: If students have to put most of their focus towards maintaining the professor’s speed, simply writing the words down takes priority over what the professor is actually saying.

These frantic notes may be messy, disorganized, and barelylegible, whereas computer programs such as Onenote or Evernote can be extremely useful in organizing important subjects and trainsof-thought. A student struggling to keep up with the professor likely doesn’t have the time to even write legibly, let alone highlight information. This chaotic transcription of a lecture can ultimately leave a student feeling stressed or disoriented, neither of which are optimal mental states for retaining course material. In an attempt to limit distractions and help students succeed, a professor may not realize the alternatively detrimental learn-

ing environment that insistence on handwritten notes creates.

Typing notes on a computer is admittedly not without its faults.

Considering students’ constant exposure to the internet, allowing laptops in class inevitably opens those students up to an infinite number of distractions. These tend to have a snowball effect, in that someone surfing Facebook can distract the person behind them, and so on and so forth.

However, this possibility of distraction does not necessarily warrant a laptop ban, especially when one considers how teaching methods have evolved to incorporate, and even benefit from, digital media. Learning is not confined to spoken lectures; instead, professors employ a variety of digital aids such as powerpoints, music, videos, and images to augment their lessons.

This shift towards a digital classroom recognizes that students learn in a variety of ways. For example,

a visual learner retains information better with images or other visual cues. Likewise, an aural learner benefits from the presence and assistance of music or other sounds.

These different learning methods intersect and overlap, making it impossible to suggest one student learns better than another.

Learning is a highly individual process. Just as the mode of presentation affects how a student absorbs information, so does the way a student takes notes. If it is agreed upon that the diversification of teaching styles should be encouraged, then it is equally important to allow for diversity in note-taking.

Just because a student takes notes on a computer does not make him or her a poor or ineffectual learner.

Students should be encouraged and allowed the freedom to discover which learning methods work best for them, rather than adhering to someone else’s definition of ‘proper learning.’

Errata: - A story in the Sept. 20 issue (Under the Skin) named Jeremy Rutman as James Rutman. In addition, the earlier version failed to mention that Matthew Dankner, alongside Alissa Rutman, is a co-founder and current co-president of McGill Students for Organ Donation Awareness. Finally, the earlier version inaccurately quoted Alissa Rutman, stating that she thinks many people do not donate organs because they don’t have access to donor stickers. In fact, she said it’s because they do not have access to correct information.

- A story in the Sept. 27 issue (In conversation with NFL Director of Football Development Samantha Rapoport) incorrectly stated that Sam Rapoport had worked for USA Football between 2010 and 2013. In fact, she worked for USA Football from 2010 to 2016.

The Tribune regrets these errors.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Po p d ia l e c ti c sna p c h at s p e c ta c l es an d t h e rise o f w eara b l e so c ia l me d ia

Are you for or against Snapchat’s latest invention?

Snapchat’s Spectacles’are an attempt at broadening their brand. (Justine Touchon / The McGill Tribune)

Snap INto it!

When Snapchat first arrived on the social media scene, it was hard to see its purpose beyond sending nudes. The app started as a project created by a group of Stanford students. On Snapchat, the user snaps a picture and sends it to a friend who can view the picture for up to ten seconds before it disappears—of course, someone can always take a screenshot. Now worth over $2.1 billion USD, Snapchat has added a host of other features, like chat, geotags, and filters that make for a spontaneous and fun social media platform. It’s no surprise that Snapchat’s latest invention, Spectacles, further integrates social media with real life in a positive way.

The concept of Spectacles is simple: They are a pair of sunglasses with a video camera embedded in the frame. They allow the user to take videos from their perspective, which can then be uploaded to the app via Bluetooth or Wi-fi. Once uploaded, the videos go to the ‘Memories’ section of the app, meaning they are saved and users can choose to send it to friends.

Spectacles sell for $130, whereas other wearable tech are significantly pricier: Go-Pros are in the $200 to $400 range and the Google Glass, an Android device resembling a pair of eyeglasses, which went for $1,500 USD. Snapchat also announced that they are changing their name to Snap Inc., suggesting that Spectacles are just the first innovation of many. The home page of their website describes Snap Inc. as a camera company. Snap Inc. could veer further into the wearable tech industry by focusing on creating more cameras and camera accessories that are equally affordable and easy to use.

The comparison to Google Glass­­—

snap back to reality which stopped selling to the public last year—has already been made; however, Spectacles are much closer to a Go-Pro. Google Glass allowed users to access all of their phone’s features, including internet, apps, and camera, on a glass screen right infront of their eyes. They were meant to be worn all the time. Google Glass distracted and alienated people from the world around them, whereas Spectacles allow one to capture videos without the distraction of pulling out one’s phone.

The video announcement of Spectacles features a group using the device to capture footage while skateboarding. The handsfree video camera is a great way to capture video in situations where pulling out a phone could be dangerous—biking or skateboarding. Yet, the low profile of the glasses allows Spectacles to be used while casually walking around.

The major objection to Spectacles is the issue of personal privacy. With Spectacles, people can discreetly take pictures of anyone anywhere. Yet, taking pictures of strangers has been easy for years. Spectacles will do little, if anything, to escalate this problem.

Think of all the people in photos, videos, and memes that have gone viral. How many of those people were aware they were being photographed? The issue of privacy and social media is far more complex than a pair of sunglasses.

For a company that has managed to bring out the best in social media and communication, Spectacles are a step in the right direction. Sometimes it’s nice not to stare at a screen.

—Anna St. Clair

Contributor

Unsatisfied with its status as a ‘messaging app’, Snapchat is venturing into the world of wearable tech. ‘Spectacles’ are sunglasses with an integrated video camera allowing users to transfer their memories onto the app via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Snapchat, in changing its name to Snap Inc., is trying to broaden their brand; one that has been working just fine already.

With over 100 million daily users and approximately 8,796 photos shared every second, it’s easy to see where Snapchat gets the confidence to expand. Transitioning from software to hardware, however, is a high-risk move—one that Snapchat hasn’t proved that it’s ready for.

The idea behind sunglasses that film your vision is an exciting premise. With the steady advancements of technology in our society, something as futuristic as a wearable social media device seems only appropriate. What Snapchat doesn’t want its users to remember is that a very similar product was released only a few years ago.

Compare the Snap Spectacles to the lack of success of Google Glass. Released in 2012, many people raised their concerns over Google Glass; public places, such as movie theatres and bars, went as far as banning the product due to privacy issues. In fact, Google Glass had significantly more powerful filming capabilities and built-in Wi-Fi when initially released; however, it was still unable to maintain market share.

By Jan. 2015, Google officially announced that they would be taking Google Glass off the market in a humble retreat, and the product is now little more than a memory.

The other issue concerning Spectacles is their very limiting style. While sunglasses seem ideal for the function of

inconspicuous filming during the daytime, it limits the events a user can wear them to without looking ridiculous. Not to suggest that Google Glass was any more stylish, but at least the clear glass was less of an eyesore.

Much of the concern for Spectacles comes from the fear of unknowingly being filmed. Today the ethics of recording unaware people is a grey area. While it is legal to film someone in a public space, the idea of someone’s sunglasses recording videos would make anyone uncomfortable. This isn’t the first time Snap Inc. has found itself questioned for privacy. Recent complaints arose when the company released their new privacy policy stating they have the right to reproduce users’ snaps. With the expansion to include Spectacles, Snap Inc. opens itself up to potential legal implications.

At $130 dollars USD, the sunglasses are being marketed as affordable and accessible. When considering alternatives such as the Go-Pro, which does cost about $300 but films for over two hours and gives you a very high quality image, spending $130 on Spectacles appears fiscally irresponsible.

Additionally, it’s inconvenient that Spectacles can only transfer the footage to the app when connected to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Ultimately, Snap Inc. Spectacles would be a misguided venture and an exhaustion of the company’s resources. Snapchat should focus on what it knows in order to remain one of the number one social media apps.

—Morgan Davis Staff Writer

(Alejandra Morales / The McGill Tribune)

A walk through Auschwitz Reflecting on the injustices and horrors of war Natalie Wong Contributor I had gone out the night before, enjoying Krakow’s nightlife and the cheap vodka that came with it. With about three hours of sleep, I awoke to get on a bus for AuschwitzBirkenau, the head extermination concentration camp from the Second World War. Falling into a deep sleep on my way to the site, I woke up to a grey sky with steadily falling rain. The atmosphere was chilling. I stepped off the bus, greeted by a deathly silence that serenaded one of the most infamous locations of the Second World War. This was where the Nazis had tortured and exterminated over a million Jews, Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war. Around 6,000 Jews were killed in gas chambers everyday at the peak of the deportations.

This was not my first time at Auschwitz. When I was four years old, my parents brought me and my sister here,

although I retain no memories from that trip. As I grew older and became fascinated by the history of the war, I begged my sister to describe what Auschwitz was like; what did she remember that I could not? She told me that one of the most disturbing images for her 9-year-old self was that of old, tattered children’s shoes that haunted the grounds of the camp.

From these selective memories, I pictured vivid brutality, thinking it would be visibly imprinted upon the structures that had housed atrocities. Perhaps there would be remnants of the creepy cells and dark dugouts which held the prisoners. Maybe blood smeared on the walls, left behind by those who had tried to escape.

It was nothing like I had imagined it would be. Instead, I saw neat rows of brick townhouses—almost resembling a

boarding school. Only the signs indicating “Extermination House” on the entrances of various buildings betrayed its identity as a slaughterhouse.

But, as I continued ruminating on the terror that occurred over 70 years ago on the grounds I was walking on, I grew sick. The neat, symmetrical setting of AuschwitzBirkenau was a reminder of the efficiency of the Nazis. The houses were built precisely to ensure that prisoners were accounted for, and that executions were effective.

I walked past a building with a massive chimney.

According to a guide, prisoners detected a strange smell that emitted from the structure. That’s because it was a gas chamber, where millions of prisoners were burned into piles of ash. The smoke that emitted from the chimney over 70 years ago were the remnants of human flesh.

This tragedy begs the question: How was it possible that genocide was carried out for over three years in Auschwitz without intervention from the international community?

This is one of the ongoing controversies of the Second World War. According to the BBC, by mid-1944, the Allied countries were aware of the true nature of the concentration camps, yet Auschwitz was only liberated months later by the Red Army. During this period, thousands more were murdered.

Many say that the Allied powers should have acted against this genocide, perhaps by bombing the railway routes that brought prisoners to Auschwitz. Some historians dispute that a bombing could not have stopped the atrocities, while others claim that whatever the odds of success were, the Allies should have intervened earlier.

Nonetheless, what is clear is that for a long time, nothing was done to prevent or mitigate the horrors of Auschwitz. Turning a blind eye to atrocity and mass murders was and still is common. Just look at the 1937 Rape of Nanking, where the Japanese Imperial Army ravaged Nanking city during the Second World War and brutally murdered its inhabitants, and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, where ethnic Hutu extremists savagely murdered the Tutsi minority.

Walking through Auschwitz, I cannot help but compare the setting of the camp to settings of these other massacres. What these acts all had in common was the dehumanization of enemies. The Japanese saw the Chinese as an inferior race, ranking them beneath dogs. Hutus who took part in the Rwandan genocide referred to the Tutsis as cockroaches. The Nazis referred to Jews as rats. While these atrocities may have been ordered or incited by vicious leaders in all but the former of these massacres were largely carried out by ordinary individuals: Neighbours, family friends, co-workers. Dehumanization allows for this. By virtue of non-interference in these massacres, leading countries such as the US, Britain, and France were also denying the humanity of the persecuted.

It is terrifying that large-scale massacres continue to occur today. Much of the world has seen the image of fiveyear-old Omran Daqneesh sitting in an ambulance covered in blood and dirt after he was rescued from a bombed building in Aleppo, Syria. The terrors in Aleppo have been ongoing for five years, and Omran is one amongst thousands of children who suffer terribly each day.

In August, around half of the 35 remaining doctors in Aleppo wrote a letter to Barack Obama pleading for intervention in light of the hospital bombardments by the Russian-backed Syrian air force.

“We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers: We desperately need a zone free from bombing over eastern Aleppo to stop the attacks, and international action to ensure Aleppo is never besieged again,” the doctors wrote.

Today, the city is still under siege, and world leaders merely present condemnations towards the perpetrators.

But what do these words mean, when those in Aleppo cannot hear them above the continued bombing, gassing, starvation, and murder in the city?

Auschwitz has taught us that the culture of non-interventionism leads to an astounding loss of life and leaves a stain on the countries that choose not to intervene. It also exemplifies the theme of denial that commonly follows crimes of massacres. After the victory of the Allies, the Nazis scrambled to hide evidence of their war crimes to ensure that they would not be held accountable by the international community—mass graves were dug and thousands of prisoners were killed because they had witnessed

Nazi brutalities.

The Allies failed to liberate Auschwitz before it was too late. Yet when it came to ensuring that Germany paid for its actions, the international community sought justice for the wronged. After the end of war, countries collectively pursued uncovering the full extent of German war crimes to make sure that Germany apologized to its victims and paid proper reparations. Survivors stepped forward to attest to the horrors committed by the Nazis, and evidence was recovered to further confirm the horrific actions of Germany.

Since the end of the war, any remaining Nazis are hunted and prosecuted. This form of justice that occurred in the aftermath of a genocide would not have been possible without the collective actions of the world.

Numerous massacres have occurred elsewhere. In addressing other conflict crimes, such as those committed

by Japan in the Second World War, world leaders did not equally serve justice to victims who suffered comparable terror.

For instance, German war criminals were persecuted and tried in the International Criminal Court; in contrast, Emperor Hirohito, the head of the military and government of Japan during the war, was set free. In 2013, Japan’s current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates those who died during the Second World War, including soldiers, civillians, and convicted war criminals.. To put this in perspective: Envision German Chancellor Angela Merkel visiting a Nazi war shrine—such an act would receive worldwide condemnation.

Germans are taught about the horrific actions of the Nazis with an emphasis on preventing any atrocities of the same kind in the future, and education curriculums around the world teach youth about the Nazi crimes. Yet Japan’s Abe administration still tries to deny the very existence of the country’s crimes in the Second World War. High school textbooks are stripped of history regarding horrendous Japanese war conduct, including the Nanking Massacre and the ‘comfort women’ system, where thousands of women were captured and forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military. It’s not surprising that many young people in Japan are not aware of the atrocities committed by their country during the Second World War. With Japan’s refusal to cooperate in reconciliation and compensation, 15 victims from Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, who suffered in the comfort women system, filed a class-action lawsuit against Japan in the US District Court in 2000. They used the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1787, which provides an opportunity for prosecution of Japanese military and government participants in the sexual slavery system. Instead of responding to the injustice of the comfort women system, the US government sought a formal request to dismiss the case, invoking Japan’s “sovereign immunity.” Contrast this to the US response regarding reconciliation of Nazi crimes: The Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues in the US continues to actively address any remaining issues from the war.

The contrast between US actions in addressing German and Japanese war crimes is shocking. Likewise, other world leaders have also failed to hold Japan accountable.

There is blatant discrimination regarding which victims deserve justice and which criminals deserve punishment.

Yet victims of war crimes suffer similar tragedies and deserve equal justice. Just as millions of people across Europe were hunted by the Nazis, a comparable amount of people across Asia were massacred by the Japanese Imperial Army—where is the justice for them?

“

Conflict motives vary, but the constant in the spoils of war is the loss of human lives. Leaders talk of the borders of state sovereignty, simultaneously constructing boundaries on who lives and who dies.

States are provided equal status politically; the value of human life is not.

“

As I walked through Auschwitz, I was reminded of the horrific terrors that occurred within its confines and elsewhere by Nazi Germany. I am saddened for those who remain haunted by what occurred. I am frustrated that nothing was done or attempted, to relieve the prisoners of their suffering.

Today, I see ongoing reports of destruction and death in Aleppo. Former comfort women who have only a few years to live continue to seek acknowledgement of the pain that they felt decades ago.

I am Chinese-Canadian, and, like many others, my culture was affected by war. I have witnessed the consequences of inaction: Generations of Chinese continue to resent the Japanese for actions committed over 70 years ago. This hatred towards the war’s injustices deeply scars the nation, and threatens the current and future relationship between China and Japan. Reconciliation is impossible without justice; war crimes must be acknowledged and compensated for, and perpetrators must be held accountable.

Politicians and leaders pick and choose which conflicts to involve themselves in, and which ones to idly stand by on without interference. The actions—and inactions—of politicians in response to terror illustrates that world leaders believe some human lives are worth more than others. It also shows that, for all the blood and terror our ancestors went through in past wars, there is violence and death awaiting us now, and in the future.

Leaders of the world: Relieve the 2 million trapped in Aleppo. Do more to hold Japan accountable for its war crimes so they can properly reconcile with the countries they have unleashed their aggression upon.

Citizens of the world: Demand action from your governments. Many of us have the gift of democracy, which grants us the right to free speech—something that individuals in war-stricken areas are deprived of.

We can and must use this freedom to make a change— whether it be on a local or global scale.

Conflict motives vary, but the constant in the spoils of war is the loss of human lives. Leaders talk of the borders of state sovereignty, simultaneously constructing boundaries on who lives and who dies. States are provided equal status politically; the value of human life is not.

Action is required to address remaining injustices of war. It may not guarantee success, but at the very least, it demonstrates a world order where there are no borders of humanity.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

10

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Julie Favreau: Navigating personal space

Quebec artist choreographs the human form at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Sophie Brzozowski Contributor Although she was born and raised in a small suburb outside of Quebec City, curators, critics, and fans cannot help but proudly introduce Julie Favreau as “one of Montreal’s very own.” Since graduating from Concordia in 2012, the 35-yearold artist has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Pierre Ayot Prize. No one can deny that two exhibitions showing in two of Montreal’s most reputable galleries is a feat worthy of the elegant reception thrown in her honour.

She Century: Tracer Son Portrait is an exhibition comprised of six pieces that premiered on Monday Sept. 26 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), followed by a second opening at the Darling Foundry gallery on Thursday Sept. 29. The title piece is a five-minute short film featuring Caroline Dubois, a dancer, choreographer, and friend of the artist.

Although her background is primarily

in sculpture, Favreau’s work has always incorporated aspects of performance art. In She Century, the focus fell somewhere between dance and theater.

“We worked for ten days in a studio,” Favreau explained in an interview at the exhibit’s opening event at the MMFA. “After those ten days in the dance studio, we kind of followed the movements and how she responded to the space. It was very planned.”

Favreau has always emphasized that her work is not performance art.

Dubois’ movements are simple but deliberate, filmed from various angles and distances against the backdrop of an empty green field. Her interest is not in the subject themselves but the way in which they interact with their surroundings, something we do everyday without a second thought.

The space seems to lend itself to the theme of the show. Located in the JeanNoël Desmarais Pavilion, the exhibit is housed in a small, narrow room. In the centre is the television playing She Century, surrounded by two sculptures, another film, and several photographs.

The small space makes spectators uncomfortable—one can’t help but be aware of their own body in relation to the room. Audience members are unsure as to where to position themselves so as not to block the sculptures or the screen, and are hesitant to stand close to a piece.

Whether or not the show was designed to instill discomfort, it drove home the artist’s message in a way that was impossible to ignore. The exhibit forced the audience to pay attention to their environment, and the clumsy way in which they exist inside of it.

Suddenly, the audience is at the mercy of their surroundings, rather than the other way around.

For an artist that specializes in sculpture, Favreau has an unexpected fascination with movement. In 2011, she completed a residency at the Quartier Éphémère in Paris to study dance in order to improve her choreography.

Her interest in choreography and motion seem to be woven into even the stationary pieces of the show. The largest sculpture is an upright three dimensional model version of a continuous looping

She Century invites viewers to interact with objects in space. (L-A Benoit / The McGill Tribune) structure that Dubois makes out of string each transparent in its own simplicity. In in one scene of She Century. one of the final scenes of She Century, “The question we were asking Dubois is shown performing a sleight is, what would happen if the rope of hand trick. The young woman twists materialized into a sculpture?” Favreau a white handkerchief into a closed fist, explained, gesturing to the steel figure, then, rubbing her palms together, makes which the label describes as a “drawing it disappear while staring unwaveringly in space.” Although she stresses that into the camera. This scene echoes the each piece is separate, it appears as theme of the exhibition, forcing the though none of them could exist in viewer think twice about the way they isolation. Each creation seems to come interact with the objects that inhabit from a moment or object in the film, space around them.

ALBUM REVIEW Danny Brown doesn’t make albums for the faint-of-heart.

Throughout his career, Brown has pushed the limits of what one can say on a mainstream rap release, as well as the genre’s sonic boundaries.

As he shifts rapidly between cokedout rampages, stoned relaxation, explicit sexual descriptions, and bleak explorations of alienation and loneliness, one wonders how long it will be before his volatile lifestyle catches up to him. Atrocity Exhibition declares that, in his 35th year, Brown is not slowing down anytime soon.

Brown’s fourth full length album was released via Twitter on Sept. 27, three days ahead of schedule because the eccentric Detroit rapper “COULDN’T WAIT ANY LONGER.” His excitement was understandable: The rapper’s recent streak of influential LPs —2011’s XXX and 2013’s Old—as well as the four excellent singles he’s dropped in recent months have set the bar sky high.

Atrocity Exhibition shatters all expectations. The album is named after a Joy Division song— immediately hinting at major themes of addiction, alienation, and death.

Brown takes full advantage of the album’s 45 minutes, in 15 short tracks, stuffing more dense wordplay, explicit imagery, and stark truths into a rap album than should be possible.

A more unified project than Old, Atrocity Exhibition has only six features across four songs, and ten of the album’s fifteen tracks are produced by Paul White. White is best known for his work on Brown’s earlier projects, and a split LP with

L.A. rapper Open Mike Eagle (Hella Personal Film Festival), but his work here should garner some serious attention across the genre.

The opener, “Downward Spiral” sets a dark tone for the album. White delivers a beat featuring a slide guitar reminiscent of the Breaking Bad theme and some fluttery drums sounding straight out of the jazzy Birdman soundtrack.

White’s sample-heavy beats lack any correlatives in hiphop, and, as a result, this album defies comparaison.

As always, Brown fills this beat to the point of overflow with comically dark imagery, inviting listeners to marvel at his knack for rapid-fire wordplay, while gawking at the vivid self-portrait he paints.

On “Ain’t It Funny,” the album’s sixth track, White lays down one of the many fantastically bizarre beats on the album. With a pulsing bassline punctuated by erratic bursts of horns, the sound is a startling revelation on a mainstream hip-hop LP. Of course, Brown does lyrical somersaults over the unwieldy beat, rampaging through bars packed with double entendres and internal rhymes. The resulting chaos produces a uniquely grim vision of party-rap.

Brown shifts unpredictably between moments of stark clarity (“It’s a living nightmare, that most of us might share / Inherited in our blood, that’s why we stuck in the mud”) and his trademark party-to-forget

atrocity exhibition DANNY BROWN

Danny Brown’s latest album is a grim vision of party rap. (passionweiss.com) mentality (“So I’ma wash down all these problems with a bottle of Henny”). His outlook morphs from line to line, juxtaposing startlingly cold realizations with destructive tendency to self-medicate.

While these peaks and valleys can be a lot to take in for the casual listener, one is impressed by the lyrical urgency and emotional tenacity Brown brings to each of his songs. The oscillation between fear and awe characterizes the album’s narrative and the listening experience itself. Although Brown tackles many of the typical party-rap tropes—such

as sex, drugs, alcohol—he howls his bars with such ferocious honesty that it makes for some uncomfortable social listening. In short, Atrocity Exhibition is party-rap for people who hate party-rap.

A highly experimental album which defies categorization, its complex portrait of a damaged individual solidifies Brown’s position as a simultaneously human and superhuman rap artist.

Standout tracks: “Really Doe” (ft.

Earl Sweatshirt, Ab-Soul, and Kendrick Lamar) —Stacked posse-cut produced by J Dilla disciple, Black Milk “Get Hi” (ft. B-Real) —Excellent change of pace slow jam, featuring a great hook from the guy from Cypress Hill

— Dylan Adamson Contributor

Student Living

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

11

The case of the disappearing class list Where did the myCourses classlists go?

Liz Willcock Contributor On the first day of school this Fall, there was a noticeable sense of unease as students filed into their classrooms. Professors watched students walk through lecture hall doors, eyes darting nervously around the classroom, desperately searching for a familiar face. The lucky ones would breathe a sigh of relief as they recognized their usual faculty crew sitting across the room.

The not-so-lucky ones would shuffle to a seat near the fringes and strategically consider how to make friends for notes. Gone were the days when a mass email to the class would suffice.

The classlist is now gone, and the room has been reduced to a contest of survival of the fittest.

In the life of every student, whether in U0 to U4, undergraduate or graduate, there comes a time in which the myCourses classlist feature has been a lifesaver. The infamous classlist used to provide McGill students with the names, emails, and—for those particularly keen users—the icon images of their classmates, professors, and teaching assistants. Whether students sought notes in a class where they had no friends, partners for a project, or were just logging in before the first day of school to creep their future classmates—the classlist function had their back. Until suddenly, it didn’t.

At the beginning of the Fall 2016 term, this tab was noticeably absent on the myCourses home page. In its wake lies a simple instant message button, devoid of any contacts. Although the new instant message function is still in its developing stages, students left without their classmates’ information have asked themselves who will answer their message into the abyss— God? The ether? Suzanne Fortier?

“The basic reason for the removal of class

lists is that there are in Quebec strong laws concerning confidentiality of student information,” Anna Walsh, associate registrar at Enrolment Services, said. “[This] would cover the information available on class lists. Unfortunately, there were also cases in which there were concerns that class lists, including email addresses, were at risk of being forwarded to commercial parties for inappropriate use.”

The Act respecting Access to documents held by public bodies and the Protection of personal information, implemented in 1982, holds all Quebec universities responsible for keeping student information confidential. When word reached the Enrolment Services that students emails were being distributed for profit, they were forced to consider the lawfulness of the classlist function.

“I think there was an awareness that someone was making these lists available to off-campus users, but as with a lot of things at McGill, the reporting came to us from a lot of different people, and students have an absolute right to confidentiality about their academic records,” Walsh said. “The laws in Quebec state that no one should be aware of what [students] are registered in, unless it’s necessary—for example their advisors—and, in the case of the class lists, the responsibility came on to the university to prove why someone would need to know a student’s registration.”

Some students feel the lack of class lists not only prevents them from accessing notes and academic collaboration, but creates an unwelcoming classroom environment in that it discourages students from getting to know their peers.

“Part of the whole university learning experience is that the classroom is a community, and you can’t foster that if everyone is anony-

“In my case, all of my psychology classes are, like, 400 people, so methodologically you can’t really know everyone,” Richter said. “You need the class lists to set yourself up with study buddies or forge a support system.”

Both university administration and enrolment services are very aware of the effect that confidentiality laws have on the classroom environment. However, when it becomes a matter of Quebec legislation, McGill administration’s hands are tied.

“I understand the frustration that some students must be facing in losing the convenience of having access to the class lists and email addresses in myCourses,” Walsh said. “[However,] it is McGill’s responsibility to ensure that student information is confidential. Not only are we governed by this law, but we recognize how important it is to protect the privacy and security of all students.”

The onus of connecting with classmates thus falls back on students. Gone are the days of mass emails sent the night before an exam, begging for notes due to a suspiciously ill-timed computer failure, and never again will an entire introductory class receive a message from a first-year student asking if anyone has seen the coffee mug they left in Leacock 132. Rather, students will be forced to meet their classmates, learn their names, and connect with them in real The disappearance of class lists from myCourses left students life before they do so virtually. Is this inconveconfused. (Madeline Kinney / The McGill Tribune) nient? Yes, but if the case of the disappearing classlist function can be said to have a silverdergraduate community where so many of our lining, it is that students will be forced to interact face-to-face in order to get those coveted Friday classes are discussion-based.”

Richter believes that the class lists were es- morning lecture notes. Although this may seem sential for students trying to connect with each like a daunting task to those students who have other, particularly at McGill, where large classes enjoyed the comfortable safety net of the class often leave students feeling isolated from their lists, maybe losing a little bit of our virtual connectedness is not an entirely bad thing. peers. mous,” Kimberley Richter, U3 Psychology, said. “We learn as much from each other as we do from the professors, especially in the Arts un-

Political clubs on campus: The secret to improving voter turnout

Campus political groups assist American students in registering to vote Neha Rahman Contributor Due to McGill’s large population of American students, discussions about the looming US presidential election have become a familiar part of life for many students this year. An unprecedented level of polarization between the candidates makes such conversations particularly lively. However, for many American citizens studying at McGill, this election is less about talk, and more about action.

Despite the fact that voter turnout among 18-to 35 year-olds in the US is typically dismal—with only 46 per cent voting in the last presedential election, compared to 72 per cent of those aged 71 and up—signs point to this election being different. The extremes to which the campaigns have gone has raised the stakes for members of all political parties, thus increasing voting rates and general interest among students.

“I do not know a single American citizen at McGill who is not registered to vote,” Phoebe

Warren, U3 Political Science and History, and founder of McGill Students for Hillary Clinton, said.

“Almost everyone is interested in the election, even if they aren’t American.”

There are many potential reasons why the campus environment is so conducive to political interest.

One is that the environment is necessarily one of education and intellect, keeping news and politics at the forefront. Additionally, the social atmosphere ensures that news and opinions spread quickly through the student body. However, what might be making one of the biggest differences on the campus in engaging students in political processes are political clubs. “[Political clubs] are vital [to engaging students in the election],” Warren said. “Participating in political groups allows us to develop our political identities and find others with similar beliefs and values.”

In fact, campus political clubs seem to be a key factor in improving low voter turnout. These political groups facilitate student voter rates

directly by holding voter registration and absentee ballot request events.

Democrats Abroad at McGill, for example, hosted a voter registration table in the Y-Intersection, which was widely attended by students this year. “[Our voter registration] had a pretty good turnout this year,” Amanda Demers, U2 Geography and Political Science and member of Democrats Abroad at McGill, said. “There was a constant stream of people really expressing a strong interest to vote, because it’s really coming from a strong sense of concern than [in other elections....]

It seems now people are more interested in having their voice be heard.”

Yet, improving voter turnout is not strictly an American effort.

Canadians can also do their part by making sure their American classmates are aware these services exist on campus.

“A lot of Canadians have expressed to me that they’re also […] spreading the word because this election will impact them in some

ways, too,” Demers said. “And since they can’t vote personally, I guess the closest thing they can do is help [Americans] vote.”

Voting abroad can intimidate students and deter many from registering to vote. Through voter registration booths, political clubs on campus can alleviate some of the barriers to voting abroad, such as the high cost and time commitment.

“Voter registration is somewhat accessible,” Warren said. “However, we have to pay for postage with this and the absentee ballot itself.

For people on a student budget, this can be a hassle. Democrats Abroad does a great job of taking away all other barriers that come with voter registration.”

To alleviate such stress, student groups on campus are doing their best to simplify the process for American students at McGill, working with students every step of the way. “[Casting an absentee ballot] is actually easier than most people think,” Demers said. “You can do most of it online, but the hardest part is that you eventually have to

print out everything you fill out online because [the US government] usually wants everything signed.

Printing it out and mailing it in is the part that deters a lot of people, but that’s what [Democrats Abroad] is here for.”

While candidates are resorting to desperate measures to get young people to show up to the polls this November, like inviting leagues of pop stars to sing at rallies, or awkwardly using slang in their speeches, campus political clubs are putting power in the eager and educated hands of American students at McGill. These students’ commitment remains unhindered no matter where in the world they are.

To find out more about how to vote in the US election from abroad, visit www.votefromabroad.org.

12

Student Living

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

A library that stands the test of time

The Westmount Public Library innovates while keeping its history in mind

The Westmount Public Library hosts over 1,000 patrons per day. (Paige Mysliviec / The McGill Tribune)

Paige Mysliviec Contributor

additions to the library, completed in 1995, are not apparent from the front, but venturing The Westmount Public Library (WPL) sits tucked away from Rue Sherbrooke in around the building through the park, one can see how the faded red brick merges into a Westmount with a red brick façade and green-trimmed windows across its exterior. new painted one. The building becomes more straight-edged and modern.

A library, however, is so much more than its architecture or layout. The age of Attached to its right wing is a white-lined greenhouse with frosted windows, and a hint of foliage peeking out from within. The building seamlessly transitions from antique technology and its allowance for users to read books online has threatened to make to modern as new windows and streamlined construction give away the library’s grand books and libraries obsolete. An article in Time Magazine, titled “Study: The Number addition, which allowed it to add more items and more space for the public’s enjoyment. of Teens Reading for Fun Keeps Declining,” attributed decreasing reading rates among Behind this library’s façade is an institution that holds an intriguing architectural history teens to the growing prevalence of technology. It also found that an increasing number of and serves as an important place for locals, students, and tourists. younger children were reading from ebooks over paper books. Yet, the Westmount Public The original building Library chose to integrate of the Westmount Public technology into its Library was constructed operations, refusing to let in 1899—the first public changing times negatively library in Quebec. Designed affect them.

by Robert Findlay, McGill “Technology we University librarian actually use to our advantage.

Charles Gould, and a We made sure that we library committee made up didn’t fight it. We didn’t of three counselors, three ignore it, we embraced it,” elected trustees, and the Cardella said. “People are town mayor, the Westmount commenting now more and Public Library was built in more about their eyes [with honour of Queen Victoria’s technology….] We still have Diamond Jubilee. our readers, eh? They’re not Because librarians—who going anywhere. In fact, it prioritize efficiency—and has increased the readers.” architects—who prioritize Perhaps it’s the style—often clash over incorporation of technology, building layout, the library or maybe it’s the yearning was built with the library for print, but the library, committee’s ideas on hand according to Cardella, is to compromise between the more popular than ever. two parties. What resulted On Friday nights it’s often was a public library with full of people, and on the a beautiful and efficient weekends it’s busy until space. closing. The library is open “[WPL] is the library 69 hours a week; it is open that we often see cited in every day without fail, Built in 1899, the Westmount Public Library has a rich architectural history. (Paige Mysliviec / The McGill Tribune) books [and] articles. People hosting over 1,000 people do refer to the library, just per day on average. [because of] the aesthetics of the building,” WPL Director Julie-Ann Cardella said.

Catering to this many people a day is not easy, which is why Cardella makes service “The aesthetics of the building constantly draws people in.” a priority.

The architecture implied is mesmerizing to outsiders. The inspiration for the “We’re more and more popular because we’re very welcoming [….] The staff here architecture was heavily influenced by American libraries, especially those in New is so helpful, always with a smile,” Cardella said.

England, according to scholar Elizabeth Hanson’s historical article “Architecture and The Westmount Public Library is like a grand paradox: The old, unique architecture Public Librarianship in the Early Nineteenth Century: The Westmount Public Library.” of the outside merges into the updated addition seamlessly; the inside juxtaposes antique Gould used an inspector from the New York public libraries to help find library and ornate features with modern windows. The never-ending rows of books are just blueprints from Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. the beginning of a large collection—a lot of which is in a database. The welcoming Originally made to hold about 30,000 books, the library has since been expanded atmosphere makes the library feel extraordinary, as if the past and present married and to hold over 170,000 items, including books, audiobooks, newspapers, and more. The welcomed everyone to grab a book, take a seat, and feel at home.

FRom the Brainstem Palma Gubert Contributor What if we could rid the world of any species that we didn’t like: The annoying ones, the dangerous ones, and the disease-spreading ones? This seems like a tall order and one that carries a number of ethical quandaries.

With the advent of CRISPR/ Cas9 gene technologies, the once theoretical bioethics is now a real consideration for scientists in the field.

Target Malaria, a university-based research program at Imperial College London, is developing methods for limiting the populations of diseasecarrying mosquitos.

Last year, malaria caused half a million deaths, mostly of children under five years old. Three related species of Anopheles mosquitoes are primarily responsible for most malaria transmission. Of these, only the female mosquitoes can bite, and thus transmit the disease.

Target Malaria is testing approaches designed to reduce the number of female Anopheles mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cutting down the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes through the use of CRISPR/Cas9 gene drives will in turn reduce the transmission of the disease.

Gene drives are genetic elements

13

Science & technology

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

The case for eradicating malaria with gene-editing technologies

that “drive” themselves and nearby genes to be inherited by almost all offspring. In using gene drives, genes are artificially stimulated to manipulate specific genes in entire populations.

Normally, in a sexually reproducing organism, a particular gene has a 50 per cent chance of being inherited by its offspring. Gene drives, however, ensure that a gene is passed on to almost all progeny–– even if that gene reduces the viability of the organism.

CRISPR/Cas9 is a gene-editing technique that allows scientists to delete, insert, or replace a gene of interest in a given species. Coupled with gene drives, these genes of interest would be inherited by nearly all offspring.The gene can then spread quickly through an entire population and to every population group of that species.

The CRISPR/Cas9 gene drive is an immensely promising and powerful biological tool, with numerous possible applications. For example, it can cause all males of a species to be sterile, removing the need for toxic chemical insecticides and herbicides to eliminate pests or weeds, or eradicating harmful invasive species. “[Gene drives] offer a way to solve biological problems with

biology,” the Sculpting Evolution Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology––the first to suggest the use of CRISPR/Cas9 to build gene drives––said. “We are finally learning to speak with the living world using nature’s own language.”

A similar process could be used to eliminate other devastating diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, such as Dengue fever and Zika.

“Some species of [...] mosquitoes […] are invasive species in North America […and] may very well be eradicable with CRISPR/ Cas9 or related techniques,” Dr. Tim Geary, director of McGill’s Institute of Parasitology, said. “This would markedly reduce the incidence of dengue [...] and Zika and would target mosquitoes that were not found here.

Their eradication would leave all the other native North American species of mosquitoes intact and so would have minimal effects on the ecology of mosquitoes here.”

While promising, this technology is not without enormous ethical ramifications.

“We now have the ability to change entire species at will. Should we?” asked journalist Jennifer Kahn in a /TED/ talk about gene editing.

Many scientists are cautioning the use of CRISPR-based gene drives, emphasizing the importance of

Cutting down the disease-carrying mosquito population could decrease the risk of malaria. (raid.ca) safeguards and the necessity for more transparency in the scientific field.

“Even developing a CRISPR gene drive in the laboratory is ethically questionable because an accident could directly impact the lives of others, not to mention seriously damage public trust in scientists,” the Sculpting Evolution Group’s website said.

It is evident that this powerful tool needs to be regulated and treated with the caution it deserves.

There are many differing opinions on how to accomplish that goal,

including requiring any plans for its use be made public prior to starting experimentation or requesting approval from a regulatory body.

Nonetheless, the life-saving potential of CRISPR-based gene drives is huge.

“We did not feel bad about eradicating smallpox or polio or rinderpest,” Dr. Geary, who is in favour of the use of this technique, said. “Getting rid of even 50 species of mosquitoes out of the thousands of species would have minimal effects on ecology, but would change the course of millions of lives.”

Advances in veterinary practice: Doggy acupuncture and the tech future Veterinary experts discuss what it means to be a vet in the modern world

Veronique Thivierge and Morgan Rauscher spoke about the future of veterinary practices.

(L-A Benoit / The McGill Tribune) Kate Lord Contributor Anyone who has ever taken an introductory biology class probably recalls the effort that goes into learning a few evolutionarily basic phyla characteristics. Those who remember will likely appreciate a profession that builds exponentially upon that introductory class in order to diagnose and treat species across

the animal kingdom.

“Veterinarians are an essential part of civilization,” Morgan Rauscher, the principal consultant in Technology and Business for the Young Women’s Veterinarian Association (YWVA), said.

“They’re connected to food production, sustainability research, wildlife conservation—it’s not just your cat or dog at home, although that’s part of it, too.”

Veterinary medicine has

evolved into a dynamic field, encompassing much more than check-ups for pets.

“Before, maybe 50 years ago, once you graduated you either started your own clinic or partnered up with [a colleague], ” Véronique Thivierge, Director of Operations for the YWVA and a fourth-year veterinary student at the Université de Montréal, said. “But today, […] you have to collaborate with biologists, people in agriculture, [and] business people. It’s crazy the number of options [available].”

Veterinary science, as a study of the natural world and health science, has inextricable links to sustainability and a duty to keep up with technology.

Rauscher explained that while environmental sustainability and advancing technology often compete within their industries, in veterinary medicine, the two advancing spheres help push each other to progress even further.

Veterinary treatments to cure the diseases of pets, farm and wild animals are constantly subject to innovation.

“There are so many different

alternatives,” Thivierge said. “If [the client] is not so interested in the classical way of treating an animal, [they] can try acupuncture, hydrotherapy, massage, alternative food, organic food, [and] plant-based food [….] The possibilities are expanding as veterinarians […] with what type of practice you want to have, and as clients, with what kind of service you want for your animal.”

Even with the constantly evolving field of veterinary medicine, Rauscher and Thivierge agree that intuition is still a key component when diagnosing and treating an animal.

“I’ve personally seen Ms. Thivierge next to a horse, and it’s a bit shocking,” Rauscher said. “When she approaches the horse, the whole animal just relaxes. There’s this connection that veterinarians have, and I think that’s what motivates them into the veterinary sciences.”

For students interested in pursuing studies in the veterinary sciences, Thivierge stressed the obvious importance of having a

passion for animals. Furthermore, there are other skills required to sustain a veterinary practice in the modern era.

“It’s very important to also think about how you’re not only going to be a health care professional––you’re going to be a business person, a manager, a PR person, [and] you’ll have to deal with families,” Thivierge said.

Thivierge further suggested that those interested should spend some time volunteering at a veterinary clinic, wildlife center, or farm.

“If you’re ready to do it, it’s a great profession [and it’s] so diverse,” Thivierge said. “You can really build what you wish to build and have the impact you want around you.”

The International Conference on Sustainable Veterinary Practice, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Jane Goodall, is taking place on Oct. 6 from 9a.m.-7p.m. in Marché Bonsecours.

14

Science & technology

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

ASk a scientist how is spider silk so strong?

Daniel Galef Contributor How is spider silk so strong?

It’s so thin and light!

The properties of spider silk— also known as gossamer—can seem mysterious if we try to think of it as a kind of string; however, the strength of spider silk comes primarily from its complex structure on the microscopic scale.

Gossamer is actually so materially and structurally complex that humans have only very recently been able to—imperfectly— synthesize spider silk in the lab or engineer it inside of a goat. But spiders have been doing this without difficulty for millions of years.

What’s their secret?

First of all, people don’t always mean the same thing when they say strong. For example, something that’s strong seems like it should be hard. However, eggshells are a much harder material than rope, and are simultaneously also much weaker.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll take strong to refer to tensile strength, which indicates how well something can withstand being pulled apart by outside forces.

It’s no scientific distortion or misrepresentation to say that spider silk has a tensile strength about equal to that of steel—a strand of steel the same width as a thread of spider silk would break under the same pressure.

Gossamer has two main

structural components that make it so impressive: Crystalline blocks of protein in a rigid molecular structure, which are connected by and suspended in a stretchy matrix of the same proteins in a looser structure.

In addition to the crystalline blocks and stretchy matrix, a variety of trace substances have their own effects: Saltpetre acts as a chemical preservative, phosphoric acid keeps the pH low enough to ward off bacteria, and tetrahydropyrrole keeps the thread from drying out and snapping.

What happens inside a spider to create a substance so much better than human efforts could produce for millennia? The answer, like so many flies, lies in a spider’s gut. Spiders don’t extrude silk the way mammals

extrude hair; their abdominal organs––known as spinnerets–– manipulate and craft the silk from an already-prepared liquid solution created in the spider’s silk glands.

The starting ingredient of silk is a protein soup known as /silk dope/, a liquid crystal composed of the same biochemicals that will ultimately be spun into the superstrong thread, but not yet in the peculiar structure that will give it its remarkable properties on a larger scale.

The molecules of silk dope are in what is called a nematic arrangement, which means they naturally align themselves into a roughly parallel formation because of their electric charges. It’s because they do this that the twists in the

spider’s spinnerets will be able to further order the silk dope into tougher, stronger silk.

Spiders don’t just make one kind of silk, either. By altering the rate at which they spin or intertwine silk strands in different ways, spiders can customize the strength and elasticity of their web. For example, a spider might spin a thinner silk for day-to-day web repairs, then a more rugged and bulky silk when constructing the protective shielding for their eggs. Spiderwebs are both versatile and still one of the strongest biomaterials in existence.

Satisfied with the Scientist’s answer? Ask us more at scitech@ mcgilltribune.com

Accessory fees: Canada’s medical grey area Université d’Ottawa

|

University of Ottawa

Quebec promises to abolish healthcare accessory fees by early 2017 Clare Fogarty Contributor Continued from page 1.

Study Law in the National Capital Obtain a uOttawa JD degree in either English or French: • Rigorous and stimulating training • Diverse internship and practicum opportunities • Concentrations and specializations available

Take advantage of our many combined programs, including, • Opportunities to earn both common Law and civil law degrees; • A dual JD program with US Universities, allowing you to obtain Canadian and American law degrees; • Opportunities to combine your JD studies with programs in the uOttawa Faculty of Social Sciences, the Telfer School of Management or Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

We also offer LLM and PhD programs.

Application deadline: November 1, 2016 For more information: www.commonlaw.uOttawa.ca

However, this no longer appears to be the case: Canada’s Minister of Health Dr. Jane Philpott recently stated that Quebec would be penalized for violating the CHA through deductions in transfer payments.

“The strong stance adopted

by Minister Philpott [regarding] the Quebec user fees and the threat of clawbacks is thus a break from the past and signaling that the federal government really means business,” Dr. QuesnelVallée explained. “This could be a strategic move in anticipation of the Health Accords meetings that are to take place between the federal government and the provincial or territorial counterparts […] indicating to other provinces that the laissezfaire attitude of the past […] will no longer hold.”

The issue of excessive fees is not new to Canadian health care discourse. Extra billing—which occurs when physicians billing both patients and the government for the same services—was banned across Canada in 1987 as a violation of the CHA. Dr. David Wright, chair of the McGill Department of History who specializes in medical history, explained that unlike extra billing, accessory fees fall into a ‘grey area’ of Medicare regulation.

“Patients […] do not want to pay “user fees” for what are supposed to be “free” medical services covered by provincial insurance plans,” Dr. Wright said. “And governments expect that the fees that they reimburse

Eyedrops could cost as much as $500 without the accessory fee ban. (Ceci Steyn / The McGill Tribune) for insurable services include the cost of related activities and medical items.”

Historically, this grey area has created opportunity for questionable additional billing practices, proving factious amongst the Quebec public.

“Sometimes, doctors have billed for specific non-insurable services, like writing a medical note for students,” Dr. Wright added. “In other instances, some doctors, or groups of doctors, have tried charging ‘registration’ or ‘annual membership’ fees for patients. The latter practice has proved to be particularly controversial in Quebec.”

This matter became increasingly more contentious with the 2015 enactment of Bill 20 in Quebec, which was proposed to regulate accessory fees that would minimize social and health inequities. “[Bill 20] brought attention to the fact that the province

was aware of user fees, and was implicitly legitimizing them by wanting to regulate them rather than abolish them,” Dr. QuesnelVallée said.

The distribution of power and funds between the federal and provincial governments in Canadian health care thus continues to prove an excessively complicated issue.

More information on the specifics of this regulation will be made public in the coming weeks. In the meantime, policymakers in other provinces will continue to walk the tightrope between health care accessibility and affordability.

“There are always going to be differences in policy and practice between provinces,” Dr. Wright concluded. “I would expect that other provincial ministers of health will be watching closely to judge how this policy change is received, both by doctors and by the general public.”

15

Sports

Tuesday, October 4 2016

Weiyu Dang & Ben Simon Contributors

MLB Awards

American League MVP:

Rookie of the Year:

Mike Trout (Centre fielder, Los Angeles Angels)

Gary Sanchez (Catcher, New York Yankees)

Logically, Trout must win the MVP. He’s been the best player in the MLB for five years; however, the voters are largely establishment cronies and it’s possible he’ll lose because the Angels had a bad season. While Mookie Betts was putting up superstar numbers on one of the best offensive teams this decade, Trout recorded similar numbers with no lineup protection or runners on base for him. On performance and value, Trout should unquestionably win.

Runners-up: Mookie Betts, Boston Red Sox; Jose Altuve, Houston Astros

After making his major league debut in August, Gary Sanchez has been the best player in the league. He plays the most demanding defensive position at a Gold Glove level while hitting moon shots at a historic pace. Sanchez has supreme tools of arm strength and power, making him a must-watch on TV. Tigers starter Michael Fulmer was great for a longer stretch, but Gary Sanchez brimmed with transcendent talent.

Runners-up: Michael Fulmer, Detroit Tigers

Manager of the Year:

Cy Young:

NAtional League Rookie of the Year:

MVP:

Corey Seager (Shortstop, Los Angeles Dodgers)

Corey Seager (Shortstop, Los Angeles Dodgers)

Corey Seager should join Ichiro Suzuki and Fred Lynn as the only players to win the Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season. He is a generational talent and what he has been able to do at such a young age is simply outstanding. Unlike Kris Bryant who had the lineup protection and support to put up ridiculous numbers, Seager did it with a constantly changing cast of characters.

Runners-up: Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs; Nolan Arenado, Colorado Rockies

Dodgers’ youngster Corey Seager has run away with this year’s Rookie of the Year award. While his teammate Kenta Maeda was phenomenal on the mound, nobody came close to touching Seager this season. The NL hasn’t seen a rookie with this much talent since Buster Posey won the award in 2010. Frankly, he was so good that he should take home the MVP award, too.

Runners-up: Kenta Maeda, Los Angeles Dodgers, Aledmys Diaz, St. Louis Cardinals

Cy Young:

Manager of the Year:

Corey Kluber (Starting pitcher, Cleveland Indians)

Terry Francona (Cleveland Indians)

Max Scherzer (Starting pitcher, Washington Nationals)

Dave Roberts (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Kluber has been one of baseball’s best for the last three years. Finally, the rest of his team has caught up. In a year where pitchers have been good but not great, Kluber stands out as a workhorse and strikeout machine. No other pitcher on a good team has been as influential and statistically productive as Kluber.

Orioles closer Zach Britton may be unhittable, but only pitches one inning a game.

Runners-up: Zach Britton, Baltimore Orioles; Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers

On-field production is largely unpredictable, yet it is possible to control the deployment of the right players at the right spots.

Francona’s iconoclastic move, turning superstar closer Andrew Miller into a fireman sent out at any whiff of danger, stands out as creativity in a game dominated by convention. Winning the division with one of the lowest payrolls in the American League without superstar Michael Brantley is irrefutable managerial brilliance.

Runners-up: Jeff Banister, Texas Rangers; A.J. Hinch, Houston Astros

Max Scherzer continued to dominate the league this year. While 20 wins might not be as important as it once was, his advanced statistics are all spectacular. He led the National League in innings pitched and was virtually unhittable all season. With the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw injured for most of the season and Kyle Hendricks not breaking the 200 inning plateau, Scherzer should take home his second Cy Young this year.

Runners-up: Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers; Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants

Dave Roberts has masterminded his way to a fourth consecutive NL West title.

He showed no fear, continually finding ways to win games despite managing a team with a record 28 players on the disabled list. While Joe Maddon led the Cubs to their first 100 win season since 1935, Roberts led a team of misfits to the postseason while dealing with constant Yasiel Puig drama. The Dodgers might not have been the NL’s best, but Roberts was certainly the top manager.

Runners-up: Joe Maddon, Chciago Cubs; Terry Collins, New York Mets

In conversation with Winnipeg Jets’ Assistant Coach Jaime Kompon

Jamie Kompon hoisting the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks. (sports.yahoo.com)

Cameron Cash & Zikomo Smith Contributor & Sports Editor

“I have a passion for hockey,” McGill alum and 17-year veteran NHL coach Jamie Kompon said.

“It consumes your life, and it has consumed my life for the past thirty years.”

However, a long Stanley Cupwinning NHL career was never

a given. Kompon first pursued a professional career, moving to Germany and competing in the ECHL. He eventually gave up his playing career to put his McGill education degree to use to teach high school mathematics at Loyola high school. He combined this with coaching the McGill Redmen hockey team–first as an assistant, then as cohead coach.

“I got the opportunity to be a teacher at Loyola school,” Kompon

said. “It was the right decision for me at the time [....] I had the chance to coach hockey and teach mathematics and physical education.”

Kompon still had NHL aspirations. While he enjoyed teaching, the NHL was his calling.

“If I didn’t take that opportunity to be a coach and step out of my comfort zone, I would probably be teaching right now,” Kompon explained.

Kompon got his first NHL job with the St. Louis Blues on a friend’s recommendation to Head Coach Joel Quenneville. Since then, he’s won two Stanley Cups and been behind the bench of multiple NHL teams. Strong personal relationships have fuelled Kompon’s career.

“The jump to the NHL happened because you knew people,” Kompon explained. “It’s the right time and the right place, being fortunate to surround yourself with good people [....] I just happened to get an opportunity through a friend, and Joel Quenneville hired me in the NHL.” In perhaps his biggest career move, Kompon became general manager and head coach of the Major Junior WHL’s Portland Winterhawks in 2014. His teaching experience came to the fore, coaching younger players.

“You are dealing with 16 to 20-year-olds, so the ability to relate to them and to talk to them [is important],” Kompon said. “It is their

first time away from home and [...] for some of them, when they are not the best player on their team.”

The WHL also required Kompon to micro-manage more than in the NHL. “At the NHL level it is a little different, you ask someone to do something and it is done instantaneously,” Kompon said. “At the junior level [...] the staff is not as large so sometimes things fall through the cracks, so you have to stay on top of them.”

Kompon’s Winterhawks compiled a 77-54-13 record over two seasons and made the Western Conference Final in 2015. He was let go in early 2016, but quickly found his way onto an NHL coaching staff after being approached by Winnipeg Jets’ Head Coach Paul Maurice.

“I still want to be a head coach,” Kompon said. “But I thought this was the right path to learn from someone different [...Maurice and I] see the game in very similar ways and I am very excited to be learning from him.”

The relentlessness of the NHL forces coaches to develop strong professional bonds. Kompon is adamant that coaches must be collaborative, and not limited by labels such as ‘defensive’ or ‘offensive coaches.’

“No one is on an island,” Kompon said. “So no one says you are the power play guru [or] you are the penalty kill person. A lot

of teams do not do that because it isolates one person and they do not necessarily have all the answers [....]

If I am presenting the power play, I want [Assistant Coach] Charlie [Huddy]’s support [….] If he is doing the penalty kill, I want to make sure he is delegating to me also, so we get a different set of eyes [on the issue].”

With Maurice busy with Team Europe in the World Cup, Kompon had to open up the Jets’ training camp alongside fellow Assistant Coach Charlie Huddy. All of Kopmon’s skills as a coach and mentor will be on display. Perhaps his tenure with this young Jets team could be his final step before landing an NHL head coaching job.

Favourite class at McGill: “I am not sure. I don’t know, there were so many good influences [....] I enjoyed any anatomy classes.”

Favourite study spot: My house. Because it was quiet there.

Favourite restaurant: “Amilios pizza. I think it cloised down now. I lived above it and I couldn’t get enough of it [....] I tell you something, it has the best slaw I ever had.”

16

Sports

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

McGill Redmen baseball mercy UdeM Carabins in one sided match-up

Game called in bottom of the fifth inning as Carabins sent home Hana O’Neill Contributor The Université de Montréal (UdeM) Carabins (3-10) committed six errors and walked seven batters before begging McGill for leniency.

The Redmen (13-1) coasted to a 10-0 mercy-shortened victory this past Wednesday at Gary Carter Field in Cote St. Luc, Quebec.

Redmen starting pitcher Henry Dennis, a sophomore history major, held the Carabins to no runs on two hits in five innings, striking out five and walking none.

“I felt loose [and] good to go.

The only difference from last week is I was throwing strikes,” Dennis said, referring to his last start, in which he allowed one hit and walked five. “My team was making plays as usual. I had more energy, my arm felt loose and live.”

The Redmen got on the board in the second inning, when third baseman Jared Kersh singled home designated hitter Camden Lawhead. Right fielder Jack Pantalena came home on centre

fielder Rocky Hroch’s groundout to extend the lead to 2-0. From that point on, the Redmen dominated the Carabins offensively, scoring eight more runs on eight hits and four errors over the next three innings. The game was called in the bottom of the fifth inning when shortstop Louis-Xavier Labrosse singled home left fielder Jonathan Duforest for the tenth run, bringing the Mercy Rule into effect.

After clinching first place in the CCBA’s Northern Division with a win over the rival Concordia Stingers on Monday, the Redmen are looking ahead to the playoffs.

“We have a good group of guys, we work hard every game, and the scoreboard usually shows it,” Dennis said. “I’m excited. It’s my second year, I think we have a better team than last year, and if there’s a team that can three-peat it’s this one.”

Despite playing five games in five days, the Redmen haven’t looked tired. Head Coach Jason Starr is confident about his team’s performance heading into the

postseason.

“We came out strong, we’ve played a lot of baseball in the last few days,” Starr said. “We just want to keep getting better into October.”

The semifinals will take place the weekend of Oct. 15-16. On Saturday, Oct. 15, the Redmen will host the eventual fourthplace finishers in their division for the first two games of the best-of-three series. If necessary, game three will be played at their opponent’s on Sunday.

The Redmen head to Vermont to play in a non-conference tournament this weekend. McGill will host Carleton for a doubleheader next Saturday in the last games of the conference regularseason.

STATS CORNER UdeM pitchers Marc-André Towner and Pascal Desjardins faced a total of 33 McGill batters over five innings.

Redmen pitcher Henry Dennis gave up two hits over five innings. (Max Rosenstein / McGill Athletics) QUOTABLE

MOMENT OF THE GAME

“This is the level we expect out of [Henry....] We like to hold our guys to high standards. He was good tonight, didn’t walk, and was in control.” – Head Coach Jason Starr on starting pitcher Henry Dennis’ performance.

With two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth inning and McGill leading 8-0, UdeM reliever Pascal Desjardins walked pinch-hitter Jake Guggenheimer, driving in the first run of the inning.

Lacrosse then singled to right, scoring Duforest and ending the game.

Know Your Athlete: Spencer Bromley

From McGill to the National Lacrosse League: The Redmen’s first professional lacrosse draftee

Spencer Bromley is McGill’s first lacrosse player drafted to the NLL. (Remi Lu / McGill Athletics)

Wasif Husain Contributor When you think of McGill Lacrosse, you think of a program that has dominated the CUFLA for the last five years. Many fantastic players have come through the program during that time, but none have had the honour of being drafted into the National Lacrosse League (NLL).

That changed on Sept. 26 in Toronto. Fourth-year forward Spencer Bromley became the first McGill player selected in the draft when he was taken 48th overall in the fifth round by the two-time NLL defending champion, the Saskatchewan Rush.

Bromley never thought about the possibility the he would be drafted.

He did not even attend the NLL combine, where teams interview and work out draft-eligible players, as it clashed with a McGill game.

“I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t have an idea at all,” Bromley said.

Even with Saskatchewan being a deep team on the wing, Bromley believes that he is talented enough to go to camp and make the team.

“It’s up to them,” Bromley said.

“The ideal situation would be for me to take a crack at the team and hopefully make it.”

In addition to being an accomplished lacrosse player, Bromley is

also focused on his academics: He was named to the Principal’s Student-Athlete Honour Roll in 2016.

He plans to go to graduate school alongside playing in the NLL, a situation for which he is well-prepared.

“Playing lacrosse at [McGill] prepared me with a work ethic to balance my school and athletic life,” Bromley said. “It taught me a competitive attitude. We’ve lost very few games in my time on the team.”

However, McGill wasn’t the only offer Bromley had when he graduated in 2013 from Earl Marriott Secondary High School in Surrey, British Columbia. He chose to at-

tend McGill over several scholarship offers from NCAA lacrosse programs.

“I felt that McGill was the perfect combo of good lacrosse and good school,” Bromley said. “I figured if I put the time in high school to get good grades, I would have the opportunity to come to a great school.”

Growing up in Surrey, Bromley played for the Semiahmoo Rock and Richmond RoadRunner lacrosse clubs. His run of excellent play earned him a spot on the Delta Islanders, a Junior A box lacrosse team, where he still plays during the summer. He has thrived with the team, scoring 61 points in 21 games this past summer and winning a provincial Junior A title. He attributes a lot of his success to the coaches and teammates he has played with.

“My biggest influence has been my coaching staff,” Bromley said.

“The Delta coaching staff starting with Greg Rennie, Logan Schuss, Bruce Davidson, my minor lacrosse

coach, and Brent Hoskins, my field lacrosse travelling team coach who helped me get into McGill.”

Having the privilege to play with so many great players has helped Bromley to evolve into a more complete athlete, giving him the chance to play at the professional level.

“It’s a huge honour to play here,” Bromley said. “A lot of great players have come through here who should’ve been drafted. It had a lot to do with luck and timing. Playing in the Minto Cup, [the trophy awarded annually to the best men’s Junior lacrosse team in Canada,] this year gave me the platform to get scouted.”

With all his recent success, he remains humble and focused.

Bromley wants to repeat as a national championship winner and end his McGill career in style. Whichever path he chooses, wheteher it be the NLL, graduate school, or both, he is primed to make an immediate impact.