The McGill Tribune Published by the Student’s Society o f McGill University
Vol. 2 N o. 21, Tuesday, February 22, 1983.
Plans for A thletic Facility D o o m ed
Athletes Meet Their Match by Brian Forsythe Todd Although the plans for the new athletics facilities (pictured at right) have been in the hands of the Students’ Society since early last sem ester, the future o f the facilities hangs in mid-air. Last year in a spring referendum students voted in favour of a proposal giving $4 mil lion towards the construction of a fieldhouse to update the dilapitated athletic facil ities on Pine A venue. The plans for the field-house include a 186m track, a swim ming pool, tennis courts, racquetball courts and squash courts, as well as other facilities. H ow ever, student representation on the committees to decide the future of the facili ties has, to date, failed to progress beyond the existing plans. Several important ques tions remain unanswered. The athletics referendum contained a clause which said that if no progress was made by 1984, the money would go into renovations. The present facilities, which date from the late 1930's, are judged by some to be the worst in Canada and a sorry state ment for a university of McGill’s size and prestige. The Project Group, in charge of translating the students’ desires for new facil ities into actual buildings, has yet to meet since the appointment of the student repre sentative, Bruce Hicks. Mr. Hicks has announced that he is planning to go to recently-appointed Group member Dean of
Students Stevenson to ask him to support a letter calling for a Project Group meeting. The letter is addressed to the head of the Project Group, Sam Kingdon, who is also director of Physical Resources. Hicks wishes to raise concerns voiced by athletic groups that the 186m track is not long enough and perhaps an additional expenditure of $1 million is needed to pro vide a cantilevered 200m track. Students are also concerned about the size of the tennis
courts planned for the field-house. As out lined in the plan it would appear that the courts will not be regulation in size. A users group has been set up to examine the project in greater detail and report their concerns to the Project Group and with the Athletics Department. With $4 million of an estimated $7 million building-cost coming from students directly, it is important that some student input be accepted. However, the University at this
S.I.R. Faces Setback The Student Initiated Referendum to make D aily fees optional was presented with an unpleasant surprise last week. Co-organizers Jeff Zimskind and Dave Ford thought that they had met the requirement for names facilitating presentation to the D a ily’s Chief Returning Officer, they discovered however that a substantial number of the names were missing. “Some of the signature sheets were stolen. We presently have only about 200 names”, said Zimskind. Monday (yesterday) is the deadline but we’re going to go all out now. We’ll be in the U nion and up in Residence on Thursday and Friday (last Thursday and Friday) to get the names we need. 1 still have confidence that we’ll make it”. Although the details of the heist are not known, obvious interests were being pro tected.
“1 don’t want to implicate anybody”, cau tioned Zimskind. “Some petitions that were full or nearly full that were handed out never made it back. Sheets that had been account ed for can somehow not be found”. When asked about the less-than-loving Valentine greeting in the Daily, Zimskind said, “well what do you think?” V. /. R. Passes First Test The petition to make D aily fees optional has finally been submitted. Briefly, it looked bleak for the organizers of the campaign as approximately 250-300 of the original signa tures collected in the first three days of the effort somehow disappeared. A strong effort over the last week however, resulted in a virtual avalanche of signatures which brought the total up to about 680, well above the 500 names required to bring the issue to referen dum.
Bill 111 by Joanne Bayly Benjie Trister (V.P. External), in a press release last week, expressed the “deep con cern of the Students’ Society with the unjust manner in which the Government of Quebec has handled the curfent contractual dispute with the members of the teaching-profes sion.” Students’ Society believes that this leg islation, Bill 111, is “contrary to both the Canadian Constitution and the Quebec Charter of Rights. The implementation of
such measures can only damage the quality of education in our schools, colleges and universities.” The press release, which urged the Gov ernment to resume negotiations with the striking teachers, was sent to Rene Levesque, Gerard Levesque, and Education Minister, Camille Laurin. Students’ Society, by means of this press release, is standing behind the. rights of teachers in Quebec.
The question itself involves amendments to the D aily constitution that would make paying of fees to the D aily optional rather than mandatory. This move, says Jeff Zims kind movement organizer, “would give the students indirect editorial control of the now autonomous D aily by signalling the D aily of their collective approval or disapproval.” Zimskind continued, “as it stands now, the D aily forces students to pay for what they (the D aily) want to print.” At this point, the petitions got to the D ai ly ’s Chief Returning Officer for a constitu tionality decision. This decision, if appealed, would bring the question to the D aily’s Judi cial Committee for a final ruling. If then approved, the proposition would be on the ballot as a referendum in the next Student Society Election in March. If.this point is reached, a simple majority of at least 15% of the student body would pass the question. On the issue of participation, Zimskind says,“It’s crucial that everyone vote - this is no time for apathy.” Art Beewald
Any references that may have been inter preted as referring to the M cG ill D aily in “Trib Columnists Attacked” in our last week’s issue, are purely coincidental. Tribune Staff
point appears to want to circumvent rather than work with students, says Hicks. The U niversity and the student body share a desire to see the athletics facilities built and yet no progress is made. What is the delay? Why can’t students and administration co operate to see that this collective goal is reached? These q uestions remain unans wered as time runs down on the game-clock for the new athletic facilities.
Students to Vote by Gregg Gibbons At the Students’ Society meeting on Wed nesday night it was decided that the question o f w hether M cG ill should rejoin ANEQ ( A ssociation N ationale des Etudiants du Québec) should be put to a referendum. Ear lier in the year McGill withdrew its member ship because, according to VP External Ben jie Trister, of ANEQ’s “inability to effec tively dissem inate inform ation, lack of financial regulations, and its limited mem bership.” The purpose of ANEQ is to repres ent as many of the students as possible, in both CEGEPs and universities, in relations between students and the government. But Trister stated that ANEQ’s main concern was the betterment of ANEQ interests. With its withdrawal, McGill hoped to prod ANEQ into becoming more representative of the students in Quebec.-Apparently this tactic worked. Since M cGill withdrew, ANEQ has becom e very vocal against government cutbacks in education, has pro vided more documentation in English, and has shown a willingness to change its voting structure to be more representative (accord ing to the number of students each member has). W hile M cGill was not a member of ANEQ, it tried to unify the students in Quebec. But, according to Trister, there is no
continued on page 6