The McGill Tribune Vol. 39 Issue 11

The McGill Tribune TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019 | VOL. 39 | ISSUE 11

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

FEATURE

Anti-immigrant sentiments hurt Quebec

Seeing the trees through the forest

PG. 5

PGs. 8-9

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

GAME REPORT Martlet hockey triumphs over top-ranked Carabins PG. 16 (Benjamin Joppke / The McGill Tribune)

Hundreds join walkout for fossil fuel divestment

PG. 2

Emergency shelter to reopen for the winter at former Royal Victoria Hospital Historical building will host people experiencing homelessness for a second year Scott Kennedy Contributor After a successful pilot project last winter, the overflow homeless shelter at the former Royal Victoria Hospital

is set to reopen for another winter season. The emergency shelter will open its doors on Dec. 2, with around 150 beds available until April 15. The overflow shelter will be open to individuals in a state of inebriation, those with substance abuse disorders, and those with pets.

“This [shelter] is a low-barrier, high-access service,” Matthew Pearce, president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, said. “[It] is intended to support existing shelters in Montreal, which are typically in greater demand during the winter months.”

PG. 7

Canada’s literary rock star pays a visit to Montreal

How robots are transforming the field of law

Margaret Atwood captivates hundreds in discussing ‘The Testaments’

Faculty of Law hosts event on AI’s influence in the legal sector

Deana Korsunsky Staff Writer

Gwenyth Wren Contributor

Dark green lights illuminate the walls and ceiling. Hundreds of people cheer and applaud.

“I’m sorry, this microphone must be broken,” a man in front of the audience exclaims.

“I said we have Margaret Atwood here tonight!”

The applause in response is deafening.

On Nov. 12, critically acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist Margaret Atwood presented her latest novel at the St. James United Church.

Organized by Librairie

Paragraphe as part of its ‘Words After Dark’ series, the event drew hundreds of people to one of Montreal’s biggest literary events of the year.

The evening was a stop on Atwood’s book tour for The Testaments, the sequel to her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale.

PG. 12

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest innovations of the modern era, profoundly impacting many areas of society, and the field of law is no exception. During an event titled ‘Artificial Intelligence and the legal sector,’

hosted by the Faculty of Law on Nov. 13, Hannes Westermann, a PhD student in AI and Law at the Université de Montréal, presented his research on how AI can benefit the legal sector. He began the talk by providing a definition of AI. “[In AI], machines [...] exhibit signs of intelligence,” Westermann said. “This is a

very broad definition, because lots of distinctions can be made between general AI and narrow AI.” Narrow AI describes technology designed to perform a specific task. In the legal sector, this entails using machine learning (ML), whereby a computer learns a task without a human to guide it.

PG. 14

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NEWS

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

Hundreds join walkout for fossil fuel divestment Speakers call for greater leadership by university administration Pascal Hogue Contributor Gathered around the snowy steps of the McGill Community Square on Nov. 12, over 200 students and faculty took part in a walkout calling for the university to divest from fossil fuels. The protest was co-organized by Divest McGill, Greenpeace McGill, and Climate Justice Action McGill (C-JAM).

Protestors chanted and cheered as speakers called on McGill’s Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR) to support their demand that the university divests from the top 200 largest fossil fuel companies. CAMSR, who was meeting simultaneously in the James Administration Building adjacent to the Square, was finalizing recommendations on divestment to be approved by the Board of Governors on Dec. 5. Divest McGill organizers hoped that the protest would be loud enough to be heard from inside the building.

Speaker Dr. Jen Gobby, PhD ‘16, returned her bachelor’s diploma in disapproval of McGill’s refusal to divest from fossil fuels.

She expressed her disappointment with the university’s immutability on the issue.

“It’s 2019 […] and still, this institution is invested, as in financially benefiting, from an industry that is killing people, ravaging ecosystems and threatening the future of its student body,” Gobby said. “McGill, […] by continuing to invest in fossil fuels, is strengthening the resilience of an energy system that

Students chanted and cheered speakers from 11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

(Benjamin Joppke / The McGill Tribune) needs to die.”

Gobby, who recently finished her PhD at McGill in economics in the Anthropocene program, also highlighted the socio-economic consequences of climate change.

“We know that climate change is exacerbating existing social inequality and injustice,” Gobby said. “That people already marginalized by systemic racism, sexism, poverty, and colonialism are bearing the worst of the impacts, first and hardest.”

Concordia student Emily Carson-Apstein, who spearheaded Concordia’s successful

divestment campaign as the external sustainability coordinator for Sustainable Concordia, encouraged protestors to remain resilient and criticized both universities’ administration for their inaction to negotiate greener investments.

“I know that this is not a financial movement, it is a social one,” Carson-Apstein said.

“Oil is holding up the capitalist colonial history of Canada. They can talk about percentages, and [socially responsible investing] and long-term goals, and we kept saying ‘sure, but there are kids out there who don’t have clean water.’”

Student organizer Laura Mackay, U4 Environment, stressed that McGill has historical precedents for divestment campaigns. She noted the university’s cessation of business ties with companies in South Africa’s apartheid regime in 1985 and divestment from the tobacco industry in 2007.

“Now, in 2019, we’re demanding that the university follows its own precedent and divests from another injurious industry,” Mackay said.

Professor Gregory Mikkelson, professor of environment and philosophy and presidentelect of the McGill Association of University Teachers, has been part of the divestment campaign since it began in 2012. He congratulated protestors on their tenacity, despite the meager progress the campaign has achieved in the past seven years.

“Our bosses failed in their gambit to wait until a few troublemakers graduated,” Mikkelson said. “Those troublemakers passed on their arguments, their stories, their passion and the professors they roused from this ivory cloister.”

Despite the frigid temperature, most participants remained till the end of the protest, enthusiastically relaying cheers. For Katie Ross, U3 Science and member of Greenpeace McGill, the turnout demonstrated students’ eagerness for change.

“I think it sends the message that were a unified force,” Ross said. “[We are] not going to stop […] until we reach divestment from fossil fuels.”

Deputy Provost compels McGill Daily to publish letter about Zionism Letter from Jewish students was originally ignored Kyle Dewsnap, Katia Innes, Gabe Nisker News Editor, Arts & Entertainment Editor, Features Editor The McGill Administration recently demanded that The McGill Daily publish a letter to the editor that critiqued the publication’s definition of Zionism. The letter, written by two Jewish law students, argued that the Daily had defined Zionism in a way that was both inaccurate and malicious. Michael Aarenau, 3L Law and one of the letter’s authors, decided to contact Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) Fabrice Labeau after the Daily ignored five attempts at submitting the letter. “[It is] important to note that in order to reject [the letter], they would have had to actually formally acknowledge it, which they never did because they repeatedly ignored it,” Aarenau wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune. “They finally wrote [to] us [...] on Oct. 25 after the provost threatened action against them.”

Josh Shapiro, 3L Law, asked Labeau to compel the Daily to publish his and Aarenau’s letter on Oct. 7. “[The Daily] has effectively refused to publish our piece,” Shapiro wrote in an email to the Provost. “We

The Daily’s agreement with McGill requires the publication to have a letters section.

(Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune) believe that we are being ignored due to the content of our letter, in violation of [...] the Memorandum of Agreement [(MOA)] between McGill and the Daily.”

The Daily Publication Society (DPS), which manages both the Daily and Le Délit, maintains a MOA with McGill University that allows the two papers to operate on campus. Section 10.2 of the document compels the DPS to publish letters sent by students, even if the letter does not conform with the opinions of the editorial team. After Shapiro sent his email, Labeau met

with the chair of the DPS; soon after, the Daily reached out to Shapiro with an offer to publish the letter on Nov. 4.

“On Oct. 22, [the Provost] wrote [to] us [and] we were pleased with his actions,” Shapiro wrote in a message to the Tribune. “[The letter] was not edited. That being said [...], the manner in which they published the letter [was undesirable].”

Aarenau took issue with the format in which the letter was published, and the letter was prefaced by a response from the Daily’s editorial board.

“They wrote a response [...] which

mischaracterized our arguments, defamed our characters, engaged in tokenism, and outright encouraged their readers not to read our letter, apologizing for its existence!” Aarenau wrote.

In print, Aarenau’s letter was opposite a copy of the Daily/’s response which was printed in larger font; the letter itself is also hidden from the publication’s home page on their website. The response claims that Labeau had threatened to enter into arbitration with the DPS for breaking their MOA, which would have the potential to jeopardize the future of both publications.

The response also cites the DPS’s Letters Policy, which guides the Daily and Le Délit in publishing letters from students. The policy states that editors have the authority to reject letters whose content is racially or ethnically prejudiced. According to a representative from Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) McGill, the Daily’s response to the letter is justified.

“The Daily was in no way being antisemitic in their initial definition of Zionism nor in their response to the letter,” the IJV McGill representative wrote in an email to the Tribune. “I do agree [with the Daily] that the letter is harmful in the way that it [omits] to the point of gaslighting the systematic op-

pression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians crucial to the Zionist project.”

The reprsentative also spoke on how IJV McGill and McGill Students in Solidary for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) both contributed to editing the Daily’s response.

“A member of IJV McGill told The McGill Daily to delete a paragraph that IJV members found lacked nuance in its description of Zionism,” the representative wrote. “They felt [that] it was important to do this because [...] some members of IJV McGill [were] concerned that the Daily’s response could provide more fodder for claims that criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism are antisemitic, inspiring backlash for IJV and SPHR and threatening their work on campus.”

Aarenau remains unsatisfied with the Daily’s response and conduct with regards to his letter.

“I don’t know in what universe we allow people to shout over a minority group like this, where they try to [say] to Jews: [...] ‘Actually, you’re wrong about what the movement for your own liberation is, let us educate you,” Aarenau wrote. “It’s blasphemous.”

Neither Labeau nor a member of the DPS responded to a request for comment.

NEWS

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

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Tribune Explains: The Indigenous Student Equity Fund and Fee The fund will provide reliable resources for Indigenous McGill students McEan Taylor Staff Writer

President of McGill Students’ Chapter of American Indian Science and Engineering Society (ASIES), a club promoting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers for Indigenous students, explains how this fund will support their operations.

“The Equity Fee would allow our Indigenous students to have access to a fund for Indigenous STEM initiatives,” Grant said. “It is important [that] McGill continues to have representation and involvement in the expansion of AISES within Canada [....] Our current approach to funding is [not feasible] and often involves us trying to raise our funds as a student group and generating some sponsorship from the university. The Equity Fund would be a long-term solution that would be reliable.”

The Fall 2019 Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Referendum included a proposal written by the Indigenous Affairs Commissioner Tomas Jirousek to create a new Indigenous Equity Fund and Fee (IEFF). With a voter turnout of 17.3 per cent, the motion passed with 72 percent of students voting in favour. With the successful passing of the non–opt–outable $1.00 fee, The McGill Tribune spoke with Indigenous student leaders to explain the purpose and future of the new funds.

What inspired the IEFF? Currently, many Indigenous organizations are registered as SSMU clubs, meaning that they have to submit a motion to the SSMU Funding Committee if they need money. Jirousek, who spearheaded the #ChangeTheName campaign, described how inconsistent funding hindered the initiative last year.

“Without a stable base of funding for the campaign, I was forced to make alternative arrangements [that] fell outside of my portfolio and the original campaign road-map,” Jirousek said. “I had originally wanted to bring in scholars to speak to the topic, but my inability to rely on steady funding from SSMU forced me to delay the launch of the campaign until I could secure outside funding and support, which eventually came from the Indigenous Studies program.”

What will the fund be used for?

The new fee funds Indigenous student groups and initiatives on campus, providing then with financial autonomy from SSMU, as well as an opportunity to hire more personnel dedicated towards support activism efforts. During the #ChangeTheName campaign, a significant amount of work fell on a few student volunteers. Ac-

What are the first steps for the new funds?

The SSMU Equity Fee is currently running on a deficit. (Sabrina Girard-Lamas / The McGill Tribune) cording to Catie Galbraith, co-chair of Indigenous Student Alliance, a stable fund that carries over unused capital every semester allows for more dedicated positions. This includes a position investigating McGill’s progress on the Provost Task Force on Indigenous and Indigenous Education’s 52 calls to action for support and reconciliation from McGill’s administration on Indigenous issues.

“We will create a couple [of] new [paid] positions under the Indigenous Affairs portfolio,” Galbraith said. “There would be a campaign and events manager and then a researcher who would follow up on the 52 calls to action that the Provost made. Their job would be to keep McGill accountable to those [calls to action].”

Indigenous student groups outside the SSMU system could also apply for funding from the Indigenous Equity Fund. Joel Grant,

Jirousek stressed that the IEFF will be first used to make sure that vulnerable Indigenous students are provided with the resources and support they need.

“The very first thing we will do is make sure that the most vulnerable Indigenous students are taken care of,” Jirousek said. “I’ve already began working with vice-president Finance Sam Haward to ensure that an Indigenous-controlled [funding] structure is up and running for the beginning of next semester, which will provide immediate support [for] at-risk Indigenous students.”

In the next year, SSMU Indigenous Affairs and other Indigenous student groups will use their expanded funding to take on new projects.

“I’ve begun the process of planning an academic conference for next semester,” Jirousek said. “This will provide a platform for academics and activists like our confirmed keynote speaker Professor Cindy Blackstock. This event is particularly exciting as we are planning to bring onto campus Indigenous vendors, Indigenous caterers, and an Indigenous art exhibition.”

HanVoice hosts panel on the gendered experience of North Korean defectors

Speakers included professors from McGill’s ISID and North Korean refugees Delphine Polidori Contributor McGill Students for HanVoice, a student chapter of the Canadian advocacy group for North Korean refugees and human rights, hosted a panel on Nov. 15 to shed light on the gendered experiences of North Korean migration and to highlight the ways that women are disproportionately marginalized throughout their journeys.

McGill Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID) professor Kazue Takamura, whose research focuses on the movements of migrants from developing areas, particularly in Asia, opened the panel by contextualizing Asian migration regimes. Takamura spoke about the role of migrant surveillance, which takes the form of border security and detention centers, in creating distinct migration experiences based on gender and the limitations of international human rights regimes in to improve women’s precarious mobility.

“Migrant surveillance regimes are contributing to [capital-driven migration-related policies], the state of not just opening up borders but also controlling the border and deporting migrants,” Takamura said. “You see intensified migrant surveillance but also [...] the [creation] of [forced] displacement, meaning that those asylum seekers are subject to detention and deportation.”

Building on Takamura’s presentation, HanVoice Director of Research Mégane Visette discussed the inherent link between the gender-based experience of refugees and border surveillance regimes between North Korea, China, and other Southeast Asian countries that defectors have to cross to reach South Korea. Most North Korean defectors flee to South Korea because its Ministry of Unification offers them protection through a resettlement program. Since 2004, however, refugees can also seek asylum in the United States under the provisions of the North Korean Human Rights Act (NKHRA),

but less than 200 refugees have been admitted to date.

Visette emphasized some reasons for the gender-based experience of North Korean women defectors, pointing to China’s former one-child policy. In Jan. 2016, the policy was loosened to allow couples to have two children; however, the 36-year long policy created a demand for brides, which also increased mobility opportunities for women.

“Marriage, then, [became] a survival strategy,” Visette said. “When you’re crossing the border, you don’t have much choice [...] but you [may] know someone who can make you go through the border if you become the bride [to a stranger].

The advantage of [this survival strategy] is that [it allows you to] get into those very invisible spaces [of] famil[ies], which [protects you from being denounced] by the Chinese authorities.”

Visette concluded by discussing how Southeast Asian countries rationalize their treatment of North Korean refugees by classifying North Korean defectors as economic migrants as opposed to refugees. China, for example, has been able to deny them the protection mandated by the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, which defines the term “refugee” and ratifyies states’ obligations to protect them. “[T]he international legal system [offers] such a cookiecutter sort of interpretation of what a refugee convention [that leaves, which leaves] a lot of people [...] in a grey zone,” Visette said. “North Korean refugee women cannot access refugee status [in Thailand, which prevents them from accessing] private sponsorship programs in Canada because this is reliant on the UNHCR [...] definition.”

The event ended with a video interview of North Korean defector Yeeun Joo, who spoke about her journey from North to South Korea by travelling through China with the help of missionaries, who protected her from experiencing any gender-based violence. Joo described her 20 years living in the one-party state.

72 per cent of North Korean refugees in China are women.

(McGill Students for HanVoice) “There’s such a drastic difference in the quality of life compared to South Korea,” Joo said. “There are a lot of people who live unaware of the fact that their freedoms were stolen from them [....] We have this song about freedom [even though] we [don’t] know what “freedom” mean[s].”

Joo also spoke about her experience arriving in South Korea five years ago and the challenges of integrating into the country as a North Korean refugee.

“I was just in a daze,” Joo said. “I really thought that I was in a dream and kept questioning it. And there was a part of me that was really worried. I questioned how to live here, how to act [...] We spoke [...] differently and, [because] we live so far [from each other], our cultures, manners, stories, and ways of speaking [are] all different, so I had to be careful about everything, but I didn’t know how.”

Joo dreams of becoming a teacher, with ambitions of creating an education system to teach North Korean children if the two Koreas ever unify.

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NEWS

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

SSMU debates Hillel Montreal’s offers of free trips to Israel Council members divided on the interpretation of conflict of interest policy Kate Addison Staff Writer

“[SSMU] oppose[s] the invitations themselves, and now we ask Hillel McGill to immediately make public three points,” Buraga said. “[First, why] these invitations were extended. Secondly, who these invitations [had] been extended to and why these individuals were chosen. [...] Thirdly, the details and specific purpose of the trip being offered.”

Content warning: Violence against children.

At the fifth Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council meeting, the discussion turned toward an article published by The McGill Daily. On Nov. 13, The Daily reported that several student leaders and executives on campus such as the Black Students’ Network (BSN), had been offered an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel by Hillel McGill, an organization dedicated to providing a space for Jewish students on campus.

Many students are concerned about the trip, and whether executives who had accepted the trip were breaking the trust of their Palestinian constituents.

SSMU Arts Representatives Adin Chan and Andrew Chase, as well as Science Representative Jordyn Wright, will be taking part in the Hillel trip and addressed concerns voiced by other SSMU representatives during the council meeting. During the question period, Medicine Senator Andre Lametti initially brought up the issue.

“I was wondering if anyone here had any comments [...] about these trips,” Lametti said. “Do [these trips] constitute a conflict of interest? Are they a gift that should not be accepted by members of council?”

Reading from a prepared statement, Adin Chan provided an explanation to the council for his desire to take advantage of this opportunity to travel to Israel, a move which is considered by some to be insensitive to the Palestinians that the councillors represent. “[The trip] was advertised to me as a trip with the purpose of promoting dialogue and a greater understanding of the IsraelPalestine region,” Chan said. “I accepted this opportunity entirely in my capacity as an individual, as a Christian, [...] to visit the

SOUND BITE

Six student officials have applied for the Hillel Montreal trip.

(Christopher Li / The McGill Tribune) most important sites [for] my faith [.…] I am not attending this trip in my capacity as Arts Representative whatsoever.”

SSMU Vice-President Adam Gwiazda-Amsel expressed his concerns about the trip presenting a conflict of interest for student governors who have decided to attend.

“I obviously recognize that it’s very unfortunate and rather sad that people can’t enjoy their heritage [through this trip], that this [has become] a very entangled political issue,” Gwizada-Amsel said. “[However], I think that it’s naive, if not ignorant, to say that there is a separation at this point between a personal decision and the office. I think that you’re just turning a blind eye to [...] the reality and the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian debate on this campus.”

SSMU president Bryan Buraga reiterated the contents of a letter sent to Hillel McGill in response to the invitations. While six members of the SSMU Legislative Council have chosen to be involved with the trip, the SSMU executives have, as a group, rejected Hillel’s offer.

“What’s been going on [in Gaza] is horrible and tragic and unfor tunate and a lot of other words that I just don’t have the chance to ar ticulate myself right now.

I agree with those sentiments that [it is] something that needs to change [.…] However, in my capacity as a professional, I have faith in my abilities to remain an objective leader even though I plan on going on the trip,” Jordyn Wright, Science Representative to SSMU said on her decision to accept his invitation to join the Hillel trip.

MOMENT OF THE MEETING Social Work Representative to SSMU Jo Roy displayed an image of an injured child taken to a hospital and stated to the council that the rest of the child’s family had been killed in a bombing in Southern Gaza.

Roy went on to ask those who had accepted the trip to either decline it or resign from their position at SSMU.

Students protest Wellness Hub’s scheduled open house Protesters voiced concerns about the Hub’s accessibility Tasmin Chu Contributor Content warning: Mention of suicidal thoughts.

Approximately 20 McGill students protested outside of the Brown Student Services Building for accessible healthcare on Nov. 12, the day of a planned open house of the Student Wellness Hub. The open house was postponed the day before due to weather.

The demonstration, organized by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) University Affairs and the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM), highlighted barriers that students face while seeking healthcare at the Student Wellness Hub. SSMU Vice-President (VP) University Affairs Madeline Wilson delivered a speech demanding shorter wait times for services, more affordable student health plans, and a better complaint system for students.

“The [current] international student health plan is the most expensive [...] plan in all of Canada, and that’s not okay,” Wilson said. “One of the results of transferring long term counselling care out of the Hub means [that] students have to pay upfront [to third party care providers].”

AGSEM member Melissa Marquette condemned the rollback of McGill’s Eating Disorder Program, which was abruptly canceled two years ago, and the absence of longterm counselling services.

The Rossy Foundation invested $5 million into the Wellness Hub. (Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune) “We want to actively ensure that the Brown Building is always physically accessible,” Marquette said. “We want long-term clinical mental health care. Student-run peer support is a Band-Aid. It is not healthcare.

We want to bring back the Eating Disorder Program, which was shut down with no warning.”

McGill launched the Rossy Student Wellness Hub this year after a $14 million combined investment from McGill and the Rossy Foundation, which aimed to improve health services to students by adding Local Wellness Advisors and merging Psychiatric and Counselling Services to the clinic.

AGSEM Mobilization Officer Rine Vieth claimed that the administration did not deliver that vision, condemning the lack of investment into student well-being at the institutional level.

“It’s a big shiny façade that has a lot of cracks,” Vieth said. “[Administrators] here seem more into their own careers than [...] supporting students or building a community together. [It’s] infuriating.”

Former SSMU Mental Health Commissioner Bee Khaleeli shared the upsetting treatment that they experienced from a doctor at McGill.

“My clinician here at McGill didn’t in-

form me of [the] diagnoses [I received when I was hospitalized],” Khaleeli said. “He put me on medication that made me flip between mania and immobilizing depression. I told him early on that it wasn’t working, and he raised my dose [...] I told him that I was suicidal and I still have the notes from the appointment [....] He [wrote] that I [was] giggly.”

SSMU Community Affairs Commissioner Claire Grenier said that the Hub rarely seemed to coordinate its services well.

“They call it the ‘one-stop shop,’” Grenier said. “Yet no one is working together. It is so disconnected. I [access] three different parts of the supposed wellness hub. None of them are talking to each other, and I’m responsible for playing catch up between all of them to make services and my life easier.”

Graduate student Lindsey Franks claimed that her appointment for Tuesday was canceled for the Open House, despite the postponement.

“I asked why since the event got moved, and I was told that the hub was still closed to appointments regardless,” Franks wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

At the protest, Franks shared her frustration in trying to access services at the hub. “[It’s] been the number one biggest cause of stress for me this semester,” Franks said. “I’m also American, and I know everyone shits on the American healthcare and insurance system [...] I got better healthcare in the US than I’m getting here. And that’s saying something.”

OPINION

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

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EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief Caitlin Kindig editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Nicholas Raffoul nraffoul@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Abeer Almahdi aalmahdi@mcgilltribune.com Miya Keilin mkeilin@mcgilltribune.com Sophie Brzozowski sbrzozowski@mcgilltribune.com

News Editors Kyle Dewsnap, Helen Wu & Nina Russell news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Lucas Bird & Johanna Cline opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Emma Gillies scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Life Editor Leyla Moy studentlife@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Gabe Nisker features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editor Kevin Vogel & Katia Innes arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Ender McDuff & Kaja Surborg sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Erica Stefano & Sabrina Girard-Lamas design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Leanne Young photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editors Sarah Ford & Aidan Martin multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Jad Hamdan & Jonathan Colaco Carr webdev@mcgilltribune.com

Anti-immigrant sentiments hurt Quebec Following through on campaign promises made by premier François Legault, the Quebec government proposed long touted changes to the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ) on Nov. 1. The PEQ is a provincial program that offers immigrants to Quebec who are studying at an educational institution fast track to permanent residency following the completion of their degree; the program also applies to immigrants working in Quebec. The changes that the government sought to put into law would have decreased the number of programs and degrees considered valid for entering the PEQ process. Specifically, Legault stated that the government wanted to focus on limiting the PEQ to accepting jobs which focus on “serving” Quebec’s labour market: This means that degrees in engineering, nursing, and information technology sectors would continue to be considered valid for the PEQ, degrees in the liberal arts, sciences, and other areas would not. On Nov. 5, a group of students went to the National Assembly in Québec to ask government officials to abandon the changes, speaking about the debasing effects it could have on immigrant students.

OFF THE BOARD

Copy Editor Keating Reid copy@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Heela Achakzai business@mcgilltribune.com Publisher Chad Ronalds

TPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Heela Achakzai, Isabelle Côté, Solomon Friedman, Katia Innes, Caitlin Kindig, Marie Labrosse, Katerine Milazzo, Falah Rajput, Keating Reid, McEan Taylor, Ahmad El-Zammar

ublication is the sole STAFF responsibility of The McGill Tri Kate Addison, Makena Anderson, Zoe Babad-Palmer, Adam Burton, Tasmin Chu, Jonathan Giammaria, Alexander Hinton, Benjamin Joppke, Deana Korsunsky, Alaana Kumar, Ronny Litvack-Katzman, Kennedy McKee-Braide, Deisha Paliwal,Taja De Silva, McEan Taylor, Sophia White, Amir Hotter Yishay, Iman Zarrinkoub

CONTRIBUTORS Vanessa Barron, Adam Bell, Joey Caplan, Vanna Chang, Owen Dunkley, Jonah Fried, Corrina Greenler, Pascal Hogue, Yuecheng Huang, Zoe Karossa, Evan Kashton, Scott Kennedy, Daria Kiseleva, Adam Menikefs, Gwenyth Wren, ET Wu

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Please recycle this newspaper.

Leyla Moy Student Life Editor In 2010, I wrote my first ever social media post: “What is this Buzz thing?” I typed it out on the family computer, posted it to the now-defunct Google Buzz, and immediately clicked the like button on my own post. Looking back on it now, it’s difficult to believe it was ever new, since everything about the website seems comically antique— the plain-text posts could be “reshared,” a phrase which itself seems immediately outdated, and the flat interface prominently features email among its sharing options. Still, on the hulking PCs in my school’s basement computer lab, Buzz felt fresh and immediate. Our blinking cursors became launchpads to shoot truncated words and emoticons across the room, like passing virtual notes.

Since then, after waves of public criticism, the government has suspended the changes.

The changes proposed to the PEQ are clear examples of racism and xenophobia, sentiments that have characteristic of the CAQ’s leadership thus far. The proposal of such a policy, as well as any similarly structured restrictive immigration policy that the government may attempt to pass in the future, are condemnable.

Further, Premier Legault’s worthbased rationale for the PEQ policy changes are troubling and problematic. Evaluating the worth of immigrant residents in the province by a metric which attempts to quantify their contribution to the economy is both destructive and dehumanizing.

It would be incorrect to view the CAQ’s most recent policy proposal in a vacuum. In conjunction with other actions this administration has taken thus far in its tenure, the proposed changes to the PEQ unmistakably manifest from exclusionary nationalist sentiments. For example, the proposed provincial ‘values test’ that the government has proposed for immigrants hoping to settle in Quebec contains questions designed to identify and

discriminate against test takers based on their individual and religious beliefs. Additionally, the government has already reduced the total number of immigrant residents in the province by over 25 per cent since assuming power.

30 per cent of McGill’s student body is made up of international students, making many of them potential immigrants to Quebec post-graduation. For many international students, the PEQ presents not only a valuable resource as a possible path to citizenship, but a crucial pillar of stability for their life in Canada and Quebec. A parochial shift in the PEQ with regards to which programs are eligible would be devastating for McGill’s international student population.

This policy would leave current students, scrambling to figure out how they are going to operate following their graduation. In addition, such a policy would certainly deter future students from coming to McGill to pursue higher education.

McGill could support international students by sending out a message of support and solidarity, and directing students to resources which could help them prepare for the worst if the

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EDITORIAL CAQ decides to attempt and pass a racist policy again. In addition, the financial resources which McGill offers to non-refugee immigrant students in terms of aid, stipends, or bursaries are lacking at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

The university should expand these resources to all international students in the future. People should not have to be escaping unlivable, crisis situations to qualify for financial aid.

The International Student Services (ISS) office has a variety of resources on their website that students can use to assess their postgraduation options. In addition, while the Legal Information Clinic (LIC) cannot offer specific legal advice, they can offer information about immigration law. Canadian students have a role to play in this process as well, which includes remaining informed and knowledgeable about provincial politics and the ways it affects their peers and classmates, and providing emotional support to those students who might suffer the consequences of the CAQ’s future policies. The McGill community is made up of both future and current Canadians, and we have a responsibility to support each other in times of need.

TikTok is unexpectedly revolutionary This is the same sort of feeling that apps like TikTok invoke today.

Comparing Buzz to the social media of today is a dizzying testament to how much has changed in the last nine years. Walls of text have been replaced by shorter, punchier tweets.

YouTube videos have gone from advertisements to earnest diaries and back again, and apps have become the preferred way to socially connect, as our laptops have become places to work, or at least to pretend to.

In 2018, the Chinese tech startup ByteDance revived the shell of the lipsyncing app Musical.ly into TikTok, which is now the world’s most downloaded app. On a cursory scrollthrough, TikTok is both jarring and immersive as it pelts the viewer with a rapid-fire stream of looping clips.

Unlike the rest of social media, TikTok is on the results of an algorithm rather than a user’s friends. The pedigree of ByteDance’s machine learning ventures shows in the ‘For You’ page, which uses artificial intelligence to tailor its content to your tastes over time and present a continual stream of user-targeted content, like a smarter Instagram Explore page.

The frenetic quality of the TikTok user experience is also partially due to the complex way memes proliferate through it. As social media evolved, the definition of a meme became increasingly

difficult to pin down. Gone are the LOLcats days of image macros with blaring Impact font, visually alerting the viewer that what they are seeing is meant to make them laugh. Since videos are capped one minute, there is no exposition on TikTok, and therefore, hidden meaning needs to be condensed into sound. Breaking down the meme format to its bare essentials makes way for subtler forms of humour. TikTok, though initially targeted at the lucrative tween demographic, is an accidentally perfect vessel for sarcastic and absurd millennial humour.

Memes aside, TikTok is a gem for burgeoning creatives. It uniquely breaks down barriers to content creation with its intuitive filming process, and the way memes propagate through the platform invites imitation and enables unknown accounts to go viral overnight. While the tag #shortfilms highlights the most artistic examples, viewers will be impressed by stylistic skill even in the simplest clips. In order to tell an effective story on TikTok, users need both an understanding of the app’s shared language and the basics of lighting, composition, and editing.

However, some of this creative appeal turns to cavities upon further inspection. In a culture becoming increasingly cautious about technology and privacy, TikTok is

unashamed about mining your data.

The looming corporate presence on TikTok surely stands to benefit from this, as the platform has been monetized through both ads interspersed in your scrolling and more subtle product placement. ELF Cosmetics recently commissioned the song behind the #eyeslipsface trend, and this encroachment of branding into what appear to be organic trends feels uncomfortable, if not surprising.

Privacy concerns are compounded for younger users. Over its lifespan, TikTok has managed to attract a broad user base whose sheer demographic diversity is at times uncanny—it is odd to see cops, teachers, priests, and //The Washington Post// interspersed with high-schoolers. There’s an uncomfortable history of pedophiles on TikTok, and if it was difficult to talk to your kids about the net in 2010 it seems doubly so now.

For an app best known for popularizing a Mia Khalifa diss track, TikTok is already remarkably culturally significant. The same structural mechanisms that produce viral content break down barriers to getting creative work seen. At the same time, it is a hallmark of the issues that mar the ever evolving internet, and the tradeoffs we have made to keep our entertainment free and constant.

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OPINION

COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

Embrace the McGill lifestyle

Jonah Fried Contributor McGill is a quintessential ‘take it or leave it’ school. Far from fully supporting its students, many of the institution’s realities make it unnecessarily difficult for students to succeed. Most emblematic, academic advisors are overworked because the need to serve as many students as possible in the shortest amount of time supersedes the quality of the services being provided. As a result, students have expressed that advisors are frequently underinformed about the issues most relevant to them because advisors do not have the time to research them. Similarly, student health services are notoriously deficient and inaccessible—a complex issue that has had consequences like McGill’s decision to cut funding for services such as its Eating Disorders program. Especially where mental health services or student disabilities are concerned, McGill simply does not have enough resources to serve its extensive student body. However, despite the challenges it poses, McGill’s laissez-faire approach fosters a particularly independent student body, something which the administration recognizes and for which it affords students certain privileges.

Government budget cuts are to blame for the university’s financial troubles, but this does not absolve the administration of responsibility. Not only do students have to deal with the various academic and health service issues stemming from the McGill’s funding problems, students are forced to search for off-campus housing starting in their second year.

Consequently, amid dealing with their academic pursuits while simultaneously grappling with the various issues plaguing McGill services, students also have to manage their own living circumstances earlier than students at some other Canadian and American schools. Being a student at McGill

COMMENTARY

requires a high tolerance for bureaucratic impediments, administrative controversy, subpar services, and the ability to make do without any handholding from educational and administrative staff. However, these kinds of issues are ones that students will be forced to face after graduation.

In addition to the difficulties that McGill’s hands-off style presents, it also benefits students by building their independence and resourcefulness.

One example of the extensive independence experienced by the student population is the scale of student government at McGill. The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) and its affiliated societies—such as the Science or Arts Undergraduate societies—comprise a complicated bureaucratic web that is as sophisticated as the administration itself. By way of representation within SSMU, students devise their own constitution, internal regulations, and policies. SSMU oversees a budget of over three million dollars, a significant financial responsibility considering that SSMU is student-run. The rights that the laws of Quebec afford SSMU and other student unions in the province are relatively unique compared to other universities. Moreover, the extent to which SSMU exercises these privileges has tremendous consequences for the university as a whole, as exemplified by their recent passage of a moratorium on auxiliary funding until the Board of Governors commits to divesting from fossil fuels.

The ability of student organizations to orchestrate events like the Open Air Pub (OAP), the Arts Undergraduate Society Bar (BDA) and Blues Pub also reflects the autonomy of McGill students in the same way that SSMU does. Such operations require immense logistical planning and force students to be mature organizers of large-scale events. The fact that the administration allows undergraduate societies to manage such events on campus, even allowing first-year

Events like OAP are shining examples of student independence at McGill. (Gabriel Helfant / The McGill Tribune)

residence councils and the Inter-Residence Council (IRC) to plan events with alcoholic beverages is telling. The administration expects McGill students to be mature and capable of managing their own affairs, because they leave students with no other option.

McGill is imperfect, but perhaps it should be. This dynamic, and sometimes even contentious relationship between the administration and the student body, is educational for students. After all, the world is imperfect, and ideally, McGill prepares students to live in it. Ultimately, students often have only themselves and their fellow students to rely on for support. For better or worse, this ‘trial-byfire’ approach is how students have and continue to endure the McGill experience. It is a reality responsible for the distinctive character of McGill’s student body, bringing it to life, and it is sustained by successive generations of students who continue to gravitate towards a lifestyle built on independence.

McGill should prioritize affordable housing

Yuecheng Huang Contributor For the past two decades, housing prices in Montreal have risen consistently by around five percent per year. While students from other Canadian universities, such as the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia, have benefited from large scale affordable housing projects sponsored by their universities, McGill students are still waiting for theirs. This past October, the Students Society of McGill University (SSMU) took its first step towards providing affordable housing by approving a motion for the creation of an Affordable Housing Committee.

This newly created group, however, has been hesitant in implementing concrete measures to address housing concerns. As students of a major Canadian university, McGill students deserve better than an indecisive housing committee.

The Montreal historically known to Canadians as relatively affordable is rapidly changing. Indeed, average rent has risen approximately $250 since 2008.

Even more troubling, the city’s vacancy rate has just hit its lowest point in over 15 years, meaning that merely finding a place to rent can be difficult. Faced with higher prices and fewer housing options, students looking for a place to stay during the semester are confronted with a strenuous process. Due to high demand and low vacancy rates, more than 5,000 students in Montreal found themselves unable to secure a room in

SSMU’s Affordable Housing Commitee is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

(Winnie Lin / The McGill Tribune)

a university residence in 2016. While many cities comfortably provide school residences to more than half the students within the city, Montreal struggles to accommodate even three per cent of its student population.

Students living off-campus also face distinct challenges. Those choosing to reside downtown must deal with some of the highest rents in the city, while those living further away from campus deal with longer commutes and decreased access to campus activities. Moreover, as a result of the inflated rent of certain neighbourhoods such as the Plateau Mont-Royal, many McGill students feel compelled to work more than 20

hours per week. Of these students, a significant portion feel overwhelmed by the necessity of juggling both working and studying. Research suggests that there is a clear link between the quality of a student’s mental health and their perceived financial stress. McGill could improve students’ mental wellbeing by providing them with accessible housing.

While the city’s government has recognized the problem of unaffordable housing and promised to build thousands of new rent-controlled living spaces by 2021, it is apparent that McGill is not following suit. The scope of the newly formed Affordable Housing Committee within SSMU pales when compared

to the efforts put in by the city and by other universities. The committee aims to provide students with around 150 new units of rent-controlled apartments, though they remain unsure about how these units are to be funded, and seem to still be in the process of discussing whether temporary housing should be offered alongside apartments.

L’Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant (UTILE), the organization in charge of carrying out the construction of affordable units for SSMU, has estimated that a student fee of around five dollars per semester for 10 semesters would be enough to cover a significant portion of the cost of providing more affordable housing to students. Despite such a streamlined and straightforward way of acquiring funding, SSMU seems hesitant to implement this fee.

Even in Montreal, however, McGill lags behind its peers. The Concordia Student Union’s housing project is similar to that of SSMU, but has been well under way since 2014 and is set to be completed next year, while The Université de Montréal’s newly constructed campus in Outremont comes with 225 units of affordable housing.

In the face of increasingly expensive housing, SSMU seems uncertain about how to react. Considering that McGill is already behind when it comes to affordable housing, the union’s Affordable Housing Committee would benefit greatly from a healthy dose of urgency. Students have been waiting long enough.

STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

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Emergency shelter to reopen for the winter at former Royal Victoria Hospital Historical building will host people experiencing homelessness for a second year Scott Kennedy Contributor Continued from page 1.

As extreme cold sets in, most of Montreal’s emergency homeless shelters meet and exceed capacity. The overflow shelter will continue to operate in partnership with local health authorities, homeless organizations, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), and the Montreal police.

The pilot project, which operated from January to April 2019, had over 1500 unique clients inhabit the shelter in the historic Ross Pavilion at the old Royal Victoria Hospital.

The project was spearheaded by four Montreal homeless missions: The Old Brewery Mission, the Welcome Hall Mission, Maison du Père, and the Accueil Bonneau.

Statistics collected over the course of the project were published in a recent report by the Old Brewery Mission’s research department. They found that 55 per cent of interviewed participants self-declared as alcoholics and used the overflow unit frequently. In addition, 85 per cent of the respondents felt that the overflow shelter

on the streets in Montreal, making up over half of Quebec’s total homeless population.

A study conducted by Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services found that Indigenous people, immigrants, refugees, and queer individuals were over-represented in Quebec’s homeless population. Although Indigenous people make up less than one per cent of the general population, they represent approximately 10 per cent of Montreal’s homeless.

“Right now, housing is the largest service offered by the Old Brewery Mission, bigger than our emergency housing service,” Pearce said. “[...] The [overflow] shelter is not a solution, it is a band-aid. [Our priority] is getting affordable and available housing and not needing homeless shelters in the The shelter will be inclusive of many groups often excluded from temporary housing. future.”

(Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune) Every year, missions like the Old Brewery depend on volunteers who help should stay open year-round. project, one third reported the opposite. The these organizations deliver their services, The researchers suggested that the tem- upcoming project in December will offer raise funds, and provide administrative supporary shelter provided a service for home- goods and services adapted specifically to port. Students interested in volunteering less individuals that was missing in Mon- women’s needs, including a women-only for the Old Brewery Mission can reach the treal for homeless individuals and found floor. organization by emailing info@missionoldthat the Royal Victoria project highlighted Recent surveys in Quebec have shed brewery.ca. an absence of lower barrier shelter options light on the multifaceted dimensions of the More information about the shelter in the city. Although a majority of women homelessness issue in Montreal. As of 2018, project is available on the Old Brewery Misreported feeling safe at the Royal Victoria there were 3,149 individuals visibly living sion website.

Serving sushi with love

Parc Sushi serves takeout in a home-like environment ET Wu Contributor With the holidays just around the corner, many students will start to miss the comfort of coming home to a nice family meal. Maggie Yu and chef Kiki Ju, the owners of Parc Sushi, are dedicated to recreating this atmosphere by providing high quality sushi in an intimate setting. “[Ju] worked for different sushi restaurants, [like] K2 and Sushi Palace, [that] are all-youcan-eat,” Yu said. “Personally, I don’t like [that] because it’s not like 30 years ago where we have to eat a lot, now we need healthy food. [It should be] about the quality. We make our sushi with love.”

Yu and Ju are focused on quality. Their menu is limited, with a precise selection of fresh and tasty rolls and nigiri, making their sushi an affordable and well-made choice.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Parc Sushi is that the couple runs the operation out of their old apartment, a choice that was influenced by their desire to foster a sense of community among customers.

“Last year, we moved to a new home, and this place became vacant, and we wanted to do

Parc Sushi serves a limited but perfected menu of rolls and nigiri. (Eater.com) something for the neighbourhood so we decided to open a sushi takeout,” Yu said.

The couple’s decision to operate out of their old house is also influenced by their desire to replicate the hospitality of Yu’s mother.

“Whenever I had friends

[over as a child], my mom [was] very generous,” Yu said. “She would cook the food, and we would enjoy [it] and laugh [....]

This [atmosphere] is something I want to share [through] my business.”

Customers will definitely feel as though they are eating at

home, waiting in the owners’ former living room as Ju prepares fresh sushi. Yu and Ju create a friendly environment, taking the time to chat with and get to know their customers.

“All of my customers become friends, [so] I am really touched,” Yu said. “It’s not

just about the business, it’s not just the money. We really don’t charge a lot for the food we are making. It’s just a simple idea to share food with our neighbourhood and friends.”

Parc Sushi opened for business in May 2019. Though still new, its reputation is growing, and Yu has several ideas for the future of the takeout store, including additional seating.

“Because now it is a takeout, people cannot really enjoy their food here,” Yu said. “Next year, I want to put some tables and chairs, so people can sit and enjoy the sushi here.”

In the future, Yu also hopes to form stronger links with people within her community.

“I want them to feel at home, [...] have some sushi and talk to me [or] have a cup of tea and warm up,” Yu said.

Because they are in charge of their own hours, the couple can also spend more time with their daughter.

“My daughter [used to] sometimes ask me, ‘What is Baba doing?’ Before, he worked everyday, especially during weekends,” Yu said.

Parc Sushi is a unique, affordable sushi spot worth visiting, mixing intimate service with professional dishes.

Seeing the trees through the forest Kaja Surborg, Sports Editor Prologue I’m perched high in the branches of the red cedar across the street from my childhood home. I have a book, Warrior Cats and a water bottle, and I feel

A life-affirming walk around McGill campus like I could stay here forever. In my head, I’ve already devised a rope harness system so I don’t fall out as I sleep. I can hear the other kids playing down on the street. They’re welcome to join me, but none of them would dare climb this high. But then I hear my father yell my name.

“Get down right now, but very carefully,” he says.

I knew this warning was coming as soon as he realized where I was.

“I’m not saying you have to get out of the tree,” he reasons.

“I’m just telling you to come down a little lower.”

There is a particular feeling I get while resting up in a tall tree: It’s this sense of stability, a sense of slowing down in all of the hectic goings-on. When I come down, it isn’t quite the same.

Fall 11 years later, I stand at the foot of McTavish and stare up at Mount Royal. The side of the hill looks like it’s on fire and, for a moment, I think about how the trees there are about to lose their leaves. I know they will return in the spring, as they do every year, but they will be slightly different each time. No season is an exact replica of its previous iteration, after all. The changing of the leaves is my reminder that I will soon have to face my first winter in Eastern Canada since I was two-years-old. I am not alone in being new to this city, and in new places, we build new relationships with our surroundings. Carrie Kirmer, U2 Arts, who plays pickup soccer at the reservoir field on weekends, describes the elm at the intersection of McTavish and Docteur Penfield.

“It’s so beautiful in the fall with all the colours,” Kirmer wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune. “It’s also just so majestic because of the way it towers over campus and it reminds me of going to the field to play soccer.”

The colours of the Mount Royal hillside signal decay and decomposition, but they also promise regrowth. The leaves will fall, and when they fill the Mount Royal soil with nutrients, they feed next year’s leaves, becoming part of carbon and nitrogen cycles that expand far beyond Montreal. Decay is necessary for regrowth, and the past feeds the future.

It is a lesson I take from the trees: All of my past selves feed into who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. I am constantly growing, but each season of my life has contributed to the person I am

today. Trees are capable of regrowing year after year because they shed their leaves without forgetting them. Fall is a season of hope and promise, not loss.

There is a walnut tree that sits west of the Redpath Museum and has stood in that spot for 150 years. For 150 years, it has given up its leaves in the Fall, and in the spring, they come back with fruit that will feed the pesky campus squirrels throughout the summer. Redpath Museum Outreach Coordinator Ingrid Birker led me on a tour of the trees around the Y-intersection, explaining their origins and histories to me.

“It’s definitely the oldest black walnut [on the Island of Montreal],” Birker said. “[And] squirrels love those walnuts.”

As we walk across campus, following the path Birker leads tours along, she tells me about the walnut’s fungicidal properties, which was put to use by the ancient Greeks and Romans.

“The Greeks and the Romans were already using the outer husk [of the walnut], scrubbing their earthenware [with it],” Birker told me. “Anything that would have held food or [...] liquids like their oils and wines [were scrubbed with walnut].”

It is a wonderful thought that trees have been helping humans for this long.

Winter The trees now stand completely bare. I look out of my window one morning before dawn to see the exposed branches of the Eastern cottonwood across the street silhouetted against the dark sky, like something out of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Even in the harsh winter, the trees continue to grow.

The growth slows, of course. We see it in the rings. Looking at a tree stump, the rings for each year that it stood and grew are clearly visible. I remember a lesson that is easy to forget at my age—no life is perfectly linear. The rings themselves show evidence of fast and slow growing seasons, of allowing difficult seasons to be a time of rest. The centre of those rings rarely sits perfectly in the middle, as the tree grew around the obstacles it encountered. These are lessons that children and adults alike can learn.

“This juniper, growing in close proximity [to another tree], was pushing, so that it laid down the growth rings further to the edge,” Birker said, showing me a cross-section of a juniper trunk that she keeps in a kit to teach museum visitors of all ages about trees.

I have mapped out my life through the trees I have encountered along the way, knowing that many of them will remain standing long after me. A saucer magnolia stands near Morrice Hall. This kind of tree is a species that predates humanity, evolving during the Cretaceous age 95 million years ago. Though the specific one we have on campus is obviously not that old, I like to think that it could still weather a lot more winter storms than most of us.

Spring When Montreal’s ice melts in the spring, I look up at the Mount Royal trees once more. I know that they are already going back to work, even before their leaves have returned. I picture the root systems buried deep in the ground, holding the soil in place as the meltwater runs back down to the city’s sewage systems and the Saint Lawrence River.

“There would have been a stream going through here, and it still runs under Burnside,” Birker said as we stood in the grassy patch below Dawson Hall. “That underground stream eventually diverts into

underground sewers, because [it is] outflow from the mountain coming down University Avenue and curving into [campus].”

"It is a lesson I take from the trees: All of my past selves feed into who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. I am constantly growing, but each season of my life has contributed to the person I am today."

Spring is a time for growth, to state the obvious. But, it is also a time for reflection, particularly on our impacts on the living things around us. As we have adapted to survive winter in this city, we have made it more difficult for others to do so.

Trees have been little more than commodities to powerful industries for a long time. Forests have been turned into lumber and factory farms, and I am, again, disappointed (but not surprised) at the hubris of capitalism. For centuries, peaceful coexistence with the trees on this continent was the norm. It is never those doing harm to the trees that pay the price. Though deforestation and clearcutting come to mind when we think of threats to trees, McGill stands at the heart of another problem: The city. McGill’s sugar maples, a native tree of Quebec, have suffered. They are adjusted to our cold winters and hot summers, but not to concrete and salt.

“If you plant a sugar maple just beside the street where, in the winter, you’re going to have to have the de-icer, [the tree won’t be happy],” McGill’s Horticultural Supervisor Eric Champagne, who is responsible for the planting and maintenance of the trees on campus, said in an interview with the Tribune. “We planted a grove of sugar maples, and they’re all dying because they’re too close to where we have to stack snow that is contaminated.”

Summer While many students flock home over the summer, the maples stand tall and green over the lower field. The trees are now in their fast-growing season. They absorb all the sunlight while they have it, appreciating it more for the long winter without. But trees do not grow and produce just for themselves. Their fruit feeds the city’s animals, and their shade gives me somewhere to avoid studying for my summer class’s final exam.

Some of the trees on campus, like me, are not from here, but have

put down firm roots, adapting to these Montreal growing seasons and learning to appreciate and work with them.

“The Kentucky coffee tree [is] mostly found around the Great Lakes,” Champagne said. “But, it’s a tree that loves growing in the city.

[It’s] tolerant of the pollution, [and] tolerant of the [road] salt.”

We do not necessarily have to stay in one place to thrive, a lesson I wish I could have learned from the trees when I was 10-years-old and angry because I no longer lived across the street from that old cedar.

Champagne takes me on a tour of his small nursery hidden behind the James Administration building. Here, he shows me the saplings that he keeps in pots until they are big enough to avoid getting trampled by students when they stand invisible under piles of snow in the winter. He moves them each year as they grow, giving them the space that they need. Their almost-chameleonic ability to adapt is what has allowed these trees to survive for as long as they have. When we do notice them and their beauty, they provide us with such a sense of joy.

“There’s a ginko tree in front of the law library that I actually vibe so hard with,” Anthony Schokalsky, U2 Arts, wrote in a message to the Tribune. “Something about the size, the shape, the bark, the leaves, the form the branches [make me so happy].”

of my adolescence, silhouetted against a sunset made all the more beautiful by the air pollution. Those trees are firmly lodged in my mind as markers of the places that life has taken me. Life is inherently transient.

People and places come and go, but, without human intervention, the trees will continue to stand tall. Birker told me about how she teaches children about their environment and how trees grow.

“What is happening here? What do you think caused that? We use an inquiry based technique [to teach this].” Birker said of teaching children about tree growth. “[They] love this because it’s kind of like detective work.”

Learning about trees is a process that I still take great joy in. I, too, enjoy the detective work. This past June, I sat under the walnut on the west side of the Redpath Museum. While it is no longer socially acceptable for me to perch high in the branches of public trees, sitting underneath it and enjoying the trees’s shade is comforting in a similar way. We have underestimated these gentle giants for decades, seeing them as simple. Yet, through all that we have put the trees through, I know they will still, somehow, outlive us all.

Epilogue At the beginning of the fall semester, I sat at a picnic table in the grass east of Burnside Hall. The site is boxed in by construction now, but the trees that surround me and shade me from the late summer sun create a buffer that I am grateful for. The world is changing, and our environment is collapsing.

But, the trees continue to give me hope. There is something about a living being that does not know I am there, but that protects me anyway that makes me feel like the world will be okay. While I sit in a position of privilege that allows me to have this hope, knowing that there is a tree species that has survived 95 million years helps assure me that life will go on.

Despite my preoccupation with certain trees, most days I walk through Montreal fully unaware of the trees that line the streets. As appreciative as I am of the trees here, I consider how most of them will not be added to the running list of life-changing trees that I keep in my head. I frequently think back to those old growth cedars of my childhood on the West Coast, or the palm tree outside the window

(Sabrina Girard-Lamas / The McGill Tribune)

10 STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

Tribune Tastes: Le Central

Dishes to try at Montreal’s new gourmet food hall Corrina Greenler, Zoe Karkossa, Sophia White, Leyla Moy, & Miya Keilin Contributors, Staff Writer, Student Life Editor & Managing Editor

smoothies that incorporates goji berries, silken tofu, and quinoa.

Laab (Lao meat salad) from Thip Thip Thip Thip looks like it was transported right from the streets of Thailand: With colourful lighting, a bamboo stick menu board, and a full view of the chefs meticulously crafting the food, the snack bar radiates a fun and authentic energy. Inspired by his Thai Issan and Laotian roots, Chef Athiraj Phrasavath presents a simple menu of traditional dishes. Basil is the star of the pulled chicken Laab, but it is well-balanced between the spice, sweetness, and crunch of the rest of the ingredients.

Montreal is in the midst of a food court revolution, with three new food spots slated to open downtown in the next year. The McGill Tribune’s Student Life team visited Le Central, the first and largest of the three, and highlighted some dishes to try from its wide range of restaurant options.

Le Tio Joaquim from Cantine Emilia Cantine Emilia is a Portuguese grill offering a wide selection of Portuguese chicken, sandwiches, salads, and poutines. The outside is patterned with images of azulejo tiles, which are common in Portugal and Spain. Le Tio Joaquim came with two pieces of chicken covered in the restaurant’s famous sauce and a large portion of fries. The slightly spicy sauce was a delicious topping for the perfectly cooked chicken, making for a filling and reasonably priced meal. This Portugese chicken spot is certainly worth a return visit.

Vegan carnitas tacos from Bonita’s Taco & Deli Bonita’s Taco & Deli is a Le Central–exclusive restaurant offering a modern take on traditional tacos, including meat, fish, and vegan options. Their delightful vegan carnitas tacos, which consist of king oyster and enoki mushrooms with black garlic on organic local tortillas, are fresh and savoury, although they don’t quite pass as actual carnitas. At $3.75 each, their tacos are the perfect

Raspberry black pepper and passionfruit white chocolate ice cream from Bagado Le Central is the only spot in the city to find this innovative ice cream label, whose name roughLe Central is the first of three food court set to open in Montreal, the other two being Time Out ly translates to “Butterfly River” in the Indigenous Market and Le Cathcart Restaurants et Biergarten. (Vanna Chang / The McGill Tribune) Colombian language Emberá. Inspired by delicate and complex flavours, Bagado forgoes standard size to pair with an assortment of agua frescas and wine, tapenade, and packaged charcuterie meats. ice cream fare in favour of unusual combinations deli options.

To complete the Italian culinary experience, order like cacao and lime or pear and chocolate alongside a chocolate mousse or tiramisu, served in a sleek simple pleasures like honey and banana.

Margherita Con Stracciata pizza from reusable jar, for dessert.

Morso Pizzeria & Alimentari Blueberry-chocolate doughnut and a glass The diverse range of toppings at this Roman Kailua poké bowl from Kamé Snack-Bar of oat milk from Trou de Beigne market-style pizza stand, which includes pancThe outpost of popular Hawaiian snack bar Trou de Beigne offers a wide assortment of etta coppata, prosciutto and mushroom, smoked Kaméhama is sleek, pleasantly pink, and features perfectly sized “scout” doughnuts, with flavours salmon, zucchini, and potato, makes for a striking a simple menu of customizable poké bowls. The ranging from apple crumble and maple bacon to range of options. The Margherita Con Stracciata is brightly coloured Kailua bowl, a pre-set base of the decadent Oreo-studded white chocolate bliza classic, with tomato sauce, grana padano cheese, torched salmon, spicy mayo, sesame, and green zard. The blueberry chocolate donut was absolutely extra virgin olive oil, and basil. In addition to their onion over rice, was perfectly customized to indulgent and paired beautifully with a tall glass of pizzas, Morso offers a selection of artisanal sodas, my taste. Kamé also offers an inspired range of oat milk on tap.

Tribune Explains: How to dispose effectively A guide to waste management in Montreal

Alaana Kumar Staff Writer The phrase “reduce, reuse, and recycle” is a staple of many elementary school classrooms. Students are often told to recycle their paper and plastic items, unaware that if they do so incorrectly, the whole batch of recycling can end up in a landfill. With the consequences of climate change becoming increasingly severe, the City of Montreal hopes to enforce proper garbage and recycling practices. By recycling correctly, residents can aid in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by decreasing energy consumption. For those confused about the correct way to go about trash day, The McGill Tribune has a guide to proper waste management.

What should I know for trash day?

The City of Montreal strives for clean streets, but on a windy day, your trash may end up strewn across the curb. To prevent this, the city recommends placing all garbage in either a 65 x 90 centimetre trash bag that weighs no more than 25 kilogrammes and has no holes, or in a tightly closed regulation garbage can. Montreal garbage pick-up days differ depending on where you live, so make sure to follow your pick-up schedule.

What can I recycle?

Montreal, unlike some cities, makes recycling quick and easy. Paper, cardboard, glass, metal, and plastic are all recyclable. Some items commonly mistaken as recyclable include pizza boxes, take-out containers, meat trays, styrofoam, photos, rubber, No. 6 plastic, and porcelain. The city asks that residents prepare their items for recycling carefully: Though they do not require you to sort these

What should I know about composting?

In recent years, Montreal has begun taking steps to turn food scraps into compost. Composting food scraps saves water, helps soil hold moisture, and reduces runoff water. Recycling organic resources also helps conserve landfill space. This year, residential buildings in the northeast sector of the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood received food-waste collection bins. If you live in this area, make sure to only compost food scraps and biodegradable items like houseplants and soil. Students outside of this area looking to shop more sustainably can purchase compostable items to help ease the strain on the city’s landfills. Some paper food packages, dishes, paper towels, and tablecloths are also compostable and can make for better buys. Several large- and small-scale Montreal businesses are joining the fight by committing to using reusable serving materials and have managed to eliminate vast amounts of non-compostable and non-recyclable waste. McGill has also joined the Incorrectly sorted recycling can lead to recyclable items ending up in movement with biodegradable materials and composting the landfill. (Sabrina Girard-Lamas / The McGilll Tribune) stations in all dining halls, as well as ending the sale of plastic water bottles in vending machines. items, they do ask that you thoroughly rinse cans and jars to prevent mould, smells, and animals from invading the What types of waste need special disposal? bins. To find out dates and times for recycling in any Some hazardous waste requires special attention to Montreal borough, students can go to Info-collectes and be properly disposed of. Paint, batteries, aerosol cans, enter their postal code. Additionally, many stores, includ- medication, compact fluorescent bulbs, and other chemiing Provigo, offer cash back for glass bottles or other cal and electronic products are not safe to toss in the garrecyclable items in addition to regular recycling pick-up. bage bin. Luckily, Montreal has the perfect solution, with The program, called Consignation in Quebec, creates a seven ecocentres located around the city. These centres win-win situation by ensuring that items will be recycled offer free access with just a government ID and proof of correctly while providing you with a little extra grocery residence and help ensure Montreal residents are doing money. all they can to reduce waste, alleviate the stress on our landfills, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

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Breaking into the art scene with Norval Morrisseau

Lecture series looks at the grandfather of contemporary Indigenous art Vanessa Barron Contributor McGill’s Department of Art History and Communication Studies welcomed Carmen Robertson to present her research on the artist Norval Morrisseau on Nov. 14. The event was the latest in a series of lectures hosted by the department which aim to provide opportunities for discussion on current research in the field of art history.

Robertson, a ScottishLakota professor of art history at Carleton University, took questions on her archival research on Morrisseau’s work.

Her work examines Morriseau’s relationship with art dealers during the 1960s, when he first emerged into the Canadian and international art scene.

Robertson sees Morrisseau as the grandfather of contemporary Indigenous art. He initially rose to prominence in Toronto and Montreal in the 1960s. Born in 1931, the Anishinaabe artist grew up on the Sand Point reserve in Ontario, learning the stories and traditions of his people from his grandfather—many of which

Robertson’s work reads archival sources against the grain to uncover the beginnings of Morriseau’s art career. (Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune) would become the subjects of his paintings.

Curated by Jack Pollack, Morrisseau’s first gallery exhibit took place in Toronto in 1962.

Before this landmark exhibit, most Indigenous artwork shown in Canadian galleries was by Inuit artists. However, Morrisseau’s first show was such a success that all of the paintings sold on the first day it was open. Later in the decade, Montreal’s Expo 67 commissioned a mural from him, and Morrisseau continued to gain international recognition with

the help of art dealer Herbert T. Schwarz.

Robertson’s ongoing research on this period started with a donation from the archival sources of the Art Gallery of Ontario. She did, however, note that while she relies on these sources for her research, this archival approach is problematic for studying Indigenous art.

Archives overrepresent written records, while much of Indigenous cultures, histories, and traditional knowledge are passed down orally.

“[Morrisseau’s] life and art demand engagement outside of conventional art discourse,” Robertson said.

He learned many stories and traditional knowledge from his grandfather, but was also forced to attend residential school at a young age. As opposed to the extensive archives of traditional western painters, much of Morrisseau’s life, influences, and education is missing from the writings and materials in an archive.

“Methods of research require academic unlearning in order to make space for Indigeous ways of being and knowing,” Robertson noted. “Morrisseau’s art did not follow traditional trajectories.”

Robertson’s research draws on writings from Pollock and Schwarz that documented Morrisseau’s entrance into the gallery scene. By analyzing the relationship between the artist and the dealers, she found benefits and problems alike associated with the negotiation between the two parties. While Schwarz and Pollock brought Morrisseau’s art to a broader

audience, they were exploitative and verbally abusive toward him. Robertson concluded her talk by addressing the need for Morrisseau’s unmediated voice to be preserved—the archive only shows the artist from the problematic perspective of nonNative art collectors, not from the artist’s own experiences.

The lecture attracted an audience of both McGill students and members of the public.

McGill art history professor Angela Vanhaelen organized the lecture series and invited Robertson to share her traditional archival perspective on a contemporary Indigenous artist—an uncommon approach within the Canadian art world.

“It’s always interesting to hear about [researchers’] processes and their work in progress, because if they read something they’ve already [finished], it’s not quite as openended and you can’t ask as many questions,” Vanhaelen said.

The department will continue its lecture series with Finnish media scholar Susanna Paasonen on January 23.

Expozine 2019 opens up the world of independent publishing Zines discussing fringe issues brought front and center Jonathan Giammaria Staff Writer Mainstream culture often seems omnipresent—but every mainstream contains lively subcultures, and in the case of publishing, that subculture is zines. Montreal’s Expozine, which took place Nov. 1617, had over 270 vendors set up in Église Sainte-Arsène’s basement and drew over 15,000 visitors.

Typically, a zine is an independently published work meant to circumvent more traditional avenues for sharing art. Zines have often been associated with fringe issues, speaking for and about marginalized people and providing a platform for countercultural ideas and movements. Since zines have often had small circulations due to their DIY nature, their distribution has generally remained within the communities that produced them.

Expozine hosted its first convention in 2002, and has since grown to be Canada’s largest small-press convention and one of the most popular events of its kind in North America. With its continued success, Expozine has begun attracting artists internationally. Rows of vendors lined the hall with their visual art, poetry, essays, photography, comics, criticism, and political manifestos. Even within the world of zines, differences in artist resources and funding—some publications are run by a single person, while others boast dedicated editorial teams—make it difficult to

Close to 300 vendors attended Canada’s largest zine convention.

(Jonathan Giammaria / The McGill Tribune) reduce the disparity in popularity between larger and more obscure publications. Expozine, however, is an equalizer, where visitors can find kiosks of staple-bound poetry pamphlets next to mainstream publishers displaying their fully-coloured magazines.

Notable attendees included the Quebec literary publisher Véhicule Press, whose kiosk boasted novels and poetry collections from award winning writers. In another corner, Tania Mignacca, the creator of the webcomic Ponto, an endearing series about Montreal’s orange construc-

tion cones, displayed her newly published collection of the same name. A few tables down, Concordia’s student-run Queer Print Club exhibited their newest contributions discussing gender and sexuality.

In contrast to mainstream conventions like the upcoming Salon du livre de Montréal, Expozine’s value comes from showcasing a variety of artists whose eclectic niches might otherwise be overlooked.

Over the years, Expozine has expanded to include several workshops and talks. One such round table, hosted by La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly on

Nov. 14, invited several artists to speak about the collaborative nature of making zines. Jimmy Beaulieu, a Montreal-based cartoonist and comic artist, spoke about the difficulties of distributing work in Canada. Beaulieu spoke of the benefits of working with conventions like Expozine, especially in the era before it was common practice to advertise artwork through social media. Without a major publisher to back his work and distribute it country-wide, concentrated gatherings such as Expozine helped him to reach audiences made inaccessible by Canada’s vast landscape.

Meanwhile, Iris Boudreau, whose illustrations of urban life mix autobiography and fiction, spoke about the benefits of collaborating with fellow artists, some of whom she had met at conventions like Expozine. Boudreau remarked that she has often used collaboration as a means to assuage feelings of self-doubt and to share her projects’ failures and successes with collaborators, many of whom she now considers friends. More than just building solidarity, though, Boudreau also felt that collaboration was a great source of motivation, a tool for completing work and launching new projects.

Embodying this communal spirit, the convention brought together a vibrant collective of artists, writers, and illustrators.

As Expozine continues to grow, so will its ability to champion the distinct voices that make up the world of zines.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

‘Beastmode: A Social Experiment’ sheds light on the Philippines’ drug war Docudrama captures a country’s politics through a viral celebrity brawl

Players’ Presents: A Doll’s House

Joey Caplan Contributor

Discover this Norwegian classic about women’s rights, reimagined

by McGill’s premier student theatre group.

Nov. 21-24, 8:00-11:00pm 3997 boul. Saint-Laurent $8

For the latest installment in its weekly film screenings, Concordia’s chapter of Cinema Politica featured Eshei Mesina’s Beastmode: A Social Experiment, a documentary that is part exposé on the horrors of Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime, and part docudrama of how a fabricated viral video became a nationally reported mixed martial arts (MMA) fight. These seemingly unrelated subjects coalesce in a film that tackles the perception of violence in a country where drug users, and even those tangentially related to them, are killed by the police daily in the name of a war on drugs.

The film begins with shaky footage of Duterte delivering a speech to an audience of citizens protesting against the brutal treatment of drug users and imploring the president to fulfill his campaign promises, such as increasing minimum wage. This frantic moment defines Beastmode, as its hectic pacing and visual style mirrors the social panic as desperation sets in among Duterte’s many opponents. The film then takes a hard turn and focuses on Baron Geisler, a celebrated Filipino actor. Mesina had the idea of orchestrating an impromptu brawl between Baron Geisler and fellow actor Kiko Matos. The fight would be captured on a phone camera with the hope of going viral on the internet. The catch would be that the fight would occur in front of a sign calling for the release of a political prisoner.

The social experiment aimed to determine whether anyone would notice the sign itself or if viewers would ignore it and instead simply indulge in the fight. Beastmode intercuts the development of the evergrowing hoax with more of Duterte’s speeches, an apparent commentary on how Duterte’s call for extreme violence is a symptom of the country’s admiration for brutality. Unsurprisingly, most viewers fell for the bait, choosing to indulge gossip regarding Geisler and Matos instead of supporting the political prisoner. Some tabloids went as far as to make up outlandish theories about the actors’ motivations and personal history.

The internet made it clear that they wanted more from the two actors; one fight was not nearly enough.

Eventually, the initial premise of the experiment is dropped entirely: The “feud” between the two actors has become a national sensation.

Despite the director not intending his social experiment to reach such a

Salon du livre de Montréal 2019

Cinema Politica Concordia screened ‘Beastmode’ on Nov. 11. (IDFA.com) scale, Geisler and Matos agree to fight in a genuine MMA match, and throngs of people show up for the spectacle. Once again, Mesina implies, the public has chosen to focus on trivial violence rather than pressing political issues. At a certain point, the movie becomes a parody of itself, promoting the violence it set out to criticize. The film never shies away from its unexpected twists and, as a result, Beastmode provides an incredibly earnest snapshot of the political climate in the Philippines.

The film’s versatility is its strongest draw, and it makes Beastmode important both as a political statement and a piece of entertainment.

Serious, upsetting scenes involving Duterte are often punctuated with an onslaught of chaotic, colourful internet memes about Duterte and Geisler along with animated explosions, juxtaposing political discourse in the Philippines and how the public consumes it. The film prides itself on depicting the country’s crisis with candor and, at times, wit.

With this portrayal, Mesina creates one of the most honest depictions of the war on drugs yet. Geisler and Kiko’s climactic fight is the lens through which Beastmode inspects society’s attitude towards violence, and though the event has no bearing on the Filipino political climate, it sheds light on life in the Philippines far more than a presidential speech ever could.

Attend Montreal’s largest book expo, with appearances by renowned authors and discussions on a wealth of topics concerning today’s literature.

Nov. 20-25 800 De La Gauchetière St. W. $9

g-ART-bage

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” This art gallery embraces the idiom by featuring artwork made entirely from disposed and recycled materials.

Nov. 20-Dec. 13 5442 Chemin de la Côte-Saint-Luc Free

Say It Because You Mean It

Hosted by McGill’s poetry collective McSWAY, attend an open mic featuring student poetry, or take the opportunity to present your own.

Nov. 19, 6:00-8:00pm 651 Rue Sherbrooke O Free

Canada’s literary rock star pays a visit to Montreal

Margaret Atwood captivates hundreds in discussing ‘The Testaments’ Deana Korsunsky Staff Writer Continued from page 1.

Atwood sat in front of the altar, an ironic setting given the novel’s critique of institutionalized religion. Yet, it was simultaneously fitting: The eager audience was hanging on every word of the literary sermon that Atwood delivered. The green lighting, chosen to match the front cover of Atwood’s new novel, was discernible, but soft enough that one could make out the bright red spectacles that she wore on a chain around her neck.

A self-described Atwood fan, radio journalist and host Ann Lagacé Dowson interviewed Atwood throughout the evening, beginning by inquiring about the decades in between publishing The Handmaid’s Tale and its sequel. Atwood decided to return to the story by the recent rise in conservative and extremist politics.

“We’re in a pushback,” Atwood said. “I got to a point where I couldn’t keep my hands off [of] it. In 2016, just before the election, it was crying to be written.”

Dowson began to point out the similarities between Atwood’s dystopian novels and the current political events around the world, before Atwood clarified the inspiration behind her novels.

“Everything I wrote about actually happened sometime throughout history,” Atwood said. “I did that because otherwise people would say I made it all up. I didn’t.”

In literary studies, Atwood is noted for having coined the term ‘speculative fiction’, a genre describing possible consequences of the horrific realities that society creates.

The conversation then shifted to a discussion on climate change

and social justice. A long-time environmental advocate, Atwood noted connections between societal unrest and the environmental deterioration. She shared her personal experiences as an activist, and joked about social expectations of activist celebrities.

“People are saying ‘If Jane Fonda can get arrested, why can’t you?’ to me,” Atwood chuckled, referencing the actress’s weekly protests and subsequent weekly arrests.

Although the event was advertised as promoting The Testaments, the point of fascination and delight throughout the evening was not Margaret Atwood’s novel, but her demeanour. Throughout her conversation with Dowson, Atwood maintained a relaxed but formidable air of blunt and charming sarcasm. She did not allow Dowson to get away with any stray, misquoted line or not-entirelycorrect fact. When Dowson referred to a speech that the writer gave to West Point cadets years ago, Atwood did not hesitate to show some playful attitude.

“I had said that to more than just cadets, you know. They sat up straighter, too,” Atwood retorted.

Each time that Atwood made a curt remark, the audience chattered amongst themselves, adoring the literary icon’s authenticity. At times, Dowson was left searching for words, unprepared for and surprised at Atwood’s unapologetic attitude. By the end of the evening, however, both Dowson and Atwood developed a bond in their occasionally off-rhythm conversation, smiling and holding hands as the audience cheered for them.

Librairie Paragraphe’s ‘Words After Dark’ event left its audience satisfied, and with a new level of understanding of the worldfamous writer. The Testaments’ author is not just a brilliant thinker and influential literary figure; Margaret Atwood is a contemporary icon and a celebrity, and she knows it.

Atwood’s sharp wit and charming sarcasm made the literary evening’s atmosphere all the more delightful.

(Daria Kiseleva / The McGill Tribune)

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

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From the Brainstem: The ethics of gene editing

Revisiting CRISPR on the birthday of the first genetically modified humans

Owen Dunkley Contributor Since the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, society has debated whether our understanding of human biology might one day be our downfall. These debates progressed through the transgenic mice and in vitro fertilization of the ‘70s, DNA copying of the ‘80s, viral gene delivery and cloned sheep of the ‘90s, and completion of the human genome in 2003. The controversy has not dissipated, following an explosion in genome editing techniques that were spurred on by the repurposing of Cas9—the effector enzyme of CRISPR-Cas9—in 2012.

As genetic technologies progress at breakneck speed, humanity’s capacity to safely fix debilitating or fatal genetic disorders has grown to the point that we will be rolling out geneediting treatments to a greater audience in a matter of years. As the clinical adoption of this field of therapies appears imminent, ethical discussions surrounding the topic of human gene editing have returned to the forefront.

Fuelling these debates are two major causes for concern: De-

In November 2018, two genetically-modified babies were born in China, sparking ethical debates around the world. (scientificamerican.com) signer babies and equitable access to healthcare.

In late 2018, the genomes— the library of genes within each of our cells—of a set of twins born in China were modified by Cas9 for the purpose of enhancement. The announcement of the births spurred a whirlwind of controversy and renewed calls for a memorandum on the use of CRISPR and similar techniques in human embryos. To the wider public, this controversy may suggest that we have already begun to move toward consumer eugenics, wherein people tailor

their children’s features to reflect their ideals.

However, eminent scientists have underlined that the conservative nature of mainstream science will prevent genome editing research that is not thoroughly vetted by ethics boards. In light of greater ethical oversight, scientists in the coming years will likely focus their research on disease prevention in embryos, rather than on enhancement.

Although concerns about the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in embryos are legitimate, last November’s announcement should not negate

the positive impact that gene editing will have in the future.

Once genome editing technologies are proven safe for humans, their ability to allow people to live their lives without costly and painful medical conditions should be weighed against other ethical concerns such as potential adverse health effects and societal inequalities. Thousands of heritable single-gene mutations are already known to cause disease, and a majority of them may soon be curable with advanced CRISPR-based techniques.

These techniques are likely to be more effective in early embryos than in developed humans. As soon as embryonic gene editing is deemed safe, those who oppose gene editing will need to explain how it is ethical to block people who have no reasonable alternative treatment from accessing a veritable cure.

Equitable access to healthcare remains one of the major hurdles that policymakers face each time new treatments become available. For example, in the early 2000s, patients diagnosed with HIV in Canada had access to more expensive, yet newer and more effective drug combinations than patients in

sub-Saharan Africa. This divide in access to treatments allowed HIV to persist within African populations: In 2018, 68 per cent of worldwide HIV infections were in Africa. Meanwhile, only six per cent of worldwide cases were spread across Western and Central Europe and North America, combined. If genome editing technologies are not designed to fundamentally maintain the concepts of equality, disease burdens will again concentrate in lowerincome countries, and global social structures will further polarize populations by income.

No responsible government can stop the advancement of technologies in medicine that have encouraging potential. Rather than fighting off advancements, more effort must be placed on reshaping ethical and legal frameworks to ensure that as new technologies become available, free-market economics do not dictate their use and all people are granted equal access. Conversations on the use of these technologies are needed between policymakers, scientists, and the public, such that everyone understands the implications of their use before they become available.

The hidden costs of ‘orphan wells’

Abandoned oil wells pose serious environmental hazards Amir Hotter Yishay Staff Writer According to some estimates, there may be up to five million oil and gas wells in Canada and the United States. In Alberta alone, more than 600,000 wells have been drilled—one for every seven people in the province. The consequences of the extraction, refinement, and use of petroleum is well understood; the effect of extraction on the immediate environment, less so.

The oil drilling process creates pathways for the movement of fluids within the Earth’s subsurface, allowing for the extraction of oil, natural gas, and groundwater— yet, these very same pathways can also facilitate leakage of gases and harmful contaminants. On paper, if wells are properly sealed and maintained, this should not happen, but in practice, it often does—especially when they are abandoned, or ‘orphaned’ by the companies that drilled them in the first place.

Mary Kang, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Engineering, is an expert on the environmental cost of orphaned wells. In 2013, when Kang was conducting research for her PhD, the wells were mainly considered a risk factor for carbon dioxide emissions.

“I thought, ‘Could they be a source of methane emissions?’” Kang said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Apparently, at that time, there was nobody who measured them.”

There are 450,000 oil wells in Alberta, many of which are abandoned. (cbc.ca) As a greenhouse gas, methane is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Kang’s measurements of abandoned wells in Pennsylvania, the oldest in North America, found that they were in fact emitting significant amounts of the gas, and to an extent far beyond what scientists and oil executives had imagined. Since the publication of Kang’s findings in 2014, methane emissions from abandoned oil and gas wells have finally been included in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) emissions inventories—crucial tools used by government and business alike to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions inventories

are generally calculated using emission factors, averages based on measurements taken elsewhere.

“All studies show that if you take, say, 100 oil and gas wells, it’s only two or three that emit a lot,” Kang said. “So you can see how using an emission factor from another study can give you uncertain estimates.”

Kang believes that emissions accounting needs to be more measurement-based, a conviction echoed by the National Academy of Sciences in a 2018 report.

Kang’s work has also shed light on other consequences of orphan wells, finding that they are at risk of polluting groundwa-

ter aquifers, the primary source of water for nearly nine million Canadians.

Under the ‘polluter pays’ principle, oil and gas companies are legally bound through Asset Retirement Obligations (ARO) to account for the cost of cleaning up and dismantling wells. However, until a Supreme Court of Canada ruling this January, declaring bankruptcy allowed companies to shirk these responsibilities in lieu of paying back creditors, saddling the government with the cost of clean up. From 2012 to 2017, a downturn in oil and gas saw the number of orphan wells in Alberta catapult from 100 to upward of 3,200. Meanwhile, the number of wells that are effectively out of business and not yet properly sealed or remediated reached the staggering figure of 155,000, which amounts to 30 per cent of all wells in the province. The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) publicly claimed the total financial liability of clean-up measures for the province’s oil and gas industry to be $58 billion.

In 2018, however, journalists unearthed private AER documents warning that the actual sum could be closer to $260 billion, of which only 1.6 billion in liability securities had been collected from the private sector.

While action lags on the issue, the orphan wells will continue to contaminate groundwater and belch methane into the atmosphere. Given the magnitude of the issue at hand, one can only hope that the government and industry will be able to pick up the slack, and soon.

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

The cognitive mechanisms behind depression

McGill researcher explores the determinants of mental illness Evan Kashtan Contributor One in five Canadians will experience some form of mental illness in a given year. By the age of 40, 50 per cent of the population will have had a mental illness as the result of a complex interaction between personality, biological, and environmental factors.

Bipolar disorder has a clear, established relationship with genetics. Though this is less true for Major Depressive Disorder, there is still a clear biological component. Specifically, scientists have linked depression to the hippocampus, a structure in the brain responsible for creating and storing memories. Stress causes this region to become smaller and also results in hyperactivity in the amygdala, a region associated with emotion.

Researchers like Pascale Bockelmann, a Master’s student in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill, are still working to develop a full picture of the condition. Bockelmann believes that depression is, in part, due to a lack of cognitive flexibility, which can be described as the ability to change mindsets.

“The better your cognitive flexibility is, the faster you’ll be able to recover from depression,

Cognitive flexibility is thought to be one determinant of mental health. (flickr.com) because a lot of the therapeutic techniques that are used to treat depression also use the same ability or skillset that relies on cognitive flexibility,” Bockelmann said.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one such therapeutic technique for mild to moderate depression that, according to the McGill University Health Centre, focuses on restoring a healthy and productive balance to the interaction between thoughts, actions, and feelings.

CBT is meant to be short-term (12-20 sessions), a departure

from older psychoanalytic methods.

However, cognitive flexibility offers more than therapeutic value.

“There’s been research to show that cognitive flexibility is predictive of depression, so if you have high cognitive flexibility, you’re less likely to [develop] depression,” Bockelmann said.

Bockelmann would also like to research how developing cognitive flexibility at a young age can be used as a preventative measure.

“If you’re able to include tasks in elementary school education that promote cognitive flexibility, it can have a lot of benefits [...] for problem solving and creativity but maybe also benefits in terms of being able to overcome mental illnesses like depression,” Bockelmann said.

She chose individuals from multicultural backgrounds— defined as being bilingual and having lived in three countries before turning 18—as the study population for her research on depression, since moving around has been linked to higher rates

of depression. Bockelmann explained that this is because those who move around a lot often do not have a solid community that they are part of.

“It’s almost the cleanest group,” Bockelmann said.

“There are not as many variables to consider, and you can look at culture in a more isolated way.”

Bockelmann believes that studying multicultural populations can offer an interesting perspective in depression research.

A study that Bockelmann conducted found a possible link between multicultural background and creative problem solving, but it did not show a positive association with cognitive flexibility. She intends to replicate the study with a larger sample size to obtain clearer results.

As is the case with many scientists, Bockelmann became interested in the field of cognitive flexibility and in her study population as a result of personal experience.

“I grew up as a third-culture kid and lived in many different countries [...] and always wondered if it really made me see or think about the world differently than other people,” Bockelmann said.

As her research progresses, she may soon be able to confidently answer that question.

How robots are transforming the field of law

Faculty of Law hosts event on AI’s influence in the legal sector Gwenyth Wren Contributor Continued from page 1.

Within the field of AI, ML offers a host of advantages, allowing machines to process and store data, spot patterns, and make linkages that humans cannot.

Furthermore, ML does not require taskspecific knowledge.

While ML can process large amounts of data, it cannot understand it the way humans do. This is especially true for text data, which is problematic for a field like law. Law is based on textual documents, legislation, and contracts, and requires analysis and understanding of legal forms. Lawyers and judges often use precedent to make judgements on new cases. However, because this analysis requires an understanding of the real world that it does not yet have, AI cannot do this. Thus, using annotated data— data sets used to train AI—presents many problems in the legal sector.

This does not mean that AI cannot be useful. ML can analyze documents, provide support for legal research, and build models to compare actors in the

legal system.

At the moment, AI is just a tool that lawyers can use; it will not replace them in the foreseeable future.

“I do not think lawyers will become obsolete,” Westermann said. “I just think [that] there are parts of the world and places where people do not have access to lawyers, where they will have more legal opportunities with the introduction of AI.” Westermann’s research focusses on the possibility of using AI to increase people’s access to legal aid. The legal system is complex, with many barriers to entry, including monetary, psychological, and temporal costs, all of which prevent people from seeking aid. In fact, while 50 per cent of Canadians encounter legal issues, only seven per cent use the court system.

This is where the JusticeBOT, a project that Westermann is involved in, plays a role. The JustiveBOT is a chat box that can answer simple legal questions. In the case of a tenant who has bed bugs and is seeking compensation but does not know where to look, the JusticeBOT would ask a series of questions about the issue, and, based on the user’s responses,

AI can be used to analyze documents, provide support for legal research, and build models to compare actors in the legal system.

(Sabrina Girard-Lamas / The McGill Tribune) explain the legal situation’s outcomes in past cases, as well as next steps people can take moving forward. Westermann claims that the program, built with the support of legal experts, can be useful in increasing legal harmony and in reducing court caseloads.

This is just one example of how AI

can play a pivotal role in the legal field.

Yet, many audience members expressed fear that AI would take away jobs. Westermann calmly addressed these worries.

“Did the carpenter get replaced by the hammer?” Westermann said. “No, but the hammer changed the job for the carpenter.”

SPORTS

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

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Instant replay holds officials to a better standard Keeping spectators engaged through video assistance

Adam Bell Contributor The future of video review in the NFL changed at 8:59 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2019. The New Orleans Saints held the ball on the 13-yard line with 1:48 left in the game and a chance to book their ticket to the Super Bowl. Veteran quarterback Drew Brees, the all-time passing yard leader, dropped back and threw a dart toward Tommylee Lewis.

Before the ball got to him, Lewis was hit by Nickell Robey-Coleman, an obvious penalty.

New Orleans was awarded an automatic first down and ran out the clock to kick the game-winning field goal as time expired. Or, at least that is what should have happened.

Instead, the officials did not call a foul, and the Saints were robbed of their 2019 Super Bowl dreams. This single play exposed a glaring weakness in NFL officiating: The need for video assistance in interpretive penalties.

In March 2019, instant replay began to cover pass interference on a one-year trial basis. In theory, fouls should now be called correctly as a result, but this has not proven to be the case. Fans and coaches alike are more frustrated and confused about what constitutes a “clear and obvious” foul. In fact, only 17.5 per cent of coaches’ challenges, with regards to pass interferences, have actually resulted in a decision being

TMO in rugby allows spectators to follow along as referees deliberate.

(The Canadian Press) overturned.

This is not a problem unique to the NFL. The NBA is now allowing coaches to challenge some of the officials’ decisions once per game. Again, these challenges have a low success rate and have left coaches frustrated. While it was amusing to watch Doc Rivers lose his mind when referees upheld a ridiculous offensive foul on Lou Williams in the Nov. 6, 2019 matchup against the Bucks, he expressed an exasperation that many people are also experiencing.

Rivers brought up an important point: Nobody, including officials, wants to be

wrong. This is especially true when it comes to judgement calls. When a judgment call is checked, the officials usually stick with their original decisions because each incident could be interpreted in multiple ways.

This leaves us asking whether leagues should still offer video assistance to their officials. The short answer is yes. The problem does not lie with the technology itself, but rather the lack of transparency in its use. While the flow of the game and, sometimes, celebrations are interrupted, spectators and athletes are often left in the dark as the officials deliberate. As a result,

when the decision is unexpected, the crowd, teams, and social media blow up. This is a frequent occurrence with video-assisted refereeing (VAR) in European soccer as well, especially in the Premier League.

Leagues around the world could learn from television match officials in rugby, which has been a tremendous success.

Viewers at home and spectators who have purchased the ref link technology can listen to the discussions between the head official and the television match official (TMO). Fans and referees get to watch the exact same replays, and there is no lengthy process because officials do not waste time overanalyzing the incident on a screen offfield, but rather observe the big screen visible to all in attendance. In effect, the public is guided through the officials’ thought process, which humanizes these often-vilified individuals and minimizes the impact of interruptions by keeping everyone engaged.

Officials are people, and people make mistakes. Professional leagues across sports can, and should, use technological assistance to their benefit. If leagues make the communication between officials available for everyone to listen to, not only will the public be kept informed, but it could also prevent officials from being berated publicly after an unpopular decision. They should embrace the technology and maximize the audience’s experience.

Fantasy sports are ruining real sports

Stonehearted Ivy League graduates run MLB teams without empathy Gabe Nisker Features Editor The Athletic’s Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal reported on Nov. 12 that the Houston Astros had used technology to steal signs in 2017. They had installed a camera in centre field to watch the opposing catcher’s signs to the pitcher; someone in the dugout would then bang a garbage can loudly to alert their own hitters as to what pitch was coming.

Stealing signs is acceptable if teams can pick up the patterns on their own but using cameras is a step too far. The Astros wanted to win baseball games, but they ignored competitive spirit to do so. The “win-at-allcosts” mentality has a long history in sports, and, more recently, it has been a big factor in ruining them.

About 30 years ago, Sports Illustrated writer Daniel Okrent invented Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP), a statistic to assess pitcher performance. Okrent could calculate the statistic by hand, given the easy mathematics. He checked box scores every morning for his rotisserie fantasy baseball league—the first ever—in which friends drafted teams in order to see who would be the best baseball general manager. This story, in and of itself, was okay: They were simply friends having fun.

However, fantasy baseball, and fantasy sports more broadly, have transformed from fun into a cruel money-making machine.

Startups DraftKings and FanDuel turned it into a daily game to win money. In daily fantasy sports, players are assigned monetary

values and managers must put together the best lineup while staying under the salary cap. The Astros first hired their now-former Assistant General Manager Brandon Taubman because of his Ivy League credentials and a financially successful fantasy sports endeavour. He, like many savvy mathematicians, created algorithms to exploit matchups.

“Sometimes there were mispricings,” Taubman said to The Athletic in 2018. “One of the big advantages was paying attention to which players were mispriced and taking advantage of that.”

The rhetoric in baseball media has since matched the way we talked about fantasy sports to the point where fans no longer discuss the ins-and-outs of good play on the field. Instead, we debate whether that team should have made a trade or whether a player is a “valuable asset.” Most fans are not on the players’ side. In a sense, they are general managers in their own minds. As a result, real baseball has become such a fantasy to some that they forget that real people are involved, both on and off the field.

This change in how we watch sports was highlighted during an outburst from Taubman after the Astros advanced to this year’s World Series.

“Thank god we got [Roberto] Osuna!”

Taubman yelled to three female reporters.

“I’m so f***ing glad we got Osuna!”

Osuna, the team’s closer, had just blown the save, but it is clear why Taubman yelled at who he did. Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein reported that Taubman directed his outburst at one reporter in particular who

The investigation into the Houston Astros has now involved discussions with three big-league managers: The Mets’ Carlos Beltran, the Red Sox’s Alex Cora, and the Astros’ A.J. Hinch.

(Trask Smith / UPI) was wearing a domestic violence awareness bracelet. Osuna had been suspended for 75 games the year prior under the Domestic Violence Policy; the Astros acquired him in a trade from Toronto for a lessened cost due to his suspension. Taubman saw his new closer as a mispriced asset, rather than as a domestic abuser, and that is abhorrent.

The Astros’ leadership defended Taubman at first and issued a statement effectively calling Apstein’s report a false accusation. Yet, strong reporting won out, and the league began an investigation into the events. When others confirmed Apstein’s

account, the Astros finally fired Taubman in what felt like a case of too little, too late.

The Houston organization is the prime example of a broken system. Teams are preoccupied with how to maximize their value—winning each and every game however they can—which neglects serious problems like players with histories of domestic violence. The Nov. 12 report exposing how the Astros stole signs in the year they won the World Series came out to much fanfare but no real surprise.

Baseball’s human element has already gone missing.

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SPORTS

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 2019

Martlet hockey triumphs over top-ranked Carabins Despite numerous penalties, Martlets manage to defend home ice Katia Innes Arts & Entertainment Editor The McGill Martlets (4– 5) faced cross-town rival and RSEQ top-ranked Université de Montréal (UdeM) Carabins (5–2) at McConnell Arena on Nov. 16.

From the sound of the opening buzzer, the Martlets dominated, maintaining the lead with the help of third-year forward Lea Dumais’ decisive hat-trick and ultimately securing a 4–1 victory. This victory was especially meaningful for the Martlets considering their last encounter with the Carabins ended in a 1–3 defeat. “[The Carabins] are definitely [...] very physical,” Dumais said.

“We’ve played them a lot in the playoffs, so it’s definitely sometimes a bit emotional, but [they’re] always a fun [team] to play against, and it’s very competitive.”

Within minutes of the opening faceoff, the Martlets kept the Carabins in their defensive zone, setting the tone for the rest of the game. Another precedent set early on was in penalties: Two minutes into the game, third-year forward

Stephanie Desjardins was called for interference. Though the Martlets were the first in the penalty box, they did not let this deter them. A structured offence and tight passing gave the Martlets ample opportunity for shots on goal, and on a power play for the Martlets, Dumais scored her first point of the game, assisted by third-year forward Kellyane Lecours and fourth-year defencewoman Kate Devries. “[We played] with lots of confidence,” Head Coach Peter Smith said. “We had a great week of practice. The previous weekend, we played well against Concordia, [but then] we didn’t play well against Carleton, and I think that that was a lesson learned. In this league, you have to come out of every game and play hard, and I think that’s what we did today.”

The second period saw the Carabins returning the pressure as both teams found the back of the net, with Dumais scoring her second goal. McGill then surged in the third period, gunning to secure victory. A pair of penalties against Dumais and fifth-year center Nicole Howlett for slashing and hooking, respectively,

MOMENT OF THE GAME With third-year forward Lea Dumais and fifth-year centre Nicole Howlett in the penalty box, the Martlets had just three skaters on the ice. Thankfully, the Martlets soldiered through the penalty kill, with fourth-year goalie Tricia Deguire keeping the Carabins’ out of her net.

QUOTABLE

Forward Lea Dumais scored a hat-trick to secure a victory for the Martlets.

(Iman Zarrinkoub / The McGill Tribune) resulted in a five-on-three Carabins power play. Fourth-year goalie Tricia Deguire defended shot after shot from a hungry Montréal offence, remaining steady on the penalty kill. The Martlets used this newfound resolve to score two goals within the last five minutes of the game: One by Dumais to roundout her hat-trick, and an empty net goal from Desjardins.

With this victory under their belt, the Martlets feel confident

that they can use this momentum to power through the final three games of the semester.

“Today we played amazing,” Deguire said. “It was really a team effort [….] Right now what we need to do is continue on that track, and if we can play the same as today, we will be really good to go [for the next game].”

The Martlets will face off against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees (7–5) on Nov. 22.

“Every game that we’ve played has been a [...] lesson, and [...] today is no different. I think our players realize what they’re capable of [....] Every game I think we’ve gotten better and better at understanding that.

I have a lot of confidence that we’ll come out and play exactly like that in our remaining three games of our semester.” — Head Coach Peter Smith on the team’s growth.

STAT CORNER The Martlets and Carabins kept the penalty box full this game, with seven penalties against the Martlets and five against the Carabins.

NFL 2019-20 Midseason Awards

Wilson, McCaffery, and Jones among the elite in first half of season Adam Menikefs Contributor

regardless of this season’s outcome, as McCaffery, only in his third year and already setting records, looks to lead this offence each week for years to come.

The NFL has passed the halfway point of the 2019-20 season. Thanks to a plethora of spectacular games, interesting storylines, and individual excellence, this year has been as eventful as any in recent memory. There is plenty of football left to play, but the contenders for the annual NFL awards have already separated themselves from the pack, and many are the rightful favourites to receive individual recognition in February.

Most Valuable Player (MVP): Russell Wilson (Quarterback, Seattle Seahawks) With incredible play on a weekly basis and exceptional statistics, Russell Wilson has edged out Lamar Jackson through Week 10 as the favourite for the MVP award. Wilson currently leads the league with an exceptional 23:2 touchdown to interception ratio and sits fourth with 2,737 passing yards, along with an efficient 68.5 completion percentage. Wilson has led the Seahawks to an 8–2 record, with a recent victory over the previously undefeated San Francisco 49ers. If Wilson replicates the first half of the year, he will certainly be going to another Pro Bowl, and possibly win his first MVP award, and second Lombardi Trophy.

Coach of the Year: Kyle Shanahan (Head Coach, San Francisco 49ers) Many could claim this award come

Seattle Superhawks quarterback Russell Wilson is leading the hunt for MVP. (Alika Jenner / Getty Images) season’s end, as several coaches have led their teams to impressive records while overcoming sub-par rosters, injuries, and low expectations. Although the 49ers had a solid roster coming into the season, very few expected a perfect 8–0 start or that the 49ers would be sitting atop the league through 10 weeks. The 49ers have relied on their defence, placing second in points and yards allowed per game, while still boasting a steady offence. The 39-year-old Shanahan has truly impressed in his third season as head coach and looks to lead his young team into January with home-field advantage and a chance to bring a Super

Bowl championship back to San Francisco.

Offensive Player of the Year: Christian McCaffery (Running Back, Carolina Panthers) The Carolina Panthers lost starting quarterback Cam Newton earlier in the season to a foot injury, and, despite solid play from back-up Kyle Allen, the Panthers would be nowhere near a playoff spot without Christian McCaffery. The Stanford University product currently leads the NFL in rushing yards per game, rushing touchdowns, and total scrimmage yards. The future looks bright for Carolina

Defensive Player of the Year: Chandler Jones (Outside Linebacker, Arizona Cardinals) With no clear favourite to win the Defensive Player of the Year award, Chandler Jones may be in the running, despite playing for an Arizona team that has been dreadful over the last few years.

Jones sits atop the league with five forced fumbles and 11.5 sacks, along with three fumble recoveries and 27 combined tackles. The former first-team All-Pro and Super Bowl champion outside linebacker has continued to succeed despite playing on a poor defence and certainly deserves recognition for his outstanding effort.

Comeback Player of the Year: Cooper Kupp (Wide Receiver, Los Angeles Rams) After tearing his ACL last season and missing the team’s successful NFC championship season, Cooper Kupp has returned this season putting up career numbers. Although the Rams have struggled offensively compared to last season, Kupp sits sixth in the league in receiving yards, seventh in receptions, and leads his team in touchdown catches. If the Rams want to return to the playoffs this year, Kupp must continue to produce. With the pace he has set, he is, deservingly, the favourite for Comeback Player of the Year.