SSMU Exec Report Cards P. 8 Med-School Diaries P. 20
Athletics Awards p. 29
THE Mcgill
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NEWS / LEASE NEGOTIATIONS
SSMU elections invalidated PGSS mental health policy Professors, students defend studying humanities This year in review: a timeline SSMU Report cards
OPINION / EDITORIAL: TOWARDS A MORE PROACTIVE SSMU Looking ahead to a sexual assault policy What we learned opening a student-run café Elections SSMU institutionally unaccountable
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STUDENT LIVING / McGILL MEMES INTERVEW Student of the week: Joen Lee Five easy ways to use up old bananas Exploring the ‘small-plates’ trend in Montreal Post-grad visa: $150, staying in Canada: priceless
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PHOTO / 2013-2014 HIGHLIGHTS FEATURES / THE MANY FACES OF THE REDPATH MUSEUM SCITECH / GZA LECTURES ON RAP AS A TOOL FOR HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT / ANTI-BILL 60 THEATRE
The rise of Record Store Day “Wait for it” no more: HIMYM gives its answer in lackluster last gasp Soaking up scenic route with Boots & Scoops Montreal’s summer festival quartet Deep cuts
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Managing Editors Ben Carter-Whitney bcarterwhitney@mcgilltribune.com Erica Friesen efriesen@mcgilltribune.com Jacqueline Galbraith jgalbraith@mcgilltribune.com Production Manager Steven Lampert slampert@mcgilltribune.com News Editors Jessica Fu, Sam Pinto, and Cece Zhang news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editor Abraham Moussako opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Caity Hui scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Living Editor Marlee Vinegar studentliving@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Jenny Shen features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editor Max Berger arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Mayaz Alam and Remi Lu sports@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editors Alexandra Allaire and Wendy Chen photo@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Alessandra Hechanova ahechanova@mcgilltribune.com
The med school diaries Global health preventative measures utilize texting and television shows Sci-tech summer reads
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Editor-in-Chief Carolina Millán Ronchetti editor@mcgilltribune.com
Design Editors Hayley Lim and Maryse Thomas design@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Adrien Hu copy@mcgilltribune.com Advertising Executives Spoon Jung and Daniel Kang ads@mcgilltribune.com Publisher Chad Ronalds
TPS Board of Directors
Jonathan Fielding (Chair), Anand Bery, Abhishek Gupta, Adrien Hu, Steven Lampert, Chris Liu, Carolina Millán Ronchetti, and Simon Poitrimolt
Staff Writers
Prativa Baral, Max Bledstein, Wyatt Fine-Gagné, Osama Haque, Eman Jeddy, Chelsey Ju, Paniz Khosroshahy, Alycia Noë, Kia Pouliot, Aaron Rose, Samiha Sharif, Julie Vanderperre, Elie Waitzer, and Natalie Wong
Contributors
Morgan Alexander, Chloé Baruffa, Laurie-Anne Benoit, Kathleen Bradley, Keara Campos, Christine Chang, Shrinkhala Dawadi, Brendan Edge, Hatty Liu, Krishanth Manokaren Zikomo Smith, Andrew Su, Esther Vinarov, Ruby Xia
Tribune Office Shatner University Centre Suite 110, 3480 McTavish Montreal, QC H3A 0E7 T: 514.398.6789 The McGill Tribune is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the Société de Publication de la Tribune, a student society of McGill University. The content of this publica-
SPORTS / TOP 5 McGILL ATHLETICS MOMENTS OF 2013-2014
Changing the game: NBA lottery 10 things you didn’t know about the 2014 FIFA world cup The McGill Tribune Sports Section Awards Out of the Park: the struggles of Olympic Stadium
tion is the sole responsibility of The McGill Tribune and the Société de Publication de la Tribune, and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Letters to the editor may be sent to editor@mcgilltribune.com and must include the contributor’s name, program and year and contact information. Letters should be kept under 300 words and submitted only to the Tribune. Submissions judged by the Tribune Publication Society to be libellous, sexist, racist, homophobic or solely promotional in nature will not be published. The Tribune reserves the right to edit all contributions. Editorials are decided upon and written by the editorial board. 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.
News Analysis
Reviewing the SSMU lease: behind four years of confidential negotiations Executives open up on tenuous student-admin relations, increased energy costs, and the achievements of the lease Erica Friesen and Jenny Shen Managing Editor and Features Editor Despite the four years of negotiations on the lease, most students know relatively little about the new contract signed by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and the McGill administration for the SSMU Building. More recently, the lease has prompted criticism from the student body, following the failure of the Building Fee in the Winter 2014 referendum period. The fee would have paid for the increasing rent and utilities costs that the lease entails. As a result, cuts will be made to the 2014-2015 SSMU budget in order to fund the agreement. Some students have criticized the increased costs of the new lease that necessitate these cuts. Under the previous lease agreement, SSMU paid $110,000 annualy for rent and did not pay any utility costs. With the new lease, SSMU will pay $130,000 this year for rent—a cost that will increase by $5,000 each year until 2021. SSMU is also newly responsible for $100,000 per year in utility costs. Although the negotiations have been ongoing, the lease’s contents were largely confidential throughout this process. This week, the Tribune sat down with current and former SSMU executives to find out how the lease has evolved throughout negotiations and why it took four years to reach an agreement with the university. The symbolic lease SSMU’s previous lease expired in May 2011. In the interim three years, SSMU operated in the building without a legal agreement until the Board of Governors approved the current lease on Feb. 27. Until 1999, SSMU paid a $1 symbolic lease for the building. The 2011-2012 SSMU executives initially argued for a return to this symbolic lease, but were unable to make progress with this stance. According to 2012-13 SSMU President Josh Redel, his executive team made the decision to abandon that line of negotiations. “[The administrators] told us that [a symbolic lease} cannot exist in today’s financial realities,” he said.
“There would be no way they would be able to support a building like that; they don’t have the money to support something on principles alone.” Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens said Quebec law only requires the university to provide SSMU with an office and furniture for free, which McGill offers through the 377-square metre executive offices. He said the university charges rent for the SSMU Building partly because it houses commercial operations that generate
posal] where they had that sliding percentage, the energy alone would have been millions over a few years,” he said. An additional complication to the utilities negotiations was the state of the HVAC system, which, according to SSMU President Katie Larson, has not been upgraded since the building’s construction in the 1960s. “The ducts hadn’t been cleaned in forever [and] the engineer came last summer and said [they were] not sure that this HVAC [was] going to
Having already spent several years in negotiations, however, the SSMU executive refused to accept a five-year lease. “If it’s a shorter term lease, it comes up sooner and it gives [the administration] the opportunity to jack up prices for energy and rent even more,” Shea said. “A really lengthy lease gives you the opportunity to finance projects over a long period of time— like renovating the cafeteria,” Redel said. “A longer-term lease is really im-
Graphic by Alessandra Hechanova
revenue. “The rent is still very competitive when you compare it to the same amount of space in downtown Montreal,” he said. “We’re not trying to squeeze students at all; we’re just trying to have something that is good for both sides.” Main topics of negotiation Over four years, the negotiations were primarily concerned with topics such as energy costs, the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, and the duration of the lease. According to Redel, energy was always the most contentious part of the negotiations. The administration initially proposed a sliding scale for utilities, where SSMU would have gradually taken on more of the costs until the society paid for 90 per cent. Redel said one of SSMU’s biggest achievements in the negotiations was arguing against this sliding scale. Under the current agreement, SSMU pays a set 25 per cent of utility costs, while McGill pays the remaining 75 per cent. “[In] the initial McGill [pro-
last through the winter,” she said. McGill at first asked SSMU to pay 50 per cent of the multi-million dollar HVAC project on top of the sliding energy scale, but executives argued successfully that SSMU should not be responsible for its maintenance. “We should not be paying for [the HVAC system] because that’s the responsibility of the landowners,” said SSMU Vice-President University Affairs Joey Shea. “If the plumbing [stops working] in your apartment [...] you’re not supposed to be paying to fix it [....] The owners of the building are responsible for large infrastructural issues.” McGill has agreed to fund renovations to the HVAC system, which are scheduled to take place next summer. One last point of contention during negotiations was the duration of the agreement. The administration advocated for a shorter-term lease, similar to the previous five-year agreement. “You don’t know what’s going to happen five years down the road,” Dyens said. “Will the financial situation change? Will the market prices change?”
portant for making [these projects] a reality.” One proposal from the administration involved a longer lease if SSMU allowed McGill Food and Dining Services (MFDS) to operate from the building, according to Shea. However, these plans were eventually scrapped. “It was really important for SSMU to maintain its autonomy from McGill,” Shea said. “We knew at the end of the day we didn’t really want to go in that direction.” negotiations The negotiations were also affected by other factors. Redel explained his discomfort with the negotiations, especially the way the administration initially asked SSMU to communicate through a proxy negotiator instead of directly through the deputy provost. “The way McGill negotiated was awful—really truly awful,” he said. “They told us if we brought a lawyer, they’d leave. We started bringing a notetaker and they were up in arms. The administration constantly calls on SSMU to act responsibly and with due diligence, but when those same people are upset
that we want to have thorough notes taken at a meeting [....] I think it speaks miles to the tone they set for the negotiations as a whole.” Larson noted the difficulty of engaging with McGill representatives at the bargaining table. “McGill shows up with what [they’re] going to make you pay and then you have to talk them down from it,” Larson said. “There’s a power differential that’s insurmountable.” Due to such issues, this year’s executives refused negotiations with anyone other than Dyens, to whom Shea attributes their successful securement of the 10-year lease. “It just shows how McGill has been negotiating this entire time and frustrations with miscommunications,” she said. “[Dyens was] new and [he wanted] to establish good relations with students off the bat [....] I don’t think we would have gotten [that] had we continued to negotiate with Morton Mendelson.” Dyens said he could not comment on negotiations under his predecessor, Morton Mendelson. “My negotiations with SSMU this year was done with respect and openness,” he said. “At no time did my administration pressure students to sign. We worked together to address the still unresolved issues and came very quickly to an agreement.” Looking forward After multiple years of work on the lease, SSMU executives expressed relief that the long negotiations are finally over. “It’s not the symbolic lease, [...] it’s not what we wanted, but it’s good for what I think McGill’s reality was,” Redel said. However, because the proposed building fee created to pay for the lease did not pass this semester, SSMU faces financial difficulties in the upcoming year. The SSMU is currently planning to run the referendum question again in the Fall. Shea emphasized the necessity for the incoming executives to stress the necessity of the fee. “[Signing the lease] was a really long, arduous process,” she said. “What will be really important is to educate students on why we signed this lease.”
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014 |
NEWS
| Curiosity delivers.
Student Government
Leaked documents shed light on Khan presidential invalidation
Elections SSMU denies influence of J-Board case on investigation; Khan acknowledges faults with campaign Erica Friesen Managing Editor Documents leaked to the McGill Daily allege that Tariq Khan’s campaign for the presidency of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) included 15 bylaw violations. A petition was submitted to the SSMU Judicial Board (JBoard) following Khan’s March 21 win. The documents name Elections SSMU Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ben Fung as the respondent. The petition identifies multiple bylaw infractions on Khan’s behalf, including “intimidating tactics” and “coercive measures to get students to vote,” such as “personally approaching students without leaving them privacy to vote.” The petition charges Fung with inadequately responding to these alleged violations. “Mr. Khan continually dem-
onstrated a lack of integrity and consideration for the Elections ByLaws,” the petition reads. “This lack of action on the part of [Fung] gave Mr. Khan an unfair advantage throughout the entirety of the campaign period.” Because Elections SSMU later invalidated Khan’s presidency on April 1, the Judicial Board case was retracted. While some of the information in the petition may be the same as that compiled by Elections SSMU, Fung said the two investigations were unrelated. “[The decision] wasn’t prompted by [the petition],” he said. “We have been working on this for a very long time before the petition was submitted to the Judicial board.” Fung said Elections SSMU received evidence that Khan violated multiple bylaws during the campaign period. “In the time following the elections we were made aware of several things, either through
email, our own investigations, or requests for investigations of new information,” he said. “Part of our due diligence is to seek the testimony of all parties [….] We [took] all this information into consideration.” According to Elections SSMU, Khan’s bylaw infractions include financial inconsistencies within his budget report, unsolicited messages regarding campaigning to SSMU members, and the “impingement of the spirit of a fair campaign and of the voting process.” “We won’t go into more detail at this time because we want to respect the privacy of all the parties involved in this situation,” Fung said. Khan said he is taking the allegations by Elections SSMU seriously. “I am the first to step forward and acknowledge that my campaign has not been without fault,” he said. “However, I am deeply
disheartened at the intensity with which many allegations have been brought forward in regards to my campaign.” As a result of the invalidation, runner-up Courtney Ayukawa has been declared president-elect. SSMU bylaws allow the CEO to invalidate an election if he or she deems “any grave violation of the Constitution, bylaws, or policies” to have “adversely affected the outcome of the election.” The Judicial Board has the ability to overturn the decision, although Khan would not confirm if he was planning to submit a petition to challenge the ruling. “My advocate and I are working to take immediate and appropriate action to ensure that fair spirit is preserved and that the democratic process, which is so vital to elections, is not deterred,” he said. According to Fung, Ayukawa was declared president-elect due to bylaw 16.3 which mandates that
in the case of an invalidation, the runner-up becomes the winner. Additionally, there is not enough time left in the semester to run another election according to the bylaws. Ayukawa expressed excitement at the news. “This obviously isn’t the ideal way to start off a presidency, but I have a lot of faith in the Society and I have a lot of faith in the students on campus,” she said. “With that confidence, I think I can work with the rest of the executives to have next year be really strong.” Ayukawa said the controversy around the decision may indicate the need to reform its governing documents. “I’m definitely very interested in working with people […] to see if they have any opinions on how to change the elections structures and policies to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again in the future,” she said.
province
Court grants student right to vote in provincial elections
Remaining four students in injunction case denied “domicile” status, await further court rulings Hatty Liu Contributor A McGill student who filed a court challenge for being refused voter registration was able to cast his vote on Monday, following the ruling of Quebec’s Superior Court. Brendan Edge, U2 Arts, was one of five McGill students who filed the challenge against the Director General of the Elections of Quebec (DGE) on April 1. Edge, who is also a candidate for the Green Party in the Chomedey riding, was added to the voters list by a court order on April 4— one day after the special revision period for voter registration. The five students filed the challenge after being turned away from their local revision offices the previous week. The students were told they had not been “domiciled” in Quebec for at least six months before the election, which is a requirement to vote under Quebec law. Edge attempted to register as a voter after registering as a candidate, but was told that the docu-
ments he brought with him did not constitute enough proof of domicile to register as a voter. Moreover, he was also told he was not a candidate in the election, despite appearing on the candidates’ list on the DGE’s website. According to Jason Chung, a graduate of the McGill Faculty of Law, the process of establishing domicile is a challenging question that has seen uneven—and possibly selective—enforcement this election. Chung is the founder and moderator of the Quebec Voter Support Network, a Facebook group that allows voters to solicit information from law students, law graduates, and lawyers on the registration process and voters’ rights. “Based on the comments that [the group has] received, it seemed that the biggest frustration was that everything was done in an adhoc manner,” Chung said. “[The process] wasn’t very transparent [regarding] what documents were requested and it seemed arbitrary.” A clarifying statement from the DGE published on March 22
states that domicile is “demonstrated by intention” and is defined as “the place a person considers to be his or her principal establishment, gives as a reference for the exercise of his or her civil rights, and indicates publicly as being his or her domicile.” According to the release, the board of revisors may request documents such as a Quebec health insurance card, a Quebec driver’s licence, or income tax returns made to Quebec as evidence of intention. However, according to a document published by the Quebec Voter Support Network, domicile “can be established in the absence of these criteria” as long as the applicant can establish intent to make Quebec his or her principal residence. According to the students present at the ruling on Friday, the judge did not consider the other four students’ situations to warrant a court injunction. “[According to the judge], an injunction should only be granted in the most pressing circumstances,” Simren Sandhu, another student in-
volved in the court challenge, said. “Brendan [Edge]’s situation was unusual. For [the rest of] us, [the issue of eligibility] could be sorted out after the election, the judge said.” According to Sandhu, the judge ruled that he and another student, Arielle Vaniderstein, were not eligible to vote because they had reached the age of majority fewer than six months before the election. The judge did not consider the months spent residing in Quebec before the age of majority to count toward the domicile requirement. The other two students, Matthew Satterthwaite and James Hallifax, were also denied permission to vote because it was difficult to determine how long they had lived in Quebec. According to Edge, though the four students were not added to the voters list, their case was not terminated by the ruling in April—the court will be back in session later this month. “[While] the judge ruled that the electoral officers were within
their right to refuse [the other four students’] registration […] this comes down to the question of domicile [and] how that is clarified,” Edge said. “It’s a complex issue, and [we’re] told it’s not one to be decided upon during an election campaign.” Chung is also in the process of collecting data from a survey in the Facebook group, particularly with regard to the documents that were requested from voters intending to register and the justifications behind those requests. The goal is to publish a report on trends that the data indicates. The remaining students in the court challenge hope the process will lead to a clarification of the law. “Ideally, we were hoping we could get the right to vote too […] but we are pleased to have shed a spotlight [on] the issue of [establishing] domicile,” Sandhu said. “Whoever forms government will know they need to take a closer look at this [issue] for next time.” The DGE declined to comment on the court’s ruling.
Curiosity delivers. |
NEWS
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
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student government
PGSS mental health policy aims to increase access to services Council approves $120,000 spending proposal to increase library space, lockers, and improve book scanners Samiha Sharif Staff Writer The first mental health policy for the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill University (PGSS) is being developed, according to an announcement made at PGSS Council last Wednesday. The mental health policy committee announced it would begin implementing the policy next year. The committee, which runs under the health and wellness committee, seeks to cater to graduate students’ mental health needs. Samara Perez, chair of the committee, explained that the decision to create a policy came from a need to address the needs of PGSS members—particularly for crises or trauma during highstress periods such as around thesis submission deadlines. “This policy [is] a positive stance for supporting mental health and education, access to mental health services for graduate students, and advocating for
PGSS voted to support improved access to mental services at times that are stressful for graduate students. (Alexandra Allaire / McGill Tribune)
graduating students mental health needs,” Perez said. The policy also opposes discrimination against students seeking access to mental health services and inequality in access to services. “Graduate students should have access to mental health services regardless of student status (e.g. full-time, part-time, international),” the motion reads. “Implementation and/or increase of monetary fees […] would prevent students’ access to mental health services on campus due to financial restrictions.”
Perez also explained that the committee would develop specific short-term and long-term goals for the policy. “The idea is that with this committee [...] we will implement one-year, three-year, and five-year mental health plans,” Perez said. “[The policy] is about advocacy for the needs and making the graduate students aware of what services exist for them.” Library Improvement Fund Proposal PGSS Academic Affairs Officer Adam Bouchard presented
the Library Improvement Fund Committee’s spending proposal. The PGSS Library Improvement Fund is supported by a nonopt-outable fee levy of $3.00 per PGSS member per semester. The fund is matched by McGill, and is currently valued at $120,000. Council approved the committee’s motion to spend $50,200 on the creation of a Grad Zone. Furthermore, $5,440 will be allocated towards updating the Ph.D. room, $25,470 for book scanner updates, and $23,360 for 108 new student storage lockers, which will be distributed to individuals
without offices or carrels. Lila Shapiro, representative from the Graduate Association of Students in Psychology, asked for an explanation of the cost of the lockers. “There are different sizes of laptop lockers and tall lockers,” Bouchard said. “The money is for the purchase of these 108 lockers and for the extra money on a security camera. Based on consultation [… students] would not feel as comfortable leaving their laptops without the camera, which is why this is more expensive.”
panel
Professors, students defend value of studying the humanities In light of budget cuts and low job prospects, panellists argue that Arts education remains useful Max Berger Arts & Entertainment Editor Growing concerns about the state of the humanities both at McGill and in academia were the topics of a roundtable discussion called “McGill for Humanities” on April 1. Hosted by the Department of English Student Association (DESA), the event was one in a series of four organized by English professor Maggie Kilgour in response to recent budget cuts to the Faculty of Arts, as well as a widespread perception that humanities offer little practical value for students. “There’s been so much talk recently about the crisis in the humanities [….] and a sense that they’re under the gun,” Kilgour said. “I thought it would be important for us to have this discussion because it’s something that’s affecting us and something everyone’s aware of, and
rather than just brooding about it in silence, to talk about it.” The event featured a discussion panel comprised of Arts students and faculty members from a wide range of departments. Their discussion centred on the notion of a perceived crisis in humanities education; panellists responded to those claims and asserted the value of the discipline. “Especially now, students are feeling the pressure of ‘Why aren’t you studying something that will get you a job?’” Kilgour said. “Most of you have therefore had to articulate to yourself a reason about why you’re studying what you’re studying.” Kilgour emphasized the importance of studying Arts disciplines, in addition to job prospects. “Training in the humanities is useful and leads to jobs in a wide range of fields,” Kilgour said. “Our adaptability and creativity, are val-
ued highly [....] Studying in the humanities encourages us to question a world in which everything is increasingly measured in terms of economy and efficiency; it asks us to think about what it means to be human today.” Panellists and audience members advocated that humanities are taught most effectively in smaller environments that allow for discussion and participation—environments that have been notably reduced at McGill after last year’s budget cuts. Mark Weissfelner, U3 Arts, explained that oversized classes pose threats to the humanities experience. “After the first semester [at McGill], I was in almost exclusively classes with over 100 or 150 students, and the experience was just horrid,” Weissfelner said. “In the second semester, I managed to get into a smaller upper-level course; it was the one saving grace of the year
and that’s why I decided to continue with my studies.” The event also included an open discussion in which audience members could voice their opinions. Panellist Alexander McAuley, a PhD candidate and Classics lecturer, spoke in favour of interdisciplinary discussions. “I think it was great to have the chance to break down the departmental divides and have people from English, philosophy, communications, art history, etc., sit in the same room and talk about the same questions head on,” McAuley said. “It’s one of the few times that we address them in a very direct and honest manner.” Participants had an overall positive impression of the event. “[It was a] very thought-provoking event,” Weissfelner said. “Some of the perspectives offered, especially by the students present, were magnificent.”
Others felt the series would have benefitted from involving a wider audience. “This is a great forum to have, and it’s a fantastic opportunity to sit down and discuss these things, but I think that we always run the risk of just preaching to the choir,” McAuley said. “The idea is that we have to start engaging with people outside the humanities and broadening this a little bit more.” Kilgour explained that she came up with the idea for “McGill for Humanities” relatively recently, and she’s thought about organizing more events promoting humanities next year that could be planned further in advance. “This was all very improvisational,” said Kilgour. “Basically, I got who I could get [to speak]. I don’t know if I would do it in exactly the same form, but it might be good to have a couple of conversations and try to widen it.”
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014 |
NEWS
| Curiosity delivers.
Charter of Values The Parti Québécois officially proposed its controversial Quebec Charter of Values on Sept. 10. If enacted, the bill would ban public sector workers from wearing conspicuous religious symbols like turbans, kippahs, and large crosses in government workplaces. Because McGill is a public institution, the ban would also affect McGill faculty and staff. The charter has faced widespread criticism at both the national and provincial levels, as well as from the McGill community. The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), Senate, the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill University (PGSS), and the Board of Governors (BoG) have all voted to condemn the charter. In addition, both students and professors protested the charter by wearing conspicuous religious symbols on campus in September. In the following months, there was much debate on campus as to how McGill should react if the charter were passed as law—for example, if the university should disregard its regulations in protest.
Mental Health initiatives The first student-run mental health conference was hosted on Oct. 5 and featured speakers and discussion on improving resources on campus. The conference marked a prominent moment in a year where mental health became a leading topic of conversation on campus, starting with the administration’s retraction of a heavily-criticized $20 first-time fee for university mental health services. Many other student-led mental health initiatives were developed throughout the year, such as the creation of the Peer Support Network, a confidential, free, drop-in listening service. SSMU Council also approved an official Mental Health Policy, which calls for SSMU to hire a mental health coordinator and design a website of resources available to students.
Milton Bike Gates Students denounced the administration’s decision to install gates at the Milton-University intersection. According to the administration, the gates aimed to reduce the danger of accidents by forcing cyclists to dismount. Criticisms of the gates, including a lack of consultation and inability to actually make cyclists dismount, made the installation unpopular throughout campus. Later in the semester, one of the gates was knocked down in an act of vandalism and the administration removed the remaining gate. The question remains, however, about the place of bicycles on campus. In April, a working group is expected to introduce recommendations regarding accommodations for cycling on campus.
Sexual Assault Prevention In November, the Montreal Gazette reported that three Redmen football players had allegedly sexually assaulted a Concordia student in April 2012. McGill’s lack of response to the situation sparked outrage from campus groups, including the Sexual Assault Centre of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS) and the Union for Gender Empowerment (UGE), who argued that the university lacked an adequate sexual assault policy. On Nov. 21, McGill announced that it would improve its measures to address sexual assault on campus by hosting a Forum on Consent on Feb. 26, hiring a coordinator to expand programming regarding sexual assault, and initiating an annual Dean of Students Forum on Safe Space to take place every October. In February, eight student groups, including SACOMSS and UGE, proposed a student-drafted sexual assault policy, which aims to counter McGill’s current lack of a consolidated policy.
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| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
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Student-Run Café The Student-Run Café opened in the SSMU Building on Jan. 6, following nearly three years of discussion, plans, and debate about how to implement the project. Aimed to break even financially, the project itself was inspired by ideas brought up in a sustainability case competition in 2012 following the administration’s sudden closure of the student-run Architecture Café, and one of its primary goals is to promote sustainability through environmentally-friendly practices. However, the café has faced criticism because of its location at one of the lunch counters in the second floor cafeteria, as opposed to being a new space for students. Incoming Vice-President Finance and Operations Kathleen Bradley campaigned on a platform that involves redesigning the student space of the second floor cafeteria, which could address these concerns for future academic years.
TaCEQ disaffiliation SSMU members voted to disaffiliate from the Quebec Student Roundtable (Table de Concertation Étudiante du Québec, or TaCEQ), which represented four student associations across Quebec and served to lobby the Quebec government on issues pertaining to students. TaCEQ faced criticisms throughout this year, including its lack of lobbying power as a nationally unrecognized student federation and its failure to produce concrete results throughout its existence. Additional motivation for disaffiliation was the $17,000 in membership fees SSMU paid to TaCEQ this year, plus an additional $10,000 last summer to fund the federation’s involvement as an intervener in a court case. In January, the graduate students’ association of the Université de Sherbrooke (REMDUS) voted to leave TaCEQ through a referendum. SSMU followed shortly after. It will be the responsibility of the incoming vice-president external to choose SSMU’s next course of action in the new academic year.
CFS TRIAL Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) member Ge Sa requested that the Quebec Superior Court order the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) to allow the PGSS to vote on leaving the CFS. Sa had submitted a petition to CFS with more than 2,000 signatures supporting PGSS’s disaffiliation from CFS, but decided to bring matters to the court after CFS did not respond to whether the petition in the alotted time. The PGSS has been actively trying to leave the CFS for seven years, with a previous attempt to leave through referendum in 2010. The society is still involved in another court case that involves approximately $270,000 in alleged CFS membership fees. The final ruling on whether PGSS will be able to vote on leaving the CFS will be made at the end of August. PGSS is also lobbying the government to implement laws to regulate leaving student federations.
“Farnan-gate” SSMU was the subject of international media attention following an apology from Vice-President Internal Brian Farnan for attaching to a listserv a GIF of Barack Obama kicking down a door. The apology was proposed by the equity commissioners and mandated by SSMU Council, and deemed Farnan’s action a microaggression after an equity complaint was made. The incident was picked up by both Canadian and American media sources—many of which ridiculed SSMU for mandating the apology. Across campus, students criticized the equity policy for limitations that forced Council to choose between mandating a public apology and ignoring the equity complaint. Eventually, SSMU Council retracted the apology at the March 13 SSMU Council. SSMU is in the process of revising the equity policy after hiring researchers to review it.
SSMU Building Fee Students voted against the creation of a SSMU building fee in the Winter referendum. This fee would have covered the costs of the new building lease agreement signed between SSMU and McGill in March following four years of negotiations. The referendum results were marked by controversy, due to widespread debate on whether SSMU executives made the consequences of a “No” vote clear enough to voters. In addition, students have questioned whether SSMU has the democratic right to run the referendum question again as planned for the Fall, considering that students have already voted on the issue. As a result of the fee’s failure, the society will need to cut costs dramatically for the 2014-2015 school year in order to fund the increased rent and utility costs of the new lease. SSMU has prepared a contingency budget to account for these new costs, which is scheduled to be approved at the April 10 SSMU Council meeting.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014 |
NEWS
| Curiosity delivers.
SSMU Report Cards Katie Larson President
Initiative: 4/10
Portfolio management: 7/10
As a representative of SSMU to the administration, Larson was tasked with the responsibility of negotiating the terms of the society’s lease on the SSMU Building. We applaud Larson for successfully finalizing the lease and bringing four years of negotiations to an end. Larson also brought a number of improvements to her portfolio, including the first Red and White week, a series of events tailored to graduating students; an overhaul of the bylaws; and the revision of the SSMU Constitution, which was passed in the Fall referendum period.
Tyler Hofmeister
VP Finance and Operations
Although signing the lease is a significant accomplishment, Larson did not adequately see the project through. Along with the rest of the executive team, she failed to publicize the University Centre Building fee referendum question through either a ‘yes’ campaign or a clearer description of the consequences of a ‘no’ vote on the question, leading to its failure in the Winter 2014 referendum period. Another missed opportunity to exhibit leadership was her failure to advertise the Fall 2013 General Assembly (GA), where lack of quorum limited the GA’s power and left the SSMU without a board of directors for several additional weeks. While a second, better-advertised GA remedied this problem, the incident wasted time and resources, and is indicative of Larson’s inability to accurately assess and connect with her constituents throughout the year.
Transparency: 3/10
Larson’s work this year has been marked by a lack of transparency to both student media and the student body at large. Perhaps the strongest indication of this problem lies in her management of the loss of the sustainability coordinator this year. SSMU is mandated to fulfill this position, and yet its termination was only discussed within confidential session of SSMU Council. With matters regarding sustainability falling under her portfolio, Larson’s unwillingness to address this situation represents a troubling inability to effectively communicate and compounds a general lack of openness throughout the year.
has both successfully generated a profit this year and seen improvements such as the addition of a jukebox and a pinball machine.
Transparency: 5/10
Portfolio management: 8/10
Initiative: 7/10
Early last semester, Hofmeister’s transparency suffered from his refusal to grant in-person interviews with the media, which prevented accurate reporting on important financial issues such as the budget. Councillors also found cause for complaint, including his presentation of the budget to Council without adequate time for Councillors to prepare for its discussion. Hofmeister has greatly improved his communication efforts this semester, which has enabled much-needed transparency in light of the recent criticism of lease negotiations and the 2014-2015 budgetary issues that have arisen.
Hofmeister’s work as Vice-President Finance and Operations has been relatively successful despite numerous financial obstacles. Early on in the year, he was able to balance the SSMU budget, preventing an otherwise projected deficit of $90,000. Another major success in his portfolio is the launch of the student-run café this semester. Since its opening in January, the Nest has run smoothly, and according to Hofmeister, aims to break even this semester. Under Hofmeister’s management, Gerts
Regarding the University Centre Building Fee, Hofmeister failed his constituents by not preparing or publicizing a contingency budget to explain the consequences of a ‘no’ vote. Nonetheless, in the wake of the question’s failure, Hofmeister successfully drew up a reasonable budget in preparation for the upcoming year in a very short amount of time, and we commend him for that effort.
Joey Shea
student senators, often bringing attention to the administration in regards to undergraduate issues. Another major project this year has been the improvement of the equity policy. While this is an ongoing project, it has yet to see results. Furthermore, attendence at consultative forums on equity policy revisions has been low due to a lack of promotion.
Nevertheless, Shea showed poor leadership regarding the failure of the University Centre Building Fee in March, when she, as well as the rest of the executive team, did not adequately promote the fee and communicate its necessity to students. Her blame of students for not understanding the referendum’s implications are troubling.
Initiative: 7/10
Shea has been consistently communicative with campus media by responding to emails and making herself available for interviews. Throughout the year, she has consistently sought to communicate important issues and initiatives to her constituents. However, she could have done more to actively reach out to students, especially with regards to the University Centre Building Fee and the consultation forums on the equity policy revision.
VP University Affairs
Portfolio Management: 9/10
The Tribune saw Shea as the most accomplished executive this year in her work on projects that we expect to have a lasting impact on SSMU. Shea led the development of a much-needed SSMU Mental Health Policy, which entails hiring a mental health coordinator and creating a website to compile mental health resources. According to councillors, Shea has had a strong voice at both Senate and Council this year. As a student representative to Senate, Shea brought undergraduate priorities to the attention of senators, notably with regard to the allocation of funds from the Student Services surplus. She was also one of the most involved
In the wake of criticism last Fall regarding McGill’s lack of a sexual assault policy, Shea stepped up to support campus initiatives to address this concern. Most significantly, Shea provided support for the student groups involved in writing a Sexual Assault Policy, which groups hope to eventually present to the administration. Additionally, Shea co-chaired the Forum on Consent in February.
Transparency: 8/10
ILLUSTRATIONS BY RUBY XIA
Curiosity delivers. |
NEWS
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
9
At the end of each academic year, the McGill Tribune assesses the performance of the SSMU executive team based on our own observations, the opinions of the executives themselves, and—new this year—feedback from SSMU councillors. To promote transparency in this process, this year we are presenting each assessment in an evaluation rubric. Our main criterion is “portfolio management,” which encompasses the completion of the portfolio’s activities and the advancement of the portfolio. Our “initiative” category judges the executives’ ability to show leadership in their positions and to deal professionally with unpredictable situations. Finally, “transparency” relates to executives’ openness about their work and the attempts they made to keep themselves accountable for their actions.
Sam Harris VP External
Initiative: 1/10
Portfolio Managment: 6/10
As Vice-President External, Harris has met the minimum standard of his portfolio. While he successfully engaged with the MiltonParc Community by organizing street teams throughout the year and training Community Ambassadors, Harris failed to publicize these initiatives. As SSMU’s TaCEQ representative, Harris attended the federation’s meetings, hosted several at McGill, and later reported on them to Council. He also attempted to improve TaCEQ‘s transparency with the translation of their website, although these efforts failed to yield results.
Brian Farnan VP Internal
There were many external-related issues that directly affected students this year, and Harris failed to address any of them adequately or productively. Although he initiated a motion to condemn the Charter of Values, Harris did not take the initiative to address the matter in any other way. The ad-hoc committee he formed on the topic has apparently achieved little since its creation in the Fall. Despite numerous concerns about TaCEQ, Harris failed to initiate a discussion of SSMU’s relationship to the student federation, despite promising consultative forums on the subject. In addition, he made no effort to explain TaCEQ to students. He only brought forward the referendum question to leave TaCEQ after one
the francophone commissioners to host a conference on the state of French in North America. He also played a role in implementing several frosh initiatives, including increased training for leaders, a ‘chill zone,’ and a phone line that students could contact with questions and concerns.
Portfolio management: 6/10
Farnan consistently met the requirements of his portfolio. However, the loss of $21,000 due to careless mistakes in frosh budgeting represents a major shortfall of his tenure. Farnan sent out regularly-timed listservs with information about SSMU and community initiatives; successfully organized SSMU’s signature events, including collaborating with faculties on Frosh and coordinating 4Floors and Faculty Olympics; and worked as a student representative on the Centraide serviceoriented campaign. In addition, Farnan worked with
Stefan Fong
VP Clubs and Services
of the other student associations voted to leave. Additionally, he has proposed no future plans or alternatives now that SSMU has voted to leave the federation.
Transparency: 8/10
Harris was open to student media throughout the year and was always available for interviews, in addition to fulfilling his role as SSMU’s representative to off-campus media on external issues. However, councillors have noted that Harris failed to properly communicate the details and implications of TaCEQ’s deteriorating circumstances.
ever Red and White week with activities for graduating students. While this is an exciting initiative, whether it proves successful and useful remains to be seen. Throughout the year, Farnan failed to adequately promote his initiatives, such as Soapbox—a student idea promotion tool— which has remained little used and unknown across campus.
Initiative: 7/10
Farnan displayed initiative in the communications aspect of the portfolio, working throughout the year to create and implement a Communications Guide, a Style Guide, and a Communications Strategy. These three documents provide long-term vision for the portfolio. In collaboration with President Larson, Farnan has worked to organize McGill’s first
extracurricular activities. He has also made improvements to the advanced room booking system for the SSMU Building, giving internal groups priority over external groups in room bookings.
Transparency: 6/10
Farnan has not been consistently accessible and responsive, as the Tribune found him difficult to reach for comment with coverage of myInvolvement and Red and White week. Farnan has seen notable improvement in the second semester, as he responded more promptly to interview requests.
Fong’s portfolio have seen little progress this year. One disappointment has been the failure of Clubpedia, a collection of information about clubs, which was part of Fong’s original platform. Fong’s new idea for the creation of Clubhub, a proposed information centre for clubs, has also been slow to develop.
Portfolio management: 6/10
Fong has worked consistently to overcome the overwhelming workload involved in the clubs and services portfolio. Nonetheless, his constituents have criticized his inefficiency in managing day-to-day work such as the assignment of offices and lockers. In advancing the portfolio, Fong played a role in the formation of the Co-Curricular Record of Involvement (CCRI), an official document that summarizes students’
Initiative: 6/10
Fong successfully made reforms to the format of Activities Night, such as expanding the space to include the Brown Building and implementing a one-way route. On the other hand, students gave mixed feedback about these changes, citing the emergence of safety issues and problems accessing health services. Additionally, long-term intiatives in
Transparency: 7/10
Fong has been clear in his answers, providing students with detailed responses and justifications on his courses of action. Despite his admitted lag in responding to emails, he has displayed a willingness to meet with student groups face-to-face to discuss their concerns and negotiate solutions.
opinion
editorial Towards a more proactive SSMU The invalidation of Tariq Khan’s victory in the SSMU elections, and the subsequent outcry, have perhaps served as the perfect summation of the crisis of credibility that has characterized student government. Throughout this year, the councillors and executives of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) have been far more reactive than proactive in response to the numerous situations which occurred under their management. While in some cases this has been effective, in most it had led to costly, embarrassing foul-ups for the executive. The most prominent example of SSMU failing to take proactive action in the first half of this year is one that has already been discussed in this space; the inability of the Fall General Assembly (GA) to meet quorum due to lack of advertising, thus preventing the official appoint-
ment of a board of directors and threatening various entities managed under SSMU. It was not until another GA was held, costing time, money and effort, that these issues were rectified. The outcome of the still-reverberating building fee rejection—with no “Yes” committee or any other such outreach to students on a fee execs said was critical to continued functioning—only serves to show that SSMU did not take a proactive approach to learning from its mistakes. Another example of SSMU finding itself on the back foot was the “Farnan-gate” fiasco. This incident, which featured SSMU pelted by campus-wide, then national and international criticism, was at first prompted by a lack of foresight and perhaps a complete disregard for the likely student reaction. It was also compounded by a fumbling response to the reaction that almost
commentary
missed the underlying motivation of the reaction. The official resolution—SSMU rescinding the official apology—still left SSMU with a self-inflicted hit to its reputation while failing to turn much of the student backlash into any real institutional change. Even so, there have also been unforeseen situations SSMU was forced to encounter this year that were reacted to adequately. The controversy that most typifies the positive aspects of a reactive approach is that of the sexual assault case against several players on McGill’s Redmen football team. Charges in the 2011 case, which resurfaced in news reports last November, caused a firestorm and spurred SSMU and other entities on campus to make new progress on dealing with McGill’s institutional framework on sexual assault. Here, the sudden immediacy of the issue left SSMU well-placed
to throw its weight behind an issue that already had some momentum, which has so far resulted in some positive tangible change for students. What do these contrasting cases say about how SSMU has responded to crises this year? In the first two, SSMU’s reactive responses to incidents of its own creation have weakened student trust in the organization and cost it valuable time that could have been spent on other more worthwhile tasks. In the third, SSMU used its advocacy platform as a way to turn the pre-existing reaction on campus towards concrete policy reforms. In all three situations, SSMU executives failed to anticipate the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. In the cases of the failed fee, GA, and apology, something close to the worst case not only ended up happening, but could have been easily foreseen. Next year, it
Looking ahead to a sexual assault policy
Julie Vanderperre
Columnist
In an attempt to reduce the effects of rape culture on campus, York University has recently begun handing out rape whistles to female students at orientation. This approach to stopping sexual violence, reminiscent of a sardonic scene out of Pitch Perfect, highlights the pervasiveness of rape culture on university campuses, and the shocking inaction of university administrators in combating sexual assault, a problem all too common at universities. According to statistics cited in an article in the Globe and Mail, over 20 per cent of women in universities experience sexual violence at some point during their university careers. Countless examples illustrating this reality have been witnessed through-
out Canadian universities in recent years, including McGill. Allegations of sexual assault in 2011 made against McGill varsity football players that resurfaced this past, and the hazing incident in 2005 by members of another McGill team are two prominent examples of sexual violence occurring at our own university. Beyond McGill, there have been further incidents, such as offensive and threatening frosh chants at UBC and Saint Mary’s in Halifax last Fall, as well as a string of six sexual assaults on the UBC campus. These are but a few of the highly publicized examples of occurrences that happen with incredible frequency in Canada’s universities, many of which remain unreported. In light of the highly unsafe nature of campuses, administrators should be expected to take the lead in fighting against sexual assault. However, many universities including McGill lack a formalized policy on how to handle these cases. At a forum on consent held at
McGill in January, the Sexual Assault Center of the McGill Students’ Society (SACOMSS), the studentrun and student-funded sexual assault center at McGill, put forth a policy proposal petitioning the administration to focus its attention on creating an institutional policy procedure for sexual assault cases, which the university currently lacks. While many similar procedural outlines are scattered throughout other student codes of conduct, the students leading the proposal insist that until the policies are complete, coherent, and institutionalized into an independent sexual assault policy, the administration’s current strategies for handling cases of sexual assault are only empty promises. While some groups have drafted a policy, none have been instituted yet. The proposed policy, outlined on the petition’s website and released to the public several weeks ago, aims to reform the way that McGill handles sexual assault in several important ways, including making the
policy more inclusive to all members of the McGill community. The document puts forth clearly-articulated safety measures, and recommends hiring a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator to serve the McGill community. Most importantly, however, is the recommendation for a policy that is proactive rather than reactive. The McGill administration was criticized by students for its slow and passive response to the sexual assault incident involving three Redmen football players. By failing to enact enough preventative measures intended to impede such occurrences, and by failing to address the incident with due urgency and severity, the administration has demonstrated neglectful handling of sexual assault. The proposed policy would provide the administration with the framework and tools necessary for a more aggressive and coherent approach to combating sexual assault on campus. Rather than focusing primarily on the means to mitigate the effects of sexual as-
would behoove SSMU—executives and councillors—to better assess situations and potential effects before intervening, if possible, study closely the specifics of similar past situations that were successfully managed, and, in the event of particularly heavy student criticism, find a way to channel that reaction into positive change. Even better, a more proactive approach from the SSMU executive would be ideal. Meanwhile, students should take the time to be engaged with campus issues even when there isn’t a massive, attention-grabbing controversy—a better understanding of the mundane aspects of student politics might leave students better equipped to respond to the big crises. Still, as with any organization, the buck stops with the leadership. Before we talk about changing student attitudes, SSMU should change theirs.
sault, the strategic aim should be to prevent sexual assault from happening altogether. This would involve greater emphasis on workshops such as RezProject, and further education on consent. The implementation of mandatory workshops for athletes, a motion which has already been adopted by SSMU in late November, in reaction to the university’s inadequate response to the aforementioned charges of sexual assault pressed against members of the varsity football team is another step in the right direction. While workshops on sexual responsibility and consent would be beneficial to all members of the McGill community, sports teams are a good place for the administration to test the concept and effects of mandatory workshops. These reforms—in addition to the creation of a formalized sexual assault policy that focuses on proactive, pro-survivor measures—would lead McGill closer to eradicating rape culture on campus and combating sexual assault in society.
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Curiosity delivers. |
opinion
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
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What we learned opening a student-run café
Kathleen Bradley Commentary After two years of planning, 3,493 burritos, and 7,824 customers, the Student-Run Cafe (SRC), “The Nest,” is wrapping up its first semester of operation. It has been an exhaustingly exhilarating experience, one that I feel very lucky and proud to have been a part of along with many other incredible students. No one tells you how hard opening a business is—not to mention a business in the food and beverage industry, under the meticulously bureaucratic structure that is the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)—but we’ve been fortunate to have a team of staff members and a customer base that both inspire us to continually improve and remind us why all those late nights spent planning were worth it. I cannot express enough gratitude or demonstrate enough humility. To every staff member that has given their time, and every customer that has given their taste buds—and money—thank you. Here, I’d like to share some of the successes, failures, and possibilities for the SRC moving forward. One of the SRC’s biggest suc-
cesses was our ability to strike a balance between quantity, quality, and price with respect to the food served. The reaction from customers in the first month was overwhelmingly about the reasonable pricing and the quality of the food. To get a homemade bowl of chili (in a vessel you could consume, no less) for $7 was something we worked really hard to achieve and maintain, and were glad to see noticed and appreciated. Where I think the SRC fell short this semester was in its mission to be a hub for community engagement. While we did hold three engagement sessions during the Fall semester—which, I should add, only three people attended, press included—we were only able to collect feedback informally from our customer base during operation. This was incredibly useful, but still fell short of the collective decision-making model for which we were aiming. Engagement is an element of the SRC that should be addressed by both staff and SSMU executives, and I think we all underestimated the amount of time and energy required to just get schedules made and food served. While it was in fact only a take-away food service—although I would argue that a place that employed 12 students, supported seven student-run initiatives by way of affordable catering, and integrated composting services into the SSMU building embodies more than a mere lunch counter— this was one step in a direction that
will continue to develop for several years. To say that this intermediary step stifles momentum for the overall goal of bringing more student-centric space to the SSMU Building fails to appreciate or consider the way change operates within a bureaucratic structure as large and as complex as the SSMU. It would be advantageous and fruitful for the SRC and student-run spaces in general if, instead of destructively attacking the in-process efforts of individuals, the press actively engaged with and critically reflected upon the steps being taken as part of a greater picture. Again, it seems the SRC is in a place of uncertainty. The building fee fiasco has left SSMU in a precarious position with respects to its financial sustainability, making projects like the SRC—which only recently adapted to a steep learning curve— vulnerable to reevaluation in the new funding environment. To be sure, it would be more profitable for SSMU to scrap the SRC, put in a new commercial tenant, and reap the rewards of revenue-generating real estate space, but this would be to reduce the SSMU to a society set on making money. It is my personal conviction that student societies should consider the value of their operations beyond their revenue-generating potential, but this must be echoed by the student body if it is to be realized. What projects like the SRC need most is not more money, new
The much-anticipated SRC opened in January. (Laurie-Anne Benoit / McGill Tribune) equipment, or more catering events; what it needs desperately is engagement from students who care about the food they eat and the Society that serves them. The SRC has always been about more than just food; it’s meant to be a place where collaboration centralizes, and decisionmaking rests in the hands of the collective; where students can use the skills they’ve built in the classroom to construct and change the community they are a part of. This type of engagement does not require the physical space that the SRC currently lacks; it involves coming to the engagement sessions we hold, contributing feedback about the food
Elections SSMU institutionally unaccountable
Daniel Kang Commentary I am not one of the several thousand students who voted for Tariq Khan. However, since the student body has been informed of Elections SSMU’s invalidation of Khan’s victory on Apr. 1, I have questioned the underlying policy. Many students, including myself, have expressed surprise that Elections SSMU even had the power to invalidate a president-elect. In an already apathetic student political culture, this invali-
dation only serves to widen the vast gap of trust between our student government and the students. It is interesting that Elections SSMU is advocating for more political participation on campus, yet the invalidation creates a sense of frustration that leads to disillusionment among voters. If all our votes are nullified in a single sweep, regardless of the accusations, the future of political participation at McGill is adversely affected. Appointed bodies are always more susceptible to institutional interests than the electorate, as in theory, the appointee may reflect the interests of those that appointed them. Therefore, we need to recognize that the power to invalidate a candidate should not rest with Elections SSMU, but with the student body. Elections SSMU should act as an organization that can investigate
the complaints brought to them and petition to invalidate the presidentelect while maintaining the privacy of those who report infractions. The student body should have the final say on judging the validity of the invalidation. Elections SSMU is composed of three members, hired through the SSMU Council, whose aim is to “run accountable elections for members of the SSMU.” The email sent out by Elections SSMU on Apr. 1, states that “Article 27.1 of the SSMU By-Law Book I-1 gives Elections SSMU the ability to invalidate the election of a successful candidate if there have been violations of the Bylaws, Constitution, or the Policies of the Society that have adversely affected the outcome of the election.” To clarify, I am not defending Khan’s alleged actions. It is possible
that he is guilty of the accusations brought against him by various individuals on campus, which have recently been leaked to campus media. Also, I am not attacking the individual members of Elections SSMU, as they are following due diligence and performing their required duties. Blaming them for acting in accordance with the bylaws ignores the larger issue at stake. The question is not: “Did Elections SSMU make the right decision?” but rather “Should Elections SSMU have the power to make that decision?” Looking beyond the context of McGill, certain democratic societies of the world do not permit appointed bodies to invalidate candidates. Looking to Canada as an example, the Supreme Court or Elections Canada is not given the power to invalidate any prime-minster elect.
and the service, and taking an active and invested role in the café’s future projects and development. The future of the SRC, like its past and present, rests in the hands of students; it can either be used and built, or lost. Kathleen Bradley is a philosophy and economics student and is the VP Finance and Operations-elect for the 2014-2015 executive term. If you have any feedback, or would like to contribute to the SRC moving forward, you can contact her at kathleen.bradley@mail.mcgill.ca.
The legislative houses, which are the representative bodies of the people, are given the jurisdiction to impeach an executive. Since SSMU does not have a legislative body that accurately represents every member of our university, the only close alternative is a direct decision by the students themselves through a referendum. The student body must recognize that the invalidation is a misuse of power and move to reform our bylaws in order to bridge the gap between the government and the people. Our bylaws have forced Elections SSMU to make decisions inconsistent with the principles of a democratic election, undermining the legitimacy of the electoral process. It is our responsibility to reform the bylaws to reflect our political will and to ensure the integrity of elections to come.
Student of the Week
Joen LEE
U3 Psychology and Sociology (Wendy Chen / McGill Tribune)
Protips
Staff Writers Prativa Baral Max Bledstein Wyatt Fine-Gagné Osama Haque Eman Jeddy Chelsey Ju Paniz Khosroshahy Alycia Noë Kia Pouliot Aaron Rose Samiha Sharif Julie Vanderperre Elie Waitzer Natalie Wong Diana Wright Contributors Tho-Alfakar Al-Aubodah Morgan Alexander
At first glance, you would never expect that soft-spoken Joen Lee could throw down a mean R&B rap. Lee is the President of Effusion, one of McGill’s a cappella ensembles, and has devoted many hours to maintaining the well-oiled music-making machine. Lee plays the “mama figure” in the group, and has used this year to integrate the “newbies” into the long established Effusion family. “[There’s been] a lot of trying to get that ‘family vibe’ and really solidifying our dynamic […] because chemistry is so important,” Lee explained. “By developing that family vibe, good music comes from that.” What sets Effusion apart from other McGill clubs, according to Lee, is their professional nature; the group can be booked for private events such as weddings and tours. They are a company rather than just a tight-knit singing group. “We have so many gigs,” Lee said proudly. “Google hires us. We recently did a gig with FIFA [….] We are very much in a sense our own private business.” Consequently, she has also become
Drew Allen Nada Almaghrawi Haaris Aziz Helin Azizoglu Rebecca Babcock Chloé Baruffa Laurie-Anne Benoit Matt Bobkin Tara Boghosian Daniel Braden Leah Brainerd Will Burgess Rachel Burk Sydney Cameron Keara Campos Aidan Carroll Laurissa Cebryk Jitika Chan Christine Chang James Chapman Karen Chen
a sort of manager for the troupe. “[I’m] always trying to interact with other people and liaise with other people, [but] at the same time, maintain the integrity of the group […] and maintain that professionalism, not just in the way we dress, [but] in our interactions and different things,” Lee said. Not all of Lee’s work as president has been external; this year required a lot of organization for an influx of new members into the a cappella family. “[There was] more internal work as well—organizing and coordinating each individual member and our schedule,” she said. Her emphasis was on the dynamics of the group—to create the best possible relationships between members so they could perform to their best ability as one cohesive voice. “I think as president, my first mandate was to be in tune with each [member], to be really in sync—that was my main goal,” Lee said. “In the beginning of the semester, we actually did very few gigs just to work on us [.…] A proper foundation was [one of] my goals as president.” Lee also took some new initiatives for the group this year.
Meghan Collie Ellen Cools Evan Coulter Sara Cullen Tara Davis Shrinkhala Dawadi Victoria Dilman Julia Donahue Derek Drummond Devin Bissky Dziadyk Brendan Edge Matthew Eidenger Cem Ertekin Daniel Fishbayn Elizabeth Flannery Justin Fletcher Benjamin Follows Ramsey Franklyn Genevieve Fried Nathan Gibbard Dan Gilbert Michael Gord Benjamin Gordon Mary Guay Abhishek Gupta James Gutman Ira Halpern Laura Hanrahan Leah Hansen Mark Haydn Cristian Hertzer Zoe Hoskin
by: Keara Campos
“[We] got a really awesome recording together through a friend of mine,” she said. “[We’ve been] doing things we don’t usually do, [but] not too many changes because I think Effusion is all about tradition.” Lee’s capacity as president has crossover from the Effusion scope and manifested itself in other areas of her life as well. “[Presidency] has allowed me to grow so much personally,” she said. “The biggest thing for me is communication and presentation [.…] I think that has also made me learn to be more comfortable in my own skin—the fact that you’re on stage singing in front of hundreds of people.” As Lee’s last weeks as a McGill student and as the president of Effusion dwindle down, there are some things she’ll take forward with her. “You [interact] with all these professionals, adults, and groups of people most of the time, that you normally wouldn’t get to as a university student,” she said. “I think communication is a big [takeaway] for me […] it will apply, definitely, to other places—whatever I get into.”
Danny Jomaa Catherine-Laure Juste Evie Kaczmarek Aislinn Kalob Andrea Katiadis Anna Katycheva Paniz Khosroshahy Nivit Kochhar Lauren Konken Alex Kpeglo-Hennessy Chelsey Ja Avik Jain Kaitlyn Jardine-LaChapelle Sarah Khan Michael King Peter Laing Dylan Lamberti Frances Lash Emma Lee Jennifer Lee Ari Lesniak Jannet Li Kathy Anduo Liu Chris Liu Hatty Liu Kathy Liu Tim Logan Élie Lubendo Chris Lutes Anna Ma Hailey Mackinnon Mohamad Makkaoui
François Hogue, flickr.com
Student living
McGill Tribune: What artist— living or dead—would you love to perform with? Joen Lee: “I love classic jazz musicians. Ella Fitzgerald would be my favourite.” MT: What’s your favourite shade of blue? JL: Navy. MT: Do you have a party trick? JL: I’ve never rapped before in my life, but [in] the Fall I wanted to try it. In “Everybody’s Got Their Something” there’s a part that I rapped for and it was such a shocker for this little Asian girl to come in rapping. MT: Pizza party or pastry party? JL: Oooh, pastry party. MT: What is your favourite song to sing when no one is listening? JL: “6, 8, 12” by Brian Knight.
Krishanth Manokaran Sara Marjanovic Harry McAlevey Max Mehran Alexander Messina Tyler Michaels Anthony Milton Jennifer Moh Martin Molpeceres Arid Montana Jonathan Mooney Amina Moustaqim-Barrette Sara Hashemi Nasab Jack Neal Kyle Ng Stefan Novakovic Luke Orlando Whitney Pang Michael Paolucci Sarah Papadopoli Benjamin Pidduck Simon Poitrimolt Nicolas Price Youcef Rahmani Nicole Rainteau Anina Ratjen Josh Redel Ben Reedijk Sam Reynolds Cassandra Rogers Kira Ross Emily Sager
nominate a student of the week! Email us at studentliving@ mcgilltribune.com
Maral Saghaei Jeremy Schipper Josh Schulman Haisam Shah Mira Sharma Matthew Shepherd Kate Sheridan Joyce Siu Zikomo Smith Anthony Snell Kieran Steer David Stein Hilary Storm Courtney Strouthos Andrew Su Suvij Sudershan Tamim Sujat Christine Tam Adam Taras Rosalie Teed Jack Tokarz Eric Tweel Esther Vinarov Natan Weinberger Lauren Wildgoose Ruby Xia Dorothy Yang Haviva Yesgat Leyang Yu Ruidi Zhu
François Hogue, flickr.com
Curiosity delivers. |
student living
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
interview
Saying so-long to student satire Interview with “McGill Memes” creator Daniel Braden
After two-and-a-half years of image-macro-based mockery and outrage—some genuine, some feigned—Daniel Braden, the man behind the “McGill Memes” Facebook page and Tumblr microblog, is graduating from McGill and moving to Boston to work on a congressional campaign. This week, the Tribune sat down with Braden to take stock of the satire of the years since the site’s launch in November 2011. What prompted you to start the site? Honestly, looking back on it, it was really just me realizing the funny contradictions that make up McGill. I was living with a writer for the McGill Daily at the time; she was lovely, but a lot of her friends I found very intriguing and very representative of McGill—people who would go on to do the Nov. 10 occupation, #6party, etc. I started it as an inside joke, really. Could you elaborate on these contradictions? I think one of the things I noticed were the number of people who seemed to be very wealthy. Many of them would be protesting the tuition hikes and the horrors of capitalism, but would wear expensive clothes
aryse By: M as Thom
and have expensive electronics. While that doesn’t mean you can’t have principles, these people didn’t seem to align with what you would think they would believe in. What have you found most interesting in your time running “McGill Memes”? There were times I posted things I thought would absolutely cause an uproar, and they never did. For example, riffing off the stereotype that the Cybertheque library is frequented by East Asians. Those memes were racially insensitive, what you would call a “microaggression,” and I was pretty surprised no one really complained. Do you think you’ve managed to say anything meaningful about the university and/or its students through your satire? I actually do. I don’t want to say I’m the one true voice of McGill, because that’s not true at all. But I think I did point out things that no one discussed openly. Chief among those is the lack of service in French at McGill and the lack of full translation, outside of official McGill communications, which is notable considering there are many translation students who would be able to perform such
services. English is something McGill’s anglophone students really take for granted.
my time at McGill. You would have had to have gone so far out of your way to be offended to that point.
How hard was it to come up with material? When I first started with the strikes, the Nov. 10 occupations, #6party, and the AUS GA, it literally wrote itself. Last year was a bit hard, and it has gotten progressively harder. “McGill Memes” would probably not have gotten started were it not for the provincial and student politics in late 2011-2012.
Do you think students should care more about student politics? Yeah, I think that you can care about student politics without necessarily being angry and needlessly indignant, but I think McGill is too apathetic about these things. There’s a way to be involved in student politics without being overly tiresome.
Characterize your political views in a campus context. A constantly surprised and exasperated observer. One thing that McGill politics has taught me is that nothing is too petty or too small to be taken seriously. That said, this tendency is also a great source of comedic material. Give an example of particularly petty politics. We all had to live through ‘Farnangate,’ and we’re still living through the hangover of that. While I’m not a person of color and there could be legitimate reasons for the complaint, at surface value, it was one of the pettiest things I’ve seen in
What did you think of the SSMU elections saga? What I will say about the election is that as a voter, I am angry; but as a comedian, I am delighted. There couldn’t be a better way for SSMU to end the year and for me to end my four years. On top of everything, even back to the bike gates, I am so happy that my last few weeks here will be spent hashing these failed lease negotiations and then this electoral curveball. Do you feel a sense of responsibility knowing that your more political posts are the only source of information many students get about campus news, perhaps even provincial politics? Absolutely not. If you are using
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my page as your only source of provincial and campus political news, you need to wake up. Additionally, while I’ve had people ask me to put up posts about their pet issues/campaigns, I really don’t think this page has that much of an impact. I don’t feel terribly responsible for it on that front. What do you hope students took out of the page? A sense of humour. McGill doesn’t really have one. It’s not a funny school. The funniest thing I’ve seen is “Lot’s wife, McGill”—and that is funny—but that’s it. They call the University of Chicago the place where fun goes to die; this is where your sense of humor just goes to wither. Do you have any plans for the “McGill Memes” page after you finish? I did originally want to try to find someone to pass it on to. As it stands, I have plans for a grand finale, but I don’t think it’s going to keep on going. This interview was edited and condensed by Abraham Moussako.
Five easy ways
to use up old bananas
Do you have a bunch of bananas that are turning brown? Don’t throw them out! Here are a few quick and easy ways to use up your old bananas.
Make banana ice cream bites: Melt 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of peanut butter in the microwave. Slice three bananas into bite-sized pieces and dip them in the chocolate. Lay chocolate covered banana slices on a baking pan and put them in the freezer for a quick dessert later on.
Make healthy ice cream: Freeze your bananas (after peeling!) and throw them in the blender. Blend until they have the same consistency as ice cream. Add peanut butter or Nutella for added flavour.
Flip gluten-free pancakes: Mix 1 1/2 bananas with two eggs and 1/8 teaspoon of baking powder. Cook on medium-heat in a frying pan to make gluten-free banana pancakes.
Bake banana bread: Banana bread actually tastes better when made with brown and bruised bananas.
Add them to smookies or shakes: No one notices brown bananas when they’ve been mixed up with milk, berries, or yogurt! Use a blender to mix the following ingredients together. Add spinach leaves, a handful of nuts, or flax seed to make your smoothies even healthier.
2 medium bananas, the riper the better 2 eggs 1 cup sugar 1 ¾ cups flour 1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda ½ tsp salt ½ cup vegetable oil 1/8 cup milk 1 tsp vanilla
1.Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 x 3 inches (8 cups) loaf pan. 2. Mash the bananas in a large bowl with a fork. Add the eggs and beat well with the mashed bananas. Add the sugar and continue beating for a minute or two until well-blended and slightly thickened. 3. In a small bowl, blend the flour, baking
powder, baking soda, and salt. In a measuring cup, blend the oil, milk, and vanilla. 4. Stir in a third of the dry ingredients at a time, alternating with the liquid ingredients, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Scrape down the sides and make sure the batter is well blended. 5. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Put in the oven and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until risen: the centre should be beautifully cracked and by gently pressing down on the centre, you can tell that the cake is set. (Recipe adapted from lifesafeast. blogspot.ca/2010/04/best-banana-bread. html)
Berry smoothie 1 banana 1 cup mixed berries 1 cup yogurt 1 cup milk 1/2 tbsp honey
Mango avocado smoothie 1 banana 1 avocado 1 cup cubed mango 1 cup orange juice 1/2 cup water
Chocolate banana milkshake 1 banana 2 cups chocolate ice cream 1/2 cup peanut butter 1 cup milk 2 tsp cocoa powder
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014 |
student living
| Curiosity delivers.
Delicious things come in small packages
Exploring the ‘small-plates’ trend in Montreal Alycia Noë Staff Writer What better way to eat out than to try everything on the menu? The food trend of small plates dining allows you to do just that. The culinary style is nothing new—many cuisines have long offered bite-size samplings. Cantonese dim sum, for instance, came from snacks served to travellers along the Silk Road in China. Nowadays, these traditional dishes including dumplings, steam buns, and rice noodle rolls, are shared with family on the weekend. Chefs around the world and across Montreal are embracing the concept of creating bite-size servings so diners can try a wider variety of their creations. However, successfully crafting a bite that satisfies and intertwines complexity in each dish is not an easy task. Chefs must balance the flavours and provide the perfect contrast of acidity and salt, or sweet and savoury—there cannot be one superfluous ingredient—while maintaining a pleasing overall aes-
thetic. “[It’s] about flavour first[… then] balance, texture, and plating,” pointed out Carlo Mirachi, chef and owner of restaurants Blanca and Roberta’s in Brooklyn, New York. Another example is Italian antipasti (“before the meal”), which is more centred on the social aspect of dining rather than the food. Served before the main course, antipasti includes many options, such as cured meats, mozzarella and provolone cheese, and vegetables in oil and vinegar. “The gesture [of serving antipasti] is the symbol […] for a noisy laughing group of family and friends gathered around a table, nudging one another out of the way to reach over and taste something new,” renowned Italian chef Mario Batali was quoated in Food & Wine Magazine. Vanya Filipovic, a partner at Montreal restaurant Le Vin Papillon, said this serving style is key to creating a pleasing atmosphere. “[The menu] is really designed to create conversation [and sharing]; it changes all the time,” Filipovic
said.
At Le Vin Papillon, chef MarcOlivier Frappier presents small-plate cuisine utlizing seasonal vegetables. One of the most crave-worthy plates is charred, roasted Brussel sprouts covered with ham from acorn-fed pigs. Another dish worth mentioning is a roasted cauliflower steak sprinkled with caramelized onions, capers, and crispy chicken skin. Small plates are designed to foster sharing and experimentation. Chefs have found that customers are more willing to try new foods if there is always another dish present. Iannict Lessard is the chef for tartare bar Lustucru in Montreal, where the pint-sized dining approach to minced, raw creations has been applied. “We wanted people to experience different types of tartares and to encourage people to enjoy the diversity of the tartares, [so] we thought it best to serve them tapasstyle to inspire sharing and trying something new,” he said. The Plateau restaurant offers some more eccentric raw presentations including shark carpaccio
served with strawberries and horse tataki with mango salsa. The Vitello Tonato is especially good, with an encrusted veal tenderloin served atop panko-fried tuna with capers and a fresh dill sauce laced with cucumbers. Montreal has a range of restaurants that go beyond the typical small-plates experiences. Opened in June, Bar Bouyna offers fresh and delicious Turkish mezze—a feature of Middle Eastern cuisine that comes at the beginning of all large meals and can include foods such as hummus, falafel, tahini, kofte, and halloumi cheese. Chef Fisun honours classical Mediterranean cooking techniques such as grilling and heavily spicing, and creates plates including Mackerel Escabeche (poached fish), chickpea salad tossed in tomato sauce and black garlic yogurt, and duck kebab with fig confit. Lastly, Spanish “tapas” are perhaps one of the most well-known examples of small-plates meals. In Spain, dinner can be served as late as midnight, which creates a large amount of time between the end of
the workday and dinner. To pass the time, it is common to go bar hopping after work and eat tapas while enjoying a drink—tapas often come free as long as the alcohol is flowing. Customary dishes include olives, aioli on bread, calamari, and chorizo. To get your tapas fix in Montreal, visit Los Pintxos—a traditional tapas bar serving specialties such as pepper gazpacho, grilled prawns, and a marinated sardine filet with avocado. Ferran Adria, the creative mastermind behind ElBulli restaurant in Spain explains the appeal of tapas for both diners and chefs. He says cooking in such a manner allows him to embrace “passion for what [he does], freedom, sharing, and risk-taking.” From Spanish tapas to Cantonese dim sum, small plates are taking off. Take advantage of the countless options in and around Montreal to enjoy your own small-plates dining experience. Recruit a big group of friends, find a restaurant, and enjoy the company with some impeccable food.
Pro-TIPS
Post-grad visa: $150, staying in Canada: priceless
Work permit allows international students to remain in Canada after finishing degree Carolina Millán Ronchetti Editor-in-Chief For graduating students, the haunting question “what are you doing after McGill” follows us wherever we go. But for international students, post-graduation plans are complicated by a further question— “can I even stay in Canada?” Graduating international students can stay in Canada if they apply for a post-graduate work permit—the length of which can vary. If your program was two to four years long, your permit can last three years; if your program was under two years, the duration of the permit will last as long as the program. The permit costs $150, and allows international students to work anywhere in Canada even if you don’t have a job lined up when you apply. You’re also allowed to leave and return to the country throughout
the duration of the permit. To apply, students need to submit a copy of their passport, a copy of their valid study permit, and a letter from McGill confirming the completion of all degree requirements. There’s no language component to the application. According to Corrie Bertone, international student advisor at McGill’s International Student Services, most students can apply for the permit online. Processing times vary, but Immigration Canada updates estimated times weekly online. However, students from “exempt countries,” which do not require entry visas, can go to the Canada-U.S. countries border crossing and receive one within a day. Among these are Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, the United States, and most European countries. Bertone says there’s one type of person she advises against getting
a post-graduate work permit: those who plan to continue their studies in the next three years. “This post grad-work permit is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” she says. “As soon as you submit an application for [the permit] and you obtain it, that’s it. You have it for three years. Should you decide to go to school next January, you can’t say to Immigration Canada, ‘Oh, put a hold on my work permit, I’m not using it anymore.’” Because the permit can only be granted once, if a student were to decide to do a master’s degree in a year or two, he or she would not be able to reapply for a new permit afterwards. While other work permits are available, they often require you to have a job lined up and take longer to process. “You can only get it once,” Bertone emphasizes. “That’s very important to keep in mind if somebody’s intention is to go back to
school. It happens—sometimes students don’t get into their program, or they’re not quite sure of what to do, and they change their mind.” Students can apply for the permit beginning on graduation day and only for the following 90 days, so it’s best to start early if you’re planning on getting a permit. Remember—you need a valid study permit at the time of your application, so even if your permit extends beyond 90 days after graduation, you still have to apply within that time frame. “Even if your plan is not to remain in Canada but you find a good job offer, it’s a contract for a couple of years—it’s good experience and good money,” Bertone says. “But if somebody’s intention is to stay here, they can use this time that they’re working post-grad to hop on their future. It’s become a very good opportunity.”
What do you need to get a post-graduate work permit? With these documents, you can obtain an open work permit for three years that is valid anywhere in Canada. A copy of your passport A copy of your valid study permit A letter from McGill saying you fulfilled your graduation requirements
Frodnesor, flickr.com
Food
|
University of Ottawa
Frodnesor, flickr.com
Université d’Ottawa
Your future? It’s down to science. Thinking about pursuing graduate studies? Already applied? Come and explore your program of interest and meet a potential thesis supervisor.
www.discoveruOttawa.ca under “Meet with us”
Photos by Alexandra Allaire, Laurie-Anne Benoit, Wendy Chen, Luke Orlando, and Courtney Strouthos
The Many Faces of the Redpath Museum Hatty Liu
t isn’t often that a museum exhibit gets to stare back at its visitors. But for the past year, those who have climbed to the third floor of the Redpath Museum have been able to lock eyes with three unexpectedly youthful new faces—model reconstructions of what the museum’s 2000-year-old Egyptian mummies might have looked like centuries ago. These facial reconstructions, which were added to the museum’s display in 2013, were constructed by a forensic artist based on the data collected from computed tomography (CT) scans performed on the mummies at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) in 2011. Since the exhibit opened, it has been featured on Le Devoir, the Globe and Mail, and the Smithsonian, and has become a staple of guided tours at the Redpath Museum. What few of these public-interest displays touch on is that the facial reconstructions are simply the “flashy part” of an international scientific study led by the University of Western Ontario (UWO), according to Barbara Lawson, curator of the museum’s World Cultures section. “[The reconstructions] weren’t driven by [a need for] an exhibit, but [were] simply a way of elaborating on the data the researchers [had access to],” said Lawson. The UWO’s IMPACT Radiological Mummy Database is a project that collects information about mummification practices and ancient life from mummies worldwide without damage to the wrappings. The Redpath mummies were among the first to be scanned for the database. Lawson explained that she created an exhibit to make the research accessible to the public and help them understand museums as living institutions that continue to work with its exhibits. Though it barely skims the surface of how such an institution operates, it is certainly a start.
More than just a museum
Like the double life led by the Redpath mummies both as subjects of research and objects of exhibition, the Redpath Museum holds a complex relationship with McGill’s academic community and the public. Administratively, the museum is a department within the Faculty of Science, hosting faculty members, graduate students, and courses in paleontology, geology, and natural history. Geographically, the museum sits next to the Y-intersection at the centre of campus, its stoic masonry and crown mouldings blending seamlessly with those of the Arts Building and Redpath Hall.
The Redpath Museum is one of the few departments at McGill that allows the public to roam its facilities and watch students at work maintaining the collections. On Nuit Blanche, when visitors of all ages come from across Montreal and line up to the Roddick Gates for the chance to go on the famous “flashlight tours,” the museum seems to belong more to the entire city than simply the university. The museum has not always operated this way. Peter Redpath, whose family made its fortune through the Redpath Sugar Refinery, built the museum in 1881 to house the natural sciences collection of McGill’s fifth principal, Sir William Dawson. Dawson had been offered a position at Princeton, but what he truly wanted was a state-of-the-art research institute where he could complete his work. “For scientists like Dawson, at his time, [such an institute] would have been a museum,” said David Green, the Redpath Museum’s current director. In the 19th century, natural history—a discipline with origins tracing back to Aristotle—was experiencing a renaissance as the works of naturalists like Charles Darwin began to push the study of organisms away from descriptive taxonomy and into the realm of scientific theory. Consequently—and driven by the era’s colonialism—scientists became interested in collecting specimens from around the world to catalogue and study at home. The first natural history museums were built to facilitate the research and teaching surrounding these specimens. The Redpath Museum was this kind of an institution from the start. “The different floors were crowded with stuff [from Dawson’s collections],” said Green. “He had his office in the museum, could do his [scientific] studies here, and did his classes in the auditorium at the back of the museum.” In the 1950s, the museum began to reinvent itself as a public institution by renovating exhibits and encouraging school groups to visit, in addition to keeping up with its scientific research. However, from 1971 to 1985, financial pressures caused McGill to close off public access in order to focus on teaching and research. “[This meant that] if the museum goes too far in [the] direction [of being a public institution], we could be accused of being not central to the mission of the university, which is research and teaching [….] There’s a balance that has to be struck between these things,” said Green. Far from fostering exclusion, the museum’s outreach
office feels that the university affiliation actually enhanced its public appeal. “[Visitors] feel quite privileged,” said Ingrid Birker, the museum’s science education and public outreach coordinator. “The texts [on display] are written by content experts who happen to be professors who are teaching the material, and [they] don’t shy away from the scientific terminology.” According to Natalia Toronchuk, a public education curriculum developer and former student volunteer at the museum, the exhibits’ minimal design elements exude the feel of a workplace. “You have a sense of [being able to] trust what’s said, because you know there are experts working right behind the door,” she said.
the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). The tours are attended every Fall by more than 100 students. “[The student flashlight tours] are meant to appeal to the people who walk by every day,” said Luce. “There’s a lot of different outreach programs at the museum that target a wider group of [the public], but there’s a need to [add] variety to that.”
Student and public participation
Today, visitors from the public seem at times to have a much bigger presence than casual student visitors from within McGill. On Sunday afternoons, the museum hosts film screenings and family workshops. “We serve easily 300 people [on Sundays], and they’re the public, not McGill students,” said Birker. “[On weekdays,] we get students sent by their CEGEPs to do projects—high school students, […] not always students from McGill necessarily.” On the students’ side, past and current members of the Redpath Museum Club (RMC)—a student group that volunteers to lead tours at the museum and act as liaisons for the student community—have noted a lack of awareness of the museum’s resources in the wider student body. “[There’s] a history of Montreal book [Montreal: Seaport and City] by Stephen Leacock where he mentions [that] people ‘have lived and died’ without ever walking into the [Redpath] Museum,” said Isabel Luce, a former president of the RMC. “That’s very much true. I meet fourth-year [students] who [have] walked by the museum and don’t even realize what’s inside.” It was partly the student community’s lack of engagement with the museum that motivated Donald Fowler, now a PhD student researching evolutionary science at the museum, to start the RMC as an undergraduate student in 2005. Apart from students’ lack of knowledge of what was on display, Fowler was concerned that students were unaware of the ways that the museum could be used as a resource for their academic or professional interests. “There wasn’t a way for students to get involved at the museum,” said Fowler. “[The RMC] was [made] to create a place for people to figure out what their interest is, [and] how to get involved in it—be it public education, guiding, or [the museum’s] research.” During Luce’s time as president of the RMC in 2010, the club launched a student version of the Redpath Museum’s popular Nuit Blanche flashlight tours in collaboration with
Improving accessibility
Part of students’ frustration with the Redpath Museum’s uneven appeal—successfully bridging its academic research with public interest, but skipping over the McGill student community in between—is simply a problem due to a lack of resources. There is insufficient space, funding, and staff at the museum to provide equipment or assistance to every student who wishes to work with the objects. The RMC does not provide students with access to the labs and the collections at the museum. Students intending to use the collections must first submit a
research proposal and a statement outlining the specimens required. According to Green, another reason for these restrictions is the need to fulfill the mandate of the museum as a reputed academic institution. In the Mummies and World Cultures collections, Lawson is the only staff member able to assist students who wish to use collections for independent research. Priority is given to doc-
[were] not on display, including […] a mystery coin [that] I assumed was just a forgery,” said Fronda. “But he figured out it was an early modern reckoning token [that] was used in banking houses […] as a placeholder for counting [accounts].” Katrina Van Amsterdam, a graduate student in classical studies who took Fronda’s course as an undergraduate, said that she has used coins in many other papers since that class. “The visit to the Redpath Museum [was] instrumental for [giving] me a better grasp of what to look for and how to interpret these objects,” said Van Amsterdam. “It was wonderful to be allowed to look at the evidence [...] in a personal manner.” Other students like Toronchuk and Jacqueline Riddle— another former president of the RMC—have volunteered to lead public tours and leveraged the experience into outreach or curatorial opportunities at Redpath and other museums. For now, however, the only way that the majority of students are able to discover the academic resources available at the museum is by participating in certain courses, such as the one taught by Fronda, the anthropology department’s Human Evolution, or the Faculty of Religious Studies’ Religions of the Ancient Near East. In these cases, when the arrangement works, it does so extremely well. For Toronchuk, the museum’s greatest strength for both the student and the public is in inspiring curiosity. “[It’s the] kind of Aristotelian wonder that [an educational] institution is supposed to be about,” she said. “It’s not just learning […] and it’s in some ways even more valuable [than learning].” This is not a far cry from what Fronda has observed in his students’ reactions to their opportunity to interact with the collections. “There’s a certain kind of wow factor, […] a kind of visceral, emotional attachment to the material that I hope carries on and [will] encourage them to do more with antiquities,” Fronda said. For Lawson, it is also this (Christine Chang / McGill Tribune) sense of continuity with a century’s worth of notable research toral or masters’ students, then to undergradu- and learning that, combined with the cutting ates who are writing honours theses or research- edge research taking place at the museum ing topics that specifically target objects which currently, makes the museum an important reLawson herself is currently working on. source for both the McGill community and the Students will also occasionally access the public. This consideration underpinned how collection through museum visits that they go she chose to present the mummies’ new faces on as part of their courses. In professor Michael to the public. Fronda’s HIST 450 course Ancient Historical “[The museum has] a symbiotic relaMethods, students are given the chance to work tionship with research interests at McGill and with the museum’s Roman coin collection under [other] researchers around the world,” said Lawson’s supervision. Students have gone on to Lawson. “We also display what the public is make independent discoveries about items in interested in […] in a way that illustrates the the collection and pursue similar research at the complicated things in an accessible way […] graduate level. One way of serving [all of these people’s] needs “I had one student [who] tried to catalogue and interests is to have exhibits that connect to all the unpublished coins [at the museum] that the sorts of question that they are asking.”
Science & technology Sophia Bachilova is a second-year medical student from Massachusetts. (Maryse Thomas / McGill Tribune)
It was one of Montreal native Carl White Ulysse’s first days working in the hospital as a part of his second year in McGill’s medical program. The patient was lying down on his back as Ulysse manoeuvered the smooth, stainless steel of the laryngoscope through the patient’s vocal cords. He watched on the screen as the view shifted to the glottis—the space in between the chords—and the cords flapped open and closed. A year and a half after his acceptance into the program, he was finally performing hands-on work as a part of his path toward becoming a physician. It seemed like only a few moments ago he had submitted his application in anticipation of the hopes he would hear back positively from McGill. For Sophia Bachilova, a second-year medical student at McGill from Massachusetts, she first fell in love with medicine when she spent a summer at a hospital undergoing physiotherapy for a broken arm. Although Bachilova was only four years old, this experience left an enduring impression on her that remained as she explored other aspects during her education. “I always kept other options open to myself […] but I guess it was really as I was finishing my undergraduate and started volunteering at the Royal Victoria Hospital [when] I realized I wanted to apply and take the necessary time to [attend medical school],” Bachilova recalled. “Even though I didn’t get accepted at McGill the first time and got accepted to some schools in the States, I wanted to work in Montreal.” Bachilova’s ‘aha’ moment resonates with many students who have clung onto their childhood aspiration to become a doctor. For others, medicine took a backseat in comparison to becoming a princess or going to outer space.
“I did a degree in evolutionary biology, which is not really applicable to medicine at all,” said Katherine Cole, who is currently in her second year of medical school at McGill and originally from Alberta. “I didn’t know that I wanted to be in medicine until quite late. I think in my first year of university, I started to figure out that this was where my skill set and interests were best suited. When you’re in high school, you like math; you like science; but to be able to formulate that into a career can sometimes be tough.” Nebras Warsi, a first-year medical student from Saskatchewan, also found that his desire to become a doctor was a gradual process—something he discovered through a multitude of experiences. “It was very gradual, and in my opinion, gradual is one of the ways to make sure,” Warsi explained. “It’s really quite difficult to say, ‘I want to commit to four years of medical school, and six years of residency, and education until I’m 35’ in one split second [….] Many of [my] experiences tied together. It’s kind of your own little story.” At a university like McGill, which has of the most reputable life sciences programs across Canada, medical school is a goal shared among many. Considering this environment, anxiety runs rampant in the undergraduate community. The ugly beast rears its head each time exams approach and students fret over whether their grades will be good enough to make them competitive candidates for medical school. In addition to this monster of anxiety is the elusive 4.0, allrounded, perfect medical candidate. This is the student that scores near perfect on exams and is involved in 10 different clubs. He or she finds time to sleep, eat, and see friends, all the while
Nebras Warsi is a firstyear medical student from Saskatchewan.
Katherine Cole is a second-year medical student from Alberta.
(Courtesy of Nebras Warsi)
(Courtesy of Katherine Cole)
shadowing physicians and conducting leading research in the laboratories. “It’s definitely a competitive environment,” said Howie Guo, a U2 Cell and Anatomy student. “Aside from maintaining respectable grades in a full course-load, students now have to balance extra curricular activities in an effort to stand out from their competition [....] Coupled with the fear that they may be rejected despite their best efforts, students nowadays constantly experience high levels of stress, which is completely ridiculous when you consider how young many of these applicants still are.” McGill’s current medical students sympathize with the
“GPA, MCAT, and whatever are all numbers, but what really makes an applicant stand out is their passion for what they do and for going into medicine.” tough competition that they too faced during the application process. However, they emphasize that there is no secret formula to success—nor are students required to tick off an involvement checklist. “People will [talk about medical school] from all perspectives. Some people will say you need to do the X, Y, and Z. I kind of did the X, Y, and Z, but then others will say it is too cookiecutter and too simple [for the application],” Warsi said. “There is really no one way. We have in our class people who have done all sorts of things.” “I remember people saying to me, ‘Why are you [volunteering with such similar organiza-
tions]? It makes your application look less varied,’” Cole added. “And I said, ‘I really enjoy doing it and it makes me feel very fulfilled.’” While all three of these students embarked on different paths that led them to their current medical studies, they share an underlying passion that drove them to shape their education and experiences around their interests. “You want to do what you are interested in and passionate about,” Cold said. “If you don’t, you almost act like a drone in some senses andww you just go through the motions, and that is a tough way to be—you miss out.” Warsi added that periodically reflecting on himself and why he wanted to go into medicine drove him to shape his undergraduate education around his passion for neuroscience. “There are a lot of ways you can get the skills to be a good leader, a good communicator, and someone who wants to care for people,” Warsi said. “There is no formula for it. Do whatever interests you; if you are passionate about doing something, then do it, and that’s what will get you in.” Despite the diversity of students accepted into McGill’s medical program, this does not demean the difficulty of the application process. According to McGill’s medical school admissions website, “Successful applicants tend to have a degree GPA above 3.5 (average approximately 3.8). Applicants with a degree GPA below 3.4 are rarely considered competitive.” However, Warsi stressed that it’s not a magic GPA or a list of achievements that gets students admission into the program. “What I’ve seen from my class is that we’re a set of very driven, very passionate people who want to make a difference
in people’s lives as physicians,” Warsi said. “I think that the process is very competitive, but that this is really the main thing you need to have to get through it. GPA, MCAT, and whatever are all numbers, but what really makes an applicant stand out is their passion for what they do and for going into medicine.” Even when meeting the academic requirements, it is difficult for students to stand out among the crowded field of applicants. However, all three of these medical students emphasize that having a story—a unique reason why you want to become a doctor and experiences that back it up— helped lead to the success of their applications. “You can say to anybody that you want to be a doctor and that you want to help sick people, and that’s fantastic, but everyone will say that,” Bachilova explained. She encourages pre-med students to avoid volunteering in the hospital and shadowing physicians only because it seems like the necessary requirement for medical school. “I think, if you don’t get in the first time, you can learn from that,” Bachilova added. “It’s just a year—you have the rest of your life to be a doctor [….] Take it as a learning opportunity. Most medical faculties don’t have a problem with you calling up and asking, ‘What don’t you like about my application?’” Whatever the motivation, the medical school application is more than a series of numbers, grades, and lists of accomplishments. For the successful applicants, it involves a story—a story of developing a passion for medicine and discovering this passion throughout their experiences. Check out mcgilltribune. com for a profile of each of these students and more on their application process and advice.
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Global health preventative measures utilize texting and television shows By Prativa Baral, Staff Writer Each winter, influenza viruses sweep across the globe, causing an estimated three to five million severe cases worldwide and 250,000 to 500,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)—and this is only one type of infectious disease. Faced with a spectrum of chronic illnesses, viral infections, and microbial pathogenesis, today’s healthcare infrastructure faces an overwhelming societal and economic challenge. To address this issue, many countries around the world have put an emphasis on innovating unique public health measures to focus on preventative care.
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The United Kingdom has chosen to approach one health issue, obesity, in a colour-coded fashion. Their traffic-light food labeling system aims to improve consumer awareness of nutritional information simplistically. Prepackaged food products are labeled red, yellow, or green based on the ratio of fats, sugar, and salt relative to each other that they contain. With this program, the United Kingdom Standard Food Agency hopes to encourage individuals to think before buying a product labelled red. It also allows consumers to quickly pick out unhealthy products from the grocery aisles.
Given the technological boom we have seen in the past decade and its ability to reach even the most rural areas, India is considering affordable mobile technology to promote preventative care. Rural populations affected by chronic diseases lack access to the resources necessary to manage these illnesses and prevent them from worsening. The government hopes that with cell phones—whose usage has increased in rural populations—health institutes could provide geographically distant or isolated patients with information on products and services through texts and apps, such as by texting appointment reminders. Automated texts could also serve as reminders to chronically ill patients to take their medications or get immunized. In the future, mobile health care could prove a powerful prevention tool in many countries.
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Brazil Brazil harnessed its creativity and effectiveness in promoting preventative measures through tapping into the country’s love for soap operas. In 1991, the government launched an anti-AIDS campaign that not only distributed condoms and needles, but also used TV soap operas to educate their audience about the health risk of HIV/ AIDS.
There are dozens of preventative measures taking place in Quebec, but one of the most interesting ones is the smoking cessation program. The provincial government established the Plan québécois d’abandon du tabagisme (PQAT) was created in 2002, focusing on stop-smoking campaigns and support for those wishing to quit through measures like quit smoking centres and a smoker’s help line. Interestingly, the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) has decided to allow the public drug insurance plan to cover some pharmaceutical products that assist in quitting smoking.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014 |
science & technology
| Curiosity delivers.
S.R.E.A.M: Science rules everything around me GZA lectures on rap as a tool for high school education Max Berger and Caity Hui Arts and Entertainment & Science and Technology Editors If anybody came out to GZA’s lecture on “Consciousness, Creativity, Music, & the Origin of the Universe” that packed Leacock 132 last Saturday eagerly awaiting the Wu-Tang Clan founding member to explain advanced scientific principles to the audience, then they may have gone home feeling disappointed and unfulfilled. This, however, would be a shame, because in spite of the esoteric knowledge he lacked, GZA still managed to justify to McGill why fellow musicians and fans have affectionately referred to him as “the Genius” throughout his career. GZA isn’t a scientist—it would be pretty remarkable if he had amassed a significant amount of academic knowledge while making music in one of the greatest rap groups of all time—and he wasn’t trying to be one when he spoke to the crowded lecture hall. Rather, his scientific genius comes from an acute awareness of the role that science plays in our everyday lives, and an appreciation for the discipline as something that can and
should be accessible to people from all walks of life. “Music has always had a direct influence over my life,” GZA explained. “Stevie Wonder once said, ‘Music is a world in itself and a [universal] language we understand.’” Much of the lecture—which integrated various short rap verses intermittently—and the ensuing question period centred around the role of science on GZA’s personal and musical journeys, and his feeling that music can be an incredibly useful tool for relating and communicating scientific thought. In fact, GZA is currently in the process of working on a concept album called Dark Matter that will tell the story of a journey through time and space and represent the way in which dark matter affects the motion of the universe gravitationally by applying it to the lyrical motion of his music. One of GZA’s first encounters with science took the form of a game of chess with his cousin when he was nine years old. While he would not touch the game for over another 10 years, GZA never forgot the rules. “When I began playing se-
riously as an adult, I learned the tactics and principles,” GZA explained. “[These included] the time, force, and space of chess. Time, as the amount of moves; space, as the squares you control; and force, your military—your army.” Through employing these strategies, GZA became more intrigued with the science behind the game of chess. Playing in East New York, Brooklyn, and Washington Square Park—where he reached as many as 78 games per Sunday— GZA began to consider mathematical principles like algorithms and probability while strategizing his play. Discovering the nuances of the game, however, did not just improve GZA’s performance. The artist began to apply the same strategies he used in chess to situations in his life. His thinking shifted to a more scientific perspective, where he tried to approach scenarios from all angles and question the status quo—similar to how scientists interrogate their own experimental problems. “The active thinking and philosophy stimulated my creative mind to consider all the possibilities and search for more,” GZA said.
This open and creative mindset helped spark the program Science Genius, which is an urban science initiative developed by the Genius himself and Christopher Emdin from Columbia University’s Teachers College. GZA developed Science Genius to get more students interested and comfortable with scientific topics. While he knew he was not a science teacher, GZA also recognized that as a musician, he could walk into a classroom and provide students with a model to learn. Seizing the opportunity to spread his passion to an impressionable audience, GZA travelled with Emdin to 10 New York high schools to run the program. With GZA, students developed scientific raps about different topics, acquiring an acute understanding through music and lyricism. “As we read citations and rhymes, one of the things that I try to [impart] to the classrooms is that the rhyme must be clear, eloquent, and clever,” GZA said. “I challenge students to make sense of complex information by maintaining high standards of serious lyricism.” Even though it was clear by the time the question period came
around that GZA wasn’t qualified to answer technical scientific questions, he had a strong answer when asked to tackle the most important question that the universe has for us: “What is the meaning of life to you?” “Life is being relevant, it’s living, [and] breathing,” began GZA. “[The point of] life is to evolve, develop, grow, and raise yourself.” Perhaps Darwin wouldn’t have equated evolution to “being relevant,” but then again, GZA didn’t come to quote famous scientists—he came to promote the value of basic scientific awareness and literacy even if one is doing something on the opposite end of the occupational spectrum—like making music. That being said, GZA still offered some parting words of wisdom that anyone looking to survive with the fittest in today’s world should take to heart. “Don’t be the other 99 and imitate, be the one that originates.” It doesn’t take a genius to understand these words, but when they come from a successful, intelligent, and inquisitive individual like the Genius, they truly resonate.
sci-tech
Summer Reads
As the summer months draw near, visions of lazy days in the park and late nights take over our minds, filling us with warmth and the prospect of more free time. Whether sitting on an outdoor lounge chair or on the bus, nothing can transport you to another reality like a good read. Here’s a list of some popular books in science to carry along on during your summer travels.
The Half-Life of Facts: Why everything we know has an expiration date on it by Samuel Abersman presents a wide survey of the current state of science. The nonfiction book discusses that facts change, and they will continue to do so as we evolve. Abersman presents examples such as smoking— which shifted from doctor recommended to deadly—the idea that the Earth was the centre of the universe, and that Pluto was a planet. The book tackles a huge array of issues that concern previous scientific work, and the process of generating new knowledge, including behavioral issues, astronomy, physics, chemistry, paleontology, and many more.
The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear by Seth Mnookin is a factual investigation into the culture of vaccinations. Considering both sides of this controversial issue, Mnookin interviews scientists, activists, and parents alike to present the sensationalized debate on aspects such as vaccines, autism, and the role that media plays in portraying this information.
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals is widely regarded as English physician William Harvey’s most important treatise that ushered in a new way of investigating and understanding the human body. Originally published in 1628, the book first describes the motions of the heart after having performed countless dissections on insects, worms, slugs, birds, fishes, and mammals. Even without the proper microscopy, Harvey accurately describes the different structures— like arteries and veins—and correctly concludes why these differences exist. By demonstrating the power of experimental observations, this work is considered by many critics and readers alike as a fine example of medical writing at its best.
Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light is a cross between a chocolate history book and a travelogue around the chocolate world. In this entertaining narrative, acclaimed foodie Mort Rosenblum delves into the complex world of chocolate and the science behind the taste. By interviewing fine chocolate makers and tasters and plantation workers who harvest the cacao beans, Rosenblum explores the ins and outs of the chocolate trade. Rosenblum also debunks a number of myths about chocolate, recalling the history of the Aztecs and their worship of chocolate as the “food of the gods”.
Compiled by Krishanth Manokaren
arts & entertainment
Revitalizing a bygone medium: the rise of Record Store Day Kia Pouliot Staff Writer With the proliferation of digital media, the so-called ‘death of the physical format’ has been proclaimed for years. The seventh annual Record Store Day, which will take place on April 19, throws a wrench straight into this morbid hypothesis. The day’s sole purpose is to celebrate record stores, their customers, and the artists and musicians who fill their shelves. Participating stores offer exclusive limited releases, varying sales, and even live performances. Since its inception, vinyl sales have skyrocketed, reviving a medium presumed to be dead. Michael Kurtz, one of Record Store Day’s co-founders and the current event manager, explains that the idea was inspired by a similar endeavour undertaken by independent comic bookstores called Free Comic Book Day. “We looked at what they were doing and how they were exciting stores and their customers to celebrate the culture of the store itself,” Kurtz says. “So we decided to take that idea and do it for music, for record stores. We launched the first one with just about 10 releases, and Metallica did an event at Rasputin in San Francisco. It just exploded after that.” Today, Record Store Day is a global event with participating stores across North and South America, Australia, Europe, and Asia. There’s no denying the practicality of downloading and streaming music digitally, but despite its many benefits, there is something that gets lost when you interact with a medium in such a fragmented and often inattentive manner. Digital music has a tendency to revolve more around volume and convenience, often putting the art and music in the background. Kurtz attempts to articulate just what it is that makes vinyl such an appealing platform. “Its much more of a communal experience,” Kurtz begins. “I can’t explain all the reasons for it, but it just happens to be that way. It’s like the difference between watching
a movie from beginning to end in a fantastic theatre versus watching it on your phone and hitting the pause button while you talk to somebody [....] I think the vinyl experience is more devotional—kind of a real connection to the music.” Kurtz explains that many musicians feel a certain loss when their music is listened to digitally. “If you talk to artists who put a lot of thought and creativity into even the sequencing of their albums to create an experience, all of that is just blown out when it goes digital because it’s just so easy to skip a track [....] It becomes all about ‘What is the single?’ versus the album as a whole.” Thanks to the large crowds it attracts, the event is a great way to help reintroduce people to the immersive listening experience that records offer and also an opportunity to really showcase musicians’ creativity. Among the more unusual limited editions being offered at this year’s event are a space record in which various artists were given sounds recorded in space and then asked to create music around it, as well as a translucent 7-inch with knitting yarn inside the vinyl, create d
by Los Angeles-based band Liars. Kurtz observed that Record Store Day inspires a lot of artistic creativity and innovation. “I think that artists have embraced it and used it as a palette for creating really unique, fun, and exciting vinyl records, which has helped lead to the explosion of vinyl as a format,” says Kurtz. “And for the music fans, they’re getting reintroduced to a format that enables them to really enjoy the music the way the artists intended it to be heard.” As local businesses and cultural centres, independent record stores play important roles in their communities year round, and especially on Record Store Day. In these intimate venues, local talents are highlighted and neighbourhood people are brought together to bond over mutual passions. Kurtz shared his thoughts on the power that this can have in the music world. “When you have a record store in a community, then there’s a real connection between the music fans and the artists that doesn’t exist without it. This takes the shape of special
events that the stores hold, or special releases that they do, turning people on to new artists.” Kurtz uses Lorde, whose song “Royals” was awarded Song of the Year at this year’s Grammy’s, as an example. “When Lorde launched, she put out a 7-inch record through record stores before it really went anywhere else,” explains Kurtz. “The stores were so turned on by it that they started talking about it word of mouth, and it just gave legitimacy to her as an artist. When it started exploding digitally, it had meaning; there was a reference point. It wasn’t just hype—it was actually real. That’s what record stores do.” Shawn Ellingham is a vinyl enthusiast and the primary owner of Soundcentral Record Shop, one of Montreal’s independent underground music stores located in the Plateau which has participated in Record Store Day for the last five years. “There’s all kinds of music lovers,” says Ellington. “You have people who collect [them] for the artifacts, and there are other people who just really dig the music. I think that’s what it really comes down to—vinyl really appeals to musicians and music lovers.”
He went on to explain that bringing people together through records is just the first step in fostering a community. “Usually, people who are part of that community will share a lot beyond the music,” says Ellington. “It’s a way to bring them together. I think an environment like this is just perfect for that. It’s a place to exchange contacts [....] I think stores like this and the others in Montreal do that, they bring like-minded people together [….] We’re also giving a venue to artists, a voice to people who might not have had their chance or who aren’t sure about how to get heard.” On the big day, Soundcentral will be showcasing Simon Kingsbury, a local talent who will be performing a solo act. They’ll also be selling a number of Record Store Day exclusives and there will be plenty of in-store action—maybe even a foosball tournament. Phonopolis, another Montreal record store located in the Mile-End will be having a 15-percent-off sale on all regular store merchandise, they will be carrying some official Record Store Day releases. There will be an evening in-store concert featuring Canadian indie rock artist Michael Feurerstack and other various artists. The other participating stores—each with their own surprises planned— include Sonik, Aux 33 Tours, Cheap Thrills, Sonorama, Primitive, Beatnick Music, and Boutique L’Oblique. Of course, Record Store Day is a great event for anyone who is already a part of vinyl culture, but it is also an amazing point of entry for newbies to the scene—an open invitation for everyone to get out of the house, make some musical discoveries, support their local stores, and celebrate the arts. For more information and for the official list of exclusive Record Store Day Releases you can visit http://recordstoredaycanada.com
Curiosity delivers. |
arts & entertainment | Wednesday, April 9, 2014
What we talk about when we talk about Bill 60
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Philanthropist and theatrical artistic directors tackle diversity issues through the stage Max Bledstein Staff Writer When politicians attack, artists strike back. Barry Cole, president and chairman of Montreal’s Cole Foundation, is helping do just that through his Intercultural Conversations—Conversations Interculturelles program. The program gives grants to Montreal theatre companies to show the city’s diversity on their stages. “The mission is to present onstage the stories of the various cultural communities of Montreal, so that people from a francophone or anglophone background will gain a greater appreciation for the intricacies and the subtleties of those cultures,” Cole said. For the 2014-15 season, 16 of the 27 applicants received grants totaling $250,150. Intercultural Conversations—Conversations Interculturelles was founded six years ago in response to the recommendations of the government-sponsored Bouchard-Taylor Commission. The commision’s report called in part for greater understanding among the many communities of Quebec. Cole’s initiative sought to aid in the process through theatre. He believed that theatre could help to ease the anxieties of francophone and anglophone communities towards immigrants. “It was a way to have the stories onstage, in a non-confrontational way, of different minority cultural groups, so that [the groups] could feel a resonance with them and change their opinions about them,” Cole explained. “With greater understanding comes greater harmony.” Though the proposal of Bill 60—known as the Quebec Charter of Values—hasn’t changed the scope of Cole’s goals, it has intensified his desire to promote diversity in Montreal. After the initial proposition of the charter, Cole wrote a brief letter to the government outlining why he believed that Bill 60 was poor legislation. In the note, he highlighted that there was already legislation separating church and state, discussed his
view that religion was a private issue rather than a public one, and emphasized the increase in diversity in Montreal theatrical productions brought about by his grants. One recent grant recipient, the children’s theatre company Geordie Productions, is going beyond the money given by Intercultural Conversations— Conversations Interculturelles to address issues of diversity. Artistic director Dean Fleming
damental similarities between them. Geordie’s upcoming slate will also look more broadly at issues of intercultural harmony. Over the 2014-2015 season, the company’s plays will address topics of racism, freedom, power, and assimilation. “One of the main things we’re trying to discuss is how we’ve spent a couple of generations teaching children to look at others and celebrate
Artistic Director Rahul Varma has similar goals for his company, Teesri Duniya Theatre. Like Geordie, Teesri Duniya was also selected for an Intercultural Conversations— Conversations Interculturelles grant. They received their funding for the production of Varma’s play State of Denial . The play links together the experiences of the Rwandan and Armenian genocides, and examines issues of iden-
From top left clockwise: Cole, Varma, and Fleming. (levadrouilleururbain.wordpress.com/playwrightscanada.com/ encoremtl.com) is devoting Geordie’s entire 2014-2015 season to responding to the charter. “Our whole season is based around differences between people, what’s the same about people, and in what ways should we be looking at what’s important,” Fleming said. A prime example of Geordie’s attempt to tackle the issues raised by Bill 60 is the upcoming play by playwright Marcus Yousef, formerly titled Hannukwanzayulemas (the new title has yet to be announced). The play was the recipient of both a commissioning grant and a production grant from the Cole Foundation. It tells the story of a young girl who has to deal with competing religious influences as a result of her parents’ divorce. The work questions what is at the core of all religions and looks at the fun-
the differences amongst everybody,” Fleming said. “The question we’re bringing up now is, ‘What does the charter do to a child who’s been taught that for so long, and is now being told the exact opposite?’” Fleming sees Geordie as having an added responsibility to stimulate cultural dialogue because it targets young audiences. In addition to being a production company, Geordie also runs a theatre school for young children, and Fleming hopes to integrate the messages of his shows into the curriculum. His main priority is to have the audience be able to relate to his company’s productions. “As long as we continually work to put our audience [and their stories] onstage, then I think we’re doing our job,” Fleming said.
tity. By being told from a Canadian perspective, State of Denial also connects the Rwandans and Armenians with Canadians. “Canada has become a shared space for us, where we can tell the story of all people, wherever they are from, as if they are Canadians,” Varma said. “We believe in more communities, more people, more histories, and more cultures, because to us, that’s what Canada is.” Varma’s belief in Canadian multiculturalism made him particularly outraged when Bill 60 was initially proposed. At the time, Teesri Duniya was running the play Letters from My Grandma , which was about a young immigrant woman trying to establish her life in Canada. The diversity of the play fit in perfectly with his opposition to the charter, and
Varma hasn’t stopped using his programming to protest it since then. Varma also tries to highlight Canada’s diversity through the casting of his plays. Teesri Duniya operates under a policy of “multi-ethnic casting,” which contrasts with the “colour-blind casting” policy employed by many directors. Through Varma’s approach, a playwright’s vision of a character’s ethnicity is considered paramount in determining which actor will portray him. If a character is of a certain ethnicity, then Varma will find an actor of that ethnicity. By comparison, “colour-blind casting” allows for people of all ethnicities to play parts, which often leads to the casting of white actors in roles which could go to actors of colour. Like Geordie, Teesri Duniya extends their mission beyond the stage. They publish a quarterly journal, alt. theatre , which discusses issues of diversity and theatre in an academic format. The company has also held dialogues for people to talk about intercultural problems in a public setting; however, Varma never loses track of the power of the stage. “Theatre is an instrument of change, because it generates consciousness,” he said. “If you present dark issues through the prism of artistic beauty, then they get accepted by the audience much better than if you are simply reading them in the newspaper.” Varma, like Fleming, is utterly opposed to Bill 60, and he uses his art to voice his dissent. Cole and his foundation have been helping them and many others to bring their messages to audiences. Like the artists he funds, Cole recognizes a theatre’s importance in the broader cultural context. As he has said, “Theatre has a tremendous ability to influence people’s minds by giving them the example on stage or challenging them with the issues.” Through their efforts, Cole, Fleming, and Varma are all spreading that influence across Montreal.
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Wednesday, April 9, 2014 |
arts & entertainment
| Curiosity delivers.
“Wait for it” no more: How I Met Your Mother gives its answer in lackluster last gasp
Disregarded character development and disproportionate groundwork throughout season dooms series finale Esther Vinarov Contributor
SPOILER ALERT There are any number of ways to begin a review of the emotional How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) finale, just as I believe there were several different tracks the writers could have chosen to cap off such a series. I was in no state to start writing until roughly 48 hours had passed since the episode had aired but after mulling it over I’ve made some personal reconciliations, as I hope many fellow HIMYM fans have done as well. I did not like how the show ended. The most disappointing aspect of the entire finale was that it was based off an idea from eight years ago. For a show so grounded in character development, this con-
clusion is absolutely ridiculous and reductive. Sticking to an eight-yearold script is why we ended up witnessing so many shocking turns in the finale. I had hoped and expected that the creators would have been flexible enough with the ending to let it evolve along with the characters, instead of forcing the gang to subscribe to a pre-written fate that seems so ill-fitting to their situations by 2014. On a more technical level, one of the major flaws of this last season was an issue in temporality. While HIMYM has done an excellent job in the past with its use of flashbacks, flash-forwards, pauses, fast-forwards, and more, I don’t think the creators used their last moments effectively. The reason a lot of us can’t get on board with the Ted-and-Robin (Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders) reunion is because, on our television
screens, Ted’s wife a.k.a. “the mother” had only died 10 minutes before we were supposed to be cheering Ted on in his next conquest. It all boils down to a timing problem: it can take years to progress through the stages of grief—and no doubt Ted and his kids had time to go through all five—but the HIMYM audience had barely that many seconds to process it all before we were expected to accept Ted’s umpteenth ‘re-return’ to Robin. We didn’t have that time, and that’s a large part of why there’s been so much backlash from fans towards the finale. Season 9 should have spent a fraction of the time that it did on Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) and Robin’s destined-to-fail wedding, and focused much more on Ted and Tracy (Cristin Milioti). One of the show’s best features was its ability to make us fall in love with
the mother in spite of her minimal screen-time, but we needed to see much more development of her relationship with Ted, and we certainly needed more than half a dozen family photos to commemorate her. On that note, many people claim that it was never about the mother or how Ted met her—it was about his journey there. In an interview with Vulture, Radnor elegantly defended the ending: “I thought the title of the show was always a bit of a fake-out. It was more of a hook to hang the thing on. Really it was more about the crazy adventures and these are the lessons I had to learn before I met your mother.” He certainly has a point, but it doesn’t change the fact that by virtue of the title alone, the audience had a massively different type of emotional investment in the mother than
any of the characters on the show, and I don’t think it was wrong for fans to expect the creators to respect those emotions. So I’d like to propose a thought experiment—what if the show had been named something banal and unassuming, like Friends. It would have had the same entertainment factor; we would have learned the same lessons and grown to love the same characters. Though the finale was shocking and heart-wrenching, it was also ironically unimportant—separate from the great television the rest of the show largely was. For those who were pleased with the finale, I’m glad. For those who weren’t, I hope you can still look back and appreciate those gloriously funny, well-written first earlier seasons without too many bittersweet feelings. In any event, here’s to a truly legendary show.
Soaking up the scenic route with Boots & Scoops McGill alumni duo’s “Mondays in the Bishi” brings rap to the roads of Montreal
Chloé Baruffa Contributor If Jeremy “Boots” Welik and Matthew “Scoops” Chaima took away anything from their McGill experience, it’s that Mondays always suck. However, the cheerful duo refused to simply accept the morose atmosphere surrounding the doomed day—in their weekly webbased series “Mondays in the Bishi,” they defeat the gloom with humour and energetic rap music. When I met the two friends on a grey Montreal version of a spring day, their passionate recount of the Boots & Scoops experience similarly brightened my afternoon. “It was over a phone call that the idea of ‘Mondays in the Bishi’ came to us,” Welik said. “We used to have a lot of ideas but never jumped in to do it. When we came up with the concept, we just ran [with it] and [dove] in.” Friends since Grade 6, Welik and Chaima realized early on that they shared the interests of satirical humour and rap, which is why it’s no surprise that they combined these passions and showcased them with the opportunity that a web channel provides.
Since then, the two Montrealers have been meeting every Monday in Chaima’s Mitsubishi to record their clips—hence, “Mondays in the Bishi.” From the seats of the small car they blindly explore the city while rapping and casually joking with occasional guest performers. With an 11-episode first season on the books and a second season currently in progress, Boots & Scoop’s self-imposed frenetic rhythm of production requires a constant stream of creativity combined with enough discipline to see it to fruition. However, as both artists point out, such a desire for relentless artistic creativity becomes a real struggle when added to their full time job schedule: Chaima works in a startup simulating financial trading and Welik in a painting enterprise. “There have been times when one of us is writing in the car while we are filming and still trying to finish up the track,” Chaima admits jokingly. Yet, it’s this rawness and unpredictability which characterizes “Mondays in the Bishi.” Boots & Scoops’ refreshing spontaneity allows the audience to connect with the artists.
“It’s all unscripted, it’s just about how we feel that day,” says Welik. “Through the episodes, we have become more relaxed in the car, so we are just our everyday selves in front of the camera.” They also have a distinct chemistry that shows up on-screen. “We met in elementary school and were good friends throughout high school,” begins Welik. “But it was really a ‘frenemies’ relationship, with 60 per cent hate and 40 per cent [love].” This constant oscillation between love and playful hate is at the core of their musical project and highly contributes to the clips’ dynamism. As they kick each other off the Bishi or battle through ingenious verses, Welik and Chaima’s varied yet complementary personalities clash in an effusion of artistic production. On one hand, Welik is the straightforward, nice, and amusingly dressed member of the duo. “I try to be very descriptive,” says Welik. “What I want is to get the message across, as simply as possible in order to depict a girl or an emotion that I experienced.” On the other hand, Chaima plays the channel’s mysterious and
Chaima and Welik hanging by the Bishi. (Photo courtesy of Boots & Scoops) lyrical Don Juan. “Lately, I have been trying to focus on finding melodies and flows,” explains Chaima. “When I started out, I was only about clever lines. The first one that comes to my head right now is a line that goes “I go harder than a day-old baguette.” Looking at the future, the young artists have plenty new ideas regarding the evolution of “Mondays in the Bishi.” “We are thinking, for next year, [about] creating a crowdfunding platform to finance a road trip across Canada [in] the Bishi,” says Chaima. “To have the monetary capacity to make the project evolve.” More importantly, they just announced plans to release their first EP Mirage, which comes out this
summer and should emphasize the musical side of the artists’ project while enlarging the scope of their audience. Mirage may usher in a bright future for Boots & Scoops, but nevertheless, the young men stress that fame will not change their style. “We will make sure to keep our raw personalities shining through the EP,” Chaima said. “We are thinking of introducing some spoken transitions, but anyways our songs will reflect the style we have always had.” I don’t doubt the duo’s humility. After chatting with them, it’s safe to assume that what they proclaimed in the second episode ever of “Mondays in the Bishi” still applies: “We still goin’ crazy over three likes and a comment.”
Curiosity delivers. |
arts & entertainment
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Montreal’s summer festival quartet
DEEP CUTS
Uncovering the hidden gems in today’s music
Four festivals to look out for—aside from Osheaga
Morgan Alexander Contributor With the year winding down and the snow begrudgingly beginning to melt, thoughts of a long-awaited summer have begun to emerge. For those of us staying in Montreal over the break, it’s about time to start getting pumped for all the amazing musical happenings in the city, from weekly Tam-tams to Osheaga. Specifically though, there’s a diverse selection of festivals taking place in Montreal all throughout the summer, and being young and adventurous, it’s arguably our job to attend every single one.
FrancoFolies Montreal Interested in embracing Montreal’s francophone roots? FrancoFolies Montreal will be returning this summer as the largest French music festival in the world. Featuring the likes of Oxmo Puccino and Stromae in multiple venues—Bell Centre, Club Soda, and then some—this is one of those events where you have no excuse not to see at least one performer, particularly when you note that free concerts are included in the festival. Going on 26 years running, FrancoFolies is guaranteed to impress and take over the general Montreal area with the influx of francophones from around the world arriving to see their favourite artists. FrancoFolies Montreal will run from June 12-June 22, prices
don’t take their word for it; attend the Jazz festival along with every single other event in the Montreal area, funds permitting. The festival has been around for over three decades and features more than 3,000 artists from 30 countries. In addition, it will be staging two-thirds of the performances as free outdoor concerts. It’s free jazz at your fingertips, all you have to do is walk to the venues. Festival International De Jazz De Montreal will run from June 26 to July 6, prices and locations vary.
Montreal Electronic Groove Montreal Chamber Music If you get that longing feelFestival ing during the summer for schoolFor the classical leanings in year raves, don’t worry! Montreal all of us young Electronique adventurers, Groove Music there’s the 19th F e s t i v a l annual Festi(MEG) is here val Musique De to provide you Chambre Monwith non-stop treal. Starting in electronic May, it’s a laidacts all over back first step tothe Montreal wards smoothly area. If you’re integrating yourfeeling parself into the sumticularly vigmer music mood. orous, they’ve In the past, this teamed up festival has feawith Osheaga tured some of the to give you greatest classian all-encal artists from compassing, all around the There’s something for everyone this summer. (www.destination360.com) p o t e n t i a l l y world, including life changing Jon Vickers and Oliver Jones, and locations vary. concert experience. It’s too early while also establishing itself as to know the full lineup for this a stepping-stone for rising mu- Montreal International year’s instalment, but previous sicians, notably 18-year-old Ca- Jazz Festival festivals have showcased Electric nadian pianist Jan Lisecki. The One of the biggest music Rescue and DJ Championship. festival was created to promote festivals this summer in Mon- What’s fun about MEG is that Montreal as the cultural capital treal is the Festival Internation- although the main festival begins of North America, and its orga- al de Jazz de Montreal; it’s the at the end of July, they showcase nizers are dedicated to maintain- largest Jazz festival in the world electronic artists all year long. ing the high standard upon which and has gained a reputation for Just like with the previous two it was founded. Taking place over being absolutely amazing and festivals, there are multiple ven18 days, the festival will feature only getting better each year. ues throughout Montreal featura wide variety of classical musi- Main attractions at its 2014 in- ing various electronic artists; cians from five violin concertos stalment include Jordan Officer, with or without Osheaga stealing to Grammy-winning Broadway Beck, and Buddy Guy; but just the summer spotlight, this is an singer Kurt Elling. as with FrancoFolies, the festival event you don’t want to skip. Le Festival Musique De includes tons of artists performMontreal Festival ElectronChambre Montreal will run at St. ing at multiple venues. The New ique Groove will run from July George’s Church from May 8-31, York Times dubbed this one as 24–August 2, prices and locaticket prices vary. “The king of Montreal’s assorted tions vary. summer cultural festivals”—but
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Compiled by Marlee Vinegar Latch (Acoustic) Artist: Sam Smith Album: Nirvana Released: October 4, 2013
The acoustic, sans-Disclosure version of Latch should come with an advisory to pack tissues. Stripped of the synthesizers and special effects, listeners are left with just Smith’s quivering voice, the melody of the piano, a heart-wrenching violin, and raw emotion. It showcases Smith’s true vocal prowess as he flows flawlessly from soft and gentle tones to an emphatic falsetto. The violin just as effectively reflects the vulnerability of falling desperately in love that’s described in the lyrics. Honestly, just forget the Disclosure version, this one’s on a whole other level.
Black Orchid Artist: The Souljazz Orchestra Album: Inner Fire Released: February 25, 2014
If you crossed a track from legendary beatmaker Nujabes with one from McGill’s very own Busty & the Bass, the result would probably look a lot like “Black Orchid.” With a robust horns section leading the way, the six-piece Ottawa-based ensemble delivers a laid-back masterpiece that begs to have someone rapping overtop of it—until you realize that the instrumental solos are so perfect that it’s hard to justify changing anything about the song at all.
Hero Artist: Frank Ocean, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Diplo Album: N/A Released: March 10, 2014
The unlikely collaboration of Clash singer/guitarist Mick Jones and bassist Paul Simonon; singer Frank Ocean; and producer Diplo is nothing short of absolutely brilliant. “Hero” is a mellow, soulful, and inspiring track. Each moment brings something unique stylistically, from the retro crooning by Ocean that opens the song, to an uplifting feature from the West Los Angeles Children’s Choir. Clocking in at a relatively brisk 2:46, you’re left wishing it didn’t have to end so abruptly.
Drive-By Buddy Artist: Black Lips Album: Underneath the Rainbow Released: March 18, 2014
“Drive-By Buddy” sounds like it could be off of one of your parents’ early Beatles or Monkees albums—that is, until the vocals set in. The opening track off of Underneath the Rainbow, “Drive-By Buddy” has an upbeat rockabilly vibe in its instrumentals that reflects their southern roots, but with a signature garage-punk roughness. It marries the old with the new, the squeaky-clean and the downright dirty, to create a song that makes you want to kick back a cold one while you’re “hangin’ on a broken T-bird hood.”
SPORTS NBA lottery
Traditionally, ‘tanking’ has been defined as teams losing games on purpose—either through a decimated roster or the benching of good players— in order to obtain a higher draft pick in the NBA Lottery system. The issue of tanking in the NBA has been a hot topic this season, with a terrible Eastern Conference ruining the quality of play in the league. Franchises are salivating at the thought of the loaded 2014 draft class—touted as one of the best in league history. The NBA itself has publicly recognized the issue this year, as losing teams have been thought to bring in less revenue and lower the overall enter-
tainment value of the league. An alternative solution to the Lottery—which has been accused of rewarding losing teams—has been dubbed “The Wheel,” an option which emerged earlier this year in which a yearly drafting order is set in advance. However, the proposed solution has been widely criticized for giving college players the power to wait for a preferred team’s no. 1 overall draft year, thus potentially further penalizing smaller market teams. This week, Trib Sports weighs in on our thoughts on the NBA Lottery and tanking, and whether or not there are any acceptable solutions for the league to adopt.
A matter of incentive Even if you aren’t a Philadelphia 76ers fan, there’s not a soul who can take pleasure in a 26-game losing streak. Schadenfreude has its limits. For a game that already produces the most predictable outcomes out of the “Big Four” North American sports, tanking
is threatening to turn the NBA regular season into a glorified dress rehearsal for the playoffs from the first tip-off. Teams such as the Phoenix Suns will always be around to surprise fans, but the conference finals are all but set in stone. Nobody can blame the bottom-feeders
of the league for tailoring their “strategy” to the incentive system provided by the NBA. Incentive is the keyword here. A 25 per cent shot at the first overall pick doesn’t seem juicy enough to entice teams to aim for the worst record, but at the very least it can give an
otherwise depressing season a concrete long-term goal. In other words, it’s a great way to reassure a restless fan base. The chance of landing the first pick was actually increased to its present odds from 16.7 per cent, after the Orlando Magic somehow won the 1993
NBA draft lottery after barely missing the playoffs in the previous season. If the NBA were to revert to the pre-1993 system—or even further lower the odds 10 per cent—front offices wouldn’t find it so easy to sell tanking as a feasible strategy. —Elie Waitzer
ized to encourage good management and effective basketball. The NBA should raise salary caps for non-playoff teams who meet certain defensive and offensive targets, respectively. For example, the best five non-playoff teams in
the league by means of point differential should have a salary cap increase for the following year, thus rewarding their better play. This would allow other teams greater flexibility in the team building process rather than solely relying on
the draft, a hit and miss endeavour. The NBA should be encouraging a more efficient and winning style of basketball by using the salary cap to increase incentives for teams to win. —Zikomo Smith
to get a top three pick, drafting a franchise player is no sure thing. Since 2004, four players taken in the top three of the draft have turned into superstars, while about 20 per cent of those picks have been considered a bust. The San Antonio Spurs turned the 1997 first overall pick into almost
two decades of success, while teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers consistently find themselves in the lottery, despite having had four top-five picks in the past three years. Tanking might seem like a good strategy, but with the way the lottery is set up alongside the chances of drafting a
bust, it is clear that losing in the present doesn’t guarantee future success. The NBA doesn’t need to prevent teams from tanking, because good organizations know that losing intentionally is never a good idea. —Aaron Rose
proposed by ESPN’s Bill Simmons. These franchises would play in a single elimination tournament akin to the NCAA Tournament for the right to the highest draft pick in the upcoming entry draft. The winner of the three round tournament would receive the first
overall pick, while the runnerup would pick second. For the teams who got knocked out in the semifinals, the franchise with the worse record would get the third pick while the other gets the fourth. Finally, teams that were eliminated in the first round, would receive
picks five to eight based inversely on record. This would incentivize against having DLeague talent on an NBA roster, while giving downtrodden fan bases a more accessible form of hope in a win-or-gohome tournament.
Rewarding the efficient According to new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, the effectiveness of a draft pick is dependent on the competency of a franchise’s management—not the talent of the drafted player. This is a logical position given that NBA teams
only get two draft picks allotted to them. No matter how talented the player, a team’s system has the greatest impact on the win totals—just ask Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Teams must be incentiv-
Strategy is strategy If you ask any die-hard fan if they’d rather see their team finish just out of the playoffs or in dead last, you can rest assured they’ll almost always answer with the latter. While many find tanking unethical, the reality is that tanking is merely a strategy to position yourself at the top of the
draft in hopes of accumulating assets for future success. Over the past 10 years, the NBA’s worst team has only received the no. 1 overall pick once, while teams outside of the bottom three have received the highly coveted pick a surprising seven times. For teams who are lucky enough
March Madness in the Nba Success in the NBA—real success, the kind that is only achieved by winning a championship—is only tasted by a select few franchises. The other organizations, the metaphorical 99 per cent, have turned to tanking with mixed results. To fix the issue, new
NBA commissioner Adam Silver should create an exciting way to punish reward poor team-building. One such idea would be to host a parallel post-season for the eight worst teams in the league by record, a spin-off on the ‘Entertaining as Hell Tournament’
—Mayaz Alam
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Curiosity delivers. |
10
sports
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
things The 2014
you didn’t
know about
World Cup by Zikomo Smith
Twelve different cities will host matches this year, the most of any World Cup to date. The cities are all state capitals, which means that this World Cup will be one of the most evenly-distributed events across Brazil. For the purposes of economic development, it is important that the Borth, which is overlooked compared to the richer southern and coastal areas, will be sharing in the glories of this competition. Three million Brazilians are estimated to be flying between locations due to the distance between cities. On top of this, an estimated 600,000 foreigners will be travelling to the tournament. However, the airport infrastructure seems to be lagging behind, as 10 of the terminals required will not have the requisite upgrades in time for the start of the tournament.
Brazil has been tipped by bookmakers as favourites heading into the tournament. The country’s supremely talented squad—with the likes of Neymar, Oscar, and Thiago Silva—will be looking to break the 12 year absence of a non-european team from the title match. Germany, Argentina, and Spain have the next best odds to win. Will either Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi establish themselves as the best player in the world? Both have enjoyed success with their national sides; Ronaldo was impeccable in Portugal’s run to the 2012 Euro semi-finals, and Messi has scored an impressive 37 goals in 84 games for Argentina. However, the debate still rages as to who is better and this time, the whole world is watching, just as it did four years ago. A team to watch is Belgium and their new golden generation of players. They posses one of the most talented starting lineups with intriguing players at every position group. Watch out for the imposing Vincent Kompany on defence, the skillful Eden Hazard in the middle, and the power of Romelu Lukaku up front. Expect them to become the casual fan’s favourite team.
Seven-hundred million people tuned into the 2010 World Cup Final. In many European countries it was the highest-rated soccer game of all time. Indeed, the cumulative audience for the 2006 World Cup was 26.29 billion views. In 2014, the World Cup will be broadcasted to nearly 200 nations, further entrenching soccer as the sport of the world. This will be the first World Cup with goal-line technology and vanishing spray to help referees. England was wrongly denied a goal against Germany in the last 16 of the 2010 World Cup, and FIFA has decided to implement goal-line technology to prevent such embarrassments from happening in future FIFA events. Vanishing spray, which is already used by the MLS, will allow referees to mark the 10-yard line for teams defending free kicks. All of the participating nations have issued new jerseys. The £90 ($149.20) price tag on the England uniform has caused Prime Minister David Cameron to weigh in. Cue a minor national debate on whether Nike should focus on respecting the financial burden on fans or allow the free market to run its course.
Martlet Hockey wins its fourth national championship Winning the fourth National Championship in program history involved excitement, intrigue, and drama for the McGill Martlet ice hockey squad. Thirty-seven seconds into the second overtime frame, defenceman Brittany Fouracres put a slap shot into the back of net to put the Martlets on top against their archrival Montreal Carabins. For the Martlets, the victory meant revenge that was as cold as the ice they skated on— Montreal dethroned them from the top of the RSEQ the past two seasons and won the title last year. With Olympian Melodie Daoust returning to the fold, this dynasty is not stopping any time soon.
Rugby runs through RSEQ Eight straight was the name of the game for the Redmen rugby squad as they won their eighth consecutive RSEQ banner this past season. They emerged victorious over the Concordia Stingers—the most team other than the Redmen to win the RSEQ—in the final. Success on the field was not limited to the men this season, as the Martlets hoisted their own RSEQ banner. The program had previously disappointed in the conference semifinal, the ending spot for their previous five seasons. This season, however, the team reached new heights behind the speed and agility of a wildly talented backline, featuring CIS Player-of-the-Year Brianna Miller.
(Photo courtesy of flatpanelshd.com)
In 2013, demonstrations took place outside the Brasilia National Stadium to protest the exorbitant expenditure on the tournament. As a result, the Brazil government has pledged a $900 million investment in security forces for this summer. Whatever happens, one thing is certain: the soccer will be fantastic. Brazil has its most talented squad of the past decade; Germany boasts the best midfield in the world; Spain still plays a mesmerizing passing game and has a proven track record of success; Argentina is an offensive juggernaut; and Italy plays a suffocating style of defence, marshalled by the peerless Andrea Pirlo. There is an unparalleled amount of international quality in this era of soccer, and the winner will have justly proven themselves as the best team in the world.
Basketball RSEQ championships For the second time in as many seasons, both the McGill Martlets and Redmen basketball programs hoisted the RSEQ championship, this time on backto-back nights in Quebec City. For the Redmen, this year’s team was comprised almost entirely of underclassmen, while the Martlets returned a core group that had previously tasted championship success. The Redmen will return RSEQ Player-of-the-Year Vincent Dufort and all but one member of this year’s squad. The Martlets will lose Françoise Charest and Hélène Bibeau, two fifth-year seniors who provided skill, and poise. However, the team will return RSEQ Player-of-the-Year Mariam Sylla. With the systems in place and the coaching on point,
three straight conference championships is not out of the question. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif enters NFL draft Third-year McGill medical student, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, made national headlines this year, with extensive news coverage over his decision to commit to the NFL draft. Despite the Redmen football team’s disappointing season, Duvernay-Tardif impressed recruiters from the CFL—in which he was a projected no. 1 overall pick—as well as the NFL. NFL.com has the 23-year-old linebacker going in the third-to-fourth round of the draft, with numerous teams already expressing interest in him. Duvernay-Tardif was also awarded the Forbes Trophy this year by McGill Athletics, given to the male athlete who has dem-
onstrated the most academic and athletic success. He is also one of the first CIS athletes to be featured in Sports Illustrated (March 24, 2014). Jessica Porfilio leads Martlets to RSEQ cross-country championship The McGill Martlets extended their championship streak to four this season, after Jessica Porfilio led the squad to another cross-country banner. The thirdyear nursing student completed the championship race in 23:01.20, finishing in second place overall. Porfilio has steadily improved her performance from her rookie year, and will be key once more in helping the Martlets contend for the championship next season.
It’s rare for a freshman to crack Redmen basketball Head Coach Dave DeAveiro’s lineup—never mind become a starter. But Dele Ogundokun did just that while becoming a key component of a Redmen team that won its second consecutive RSEQ Championship and finished seventh at Nationals. Ogundokun highlighted DeAveiro’s impressive recruiting class. Listed at 6’3”, Ogundokun was inserted into the starting lineup from the regular season tip-off. The decision paid off—the freshman guard poured in 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds in his RSEQ debut. Ogundokun continued to roll, hitting double figures in scoring in seven of his first 12 starts. Safe to say, DeAveiro trusted his rookie shooting guard, as Ogundukun finished only behind Redmen star Vincent Dufort in minutes, averaging 30.9 per game. He also impressed with his shooting range throughout the season, leading the team at a scorching 43.8 per cent from deep. u n g dokun Dele O The freshman also played a significant role in the Redmen’s second consecutive RSEQ title bid. Ogundokun scored 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds against Laval in the semifinal, and then played a key 35 minutes in the RSEQ Championship. For a player that was so instrumental in McGill’s conference success, Ogundokun was quiet during Nationals, scoring just seven points in the opener before being held scoreless in 19 minutes against Saskatchewan. The rookie will undoubtedly take his first CIS Championship performance as a learning experience. After seeing the enormous contributions he has made already for the program, the stage does not seem too bright for him. With Simon Bibeau graduating, Ogundokun will have even more responsibility in the backcourt during his sophomore year. Alongside Vincent Dufort, the Redmen have a talented duo to make the RSEQ and CIS take notice next season.
At the 2014 CIS Swimming National Championships, Simone Cseplo, a freshman from Toronto, Ontario, helped break five school records while also earning McGill’s only medal of the year: a silver in the 50m backstroke (28.83). Following the tournament, Cseplo was named an All-Canadian, and was most recently named the MVP of the Martlet swimming team. Cseplo, a psychology major, was a driving force behind the Martlets’ successes, swimming leadoff in the 4x100m freestyle (3:47.93), the 4x200m freestyle (8:12.04), and the 4x100m medley relay (4:13.81). Multiple golds in the regular season are just the start for the freshman, as she looks to have a promising career in her future as a Martlet. Look for Cseplo and Katie Caldwell—last year’s RSEQ Rookie-of-the-Year and Swimmer-of-the-Year— to form a formidable duo that pioneers a new generation of McGill swimming that challenges the Montreal Carabins for bragging rights in the conference.
Katia Clement-Heydra, a industrial relations senior, terrorized the hockey RSEQ and the rest of the CIS all year. She is no stranger to success—last season she finished second in the CIS scoring race and was a second team All-Canadian. The 24-year-old was directly involved in 49.4 per cent of the Martlets’ goals. She scored 13 goals in 20 games during the regular season, and assisted 27 more. Not only content with the RSEQ scoring title and being the second most prolific scorer in the nation, Clement-Heydra also claimed the Brodrick Trophy for Player-of-the-Year, becoming the fourth Martlet in n e t m h e eydr cl a Katia history to do so. In addition, the senior centre merited RSEQ All-Conference and CIS All-Canadian honours, while also winning the RSEQ Player-of-theYear—an impressive haul that adds to an already stocked trophy cabinet. However, Clement-Heydra no doubt most relished co-captaining her team to the 2014 edition of the CIS National Championships. She validated her status as a big game performer, contributing four goals and three assists in the tournament. Her veteran presence and ability to come through in the clutch reassured the Martlets in a double-overtime victory over their fierce rivals, the Montreal Carabins. Finally, Clement-Heydra’s phenomenal play also had an international flavour. She was the second highest scorer at the FISU Winter Universiade hockey tournament in Italy last December, and helped Canada win gold with her 18 points in seven games.
Simone cseplo
sports
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
OUA East Defenceman-of-the-Year, CIS Defenceman-of-the-Year, three-time Academic All-Canadian, and Richard W. Pound awardwinner for proficiency and leadership are just some of the titles by which to call Redmen hockey’s Ryan McKiernan. The senior defenceman was an outstanding leader for the Redmen this season, and was an even better player on the ice. He led the squad in scoring with 37 points, a number that led all CIS defencemen—an astounding feat for a blueliner. R y a n M CK I E R N A N As one of the few veterans on the squad, the alternate captain was a pillar of consistency for the Redmen, either scoring or assisting on 26.7 per cent of all of the team’s goals, good for second on the OUA points list. On the ice, McKiernan is known for his ability to quarterback the power-play, while also being a key stopper on the penalty-killing squad—all these skills can be attributed to his smooth skating and exemplary puck-movement. He also made sure to set the tone physically without ending up in the penalty box, amassing only 22 penalty minutes the entire season. Over his career, McKiernan, a native of White Plains, New York, has blossomed into the epitome of what a student-athlete should be. This season, his on-ice play took the rest of the OUA by storm, and he was central to McGill’s success.
(Christine Chang / McGill Tribune)
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Curiosity delivers. |
(Alexandra Allaire/ McGill Tribune)
The 2012-2013 season will go down as something of an anomaly in the history books for the McGill Redmen hockey program. For most teams a .600 winning percentage and an appearance in the playoffs would be nothing to scoff at. The Redmen aren’t most teams. Sandwiched around that season is the University Cup-winning team of 2011-2012 and this year’s squad, which won the OUA East, and was seconds away from playing in the title game at the CIS National Championships. This season, the Redmen scored 38 more goals, notched 72 more assists, had a higher penalty kill and power play percentage, and a lower REDMEN HOCKEY goals against average than the year beforew. The most telling statistic though is their winning percentage, a robust .750, which sits only one game lower than the historic 2011-2012 season. No matter how it’s put, the squad has improved monumentally from the previous season, silencing any doubters who thought that Head Coach Kelly Nobes had lost his magic touch in the process. The main driving force behind the turnaround began squarely with two newcomers, forward Cedric McNicoll and netminder Jacob Gervais-Chouinard. Although they are technically CIS rookies, they brought with them a wealth of experience, having both previously played in the AHL. McNicoll led the team in goals this season and was second in assists while garnering an OUA East all-conference honour, while Gervais-Chouinard stonewalled opponents during the playoffs, including a 52-save performance in a 3-2 double-overtime loss to the Alberta Golden Bears at the 2014 University Cup. There was also considerable improvement from the returning group of sophomores, as four of the team’s top scorers were in their second year. With the performance that the Redmen had this year, and the bevy of players they have returning—only five players are in their fourth or fifth year of eligibility—it’s guaranteed that no one will be sleeping on them next year.
(Alexandra Allaire / McGill Tribune)
The Redmen captured their eighth consecutive RSEQ championship this season after defeating the Concordia Stingers 16-6 at Molson Stadium. This year was McGill’s thirteenth consecutive appearance in the championship match, continuing a decade-plus era of excellence. McGill was far and away the best team in the conference this year, posting an average win margin of 16.9 points, including a 43-3 trouncing of Sherbrooke on Oct. 10, 2013. The Redmen finished the year atop the conference with a 7-1 regular season record, led by senior RUGBY fullback Cameron Perrin. Perrin capped off the year with eight points in the team’s championship game after posting nine points in the semifinal game against the Montreal Carabins. The team will lose seniors Perrin, Patrick Mulherin Greville, Marc Webster, Joshua Blair, and Noah Roberts to graduation, leaving a roster of rookies and sophomores to lead next season’s team. In order to build upon this season’s success, the team will need to rely upon McGill’s excellent coaching staff and use this year’s playoff experience to their advantage. Expect the Redmen to compete for the championship once again next season.
Curiosity delivers. |
sports
| Wednesday, April 9, 2014
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Losing two thirds of his 2012-2013 RSEQ Championship team—including three of his five starters—was just another challenge for Redmen Basketball Head Coach David DeAveiro. DeAveiro started the 2013-2014 season with a squad made up of almost entirely freshmen. The 48-year-old coach not only led his team to a perfect record at home, but led his young squad past the Bishop’s Gaiters to clinch his second consecutive RSEQ Championship in only his fourth year at the helm. The Redmen consistently found themselves at the bottom of the RSEQ conference before the Ottawa native came to McGill in May 2009. With DeAveiro behind the bench, the 2009-2010 season began a new era of McGill basketball. In DAVID DeAveiro March 2013, the Redmen captured the school’s first RSEQ Championship since 1986, with a narrow 77-74 victory over the Bishop’s Gaiters. This season, the Redmen led the conference in scoring, and DeAveiro stressed the importance of ball movement and playing as a team. His young team responded accordingly with the highest assist average in the country. Despite McGill’s undersized roster, DeAveiro emphasized rebounding, resulting in the Redmen leading the country on the glass with just over 44 rebounds a game. However, it was on the defensive side of the ball where DeAveiro’s exceptional coaching really presented itself. He made sure the entire team—including the numerous newcomers—bought into his rigorous defensive system by preaching communication, trust, and accountability. The Redmen boasted one of the country’s stingiest defences, allowing just over 62 points per game by suffocating opposing offences using a pressure man-to-man scheme. The future looks bright for McGill basketball with DeAveiro leading the way, as the team expects to return all but one player on their 2014 RSEQ Championship squad. As long as the players continue to buy into DeAveiro’s system, McGill can expect to boast one of the country’s top basketball programs.
(mcgillathletics.com)
(Keith Minchin / St.Thomas University Athletics)
The McGill Martlet ice hockey team returned to glory this season, winning the team’s fourth CIS National Championship over the cross-town rival Montreal Carabins. The Martlets had been knocked out of championship contention in the past two seasons by the Carabins before taking home the trophy this year after a 5-4 regular season record against Montreal. Furthermore, McGill captured its tenth consecutive RSEQ title after finishing with an 18-2 conference record. Led by the power trio of Katia Clement-Heydra, Leslie Oles, and Gabrielle Davidson, the Martlets also hockey recorded many individual records. Beyond being named w Stephen Tournament MVP in the championship series against Matthe s Montreal, Davidson was the nation’s top goal-scorer with 28 goals, as well as third-overall in points scored, with 40. Senior goalie Andrea Weckman also topped the country’s leaderboards, posting the CIS top win percentage of .917. Weckman’s 1.25 goals against average (GAA) was fourth in the nation. The Martlets’ dominance this year should continue in the seasons to come. Although the team is losing key seniors Weckman, Michelle Daigneault, Chelsey Saunders, and Darragh Hamilton to graduation, McGill has incredible depth moving forward. Sophomore goalie Taylor Hough was spectacular in the playoffs, entering the starting lineup for the Martlets in the team’s championship victory. In addition, Olympic gold-medalist Melodie Daoust will be returning to the team, adding her stick to an already talented Martlet squad. Look for McGill to continue dominating the women’s ice hockey scene in the years to come.
(mcgillathletics.com)
The 43-year-old Matthew Stephens led the Martlet rugby team to its first ever RSEQ Championship over the Concordia Stingers in his first year as head coach. A year removed from a heartbreaking semifinal loss to the Stingers, the reeling Martlets cast out for a coach who could bring the experience and work ethic necessary to win. The team found its answer in Stephens. A native of Beaconsfield, Quebec, Stephens has been coaching since 1992 — and his achievements speak for themselves. After guiding the Quebec national women’s team to two National Championships, Stephens went on to serve as the assistant head coach of the Canadian national senior women’s team from 2003-2006, helping the squad to an w Stephen impressive fourth-place finish in the 2006 World Cup. Matthe s There was no questioning the talent of the Martlet squad coming into the season. Despite its disappointing finish, the team posted the best point differential in the league in 2012, with the majority of the roster set to return. After failing to put a single point on the board in the first exhibition match of the season, Stephens preached hard work and patience, slowly instilling his brand of rugby into the team: a free-flowing style of play designed to take advantage of the strength, speed, and skill of its backline. The results were immediate; the Martlets opened the regular season with a convincing 41-12 win over Sherbrooke. After a close loss to Concordia in the Drummond Cup, the Martlets rattled off a six-game ert, winning streak—including a 109-5 blowout over Bishop’s—en route to capturing the RSEQ title. amp aitzer. L n e Despite finishing just short of the podium at the CIS tournament, the Martlets have lie W Stev am, mith, E l established themselves as a rising force in the province. With Stephens at A z oS aya the helm, the future looks bright for Martlet rugby. y M e, Zikom b d pile Ros Com Aaron , i Lu Rem
(flickr.com)
SPORTS | 32
MIDTERM — BIOL 202 2048, SSMOODents 0
Kevin Lent Unpaid Intern
Out of the Park
The struggles of Olympic stadium
Olympic Park sits northeast of the downtown core and is tucked away on the edge of Viauville, right by Pie-IX station. The surrounding area is mostly residential, with a few stores sprinkled here and there, and main streets are often four lanes wide. There are very few attractions drawing crowds to the area beyond the park, making foot traffic light. It was nearly 40 years ago that Montreal played host to the XXI Olympiad—the first ever held in Canada. Nowadays, the legacy of those Olympic Games is disputed. The Games themselves were largely successful, but once the flame was extinguished, massive debt that lingered made many taxpayers wonder whether it was all worth it. Over the years, many of the venues have either begun to serve a new purpose or have been sold. The Velodrome, which played host to indoor cycling and judo events, later became the Biodome. Maurice Richard Arena, built to house Olympic boxing and wrestling, is now one of the city’s many ice rinks. The Olympic Village was sold in 1998 and is currently used as office space. Olympic Stadium, however, once the crown jewel of the Games, remains empty on most nights. Its high cost, rough condition, and slim usage have made it a sticking point for those who label the 1976 games a failure. The “Big O,” as it is nicknamed, will play host to just three events this month: two soccer matches and a monster truck rally. The stadium is closed during the winter months due to safety concerns involving snow build-up on its roof. In the early days of the Montreal Expos—the original tenants of the venue who later moved away in 2004—the stadium gained a reputation as being one of the loudest in professional sports. These days, with no team to call its own or fans to fill the seats, it remains silent. The tower at its north base, the tallest inclined tower in the
world, is typically busier than the stadium itself, providing a view of both Olympic Park and Montreal’s downtown. In 2012, after 35 years of sitting idle, the Esplanade just outside the stadium was overhauled and is now home to a skating rink in the winter and various events during the warmer months. Despite the many efforts to make Olympic Stadium an attractive destination again, it seems destined to remain a burden rather than a blessing for the city of Montreal. “The Montreal Olympics can no more have a deficit, than a man can have a baby,” Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau infamously proclaimed when the city was awarded the games. Drapeau, however, was clearly mistaken, as various complications and worker strikes led to skyrocketing construction costs. For many cities vying for future Olympic Games, the 1976 Olympics have become a cautionary tale of sorts; it wasn’t until December of 2006 that Montreal was able to finally pay off its $1.5 billion Olympic debt. The final price tag was drastically higher than original predictions, and the Olympics nearly bankrupted the city. Olympic Stadium even earned the tongue-in-cheek nickname, “The Big Owe.” In the end, a large portion of the debt was paid off using revenue from a tobacco tax. French architect Roger Taillibert designed nearly all the venues in Olympic Park, including Olympic Stadium, but was unapologetic about rising costs in the years prior to the games. “Why should we recover money spent on public facilities?” Taillibert told the CBC in an interview before the games. “They are public facilities. It’s like a highway—it’s a need for the community. A hospital doesn’t have to recover its money, does it?” Unlike a hospital, Olympic Stadium has done very little to truly help the public. Initial estimates for its cost were around
$150-200 million, but when construction was finally completed in 1976, the stadium had cost $770 million and the retractable roof had yet to be installed. Nowadays, the roof is the source of significant woe. It no longer opens, and the surface is damaged by constant rips, thus requiring regular repairs. In 2012, maintenance costs were around $400,000 for 1,240 rips, but those costs doubled in 2013, with the number of rips practically tripled. To date, Olympic Stadium has cost around $1.5 billion—a sum that continues to rise. These sorts of repairs would seem far less significant if the stadium was able to generate revenue, but that is not the case. The building hasn’t been the permanent home of any professional team since 2004, and musicians coming to town to play in front of large crowds now mostly end up at the Bell Centre or Parc Jean Drapeau. While the Montreal Alouettes and the Montreal Impact, the city’s CFL and MLS franchises respectively, both occasionally play big games at Olympic Stadium, it’s the Montreal Expos—who called the building home for 27 years—that are most often associated with the venue. The Expos’ move to Washington 10 years ago did not come as a surprise. For years attendance had been low, and the lack of a competitive team made it difficult to change that. On most nights, between 10,000-15,000 fans walked through the turnstiles at the cavernous Olympic Stadium. This was a far cry from the early 1980s, when the Expos would rank near the top of the National League in attendance each season. Many fans now see the 1994 MLB player strike as the beginning of the end. Crowds in the years prior to 1994 had begun to thin, but the Expos looked like a lock for the World Series that season. When the season was cancelled, Montreal held a 74-40
- Wyatt Fine-Gagné, Staff Writer
record and was six games ahead of the reigning NL Champion Atlanta Braves. Following the strike, several core players were either traded or not signed as part of cost-cutting measures, and fans were left wondering what could have been. It was clear that the Expos were on their way out by the time 2004 rolled around. In each of their final two seasons, the Expos played 22 home games in Puerto Rico and were dead last in attendance both years. In 2005, the Expos became the Washington Nationals, and Olympic Stadium was left empty. A decade after the Expos’ departure, baseball returned to Olympic Stadium in the form of two exhibition games between the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets last weekend. Blue Jays President Paul Beeston is hopeful about baseball returning to Montreal, but facilities remain an issue for him. “What they need is a stadium,” Beeston told Sportsnet last fall. “And if they get a new stadium, Montreal is a great baseball city.” With or without a baseball team, however, the city of Montreal sits at a crossroads with respect to Olympic Stadium—and it will need to make a decision soon. The stadium costs taxpayers more money each year, but delivers very few benefits. It will either need to be torn down or drastically overhauled, neither of which is attractive in fiscal terms. A new roof will clearly be needed if the facility is going to remain, but it will not come cheap. According to the CBC, a fixed roof would cost around $200 million, and a retractable roof at least $300 million. On the other side of the coin, razing the stadium, tower, rotunda, and surrounding parking lots will also be an expensive proposition. One feasibility report from 2009 estimated a cost of around $700 million, though the author of the report, Gino Lanni, has said that the margin of error used was high
enough that the findings could be skewed by a couple hundred million dollars. Those in favour of investing more money in the stadium need to be certain they aren’t committing to this due to the sunk costs– unrecoverable, wasted investments—that Olympic Stadium represents. Some will argue that Olympic Stadium is an integral part of the city’s history, which while valid, is not enough on its own. Other arguments in favour of refurbishing the stadium hinge on possibilities that are far from being certain: a new baseball team, or Canada hosting the 2026 World Cup. As long as these sources of future revenue remain uncertain, more money should not be poured into the stadium. Though it may hurt in the short term, demolishing Olympic Stadium is necessary for the city to finally move out from under the shadow of the 1976 games. Montreal has the opportunity to show former host cities in similar circumstances that it is never too late to fix an old mistake. Nearly 40 years after it first opened its doors, it is time for the city to say goodbye to Olympic Stadium.