McGill Tribune vol. 37 issue 20

The McGill Tribune TUESDAY, FEBRURARY 27, 2017 | VOL. 37 | ISSUE 20

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

FEATURE

A WHALE OF A TIME

Inclusive hiring requires more than a quota

An underground exploration of Montreal’s musicial landscape

Metro Musicians

Celebrating the ocean’s giants on World Whale Day

PG. 5

PGs. 8-9

PG. 13

(Kendall McGowan / The McGill Tribune)

Vigil for Tina Fontaine calls for individual and institutional change Attendants outraged at acquittal of accused murderer of First Nations girl

Kendall McGowan Staff Writer Two weeks after Gerald Stanley’s acquittal for the murder of 22-year-old Cree man Colten Boushie in Saskatchewan, a Manitoba courthouse acquitted Raymond

Cormier of the murder of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, member of the Sagkeeng First Nation. Montrealers gathered to mourn Fontaine, Boushie, and other Indigenous people denied justice in Canadian courts at a vigil in Cabot Square on Feb. 24.

Ellen Gabriel, a Kanehsatà:ke activist and the first speaker at the event, em-

phasized Canada’s culpability in allowing crimes against Indigenous victims to go unpunished.

“The [United Nations] treaty bodies have told Canada that they must implement a process and measures that provide safety and security [for] Indigenous women and girls,” Gabriel said. “And it says that if any private individual inflicts

harm upon Indigenous women and girls, then the state is responsible to provide the measures needed to bring the guilty to justice. And it has failed once again.”

The event, which was organized in part by the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (NWSM), ended up drawing extensive press coverage and a crowd of about 400 people, according to the CBC. PG. 2

Fokus Film Festival showcases Too stressed to study? Head to the gym its 12th year of student Enjoy sharper memory, increased academic filmmaking performance, and improved sleep quality

Cinema du Parc played host to Montreal’s next generation of filmmakers Kevin Vogel Contributor For the past 12 years, the Fokus Film Festival has served as a showcase for student filmmaking in the Montreal community. On Feb. 23, Student TV at McGill (TVM) presented the annual film festival at Cinema du Parc before a panel of professors and film connoisseurs alike. Despite technical difficulties,

Jade Prévost-Manuel Science & Technology Editor

which set the starting time back by roughly a half-hour, the festival effectively spotlighted some of the incredible filmmaking talent present on McGill campus.

“This festival serves as one of the few opportunities available to students who are interested in practical filmmaking,” Dorsai Ranjbari, executive coordinator for the festival and VP External for TVM, told The McGill Tribune.

PG. 11

With the pressure of multiple midterms and impending deadlines, it’s not uncommon for university students to neglect parts of their routine—whether that means putting off laundry, doing groceries, or exercising, especially during high-stress periods of the year. In our increasingly technological world, people

are becoming more sedentary.

Coupled with our busy lives, it can be difficult to make the time—but finding opportunities to get moving is crucial to experiencing the many benefits of exercising, especially for students.

Physical activity has been proven to help manage stress and anxiety. Physical activity releases endorphins, hormones that can noticeably enhance mood, augment academic performance, sharpen memory, and

improve sleep quality— it can also work wonders for the waistline. Studies from the National Cancer Institute also showed that engaging in regular physical activity can prolong life by increasing one’s resistance to many infectious diseases by strengthening the immune system.

Exercise also lowers the risks of many avoidable chronic diseases caused by lifestyle choices, such as diabetes.

PG. 14

2 NEWS

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Vigil for Tina Fontaine calls for justice and institutional remedies Attendees outraged at acquittal of accused murderer of First Nations girl

Kendall McGowan Staff Writer Continued from page 1.

Both NWSM Executive Director Nakuset and Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Indigenous Affairs Commissioner Carlee Kawinehta articulated the need for settlers to educate themselves about Indigenous peoples’ history and lived experiences, both in school and independently.

“I have children, and you wouldn’t believe [what] they’re taught [in school],” Nakuset said.

“As someone who runs an organization [...] I advocate all the time on behalf of the residents that

come in, but I go home and then I have to advocate on behalf of my children. So it never ends when you’re Indigenous, you just have to keep educating and keep advocating all the time.”

Kawinehta added that non-Indigenous McGill students can begin by following the news and reading about initiatives for missing and murdered indigenous women. According to former Minister for the Status of Women and current Minister of Employment Patty Hajdu, Canadian Indigenous women like Fontaine are at disproportionate risk of experiencing violence, and as many as 4,000 have gone missing or been murdered since 1980.

“It’s not a one-time thing, this isn’t a unique case, and [McGill students] should know the

names,” Kawinehta said. “I think we’re doing things in the university context, and it’s not working [….] It has to be on a personal level.

McGill students, on a personal level, need to learn about these things, reach out to those resources that we have.”

Gabriel also named numerous tools for Canadians to educate themselves, such as the Stolen Sisters report and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. She and other speakers delivered resounding calls for change.

“We didn’t riot when the verdict came down for Colten Boushie, and we’re not rioting today, because we are always calling for peace,” Gabriel said. “This is why I’m asking you, as Speakers emphasized that a number of cases of missing and murdered Indegenous victims go unsolved or unpunished. citizens of your country, let’s put politics aside (Kendall McGowan / The McGill Tribune) [….] Let’s look at the humanity of this. And let’s

bring some changes, some fundamental changes, to respect the human rights of Indigenous children.”

In his speech, Kanehsatà:ke activist and filmmaker Clifton Ariwakehte Nicholas praised the vigil’s large turnout, but stressed that attendance alone would not resolve the issues Canada’s Indigenous communities face.

“I’m happy that there are moral people that still exist in this country, that you’re here today,” Nicholas said. “I’m here because I want to incite you to action. I want you to be loud, to be consistent with your loud voices. Talk about justice. I am completely sickened by what I’ve been witnessing. Just a week ago, I was here talking about Colten Boushie, and [now] I’m here again.”

AUS Council discusses bringing debit, credit payment options to SNAX

Councillors move to amend financial by-laws and Equity Commission Nina Russell Contributor The Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Legislative Council met on Feb. 21 to discuss amendments to its financial by-laws, the introduction of debit and credit card payment at SNAX, and institutional changes to the position of Equity Committee chair.

Motion to Replace the Financial By-Laws AUS President Erik Partridge presented a motion to amend the Society’s financial by-laws to include the creation of a publicly available budget to be updated throughout the year, deadlines for AUS departments to establish their annual budgets, and an increase in the majority required to pass a deficit budget. The motion also recommended expanding the clause providing minimum wage pay to Executive Committee members in

the Work Study Program, an initiative that finds employment at Mcgill for students with financial needs. “[Clause 10.1] does not explicitly allow [compensation for non-Work Study students],” Partridge said. “It does allow it at Council’s discretion, or if another McGill entity wishes to fund [the compensation].”

Council voted to table the motion until its next meeting on March 14 to allow councillors more time to review the changes.

Motion to Bring Credit/Debit Payments to SNAX SNAX, a student-run cafe located on the first floor of the Leacock Building, sells sandwiches, treats, and coffee at affordable prices, many of which are organic, fair trade, or vegan. The store currently only accepts cash payments, but to make it more widely accessible, Vice-President (VP)

AUS President Erik Partridge introduced major changes to the Society’s financial by-laws. (Domenic Casciato / The McGill Tribune)

External Alice Yue, VP Internal Rebecca Scarra, and VP Academic Madeline Wilson introduced a motion to implement credit and debit payments. “[Accepting only cash payments] is really inaccessible for a large amount of students,” Yue said. “In [the most recent AUS survey], we received overwhelming feedback to have another payment method, which is why we’re bringing this motion today.”

To cover the costs of implementing a debit and credit card system, AUS is currently looking into setting a minimum payment amount for card use, or a discount for those who pay with cash.

VP Communications Maria Thomas spoke in favour of the motion, predicting that different payment methods will help boost the appeal of SNAX. “I think that [allowing credit and debit payments] is putting AUS a little more into the future,” Thomas said. “If it’s financially feasible, I think this will really make [SNAX] a little more accessible to the modern age.”

The motion passed unanimously, and the AUS hopes to implement the new card payment system at SNAX at some in the near future.

Motion to Amend VP External Role via Referendum VP External Alice Yue proposed a motion to abolish the International Student Affairs Commission (ISAC) and transfer its responsibilities to the Arts Community Engagement Committee (ACE), which would gain two additional International Student representatives to compensate.

ACE is responsible for doing outreach to the local community and leading philanthropic ventures and activities in Montreal. ISAC, which was established two years ago to provide services and host events for international students, has historically suffered from poor attendance at its events.

Yue hopes that combining ISAC’s mandate with ACE, a committee that has already proven to be successful, will ensure that the committee represents the interests of international students.

Council will vote on the motion in a referendum in the spring.

Motion to Change Chair of Equity Committee via Referendum Partridge and SSMU Arts Representative Jennifer Chan moved a motion to add a question to the spring referendum on whether an Arts Representative should chair the Equity Committee.

While historically the AUS President has held this position ex-officio, Chan chaired the committee this year as part of a pilot project, and both Patridge and Chan agree that giving the role to an Arts representative would be more fair. “[The motion] makes Equity a little bit more independent, helps increase Equity’s role in terms of being able to hold the executives accountable, and also with three arts representatives, it increases the chances that you’ll have someone who’s more well-versed in equity compared to the AUS president, which can vary substantially from year-toyear,” Partridge said.

AUS Legislative Council will next meet on March 14 in Leacock 232.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

NEWS 3

McGill to offer workshops on cannabis production and quality control University begins to prep students for legalisation job market

Two workshops in May will focus on technical aspects of industrial cannabis growth.

(Justine Touchon / The McGill Tribune)

Laura Oprescu Staff Writer In anticipation of the Canadian federal government’s plan to vote on Bill C-45, which would legalise the sale and recreational use of cannabis, the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the School of Continuing Studies will offer two full-day workshops on medical cannabis production on May 1 and 2. The workshops will take place at McGill’s MacDonald Campus, and will focus on extraction technologies, separation and identification techniques, and the environmental factors that impact the cannabis growth cycle.

According to Varoujan Yaylayan, Chair of the Departmental of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry, the workshops are essential for students hoping to work in the expanding medical cannabis industry.

“The information will be useful as a general background for those who already have practical know-how in the field of natural product chemistry,” Yaylayan said.

“There are no plans for workshops on social, legal or recreational aspects of cannabis.”

Many other Canadian post-secondary institutions intend to adopt cannabis-related curricular programs, including Durham College, New Brunswick Community College, Niagara College, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University. While McGill will be focusing on the technical aspects of industrial cannabis growth, other schools will focus on training participants to apply their prior education to the cannabis industry and to destigmatize the use of the drug.

Debbie Johnston, dean of the School of Continuing Education at Durham College, has seen firsthand how applicable the college’s workshops are for students going into the cannabis industry.

“There is currently a particularly strong demand for quality assurance and

quality control experts [in the cannabis industry], as well as for horticulturalists,” Johnston said. “[Licensed producers] are looking for individuals who not only have a core area of expertise, such as accounting, but who also have at least a basic understanding of the cannabis industry. This is what Durham’s two-day course is designed to provide.”

According to Johnston, education plays a pivotal role in normalizing cannabis use.

“Social stigmas often arise from misunderstanding or lack of information,” Johnston said. “To overcome the stigma that surrounds cannabis, education based on accurate facts is key. Legal limitations to date have restricted how much research could be conducted. As more and more research becomes available, education will expand.”

Minister of Health Ginette Petitpas Taylor estimates that if the bill passes, provinces may need up to 12 weeks to prepare for retail sales. The legalisation of cannabis could be finalized in August at the very earliest, though some estimate that it could take until October.

McGill has not yet released an official cannabis policy, but according to Doug Sweet, director of Internal Communications, McGill’s new smoking policy, which includes plans to enforce a smoking ban on McGill campuses, will extend to cannabis use.

“The government’s proposed legislation, introduced last November, would ban smoking marijuana on all university and school campuses across Quebec,” Sweet said. “McGill is waiting to see if the final version of the Quebec government’s legislation will require any tweaking of our present policy, or whether the campus bans will remain in that final version.”

McGill’s smoking ban will go into effect on May 1, with the goal of making campus entirely smoke-free by 2023.

Duff Medical Building faces water leaks, damaged lab equipment Students grow frustrated with disruptive and untimely construction Jacqueline Yao Contributor In January 2018, a demolition project to replace the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system in the Lyman Duff Medical Building sixth floor mechanical room caused a water leak in the north-east staircase.

The leak has posed an inconvenience for staff in the building, which has a history of construction problems, and is home to many laboratories for a number of departments.

Partly funded by the Government of Canada’s Strategic Investment Fund, Duff’s refurbishing is one of several McGill construction projects aimed at improving outdated facilities. According to Jasmin Chahal, a Ph.D. candidate in Microbiology and Immunology (MIMM) and Lyman-Duff representative, new ventilation systems were necessary to avoid potentially dangerous consequences after a ventilation pipe installation in December 2017 interfered with the functioning of fume hoods in Duff.

“We have toxic chemicals in the fume hoods and then sometimes, due to ventilation, the fume hoods just stop working,” Chahal said. “We realized [the malfunction] when we started smelling the chemicals. What we did at the time [of the incident] was [that] we’d do our work and then just shut [the fume hood].”

One month later, in January 2018, water began leaking into Duff auditorium B23 due to the building’s roof deterioration and corroding corrosion.

In an email to The McGill Tribune, Facilities Management and Ancillary Services Communications Manager Julie Fortier confirmed that the faulty pipes have since been replaced and that more permanent solutions are being considered for the neglected roof.

“The replacement of the roof at the Lyman Duff Building is on our priority list,” Fortier wrote. “The University has about 1.3 billion dollars worth of deferred maintenance work, so it is difficult to say at this stage when we will be able to proceed with that project.”

According to Chahal, the building has faced infrastructural problems for several years. Over one year ago, a hot water pipe burst overnight, flooding Duff room 600 and damaging an MacBook computer, four desk chairs, and lab notebooks.

“Our lab was big and everything got damaged,” Chahal said. “[The water] came from a very dirty pipe so it was dusty and dirty. We work with RNA, and RNA is very unstable [...], so we couldn’t work with RNA at all for a week at least.”

Construction projects in Duff and other buildings on campus cause countless logistical difficulties for students, beyond the risks that faulty handiwork pose. For example, laboratory construction in the Stewart Biology Building that began in May 2017 has led many first-year biology labs to be relocated to the Duff Building.

The Duff Building HVAC renovations are expected to finish in December 2018. However, Microbiology and Immunology Graduate Student Association (MIGSA) President Patrick Lypaczewski is skeptical of the completion date, considering the university’s history of delaying construction timelines. “[The changing deadlines is a topic] that keeps coming up during staff meetings,” Lypaczewski said.

“It isn’t just that the admin isn’t telling the students enough. It’s also that the admin and the profs don’t know enough. McGill can’t control what the [construction] companies do but they can give clear instructions as to communications.”

Renovations and deteriorating infrastructure have caused water leaks in Duff Medical Building. (Domenic Casciato / The McGill Tribune)

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

4 NEWS

Montreal protesters call for the release of activist Ahed Tamimi Students, activists, and families came together in solidarity on Feb. 18

Laura Oprescu Staff Writer On Feb. 18, protesters gathered at Norman Bethune Square to condemn the ongoing incarceration of 17-year-old Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi. After a video of Tamimi slapping an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier circulated on social media, she was arrested at her home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on Dec. 19, 2017. Several members of her family have also since been arrested. Tamimi is one of over 300 Palestinian children currently under the Israeli military’s detention, according to Al Jazeera.

Following a Facebook event calling for a worldwide show of solidarity for Tamimi, Montreal was one of several cities to witness protests on Feb. 18. Tadamon!, a Montrealbased collective that works for self-determination, equality, and justice in the Middle East, jointly organized the protest with the McGill chapter of Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR).

Chantelle Schultz, U3 Arts and SPHR McGill member, helped organize the protest as a way of expressing her personal support for Tamimi.

“I felt it was my obligation to do something,” Shultz said. “To show people that we care. Showing Ahed and all Palestinians that we stand in solidarity with them, and showing the Israeli state that we are watching, we are listening, and we refuse to accept what they’re doing.”

The Israeli occupation was presented at the protest as a political rather than reli-

gious issue by organizations like Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) McGill, a Jewish group whose mandate is to support a just, humanitarian, and legal resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. A member of the group present at the rally, who chose to remain anonymous, felt it was important that Jewish students in particular speak out against the Israeli government’s actions.

“I think it’s very important that Jews, especially Jews living in the diaspora, show that they do not condone what the State of Israel is doing,” the member said. “As a Jew, I am entirely and completely opposed to the Israeli state’s policies, actions, and colonial project.”

Overall, the protest drew people from different backgrounds. Montreal resident Ines El Jhadab does not belong to any movement or activist group, but was nonetheless compelled to join the event for humanitarian reasons.

“We cannot stand by and be spectators and observers,” El Jhadab said. “In 20 years, 30 years, when the next generation asks us, ‘what did you do?’ and we say ‘nothing,’ it will be impossible to live with.”

Protesters rallied behind Dolores Chew, a regular attendee of protests for Palestinian liberation, as she delivered a speech about the injustices of colonialism.

“Even when Palestine drops out of the news for us over here, Palestinian people need to live the daily indignities of occupation,” Chew said. “Palestinian children and teenagers, along with their families, have to suffer humiliation at the hands of Israeli soldiers, most of the soldiers themselves being close in age to Ahed, but with the crucial difference

Montrealers gathered to stand in solidarity with 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi. (cbc.ca)

[being] that the soldiers have complete power of life and death over Palestinian children.”

Chew conveyed her disgust with the IDF’s ability to invade Palestinian homes, terrorize children, and shoot civilians.

“This is the Israeli state declaring ‘we can do this to you, and we can get away with it,’ but Ahed and her generation have said ‘no you cannot, and you will not,’” Chew said.

“This is no childhood for Palestinian children. It is the occupation that makes fierce warriors like Ahed Tamimi. The children of Palestine declare to the world that the struggle will continue. Their generation will keep the flame of justice alive.”

Referencing the Israeli police force’s recent recommendation to indict Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Chew said she

expects change. However, she warned the audience that Netanyahu will likely strike out against Palestine in retaliation.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing the greatest crisis of his career and will stop at nothing to divert attention from himself, to make himself appear the saviour of the people of Israel,” Chew said. “But time is running out for you, Mr. Netanyahu, as it is running out for the occupation.”

Chew ended her speech with an expression of love and solidarity for Ahed and antioccupation movements at large.

“The Zionist state is desperate and the illegal detention and trial of Ahed is testimony to that,” Chew said. “Ahed, we send you our love and deepest solidarity. You will be free.

Palestine will be free.”

SUS discusses student trip to active volcano, extracurricular events

Science departments support and adopt gender-neutral language

Upcoming SUS events include a kombucha workshop, a psychology case competition, and the Willy Trip to Guatemala. (gofundme.com)

involved in Monty have organized these trips for the past 35 years, with this year raising the most funds. The 15 students participating raised nearly $10,000 to fund the excursion, which begins on Feb. 24.

“The Willy Trip really represents a unique learning opportunity for students who are eager to see how the concepts introduced in the classroom apply to the real world, and it is a great way for everyone interested to get together and fundraise,” Monty Representative Maggie Whelan said.

During this year’s Willy Trip, undergraduate geology students will have the chance to see rare geological phenomena that cannot be found in Canada, such as coral reefs and active volcanoes.

In years past, the Monty’s trips have brought students to Colombia and South Africa.

clinical psychology,” MPSA Representative Leora Pear-Dowler said. “It should be a really big event.”

MPSA will also host a mental health firstaid certification workshop on the weekend of March 24 to prepare students for handling mental health emergencies. The event will take 24 participants to achieve certification by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. It promptly sold out.

The McGill Monteregian Society (Monty) promoted the Earth and Planetary Science Department’s annual geological field expedition to Guatemala, known as the “Willy Trip.” Students

Councillors discuss SSMU policy on genderneutral language In accordance with SSMU’s recent policy mandating the use of gender-neutral language in its legislation and communications, MISA announced that it replaced instances of “him” or “her” in its documents with gender-neutral pronouns. SSMU Science Representative Marjan Ghazi praised these changes as indicative of a campus-wide shift toward gender awareness.

“I find this motion very important,” Ghazi said. “We want to make sure that, at SSMU, we are using the correct pronouns when addressing speakers and Council members to ensure [that] everyone is being respected at all times.”

Julie Demet Contributor On Feb. 14, the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) Council appointed Haoyi Qiu as the new Science Representative to the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). Qiu will replace Mana Moshkforoush, who resigned earlier this month. Council also discussed progress in planning events such as the Psychology Case Competition and the Science Gala, and established goals for getting more students involved in SUS department activities this semester.

Representatives present updates on upcoming workshops and events Councillors from various science departments reported on their work this semester, praising the success of the 25th Anniversary Gala on Feb. 10, the popularity of recurring Hypnosis sessions, and the high attendance at a lecture by the popular YouTube channel AsapSCIENCE. They also shared updates on a variety of upcoming events and extracurricular activities.

Following the positive reception of their first kombucha how-to workshop, the Microbiology and Immunology Student Association (MISA) will be hosting a second class on March 15 at 6 p.m.. MISA also intends to host multiple career panels this semester. MISA Representative Caroline Chu encouraged collaboration among SUS departments to promote science students’ exploration of alternate career paths.

“We really think that it’s a great opportunity for students to think about what they could do outside of academia and medical school,” Chu said.

Meanwhile, the McGill Psychology Students’ Association (MPSA) is planning a Psychology Case Competition on Apr. 1 in collaboration with student associations at Queen’s University, Concordia University, Université du Québec à Montréal, Université de Montréal, and Université de Laval.

“We have been organizing [the Psychology Case Competition] all year and it will include topics from neuroscience to developmental and

OPINION 5

Tuesday, February 27, 2018 Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Jasinski editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Noah Sutton nsutton@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Audrey Carleton acarleton@mcgilltribune.com Emma Avery eavery@mcgilltribune.com Selin Altuntur saltuntur@mcgilltribune.com News Editors Holly Cabrera, Domenic Casciato, & Calvin Trottier-Chi news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Jackie Houston & Alexandra Harvey opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Jade Prevost-Manuel scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Living Editor Catherine Morrison studentliving@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Marie Labrosse features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Dylan Adamson & Ariella Garmaise arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Stephen Gill & Selwynne Hawkins sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Arshaaq Jiffry & Elli Slavitch design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Ava Zwolinski photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editor Tristan Surman multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Daniel Lutes webdev@mcgilltribune.com Julia Kafato online@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Ayanna De Graff copy@mcgilltribune.com

Inclusive hiring requires more than a Dalhousie University has recently come under fire for limiting its search for a new vice-provost student affairs to “racially visible persons and Aboriginal peoples,” in an effort to boost minority faculty representation.

Critics have condemned the policy as discriminatory against white people, and argue that hiring based on race, rather than merit, is misguided.

While Dalhousie’s blunt approach to race-based hiring raises some issues, such as the multitude of identities encompassed within the definition of “racially visible,” the Halifax university’s transparent approach to representative hiring is worth considering.

McGill should take a cue from Dalhousie, not just in prioritizing faculty representativeness but in communicating these initiatives— and their progress—to its student body and staff.

Hiring tactics such as Dalhousie’s are implemented in an attempt to undo a longstanding legacy of white privilege in Canada.

Affirmative action is not actually intended to be progressive—it’s remedial. According to Dalhousie’s 2016 census, only 11 per cent of employees identified as “racially visible,” and a mere 1.9 per cent were Indigenous.

Affirmative action policies like Dalhousie’s are not designed to hurt white people.

Rather, they acknowledge the systemic barriers that Indigenous

OFF THE BOARD

Business Manager Daniel Minuk business@mcgilltribune.com Advertising Executives Grayson Castell & Katherine Hutter, ads@mcgilltribune.com Publisher Chad Ronalds

TPS Board of Directors

Nicholas Jasinski, Daniel Minuk, Katherine Hutter, Anthony Kuan, Elli Slavitch, Holly Cabrera, Jeeventh Kaur, Katherine Milazzo, Becca Hoff

Staff Writers

Kendall McGowan, Cherry Wu, Laura Oprescu, Andras Nemeth, Grace Gunning, Gabriel Rincon, Avleen Mokha, Virginia Shram, Sophie Brzozowski, Sam Min, Oceane Marescal, Emma Gillies, Miguel Principe, Janine Xu, Jordan Foy, Miya Keilin, Gabe Nisker, Winnie Lin, Cordelia Cho, Erica Stefano, Gabriel Helfant, Margaux Delalex, Ceci Steyn

Contributors

Abeer Almahdi, Arindam Das, Domenica Cirone, Eloise Haliburton, Ender McDuff, Gabriela McGuinty, Ian Rodgers, Jacqueline Yao, Janine Xu, Jonah Dutz, Julie Demet, Justine Touchon, Kaylina Kodlick, Kellyann Levac, Kendall McGowan, Kevin Vogel, Linqiao Zhou, Maxime Scraire, Nadia Boachie, Nina Russell, Sabrina GL, Sophie Panzer

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All other opinions are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the McGill Tribune, its editors or its staff.

Please recycle this newspaper.

Dylan Adamson Arts & Entertainment Editor You’re at Café Santropol on a Sunday afternoon. Visibly focused on your work, headphones in, you become aware of a turtlenecked, tinyhatted, vaguely stinky entity behind you. He won’t tap your shoulder, but as seconds stretch into minutes, you begin to turn your head, not quite toying with the idea of removing a headphone— Hey! It was really nice seeing you at the show the other night. I wasn’t actually planning on going, but a guy I know works for the promoters and got me on the guestlist. It was pretty tight, we did shots with the guitar player before his set. He was making out with this drunk fan, which was kinda weird, but he was actually

peoples and racial minorities continue to face.

Dalhousie’s policy poses some issues worth addressing. First and foremost is the vague definition of “racially visible,” which collapses a multiplicity of races and lived experiences into one category.

Furthermore, the histories and experiences of Indigenous peoples and racial minorities who have settled in Canada are distinct from one another, and each perspective deserves recognition in its own right.

Dalhousie must unpack blanket minority identities, and ensure that a diverse set of individual experiences are represented beyond the white/ non-white binary. The self-serving PR aspect of such a highlypublicized gesture also warrants skepticism.

Still, one positive aspect of Dalhousie’s transparently affirmative action-oriented policy is that its message is clear: Diversity and representation are on Dalhousie’s radar, and the university is implementing concrete steps to achieve these goals. In October 2016, McGill published a report on systemic discrimination among its faculty. The report outlined some worthwhile recommendations to achieving greater diversity and eliminating sexism and racism from the workplace. These included hiring “with particular attention to historically underrepresented groups,” and creating a senior

administrator position “with a mandate to promote diversity and inclusiveness.” McGill’s report is a significant step toward improving faculty representation, since it acknowledges discrimination and outlines clear steps for solving it. However, there has been no progress update since on how the recommendations are being implemented.

Another legitimate concern with race-based hiring is that the chosen hire, no matter how qualified, may be tokenized, or seen as less competent and assumed to have been hired only on the basis of their race, rather than their qualifications. Beyond filling quotas or appearing diverse, it is important for university faculty and administration to represent the vast collection of identities within Canada and Indigenous identities.

It will take much more than one targeted job posting to achieve this.

Diversifying academic leadership is essential. It is crucial for minority students to see themselves reflected in senior positions, otherwise, talented young people may be hesitant to pursue a certain career in an environment that seems unwelcoming. Increased minority representation benefits the entire student body, since it promises an education that incorporates multiple perspectives, rather than playing into typical university echo chambers reinforced by a homogenous, primarily white, male faculty.

EDITORIAL The conversation around increasing minority representation and combatting discrimination at McGill is a vital one that must continue. McGill shouldn’t merely follow Dalhousie’s lead, it should go even further, and implement the systemic changes needed to alter a system built to privilege white people. This is a multi-faceted, long-term goal: Apart from hiring practices, building and maintaining a representative faculty also means ensuring inclusivity among masters and PhD candidates, and fostering widely-accessible opportunities from the undergraduate level.

McGill’s report from 2016 outlines some viable paths to start achieving these goals—but the University needs to better communicate what it’s doing to implement these recommendations, and to make sure that the conversation on minority representation is ongoing.

Moreover, students themselves must look at how they help—or hinder— representative spaces on campus, through inclusive hiring in student groups and clubs, but also through their day-to-day interactions.

Throughout Canada’s existence, white people have prospered at the expense of Indigenous peoples and people of colour. Prioritizing minority-based hiring is necessary to ensure that our university faculties are representative of Canada’s demographic makeup. There’s a whole lot of merit in that.

Hey! You should come see my band tonight such a straight up funny dude with us.

They’re rolling out of town today, but he said if anything gets delayed, he’d definitely consider pulling through tonight.

Wait, damn, did I not invite you?

My bad! We’re doing a set tonight.

You should come! It’s me and two of the guys. I do synths, guitar, and sometimes sing. We’ve got kind of a garage-y sound, but there’s a lot of psych and electronic influences that really come through. Do you play any instruments?

Chill. Yeah I guess our biggest influences have gotta be Neutral Milk Hotel (cliché, I know), The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and The Soft Boys. A lot of people just know “Underwater Moonlight” by them, if they’ve heard of them at all, which is too bad. You’ll definitely be able to pick out The Soft Boys in our set. Sorry, totally don’t mean to be mansplaining our influences. Some of our songs are pretty out there, I just like to give context. I’m not one of those guys, though, don’t worry. It’s honestly whack how the patriarchy lets some men systematically exploit women’s emotional labour. Anyway, do you like music?

Tight. Yeah, Lorde is OK but it’s mostly Jack Antonoff doing the work, so just like, credit where credit is due, you know? I don’t really mess

with his Bleachers stuff but some of his work with St. Vincent is actually super innovative. Have you heard St. Vincent?

Wait, sorry to interrupt, but could I bum one of those? I’ve been trying to quit for forever but I always get nervous the day of a show. I have a lot of anxiety that people don’t really see.

Anyways, yeah, St. Vincent really inspired me to play guitar. A lot of people don’t think girls can play guitar, but she’s 10 times the guitarist Jack White is. We’re playing an experimental cover of one of her songs tonight. You’ve gotta come, you’d love it. I think The White Stripes are so overrated. My dad loves them.

He gave me a lot of shit growing up.

I never really got into the sports that my brothers were into. I was too busy digging through record crates to ever really get involved in all that toxic masculine crap. Kids at school used to beat me up and call me gay. No, no I’m not gay! Haha, just because of the music and stuff. You’re not, right?

Diversity is so important.

POCs are everything. I think it was Bukowski who said, “It is not our differences who define us,” and that’s a philosophy that underlies a lot of what my band’s all about. Are you and your dad close?

Yeah I feel that. Relationships

are tough. Self-care is everything.

My ex-girlfriend and I just broke things off pretty recently. Do you ever model, by the way? I just bought a new roll of 35mm, I’d love to shoot you sometime. I hope somebody brings beers tonight. A lot of the songs we’ll be playing are actually about my ex.

Have you seen Her? Spike Jonze is an auteur. I drink so much sometimes that there are whole weeks I don’t remember. Could I bum another one of those? I process a lot of my anxiety through songwriting.

Infinite Jest changed me, but I actually think Pynchon is way more relevant for right now. Sometimes I cry so hard it feels like I’m going to run out of tears. Death Grips are so overrated, my ex never got that. I just don’t really do monogamy, you know?

It’s so grounded in heteronormative patriarchy, it gives me anxiety. Do you have any ex-boyfriends?

Wait, sorry, I’ve gotta run to soundcheck. The show’s way up at my place near Jarry, you can catch the 80. It was so good seeing you again!

What’s your number? I’ll send you the address. I might be able to get you guestlist, but it’s $5/PWYC anyways, so no big deal. Bring your friends.

Could I possibly bum one more of those, for the road? I’ll get you back at the show.

6 OPINION

COMMENTARY

Grace Gunning Columnist Ontario universities are currently working with the provincial government to create and fulfill Strategic Mandate Agreements, the goals of which are to “[build] on current strengths and to help drive system-wide objectives and government priorities.” Part of this process is evaluating a university’s research using bibliometrics— the quantitative analysis of journal articles. Bibliometric data collection is made possible by sophisticated computational algorithms. The specific metrics

COMMENTARY

Abeer Almahdi Contributor Fifty-two years since the Société de transport de Montréal (STM)—then called the Commission de transport de Montréal—unveiled the Montreal metro, the system still excludes wheelchair users. The STM is a public corporation that runs Montreal’s public bus and metro systems. However, two thirds of commuters in the Greater Montreal community still travel by car.

The issue is not that Montrealers are somehow more inclined toward cars— it’s that a lot of Montrealers have no choice, due to public transit’s lack of accessibility.

The STM has some dedicated services for accessibility, such as elevators, ramps, and paratransit, which is door-to-door public transit for handicapped citizens. However, the system falls extremely short from adequately serving the one in 10 Quebecers with a disability. According to the STM website, only 12 out of 68

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Ontario government: Local research models matter, too used in this case are based on the number of papers published and number of citations.

This is an alarming change: Although such methods of evaluation are not unusual, the Strategic Mandate Agreements officialize them and, during the project’s third phase, will tie them to funding. It is dangerous to base research funding on a metric that prioritizes volume of publishing over all else. In fact, such a decision is exclusionary of alternative research models, such as local, community-based, and Indigenous research, which are crucial for creating a multiplicity of academic narratives and sustaining engagement between local contexts and institutions.

Academic research does not exist in a bubble. The Strategic Mandate Agreements leave no room for local, community-based research, which tends to have other goals besides academic publishing and may be conducted in languages other than English.

One-size-fits-all research metrics have no place in Canada, where the dominant narratives of academic research sit uneasily beside local models. Publishing is only one end

goal, albeit the most visible and glamorous. Researchers should

“

One-size-fits-all research metrics have no place in Canada, where the dominant narratives of academic research sit uneasily beside local models.

”

be encouraged to look outside the limited scope of the traditional academic world, and perform research that benefits local communities. In turn, government funds should be allotted to alternative forms of research with priorities other than publishing,

for example, providing research services to institutions such as health clinics and information centres in disenfranchised communities.

Although the agreements are Ontario-exclusive, if their research evaluation metrics become a Canadian norm, the results might be unfortunate for researchers in Quebec, too—especially those engaging in communitybased research. The communitybased model is action-driven, emphasizing communication in local contexts. In contrast, publishing-focused bibliometrics, like those of the agreements, tend to prioritize “high impact” English-language journals at the cost of local research. This leaves little space for bilingual fields, such as Quebec studies, or even community-based research conducted with immigrant communities. Local, communitybased programs often face unique barriers at research universities— the tenuous existence of the Quebec Studies program at McGill is but one example. To normalize metrics that neglect these programs is to create an institutional bias against local research, which

is necessary to strengthen the relationship between the academic institution and the surrounding community.

Indigenous research is another model that, while vital in Canada, might be further marginalized by publishing-based metrics. The Indigenous model conducts often research based on conversation, story, and care. This is not analogous with the Western scientific method, but it is an equally vital alternative narrative.

To encode an academic system that devalues Indigenous research methods shuts Indigenous paradigms of learning, data, and history out of universities.

Ontario’s Strategic Mandate Agreements represent a choice to prioritize traditional research and academic publishing, despite the fact that it is now easier than ever to evaluate alternative research. Canadian institutions would do better to create methods for qualifying alternative forms of research, and legitimize a multiplicity of academic narratives. Only then can Canadian academia move toward a paradigm of inclusion and diversity rather than homogeneity.

Montreal needs to improve public transit accessibility metro stations are wheelchair-accessible, and they are all on the Orange Line. The remaining three lines—blue, green, and yellow—are completely inaccessible to wheelchair users. The STM plans to have 31 accessible stations by 2022, but that is still only 31 out of 68 stations— meaning that much of Montreal will still be out of reach for wheelchair users. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante’s proposal for an entirely new metro line emphasizes that all 29 new stations will be wheelchair accessible, but that does little for the handicapped Quebecers trying to navigate the STM system today.

Freedom of mobility is a huge element of the right to individual autonomy. By rendering much of the transit system inaccessible to those in wheelchairs, STM is violating the rights of people with reduced mobility, making it inherently ableist.

Above ground is not much better.

In addition to the lack of elevators to access the metro, many wheelchair users report that the bus ramps are often out of order. Even if the ramps work properly, poor snow removal in the winter leaves them useless if the ramp cannot lie flat.

According to official reports by the STM, ramps are supposed to be inspected once a month, but a Montreal Gazette feature on transit accessibility reports maintenance work happening once every four months, or less. Paratransit also proves to be extremely limiting: According to the Gazette, services must be booked a day in advance, leaving wheelchair users without the privilege of making spontaneous or last-minute travel.

“

Most Montrealers do not have to think twice whether their local metro stop has an elevator [....] The city has been designed in a way that alienates an entire community of people.

”

Having to plan every single move or activity days in advance is not a burden that most citizens of Montreal have to deal with. Most Montrealers do not have to think twice whether their local metro stop has an elevator.

McGill station currently does not have an elevator, leaving many students with reduced mobility limited choice in lodging, since they cannot rely on the metro. The city has been designed in a way that alienates an entire community of people.

The city of Montreal and the STM must consult and include disabled people and groups in policy creation and design of public space in order to achieve inclusivity. The people who know best how to make the city more accessible are those who it actually need it. The number of accessible metro stations will not be sufficient until all of them are wheelchair-friendly from street

level.

Improving accessible transport is a challenge for every modern city, but Montreal can look to other cities for best practices. Washington, D.C. is a leading example: All 91 of the city’s subway stations are fully accessible, as well as all of its buses and rail cars.

From the outdoor staircases that

render some apartments unreachable, to the city’s public transit system, Montreal has a long way to go in improving access for those with reduced mobility throughout the city. If Montreal wants to report greater usage of and satisfaction with its public transit, it must thoroughly address issues of accessibility with the pressing priority that they deserve.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

STUDENT LIVING 7

Soup can fix anything, right?

Montreal’s best spots for soup when you’re feeling under the weather

Sophie Panzer / Contributor

It’s the most stressful time of year—midterms and deadlines are rearing their ugly heads, and to make matters worse, flu season is in full swing. Comfort food helps, but knowing where to find it amid Montreal’s many restaurants is a challenge. To help students battle the last of the winter blues, The McGill Tribune compiled a list of Montreal restaurants to turn to when searching for the ultimate comfort food: Soup.

Sometimes a bowl of warm soup is all you need to feel better. (Arindam Das / The McGill Tribune)

Pho Rachel 14 Rachel Street East

Hof Kelsten 4524 St. Laurent Boulevard

Yokato Yokabai 4185 Rue Drolet

Kantapia 364 Sherbrooke Street West

A 25-minute walk from campus, this Vietnamese restaurant is a great go-to for those feeling under the weather. The staff are friendly, the portions are generous, and the soup is so rich and flavourful that it’s sure to revive the part of your soul that died somewhere on the third floor of McLennan last week.

Try the chicken pho with homemade noodles, or the vegetable pho if you don’t eat animal products, and be sure to pair your order with the salted lemonade, a Pho Rachel specialty.

Although this Jewish bakery is best known for its brunch fare and desserts, there’s nothing better than their classic matzo ball soup if you’re feeling sick. Since this savoury, satisfying dish is made with chicken and bone broth, it’s not suitable for vegetarians. However, if you’re OK with eating meat and can’t convince your grandmother to come cook for you, Hof Kelsten’s matzo ball soup is the next best thing. For an extra touch of comfort, be sure to try one of their famous pastries—the chocolate babka never disappoints.

Located on the corner of Rachel and Drolet Streets, this Japanese restaurant is easy to pass without noticing due to its plain exterior and tucked away door. Upon entering, you’ll find an elegant space with a streamlined ticketbased ordering process serving only one thing: Ramen. On their tickets, patrons are asked to customize their ramen dish, first by choosing between tonkotsu bone broth and vegetablebased broth. While many vegetarian broths are watery and less flavourful than their meatbased counterparts, Yokato Yokabai’s has a rich, salty umami flavour. Patrons can top off their soup with extras including tofu, chicken teriyaki, and seaweed, before garnishing the ramen noodles with pickled ginger and chili oil. After you’ve finished your soup, be sure to indulge in some green tea ice cream for dessert—a sweet treat despite the bitter cold.

Just a few blocks from campus on the corner of Parc and Sherbrooke, Kantapia is popular among McGill students for its uniquely colourful decor and unbeatable Korean comfort food. If you’re feeling sick, skip the bibimbap (rice bowl) and order some of their spicy ramen or soondubu jjigae (tofu stew) instead—your sinuses will thank you. The red chili paste in the broth will leave you feeling warm and cozy, but be sure to bring tissues or consider ordering takeout to avoid offending fellow diners with your runny nose.

Price rating: $ Veggie/vegan friendly? Yes

Price rating: $$ Veggie/vegan friendly? No

Price rating: $$ Veggie/vegan friendly? Yes

Price rating: $ Veggie/vegan friendly? Yes

A day in the life of a car commuter at McGill The perils of parking, tickets, and traffic Janine Xu Staff Writer A walk through the Milton-Parc neighbourhood during the morning rush to class comes with countless stressors. When pushing past droves of slow walkers and dodging traffic on University Street, it can feel like the entire student body is travelling by foot, and they’re all in your way. However, according to a 2011 McGill Transportation Survey, 17 per cent of students travel to campus by car during the winter. And for them, commuting comes with a whole new set of challenges.

Melissa Paris St-Amour, U3 Environment, is no stranger to this reality. During the 2016-17 school year, she often drove her car between her home, downtown, and the MacDonald campus.

St-Amour frequently faced many issues when driving to school, including navigating downtown traffic and hunting for street parking. Despite these difficulties, taking her car was often more convenient than traveling via public transit, with the closest metro station to her home being a 20-minute bus ride away.

“I used to take my car a lot, but [now] with all the construction, it’s almost impossible,” StAmour said. “The traffic is insane. You never know which streets are blocked [...and] it’s very slippery.”

Though convenient for students living

in areas with limited public transit, driving in Montreal is no easy feat. Traffic conditions during rush hour can be hectic, and the roads can be downright dangerous in the wintertime. After moving to Laval, and closer to a metro station, St-Amour has stopped driving her car to school altogether. “[Now], the nearest metro [station from my house] is Montmorency [in] Laval,” St-Amour said. “I prefer taking the metro, [as] it would take me about the same time [.…] It’s about 45 minutes [by metro], and 40 minutes with my car, but I have to [park and] pay for parking.”

Athar Qureshi, U3 Engineering, also commutes to school by car from time to time when he’s not biking or busing from his home in the Plateau. While he prefers biking to school, Qureshi drives if he needs to go somewhere else during the day. However, doing so comes with a large price.

“I live in the Mile End so, for me, it’s easy to commute to school,” Qureshi said. “I [mostly] bike because it’s faster than taking the bus […] I [also] pay $125 a month for two [parking] spots [in the Milton-Parc neighbourhood].”

Parking is another issue McGill students must take into consideration when deciding to drive to school. Getting a parking permit for one of McGill’s parking lots by McIntyre, Bronfman, Burnside, Education, and Sherbrooke 680 buildings are competitive for both students and

staff. Permits are only issued to those who satisfy certain criteria, including those who live in an area where public transit is limited, are pregnant, or require parking due to extenuating circumstances.

And, though Qureshi’s monthly fee seems steep, McGill parking lots are even higher. For students, permits add up to $571 per semester, or $200 per month.

In order to bypass these costs, commuters like Qureshi and St-Amour have to park off campus instead, meaning they need to get downtown earlier than the average student. “[Students] who normally drive to school park in the ghetto,” Qureshi said. “[Spots start filling up] from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., depending on where your classes are. If you’re parking in the ghetto, there’s free parking on the edge of every street.”

Commuters of McGill share their thoughts on why driving in Montreal is no easy feat. (lindseybalbierz.blogspot.com)

Students unwilling to compete with others for an off-campus parking spot or pay for expensive parking passes may consider alternative means.

“Lots of students I know that occasionally drive in will park their cars illegally in McGill parking lots,” Qureshi said. “McGill parking will give them citations but no actual fine. But every once in awhile the city cops come [and give] you a ticket. A lot of people will play this gamble. I myself have done that in the past and eventually I got a ticket, so I stopped.”

From hefty fines to long traffic lines, driving to school is a burdensome process that leaves many students wondering what their other travel options are.

“I don’t think commuting [by car] is ideal,” Qureshi said. “It can [take a lot of time] and parking can be competitive [....] But I don’t [really] have a choice.”

Metro Musicians Emma Avery Managing Editor

An underground exploration of Montreal’s musical landscape Walking through the metro is not something we spend much time thinking about. Public transportation, as its name implies, is inherently transitory. The sole point of any transit system is to carry people as efficiently as possible from point A to B. Such a system is successful when its design allows us to spend less time in the metro—not more.

Yet, people find ways to creatively use metro stations for more than just transportation. In Montreal, buskers have become a regular and expected part of daily travel, but the Societé de transport de Montréal (STM) [Montreal Transit Corporation], then called the Commission de transport de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal (CTCUM) [Commission for Montreal Urban Community Transit], only legalized busking in the Montreal metro in 1983, in response to a concerted effort by buskers to achieve recognition.

“It was basically just a handful of buskers who fought [to play in the metro], some of whom would get arrested and get tickets repeatedly, to the point where there was an arrest warrant out for one guy, until they finally forced it to become a public issue and circulated a petition and eventually things began to change,” Nick Wees, a current doctoral student at the University of Western Ontario’s Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, said.

In 2016, for his master’s thesis at the University of Victoria, Wees spent four months in the Montreal metro studying and interacting with buskers. His inspiration for the research project came partially from his own experience as a Montreal busker, beginning in the late 1990s. “[I chose to study busking in the metro] in part because of my interest specifically in sound, [and] the sound is very interesting in the metro,” Wees said. “But also my interest in what I would call marginal urban spaces, or in-between spaces. Places that aren’t really meant to be inhabited but just kind of passed through.”

Busking in Montreal is unique because, while it is heavily regulated above ground, in the metro buskers do not require a permit. Instead, musicians can set up at any of the designated spots marked by a colourful sign depicting a lyre.

In Montreal, the weather makes the metro a more desirable stage, as it is often too cold to busk outside in the winter, or too hot or rainy in the summer. Since the CTCUM installed the lyre plaques in 1986, the signup system for performance spots has remained largely unchanged, operating on an honour system regulated by the musicians themselves.

“Basically, whoever gets to the spot first in the morning makes a little list on a scrap of paper with two-hour slots,” Wees said. “You pick the spot you want, fold it up, and tuck it behind the sign, and then the next person comes along and they sign up. And for the most part, it works.”

Competition for these spots is tough: The lack of a mandatory permit process means that there are an endless number of potential performers, for a limited number of spots.

Juliana Just Costa, who plays in the band Juliana & Jesse with her brother, started busking in 2012. She explained the challenges of having to sign up early in the morning, with no guarantee as to whether or not there will be a spot available, especially during the most popular and lucrative rush

hour slots.

“You need to catch the rush,” Just Costa said. “[Spots at] Guy-Concordia [are] super competitive. The list starts like at four in the morning at the Tim Hortons across the street [....] Then [sometimes] you show up and someone else put their own list in there, or someone else took the spot.”

Just Costa, like Wees, nonetheless highlighted how impressive it is that such an honour system works overall.

For a practice so commonplace, the experiences and backgrounds of buskers are relatively mysterious to those who are not a part of the community. Most people travelling through the metro pay little attention to what’s going on around them, or give little thought as to why. With headphones on and shoulders hunched, commuters look down and continue onward, distracted and removed from their physical surroundings.

Andre Costopoulos, vice-president and dean of students at the University of Alberta, and former anthropology professor and dean of students at McGill, busked between 1989 and 1995 while he was a student in Montreal, both above and below ground. He described most of the designated metro spots as “corridor spaces,” as opposed to “theatre spaces” such as a public square.

“If you go into Peel [Station] at the corner of de Maisonneuve, there’s a long corridor there [with] a music station,” Costopoulos said. “In a corridor space, people [walk by and] have 30 seconds to decide if they’re gonna put their hand in their pocket and put some change in your case. In a theatre space, people are there, they listen to you as long as they want or as long as they can, and then once they’re done listening, they make a decision about whether they’re going to give you something or not.”

In the early 1900s, as urbanization took off in North American cities, urban theorists speculated about the ways in which packing into cities affected interpersonal relationships and the human psyche. Georg Simmel, a German sociologist, published The Metropolis and Mental Life in 1903, in which he claimed that the intensification of stimuli in urban environments led residents to become more detached, rational, and calculating, ultimately developing a blasé attitude. Robert Park, a Chicago School urban sociologist, argued in his 1915 essay, “The City”, that urban environments made relationships more transitory and unstable.

In cities, people “establish moral distances which make the city a mosaic of little worlds which touch but do not interpenetrate.” Louis Wirth, another Chicago urban sociologist, attributed the increasingly anonymous and superficial nature of human relationships to the city’s large size.

Moving through corridor spaces, like metro tunnels, mirrors many of the ideas of early 20th century urban theorists. These spaces embody the feeling of detachment, of being physically close but not interacting, of trying to avoid making eye contact at all costs for fear of being drawn into unwanted conversation. Yet, despite their dramatic concerns, many of these theorists simultaneously saw the city as a place of unprecedented freedom. The experiences of buskers in the metro confirm that even in these ephemeral, marginal urban spaces, some level of human interaction occurs. “[When I play in the metro,] everybody’s distracted and in a rush and I get it, in the morning we’re all like that, [...] half asleep and just trying to get to wherever you’re going,” Just Costa said. “But when people do stop, [it’s] really really gratifying [....] You don’t even think anybody’s listening and then [someone tells] you how you’ve changed their day.

In 2012, in order to further promote busking in the metro, the STM launched the “Étoiles du métro” program, in partnership with the Regroupement des musiciens du métro de Montréal (MusiMétroMontréal or Montreal metro musicians collective).

Every year, musicians audition for the “Étoiles” series in order to gain access to seven designated performance locations at the Berri-UQAM, Henri-Bourassa, Jean-Talon, Laurier, McGill, Place-des-Arts, and Villa-Maria stations. These musicians can sign up two weeks in advance online, rather than having to arrive early each morning to claim a spot.

For

Just Costa, this added security was the initial motivation for auditioning for the “Étoiles” program, but she also appreciates the sense of

community since she was accepted.

“I think [there is more of a community] with the ‘Étoiles,’ just because we’re not competing directly for spots,” Just Costa said. “I hate to say it, [and] I’d like to tell you that [it was] all good when I was not in the program, but I’ve had some pretty hard times

where [...other buskers] see this young girl coming and [...] you know you’re gonna get some pushback right away.”

While there are benefits for those in the “Étoiles” program, some wonder whether it creates a divide between the select group of musicians who are accepted into it and those who play in the regular spots. At the same time, some musicians feel no need to participate, or decide that it doesn’t suit their purposes. As long as there are still enough other spots that are open to anyone, most see the program as posing little threat.

“Most of the ‘Étoiles’ have done the other side also and they’ve just made a conscious choice to not do that anymore,” Just Costa said. “It allows a lot of musicians to treat it [...] more professionally [...] and not be scrounging around looking for a spot at five in the morning.”

Although joining the “Étoiles” requires one to pay a fee to audition and become a member of MusiMétro, it’s not an unreasonable demand relative to the income a busker can make.

However, this opportunity is no longer currently available to Montreal’s buskers. According to Clément Courtois, a board member of MusiMétro who is responsible for communications and booking artists, the organization was not able to reach a new contract with the STM for the coming year for the “Étoiles du métro” program.

“The STM wants to see the program grow and for there to be more ‘Étoiles’ lyres in the metro,” Courtois said.

“But the problem is that a lot of the musicians who play in the metro don’t want to be an ‘Étoile,’ and we need to make room for everyone, because there are a lot of people who play in the metro, and some of them even make a living off of it.”

Indeed, the reasons people turn to busking are varied and diverse­­—not everyone wants to participate in a high-visibility subsidized project like the “Étoiles” program. Some use it to supplement their day jobs, some are students, some are aspiring musicians who find the metro a good place to practice, and others do it just because they can. But, ultimately, they all share a love of music.

“I think everyone would agree that you can’t just do it for the money,” Wees said. “You gotta love doing it because it is a lot of hard work and sometimes the pay you make is lousy.”

Busking is often only one part of a person’s life or career. Nonetheless, it’s a great way to practice performing in public, and it’s more enjoyable than the average minimum-wage job. Philippe Mius d’Entremont has been busking in the metro and above ground since 2001 and has been a part of the “Étoiles” program since 2012. He also organizes the draw for the “Étoiles” schedule.

“I started busking when I was a music student in Quebec City,” Mius d’Entremont wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “It was a good way to make money during the summer

instead of getting a summer job [....] I still enjoy the schedule flexibility it offers which is really important when you have musical projects going on.

It is also a good way to make sure you stay in shape on the instrument.”

What listeners might not realize, however, is

that busking can be exhausting—not only in terms of having to scramble to find a spot, but also due to the emotional labour that goes into the performance. At the same time, it is very much a two-way exchange between the performer and their audience.

“For most people there was really a strong sense of like, ‘I’m giving something [to the public, I’m] beautifying spaces that are not very pleasant,’” Wees said. “Often it creates this little interchange [where] people stop and will talk [....] Quite a few people talked about how that was a really important aspect, [...] that sense of ‘I give something and I see the result because I see someone [...] smile or stop’ [....

The] reciprocation is that you gave something nice to somebody.”

Busking and music have become integrated into the fabric of Montreal, particularly in the metro, because it’s such a universally accessible place.

Not everyone goes to concerts, but nearly everyone takes the metro.

“I feel like there’s death, taxes, and then the metro,” Just Costa said. “It’s like this great equalizer [....] Everybody [...] takes the metro so it’s just like this big meeting point.”

As a result, metro buskers are an integral part of the urban landscape.

“It’s normal for us to [be seen],” Just Costa said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh! There’s a busker.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, there’s not a busker today?’ And all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s really quiet in here,’ you know?”

From their experiences, Wees and Just Costa have seen some diversification and growth in the range of buskers and musical styles over the years.

However, the practice of busking and performing in a public space for an audience is something that doesn’t change.

“I don’t see a lot of change over time,” Costopoulos said. “You could probably ask the same thing [of] some medieval person, or some ancient Roman who’ll tell you ‘well yeah it’s pretty much the same as it’s always been.’ It’s a niche [....]

Maybe the shape [or] the content of busking changes over time, but the niche is pretty much what it’s always been. It’s [people saying] ‘I have something that I can do [...] and some people are gonna make a small gift because they enjoy what [I] do,’ and I don’t think that changes.”

Although municipal support is important, the reality is that busking and music will find ways to exist regardless.

For Courtois, more institutional support for performers would be nice, but it is not the only necessary factor. “[Busking is] a part of the culture, of the city’s heritage,” Courtois said. “It’s living art, really an integral part of the cultural heritage of the City of Montreal.”

While the “Étoiles” program is on a temporary hiatus, the spots open to all buskers in the metro

remain.

Metro busking in Montreal is special because of its openness, its self-regulation, and the resulting sense of trust. It’s seen by many as a public good, worth supporting and paying for. The only risk is that if metro busking becomes further regulated, it might lose some of its accessibility and diversity.

“If there’s an acceptance by the public then I think there’ll be an acceptance at the administrative level as well, and I think in general [in Montreal] there is acceptance,” Costopoulos said. “There are places where there isn’t, and those must be slightly sadder places.”

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

10 STUDENT LIVING

How to avoid being the most hated person at the gym Four tips for keeping clean and not being mean

Gabriela McGuinty Contributor

Making the trek to the McGill gym is a pain: From finding the time and motivation to get out the door to walking up the vicious hill in icy weather, just getting there can feel like the hardest part.

But, once there, dodging the strange cast of characters at the fitness centre presents its own unique challenge. You know who I’m talking about—the girl hogging the Stairmaster for over 30 minutes when there is clearly a line for the machine, or the guy who leaves behind a pool of his own sweat at a rowing machine and “forgets” to wipe it away. To make things easier for gym aficionados and novices alike, The McGill Tribune has compiled a list of ways to avoid running into or becoming one of these people.

body from sweat after a particularly intense workout, and, when dampened with cold water, can help you cool down. What’s more, the people around you will appreciate not being assaulted by your sweat droplets.

1. Bring a towel Although the purpose of this step seems self-explanatory, it is overlooked and ignored by most gym-goers. Not only is bringing a towel into the fitness area in fact compulsory, but having one nearby benefits yourself and others. For starters, towels are essential for cleaning your face and

3. Do not be a hogger During busy hours at the gym, it is inevitable that popular machines will draw a queue. To avoid frustrating other gym-goers, be conscious of how much time you spend on a machine that is regularly occupied, especially when you see people lurking nearby waiting to use it after you. The same applies to mats and floor

2. Clean the exercise machines and gym mats after use You do not have to be exceedingly intuitive to figure out where I am going with this. Exercising leads to sweating, and sweating leads to germs. To prevent germs from spreading through equipment, please wipe down every mat and machine that you’ve used once your workout is done. There are many towels and bottles of antibacterial soap located around the fitness centre for this very purpose, so if you skip this step, you are honestly just being rude.

space when stretching. Be aware of how much space you take up and try not to hog more than one yoga mat at a time—you can always do your star poses or your one-man kickboxing routine at home—and avoid scattering your personal belongings around the gym floor.

4. Be conscious of others Nobody likes reverberating floors. They jolt people out of focus, and this can be hard to regain. To quell murderous thoughts from other gymers practicing relaxed stretches or concentrating on their reps, take note of the way you discard your weights.

Please refrain from dropping heavy weights noisily on the ground; rather, place them gently on the floor once you’re done with them. Don’t worry, others will still know you’re a strong gymbro even if you don’t chuck your weights onto the floor after each set. And for the love of the gym, please put the weights back on the rack where you found them.

This one’s for you, gym bros.

(Anna Find / Giphy)

Le Doggy Café helps students fill the dog-shaped hole in their hearts Puppy Saturdays may be the best way to beat midterm season stress Eloise Haliburton Contributor After a long week at school, nothing compares to spending some quality time with puppies and their unconditional love.

Although owning pets is impossible for most students living away from home, Le Doggy Café, located on St-Denis Street, provides a temporary fix. Not only does this café have enough space to work and eat at the same time, it is also filled with dogs bouncing from person to person to receive pats.

While food and animals don’t often overlap, the environment at Le Doggy Café doesn’t feel unsanitary or uninviting.

The staff keep the space clean by abiding to a few rules that other cafés do not.

“We have a ‘dog café’ licence,” Le Doggy Café owner Gabrielle Aubin said.

“There are a few rules that we have to follow that are added on to the regular

[restaurant health code]. Our kitchen has to be closed, we can’t have an open pass for the food.’”

On a regular day, the café welcomes customers to bring their dogs to meet others. Those who don’t own a pet can still drop by to get their fill of doggy kisses, and most owners are happy to introduce their pets to dog-lovers. Many come bearing funny anecdotes about their pets current and past, uniting strangers

Le Doggy Café offers patrons much more than great coffee. (Kellyann Levac / The McGill Tribune) over a shared love of dogs.

For Ana Paula Sánchez, U1 Arts, bringing her dog to the café was an unforgettable experience.

“I went on a Friday morning so it was pretty quiet,” Sánchez said.

“But an elderly woman came with her granddaughter in the hopes to see some dogs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything cuter than them playing with my shih tzu, Pepper, and pug, Raisin. It’s just really nice in general to bring in my dogs into a café, that way I can spend more time with them but also see them interact with other adorable dogs.”

Once a week, Le Doggy Café hosts Les Samedi Puppy, or Puppy Saturdays, which it advertises as an opportunity for puppy owners and their puppies to meet.

The café also invites people to come with full-grown dogs, and is just as welcoming to those who come without a dog at all.

According to Aubin, the weekly event began as a way to appease customers’ requests to see more puppies.

“Last year we did a puppy casting and it was the most popular [event] we ever had,” Aubin said. “We kept having people asking us if there were days dedicated to puppies, so we put two and two together and created Les Samedi Puppy.”

For Jade Perraud, U2 Arts, Le Doggy Café’s Les Samedis Puppy is a great way to de-stress in the midst of a busy semester.

“It’s definitely one of my favourite places in town,” Perraud said. “Going there is like therapy and there’s always the cutest variety of dogs hanging out.”

So if you’re feeling stressed this semester and need a dog to pet, consider making a trip over to Le Doggy Café.

Enjoy some quality time with the most café-cultured dogs of Montreal.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 11

Fokus Film Festival showcases its 12th year of student filmmaking Cinema du Parc played host to Montreal’s next generation of filmmakers Kevin Vogel Contributor Continued from page 1.

In the absence of a fullyfledged program for students who want to study film production or other visual arts, she believes that extracurriculars like Fokus are vital in giving people the chance “to experience this whole process of bringing something to life and then screening it on the big screen to receive feedback

from the judges and audience.”

The festival’s lineup ranged in categories from drama and comedy to a unique 72-hour film competition, where participants worked within a three-day period to make the best short possible based on the theme “On Second Thought.”

The festival featured an amalgamation of exceptional works. Intro to Home Accounting (winner of the People’s Choice and Best Comedy awards)

by Callum Sheedy, tells the

(Ian Rogers / The McGill Tribune)

charming tale of a stay-at-home husband trying to make ends meet so that he can treat his wife to the nice bottle of red wine she deserves. Everyone’s a Robot in 2049 (winner of the Best Animation award) by Abi Quinlan (U3 Cultural Studies) takes a quirky bunch of friends on an animated adventure full of twists, futuristic cars, and, of course, robots. In the experimental category, “The Last Take” by Lyna Khellef (U2 History) draws its inspiration from Japanese classics to take its viewers through the irony-filled experience of filmmakers trying to get the last shot of their movie just right.

“It was an awesome opportunity to work with such an amazing cast and crew,” Khellef said. “I’ll always cherish the memory [of making this film].”

Khellef cited McGill’s own Yuriko Furuhata, associate professor in the Department of East Asian Studies, and her Japanese cinema class as motivation for creating and submitting the film to Fokus.

Planning the event each year begins with the coordinators

Fokus Film Festival spotlights Montreal’s vibrant filmmaking community. (fokusfilmfestival.com) calling for submissions. Any student or young filmmaker in Montreal is eligible to submit their work provided it has a run time under 15 minutes.

According to Ranjbari, eight coordinators work together to select the final set of films and ensure that any chosen video meets appropriate requirements on quality, equity guidelines, and time restrictions. From there, the rest of the organizing process goes into compiling the films into a viewable format for

festival day. ust like in years past, the Fokus Film Festival’s 2018 iteration proved to be an exciting venue for a diverse array of talents, highlighting the passion brought to the table by McGill’s local content creators.

“We encourage everyone to reach out to TVM if they are interested in filmmaking,” Ranjbari said. “If they are looking for more experience, if they want to have hands-on practice, we have a lot of different resources.”

Combating negative representation of Muslims in video games How games like Overwatch succeed in avoiding tropes and tokens Selin Altuntur Managing Editor

On Feb. 13, Game Dev McGill, a student-run club for individuals interested in game development, held an open lecture called “The ‘Slims: A how-to guide for Muslim representation in video games,” presented by Osama Dorias. Dorias is a game designer at Warner Brothers Games Montreal, as well as the co-founder of the Montreal Independent Games Festival and a hobbyist company called Magic Pants.

Dorias has also worked at Minority Media, Ubisoft, and Gameloft in Montreal, and has shipped over 30 games of varying sizes throughout his career.

Dorias’ talk explored Muslim representation in media at large and debunked some common misconceptions about Islam. He then provided a howto guide with actionable advice on incorporating positive and appropriate depictions of Muslim characters and settings in video games.

Dorias started by exploring how the media we consume has an impact on our perceptions of Muslim people. He emphasized that although creators are often well-intentioned, they frequently miss the mark on positive representation by relying heavily on stereotypes. Dorias emphasized that while the majority of Muslim media representation focuses on portraying Arab Muslims, that group only accounts for a small portion of the Muslim world overall.

“You have a much wider pool of people to pick from when it comes to Christians and Atheists, so it’s harder to narrow it down to one look,” Dorias said. “But Arab Muslims account for less than 15 per cent of Muslims worldwide. [....] Muslims are diverse; not unlike non-Muslims.”

In order to combat negative and inaccurate media representation, Dorias stressed that creators should allow Muslim individuals to tell their own stories, and to consult these individuals as much as possible during the development process.

In addition, developers should employ authentic voice actors to portray Muslim characters. Following these steps would result in fewer tokenized representations of Muslim characters.

“Don’t stack tokens,” Dorias said.“What I mean is that if you have a game with a lot of different characters, don’t make one the paraplegic black Muslim woman and [...] have everyone else in your game be a white guy. I’d love to hear the story of a black paraplegic Muslim woman, there’s nothing wrong with that [...she] sounds like an interesting character, but you’re not going to get bonus points for it. That’s not how representation works. And if you do have a character that has a lot of different tokens stacked together, then try your best to find someone whose life is as close to that character as possible as a consultant.”

In addition, developers should strive for accuracy when depicting rituals and religious practices in the games they create.

Dorias highlighted Overwatch’s Farah as a positively represented Muslim character. (killscreen.com) Dorias cited Azeem (Morgan Freeman) in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) as a positive representation of a Muslim character that, unfortunately, depicted religious ritual inaccurately to the detriment of the film itself.

Dorias added that positive representations of Arab countries are hard to come by. He frequently used Overwatch, an online co-op first-person shooter developed

by Blizzard Entertainment, as an example of a game that successfully navigated positive Muslim and Arab representation. Overwatch features characters like Egyptian women Ana and Pharah, and a map called ‘Oasis’ that is set in a futuristic, bustling Iraq.

“Positive representation of these

countries Muslims come from [...] barely exists,” Dorias said, “To my shame, I’ve never projected a positive prediction for the future of my country of birth. [....] So of course when someone shows me a positive representation, I’m going to get emotional.

And that’s what Overwatch did. I’m using this as proof that representation matters and is actually important.”

During the question and answer period, Dorias argued that a lack of representation in the gaming industry influences how stories about Muslim characters are told.

Combatting the corporate culture in the industry and hiring a greater diversity of developers would make a significant positive difference.

12 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Tuesday, February 27 , 2018

TNC’s Autobiography of Red is enchantingly poignant

cartooN

Mich Cota stars in an ancient myth transposed to southern Ontario Sophie Brozowski Staff Writer Adapted by writer/director Phoebe Fregoli (a fourth-year Concordia student studying women’s studies and creative writing) from the Anne Carson novel-in-verse by the same name, Tuesday Night Café Theatre’s production of Autobiography of Red is a Greek myth transposed to mid-20th century rural southern Ontario.

According to ancient legend, the play’s protagonist, Geryon, is a fearsome monster with one body and three heads who is brutally killed by the divine hero Herakles. In Red, Geryon, played by musician and actor Mich Cota, is reimagined as an artsy, sensitive, teenage boy, burdened by a pair of red wings that he hides under his trench coat. He is moody but endearing and feels sorely misunderstood by almost everyone. He’s the kind of guy who’s always being interrupted in the middle of his contemplative inner monologues. His selfdocumentation becomes a recurring motif throughout the play. When we are first introduced to Geryon, his autobiography is a sculpture that he’s making out of things he finds around the house.

Geryon lives with his naïve but well-intentioned mother (Annah-Lauren Bloom) along with his cruel and tactless big brother (Connor Miles), Geryon first meets Herakles, played by Stephen Lawrence, at a bus stop and falls deeply in love with him.

Learning about photography from Herakles, Geryon decides his autobiography will instead become a photographic essay, excerpts of which are projected onstage throughout the play. Years after Herakles breaks Geryon’s heart for the first time, the two men reunite in Argentina and Geryon finds himself the unwitting third member of a tempestuous love triangle made up of himself, Herakles and Herakles’ sexy Peruvian boyfriend, Ancash, played by José Carmago.

Driven by language and emotion rather than plot, Geryon’s story unfolds slowly and carefully.

In place of sensationalism and theatrics, Red has a placid, introspective quality that allows the viewer to absorb the play in all of its complexity. Both the setting (Terrance Richard) and costuming (Ali Hendra) are muted yet elegant, their simplicity only

serving to make Geryon stand out, rendering his character all the more otherworldly. His red wings punctuate the otherwise neutral-coloured and prim dress of the characters around him. Despite the second half of the story taking place in Argentina, the set maintains its campy, small town aesthetic, with vintage memorabilia cluttering any available surface.

Apart from the set, Fregoli uses other visual components to play up the magical-realist elements of the story. In one scene, a drunk Geryon is passed out face first on a table in a hole-in-the-wall Argentinian café while a velvet-clad flamenco dancer tangoes seductively around the dimly lit stage. The dancer, of unknown name and gender, then proceeds to speak with Geryon once he awakes about a school trip he once took to an aquarium where he saw a tank full of beluga whales and how guilty they made him feel.

Whether the dancer is real or imagined is unclear, but, in Red’s juxtaposition of Greek myth with southern Ontario environs, it feels entirely beside the point.

Although each actor delivered an even and moving performance, Cota was the undeniable standout of the show. Cota brought to life a winged red monster who speaks only in poetry in an entirely believable and human way. Geryon’s character is loveable and complicated—heartbreaking and hilarious all at once. Although his grandiose monologues almost always contain some flowery musing about the ocean or the stars, and he speaks at length about his love of German Stoicism and other such pretentious subjects, it is difficult not to be completely enthralled by whatever Geryon happens to be saying, so absorbing is Cota’s portrayal of him.

Autobiography of Red is the story of a soulful Greek monster who grew up somewhere between Hades and the Kawartha Lakes. It is a strange and intricate tale of love, trauma, and the peculiarity of growing up. Geryon’s story will undoubtedly worm its way into the audience’s hearts, and stick around for days after leaving the theatre.

TNC’s Autobiography of Red is playing from Feb. 28 – March 3 at 8 p.m. in Morrice Hall in the Islamic Studies Building, 3485 Rue McTavish. Tickets are $6 for students and $10 general admission.

ALBUM REVIEW

twin fantasy (face to face) CAR SEAT HEADREST

Before 2016’s brilliant Teens of Denial cemented his status as one of contemporary music’s most fascinating figures, Will Toledo spent years recording songs on his personal computer, uploading new records on Bandcamp under his Car Seat Headrest moniker at a frequency matched only by Lil B. For his 11th record, the 25-year old decided to return to his lo-fi roots and rework his first great release with the major label production value it deserves.

Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) is a re-recording of Toledo’s cult classic Twin Fantasy (Mirror to Mirror) (2011). The album is loosely conceptual, focusing on the singer/songwriter’s borderline-obsessive relationship cycle with an unnamed young man. It is about first love, first break-up, coming out, depression, and the potentially fatal consequences of smoking. The themes are heavy, but offset this by using the same offkilter humour that has made Toledo one of the great lyricists of the genre. From the lyrics on “Beach Lifein-Death:” “I pretended I was drunk when I came out to my friends/I never came out to my friends,” to when he sings “I got so fucking romantic/I apologize,” on “Cute Thing” or “Stop smoking/We love you/And we

Check Your Emails, Cartoon by Sabrina GL. don’t want you to die,” on “Stop Smoking,” Toledo communicates bleak truths under blunt verses.

If (Mirror to Mirror)’s genius was buried under the album’s lo-fi production, (Face to Face)’s is unmistakable. Now signed with Matador and supported by a band, Toledo takes full advantage of the larger budget and studio time. Vocal and guitar harmonies are omnipresent, the sound is light-years cleaner, and the dance-y drum patterns are startlingly original on a rock album.

Lyrics have been switched here and there, and the climatic “Famous Prophets (Stars)” now culminates in six minutes of gorgeous piano melodies and vocal collage. Otherwise, the record is quite faithful to the original. This slight conservatism sometimes bogs it down: “Nervous Young Inhuman’s” spoken word outro has little to no replay value, and the first 10 minutes of “Famous Prophets (Stars)” drag on. Yet, in revisiting their back-catalog, Car Seat Headrest confirms their status as indie-rock’s next big thing and hints at Toledo’s bright future.

- Maxime Scraire (Contributor)

13 science & technology

Tuesday, February 27 , 2018

Awe-inspiring Canadian whales

Celebrating the ocean’s giants on World Whale Day Emma Gillies Staff Writer Marine biology fans celebrated World Whale Day on Feb. 18, commemorating the curious creatures and raising awareness for their protection.

Whales play a vital role in the oceans’ functioning and carbon storage. Unfortunately, these mighty ecosystem engineers are threatened by whaling, habitat loss, and pollution.

Canada’s coastlines are home to more than 30 species of whales, from the scarce North Atlantic right whale to the gnarly narwhal. In belated celebration of World Whale Day, here are five of the more iconic species that inhabit Canadian waters.

is slowly recovering, currently estimated to fall between 10,000 and 25,000 individuals.

Humpback whale Another

iconic

baleen

territoriality, playfulness, and even the removal of parasites.

Also notable is their unique mode of feeding. Humpbacks herd their prey by blowing

echolocation to capture its prey, which includes octopus, various fish, and even giant squid. The sperm whale’s name comes from the spermaceti organ in

Orca

Blue whale

The largest animal alive, the blue whale can grow up to 30 metres long and weigh over 150 tons. Its tongue alone is roughly the weight of an elephant, and its heart is the size of a small car. Blue whales are baleen whales, cetaceans that have keratin plates instead of teeth to capture prey via filter feeding. Consuming up to 40 million krill per day, these animals are found in every ocean on Earth and migrate thousands of miles each year.

An estimated 95 to 99 per cent of the blue whale population was lost to whaling between the 17th and 20th centuries. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently lists the blue whale as endangered.

However, its global population

whole. Also known as the “sea canary,” it’s highly vocal and can live in pods of up to 100 whales.

Belugas are relatively small and have a thick layer of blubber to keep them warm in freezing Arctic waters. Unfortunately, they are particularly susceptible to the effects of pollution.

The contaminant levels in the bodies of St. Lawrence belugas were once so high that the carcasses were considered to be hazardous toxic waste.

They remain one of the most contaminated marine mammals.

Canada’s coastlines are home to more than 30 species of whale. (Cordelia Cho / The McGIll Tribune) whale, the humpback is famous for its song. Since humpbacks don’t have vocal cords, the low noises that they make are produced by pushing air out of their blowhole. While researchers are unclear on why they make these sounds, they appear to be involved in mating rituals. Humpbacks can also propel their entire bodies out of the water, or breach, a behaviour that is associated with communication,

bubbles around them and capture fish by making loud vocal sounds and slapping their fins against the water to drive them to the surface and immobilize them.

Sperm whale

With its block-shaped head, the sperm whale has the largest brain of any animal and is the deepest-diving marine mammal in the world.

A toothed whale, it hunts in pitch-black waters, relying on

its large head, which produces a white waxy substance that was originally mistaken for sperm but is actually used for buoyancy and echolocation.

Beluga whale

A close relative of the narwhal, the beluga whale undergoes a Gandalf-like transformation throughout its life: Born a dark gray color, it later turns white.

Though the beluga is toothed, it swallows its prey

The orca, or killer whale, is not actually a whale, but a dolphin. Nevertheless, it deserves recognition on this list.

This distinct black and white whale is an apex predator, meaning that it has no known threats in the animal kingdom. With an extremely powerful jaw, it feeds on a variety of prey such as fish, squid, seals, birds, whales, and sharks. Reptiles, polar bears, and moose have even been found in the stomach of orcas.

Orcas are extremely intelligent with complex social structures that have been compared to the cultures of humans and elephants. Though ferocious hunters, they do not pose a threat to humans. While the reasons behind their lack of appetite for humans are not entirely known, some theories suggest that we don’t resemble their typical food source. Or, maybe, we just don’t taste very good.

Agricultural technologies are changing the future of farming in Africa

Tomorrow’s agriculture lies with soil-less farming and environmentally-friendly alternatives Nadia Boachie Contributor On Feb. 22, Entrepreneurship & Investment For Africa (EI4A), a volunteer-run organization in Quebec promoting African entrepreneurship, held an open networking session at WeWork L’Avenue with PS Nutraceutical International Limited (PSNIL), one of Africa’s most innovative agribusiness start-ups based in Nigeria. Businesses in the agricultural domain, or agribusinesses, provide the necessary supplies for farms to function, such as machinery and seeds.

EI4A’s event showcased a number of food-production technologies that have the potential to improve the future of farming in Africa and the world.

In 2016, Olisaeloka Peter Okocha co-founded PSNIL Samson Ogbole, on a mission to create, modify, enhance, and protect the environment and total well-being of humanity. The global

economic crisis and the surge in hunger, especially in Africa, require systems which will fast-track food production without harming the environment.

Okocha joined the conference via video chat, to present his company’s technology and share his experiences in developing his business ideas in the challenging but rapidly growing African agribusiness sector. These technologies include hydroponics (growing plants in water), aquaponics (growing plants on water with fish in the water), and aeroponics (growing plants in the air).

“We wanted a self-sustainable system in which water is constantly reused and recycled and never wasted,” Okocha said. “We chose to use technology that could produce food that is healthy and organic.”

Okocha and Ogbole questioned whether food in Nigeria and other parts of Africa was available, affordable, pesticide and herbicide-free, and if the

food supply was consistent. The duo started the company with the intention to develop and set up small-scale agricultural technologies for everyone to be able to practice agriculture. They partnered with individual researchers to explore the nutritional benefits of various foods. Additionally, the company wants to research and develop more uses for agricultural produce, such as the development of alternative medicines.

“The technology is not new,” Okocha said. “Aeroponics was developed by NASA, but when the individual who invented the technology was contacted, he did not believe it could be used beyond growing leafy greens and vegetables.

Being the stubborn individuals we were, we thought that we could study the technology and improve upon it and apply it to our own indigenous crops and vegetables in Nigeria. We are constantly tweaking and trying to

improve upon the system.”

The start-up believes in working toward an agricultural system that maintains the environment, rather than destroying it. Soil-less farming technology, for example, enables consumers to buy affordable, organic foods year-round. Not only does this automated farming system reduce the amount of labour required to produce crops, but it also eliminates the need for insecticides or herbicides for cropgrowth, as they are grown within a controlled growing environment.

Merging agriculture with technology is the key to increasing efficiency in the sector. For example, aeroponics technology allows plants to grow in the air without soil, and only requires minimal water usage.

Additionally, in aeroponic greenhouses, plants can be grown on multiple layers of soil, while traditional farming is limited to only one. Okocha described the efficiency of the new agriculture

technologies.

“A benefit of the aeroponics and hydroponics systems is that you can be a commercial farmer within a small fraction of space,” Okocha explained.

“You can take advantage of the vertical space and grow about two to three acres worth of crops on less than an acre of land.”

Increased efficiency will lead to food self-sufficiency, and in turn will create excess food which can be exported, generate foreign exchange, and bolster economies. Okocha highlighted the steps his company is taking to keep up with market demands.

“It is important that we are constantly innovating so we are exposing our technology to tertiary institutions to see if there is a way to improve upon it,” Okocha emphasized.

“They say data is the new oil, so we are constantly doing data collation to try and make this a sustainable new farming strategy.”

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

science & technology 14

Too stressed to study? Head to the gym Enjoy sharper memory, increased academic performance, and improved sleep quality Domenica Cirone Contributor Continued from page 1.

As university students strive for academic excellence, stress can be a major hindrance to productivity. Furthermore, the ability to manage stress is critical to success in all aspects of life, even beyond academics.

Dr. Ross Andersen, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education who runs the Health and Fitness Promotion Laboratory, said that the benefits from exercise are linked to self-care.

“Part of the benefit, for students in particular, is from carving out time for yourself,” Andersen said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “When you start to say ‘no’ to other people, and ‘yes’ to yourself, you start feeling better.”

Andersen’s lab focuses on helping overweight and obese patients of all ages develop exercise programs in order to minimize health risks. Typically, Andersen assesses a patient for various areas of fitness. Based on these measurements, he will prescribe a training program for the patient to follow for several weeks. After this time period, Andersen then reassesses the patient in the same areas to check for improvement.

“Regular physical activity improves mental health and well-being, among other

Physical activity has been proven to help manage stress and anxiety.

(Kaylina Kodlick / The McGIll Tribune) things, in various patient populations such as overweight individuals, patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and relatively healthy students,” Andersen said in reference to his research. “It may not make all the stress or anxiety go away, but it can help [....] Regular exercise is often the first step to take before taking medication for many illnesses.”

Andersen also explained that to reap the maximum benefits of physical

activity, sticking to a schedule is of paramount importance. Not letting other things encroach on this commitment is critical in order to increase accountability and minimize the chances of neglecting the gym. Most people won’t miss a doctor’s appointment without good reason; exercise should be given the same treatment.

While it’s not fully understood exactly how physical activity reduces stress

and anxiety, exercise taxes the Central Nervous System (CNS), which learns to adapt to stress. This stress exposure makes the CNS better at handling future stresses, such as anxiety toward a looming examination.

According to the World Health Organization, to experience the functional benefits of physical activity, adults should perform a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity in bouts of 10 minutes or more each week. The benefits increase the more you exercise.

Cleaning the apartment, walking the dog, walking to class, group exercise classes, gym workouts, and intramurals are a few ways students can squeeze in that extra hour.

Andersen said that the key thing is to find enjoyable ways of exercising, so that physical activity becomes something to look forward to rather than a chore.

Moderation is also important in helping one stick to their regime.

“Anything done to the extreme is bad,” Andersen said. “If it becomes an obsession then it’s not healthy.”

Balance is important in all aspects of life, but especially in one’s health routine.

Being a star athlete or an experienced gym-rat isn’t necessary to implement a healthy lifestyle. To put everything in perspective, according to the Physician and Sports Medicine Journal, although not all your workouts may be ‘good’ ones, you will never finish a workout feeling worse than when you started.

Observing our cosmic past

AstroMcGill hosts Princeton physics professor to discuss the birth of our universe

Jonah Dutz Contributor Of all the questions discussed by theologians, philosophers, and scientists, perhaps the most enduring and enigmatic is: Where did the universe come from?

Lyman Page, professor of physics at Princeton University and co-winner of the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, is a part of a team that has brought humanity one step closer to finding an answer to this question.

On Feb. 21, AstroMcGill invited Page to give a public talk on his groundbreaking research in observational cosmology and to explain the most recent theories in this field.

Page’s presentation focused on this oval-shaped, infrared-looking photo which represents a simulated cosmic microwave background (CMB), created using data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), a spacecraft that measured the conditions of the early universe. Simply put, it is a heat map of the beginning of the cosmos.

The most well-supported birth-story of the universe is the inflation model. This theory suggests that from a very hightemperature, high-density state, some

A detailed, all-sky picture of the early universe. (NASA) process amplified quantum fluctuations to an enormous scale at an insanely fast rate. During this original inflation, the universe was so hot and full of energy that electrons couldn’t attach to protons to form hydrogen or other basic elements.

As the universe expanded, it cooled, allowing atoms to form. In his lecture, Page explained some of the after-effects of this process.

“When the electrons are bound up with the protons [in the formation of atoms],

they don’t scatter [electromagnetic] radiation, and so the universe becomes transparent,” Page said. “The radiation decouples from the matter, the matter then goes on to form […] all the structure of the universe, us, stars, galaxies.”

The radiation emitted from this stage makes up the CMB, and measuring it is the closest we can get to observing the Big Bang. The expansion of the universe has stretched the wavelengths of this radiation, transforming it from

bright light into microwaves. Page and his colleagues essentially captured tiny fluctuations in the temperature of these microwaves from all directions to create a full-sky map of the oldest light in the universe. For frequent TV-watchers of the late 1990s, Page explained how most of us have already detected CMB. “Roughly one per cent of that fuzz on your TV [so-called white noise on old satellite TVs] is from radiation left over from the Big Bang,” Page said. “[And] what we do is […] build various versions of very fancy TV receivers and point them around the sky and measure the change in the amount of buzz we detect.”

Page and his fellow physicists have used this picture of the birth of the universe to deduce, with great accuracy, things such as the age of the universe (13.77 billion years) and the quantities of its constitutive parts (4.6 per cent atoms, 24.0 per cent dark matter, and 71.4 per cent dark energy). Yet, many mysteries remain unsolved. What are dark matter and dark energy? Truthfully, we don’t know yet.

That means the fundamental properties of 95.4 per cent of the observable universe are unknown to us. But, thanks to Page and his colleagues, we now very accurately know what we don’t know; a Socratic step in the right direction.

SPORTS 15

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Highlights from the 2018 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Sights and scenes at the esteemed sports nerd summit Stephen Gill Sports Editor In the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center with only four hours of sleep to my name, I wasn’t optimistic about what I saw on the morning of Feb. 23. The 2018 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (SSAC) wouldn’t begin for another 30 minutes, but M.B.A. candidates, predominantly from institutions like MIT and Northwestern University, and leading sports executives alike wasted no time settling in. In a half-full walkway, I passed by countless sports technology booths, plenty of old business partners reconnecting, and the conference’s first job interview—of many.

I gathered my bearings and proceeded to the third floor to secure priority seating for the grand opening in the Bill James room, where seated attendees continued to chat about job openings and summer internships. The abundance of suits and business card exchanges made me anxious—I came for a sports conference, not a job fair.

However, once the event officially commenced with a hilarious new installment of Bleacher Report’s “Game of Zones,” I rejoiced in learning the event was, indeed, for me.

What followed was a choose-your-own-adventure-style journey through a sports nerd’s wonderland. At any given time, a conference-goer could choose between attending one of a handful of panels, walking through the “trade show,” browsing research paper competition finalists, or rubbing shoulders with prominent sports

executives, media personalities, and athletes.

Panels catering to both sports and business managers filled the conference’s two-day schedule. Topics ranged from social media to player advocacy to eSports analytics, and A-listers from the sporting world filled the slate for each talk. Even Barack Obama was announced to speak at the conference—but that’s all that media and attendees like myself are allowed to say about the mysterious postlunch panel on that Friday.

The trade show featured booths from a wide range of organizations. FiveThirtyEight and ESPN Stats and Info brought representatives to speak about their platforms and services. Outside upstarts like edjSports and LBi Dynasty sent tablers, but I didn’t get a chance to ask how they came up with their names. There was even a PS4 set up with a virtual reality Home Run Derby game demo— in case conference-goers were looking to build up confidence for an upcoming interview by mashing some homers.

Outside the Bill James room, finalists in the SSAC research paper competition assembled abbreviated presentations on poster boards. If you squinted, the gallery looked like a high school science fair held in a grand ballroom with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown Boston. But, despite the amusing spectacle, I can assure you that trying to understand how Voronoi tessellations are used to create weighted heat maps in soccer matches is a great way to keep your intellectual ego in check.

Throughout the event, you couldn’t help but notice SSAC’s

sheer star-power. The corridor was consistently littered with industry giants mingling with one another after panel appearances, flanked by colleagues who still attend the conference for mere enjoyment. That Friday, I got off an escalator behind ESPN’s Mina Kimes to walk past fellow ESPN writer Kevin Arnovitz and former Philadelphia 76ers GM Sam Hinkie. The next day, I watched an amalgamation of NBA icons in Arnovitz, Shane Battier, and Jalen Rose cross the same 10foot area within 15 seconds while taking my lunch break.

All things considered, the conference’s best feature was this sudden immersion into a world of sports figures, big and small. I got to speak with the smartest writers in sports—some of whom I’ve followed for years—while strolling between events. Then I watched normally-anonymous executives reveal that they are far more than some collective, robotic decision machine. I welcomed the revelation that bosses like SSAC co-founder Jessica Gelman, Boston Celtics Assistant GM Mike Zarren, and Houston Rockets Executive Vice President Gersson Rosas had genuinely charming personalities— these are some people I can get behind.

At the end of the day, spectator sports boil down to fandom— whether for teams, individual athletes, or otherwise. That weekend, I stumbled into discovering my fandom for Gelman, Zarren, Rosas, and many more. Developing a loyalty to sports figures who wear jeans, sweats, or suits at game-time instead of a uniform probably takes sports nerd-dom to its logical end—but is perfectly fitting for an event that Ringer CEO Bill Simmons once dubbed “Dorkapalooza.”

NBA Midseason Report

BY GABE NISKER, STAFF WRITER With a successful All-Star Game in the rearview mirror, it’s time to take a look at what’s happened in the NBA thus far.

EASTERN CONFERENCE Head Coach Brad Stevens and the Boston Celtics adjusted quickly to Gordon Hayward’s season-ending injury and remain in the thick of the conversation in the Eastern Conference. With the new-look Cavaliers squad holding the third seed and working to figure things out on the fly, the Toronto Raptors and Celtics—currently jostling for the conference’s first seed—are in great position to make a run at the NBA finals, making the Eastern Conference more competitive than it’s been in quite a while.

Most Valuable Player: James Harden, Rockets Near-unstoppable when Harden, Chris Paul, and Clint Capela are on the court, the Houston Rockets sit atop the Western Conference after the All-Star break, albeit barely ahead of—you guessed it—the Warriors. All three players have been key to the Rockets’ success, but none more so than Harden, who’s looking to add the MVP trophy to his mantle after his two previous runner-up finishes in the voting. He’s averaging 31.5 points per game, with a sparkling 60-point triple double—one of the best games in NBA history by some metrics—to highlight the first half of the season.

Rookie of the Year: Ben Simmons, 76ers Take your pick—Ben Simmons or Donovan Mitchell. Both are having incredible rookie seasons. Simmons is a do-everything machine for the playoff hopeful process-trusters in Philadelphia, while Mitchell is a budding star, helping keep the Jazz in the playoff hunt, even after widespread changes. However, Simmons takes the edge so far: He’s a gifted allround talent who puts up a more efficient game than Mitchell. Simmons is averaging 16.7 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 7.4 assists per game, and his defensive contributions outweigh those of his Utah rival.

WESTERN CONFERENCE One bright spot to date is in Minneapolis. Tom Thibodeau is prepared to work his Timberwolves starters hard for ideal playoff positioning—but they’ll have to do it without the injured Jimmy Butler, who tore his meniscus in his first game after the break. Beyond the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors, the order of teams holding seeds three through eight change daily, since they’re separated by only a couple of games.

Most Improved Player: Victor Oladipo, Pacers Paul George was “dumped” for Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis last offseason in a trade that the Oklahoma City police investigated as a robbery. The smooth-singing Oladipo is back in front of his college fans and proving the doubters wrong. Oladipo earned his first All-Star berth this season, averaging 24.4 points per game—with an average of 4.8 on the fast break, which is the second best mark in the NBA. With his help, the Pacers have a better-than-expected 34-25 record, good for fifth place in the Eastern Conference.

Coach of the Year: Dwane Casey,Toronto Raptors The first-place Raptors are third in the NBA in point differential, behind only the Rockets and Warriors. The team’s depth of young talent has been a key factor in its success this season. The “bench mob,” as forward CJ Miles has nicknamed it, currently ranks as one of the league’s best five-man units. Even as questions of playoff performance float back to the surface, the new-look, ball-moving, three-point-shooting offence commands your attention. The Raptors are poised to make waves, and Casey deserves credit for his role in making it happen.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

16 SPORTS

Know Your Athlete: Lisa Nakajima

A figure skating captain’s path, from Whistler, to cruise ships, to McGill

Jordan Foy Staff Writer When Lisa Nakajima, U3 Anatomy and Cell Biology, watched Canadian skaters Jamie Salé and David Pelletier perform at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, she knew she wanted to participate in the sport. Now, Nakajima is co-captain of the McGill figure skating club—a competitive club consisting of 17 skaters.

“I just watched them skate, and I [said] ‘Mom that’s what I want to do,’” Nakajima said.

Growing up in skiingand snowboarding-obsessed Whistler, British Columbia, figure skating was not a popular sport.

However, after participating in public skates at local arenas, a coach recruited her and she began her career in competitive figure skating.

“During high school, I trained around 25 to 30 hours a week,” Nakajima said. “That’s not all on the ice, that also includes gym and stuff like that, but it was a lot of time. I trained a lot, and I was competing at the provincial level.”

Nakajima spent a year after high school skating

professionally on cruise ships primarily sailing in the Caribbean. While on the ships, Nakajima was paid to perform in regular ice shows, as well as help entertain guests on the ship.

“It was a huge learning curve for me,” Nakajima said.

“I was used to a set schedule [of] school and skating [….The] people were so much fun. I also got to meet people from all over the world […] from Olympic athletes to […] skaters who went on Disney on Ice.” At McGill, the team practices four times per week and regularly participates in competitions. This season, the team competed in three events: The OUA Fall Invitational, Invitation Laval Synchro, and the OUA Winter Invitational, placing second, third, and fourth respectively.

Though McGill figure skating is not a varsity team, many of the club’s competitors have varsity status, meaning that they receive more funding and have access to more training time and coaching. Although they are trying to obtain varsity status as a team, the figure skating club is currently entirely studentrun. As co-captains, Nakajima

and her counterpart, Danika Kapeikis, must be leaders on the ice while simultaneously working behind the scenes with other members of the club’s executive team. They’re also responsible for organizing events, from fundraisers to the team’s holiday shows.

“We are leaders of the team, we’re role models, [and we try] to make a more cohesive team to get everyone involved and really raise team morale,” Nakajima said. “But we have to do a lot of stuff like answering emails. We hired the coaches in the summer, we planned the tryouts, a lot of the nitpicky details.”

When Nakajima began her studies at McGill, she didn’t expect to continue skating until learning that McGill had a competitive figure skating club.

“I didn’t come to university to skate,” Nakajima said. “I thought I was going to quit, so when I came here, I was super excited to find the team.”

At McGill, Nakajima continued to skate primarily to maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle, but now, her favourite part of skating on the team is the community.

Nakajima (right) performs at the OUA Invitational. (Rachel Greben) “Moving away from home across the country was really difficult, so having those people that are there for you all the time, at any time in the day is incredible,” Nakajima said. “[Practices are] so early in the morning, we’re all not in a great mood, but the fact that we enjoy each other’s company at 6:30 a.m. says a lot.”

After she finishes her undergraduate degree, Nakajima is considering taking some time away from figure skating to focus on her studies when she moves on to medical school. “[Skating on the cruise ship]

was my way of transitioning from the really competitive side to the more fun professional career, and then I decided I was on to academics [at McGill],” Nakajima said. “When I came here and did four more years of skating, it wasn’t expected.

So I think after this I’m going to take a break, [but] I honestly probably won’t.”

Whether or not Nakajima is ready to hang up her skates, this season marks the end of her career at McGill. Nakajima and the rest of the figure skating club will perform their year-end show on Mar. 18 at McConnell Arena.

McGill basketball season review With the regular season behind them, both squads square up for the RSEQ playoffs

BY Ender McDuff, Contributor The Martlet and Redmen basketball teams ended regular season play on Feb. 24, as they each took down the Université du Québec à Montréal Citadins. The women pulled out a close 59-51 victory, while the men clipped the Citadins 74-57 in back-to-back games. The Martlets enter the playoffs as defending National Champions, but with an 11-5 conference record, they’re ranked only sixth in the nation this season. The men hold a commanding 14-2 conference record and RSEQ regular season pennant, which likewise places them in sixth nationally.

Martlet Basketball The Martlets began the 2017-18 regular season with their sights set on defending their national title, but a tough loss in a championship rematch against Laval in the season opener foreshadowed the trials facing the Martlets en route to their goal. For Head Coach Ryan Thorne’s team, replicating last season’s success was all about finding balance and leaning on rookie talents like Charlotte Clayton, Maggy Chabot, and Kamsi Ogbudibe.

“Our young players have really come in and contributed,” Thorne said. “You might not see it show up on a stats sheet, but it’s that breather they give to the veterans [….Contributing] here and there […] really helps us out.”

The regular season ended with a few difficult results, however, as the Martlets dropped three of their final five games—including two tough away losses to firstplace Laval. Thorne remains confident in his team and trusts their ability to move past the shortcomings of the regular season.

“We’ve just got to be focused on playing our game and not ghosts of [this season] and just be confident in what we do,” Thorne said.

The Martlets will take on the Bishop’s Gaiters in the RSEQ semi-finals on Feb. 28. McGill has taken their last two matchups against Bishop’s, and another win in the semifinal round will earn them a spot in the provincial final on March 3.

REDMEN Basketball The Redmen had a consistent, exceptionally successful season. With a deep rotation, the Redmen thrived by maintaining their high-tempo style of play on both ends of the court.

“We have the deepest bench in the league,” Head Coach David Deaveiro wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “There is no drop off when we go to the bench, and expectations remain the same whoever is on the floor.”

The Redmen finished the season on a seven-game winning streak, which was in large part due to the transcendent play of fourth-year point-guard Alex Paquin. “[Learning to utilize Paquin] might have been the most influential moment for us this year,” DeAveiro wrote. “[Paquin] has added a dimension on offence that we have never had.”

More important than any individual contribution, however, was the team’s collective work throughout the season. The Redmen’s consistency helped them secure a 14-2 record, placing them six points ahead of second-place rivals, the Concordia Stingers. “[The team’s] commitment to change, the daily grind mentally, and their unselfishness [...] is the recipe for our success,” DeAveiro wrote.

For DeAveiro’s squad, the first goal was to capture the regular season title. Ranked sixth in the nation, they’ve now shifted their sights toward winning the RSEQ championship banner. As with the Martlets, this task begins Feb. 28 against Bishop’s, a team the Redmen beat in three of their four contests this season. If they’re successful, they will tip-off against the winner of the Laval-UQAM semifinal on March 3.