The McGill Tribune Vol. 39 Issue 15

The McGill Tribune TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020 | VOL. 39 | ISSUE 15

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Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

FEATURE

GAME REPORT

International issues have on-campus consequences

The witching hour arrives in Montreal

One point victory lifts Marlet basketball over Citadins

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PG. 15

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(Marie Saadeh / The McGill Tribune)

Hundreds protest against Bill 21 at the Ministry of Education

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McGill is not an “Antisemitic University” Jonah Fried Contributor Over the winter break, I was excited to talk with my family and friends about McGill, but defending the university’s name against accusations of “antisemitism”

was not what I had in mind. Instead of sitting down to the ordinary Shabbat dinner with loved ones, I stumbled into defending a McGill on trial, and I did my best as its attorney: But it seemed like the case was already closed.

The Times of Israel had already published a piece lamenting an “antisemitic” Students’ Society of McGill University

(SSMU) resolution, while Bari Weiss, New York Times Opinion Staff Editor, mentioned the incident in a column about the rise of world wide antisemitism.

As a Jewish student representative to SSMU, seeing the issue so misrepresented in the press was jarring to say the least.

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Rapid urbanization is driving biodiversity decline

Research findings expose gaps in knowledge of urban growth’s effects on biodiversity

Gwenyth Wren Contributor Humanity is currently experiencing an unprecedented era of urban growth.

By 2030, more than 1.2 billion additional people are expected to live in cities, equivalent to building a city the size of New York every

six weeks.

A group of international scientists, including Andrew Gonzalez, a professor in the McGill Department of Biology, surveyed over 922 studies on urban growth’s impacts on biodiversity.

Their study, recently published in Nature, found that scientists are not studying the impacts of urban growth

in the right places: 72 per cent of studies of direct urban impacts on biodiversity are in high-income countries, while the natural habitat loss in lower-income countries, largely ignored by the scientific community, is much more severe.

In essence, researchers are neglecting to study low-income urban growth.

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NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

ILADA hosts talk on effects of climate change on Indigenous refugees Me Karina Kesserwan, expert on Indigenous issues, presents in forum Deisha Paliwal Staff Writer The Indigenous Law Association de Droit Autochtone (ILADA) hosted a forum to examine how climate change affects Indigenous refugees in a legal context.

On Jan. 15, keynote speaker Me Karina Kesserwan presented the talk to law students and other members of the McGill community.

ILADA is a student group that organizes events to promote an understanding of the legal obstacles faced by global Indigenous communities. Kesserwan, an expert on international Indigenous issues, is a co-founder of Kesserwan Arteau, a firm that focuses on Aborignal law.

Kesserwan argued that the relocation of displaced people diminishes the importance of their knowledge.

“Displaced people are often seen as standing in the way of development: We need to move them, because we need to progress,” Kesserwan said. “In the process of their removal, we deny the authority of their experiences on the land.”

Kesserwan proceeded to discuss the current conflict between the contemporary legal definition of a refugee under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees and the existence of ‘climate refugees.’ Despite the subjectivity of the Geneva Convention’s definition— an approach that is uncommon to legal frameworks—it excludes people who are fleeing due to environmental phenomena.

“The definition of a refugee incorporates a wellfounded fear,” Kesserwan said. “Laws do not often involve subjective feelings, since they are built on objective reason. [However], the definition, does not apply

to ‘climate refugees.’ [One] cannot claim refugee status if their state has been destroyed or homeland is uninhabitable.”

In her presentation of the impacts of climate change, Kesserwan explained that the crisis’ effects add to the burden of vulnerable nations.

“The states disappearing because of climate change are not the states [that] are responsible for it,” Kesserwan said. “Very often, they are the states that do not have the means to protect themselves. We see that individuals lose their connection to culture and community, but we also see that entire nations lose their nationalities.”

Kesserwan also emphasized the need to involve the voices of Indigenous communities in conversations and legislation surrounding climate change.

“Indigenous people have the knowledge of how to work the land, so they have solutions for adapting to climate change, but are they being asked to contribute?” Kesserwan said. “For many years, we have not considered Indigenous knowledge to be knowledge.”

For Natalie Lloyd, U1 Arts & Science, the speaker’s emphasis on the loss of symbols and stories, rather than just land, presents the climate crisis from a different perspective.

“The loss of the right to self-determination often accompanies the loss of less tangible, yet equally significant, aspects of Indigenous culture, a thought that Kesserwan brought my attention to,” Lloyd said.

Alisha Atri, U3 Education, believes that non-Indigenous individuals are responsible for educating themselves about Indigenous issues.

“Unfortunately, our legal system and laws were created by colonizers and systematically allows the

The conference explored the inadequate legal framework in place for ‘climate refugees. (Deisha Paliwal / The McGill Tribune) oppression of Indigenous communities to continue,” Atri said. “Non-Indigenous people have benefited from colonization and the oppression of Indigenous communities, past and present, so I think we have a responsibility to learn about these lasting effects and actively resist current forms of [injustice].”

Atri questioned the prospects of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in the absence of institutional support.

“How do we, as settlers, reconcile with communities who’ve been forced to resettle, assimilate, and face the primary effects of climate change without any support from governments that are responsible for the climate crisis?” Atri said.

McGill mourns victims of the plane crash in Iran

Hundreds of members of the McGill community attended the memorial

Abbas Mehrabian Contributor On Jan. 16, McGill held a memorial on the Macdonald campus for Negar Borghei, an Iranian master’s student and a victim of the plane crash near Tehran.

The Jan. 8 incident claimed the lives of 176 people on the plane, including two members of the McGill community.

Borghei obtained her first master’s degree in Iran and worked as a dietitian.

She hoped to obtain her credentials to practice in Canada, so she enrolled in the human nutrition program at McGill in September 2019 to obtain a second master’s degree, according to Anja Geitmann, Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

“Negar’s brother tells me that it has helped the family cope with their loss by seeing how Canada, in general, and McGill in particular share their grief,” Geitmann said. “It is upon the family’s request that we will be taking pictures and video footage today […] in the hope that seeing the footage calms Negar’s family.”

Borghei’s husband, Alvand Sadeghi, was on the plane with her. He was a web developer at ViewFin, a fintech company, and lived in Toronto. Negar travelled back and forth between Montreal and Toronto on the weekends to see him. Also aboard were Alvand’s sister, Sahand, and her young daughter Sophie.

Borghei and Sadeghi were 30; Falsafi was 32 when the accident happened.

(McGill Newsroom and Sajjad Ghaemi) During the memorial, Linda Wykes, Director of the School of Human Nutrition recounted her memories of Borghei.

“She was able to influence people through the brightness of her personality,” Wykes said. “She was a leader, an important colleague and a collaborator in many group projects. Negar was a very bright light and we will always remember her.”

Over 100 people attended the memorial, which prompted the organizers to relocate from the MacDonald-Stewart’s faculty lounge to a lecture hall at the last minute. McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier offered her condolences to Borghei’s family, friends, and to the McGill’s Iranian

community. The attendees of the memorial were touched when a group of Borghei’s classmates tearfully shared their memories about her. Maureen Rose, Dietetics Credentialing Director, remembers the times spent with Borghei.

“She was […] always with a friendly, welcoming smile,” Rose said. “And I think that was an output sign of the nature of a soul. She was warm, generous, always helping others, able to be a leader but also willing to be a team player.

Negar, you are a bright light, and now you are shining somewhere else, but you will always be here, shining.”

After the speeches, the attendees returned to the faculty lounge, where they signed a condolence book that will be

sent to Negar’s family. Music was provided by a chamber trio from the Schulich School of Music.

Maryam Razaghi, a PhD candidate in human nutrition, went to the same undergraduate school as Negar. Razaghi was comforted by McGill’s condolence messages and the memorial, and recalled the last time she saw Borghei.

“I felt that McGill cares about us and that we are like a family,” Razaghi said. “[I last saw her] in December at a Winners store, I saw her from a distance and noticed she [was] buying a lot of stuff. I guessed she must be going to Iran and is buying gifts for her family.

I regret that I did not talk to her for the very last time.”

Faraz Falsafi, who received his master’s degree in computer science from McGill in 2015, was another victim of the plane crash. Sajjad Ghaemi, a Research officer at the National Research Council of Canada, met Faraz in a machine learning course.

“He loved to travel and to take photographs,” Ghaemi said. “After his graduation from McGill, he worked in Montreal for some time, then moved to Toronto and started working there. I last spoke to him in October; he told me he is going to Iran for the holidays to attend his sister’s wedding ceremony. I still cannot believe he is gone. I sometimes call him or check whether he has sent me a Whatsapp message.”

NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

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PGSS Legislative Council discusses long-term plans

Council discussed the creation of a University Affairs Officer position Irini Karagiannakis Contributor The Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) Legislative Council reconvened on Jan. 15 to propose a graduate student zone in the planned Fiat Lux Building Project.

Further discussion involved the creation of a University Affairs Officer and health insurance coverage for PGSS students.

PGSS Secretary-General Dakota Rogers addressed a recent demand from members to actively use the Library Improvement Fund by prioritizing large-scale, long-term projects. A $3.00 Library Improvement Fund fee was dismissed in a PGSS referendum last year because there was no use for the funds.

Rogers argued that the fund is wasting its potential to support bigger projects.

“Currently, this fund has $541,000 [in] it,” Rogers said. “We will never spend that [amount] if we continue at [our current spending] rate. [This is why] we’re proposing to [create] a graduate student zone in this new library.”

With the Fiat Lux project expected to begin this year, McGill will renovate the McLennan-Redpath library complex to accommodate the university’s growing student population.

Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Fabrice Labeau briefly outlined the university administration’s vision for the project.

“The library will basically store all low circulation material in a remote location,” Labeau explained. “The high circulation material will remain downtown in the core facility. There’s going to be a new cloud-based sys-

tem that will have an interface to make a request for a book off-campus.”

Rogers also presented the idea for a graduate student zone, which would entail reserved communal and exclusive study spaces.

“What currently exists in the libraries [are] two rooms specifically intended for graduate students, but they’re only desks for studying and you have to rent them,” Rogers said. “We obviously don’t want to see those disappear, [but] we also want to see an increase in net space that will be used for this kind of communal space.”

Finally, discussion centered on updates from the Health and Dental Plan review committee, whose proposed changes include increasing insurance coverage in vaccination and health practitioners. Under the proposed plan, mental health coverage would increase drastically as the most expensive change to the current plan.

“The current coverage is $30 per visit up to a maximum of $500. The average coverage is 25 per cent coverage up to $500,” Rogers said. “We are proposing increasing coverage to 50 per cent, up to a maximum of $1,000.”

Lastly, Academic Affairs Officer Gongora-Bernoske discussed whether the PGSS should seek full membership in the Quebec Student Union (QSU). Currently, the PGSS merely acts as an observer.

“Our point is that a lot of the benefits we get from just being observers of the QSU are the same as being a full member,” Gongora-Bernoske said. “The benefit of being a member [would be to] get a vote [in the union].”

The response by council members was neutral, demonstrated in a mock-referendum where most members preferred to abstain.

SOUNDBITE “[Our] government allocation [...] has been ver y low, but it just increased in the last two years, so there’s a sudden availability of money that allows us to address [...] maintenance of all these older buildings that definitely need some love.”

- Fabrice Labeau, on construction around campus

FLASBACK PGSS members raised some concerns over construction around campus, including disruptions in the classroom and the superficial maintenance of buildings, such as grimy windows and dir ty carpets.

McGill students discuss animal protection in Canadian legislation Policy advisor spoke on the shortcomings of the Canadian legal system Manuela Scalici Tremblay Contributor Content warning: Mentions of animal abuse The Herbivore Society for Peace and Justice and Animal Justice McGill hosted, “A Talk on Animal Protection in the Canadian Legal System” on Jan. 17 to discuss whether the law in Canada and Quebec adequately protects animals. The guest speaker was Alanna Devine, former Director of Animal Advocacy at the Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and current Policy Advisor to the Mayor Valerie Plante and the Executive Committee at the City of Montreal.

Devine, who worked at the SPCA for a total of 10 years, has a Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill, which she uses to advocate for increased animal protection legislation at the municipal, provincial, and federal level. She has taught courses at the Faculty of Law. Devine explained that the majority of animal protection legislation in Canada is criminal or penal in nature, meaning that it is enforced by either the federal or the provincial government. In some cases, the power of enforcement can be given to entities such as the Montreal SPCA. Devine focussed on the Canadian Criminal Code and the Quebec Animal Welfare and Safety Act. “There are definitely problems with [the] provisions in the Criminal Code,” Devine said. “Essentially the […] requirements in both of these provisions are what we call mens rea, [which means you] have to prove that a person intentionally neglected or failed to provide suitable and adequate food, water, shelter [or] care for their animal, or willfully permitted or caused unnecessary pain, suffering [or] injury.”

In 2018, the Montreal SPCA opened 1,500 new investigations.

(The Herbivore Society for Peace and Justice McGill) Devine was heavily involved in the recent expansion of the Animal Welfare and Safety Act, a Quebec provincial law. Its provisions can be more helpful than the Criminal Code in some cases. “[The Animal Welfare and Safety Act] is very different from the Criminal Code and has positive degrees of care,” Devine said. “[That means that, while] the Criminal Code says ‘You can’t do this,’ this legislation says ‘You have to do this.”

Devine gave examples of when the law is sufficient and insufficient in protecting animals. To exemplify the shortcomings of the law, Devine described the case of the Rodier fur farm in 2014 that sparked public outcry: After an anonymous complaint, the SPCA

inspected Rodier’s farm and found about 90 foxes, 10,000 minks, and two dogs that were living in inhumane conditions. The animals were sick, dehydrated, and living in filthy cages, leading some to be euthanized. Nonetheless, Rodier’s sentence was minimal.

Devine referenced an image of an emaciated fox that could not stand: Under stress and deprivation the fox had chewed its paw to the bone.

“I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, working at the SPCA and doing animal advocacy work,” Devine said.

“This fox and this photo will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Overall, Devine believes that there is still a long way to go for Canadian legislation on animals. “[In] conclusion, does the law protect animals?”

Devine said. “I would argue, not really. The majority of animals are not protected by the law, unless you are a dog or a cat […] or maybe a horse.”

After the discussion, Anita Sengupta, 1L Law, spoke with The McGill Tribune about points that she found interesting.

“A lot of the provisions in the articles we talked about, they require very specific actions on the part of the owner,” Sengupta said. “If the owner wasn’t found to be intentionally harming the animal, then potentially there’d be no case against [them].”

Abby Couture, U3 Arts and Science student and events organizer at the Herbivore Society, was inspired

by Devine’s presentation.

“It was really interesting and eye opening for me to see how language plays a really big role in deciding to what extent is something unlawful or unethical,” Couture said. “On an individual level, I am now more motivated to want to volunteer with the SPCA or donate to the SPCA because you can understand how these resources are going to be [tangibly utilized].”

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NEWS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

Talk explores the intersection of video games and education McGill looks to the future role of libraries in acquiring content

Victor Wang Contributor McGill’s Rare & Special Collections, Osler, Art, and Archives (ROAAr) hosted “The Ludic Generation: Harnessing the Potential of Interactive Learning in Higher Ed” on Jan. 16 to generate discussions among educators about how to embrace the growing presence of technology in the world. The panel featured York University PhD candidate Paul Darvasi, who is a founding member of the Play Lab at the University of Toronto, and Shawn Young, co-founder and CEO of ClassCraft.

Darvasi’s presentation focussed on the impact of technology on Generation Z—people born between 1996 and 2011—and highlighted this generation’s frequent interactions with technology, which include social media, video games, and the internet. In particular, he referred to the phenomenon of ‘informal learning,’ which he believes to be beneficial to Generation Z. “Kids are learning from YouTube videos, they are learning from Wikipedia, [and] they are quite curious,” Darvasi said.“As educators, we have to start thinking, ‘how do we encompass these informal learning spaces,’ because they are very powerful, very influential, and very effective.”

He noted that members of Genera-

bring that to [...] real life.”

Young pointed out how ClassCraft can accelerate learning and enhance an education environment, despite the common conception that video games only have negative impacts on youth. “[ClassCraft] is a non-competitive game,” Young said. “You can’t win on your own, there’s no leaderboard, there are no ways you can harm other players.

It’s a collaborative experience.”

During the question period, members of the audience asked Young and Darvasi about their thoughts regarding the role of libraries amid the takeover of technology in schools. The two presenters provided similar suggestions based upon integrating games into the library space.

A UdeM study reveals that interactions between gamers online produce similar cognitive responses to “[The library] is a space to create real-life interactions. (mcgill.ca) face-to-face opportunities within a culture that is increasingly making interaction Z are accustomed to the accessibil- ers around the world have started to im- tion more difficult,” Darvasi said. “[Liity of technology, a phenomenon which plement into their daily class activities. braries should be] a space [that] is both he hopes educators can learn from.

Mimicking a video game, ClassCraft celebrating digital culture and face-to“One thing that video games do enables students to design characters, face interactive culture”. very well is that they adjust to the play- form teams, and compete for points at Trenholme Dean of Libraries Coler,” Darvasi said. “When [Generation school. The points can be used to earn leen Cook concluded the event by emZ] goes out to a learning environment, assignment deadline extensions and phasizing the library’s innovative outthey are a little shocked by the lack of other academic rewards. look on the impact of digital culture. personalization [….] Now, with digital “Games are a string of systems that “We, as a library, […] have a foot media and computers, we can personal- are really good at driving intrinsic mo- in every corner of this university,” ize learning experiences.” tivation,” Young said. “The classroom Cook said. “We need to make sure that Young presented ClassCraft, an ap- is the game. We’ve managed to take the when [students] are here, they are proplication that elementary school teach- culture and mechanisms of games and ductive.”

Hundreds protest against Bill 21 at the Ministry of Education The protest was part of a two-day Faculty of Education strike Rachel Habrih Contributor Despite the extreme cold on Jan. 17, hundreds marched from McTavish Street to the Ministry of Immigration in protest of Bill 21—a law passed by the Quebec government, prohibiting public servants from wearing religious symbols at work. Organized by student unions, including the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) External Affairs, the Education Undergraduate Society (EdUS), and Université du Québec à Montréal’s l’Association des étudiantes et étudiants de la faculté des sciences de l’éducation and l’Association facultaire étudiante de science politique et droit, the protest demanded a full repeal of Bill 21, and for McGill and other universities to take a more hardline stance against the legislation.

Hanadi Saad, co-founder of Justice Femme, explained how hate crimes have increased since the passage of Bill 21 in June 2019. Adam Gwiazda-Amsel, SSMU VicePresident (VP) External, discussed the bill’s repercussions on campus and the purpose of the protest. “[The protest] is not just about the abolition of the bill, but [also] to get the university to come out much more strongly against it,” Gwiazda-Amsel said. “Even students who don’t wear visible religious symbols are racialized, [and they’re] being told that they’re not

welcome in Quebec.”

The protest was part of a two-day strike by undergraduate students in the Faculty of Education on Jan. 17 and 20. Zeina Jhaish, U2 Education, believes that Bill 21 is contradictory to the field of education as a whole.

“I think that Bill 21 completely undermines our profession, and does not correlate with the core values of education,” Jhaish said. “Education is about empathy, care, acceptance, and inclusivity but Bill 21 does not believe in that I think that the rest of McGill should really look at the values that [the Faculty of Education] is trying to uphold, because I feel like we should become stronger as a university against these issues.”

Janah Hajjsleiman, a protestor and a CEGEP student, expressed the importance of her religion and faith in spite of discrimination.

“The hijab is not a game. I respect it and it’s a part of my religion, and if I respect my religion, I respect my hijab, so why would I want to risk [my faith] for your comfort?” Hajjsleiman said. “At the end of the day, [there are] different people in the world, [and] if you really want to be scared of each person [who is] different from you, how [will we] progress?”

The protest exists alongside other forms of campus activism, including McGill Against Bill 21—a group reserved for students to mobilize, share articles, and provide support for one another. McGill Against Bill 21 falls under the External Affairs portfolio, spearheaded by

Hate crimes rose by 200 per cent between 2016 and 2017. (globalnews.ca) Gwiazda-Amsel.

“The idea [behind the group] is to have a centralized planning hub, both for actions against Bill 21, but also to make sure that students feel supported,” Gwiazda-Amsel said. “[...] A lot of students feel alone right now, so it’s important for them to know that [we] support them. We’re also educating other people about the bill.”

Similarly to EdUS, the Arts Undergraduate Society tried to pass a motion to strike in a Jan. 17 General Assembly that failed to reach

quorum. Gwiazda-Amsel explains that the most important thing for students to take away from the protest is to get involved with faculty associations.

“The faculties are the ones who are closest to students,” Gwiazda-Amsel said. “SSMU does not really have the position to mobilize students from the ground, [however], what we can do is support faculties that do go on strikes [...] Faculty associations have the power to get together and organize their own students, and [SSMU] will help anyway we can.”

OPINION

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

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EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief Caitlin Kindig editor@mcgilltribune.com

International issues have on-campus consequences

Social Media Editor Marie Saadeh socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com

Negar Borghei was a human nutrition and dietetic credentialing masters student at McGill. She was well-connected on the university’s MacDonald campus and adored by her friends and classmates. Borghei, along with 175 other passengers, including one McGill alumni and 57 other Quebecers, was also on Ukranian International Airlines flight PS752 on Jan. 8 when the plane was mistakenly shot down in Iran. Everyone on board lost their lives.

On Jan. 16, McGill held a memorial service for Borghei at which friends and peers united to speak in her memory and mourn her loss. The emotional toll of Borghei’s passing still echoes through campus; however, classes will continue, and much will be asked of a portion of the student body still struggling to cope with the toll of global conflict. This tragedy is just one example of how international events and domestic politics have tangible ramifications for many members of the McGill community. McGill’s administration, professors, and student body must be cognizant of this reality, and, in response, create more robust mental health resources, exercise leniency when considering requests for extensions on class work, and remain staunchly supportive of McGill’s international community.

The diversity of McGill’s international and domestic student body, and the plurality of these students’ experiences, should not

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CONTRIBUTORS Vanessa Baron, Joey Caplan, Katherine Dulong, Jonah Fried, Sophia Gorbounov, Rachel Habrih, Irini Karagiannakis, Daria Kiseleva, Karan Kumar, Adeline Li, Abbas Mehrabian, Madison McLauchlan, Shafaq Nami, Manuela ScaliciTremblay, Josephine Wang, Gwenyth Wren, ET Wu

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Please recycle this newspaper.

Leanne Young Photo Editor Sometimes, being human involves tragedy: Unexpected accidents can alter a person’s future, permanently changing how they need to approach their daily lives.

Those with traumatic brain injuries suffer long-term mental and physical challenges, such as trouble with their working memory span, which can play a significant role in their education and longevity. However, if used properly, transhuman aids such as prosthetic limbs can provide solutions to human challenges.

Transhumanism, in a nutshell, is

be overlooked. However, McGill students with connections to Iran and the Middle East share the experience of their emotions and needs being dismissed by faculty, administration, and other students within the McGill community. One issue students face is the severe deficiency of mental health resources on campus: However, these shortcomings have particularly harsh consequences for students who are, for example, directly affected by Borghei’s death, come from countries such as Iran where the current political climate is tumultuous, or come from places like Lebanon or Algeria, where full-fledged revolutions have been taking place over the past several months. These global events have direct consequences on the mental health of many students and, as a result, the inadequacy of McGill’s mental health infrastructure is even more damaging for them.

Further, the demanding nature of McGill’s academics is more difficult for students dealing with stress or grief. McGill professors who fail to exercise measures of leniency with respect to devastating events such as Borghei’s death exasperate these challenges. The demand for sick notes to validate student absences, inflexible deadlines for assignments, refusal to offer extensions or pardon absences, all demonstrate a naivete to the realities of the student experience.

When students offer reasons for missing classes or requesting extensions, they should be believed,

not pressed for personal details they may not feel comfortable sharing.

Professors should strive to create a learning environment that does not abet the stress of the student body, particularly because events which affect international students’ mental health often glean less university-wide recognition and understanding.

Finally, not only international events, but domestic politics as well affect members of the student body in different ways. Specifically, legislation enacted by the Quebec government, including Bill 21, and previously proposed changes to the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ), are discriminatory policy developments that have damaging ramifications for marginalized groups within the McGill community. It is in response to such legislation where solidarity and support from the rest of the student body, and particularly those in positions of privilege, is most important.

So far, attempts to organize and protest against Bill 21 have been disappointing: On Jan. 17, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) held a general assembly (GA) at which a quorum of 500 members was required to enact a strike in protest of Bill 21. The GA followed a separately organized protest against Bill 21, and both events were poorly attended. The Education Undergraduate Society (EdUS) also held a general assembly on Jan.14 to organize a strike in protest of Bill 21, and similarly failed to meet

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EDITORIAL quorum. In contrast, the GA held

by AUS to organize a strike for the Climate March was attended by 900 members, drastically exceeding the quorum requirement.

While a variety of factors affect the attendance of such meetings, the stark contrast in the number of members present at each sends a troubling message about what kinds of issues that McGill’s student body cares about, and those issues which it chooses to neglect.

The McGill Tribune commends the AUS on its efforts to organize a strikes but encourages the society to consider committing greater effort to organizing, advertising, and promoting GAs which are of particular importance. In conjunction, the Tribune implores the McGill student body, and those in positions of privilege in the community, to show greater support for their peers who are experiencing hardship due to the entropy of global and domestic politics. This means attending protests such as those held on Jan. 14, but also being available and sensitive to fellow students who may choose to reach out for support. McGill professors, should also practice empathy and understanding for those in the student body who are striving to learn and be engaged in the classroom but face challenges in doing so. Finally, recent events shed further light on the need for improvement to McGill’s mental health resources, a task incumbent upon the university’s administration.

Overcoming human challenges with transhumanism the idea that people can use technology to overcome biological limitations.

Just as how we use rational means to improve our life experiences and the world around us, we can use such means to improve ourselves as organisms. It is simply a concept, not a tangible characterization of some futuristic cyborg.

There is reasonable fear that using such technologies would be tampering with nature. This is true. However, whether something is good or bad cannot be decided simply by asking whether or not it is natural. Plenty of natural things are horrible, such as diseases and parasites, where our moral interest is to intervene and improve these conditions. The question to ask is not whether the technology is natural, but rather, what are the various possible consequences that would arise from it, both desirable and undesirable, and the likelihood of each. People who are concerned that our species will stray too far away from what it means to be a ‘natural human’ forget how far we have already evolved as a species.

Our technology today has already

changed the ways our mind works.

Many people in modern society cannot live without devices such as computers or phones. We pick up our devices an average of 80 times per day, and that has already changed our brains for the worse—our attention span is only 40 seconds on a screen.

It is important to carefully understand what we can control, so that we can approach creating technology with wisdom. It’s optimal to focus with specific areas first: For example, hearing aids started with a goal to help people with hearing loss. With that technology, some adjustments and developments can lead to superhuman hearing. Therefore, we should only apply our super-technology in specific areas where we actually want those abilities.

One area of interest is in improving the educational experiences of students with disabilities.

Neuroprosthetics, implants that directly interface with your brain, are already transforming the lives of many deaf, blind, and paralyzed people today. Such technology has the potential to redefine how we

learn and take in information, and ultimately expand the horizons for students with difficulties. While we should not be trying to “cure” anyone of their conditions, it is a wonderful opportunity to give everyone the tools they need or desire, while still allowing them to stay true to themselves.

It is unethical to use prosthetics to give someone a mechanical advantage over their natural counterpart. However, if used properly, as is the case with prosthetic arms, hearing aids, and false teeth, that we commonly see today, these aids are not considered unethical: We are already transcending what it means to be a human. Our brains are hardwired to work towards what is in our species’ best interest. Thus, we should not be discouraging the pursuit of transhumanism, rather, we should instead be encouraging its discussion.

As long as we are careful and considerate of our creations, we will only be improving our lives, and the lives of those around us. At the end of the day, transhumanism is a choice in the best interest of our species.

6

OPINION

COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

McGill is not an “antisemitic university”

Jonah Fried Contributor Continued from page 1.

Instead of a reasoned debate, the dinner table conversation quickly turned into a loud, heated dispute, as my explanations of the nuances of McGill student governance were drowned in a flood of misunderstanding facilitated by journalistic malpractice. The distinction I sought to make to those seated around the table is this: Not everything that is anti-Israel is antisemitic, and the issue is far too complicated to be reduced to “antisemitism” or even anti-Israel bias. Moreover, conflating the two is both damaging to the term “antisemitism” itself and insulting to Jewish people who are critical of Israel and its current leadership.

The issue at hand is an offer to apply for an all-expenses paid trip to Israel and Palestine, which was pitched by Hillel Montreal to SSMU executives, directors, and other “student leaders.” Hillel extended the invitation through a letter that is worthy of scrutiny, according to student representatives, because it could indicate that the trip presents a conflict of interest. Although SSMU has been plagued by issues that have

COMMENTARY

McGill governance groups have been accused of anti-semitic behaviours more than once in the last five years. (Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune)

led to accusations of antisemitism or anti-Israel bias in the past, this situation is hardly identical to the 2017 incident of a councilor being threatened with impeachment for being “pro-Israel.” This time, The McGill Daily exposed councillors who had accepted the invitation, problematizing the unclear motives behind the trip. Debate over the issue culminated in a Nov. 28 resolution to condemn the trip as a conflict of interest for student leaders.

The meeting concluded that those concerned should either resign or back away from the trip, lest they will face impeachment. While most

councillors and directors renounced their initial acceptances before the resolution was debated, Jordyn Wright, the Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) representative to the SSMU Legislative Council, refused to turn down the offer.

Weiss wrote that SSMU resolved to remove Wright over the trip even though “another student government leader is also going,” concluding that “apparently because that student is not a Jew, no resignation was required.” What Weiss failed to acknowledge is that some councilors argued that, as a director, Wright represents the

donors might be deterred.

Students can reasonably question whether or not SSMU is making a fuss over seemingly needless provisions in its governing documents, but to call the resolution “antisemitic” requires more evidence than the opinion of the councilor whose position (and potential free trip to Israel) is jeopardized in the situation. Labels like “antisemitic” must be applied carefully. Jewish people especially must take every step necessary to safeguard the integrity of that condemnation, by ensuring that when it is levied, it is with the utmost gravity and conviction in its justification. The world is becoming increasingly unsafe for Jewish people, but the censure of “antisemitic” loses weight when it is applied carelessly and incorrectly.

Calling McGill antisemitic also tarnishes the university’s reputation, which, in turn, devalues every McGill student’s degree. It is deeply troubling that the media has been able to shape public opinion on this matter without having examined the situation thoroughly. Words are powerful, and in the current political climate, where the value of truth has been questioned by those in power and the internet is rife with fake news, it is imperative that the power of terms like “antisemitic” not be reduced through misuse.

The CAQ’s secular mission masks discrimination

Kennedy McKee-Braide Staff Writer The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) recently announced its intention to abolish the mandatory Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) course taught in schools around the province.

The decision comes less than a year after Bill 21, a law that prohibits certain public servants from wearing religious symbols, passed in the National Assembly.

Some have called the move to end the course an extension of Québec’s commitment to ‘secularism.’ The CAQ has also launched a consultative survey that invites the public to suggest new themes for the course’s replacement, which will partially or wholly abandon religious topics. Like in the case of Bill 21, Québec is using the separation of government and religion to mask its xenophobia. Ending ERC courses will ultimately be harmful to the province’s youth, who stand to benefit from the added understanding of the province’s multitude of religions.

Created in 2008 under the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, the course, which looks into the vast array of different cultures in the province and encourages students to consider ethical dilemmas, has

Legislative Council on the Board of Directors (BoD): Had the resolution to condemn the trip as a conflict of interest passed without requiring her to resign, she would have been in defiance of the Legislative Council at large. The other councillor is not on the BoD, and was not asked to resign because councilors felt that his actions would not have affected further decision making on SSMU. And Wright was hardly “singled out” for being Jewish, considering that Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) representative, who is also a member of the BoD, was also named in the resolution until he backed away from the trip. Moreover, he and other non-Jewish councilors going on the trip were asked by the Social Work representative to resign during a Nov. 14 meeting because the Councillor perceived the trip as a conflict of interest. Like Weiss, the Times of Israel failed to account for the existence of these circumstances when they quoted Wright, labelling the resolution as “antisemitic”.

Without acknowledging these key details, millions of readers of these media outlets, and others that reported on the issue, will conclude that McGill is an antisemitic university, and that impression will be difficult to dislodge. This could cause some parents to think twice about sending their children here, and potential

Religous culture courses have been taught in provincial schools for the last 10 years. (ctvnews.ca)

remained controversial since its outset. Following its introduction, the Supreme Court of Canada considered : One in which parents complained that the course went against the religious and moral beliefs they taught at home and another, Loyola High School v Quebec AG, where a Catholic private school fought against having to teach students about morality in the context of other religions. While the Court ruled against the parents in the first case, their decision in the latter led to an exemption for some private institutions from having to teach the course.

In this context, it becomes clear that numerous interest groups in Quebec are more preoccupied with avoiding exposure to a

diverse range of religions than protecting secularism, as the CAQ claims. In 2009, sociologist Joëlle Quérin published an article that denounced the course, claiming that it went too far in promoting multiculturalism and served to fundamentally change the nature of Quebec’s culture, traditionally conceived of as French-speaking and Catholic.

Querin’s view is representative of a broader debate between proponents of multiculturalism and those of ‘interculturalism’: The latter claims to stand in defence of a common Québécois French culture that integrates newcomers into a secular society as opposed to encouraging cultural pluralism.

‘Interculturalism’ is supposedly

the logic behind Bill 21, and now the decision on ERC courses.

The consultative survey outlines eight potential themes for the replacement class: Citizen participation and democracy, legal education, green citizenship, sexuality, personal development and interpersonal relationships, ethics, digital citizenship, and societal culture. These themes, the government claims, are meant to reflect the values of a modern, secular Quebec. However, these themes can and should stand alongside the currently existing religious component of the course.

Despite their alleged commitment to secularism, the actions of some CAQ politicians suggest other priorities. As of 2011, 82.36 per cent of Quebec residents identified as Christian, and 75 per cent as Catholic more specifically. Premier Francois Legault drew criticism in December for telling California Governor Gavin Newsom that all French Canadians are Catholic.

Legault’s comment exemplifies how Quebec politicians use the secularism argument only when it serves them, and evidently to specifically target religious minorities.

The fact that such a large proportion of Quebecers practice a single religion reinforces the need for a course like ERC. Despite

McGill’s location in a relatively multicultural city, a large portion of Québec’s population is rural, and many Québecers have little exposure to cultures other than their own. As such, ERC can serve to introduce those living in less diverse areas to different cultures. Doing away with this course means that some students may be less likely to learn about religious acceptance, which could be particularly damaging to religious minorities in the context of rising immigration rates in the province and country.

There is no doubt that the new themes that the education ministry has proposed are important and relevant. However, it seems clear that the priority in scrapping ERC is to avoid teaching students religious tolerance. Unfortunately, the CAQ’s policies are popular, and the changes will likely be made before the end of Premier Legault’s mandate. Still, as young people living in Quebec, McGill students opposed to these policies have a responsibility to organize with faculty associations, contact Members of the National Assembly to voice their disapproval, go to demonstrations against discriminatory policies, similar to the Jan. 17 student protest, and defend those made vulnerable by the province’s xenophobia.

STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

7

Shag Shop gets physical New Brown Building location aims to increase awareness and accessibility ET Wu Contributor The Shag Shop, McGill’s sexual health wellness boutique, has reopened their location in the Healthy Living Annex on the third floor of the Brown Building after going digital in 2014.

The return to a physical location seeks to increase awareness of the store among the student body and give people an opportunity to get more accurate representations of the products they are buying.

“It’s really hard to reach students [online], so having a physical space is a great way to have people interact and get people to come,” Leigh Hoffman, Coordinator of the Shag Shop, said.

“When you’re shopping, you want to be able to touch the things, you want to be able to ask questions [... and] looking at measurements on a computer screen is not exactly the same as being able to see [a product].”

The Shag Shop hopes to make sexual health products more accessible to students. An important mandate since a survey by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada found that 72 per cent of university and college students were reported to be sexually active .

“Our mission is to promote sexual wellness and health on campus,” Hoffman said. “We do that through the boutique [by] providing financially accessible sexual wellness products. That

The Shag Shop continues to promote sexual wellness.

(ET Wu / The McGill Tribune) ranges from menstrual products, both reusable and disposable, to sex toys, lubes, and condoms.”

The shop also wants to educate students on what chemicals are in their sexual health products such as lubes, condoms, and tampons, as well as provide alternatives to products they may have an allergic reaction to.

“The goal of health services is to promote health and wellness, and part of that is paying attention to what we put in or on our bodies,” Hoffman said. “[...] A lot of lubes are made with chemicals that can be toxic or irritating.”

The boutique emphasizes their commitment to health by offering a range of organic and natural products at accessible prices, a good

choice for students either on a budget or who don’t want bleached products, such as pads and tampons. Most of the time, unbleached menstrual products and organic plant-based lubricants can be hard to find and are expensive at pharmacies; Shag Shop aims to make these products cheaper and more available to those who need them.

“It is a priority for us to offer options, [...] because sometimes people don’t know about those things, and sometimes they can be inaccessible as in harder to find and much more expensive,” Hoffman said.

In addition to quality assurance, the boutique also vows to show their values of inclusivity through their diverse range of products which aim to serve all sexual and gender orientations.

“It’s been a priority of mine to have our stock reflect the diversity of experiences in terms of sexuality and gender,” Hoffman said.

While walking into a physical space to buy or even discuss sex products can be an intimidating experience, the staff at the Shag Shop are completely prepared to handle such situations in an open and welcoming manner.

“In terms of the staff, all the ambasaddors are trained to be able to talk about sex in ways that are sensitive to the multitudes of realities that people live in,” Hoffman said.

For those who feel overwhelmed at the thought of going to the Shag Shop, however, the boutique will still maintain its online site.

Supporting student wellness through synergy

Annual SiM conference highlights the role of cooperation in improving mental health Kate Addison Staff Writer The annual Synergy Mental Health conference, hosted by Students in Mind (SiM), continued the discourse on mental wellness with a particular focus on cultivating a community on campus promoting healthy minds. The conference featured various activities, such as a journal writing workshop and a talk on how to navigate the health care system at McGill and beyond.

These workshops facilitated conversations about mental health as well as providing students with the necessary tools to care for the wellbeing of themselves and those in their community.

Julia Caddy, U2 Arts and President of SiM, explained the group’s multifaceted approach to addressing mental health challenges. “[SiM investigates] the dimensions of mental health, we’re not just focussed on [the question] ‘Am I okay?’” Caddy said. “We’ve really focussed on making sure that we connect to all different dimensions so that we are able to create a conference that people are able to customize to their mental health story. We don’t want people to fit our narrative. We want to be fitting theirs.”

This multi-dimensional approach to mental wellness was the inspiration for the theme of this year ’s conference: Synergy. With a multitude of

speakers and activities catering to all different learning styles and interests, the event was part of SiM’s year-round efforts to offer accessible resources for obstacles to the mental health of students.

“Initiatives like this one are important because it’s really difficult to be a student,” Johanna Cline, U3 Arts and SiM’s VP Communications, said. “[...] You need support, and I feel like a lot of people lack access or don’t know how to access [those resources].”

Dr. Erin Barker, a professor of psychology at Concordia University and the conference keynote speaker, discussed this difficulty. Citing data from an American College Health Association study, Barker noted the high levels of stress, anxiety, and depression among university students.

“We see [a] spectrum of distress, stress across large samples of university students,” Barker said. “We need to get over those myths that university students are sort of this privileged healthy class of individuals and start to actually realize that really, [...] it can be a distressing experience, and it’s one that large portions of our population are going to have to face.”

With high levels of student stress and inadequate mental health support from the university and the public health care system, SiM hopes to provide students with important resources they may be unable to access

The event was part of SiM’s year-round efforts to offer accessible resources to circumvent obstacles to mental health care. (Iman Zarrinkoub / The McGill Tribune) elsewhere.

“It’s the school administration that needs to change its healthcare system, [...] but the reality is [that the school’s healthcare is not changing] or [it is] not changing fast enough,” Caddy said.

“But our struggle doesn’t just wait [...] until policies are passed. What [...we can] do is to ensure that everyone has the tools they need at the moment and can equip themselves and their peers to cope as a student and advocate for themselves.”

To create a community supporting

students’ mental wellbeing all year round, SiM holds events throughout each semester such as Mindful meal preps and a Week of Wellness. For Ellie Brehaug, U3 Psychology, this year ’s conference was successful in fostering a supportive student body. “[Today], I’ve learned that there are other people who are struggling with their mental health,” Brehaug said. “[I discovered] that it’s a common thing to experience in university, which is kind of comforting to know that you’re not alone.”

An exploration of pop culture’s appropriation of the Occult

Abeer Almahdi Managing Editor

The witching hour arrives in Montreal Montreal is no stranger to witchcraft, and the Occult is embedded in local popular culture. Bars such as Datcha host Jazz and Tarot Thursdays, psychics have doors across the city, and even storefronts on Rue Sainte Catherine display Tarot cards, incense, crystals, and other spiritual objects.

Because of its large international student population, McGill is a place where different cultures meet: Many students bring their local rituals from home to campus. For as long as he can remember, Ibrahim*, U2 Arts, has been surrounded by different Arab customs.

“There were always examples of witchcraft [present] in my family,” Ibrahim said. “I would wake up to my mother [reading or watching] horoscopes on the TV or burning Bakhoor [...and] my aunts would come together to drink Turkish coffee and read each other’s cups. Although I understand why none of these practices seem grounded in science or reality, it became a practice of community, [...] as a form of [shared culture].”

My own cultures are full of otherworldly traditions, many of which are rooted in either Islamic, pagan, or other religious origins. Similarly to Ibrahim, I have fond memories of seeing my grandmother and great-aunts read my coffee or tea. I would wake up to strong smells of Oud or Bakhoor—incense and wood chips soaked in different fragrant oils—burning throughout the house. My father gifted me beautiful, crystal prayer-beads and evil-eye and hamsa amulets for safety and to ward off envy.

However, not everyone has the same start to their journeys. For many people in the diaspora, the pursuit of ancestral metaphysical traditions comes later in life, sometimes manifesting as a form of resistance. A friend introduced Rachel Habrih, U3 Arts, to the world of the Occult during her first year at McGill. Only then did she begin to dive deeper into her own culture.

“It was actually through astrology that I got really into Tarot reading,” Habrih said. “One of my first-year friends was really in touch with her cultural traditions [...and she would tell me] about them. I really enjoyed how connected she was to witchcraft. She inspired me to learn about myself.”

Ibrahim’s interest in Occult rituals started off as a way to reconnect with his culture while being in the diaspora.

“When I was reintroduced to all of these [rituals] in university, they weren’t foreign to me,” Ibrahim said. “It was actually a way to be connected to family so far away [...these rituals] became a way to battle homesickness and create memories with ancestors I’ve never met.”

Similarly, Habrih’s interests began with a desire to relate with her cultures and its traditions.

“I got into witchcraft, tarot, and [the Occult] as a way to get more in touch with my culture,” Habrih said. “Both my parent’s cultures have elements and traditions to do with [the Occult… such as] astrology, Tarot, incense, and similar rituals.”

Even if the metaphysical may not be always rooted in science, these rituals act as a way for people to understand one another. For Laila*, U3 Science, participating in rituals such as Tarot readings is a way to build connections.

“I like [Tarot] because it offers a perspective I wouldn’t have thought of, and it's a way to connect with the [reader],” Laila said. “[Tarot] allows me to connect with my friends and

the people around me [....] I had an experience with a psychic and everything he said was useful [....Tarot] doesn’t have to be a concrete science in order to teach you things [about yourself].”

Over the last 10 years, astrology resurfaced as part of mainstream popular culture. Through memes and apps like Co-Star and Sanctuary World, understanding one’s natal chart is now common for anyone interested in spirituality, the Occult, or even internet culture. Other forms of the Occult, such as crystal healing and Tarot reading, have also become mainstream—Golden Thread is one such app available for Tarot reading. Laila was first introduced to astrology on social media.

“Before, I thought of [astrology] as Snapchat stories,” Laila said, referring to the daily updates Snapchat users receive on the app’s public story page. “Now, I see it as tradition. The stars have been there for so long. Of course, it affects us in some way or another, even if it’s not [physically]. It’s part of our heritage.”

However, modern forms of ‘trendy’ witchcraft, similarly to many other aspects of material culture, have roots in the cultural appropriation of different Indigenous, Black, and Brown cultures. Smudging refers to the ritual of burning different sacred herbs and plants. The practice holds a different significance for different cultures: Communities outside of North American Indigenous peoples have different names for the ritual. Many Indigenous activists are raising concerns surrounding the commercialization and appropriation of White Sage—a common ingredient in mainstream smudging—by non-Indigenous people, especially since its recent popularity has led to an increase in the cost.

Additionally, for hundreds of years, non-white people have been targeted for any practice that deviates from Western religious traditions. Vodou, for instance, is a centuries-old practice, which originated in its combination of African religions with Western Catholicism in the Caribbean. In Montreal, Haitian Vodou is still stigmatized: Local priestesses, such as fourth-generation priestess Rolanda Delerme, are still working to bring their temples into the public eye in an effort to reduce scrutiny. “[Delerme] and her mother established la Belle Déesse Dereale Vodou, Vodou temple, with the purpose to [...] build a better image for Vodou,” Delerme’s website reads. “So that people understand that these traditions and this religion should not be feared.”

Most importantly, through colonization, the Canadian government has used genocidal and oppressive practices—including violently limiting language, traditions, rituals, or regalia in legislation—to forcefully assimilate and erase Indigenous peoples and cultures. The appropriation of White Sage and other herbs does not exist in a vacuum: It is part of ongoing legacies of colonialism.

As a settler on Turtle Island—a term some Indigenous languages use to refer to the continent of North America — Habrih believes it is important to understand the significance of land when performing rituals.

“Behind every [...] cultural tradition there is also a spiritual connection to the land, so that's really important to take into account when you're doing [rituals],” Habrih said. “Doing [... rituals] here on campus and on Turtle Island, I have to take into account who actually feels spiritually connected to this land.

It’s appropriation to not reflect on your positionality and to not actively resist colonialism.”

Cultural appropriation of traditions similarly manifests through Orientalism and the fetishization of ‘Eastern’ cultures.

Orientalism describes the process of stereotyping and envisioning cultures through a colonial lens. According to Laila, witchcraft in popular culture is also guilty of appropriation and orientalism. She points to the example of Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi, a widely-circulated Sufi Muslim poet.

“I went to a bookstore [in Montreal] and I saw a tarot deck that was ‘Rumi-inspired,’ Laila said. “What does this Sufi Muslim poet have to do with these cards? Why [should] Rumi have his words poorly translated and [appropriated] for an aesthetic?

When white people take advantage of [my culture] to make money, or [for social media], it’s not genuine. [Appropriation] gives my culture a bad name.”

Montreal is home to many stores and communities dedicated to the pursuit of modern witchcraft. Charme & Sortilège is a shop in the upper Plateau specializing in ‘white magic’ and ingredients for rituals, and even has on-site ‘Psychism and Divination practitioners.’ Crystal Dreams World is an online international crystal hub based in Montreal; they have a physical store, host seminars, and even put on a “Metaphysical & Spiritual Showcase” once a year. The Crescent Moon School of Magic & Paganism has been in practice for around 25 years, hosting courses at four levels: Seeker, Explorer, Witchcraft, and Lay Clergy, most at a cost of $600. Although these establishments seek to make the pursuit of the metaphysical more accessible for average consumers, for Ibrahim, commercialization makes the Occult less accessible.

“It was very hard for me to be convinced [...] or to want to be a part of [witchcraft] activities and rituals because it is so [commercialized] by Western culture and media,” Ibrahim said. “When I understood that these practices actually originated from non-white cultures, including [my own], I began to appreciate them in a different way [....as something] I can reclaim.

Commercialization makes [knowledge] more accessible, but it makes the products [financially inaccessible.]”

Moving forward, Habrih believes witchcraft and rituals can be pursued by the many, so long as they are practiced in a correct and appropriate manner.

“I think that appropriation is a huge problem because it takes away from the true meaning of [traditions],” Habrih said.

“I don't have a problem with you [performing rituals] as long as you feel that connection [...] and as long as you understand the cultural meaning [...and] are not reclaiming a [culture] that is not yours.”

Regardless of the outcome of rituals, the important part for Ibrahim building is community through traditions.

“It’s not about how real it is, it's not about science, it's not about the cards, or material objects like cups,” Ibrahim said.

“It’s not about the effect on your life or manifesting your fate.

It's about coming together, learning new ways of reflection, [...] new ways of looking at the world, and finding safe havens with others, at times when the world becomes overwhelming.” *Names have been changed to preserve the anonymity of the sources.

(Winnie Lin / The McGill Tribune)

9 STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

Relevant McGill hosts forum on the potential consequences of porn

Part of a series discussing hot-button topics from a Christian perspective Tasmin Chu Staff Writer

Content warning: Explicit mentions of sexual exploitation, sexual violence.

Pornography has never been as easily accesible as it is today.

On Jan. 17, Relevant McGill, a week-long series of talks about faith, science, and culture organized by multiple Christian groups on campus, including Power to Change and the McGill Christian Fellowship (MCF) hosted a panel discussion titled “Is Porn Really Harmless?” The event featured three speakers who discussed the ethics of pornography in the context of rape culture, sex trafficking, and faith.

Speaker Maylissa Luby, an intervention counselor for La Sortie (The Way Out) and a survivor of sexual exploitation, explained that exposure to pornography at a young age drew her into the sex industry.

“My mom travelled a lot in her work, so I ended up living with her sugar daddy,” Luby said.

“I was all alone. I was a 12-yearold. One day, I walked into the bedroom, and I stepped on the remote, and porn came on [....] I just became consumed with pornography. It really taught me how to be a sex object for men [....] Someone

The talk counters the trend of acceptance of pornography with arguments surrounding human exploitation and violence.

(Adeline Li / The McGill Tribune) asked me tonight, ‘Is porn really harmless?’ For me, porn open[s] the door to the sex industry.”

Reverend Daniel Gilman, former Director for Human Rights Projects in the Canadian Parliament, claimed that pornography is intimately linked to human trafficking. “[In my time working at Parliament], what we began to discover is that the same people who

are making the porn that you are comfortable with are making porn you’re not comfortable with,” Gilman said. “[They are the same] people who are trafficking women and girls on the streets.”

According to Gilman, watching pornography can skew one’s perception of sex and make one more complacent toward harmful behaviours toward women.

“An article titled ‘Pornogra-

phy and Violence’ found that those who consume porn [...] are much more likely to support statements that promote the use of sexual aggression towards women and girls,” Gilman said. “I’ve sat down with pedophiles, sat down with people who have committed sexual violence against women [...] and their path into descending into doing those types of actions came from watching porn.”

During the Q&A session, one audience member asked the panelists for their opinion about sexually explicit content in films and television. Panelist Louis Phillips, an Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetic (OCCA) fellow, stated that he had previously struggled with a pornography addiction and explained that after recovering, he now refuses to watch sex scenes in media.

Another audience member asked about sex workers who entered the industry of their own volition. Reverend Gilman responded by arguing that suicide statistics in the pornography industry are high for a reason and that it is impossible to know whether pornographic content posted on the internet depicts a consensual situation.

“If you’re like, ‘well, not all of it is [exploitative], so I’m just going to take my chances and keep watching porn,’ you need to stop,” Gilman said.

Cassie Powell, a U2 Arts & Science student involved in Power to Change, explained that she is grateful for the chance to discuss taboo subjects such as pornography.

“I come from the Bible Belt,” Powell said. “[In] the churches down there, it’s a very touchy topic that no one wants to talk about. I’m glad that we live in a society where we can talk about [porn].”

Keeping your cool in the cold How to stay happy this winter season

Josephine Wang Contributor The winter is brutal: It gets dark too early and the freezing temperatures make going anywhere a miserable experience. The cold environment can make it hard to find joy this season, but here are some winter rituals that might help.

Be proactive

During the wintertime, the stronger desire to stay home can result in less social interaction. But friendships are essential to our mental health and general well-being. Try to push yourself to connect with others on a regular basis; invite your friends over for various gatherings like a dinner party or a study session. Alternatively, McGill offers plenty of volunteer opportunities such as Homework Zone or the Montreal Heart of the City Piano Program.

These are great ways to simultaneously meet new people and give back to the community.

Move it!

When the temperatures drop, it is easy to avoid all forms of physical activity. However, keeping up with an exercise routine during the winter can provide numerous benefits for your health and can help boost your mood by increasing your levels of endorphins. The American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous activity for optimal overall

health. Stay accountable with a membership to the McGill Athletic Centre or take advantage of the indoor track and swimming pool. If the frigid walk to the gym already feels like a marathon, develop a regimen that you can keep up with at home.

Clean up your diet

Committing to a healthy and regular diet can make a difference in how you feel during the winter. A diet of warm comfort food and buckets of hot chocolate can lead to headaches, increased blood pressure, and bloating. For Vincent Kwong, U2 Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, meal prepping and buying in-season fruits and vegetables is how he maintains a healthy and sustainable diet.

“I love baking sweet potatoes and making warm soups using winter squashes,” Kwong said. “It tastes really good and is actually one of the reasons I look forward to the wintertime. It’s also a good way to meal prep, since you already make a lot. You’d also be less tempted to go out [to eat].”

Lighten up

If the lack of sunlight gets you down, then drop by the McGill Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, at the corner of University and Milton, or the SSMU Office, located in the Brown Building, to use their light lamps for free. These light lamps, which are offered first come, first serve, mimic sunshine and can help suppress your body’s release of melatonin, a chemical that makes you drowsy. McGill’s guidelines recommend using the lamp for 1 hour at 16

The horrible conditions of winter can make you want to cocoon until spring comes along. (lapresse.ca) inches away from you or 30 minutes at 12 inches everyday, optimally first thing in the morning. Using light lamps can make a difference within just a few days, so take advantage of them and go light up your life.

Take care of your skin

The water in your skin evaporates more quickly in the winter, which results in a dry and tight feeling in your skin. Investing in a humidifier can add

moisture to the air and keep your skin hydrated. You can also try out different lotions and cleansers to see which works best for your skin. Another important skin care tip is to stay hydrated.

While these lifestyle changes may boost your mood, these tips don’t substitute proper solutions to mood disorders, such as Seasonal Affective Disorder. If you’re experiencing any of these issues, consider consulting a professional.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

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Kai Cheng Thom questions cancel culture with ‘I Hope We Choose Love’ Transgender activist and writer visits Montreal to discuss her belief in transformative justice

New collection blends honest prose with humourous anecdotes.

(The Queen’s Journal)

Jonathan Giammaria Staff Writer Despite the biting cold of a resurgent Montreal winter, Librairie Drawn & Quarterly saw a packed house on Jan. 17. The crowd was eager to hear Kai Cheng Thom speak about her new collection of essays and poetry, I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World. Though Thom often referred to herself throughout the night, with a hint of ironic self-mockery,

as “queer famous,” the McGill alumna has been a prominent voice in recent literary discourse on transgender issues and the notion of a queer community.

With her book, Thom explores the hostility, both from outside and within marginalized communities, that pervades our lives under the lens of cancel culture and our growing uncertainty about communal integrity. Thom described I Hope We Choose Love not as a prescriptive, technical manifesto on repressing reactionary hostility, but rather as

a text that validates the possibility of transformative justice within a community.

As an alternative to punitive justice, whose emphasis on punishing transgressions Thom believes undermines cancel culture, transformative justice favours open communication and forgiveness between a perpetrator and their victim. During the talk, Thom suggested that this form of peacemaking is often absent in marginalized communities because survival and self-preservation instincts are often inextricable from its members’ identities, which can impede empathy for others.

“In times of crisis we turn on each other.

The trauma brain is well developed in many of us,” Thom said. “Our executive functioning shuts down [....] But the desire to be safe is probably what brings a lot of us into activism.”

Later in the talk, Thom read from an essay that discussed the utopian ideal— dubbed “Queerlandia”—that many queer communities seek to obtain. Thom lamented that the search for a space free of persecution or hatred creates an unreachable and unforgiving mentality that punishes even the most minor transgressions. Our collective disavowal of these forms of accountability and justice distract from the inclusive and compassionate world that many marginalized people want to live in.

“In Queerlandia our politics are woke

and our words are revolutionary. Queerlandia is a village, is the village in its ideal form.

But of course we do not really live in Queerlandia,” Thom read from her essay. “Real life queer communities are full of wounded dreamers [....] And because we are so wounded, we are not prepared for the reality of bad things happening among us. How to talk about it, how to hold it, how to heal from it. We do not know how to have difficult conversations, how to look at each other through the lenses of love and justice at the same time. You either belong in Queerlandia or you don’t, there is no in between.”

Though much of her collection deals with pressing subject matter, Thom also made sure to include anecdotes of personal victories and happiness. In one essay about a trip to New York, she recounted a night in Times Square in which she and her friend photobombed a couple’s marriage proposal on The Red Steps. Though its content appears trivial in contrast to the collection as a whole, Thom used the story to illustrate the potential in marginalized communities for solidarity and kinship, even if shared between just two people, which larger and often idealized communities currently fail to provide. “[We] held each other in those glowing stairs to heaven in the centre of the world and we held each other for dear, dear life,” Thom read.

In conversation with NOBRO

The Montreal band is pioneering a place for women in punk Kate Addison Staff Writer From the first riff of their electric guitar, Montreal punk rock group NOBRO will have listeners feeling ready to dye their hair Manic Panic pink and stomp angrily down the street in a pair of Doc Martens. With uniquely powerful drums and the unexpected inclusion of bongos, NOBRO is pursuing their dream of becoming the most kick-ass all-female band of all time.

Founded in 2014, NOBRO’s current members, vocalist and bassist Kathryn McCaughey, guitarist Karolane Carbonneau, drummer Sarah Dion, and percussionist Lisandre Bourdages have been successful in establishing a name for themselves in the Canadian punk rock scene, a feat made all the more impressive considering the male monopoly on the genre. The name NOBRO was born from the band’s commitment to maintain their female identity and provide a space for women to shred.

“When we first started looking for female guitar players, there were a bunch of dudes that were like, ‘Oh, I’ll play guitar in your band or whatever’ and it was like, ‘No, bro,’” McCaughey said. “It was a joke, [and] now it’s our name.”

With the upcoming release of their EP Sick Hustle in April and the start of another Canadian tour this week, it is a busy time for NOBRO. The band has pre-

NOBRO’s Sick Hustle E.P drops April 3. (chrismacarthur.ca) viously played with groups such as FIDLAR and Toronto rock band PUP. This time, NOBRO will be joined during their first arena tour by the Distillers and feminist punk group Pussy Riot, who rose to fame for their activism against the Russian government.

For Pussy Riot, NOBRO, and other all-female punk bands like McGill’s Nervous Nancy, finding space in the music industry presents unique difficulties, but the experience can also be incredibly re-

warding. “[Being an all-girl band], it’s awesome, it’s really fun, and it’s also very challenging. When we’re able to [succeed], it’s like a huge accomplishment for us, [even] just finding female musicians that want to shred,” McCaughey said.

“I’m sure in the next 10 years it’s gonna be a lot different [….] There’s such a big push for all kinds of people to pick up all kinds of instruments and play. But for us, it’s really important to maintain our all-

female status because we like to challenge ourselves.”

On Jan. 17, the group announced their signing with Canadian independent record label, Dine Alone Records, and proceeded to drop the first single off of Sick Hustle, “Marianna.” Through the raucous guitar, fire bongo solos, and McCaughey’s powerful vocals, the song delivers a more personal insight into the band.

“This EP is a little more personal than anything we’ve put out before. It dives into some mistakes,” McCaughey said. “‘Marianna’ is about the first guitar player in the band [.…] Right before we went to go play Way Home, she told us that she didn’t really want to play music anymore [….] She moved away and it was really hard for us so we kind of just wrote a song for her.”

With so much happening for the band, NOBRO is on its way to carving out a new place for women in the Canadian punk scene. However, their main focus remains on creating new and exciting music over the coming years.

“I just hope that we can keep writing the best music that we can […] it’s always about the songs and the music,” McCaughey said. “[Also], I don’t want to be a bartender for the rest of my life and I don’t have a plan B. I have a philosophy degree so this is it.”

NOBRO will perform at Le Ministère on Jan. 30 with UUBBUURRUU.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

The most atrocious Oscar snubs of 2020

The Academy gets it wrong once again Joey Caplan, Kaja Subourg, Vanessa Barron, Katia Innes, Jack Martin Contributors, Staff Writer, Sports and A&E editors It’s that time of year again: Awards season. Love it or hate it, it is impossible to ignore the discourse surrounding which movies (dare we say, films) are worthy of claiming hardware. The McGill Tribune is here to add to that discourse, presenting movies that we believe have been wrongfully left off of the ballots.

The Lighthouse for Best Screenplay Given the controversies that inevitably arise throughout the season, it is tempting to renounce the Oscars altogether. After last year’s egregiousness, The Tribune came close to ignoring all awards shows. That is, until The Lighthouse got snubbed. Indie-darling studio A24 does not have the money to lobby for all their great films, resulting in a single nomination this year for cinematography. Their contribution is The Lighthouse, the best film of the year and a movie more deserving of the Best Screenplay Oscar than any of the other nominees. Alas, the Academy does not know what a good screenplay is until you cook them a big juicy lobster first.

Men in Black: International for Best International Feature Film The criteria for the international

feature film category require that the film be produced outside of the US and that at least half the dialogue be in a language other than English. While The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may not believe that Men in Black: International meets these criteria, Chris Hemsworth’s confusing fake British accent should be counted as non-English dialogue. Furthermore, the majority of scenes were filmed in England, Morocco, and Italy, adding to the international filmmaking that the Academy aims to highlight in this category.

Wang’s poignantl family drama, The Farewell, was left out of the Best Picture race. Sure, East Asian people can rep Parasite as some meagre representation in the ballot, but that’s no excuse to ignore Wang’s triumphant film. It is bonkers that 1917, which is essentially a B-version of Dunkirk, can get a nomination, but The Farewell cannot. It seems like the Academy is more comfortable with retreading the familiar ground of war propaganda, rather than considering new, vibrant stories.

Midsommar for Best Costume Design One of the most deserving costume designers of the year is Andrea Flesch for her work on the beautifully horrific Midsommar. In the movie, a small Swedish village celebrates the summer solstice, wearing white dresses and tunics with intricate, unique embroidery. The attention to detail on display in these handmade garments is especially impressive considering the number of extras in the movie, but the most iconic outfit comes at the end: Florence Pugh’s May Queen robe and headdress, in which Pugh is covered from head-to-toe in flowers. Midsommar’s outfits are instantly iconic and memorable, inspiring Halloween costumes for years to come.

Julia Fox in Uncut Gems for Best Supporting Actress Preceding the Oscars’ nominations announcement, A24 launched an unsuccessful lobbying campaign for Adam Sandler, the star of their thriller Uncut Gems. Sandler’s portrayal of Howard Ratner was worthy of consideration, but the Oscars’ greatest snub was Julia Fox, who plays Howard’s mistress, Julia. Showcasing a masterful range in her first acting role, Fox is responsible for Uncut Gems’ funniest moments while subverting the expectations often given to mistress roles. She becomes the film’s singular redeeming character and the only person Howard can trust. Unfortunately, like Howard, A24’s social media team did not recognize Fox’s standout performance until it was too late.

The Farewell for Best Picture It is truly a shame that Lulu

Igloofest

Because some people think megaconcerts in subzero temperatures are fun.

Until Feb. 8, times and prices vary Jacques-Cartier Pier

Performing Memories Concordia studio art professor Tatiana Koroleva maps the memories of global migration through performance art.

Jan. 22, 3 p.m., Free Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling

Vernissage: Patterns

Artist, writer, and cartoonist Jonathan Rotszain’s latest exhibit seeks to affirm Jewish identity through comics.

Jan. 23, 7:30-9:30 p.m., Free Museum of Jewish Montreal

TNC 24-hour playwriting competition Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre presents a marathon of short plays made by McGill students in one day.

Jan. 25, doors 6:30 p.m., Free Morrice Hall 14

This time of year, an award ceremony will be on at least once a week.

(Taja De Silva / The McGill Tribune)

Don’t let its charm fool you; “Bad Boys for Life” is a bad movie

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence can’t save this underwritten slog Patrick Gilroy Contributor To analyse Bad Boys For Life on its own terms, as most other critics seem to be doing, would be a disservice to the canon of good-to-great Hollywood films that have been and are being made.

Sure, as a buddy-cop movie filled to the brim with gun-fights and corny jokes, the film functions perfectly fine. But the bar doesn’t need to be so low.

When considered alongside other, superior crime films, this one is a heaping pile of garbage.

The last movie in the Bad Boys franchise was released in 2003, a sequel to Michael Bay’s directorial debut. Boasting 147 minutes of runtime, Bad Boys II raked in $273.3 million at the box office but was almost universally panned by critics. Despite the film’s commercial success, the decision to revive the franchise in a market saturated with remakes is questionable. Bad Boys for Life confronts a culture whose attitudes toward both police violence and cliché plot twists have shifted in the 15 years since the previous iteration. The film still does its best to make those work while Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprise their roles as narcotics detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, but it falls short in moving beyond tired tropes.

The two aging detectives play roles familiar to the cop-drama genre. While Marcus wants to retire, Mike does not. Prolonged bickering thus

‘Bad Boys for Life’ is just another buddy-cop flick. (WhatCulture.com) ensues before personal calamities inevitably bring them both back into the fold. Other clichés ticked off include a brash, hot-headed officer whose penchant for danger frightens his female love interest, a good-cop-bad-cop interrogation, a “club scene” featuring familiar female characters in sexy outfits, and a hero who tries to complete his mission alone before being rescued by his friends.

What makes this movie palatable is the indisputable chemistry between Smith and Lawrence.

Lawrence, playing an Alexa-using, modern version of the ‘I’m getting too old for this’ guy, gets a laugh

at every turn, while Smith does a fine job with the loveable-asshole shtick. As a pair, the two manage to turn this action film into a bonafide comedy, albeit an unambitious one.

Unfortunately, the film’s strengths end there.

A high-tech squad that joins the fray plays as a parody of an elite CIA unit, and not in a funny way.

Casual references to extreme police surveillance and PTSD aside, the connections that directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah try to forge between Lowery and the techies are embarrassingly stiff, and the primacy of their roles is unjustified.

Meanwhile, the romantic spark between Mike and fellow officer Rita (Paola Nuñez) is non-existent, as Mike repeatedly clashes with her before she decides to love him again for no apparent reason other than narrative convenience. As such, the film reads as if the writers took the narrative skeleton of a buddy-cop film, decided what point A and point B were, and filled in the rest on the fly. The film simply has too many plot points and too little development.

Despite Bad Boys For Life’s mediocrity, most critics are still giving it praise. Part of this seems to be the penchant for evaluating it as a buddy-cop popcorn movie and nothing else. If done this way, a review might stand for a casual filmgoer, but it does a disservice to movie fans who have an operating standard that goes something like ‘Godfather good, Transformers 4 bad.’

Sure, Bad Boys For Life might be good given its commitment to the standard formula for a buddycop movie, but by no means does that make it universally good. All films have creative and artistic potential, and by embracing certain genre films as inevitably uninspired, critics are discouraging innovation and normalizing mediocrity.

Film lovers should demand more from critics, just as moviegoers should demand more from the studios that have a stranglehold on the means of film production and distribution. With a trite script, worn out tropes, and unfunny writing, Bad Boys For Life is simply not good.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

13

Rapid urbanization is driving biodiversity decline

Research findings expose gaps in knowledge of urban growth’s effects on biodiversity

Gwenyth Wren Contributor Continued from page 1.

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Gonzalez explained the importance of studying the effects of urbanization on biodiversity, particularly in developing countries. “[In] Nigeria, Brazil, and China, where human growth is [greatest] and where biodiversity is the richest, is where we have the most to lose,” Gonzalez said.

Generally, the direct effects of urban growth on habitat loss are well understood: Building construction often results in habitat destruction and fragmentation. According to Gonzalez, however, scientists are not paying enough attention to the indirect effects, which outweigh the direct consequences.

“The indirect effect of urban expansion is the resources cities demand,” Gonzalez said. “The ecological footprint of cities is much greater than the footprint of just the building. We have a bad understanding of the indirect effects of urban growth.”

Cities also require land for food and energy, another example of urbanization’s indirect impacts on the environment. This requires converting vast areas of land into agricultural spaces to sustain cities, leading to more habitat loss.

“The amount of agricultural land re-

quired to feed the world’s cities is 36 times greater in size than the urban areas themselves,” Gonzalez said.

Despite this knowledge, only 34 per cent of studies have quantified these indirect impacts.

Gonzalez pointed out that however detached we may feel living in a city, we are fundamentally dependent on ecosystems.

“We depend on them for normal things,” Gonzalez said. “Food, fibre, water, air, recycle all those essential things we need for life, species do all of that. What makes these habitats the Amazon or the boreal forest is their biological diversity and the variability of living organisms in these places. Habitat loss impacts the things we rely on.”

People in low-income countries are largely moving to cities due to increasing industrialization and job availability. This presents a major problem for cities with limited infrastructure that must continue expanding to keep up with the influx of people from rural areas. In this case, urban expansion is necessary, and hindering it is unrealistic. Gonzalez suggests tangible ways to reduce the habitat loss caused by urbanization.

“There is nothing wrong with a city per se; the question of how we choose to live in a city is the issue,” Gonzalez said.

By reducing urban sprawl and allowing nature and people to coexist by enforcing policies such as green belts, or areas where

By 2030, an additional 1.2 billion people will live in cities.

(Anne McGrath / The McGill Tribune) building is restricted, cities can achieve greater sustainability as urban centres grow.

Although there seems to be a plethora of environmental concerns that merit our attention, the loss of habitat and the disappearance of native species is often not given the weight it deserves.

“Habitat loss used to be the kind of thing we worried about ethically,” Gonzalez said. “Now we realize it is integral for the functioning of our ecosystems and biosphere. Our fate is determined by how we treat our biodiversity, and in that, our biosphere.”

Exploring the myth of device radiation

The evidence for and against cell phones’ correlation with cancer Sophia Gorbounov Contributor Phones have become an integral part of living in modern society. Used for practically every purpose, technology has consumed the lives of almost everyone with access to it. As human interactions with electronic devices increase, controversial debates over whether cell phones cause cancer have also emerged. The idea behind this theory is that since cell phones and laptops emit radiation, and radiation is harmful, these devices must therefore be bad for human health.

Many even claim that keeping one’s phone on their person can cause cancer.

While such statements induce fear in the minds of personal technology consumers, many have called into question the validity of the claims. The short answer is that no, keeping your phone in your back pocket will not give you radiation poisoning. And apart from minor discomfort, the warmth of your laptop will not damage any organs if it is positioned on your torso during a two-hour movie.

One of the early studies that began the idea that electronic devices have negative health effects came from Dr. Bill P. Curry, a consultant and physicist who sent his findings to the Broward County Public Schools in Florida in 2000.

He asserted that introducing laptops to the classroom would have serious health impacts for the county’s quarter million students.

Sebastian Wachsmann-Hogiu, a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at McGill

The radiation that cell phones do emit is non-ionizing, which is generally unharmful. (mexicannewsnetwork.com) University, explained the importance of not mistaking correlation for causation.

“Even if there is a correlation between higher rates of cancer and prolonged use of cell [phones], it does not mean that the radiation emitted from cell phones cause cancer,” Wachsmann-Hogiu said.

Wachsmann-Hogiu warned about the presence of too many variables, further explaining that all factors of life, including stress, age, and general health, must be accounted for to accurately conduct a study about the effects of cell phone radiation on users.

Radiation is released from almost everything in different amounts. Though radiation is

released from phones and laptops, the intensity is too low to cause any significant damage. Furthermore, these devices release non-ionizing radiation. This kind of radiation is generally nonharmful in small amounts because it is unable to remove electrons from atoms and therefore cannot cause any damage to biological compounds or alter the composition of chemical structures.

At worst, concentrated non-ionizing radiation could cause burns due to its ability to heat up any surface it comes into contact with. However, the radiation emitted from portable devices is not concentrated and cannot cause any harmful effects.

Gamma rays are emitted in very low levels

from devices due to the natural decay of their materials. According to Wachsmann-Hogiu, gamma rays in general could be biologically hazardous, as they are a form of ionizing radiation.

“There are natural gamma ray sources on Earth, and we are also exposed to low levels of gamma rays from cosmic origin,” WachsmannHogiu wrote. “It is unlikely that the level of gamma rays emitted by cell phones is significant when compared with these natural sources.”

Additionally, there are official safety standards set for mobile devices.

“There are regulations in place that limit the amount of radiation emitted by cell phones, and they need to meet [Federal Communications Commission] standards before being sold,” Wachsmann-Hogiu said.

Though the long-term effects of device radiation have not been extensively studied, he explained that as long as phones and laptops are not kept on one’s person at all times, any emitted radiation will have no effect on the body.

In the early part of the millenium, Curry’s false study published for schools sparked the popular fear of cell phone radiation that has been continuously perpetuated by more inaccurate studies, most of them performed on rats. David Gorski, a doctor and editor of Science-Based Medicine, highlighted this in a 2016 article.

“No, a rat study with marginal results does not prove that cell phones cause cancer, no matter what Mother Jones and Consumer Reports say,” Gorski wrote.

14

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

29th edition of Soup and Science

Talks ranged from genetics to cybersecurity Amir Hotter Yishay, Madison McLauchlan, Daria Kiseleva, Katherine Dulong, & Shafaq Nami Staff Writer & Contributors McGill professors presented their scientific research to crowds of students in the Redpath Museum at the 29th iteration of Soup and Science from Jan. 13–17. After snacking on complementary soup and

sandwiches, writers from The McGill Tribune compiled highlights from the week.

Nutrient cycling and ecosystem science

Fiona Soper, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, just started at McGill this semester, bringing the Soper Lab with her. Soper specializes in ecosystem science, drawing on plant physiology and biogeochemistry to explore the ways in which plants interact with their environment. In particular, Soper analyzes nutrient cycling processes to understand how plants respond to climate change.

“One of the big questions in ecosystem science is the extent to which plants can capitalize on having more [carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere to increase their growth and to change the trajectory of climate change,” Soper said.

An upcoming project will involve field and lab work on the mechanisms by which tropical plants scavenge for nutrients in high carbon environments, which will take the Soper Lab to the slopes of a volcano in Costa Rica.

Exploring species distributions Every semester, the Faculty of Science hosts a week-long event featuring various professors. (Erin Sass / The McGill Tribune)

Professor Anna Hargreaves from the Department of Biology described her lab’s exploration of species range distributions, the areas in which species can be found during their lifetime.

“Thinking about species distribution is interesting [because it is] a fundamental way of understanding a whole bunch of our modern conservation issues,” Hargreaves said.

For example, the effects of climate change can be studied through the response of species distributions. Hargreaves discussed several tools that the lab used, including in-depth field experiments at the community scale, global data syntheses that incorporate worldwide data, and the Biotic Interaction Gradient (BIG) experiment, which is run on mountain ranges in various parts of the world.

Data mining for cybersecurity

Benjamin Fung, an associate professor in the School of Information Studies, gave an overview of his research on data mining for cybersecurity.

“Data mining is a process of extracting interesting patterns or knowledge from a large volume of data,” Fung said.

Some of Fung’s research focusses on predicting the identity of anonymous communicators on the dark web based on patterns in writing style. He is also interested in preserving privacy in cases where large amounts of sensitive data, such as patient records, need to be released for data mining to a third party, like a university. Anonymization algorithms transform data so that outsiders can no longer obtain sensitive data about patients but can still extract useful information from the dataset.

The human genome

Guillaume Bourque, an associate profes-

sor in the Department of Human Genetics, is focussed on the human genome and the presence of viral DNA within it. After the Human Genome Project sequenced the human genome in 2003, researchers realized that only two per cent of it is DNA that can be used to make proteins, termed coding DNA. Meanwhile, viruses’ inactive genetic code comprise eight per cent of the human genome.

“Part of the placenta is actually derived from viruses in our genome,” Bourque said.

Bourque’s work shows that viral DNA is integral to humanity. Aside from being involved in pregnancy, viruses in our genome also activate the immune system to fight against disease.

The psychology of pain

Assistant Professor Mathieu Roy from the Department of Psychology presented his research on how brains make decisions between pain and competing rewards. Roy’s research shows that as monetary rewards grow higher, the likelihood of people choosing to endure more pain increases.

“I was interested in how the brain generates consciousness […] and emotions,” Roy said.

“Pain is a sensory experience, but it’s also an emotional one, and, contrary to other emotions, it is easy to study in the laboratory [because] pain implies consciousness.”

In the future, Roy hopes to expand his research by analyzing databases like the UK BioBank and studying the response of the brain as it makes conscious decisions. This understanding of the brain might change the way we treat chronic pain.

Image generation is rendering artificial advertisements 3D rendering is a technology coveted by advertisers and robots

Doris Tian Contributor Decadent delicacies in food advertisements are not always what they seem to be. In these commercials, motor oil poses as pancake syrup, mashed potatoes become scoops of ice cream, and craft glue replaces milk in a bowl of cereal.

Today, a rendering technique called physically based rendering (PBR) allows advertisers to take further liberties when creating their ads. Rather than cheating customers by passing off one product as another, this rendering technology generates photorealistic images on a computer without relying upon expensive and unwieldy camera equipment. Open any product catalogue today, and it is likely that the images displayed never existed in real life.

PBR relies on physics to generate realistic depictions of objects.

According to Derek Nowrouzezahrai, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, PBR attempts to create images that portray the physics of light as accurately as possible. “[PBR] is about getting accurate physical models of the behaviour of light and how it transmits,

scatters, reflects, and diffuses for different types of materials,” Nowrouzezahrai said. “Wood versus metal, versus plastic, versus hair, versus skin.”

In general, rendering takes a three-dimensional scene and attempts to output a two-dimensional picture that realistically portrays the original three-dimensional state. In AI and robotics, PBR gives computers sight through an inverse process, where computers input a two-dimensional scene and use it to figure out its three-dimensional surroundings.

“If I have a camera sensor on my car, and I’m taking a 2D picture of my scene, how much of the 3D world can I infer?” Nowrouzezahrai said. “This is the traditional computer vision problem.”

Images created through PBR strive to be as true as possible to real world physics. According to Nowrouzezahrai, this helps robots—especially autonomous vehicles, which take in a lot of natural light—to navigate the real world without incident.

The advertisement industry widely employs PBR technology, since it reduces the cost and time associated with setting up and capturing the ideal shot. PBR also al-

PBR creates realistic images by portraying the physics of light as accurately as possible. (jeremyromanowski.com) lows directors to be more flexible when designing the scene by freeing them from the restraints of the physical world. As a prominent example, the furniture giant IKEA has entirely adopted PBR technology in the creation of their beautiful catalogues.

“It’s all fake,” Nowrouzezahrai said. “It’s been decades since they have taken a real picture of their product.”

Beyond product advertising and prototyping, PBR is also an integral part of the entertainment

industry. In video games and films, PBR produces impressively realistic renderings, even scenes with floating artifacts and fantasy beasts that one would never encounter in real life.

PBR allows us to recreate more of our material world in the digital realm. At the same time, its realistic images also allow robots, born in the binary realm, to find their way into the physical world.

Further research and applications for PBR include creating better simulations for humans and robots.

For humans, such simulations come in the form of virtual reality experiences. Robots, on the other hand, might use simulations for training purposes before being allowed to operate in the real world.

Through research in PBR and other simulation technologies, visual media artists and machine learning scientists like Nowrouzezahrai have teamed up to find out how much our material world we can recreate realistically in the digital world, and what exactly can be done with the results.

SPORTS

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

15

One point victory lifts Martlet Basketball over Citadins McGill halts losing streak on home court

Ender McDuff Sports Editor

MOMENT OF THE GAME

Martlet Basketball (3–7) defeated the visiting Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) Citadins (4–5) by a single point, 54–53, in a hard-fought game on Jan. 18. This was a much-needed win for a struggling Martlet team, who started the new year with three consecutive losses, including one to the same UQÀM team a game prior. In this contest, however, stalwart defence and active rebounding, along with the late-game heroics of fifthyear guard Gladys Hakizimana, elevated the Martlets to victory.

A quick start to the game saw the Martlets up by five early, much to the delight of the packed crowd in Love Competition Hall. But, UQÀM was prepared to compete, quickly deploying an effective full-court press. McGill adjusted well in response and found themselves ahead 13–10 at the end of the quarter.

McGill’s defence stifled the Citadins in the second period, frequently stealing the ball or forcing shot clock violations, all while holding the Citadins to a frigid 18 per cent from the field. The Martlets went ahead by eight, their largest lead of the game, but a renewed fullcourt press led to a 9–0 run from the Citadins and a slim halftime lead, 23–21.

Entering the third period, McGill’s offensive rebounding kept them in the game, and another steal put McGill back in the lead. UQÀM began to hit their shots, however, and a dagger three-pointer looked to have McGill back peddling. The Martlets responded to the adversity, though, and entered the final period trailing by just two points, 39–37.

“I think it takes a little bit of poise [to win tough games],” Head Coach Ryan Thorne said. “Down the

UQÀM looked poised to pull away from the Martlets until first-year guard Jessica Salanon found second-year forward Shayann Laguerre rolling to the rim where she muscled up a layup through contact. A smooth free throw completed the three-point play, tying the game 34–34 and helping McGill stay on track to victory.

QUOTABLE

Second-year Guard Delphine Robitaille brings the ball up court.

(Gabe Nisker / McGill Tribune) stretch, we made some mistakes, but there was some poise, there was some effort, and there was some commitment to playing tough defence.”

Winning games also takes making shots, however, and that is exactly what Hakizimana entered the fourth quarter prepared to do. A quick three-pointer opened Hakizimana’s scoring barrage, as she proceeded to hit a reverse layup and another three-pointer in quick succession to put McGill ahead 45–41. Two blocked shots, by secondyear players Delphine Robitaille and Shayann Laguerre, respectively, looked to have the Martlets comfortably on their way to victory, ahead by eight points.

“I’ve been practicing those shots,” Hakizimana, who led all scorers with 20 points, said. “I know that as soon as I have an opportunity […] to shoot the three, I’ve got to be confident enough to take it and make it.”

UQÀM hit big shots too, however, eventually cutting the lead to a single point. With 8.9 seconds left in the

“We go by three […] pillars: Head, heart, and hustle.

All those three things showed themselves today[.] As long as we maintain those [three pillars], I think we have a chance of success.” – Head Coach Ryan Thorne on the lessons he wants his team to take away from the victory.

STAT CORNER McGill secured an outstanding 17 offensive rebounds, which helped the Martlets score 28 points in the paint, double UQÀM’s total.

game, the Citadins reclaimed possession and attempted a buzzer-beating three-pointer for the win, but the shot missed iron and the Martlets walked away with the victory, 54–53. “[Winning takes] a lot of focus, a lot of [being] locked in, and a lot of communication,” Hakizimana said.

“We’ve been focussing on a lot of communication but [also] a lot of listening to make sure we’re all on the same page, and I think that’s the big reason why we were able to [win].”

The Martlets will look to keep their momentum going on Jan. 23 and again at home Jan. 25 when they play cross-town rival Concordia (3–4).

WNBA agrees to new collective bargaining agreement

Improvement in player salaries and travel accommodations are an important step forward for the sport

WNBA players announced a new collective bargaining agreement on Jan. 14. (UT Sports)

Karan Kumar Contributor The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) agreed to a seminal new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) on Jan. 14. The agreement makes major updates to the working conditions, including changes in salaries, revenue sharing, maternity leave, and travel and accommodation. Additionally, maximum salary will increase almost 83 per cent to $215,000 from $117,500 per year.

By 2021, the WNBA could be splitting revenue equally with the players, whereas it is currently estimated that players

receive just 20 to 30 per cent of league revenue. The new agreement also provides maternity leave with full salary, and travel will now include individual—rather than shared—hotel rooms for every player.

This investment in the future of women’s basketball is a major breakthrough not only for the WNBA but also for women’s athletics at large, as other women’s professional leagues could use this agreement as a platform to revise their own bargaining agreements.

WNBA players were one of several groups of American female professional athletes to challenge their leagues or governing bodies in the past two years

when they opted out of their previous CBA in November 2018: In March 2019, the women’s national soccer team sued the US Soccer Federation (USSF), alleging gender-based pay discrimination. With the emergence and popularity of professional leagues all across the world, it is time that female athletes get their fair share of recognition and compensation.

Although the NBA is known for its competitive salaries and revenue sharing with male athletes, this new CBA defines the start of a new era for women’s basketball. It can and should be a catalyst to bridge the gap in salaries between men’s and women’s basketball in the long run. The NBA’s average salary is currently more than 85 times that of the average WNBA salary, but this new agreement could substantially increase the average salaries of players in the WNBA. By providing an additional incentive for athletes to join the league, the WNBA stands to be able to attract more talent and raise the level of play, making for more entertaining basketball and more viewership and sponsorships. Better salaries are a tangible outcome of the WNBA’s already increasing popularity.

Perhaps the most critical addition to the new CBA is the offer of fully paid maternity leave for players. Long overdue, this clause provides a qualitative change from the old bargaining agreement. The new policy will also help the league retain

its talent, as women will not be forced into retirement if they want to have children.

Returning to the sport after having a child is one of the hardest and most undervalued comebacks in sports; providing assistance in the form of paid maternity leave for athletes during pregnancy is an immensely supportive and necessary move by the league.

WNBA All-Star Candace Parker has long been vocal about the issue of maternity leave. Parker shared her experience of giving birth to her now 10-year-old daughter in an interview with NBA TV on Jan. 15. Her daughter was six weeks old when she returned to the court.

“I had to take my mom with me, because I nursed the first 15 months, but it was out of pocket, I had to pay for my own hotel room,” Parker said. “[But] those things are slowly getting better for mothers[.] We’ve made so much progress, but I’m hopeful that there’s more to come in the future.”

It is highly encouraging to see such a bargaining agreement come to fruition in a time when the prominence of women in sports is increasing. Although much more needs to be done to address the historical gender pay discrimination in sports, such as further reforming sponsorship deals and increasing female representation in coaching staffs, the new CBA is a significant step toward bringing parity in North American basketball.

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 2020

Higher wages lead to change in NWSL draft classes More players declaring for draft with remaining college eligibility Kaja Surborg Sports Editor The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) held its annual college draft on Jan. 16 in Chicago, and for the second year in a row, an underclassman was selected first overall. This year’s first pick was 19-year-old Sophia Smith, who, along with being the first teenager drafted into the NWSL, is coming off a national-title-winning sophomore season at Stanford University. This growing trend of drafting young players with remaining collegiate eligibility is indicative of a changing landscape in professional women’s soccer, especially in North America.

It was, and still is, common for female professional soccer players to have careers outside of playing. Until relatively recently, many leagues did not pay a living wage, sponsorships were not particularly lucrative, and even if a player could earn a decent salary, it was unlikely that they could fund a retirement starting before the age of 40.

In North America, and especially the United States, collegiate athletics are a common gateway to a professional sports career. The introduction of Title IX in 1972 required universities receiving federal funding to offer equal access to coaching, equipment, facilities, and other services to both women’s and men’s teams. This eventually created an environment in which university athletics became a viable route to a professional career for female athletes and

Portland Thorns acquire the NWSL’s first teenage college draft pick.

(Al Chang / Stanford Athletics)

introduced college drafts in various iterations of professional soccer leagues in the United States as well as in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).

Players declaring for the draft with remaining NCAA eligibility, however, suggests a shift in the way women are approaching their careers and raises the question of whether the college system is still the best way to facilitate the development of the game. Collegiate athletics as a development program and pipeline to professional careers

has provided female players with a safety net in the form of an education that, for many years, was necessary. But athletes who feel that their playing careers can now support them without a university education calls into question the value the college system still holds.

The NWSL is home to the vast majority of players on the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT), who are backto-back reigning world champions. While most players on the roster that won the 2019

FIFA Women’s World Cup spent at least some time playing in the NCAA, perhaps they could have been better served by an academy system integrated into the structure of professional club teams, as is the practice in Europe. It is a model that has helped the best men’s leagues develop over the years, as players have been able to invest more time in training and playing. While the NCAA has served to centralize the development of women’s soccer in North America, an academy system that decentralizes that development has the potential to make soccer more accessible and broaden the talent pool for professional leagues. At a time when players are willing to take risks to pursue their professional careers, youth development programs that feed directly into the club system may be a step toward developing women’s soccer and continuing to attract interest from players, sponsors, and supporters alike.

Of course, there are valid criticisms of these club academy systems, and there is an argument to be made that women’s leagues should not necessarily seek to imitate men’s leagues. Putting too much emphasis on training and playing could deprive young people of opportunities to pursue other interests, and education has rarely had negative impacts. But, should women’s soccer continue on its current trajectory of growth, investing in academies could help foster homegrown talent for clubs in one of the world’s most competitive leagues.

McGill Men’s Basketball loses nailbiter to Citadins UQÀM steals victory in the final moments of the heated competition

Third-year guard Jamal Mayali shoots a deep jump shot. (Gabe Nisker / The McGill Tribune)

Adam Burton Staff Writer The McGill Men’s Basketball team (8–2) lost in heartbreaking fashion on Jan. 18 in an electrifying home game against the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) Citadins with a final score of 81–75. This loss did not reflect the heartwrenching efforts from both sides that led to a thrilling eight lead changes throughout the game.

Neither team had any offensive momentum at the

beginning of the first quarter, as both sides forced turnovers and switched screens exceptionally, making easy baskets hard to come by. Only third-year forward Levi Londole made a significant offensive impact, with an impressive seven of the team’s 16 first quarter points. McGill finished the slow-paced quarter trailing the Citadins, 17–16.

The second quarter saw a significant increase in pace, with both teams hitting their rhythm, increasing ball movement, sinking threes, and energizing an already rowdy crowd of 305

in the process. McGill used ball movement and a fast-paced, screen-centric offence, pushing the team into the lead with 36 points to the Citadins’ 32 at the end of the first half.

McGill’s dominance did not last, however, and sloppy ball handling and missed shots plagued the team in the second half.

“We didn’t [use] the ball particularly well today,” Head Coach David DeAveiro said. “I think we shot 19.4 per cent from three. It’s tough to win games where you don’t shoot the ball, especially for us. We’re not big, our game is shooting threes. But we turned it over 19 times and got out-rebounded.”

The third quarter saw an improvement for McGill.

Londole put up a dominant defensive effort and scored six points, including a crowdpleasing fast-break dunk. Thirdyear guard Jamal Mayali ended the quarter decisively with an and-one layup and an off-balance three-pointer in the last minute of the quarter to cut UQÀM’s lead to three, 59–56.

McGill came into the fourth quarter red-hot and overtook UQÀM midway through with

a one-point lead, bringing the score to 66–65. But McGill’s luck turned with four minutes left in the quarter: Their defence suddenly fell to a flurry of threes, and careless ball handling led to several turnovers.

With three minutes remaining, the score was 70–66 UQÀM, and McGill broke under the pressure, fouling and turning the ball over consistently. Several time-outs and free throws later,

McGill lost 81–75.

“I’m really confident, [...] we’re still in first place,” thirdyear point-guard JJ Hamel-Carey said of McGill’s chances in the postseason. “It’s our second loss of the season, so we’re not going to hang our heads. It happens, it’s a small loss.”

McGill hopes to turn their luck around in their coming game against the Concordia Stingers (4–3) on Jan. 23.

MOMENT OF THE GAME With 15 seconds left in the third quarter, third-year guard Jamal Mayali sunk an off-balance three-pointer to bring McGill within three points of UQÀM, energizing the crowd and spiriting the team to come out strong in the fourth quarter.

QUOTABLE “They were [hungrier] because they had something to prove because we had just beat them. So we were feeling good about ourselves, and they punched us in the face. We kind of responded, but we could have been better, and at the end of the game, they made a couple key plays that gave them the edge.” - Third-year point guard JJ Hamel-Carey on the mental aspect of the game.

STAT CORNER Hamel-Carey scored a season-high 16 points, going 7–11 for the entire game. He did this with an athletic slash-and-kick style of play that allowed him to drive to the rim effectively.