The McGill Tribune Vol. 21 Issue 16

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Deconstructing Rambo III A & E

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M cGill's new soap opera F

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M cG ILL T R IB U N E

P u b lis h e d by the S t u d e n t s ’ S o c ie ty o f M c G ill U n i v e r s it y sin ce 1 9 8 0

T u e s d a y , J a n u a r y 15 2 0 0 2 I s s u e 16

The th rilla in M cG illa Neil Schnurbach

March 7, 2001 is a day which the McGill Redmen basketball team won’t soon forget. On that fateful evening, the Laval Rouge-etOr ended McGill’s best season in over a decade with an 82-72 playoff victory in Quebec City. Almost a full year later, the Redmen finally got a chance to exact some revenge on Saturday in front of a packed house at Donald Love Competition Hall. The team did not disappoint, scoring a 10088 victory over their archrivals from Laval, Canada’s fourth ranked team. All-conference guards Domen­ ico Marcario and Denburk Reid who had 20 and 19 points respec­ tively paced McGill, ranked sev­ enth in Canada. Captain Kirk Reid led the team with 21 points. “This was an important game for us,” said Captain Kirk who was 7 of 13 from the floor. “Last year they beat us all four times so we wanted to set the tone. It’s inter­ esting because last season we were always leading them at the half and then lost the games in the second half. This game we outplayed them down the stretch.” The Redmen didn’t merely outplay the Rouge-et-Or down the stretch. They dominated. With 5:48 to play in the sec­ ond half, Laval had their biggest lead of the game holding an 85-76 advantage. McGill’s exciting point guard Denburk Reid (no relation to Kirk) was not panicked and brought the ball up court very calmly. Using almost all of the shot clock and a beautifully executed screen by forward Frederic Bernard, Reid pulled up for a three and got nothing but net. That bas­ ket cut Laval’s lead to six. Reid ended the game with three three Please see REDMEN, page 17

ire they Engineering students or just drunk? Constructing a castle of Molson beers at Sno AP last Friday._________________________________________

Federal budget unfriendly to university students National security takes higher priority than oost-secondarv education Jean Mathews

The Canadian Alliance of Students’ Associations (CASA) increased the pressure on Finance Minister Paul Martin and Minister of Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) Jane Stewart to follow through on the Canadian government’s com­ mitment to alleviate the financial situation of recently graduated col­ lege students coming from lowincome families. Recently graduated university students pressed for loan payments can apply for interest relief so that debt does not grow. This program applies for 30 months, after which time the student can re-apply for an additional 24 months. After a student has exhausted the 54 total months of interest relief, s/he can

apply to the Debt Reduction in Repayment Program (DRRP) to either have the total debt reduced by up to 50 percent, or to receive a $10,000 credit, which ever is less­ er. However, qualifications for get­ ting into DRRP are much more stringent than those for the inter­ est relief program. CASA has lobbied the govern­ ment (specifically HRDC and the finance ministry) to change their relief program into an Income Contingent Loan Remission pro­ gram, which would allow for all the students receiving interest relief to be eligible for DRRP. “If you are unable to pay back your loan due to your low income, the government would forgive part of your loan, in fact making it a remission program. It would encourage former students to pay

back what they can, but not be burdened for years with student debt. The current program isn’t working as well as it should. The remission program will help many more former students,” said Liam Arbuckle, national director of CASA. The standing committee on finance released a report on November 26, 2001, in which they made budget recommenda­ tions to the federal government. CASA was the only student lobby group quoted in the report and had its student debt relief recom­ mendations endorsed by the finance committee. “The Canada Student Loans Program estimates that 75 percent of borrowers who exhaust the 54 months of interest relief the feder­ al government provides are ineligi­

ble for DRRP. The primary reason for this ineligibility is that DRRP and interest relief use two different eligibility tables. CASA believes that the federal government needs a DRRP that is at least as accessi­ ble as the interest relief program. We recommend that the govern­ ment reevaluate the criteria for some of its student debt relief ini­ tiatives to determine if they are too stringent,” stated the finance com­ mittee’s report to Martin. Despite the finance commit­ tee’s recommendations, the federal budget that the Finance Minister announced on December 10, did not allocate the necessary resources to implement the Income Contin­ gent Loan Remission program. Martin explained the absence of the necessary budget allocation Please see FEDERAL, page 2

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