The McGill Tribune Vol. 39 Issue 18

The McGill Tribune TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020 | VOL. 39 | ISSUE 18

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

EDITORIAL

FEATURE

GAME REPORT

Standing in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en

Ask me anything

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PG. 8-9

Cabillo-Abante shines for Martlet Basketball at Beach Night PG. 15

(Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune)

The Med Café reimagined

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McGill begins Black History Month celebrations with Opening Ceremony

Keynote speaker Prof. Wendy Greene spoke on natural hair discrimination Tasmin Chu Staff Writer McGill held its fourth annual Black History Month Opening Ceremony at the Faculty of Law on Feb. 3. The event was a collaboration between the Office of the Provost and Vice-Principal

(Academic) Christopher Manfredi, the Black Students’ Network of McGill (BSN), and the McGill African Students’ Society (MASS). The ceremony featured keynote speaker Professor Wendy Greene, who presented “Rooted: Locking Black Hair to Human Rights Activism,” a talk about discrimination against natural hair. Greene is the first African American woman to be a ten-

ured faculty member at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law. Greene first became interested in the legal precedent around natural hair discrimination while working at a labour employment firm. According to Greene, natural hair discrimination refers to policies in schools and workplaces that target hairstyles worn by Black individuals.

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Patching holes in broken hearts An in-depth look at the human aorta reveals the faults of traditional grafts Madison McLauchlan Contributor In the complex circulatory system of the human body, no artery is as vital as the aorta. This large vessel takes oxygen-rich blood from the chambers of the heart and delivers it to the brain, muscles, digestive system, and other sites of metabolism in the body. Aortic aneurysms,

one of the leading causes of death in Canada, occur when the aortic wall is weakened and bulges out, causing the vessel to rupture.

To treat aortic aneurysms, doctors commonly use grafts to patch the weak points in a vessel with a more rigid material. Despite this life-saving procedure, in most cases, these prostheses are only a temporary fix.

Complications can arise from surgery or from the graft itself, and the suture between the aorta and the graft is sometimes a source of postoperative infection.

According to Dr. Marco Amabili, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill, prosthetics currently on the market are too stiff to properly mimic a human aorta.

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New McCord exhibit depicts Griffintown as a fractured landscape Photographer Robert Walker captures Montreal’s evolving neighbourhood Jonathan Giammaria Staff Writer Urban redevelopment looms over Montreal with a constancy that borders on parody.

Whether these changes impact a single street or an entire neighbourhood: The threat of an orange cone is ever-present. Since 2013, Griffintown—downtown’s southwestern neighbour-

hood, historically home to Irish industrial workers—has been Montreal’s most recent target for urban renewal. In collaboration with photographer Robert Walker, McCord Museum premiered Griffintown - Evolving Montreal on Feb. 7, a photo exhibit documenting the quarter’s identity in flux. The exhibition is one of many that McCord will curate to

document Montreal’s evolution as a whole. Walker is a veteran street photographer whose subjects have included the urban landscapes of New York, Paris, and Toronto.

In a video that accompanies the exhibit, Walker notes that he does not intend to gauge gentrification’s impact on Griffintown as a historical or social artefact.

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NEWS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

McGill begins Black History Month celebrations with Opening Ceremony Keynote speaker Prof. Wendy Greene spoke on natural hair discrimination Tasmin Chu Staff Writer

Continued from page 1.

“We would get all these cases dealing with grooming and appearance,” Greene said. “And you know, honestly, there’s not a lot of protection under our federal civil rights laws [....] I was most intrigued by the cases that dealt with, say [legal] challenges against natural hair discrimination, challenges to regulation of African descendants who were wearing natural hair styles like locks, braids, twists, Bantu knots, and so forth. [I thought about] how to really right [the] wrongs that I was seeing in federal jurisprudence.”

Greene referenced several cases of natural hair discrimination, including Andrew Johnson, a high school wrestler who was told to cut off his dreadlocks or forfeit a wrestling match. Greene explained the hurdles faced by those who challenge this discrimination in the US. While American courts often recognize policies against afros and other hairstyles deemed ‘immutable’ as racial discrimination according to the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the law offers no protection for those wearing dreadlocks, twists, Bantu knots, and similar hairstyles.

“We have courts declaring that discrimination, unlawful race discrimination, is only when you’re discriminated on the basis of immutable characteristics,” Greene said. “Under this immutability doctrine, what has happened is that the courts have made what I call a hair-splitting legal distinction [....] They say that if an employer discriminates on the basis of an afro, that could be unlawful race discrimination. But if you twist, lock, or braid the

afro, then magically it’s no longer about race. It’s about culture. [And] Title VII does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of [culture].”

As a result, Greene introduced a legal definition of race that instead defines race as a culturally produced phenomenon.

“Race is not a biological construct,” Greene said. “It is a social construct, and we should be interpreting our protections against race discrimination through this lens.”

Dean Robert Leckey of McGill’s Faculty of Law expressed his gratitude towards the Faculty of Law for their collaboration with the Provost’s office to hold this event.

“I’m just delighted that the Faculty of Law was given the opportunity [...] to be a partner in presenting the opening ceremony of Black History Month this year,” Leckey said. “I’m particularly proud of the students in this faculty, especially the black and other racialized women, who are demanding a more just future and working in very concrete and visible ways.”

The presentation was followed by cocktails and a performance by Montreal steel pannist Ukpöng “Mr. Pöng” Etang. Equity Education Advisor (Anti-Oppression and Anti-Racism) Shanice Yarde, who helped to organize the even, expressed her thanks to the past and present student groups that made the event possible.

“I think it’s so important in a university, which exists because of students, that students are centred in any organizing that we do,” Yarde said. “I’m so grateful for the legacies of black people who have paved the way for us to be here, who have done this work and are continuing to do this work [....] It is so important that we don’t erase that history, especially when we’re feeling the momentum of progress.”

The theme of Black History Month 2020 is “rooted.” (Glowzi)

Sit-in at Trudeau’s office takes place in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en Demonstration part of larger solidarity movements across North America Abeer Almahdi & Rachel Habrih Managing Editor, Contributor Across Canada, students are mobilizing in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia (BC) that is resisting a Coastal GasLink pipeline project. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) raided and arrested protestors late on Feb. 6, enforcing a Dec. 31 2019 Supreme Court ruling that granted Coastal GasLink an expanded injunction.

On Feb. 7, McGill students organized a sit-in at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s constituency office in Villeray.

Catie Galbraith, co-Chair of the Indigenous Student Alliance and member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, explained how the sit-in is part of larger resistance movements across Canada and the US. “We’re here sitting in today in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and all the other folks who are resisting the RCMP on their land, we’re here as part of a broader solidarity movement,” Galbraith said. “There’s been a number of Indigenous solidarity movements across Turtle Island, both in Canada and in the US, so we just wanted to do what little we can while we are [...] here so far away [from B.C.]” Ella, a recent McGill graduate and organizer of the sit-in, described the planning and purposes of the demonstration. “[A sit-in] was the only thing I could do this morning, to be somewhere to

Approximately 25 people were in attendance at the sit-in. (Abeer Almahdi / The McGill Tribune) show Canada somehow that I hate [Canadian authorities], or that I’m unhappy with how [...] they are not listening to Indigenous folks,” Ella said. “I need to be here, I need to be somewhere [We] stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en peoples, and fuck the RCMP.” Ella went on to explain that the sit-in was not a protest.

“We’re not protestors,” Ella said.

“This is literally my life. I don’t protest.

I don’t want my family to die, I don’t want my kin to die, I love my land, and I’m just done.”

Amy Edward, a Kanienʼkehá:ka student, believes that the sit-in is a larger movement to both honor their ancestors and protect future generations.

“It’s important to understand that Indigenous peoples are protectors,” Edward said. “We come here today in respect with a good mind and good heart.

Even though we are rageful, we, as Indigenous peoples, always will remain respectful because that’s the way of our ancestors [We] are strengthened by the people seven generations before us, and our actions are for the goodness and the

wellbeing of our kin seven generations from now. We’re not acting just for the peoples of today: We act for the wellbeing of our future.”

The sit-in is only one example of the numerous displays of solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation on-and-off campus. Extinction Rebellion Quebec held a demonstration that started in Kanesatake and marched to the Montreal RCMP office. The day after the initial RCMP raids of Feb. 7, there was a vigil at Place des Arts. Most recently, on Feb. 10, there was another sit-in at Trudeau’s constituency office from 3 - 5 p.m. According to Galbraith, Indigenous resistance is stronger than ever.

“Between this, and between the Oka Crisis, and all of the incredible displays of sovereignty, I think we’re at a turning point where Indigneous people are stronger now than they’ve ever been in terms of asserting their sovereignty,” Galbraith said. “Everyone should pay attention and support however they can.”

Galbraith explained the numerous ways students can continue to support the Wet’suwet’en Nation in their efforts against Coastal GasLink, the RCMP, and the Canadian government.

“Call your [Member of Parliament], call the BC RCMP office, call the government, call anybody you can, call any of your representatives, and if you are capable, offer financial support [...] to the Unist’ot’en camp,” Galbraith said.

“Raise awareness through social media [and] get the word out.”

NEWS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

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PGSS Council approves upcoming referendum questions Hot topics of the night included the QSU, healthcare, and industrial shredders Katia Innes Arts & Entertainment Editor The Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) Council convened on Feb. 5 to discuss questions for the upcoming referendum and the creation of the position of Macdonald Campus Commissioner.

Many significant referendum questions were approved during the meeting, including the approval of the use of the keep.meSAFE mental health support system, making revisions to the PGSS Health and Dental Plan, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Daycare, and the Library Improvement Fund.

Currently, there is no dedicated point of contact between PGSS and the Macdonald Campus Graduate Students’ Society (MCGSS). External Affairs Officer Esteban Gongora Bernoske expressed that he had been serving as an ad hoc bridge between PGSS and MCGSS, facilitating communications during orientation events on both campuses. This was due in part to his prior experiences as a Macdonald Campus student.

“Someone like me who knows both organizations will not always be around, so in that case, there [would be] no strong link between the two,” Bernoske said.

A common theme of the proposed referendum questions was healthcare. The proposal to add a referendum question to replace the current telecom mental health provider, empowerME, with keep. meSAFE passed. Not attached to the Wellness Hub, keep.meSAFE will be funded through McGill student services and a $2.75 per semester student fee.

In addition to on-campus mental health resources, keep.meSAFE would have no cap on student use.

PGSS also noted that the website would provide

more options for coverage, including in person services.

Similarly, a motion to increase coverage offered by the PGSS Health and Dental Plan passed. Secretary General Dakota Rogers noted that the current plan has many faults that lead to unfair servicing.

“An addition to [the plan] is capping how much dentists can charge our insurance plan on scaling [....]” Rogers said. “For example, dentists will commonly charge [students for 90 minutes] of scaling [....] No one sits in a chair for an hour and a half. But they can do it because it’s not a verifiable service.”

The new plan would have stricter caps on specific services, as well as more payment options for students.

All but two of the proposed referendum questions were approved to be added to the ballot. The Council voted to reject a student-submitted question on joining the Quebec Students’ Union (QSU) and a vote on the creation of a committee to consider the health insurance plan unification. Founded in 2015, the QSU currently represents eight student unions across Quebec, and is the sole remaining provincial federation that advocates for student union interests at a government level. However, members of PGSS expressed concern over the practicality of joining the QSU. “It’s true that lobbying work is important,” Bradley Alexander, member of the Graduate Law Students’ Association (GLSA), said. “But what I think we should be doing is having a conversation about what PGSS should be doing [for] the student movement. For years, we’ve been having this depoliticized conversation about whether or not we should join QSU [....] But, what we should be doing is talking about how we want to be involved in the student movement.”

PGSS includes as many as 58 Post-Graduate Student Associations.

(Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune)

MOMENT OF THE MEETING The last question to be approved for the referendum was a proposed $300 to install an industrial shredder in the McLennan-Redpath Librar y. Following heated discussions on accessibility and healthcare, this trivial addition to the ballot drew laughs from the tense room.

SOUND BITE “This is a political decision and [...] the QSU has politics and talks with the government. So that’s my problem with this. We’re looking forward to joining a political organization that’s going to go to a ver y problematic provincial government [and] we should be discussing how we want to relate to them.” — Bradley Alexander, GLSA member, expressing opposition to PGSS joining QSU.

SUS General Assembly does not meet quorum and supports the AUS Executives discussed issues with communication on meetings and elections Miguel Principe Student Life Editor The Science Undergraduate Society (SUS) convened on Feb. 5 for their first General Assembly (GA) of the Winter 2020 semester. While the majority of the executive team and representatives from the various departmental groups were in attendance, the meeting did not reach quorum for a GA, with only seven constituents present.

Given the low turnout, gallery member Asa Kohn, U2 Science, inquired if SUS would plan another General Assembly this semester. SUS President Marjan Ghaz, responded by pointing out that GAs typically do not have high turnout. Despite this, Kohn urged the council to consider holding another one before the end of the school year.

“All of [the] miscommunications and errors [lead] to a very low turnout of the GA,” Kohn said. “I hope the executives will consider holding another one, so that we, as constituents, can actually participate in democracy.”

During the meeting, motions

to renew many of the SUS-backed fees were passed unanimously.

This included the Science Undergraduate Research Awards, the SUS Ambassador Fund, and the SUS Work Study Program.

Scheduled last was the motion for the approval of the timeline of the Winter 2020 SUS Election. At this point, the VP External for the Bachelor of Arts and Science Integrative Council (BASiC), Alexandra Millar, noted the recent motion put forward in the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Legislative Council on extending the campaign period to include the election days.

“This is something that was [...] brought up at the AUS last week about the campaign period,” Millar said. “A lot of our constituents do not interact with our campaign material [...] during the elections calendar.

There’s talk of extending the campaign period during the polling sessions so that, for our constituents that do not really know [the candidates], can [...] check people’s Facebook pages.”

Vice-President of the Physi-

ology Undergraduate League of Students (PULS) Jamie Halperin was hesitant to introduce this policy during the SUS elections due to possible misconceptions by the student body.

“I personally find it really important to end the campaign period before voting,” Halperin said. “With Facebook events still active [during voting], people would say, ‘oh this candidate has 1200 people in there while this person only has 400’, or that ‘this candidate shared a bomb meme’.

I just find that [by] having that campaign ending with the voting page, you get to [only] see each platform [and the] constituency can still reach [out] for more information. I think [that is] the purest form of democracy that we can have in student government.”

Speaker of the Council Haoyi Qiu reminded the gallery that the motion was for the dates of the election timeline rather than amendments regarding advertising during the campaign period.

With no demands to extend the debating period, the dates were subsequently passed and the meeting was adjourned.

FLASHBACK The email announcing the GA was sent out on the night of Jan. 22, less than an hour before the supposed deadline to submit motions to the Speaker. According to the Speaker Qiu, they were still accepting proposals until the following Monday. The reasons for the delayed announcement were unknown due to the absence of the VP Communications, Karim Almallakh, but factors suggested by the Executive Administrator, Sydney Merritt, were the difficulty in booking a larger room for such events.

SOUNDBITE “Thank you for all your patience, I know it’s difficult to deal with a change of leadership so late in the year. I have my contact info listed, as well as my office hours [...] so please do reach out on any questions about SUS you may have.” - President Marjan Ghazi, addressing the recent change in leadership following the resignation of former President Dylan Wong in December.

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NEWS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

Indigenous communities demonstrate against pipeline expansion in BC

Kanesatake protest for Wet’suwet’en Nation Pascal Hogue Staff Writer Around 150 activists and citizens of Kanesatake gathered by the steps of Montreal’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) offices in Westmount on Feb. 2 to demonstrate against pipeline expansion projects in northern British Columbia’s (BC) Wet’suwet’en Nation.

The demonstration started early in the morning in Kanesatake territory as a rolling blockade and slowly made its way to the RCMP offices, where the larger protest took place. The event was co-organized by Extinction Rebellion (XR) Quebec’s McGill and Concordia chapters and La planète s’invite à l’Université.

In a show of solidarity with Wet’suwet’en, activists held up flags and signs demanding a peaceful termination of the TransCanada Coastal Gaslink pipeline project. Some even carried eviction notices demanding RCMP officers to withdraw from Wet’suwet’en region, condemning their presence as an “illegal invasion of unceded territory.”

In a scathing speech, Marlene Hale, a member of the Wet’suwet’en Frog Clan, denounced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s lack of action against pipeline construction in the region.

“You’re a father, [and] you’re going to be a grandfather [soon]—what are you going to

Protestors held eviction notices demanding that the RCMP withdraw from Wet’suwet’en region.

(Pascal Hogue / The McGill Tribune) say to your children ten years down the line?”

Hale said. “What are you going to say to your children in the future of what you did and why you couldn’t stop this when you had that chance? Why did you let those pipelines go through when you could have stopped them?

You can still make this right.”

Alex Tyrell, leader of the Green Party of Quebec and candidate for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, was among the protestors. He advised activists of the impor-

tance of having a critical perspective on federal politics and recounted his experience visiting Wet’suwet’en.

“I visited the Wet’suwet’en camp last summer and […] it’s really a beautiful place [with] pristine water [but] there’s all these pipelines that are going through,” Tyrell said.

“People are trying to do everything that they can to resist [...] so I think that it’s really important that all Canadians and beyond stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en.”

Jocelyn Wabano-Iahtail, a member of the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario, gave a heartfelt speech on the consequences of land exploitation by international corporations.

She spoke about the destruction of natural resources by the Victor Diamond Mine near her hometown of Attawapiskat and its impact on community members’ traditional way of life.

“I’ve seen what they have done to […] the lands that we grew up on,” Wabano-Iahtail said. “The lands where we went trapping, […] on the river fishing, the berries that we picked, the medicine that we used. What affects one part affects the whole. You cannot do those things and it is a violation of our sacred laws.”

Wabano-Iahtail emphasized that it is Indigenous peoples’ sacred duty to protect traditional lands from exploitation and to safeguard natural resources for future generations.

“When you disrespect the land, you disrespect your children, your grandchildren and those yet unborn,” Wabano-Iahtail said. “You have not upheld your bundle. No amount of money can take you when you are connected with your sacred spirit being, with your authentic self, when you know your original laws.”

Protests occurring this week include a sit-in at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s local constituency office, and a blockade across a railway owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

McGill alumni lead panel to discuss challenges for women entrepreneurs Attendees discuss how McGill prepared them to start their businesses Victor Wang Contributor McGill Engine and Promoting Opportunities for Women in Engineering (POWE) hosted a panel featuring McGill Engineering alumni who spoke about their experiences with entrepreneurship. Specifically, the panel consisted of three women, including Boyana Stefanova (BEng’07), Naureen Anwar (BEng’10), and Laura Al Khoury (BEng’17), who reflected upon their successes, failures, and challenges thus far as leaders and innovators.

During the panel, the speakers shared tips with the audience based on their past mistakes. Al Khoury, co-founder of Yuma, a service that provides convenient meal plans for companies and their workers, emphasized the importance of maintaining positive relationships with customers, especially in the early stages of a new company.

“At the beginning, the most important thing is observing your customers’ problems,” Al Khoury said. “Understand these problems and solve them as fast as possible.”

Anwar, CEO of Name Shouts, a company that provides the proper pronunciation to over 360,000 names based on native speakers, also highlighted the importance of accessible and consistent communication with customers.

“Our first mistake is that we didn’t talk to our users as much as we should have,” Anwar said. “[That is] a mistake that I see many other entrepreneurs make.”

Al Khoury and Anwar encouraged aspiring entrepreneurs to build networks with investors frequently and early on, as initial financial backing is crucial to entrepreneurial success.

“It is important to build relationships from the first day on,” Anwar said. “[Investors] give money to people whom they trust, and it is up to us to build that trust.”

The panelists also reflected on their time at McGill and suggested changes they would make given a chance to go back to university.

“As an entrepreneur, it is important to be a storyteller,” Anwar said. “In terms of what [the Faculty of] Engineering didn’t give, I would definitely go back and get a degree in philosophy or art or literature.”

To Al Khoury, the McGill community itself was a valuable place to meet like-minded peers, as she now realizes that much of her current team are McGill alumni. “[Campus] is where I built my initial network,” Khoury said. “If I could go back, I would spend more time building that network [because] I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.”

On the other hand, Stefanova, the Community Builder at Mouvement des accélérateurs d’innovation du Québec (MAIN), an ecosystem of Quebec-based startups, praised Montreal for its diverse resources and abundance of young entrepreneurs. She urged the crowd to pursue their ideas with confidence. “[Montreal] is really quite a collaborative space,” Stefanova said. “There’s

Naureen Anwar, CEO and entrepreneur, encourages women to speak up against gender discrimation.

(Victor Wang / The McGill Tribune)

always a way to find people to jump into your project.”

Al Khoury pointed to the strict discipline required to truly succeed as an entrepreneur, something which university students might not be exposed to.

“In university, we’re generally not disciplined at all,” Al Khoury said. “The only consistent aspect of being an entrepreneur that I see is being very disciplined [but] making that shift is very hard.”

While each panelist has found success in entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurs still face discrimination in the workplace.

For Anwar, who leads her company with another woman, the challenges she faces go beyond daily interactions and are deeply rooted in society.

“Sometimes we can give our 120 per

cent but […] the system is against you,” Anwar said. “We still have lots of work to do.”

The event concluded with a word from Janna Augustin and Michaela Deneva, members of Front Row Ventures, a studentrun venture capital fund in Canada.

Augustin and Deneva are also leaders of the Women Founders Project, an initiative that provides female entrepreneurs with workshops, master classes and panels.

Together, they hope to educate and support young entrepreneurs in their initial journey. “[We will] have general discussions about identity, what it’s like to be a woman in that space,” Deneva said. “We are aiming to address the most common challenges that founders, especially female founders, can encounter.”

OPINION

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

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

News Editors Kyle Dewsnap, Helen Wu & Delphine Polidori news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Lucas Bird & Johanna Cline opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editor Emma Gillies scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Life Editor Miguel Principe studentlife@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Gabe Nisker features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editor Kevin Vogel & Katia Innes arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Ender McDuff & Kaja Surborg sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Sabrina Girard-Lamas & Winnie Lin design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Leanne Young photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editors Sarah Ford & Aidan Martin multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Jad Hamdan & Jonathan Colaco Carr webdev@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Keating Reid copy@mcgilltribune.com Social Media Editor Marie Saadeh socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Heela Achakzai business@mcgilltribune.com

Standing in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en As of press time, members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation are struggling to defend their land: For over a decade, Coastal GasLink has been attempting to construct a natural gas pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory, without the true consent of the Wet’suwet’en peoples. On Jan. 9, students at McGill hosted a demonstration at the Y-intersection to show solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en the hereditary chiefs, all five of whom unequivocally oppose the construction. Since then, the situation has only become more severe. In the last two weeks, the Royal Mounted Canadian Police (RCMP) have set up multiple checkpoints within Wet’suwet’en territory in order to prevent those defending their land from blocking construction. As of Feb. 7, the RCMP began to take military action, moving further into Wet’suwet’en territory with police vehicles, tactical gear, and arresting Indigenous people for defending their home. The members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation are being persecuted, and for those of us who are settlers living, working, and going to school on land which belongs to the Indigenous Kanienʼkehá:ka peoples, members of the McGill and Montreal community have a responsibility to offer aid and support land defenders.

Wet’suwet’en land is unceded territory: This means that the Canadian government does not have ownership

OFF THE BOARD

Publisher Chad Ronalds

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

ublication is the soleSTAFF responsibility ofThe McGilTri Kate Addison, Makena Anderson, Vanessa Barron, Adam Burton, Ruobing Chen, Tasmin Chu, Sarah Farnand, Jonathan Giammaria, Patrick Gilroy, Sophia Gorbounov, Alexander Hilton, Pascal Hogue, Amir Hotter Yishay, Benjamin Joppke, Scott Kennedy, Alaana Kumar, Shaun Lalani, Ronny Litvack-Katzman, Kennedy McKee-Braide, Catherine Morrison, Etna Ordonez, Deisha Paliwal, Chloe Marie Rodriguez, Veronika Sanada-Kailich, Taja De Silva, Iman Zarrinkoub

CONTRIBUTORS Jack Armstrong, Joey Caplan, Ruobing Chen, Jeffrey D’Ambrosio, Verd Gashi, Rachel Habrih, Gulliver Häger, Daria Kiseleva, Karan Kumar, Madison McLauchlan, Shafaq Nami, Anne McGrath, Guilherme Martins, Erin McMahon, Alec Regino, Victor Wang, ET Wu, Janine Xu

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Please recycle this newspaper.

Lucas Bird Opinion Editor I am astonishingly bad at being alone. I mean this in every possible interpretation of that phrase. I struggle at being comfortably single as opposed to being in committed relationships. I experience anxiety if I go a large portion of the day without talking to or interacting with someone else. With these things in mind, I have chosen to live in an apartment in the Plateau with four other people for the last two years.

When I walk north along my street to return home at the end of the day and see a darkness emanating from the front window signifying that none of my roommates are around or awake, I feel dismayed.

However, over the last several months, I have been trying to do

over the land. Consequently, according to its own legislation, Canada has a responsibility to consult and negotiate with the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.

The RCMP have justified their advancement on the territory with an injunction recently passed by a British Columbia (BC) court which ruled that Coastal GasLink could move forward with construction. However, since the land never belonged to Canada, the Canadian government should not have the power to forcibly remove Wet’suwet’en First Nation members from their territory.

The RCMP are enforcing a problematic provincial injunction on land which does not belong to Canada.

The RCMP have stopped journalists from accessing demonstration sites. The Canadian government is continuing its well documented historical practice of engaging forcefully and unapologetically in targeted violence, oppression, and censorship of Indigenous peoples.

Those in positions of privilege who observe, but fail to act in defiance of this contemporary colonization are complicit. This includes students who fail to speak up against injustices or show solidarity on campus and in the Montreal community.

The McGill protest on Jan. 9 can not be an isolated incident but rather should be the beginning of a larger, continuous movement to support the Indigenous community in Canada.

Social media is a productive way to start. Sharing posts on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter that call attention to the oppression of Indigenous communities can help educate and encourage more individuals to act. It is unfortunate that the Wet’suwet’en occupation only gained significant media attention after the situation became gravely dangerous. There is a discernible line between sharing a post which is informative and one which merely amounts to ‘trauma porn’ in that it exploits violence against Indigenous individuals to gain more clicks. Further, mobilization through social media must serve as merely the foundation of a more substantive exhibition of Indigenous solidarity.

One way non-Indigenous individuals can show solidarity is by donating money to the communities which are protecting Wet’suwet’en territory. Not only does this provide crucial resources to those protecting their homes, offering monetary contributions is one form of paying settler reparations. While not everyone is in a financial position to offer a significant donation to the Wet’suwet’en, even those who do not have money may have time to spare.

This time is valuable in that it can be spent attending rallies, protests, and events organized by Indigenous community leaders. Finally, if members of the McGill community

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EDITORIAL find themselves struggling to identify ways they can support the Wet’suwet’en, the First Nation has provided a ‘supporter toolkit’ online that outlines methods of resistance.

Individuals in positions of privilege should pursue the above types of action, not only at times when Indigenous communities are in crisis but on a consistent and continuous basis. In addition to being an Indigenous issue, the creation of this pipeline is an environmental issue.

McGill also remains unapologetically invested in the fossil fuel industry and of companies which engage in pipeline projects like the one being forcefully implemented on Wet’suwet’en territory. The McGill Tribune attests that McGill University must divest, as a matter of both climate and Indigenous justice. On Feb.13, Divest McGill is holding a rally to support divestment from Coastal GasLink— as many McGill community members as possible should attend this rally.

The persecution of Indigenous communities by the Canadian state through structures and institutions like the RCMP occurs every day.

Indigenous solidarity must be a constant project in order to adequately address historic and ongoing oppression.

The Tribune’s Copy Editor, Keating Reid, dissented from this editorial.

Finding solitude in a digital world more things that I find difficult, and one of those is spending time by myself. In doing so, I have come to appreciate the significance of time spent untethered from others.

However, I have also confronted some of the harsh realities of attempting to be truly alone in the era of social media.

In his New Yorker piece “Farther Away,” Jonathan Franzen, one of the preeminent fiction writers of the last 20 years, discusses solitude as it manifests itself in literature, tracing its increase in thematic frequency with the rise of the contemporary novel. However, he also addresses solitude as he seeks to experience it in his personal life, noting how the explosion of the internet age has produced unique forms of isolation, ones previously inaccessible to the global populace which members of the smartphone generation are now uniquely privy to. Franzen’s argument does not share any intellectual territory with stereotypical anti-smartphone, Boomer sentiments. He writes about the internet as something which has transformed how human beings think of themselves as individuals.

While the rise of individualism in the modern-novel created a similar mechanism, one that maps ‘theself’ onto a narrative, the internet

has taken that relationship and made it global, mapping ‘the-self’ onto an entirely digital world.

The ability to access an infinite network of millions of people at any time and in any location is a reality of contemporary life. One of the most overlooked ways that smartphones and social media have altered the course of humanity is by making the experience of true solitude nearly impossible.

Validation is the foundation upon which all social media platforms operate. It feels powerfully satisfying to tell others, in words or pictures, what you might be doing or thinking at any given moment.

Inversely, seeing into the worlds of your friends or acquaintances through the lens of Instagram or Facebook results in a gratifying feeling of inclusion, of being ‘inthe-know.’ Through social media, we gain shallow recognition of our own behaviors and we get to appreciate the sepia-filtered lives of our peers. Both dynamics make us feel special and both make us feel like we are not alone. And yet, one of the supreme tragedies of the 21st century is that we have begun to live in a world where people rarely feel alone, because feeling alone is so important. Without solitude, people do not have the opportunity

to introspect and truly understand themselves.

One aspect of solitude I have come to value is the fundamental role it plays in self-development.

Spending time in isolation, entirely unstimulated, initiates a species of reflection which is alien to more social circumstances. This kind of reflection, one in which we carefully examine our own identity, thoughts, and behaviors can be an intimidating prospect. However, introspection is the singular component which makes personal growth a positive process. It is the times where we find ourselves bored, restless, and perhaps even uncomfortable with being so solitary that we make significant discoveries about who we are and who we want to become. Social media is taking these discoveries away from us. I worry about becoming more intent on maintaining illusive linkages to others than understanding myself.

I am scared that the defining aspects of individuality are being stripped away, melted down, and reformed into a collective digital consciousness. I hope that as we move forward into a connectiondefined era, we take the time to become reacquainted with solitude, and in doing so, come to know ourselves.

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OPINION

COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

White activists—stop hijacking social movements

Rachel Habrih Contributor The future BIPOC imagine for themselves is always in relation to their present-day lived experiences. Since June 2019, students have been expressing their discontent with Bill 21—McGill students consistently rally for climate justice, but the campus’s attention is not given to all causes. On Sept. 25 2019, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) voted to strike in support of the Sept. 27 climate march: Roughly 900 members of AUS showed up, surpassing the 500 needed to reach quorum. However, only 90 students attended the Jan. 17 AUS General Assembly (GA) to strike against Bill 21––a law banning public sector employees, such as bus drivers, teachers, and police officers, from wearing any kind of visible religious symbols. Often, campus activism is white activism, and students need to diversify their causes to create substantial change.

Even when they show up for issues that affect racialized students, white students too often rally behind causes that also affect them. When white activists take a stand, sometimes it takes space from marginalized voices: For example, during the September Climate Strike, because of the presence of exclusionary white activists who participated in ways which were alienating, Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour (BIPOC) felt unsafe: Members of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion aggressively barged through a group of Indigenous activists in order to make their way to the front of the march.

Proven by the failure of AUS to meet quorum on Jan. 17, it is difficult to raise momentum for causes at McGill if white allies choose not to mobilize: White students did not show up to the GA, and as a result, there was no strike.

White students should not rally solely for movements that affect their futures; the futures white activists are striving for is a future that BIPOC have not even begun to imagine. Many BIPOC, such as

COMMENTARY

victims of war, are focussing on surviving for tomorrow. By failing to use their privilege to uplift BIPOC in their activism, white activists hijack social movements by placing themselves and their feelings at the centre of every cause. White activists must, therefore, make an active effort to diversify their movements in order to create safer and more inclusive activist spaces for BIPOC. Having specific demands can help accomplish goals in activist movements, however, when these demands become too insular they can also turn multifaceted movements into one-dimensional issues.

Activist groups should seek to articulate practical aims for themselves while also acknowledging the complex context that accompanies ethical issues. Often campaigns headed by white activists are guilty of having ‘tunnel-vision’ which prevents them from addressing injustice comprehensively. For example, Divest McGill—an environmental justice group—was created with the goal of focussing on fossil fuel divestment; but solely focussing on one aspect of McGill’s unethical investments distracts from all the other investments the university has in other domains, notably in the military industrial complex and the illegal occupation of Palestine. Divestment, therefore, means more than just divesting from fossil fuels: It means divesting from all unethical industries.

Profanity is powerful, not unprofessional

Kennedy McKee-Braide Staff Writer The Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) Accountability Committee recently presented a report to the Board of Directors (BoD) recommending that VicePresident (VP) University Affairs (UA) Madeline Wilson be suspended for five days without pay.

The recommendation came in response to a complaint against Wilson for her use of profanity in a Dec. 4 Facebook post on the UA page that condemned McGill’s failure to divest from fossil fuels, following a similar incident in October.

Ultimately, the BoD chose only to suspend her social media privileges for three days, however, the Accountability Committee’s recommendation was an overreaction and represents a larger issue whereby those who speak out against injustice are held back by minor controversies while the perpetrators generally face no consequences.

This controversy marks the second time

CARTOON

BIPOC students have been protesting Bill 21 since June 2019.

(Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune)

The complexity of injustice expands to issues beyond climate change. Since the passage of Bill 21, there has been an increase in hate crimes towards racialized people, and McGill’s campus is not safe from hate either. Bill 21 is an example of institutionalized racism, and although the CAQ claims that the policy is part of its effort to secularize Quebec, it has the opposite effect: Bill 21 limits the religious freedom of racialized communities. With the passing of the law, racialized students are reminded that they are not welcome in Quebec, as well as at McGill, because of the university’s inability to properly respond to the law.

White activists must alter their perspectives on injustice to recognize nuance. If one wishes to truly call themselves a climate activist, they should recognize the intersectionalities of climate change and war. POLI 339––a comparative political science course which is taught for half its term at McGill and for the other half in Israel––is an example of an issue with multiple intersections. Israel is a settlercolonial state and has been accused of greenwashing––a practice involving pretending to be ‘environmentally friendly’ in order to cover criminal activity. Despite students democratically showing discontent by voting against the authorization of the course, the AUS Executive Committee overturned the decision, and the course is being offered for a second time this summer. The existence of a course like POLI 339 makes Palestinian and other Arab students feel unsafe on campus and this is a notion which has not been given enough attention in the oncampus narrative surrounding the course. POLI 339 is another example of why one who wishes to truly be an ally must include BIPOC issues in their activism.

Injustice is intersectional by its very nature: It can manifest through race, gender, class, colonialism, migration, and war. Yet, these complexities are often dismissed by white activists. White allies should show up, but show up acknowledging their own positionality, and stand in the back. Let BIPOC be the leaders of their own fights—that is what being an ally means.

that Wilson has been reprimanded for her use of profanity on SSMU-associated social media.

On Oct. 31, she made a post telling those harassing student activist and Indigenous Affairs Commissioner Tomas Jirousek online to “go fuck themselves” without a content warning. Despite the Nov. 28 motion to ban the use of profanity in SSMU communications, Wilson defended her choice of words, explaining that she thinks carefully about the way she uses language.

The Dec. 4 post included a content warning, recognizing that some may not feel comfortable with the profane language.

However, using strong language can serve to highlight an important point, and does not equate to being unprofessional. This is precisely why the context of Wilson’s comments is crucial.

Both of the issues she spoke out against are important and recurring for McGill’s student population. Frustration has continued to grow as the university’s administration fails to take substantive action to help address the climate crisis. When it comes to concern for Indigenous

peoples, the #ChangetheName movement sparked the enthusiasm of students on campus. On top of this, many have recently engaged with important events and causes surrounding Indigenous issues, including the recent event in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en.

Seeing as how these kinds of issues directly impact some members of the McGill community, using profanity in such a context is justified.

There is a significant difference between swearing without reason and employing strong language to draw attention to something important.

Those who care about social and environmental issues on campus should be rallying together to work against oppressive forces as opposed to infighting amongst each other about the varying strategies individuals choose to use to address injustice. SSMU has shown a commitment to equity and advocacy; this is evidenced in part by its equity policy and initiatives, which fall under the UA portfolio. When governing bodies within SSMU take this much time to debate and pass legislation to regulate communications, it takes

time and resources away from lifting up activist movements on campus and beyond. Those who should be condemned in these situations are those at the root of the problem. The student-body should focus its efforts on problematizing targets like McGill, for refusing to divest, or internet trolls, who harass marginalized students online As opposed to tone policing one SSMU executive, time and resources can and should be redirected in order to help address issues related to environmental justice and discrimination, which have a tangible effect on members of the McGill community. There are a range of initiatives on campus working to address these very concerns through events, education and fundraising, including those led by clubs like Divest McGill and the Indigenous Student Alliance.These groups and initiatives cannot function without substantial support from the rest of the community, including SSMU. Rather than the language Wilson has used to discuss such issues online, it is the issues themselves which deserve the attention of the SSMU executive body and the BoD.

In the year 2080...

Chloe Rodriguez / Contributor

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

7

Patching holes in broken hearts

An in-depth look at the human aorta reveals the faults of traditional grafts Madison McLauchlan Contributor Continued on page 1.

“Since the present grafts don’t expand at all, they induce several cardiovascular problems for patients,” Amabili wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “It’s the equivalent of implanting a sick aorta instead of a healthy one.”

To address this issue, Amabili and a team of researchers are investigating the dynamics of the aorta. By observing the contracting vessel at rest and high-activity states, they are attempting to determine the best way to construct future vascular grafts.

“The main goal was to identify the dynamic material properties of the human aorta and how these vary with age,” Amabili wrote. “Identifying these parameters is necessary for developing the future generation of grafts for aortic repair, which can mimic the native behaviour of the aorta.”

The study, published in Physical Review X, found that aortic dynamics differed significantly with age: The aortas of younger donors’ hearts expanded up to 10 per cent while pumping blood, compared with just two per cent for older hearts. This finding demonstrated the stark difference between the properties of a human aorta and a standard graft, which does not expand in response to blood flow.

“Our system is capable of accurately reproducing the physiological conditions after precise tuning of the expansion chambers and the resistance valve at each

heart rate,” Amabili wrote. “We tested from 60 beatsper-minute [BPM], which is obtained at rest, to 180 BPM, which is obtained [during] very intense sport activity.”

To do so, researchers first connected the aorta of a donor heart to pressure and flow sensors. An adjustable pump stood in for the heart itself, aided by expansion chambers and a valve to mimic the normal conditions of blood flow.

Using four Doppler lasers that measure circulation changes in tissue, the apparatus could calculate the aorta’s varying diameter and pulse over time.

Previously, the only scientific data on aortic dynamics was from ultrasound measurements while patients were at rest. The novel experimental design allowed Amabili’s team to access results from a wide range of heart rates.

In addition to their remarkable discovery, the team compiled empirical data on the aorta’s viscoelastic properties, which are the features of the vessel that exhibit both elastic and viscous behaviour when deformed. This data will provide the foundations for future graft prototypes.

“We hope that our research will lead to better aortic prostheses that will improve surgical outcomes, as well as patients’ quality of life longterm,” Amabili wrote. “Expanding researchers’ knowledge on the dynamics of the human aorta may also further clinicians’ understanding on the development and progression of vascular pathologies.”

Researchers are using distinct biomechanical properties of our largest artery to improve existing medical technology.

(Taja De Silva / The McGill Tribune)

Conservation in the digital age Interactive maps of Canadian wetlands display innovative environmental solutions Ronny Litvack-Katzman Staff Writer The power of a convincing story often goes overlooked in the scientific community.

While most researchers opt to display their findings in flashy publications or high impact journals, others are taking a less traditional but conceivably more impactful approach at communicating their findings.

Story maps are a simple yet elegant way for scientists to literally ‘map out’ research results. Gail Chmura, a professor in the Department of Geography and a specialist in biogeography and paleoecology, has done just that.

Last week, Chmura and colleagues published two interactive story maps on the McGill Geographic Information Systems (GIS) website about the endangered Maritime Ringlet butterfly and carbon stores in the Bay of Fundy.

Chmura has been working in Atlantic Canada for as long as she can remember, specifically on salt marshes, a little-known natural resource that has immense consequences for endangered species conservation. Salt marshes are coastal wetlands flooded by tidal sea water.

The unique daily drainage and flooding regimes of salt marshes make them a one-of-a-kind habitat for many of Canada’s rarest and most endangered plant and animal species, including the Maritime Ringlet.

One story map takes users on an interactive tour of Chaleur Bay in northern New Brunswick, the sole place on Earth known to support Ringlet butterflies. With every scroll, readers become further immersed in the won-

derful world of salt marshes and the creatures that call them home.

“We proposed the idea of the story map because Environment and Climate Change Canada’s HabitatStewardship Program for species at risk is also very concerned with outreach,” Chmura said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Part of it was getting the public to care about salt marshes [... so they might] be interested in protecting them.”

Users are seamlessly introduced to the Ringlet, its specialized life-history traits, and how the salt marshes of New Brunswick are uniquely situated to support the species.

“Warning!” reads one frame of the story map in a cautionary tone. “To maintain this fragile species requires protection of its habitat and avoidance of activities that disturb its sensitive larval stage. Thus, walking on the marshes where it lives should be avoided.”

Story maps are a relatively new methodology for creatively displaying research findings.

In the last five years, companies such as ESRI and design studios like Northwestern University’s Knight Lab have made available software packages that make it easy to create story maps on any computer.

Similar to any new digital tool, however, story maps pose their own set of challenges.

“One of the bigger struggles with these [maps] is to make them readable,” Chmura said.

Questions such as simple colour scheme and language choice are common dilemmas faced by first time story map creators, who have the task of making results engaging and understandable for a wide audience. For Chmura, this

As sea levels rise, salt marshes are moving inland and changing the range of some species.

(Erin McMahon / The McGill Tribune) audience was primarily conservationists, but she also acknowledged that story maps have immense potential as an educational tool.

As water levels rise, marshes are moving inland and establishing new habitat spaces for species like the Maritime Ringlet, while preexisting environments are flooded and lost.

Chmura was frustrated by conservationists’ efforts to buy land that, in the near future, would be worthless for protecting these species.

“I was concerned with making sure [that

conservationists] prioritized [marshes] properly,” Chmura said. “You want a marsh that has a future.”

Story maps and their distinct interactive character could be one of the most effective tools for conservation biology. At the intersection of art, digital media, geography, and conservation, the possibilities for story maps are seemingly endless, limited only by human imagination and the initiative of scientists who seek to tell a good story.

Over 10 years ago, a user stumbled into /r/McGill and wrote the first post.

“Is this working yet?” they wrote on Feb. 6, 2010.

“Most of us hang out in /r/Montreal,” /u/ iorgfeflkd replied. Ten years later, more than 4,500 users have made over 26,000 posts about topics ranging from which classes have lecture recordings to how to deal with stalkers on campus. To get an idea of how McGill’s students—and sometimes, staff—interact with Reddit, The McGill Tribune decided to download and analyse every single text post since 2010.

Founded in 2005 by two students at the University of Virginia, Reddit incorporates elements of both a news aggregator and a discussion forum. Users can ‘upvote’ or ‘downvote posts, which determines how prominently they are displayed on the site.

Reddit is organised into smaller communities, called subreddits. These smaller communities generally have a niche focus, such as sharing

cute photos or exchanging memes. Many subreddits are also dedicated to physical communities, including university campuses. A unique feature of Reddit, as opposed to Twitter or Facebook, is that it is pseudonymous, meaning that users are encouraged to post without divulging their real name.

Associate Provost (Teaching and Academic Programs) Christopher Buddle, who used Reddit extensively during his time as the Dean of Students, believes that the platform allows for students to discuss subjects amongst themselves without judgement.

“Reddit, like all social media platforms, has its benefits and drawbacks, but I have noticed over the years that there is often an effort among the subreddit community to ensure responses to student questions and topics are accurate and balanced,” Buddle said.

“There are sometimes important topics covered and it can be a [...] space to fully explore the complexity and nuance of

these topics. Fundamentally, it can be a source of very useful information to many in our community, but notably to our students.”

/r/McGill has earned a reputation for its seemingly frequent posts from students feeling socially isolated.

We used k-means clustering, a statistical method that groups observations based on how similar they are to each other, and found that we could place posts into nine different categories.

The clustering algorithm analyzed posts’ term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF–IDF) scores.

TF-IDF considers the words posts use—and how common those words are in other posts—to determine which are most important to a given text’s meaning.

One of our clusters focussed on student life.

Reddit’s anonymity lets users vent their frustrations more frankly, even the ones about the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU).

Both Sam Haward, SSMU VicePresident Finance and Reddit user since 2016, and Bryan Buraga, SSMU President and Reddit user since 2015, said that the issues raised in negative posts frequently make their way into conversations among SSMU staff.

“There's a saying in politics: ‘If you see one letter, that generally represents, like, 10 or 100 [...] people's sentiments,’” Buraga said. “So, I really take [anti-SSMU] posts seriously. [I’ll go to] the appropriate executive, take it on myself, or [tell] somebody in one of our departments [who] can try to resolve the issue.”

However, complaints about SSMU can sometimes devolve into personal

attacks, such as the antiIndigenous comments levied at the Indigenous Affairs Commissioner Tomas Jirousek.

Haward believes that the anonymity the site allows can provide certain users with an inflated sense of security.

“The pros [of anonymity are that] people are willing to make complaints a lot more readily about stuff [that SSMU] needs to hear sometimes,” Haward said.

“But also, you can say some pretty nasty stuff with no repercussions. And people have done it, and people will continue to do it. It's a double-edged sword [....]

Complaining about policies and procedures is one thing.

Complaining about people is another. And when someone who is [...] a public figure [...] is then being discussed by people who are anonymous, [then] that can create a really toxic environment [....]

That's something that [users are] just going to have to contend with, unfortunately. I don't know if there is a quick or easy fix for it.”

Buraga reiterated how anonymity on Reddit can become problematic.

“[Jirousek] had very toxic [interactions] in a way that [could] damage [someone’s] mental health,” Buraga said. “When it gets to a point where rhetoric is used that specifically targets a person's identity or relies on specific tropes that have been used to stereotype marginalized individuals or communities, that's when [anonymous users can] become a problem.”

However, both Buraga and Haward mentioned how almost all of their interactions on the subreddit have been positive.

“People on […] the

McGill subreddit are generally very nice,” Haward said. “You can joke around a bit with people on the subreddit. People have a sense of humour.”

Despite the subreddit’s acquired reputation, fewer than 100 posts in our dataset contained the words ‘lonely,’ ‘loneliness,’ or ‘no friends.’ Though few in number, these posts received higher engagement, receiving more upvotes than average.

According to Buraga, McGill Redditors are often quick to support their fellow users.

“There [are] multiple threads [where] a student feels lonely or is not doing well mentally, and they're just trying to reach out [so they] reach out to the subreddit,” Buraga said.

“And something that really makes me proud of our community is seeing other people saying ‘Hey, you're not alone, I went through this experience as well.

Here [are] some resources.’”

The McGill subreddit is managed by a team of five moderators. /u/The12thDoc, a U3 geography student who joined the mod team in Nov. 2019, finds that striking the right balance in enforcing more subjective rules is the hardest part of the job.

“When in doubt, we’ll often discuss as a team,” /u/The12thDoc wrote in a message to the Tribune. “[If] there isn't a consensus for removal, we'll err on the side of letting a post stay and allowing users [to] decide how they feel about it with their upvotes or downvotes.”

Being a moderator mostly consists of being an active member of the community; in /r/McGill’s case, one that’s rapidly growing. /u/Thermidorien, a PhD student and moderator of /r/McGill for seven years, spoke to the userbase’s growing diversity.

“Until recently, the community was more tightknit and dominated by discussion among upperyear students who were already Reddit users,” /u/ Thermidorien wrote in a message to the Tribune. “In just the past year though, our subscriber count has

doubled, so there [are] now many new students who joined Reddit only to ask questions on [/r/McGill].”

The connections made on /r/McGill are not limited to the online world. Numerous casual meetups have been held over the subreddit’s 10year history, and they can be arranged as spontaneously as with a message to the subreddit’s official group chat on Discord, a free VoIP service originally designed for gaming. Buraga has attended a few of these meet-ups.

“A lot of the people that are generally active on [r/McGill], I've actually met in real life,” Buraga said.

“There's like a separate discord that's associated with the Reddit [...] that people [...] go to just chat and talk. And there's meetups and that's how I meet people through there.”

Buraga also spoke to the diversity of McGill’s Reddit users.

“There's a stereotype that on Reddit you assume that [all users are] male, white, and American,” Buraga said. “But [at these meetups, r/McGill users] are about as diverse as the university is.”

Posts from club executives and other student group leaders advertising events made up a substantial portion of another cluster.

Haward estimates that nearly five per cent of McGill undergraduates are club executives; along with the usual McGill Facebook groups, /r/McGill offers a way for club execs to quickly reach a large number of students.

Posts were also scored using VADER, a sentiment analysis tool developed by C.J. Hutto and Eric Gilbert at Georgia Tech, to measure their emotional tone.

While algorithms that try to determine the overall positivity or negativity of a text have been in use for at least 15 years, VADER is specifically tuned for social media posts.

It classifies texts on a scale from discontent to contentment, assigning them a score from negative one to

one. Since VADER’s release in 2014, it has been used to research topics such as students’ evaluations of their professors and bitcoin price fluctuations.

The average tone of submissions on /r/McGill was positive, with a mean of about 0.5 out of 1. However, scores fluctuate over the course of an academic year, with posts becoming noticeably more negative in November and December as midterm exams ramp up and the days become shorter.

Buraga notices a similar pattern in student posts during those times as well.

“Fortunately, [sad posts] don't happen as often [in] certain times of the year,” Buraga said.

“Generally, I find a lot of [people whom] I assume to be first-years [making these posts] in the middle of midterm periods.

So hopefully they find their stride and find a group of people that support them.”

Haward noted that the common grievances McGill students face have a way of bringing members together.

“On /r/McGill, a lot of people have the same problems,” Haward said. “Be it a gripe with SSMU, which is quite frequent, [...] be it struggling in classes, be it just trying to navigate the

confusing environment that is a really large university [….] That shared experience isn't common across Reddit.

I think that probably is the biggest contribution to why /r/McGill is, in general, a less toxic environment than the rest of Reddit. Again, though, it's not perfect.”

Both Haward, Buraga, and the mods of /r/McGill have admitted that there have been situations where individual users have acted maliciously, such as Jirousek’s experiences with the site last semester.

Therefore, the mods exercise caution in making sure their platform remains as healthy as possible. However, they are proud of the community that users have fostered, and how students generally behave themselves. Ten years after the community opened, /u/The12thDoc believes that /r/McGill is, in fact, working.

“I like that people are almost always supportive of one another despite how easy it is to be a jerk on an anonymous platform,” /u/ The12thDoc wrote. “Even if they're giving a bit of tough love, our users come from a place of wanting to give each other a boost because, hey, we're all trying to graduate at the end of the day.”

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

Combatting climate change with concrete actions

Montreal startup Carbicrete is reducing carbon emissions from concrete Gulliver Häger Contributor It is clear that climate change—or, more appropriately, the climate crisis—is a defining issue of this century. However, it is not yet clear what the solutions to this human-made crisis are. Carbicrete, a company founded by McGill alumni Chris Stern (BEng ‘94) and Mehrdad Mahoutian (Ph.D 2014), is undertaking the ambitious task of redefining one of the most overlooked sources of carbon dioxide emissions: The concrete industry.

Concrete is essentially composed of three basic ingredients: Water; an aggregate, such as gravel, sand, or rock; and cement. The preferred choice of cement in the construction industry today is Portland cement. While cheap and readily available, Portland cement also has a major downside: Its production process is one of the world’s single biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.

To counteract the ongoing climate crisis, scientists agree that carbon dioxide emissions from building materials such as cement must be reduced. But with a material as ubiquitous as concrete, it is impossible to stop using it cold turkey.

In an interview with the The McGill Tribune, Stern, the CEO of Carbicrete, explained how a different manufacturing technique that uses an unexpected byproduct of industrial manufacturing can eliminate the carbon dioxide emissions of concrete production.

“Steel slag, which is a byproduct of the steel-making process, could be used instead of Portland cement to produce a stable carbonate, which is necessary as a binder in concrete,” Stern said.

Using steel slag, Carbicrete is attempting to eliminate Portland cement in manufacturing. The company’s goal is based on Mahoutian’s past research at McGill, which fo-

cussed on replacing Portland cement in the concrete production process.

According to Stern, Carbicrete is not only eliminating carbon dioxide emissions but also storing carbon dioxide in their finished product, making Carbicrete’s concrete carbon negative.

“In a regular concrete block, which weighs 18 kilograms, about two kilograms by weight is Portland cement,” Stern said. “By eliminating that cement from the production, which we do by replacing it with steel slag, we eliminate that source of carbon dioxide emissions.”

To produce the binding carbonate, steel slag must react with carbon dioxide, which could be taken from emitters such as fossil fuel power plants. Since Carbicrete is still in its pilot phase, the details on how to implement this carbon-storing strategy on an industrial scale have yet to be finalized. Still, Stern is optimistic about the company’s future.

“We are still trying to figure out how we are going to get large quantities of carbon dioxide to use for production,” Stern said. “One potential scenario is steel plants [....] There’s already the steel slag coming as a byproduct from the manufacturing, and then there is the carbon dioxide from smelting. Add it together, and you’ve got a product [....] It’s like Christmas Day.” Start-ups like Carbicrete allow freedom to develop innovative products in a work environment different to that of larger companies. For students, Stern stressed the importance of taking a leap of faith and carving your own career path.

“Any student who wants to do something different instead of working for some big company shouldn’t hesitate,” Stern said. “I wouldn’t say working for big companies is a waste, but it isn’t for everyone. Had I known [this] when I graduated from McGill in 1994, I would have done things differently.”

Portland cement, a major ingredient in concrete, is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters. (unsplash.com)

The ubiquity of human song Research highlights musical similarities across cultures Shafaq Nami Contributor From songs on the radio to birds chirping outside, humans are constantly surrounded by music. However, while making music appears to be a universal phenomenon, the vast diversity of music across different cultures also seems to point toward variation. Furthermore, human song’s global similarities have never been proven through research.

In a November 2019 study conducted over five years, an international team of researchers composed of political and data scientists, musicians, and linguists tried to answer questions related to commonality in human song.

According to Timothy O’Donnell, an assistant professor in the McGill Department of Linguistics and a lead member of the research team, the inspiration for the study stemmed from the lack of a cross-cultural music database.

“We wanted to study music in various societies in great depth, but no one had [...] built a database that allowed this kind of breadth,” O’Donnell said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “What kind of questions could we ask [once we had these data]?”

The project was essentially a large study of songs across different cultures around the world. For this purpose, two databases were built, the first of which was called Ethnology.

Human Relation Area Files (HRAF), which has records annotated by anthropologists,

There is more variability in music within cultures than between them.

(The McGill Tribune / Daria Kiseleva)

was a major resource for this database and for cross-cultural study in general.

“We extracted all the references to human song from [HRAF] and built our own database of references to songs and further analyzed and annotated those,” O’Donnell said. “Basically any time any ethnographer that had studied [a] society in the world had mentioned a song, we were able to pull that out and see what they had mentioned, whether it was a war event or a childbirth event, and analyze the basic components surrounding the event.”

Although the second database was a relatively small collection of 120 song recordings, it required an enormous amount of work to gather them.

“These were very old, sometimes obscure recordings that we had to go to archives to find and [that were] in some cases from societies that no longer exist,” O’Donnell said.

“So, we built that, and we called it discography. [It was a] tremendous amount of leg work. Sam Mehr [the lead author] spent many months tracking down these recordings, and then the team spent many years transcribing

and translating them.”

O’Donnell contributed his skills as a data analyst to the project, applying the artificial intelligence techniques that he usually uses on language to music.

“Most sophisticated analysis was in Ethnography, which was analyzing text,” O’Donnell said. “We took huge amounts of data and did dimensionality reduction such as histograms on [them], using techniques from [natural language processing] that are widely used in political science.”

The study revealed that there was more variability in music events within cultures than between cultures.

“Most cultures seemed to display most kinds of music,” O’Donnell said. “It wasn’t the case that one culture only used music for healing and another for war, but [rather] that all tended to use music for similar functions.”

The research team also found some preliminary evidence for music features that were universally shared, such as rhythm and tonal structure. Another important conclusion was that music is not a fixed biological response with a single function. It is used worldwide in many contexts that vary in formality, arousal, and religiosity.

The team is currently building a larger dataset with 1,600 recordings from all over the world. Using more sophisticated and thorough analyses, they hope to answer questions such as whether tonality is universal, a cultural construction, or the product of some auditory effect.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

11

New McCord exhibit depicts Griffintown as a fractured landscape Photographer Robert Walker captures Montreal’s evolving neighbourhood

Jonathan Giammaria Staff Writer Urban redevelopment looms over Montreal with a constancy that borders on parody. Whether these changes impact a single street or an entire neighbourhood: The threat of an orange cone is ever-present. Since 2013, Griffintown—downtown’s southwestern neighbourhood, historically home to Irish industrial workers—has been Montreal’s most recent target for urban renewal. In collaboration with photographer Robert Walker, McCord Museum premiered Griffintown - Evolving Montreal on Feb. 7, a photo exhibit documenting the quarter’s identity in flux. The exhibition is one of many that McCord will curate to document Montreal’s evolution as a whole. Walker is a veteran street photographer whose subjects have included the urban landscapes of New York, Paris, and Toronto.

In a video that accompanies the exhibit, Walker notes that he does not intend to gauge gentrification’s impact on Griffintown as a historical or social artefact. Given his self-proclaimed surface knowledge of the district, he is instead invested in capturing how aggressive construction produces harsh contrasts in urban landscapes.

Walker’s photos reveal a battle over Griffintown’s topographical aesthetic.

In one photo, grey apartment complexes tower in the background, conveying urban uniformity and progress. Meanwhile, a messy construction site with bright orange barriers foregrounds the image, tainting the background’s promise of aesthetic pleasure and disrupting the landscape’s organization. Imbalances of colour, shape, and materials populate all of Walker’s images as a means of surveying the area’s irreconcilable tensions. Another photo captures an excavator behind the brick wall that it’s tearing town. The image is a literal window into the demolition underway in Griffintown, but its highly saturated colours and bright blue sky clashes with its dour scene of destruction.

Time itself is under contention in Walker’s photography. In the video, Walker comments on how remnants of the past linger in

‘Griffintown - Evolving Montreal’ will be one of many exhibits meant to document Montreal’s infrastructural development.

(Verd Gashi / The McGill Tribune) Griffintown amidst rapid development. One photo depicts a horsedrawn carriage as it travels down one of the neighbourhood’s streets.

In the image, a glaring and enlarged construction sign distracts from the horse as it recedes from view. As a visual representation of the saying, “out with the old and in with the new,” contemporary renewal discards nineteenth-century transportation, rendering the disappearance of the past tangible.

Similar to his obscuring of its past, Walker’s Griffintown fragments its identity by obsessing over its future. Billboards populated by minimalist condo interiors, luxury sports cars, and model-like residents appear in several of the exhibit’s photographs. Walker contrasts these picturesque visions of the future with Griffintown’s current landscape—industrial construction sites, piles of concrete, abandoned apartment tenements. Often, Walker hides these billboards’ edges so that their content appears continuous with the reality of the present. When, in Walker’s photos, residents look at the billboards’ promises of utopian modernity, their landscapes become

illusions whose artifice is undone by Walker’s own images of current-day Griffintown.

“I always like to exploit the contrast between the selling techniques of the developers that insinuate the purchase of a condo with glamour,” Walker says in the video, “and the reality of the raw bricks and mortar structures.”

Under Robert Walker’s eye, Griffintown is a neighbourhood at odds with itself. Its priorities, which emphasize demolition and illusory distraction, pull it apart in opposing directions. Gritty piles of rubble and incomplete infrastructure compete with landscapes meant to advertise the neighbourhood’s desirability. The result is an anachronistic limbo, a space where Griffintown’s past refuses to cede to the accelerated development imposing itself on it.

Griffintown - Evolving Montreal runs until Aug. 9 at the McCord Museum (690 Sherbroke St. O).

Student tickets - $12.

Apocalypse is placed at the centre of ‘The Tropic of X’ Caridad Svich presents her prediction of a dystopian world

Guilherme Martins Contributor At first glance, Caridad Svich’s The Tropic of X seems like an ordinary science fiction play depicting a dystopian future. However, it is clear that Svich grounded this political drama in reality.

Criticizing North American colonialism, capitalism, and consumerism, the narrative becomes a commentary on the negative conditions that such structures create. The Tropic of X features an entertaining cast of actors with effective lighting, sound, and costume design techniques which contribute to its convincing depiction of the future.

The audience is greeted with a stage resembling an impoverished urban community. Graffiti on concrete walls, wooden huts lit by a single flickering light bulb, and mountains of garbage bags set the tone for the lives of people that have been discarded by the upper-class. Using explicit symbols of nationalist ideologies in the script, such as the forced use of English and suppression of any other language, The Tropic of X effectively communicates its themes of injustice without distracting the audience from the occurrences of its principal narrative.

The two main characters, Mori (Braulio Elicer) and Maura (Arlen Aguayo Stewart), are two lovers comparable to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Their rela-

tionship is challenged by a society that is exploiting them for crimes like selling drugs and prostitution, which are their only means of providing for themselves.

These themes are only an introduction to the darker occurrences of this performance, as agonizing fight scenes, and the prolonged torture of one of the characters standing bare-skinned, present the harsh reality of poor communities in an uncensored manner.

Mori and Maura’s romance relieves some of the play’s tension. The two are often seen playfully punching the air while making jokes about the last tourist they robbed. As the two look for any form of excitement in their monotonous lives, Kiki (Victor Andres Trelles Turgeon), a transgender woman who is an escort in the slums, seduces Mori into the drug trade. This ongoing conflict creates great tension between the characters, as what once started out as a friendship with Kiki becomes, for Mori, a risk of descending into a life of drug addiction, forcing him away from Maura. Hilton (Gitanjalijain) narrates the story as a radio host. One such radio announcement warns of Fabian (Eric Davis), a mysterious character who prefers to stick to his cloak-anddagger nature while he kidnaps new victims, tortures, and brainwashes them.

Mori eventually becomes a victim of Fabian’s practices, leading Maura to a rescue mission driven by passion to save

the love of her life. These five characters each portray a dog-eat-dog existence, in Svich’s criticism of a society too fixed on individual success and disregard for the impoverished.

Vivid technical components complement the narrative extremely well, allowing a deeper immersion into the scene. Latin-style drums playing in the background, designed and composed by Mariano Franco, reflect the globalized nature of the world the characters inhabit. Other sound-related elements, such as the gunfire of police coming to dismantle drug operations, or the voices of characters communicating telepathically, add to the authenticity of the worldbuilding.

Sonoyo Nishikawa’s lighting design is one of the performance’s most notable aspects, as blood-red hues douse the stage after a stabbing, or lights flash neon green and pink when the characters get high.

The Tropic of X is an explicit, daring play that is not afraid of depicting the realities of economic inequality. A diverse ensemble of characters whose stories are underscored by evocative technical elements make up an entertaining performance with realistic underlying themes.

While the play may not be as romantic as Romeo and Juliet’s story, The Tropic of X is a cautionary tale that depicts what may arise from the political nature of the present.

Svich’s Canadian debut took place in Montreal’s Centaur Theatre.

(Andrée Lanthier / Imagotheatre.ca)

12

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

‘Miss Americana’ is a shallow depiction of stardom

Tay Sway understands you and your struggle better than you do Joey Caplan Contributor Taylor Swift—renowned singer-songwriter, multimillionaire, 35-time Grammy award nominee, 10-time Grammy award winner, one-time Kendrick Lamar collaborator, two-time Kanye clasher, and attempted Pennsylvania political reformer—sits on her couch in tears because her then-recent album, Reputation, was not nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys. This devastating moment occurs about halfway through the new Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, which revolves around country-pop idol Taylor Swift.

As crushing as it might have been for Swift, the moment is impossible to relate to. Miss Americana tries to frame this moment as her “rock bottom” but it does not land: To the audience, this just seems like an outrageously inconsequential and self-indulgent moment for an already ludicrously famous person.

Furthermore, the doc glances over the fact that Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album, which further cushions the blow of Swift’s loss.

Many will remember the infamous “Imma let you finish”

moment: As Swift began her victorious speech at the 2009 Video Music Awards, Kanye West, the dastardly industry villain, pounced on stage to declare Beyonce’s video one of the best of all time, and the true winner of the Best Female Video category in his head-canon. Both artists made amends, or at least until 2016, when Kanye released his song “Famous” in which he takes credit for her fame and callously suggests potential for intimacy between them. While the documentary rushes through the debacle, the same questions remain unanswered regarding Kanye allegedly getting permission to record the racy line: Did Swift actually give it the go-ahead, only to backtrack once it went public? Rather than discussing the controversy, the documentary rapidly moves on to more footage of Taylor writing songs on camera.

Real, important issues Swift has addressed in the past are also pushed to the wayside.

While the film broaches more sensitive topics, such as Swift’s struggles with body image or her mother’s cancer diagnosis, it ultimately spends the majority of its runtime paying lip service to Swift’s career. Miss Americana constantly reverts

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The documentary doesn’t fully to commit to its own seriousness.

(Ruobing Chen / The McGill Tribune) back to embracing disingenuity. Her valiant attempt to make sure Pennsylvania’s election swung Democratic in 2018 could have been a moment of triumph in the narrative (despite the election’s unfortunate results), but instead it feels like the effort is a footnote in a film that would rather tell the tale of hardships easily overcome.

Miss Americana’s sub-90 minute runtime is bloated with scenes that make Taylor appear approximately as entertaining as being stuck in traffic, which is especially frustrating when there is clearly evidence of at least some worthwhile points of interest among the monoto-

ny.

Miss Americana fails to offer any meaningful insight into the most allegedly “downto-Earth popstar” on the planet.

Taylor Swift has had a relatively easy life. If this film were a lighthearted flick about all the fun Swift has had touring and performing, it would not be such an easy target for ridicule.

However, framing it in such a way that makes it seem like Swift finds adversity around every corner is frustrating and condescending. Miss Americana tries its best to make Swift appear vulnerable, but all it does is show her as she truly is: Dull.

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‘The Circle’ offers an innovative twist on the reality TV genre

Netflix show is a bizarre, entertaining intersection of TV and social media Vanessa Barron Staff Writer In the age of daytime cable television, reality shows permeated every network: Food Network had MasterChef, MTV had Jersey Shore, TLC had Dance Moms, and the list went on with every change of the channel. While the genre has dominated television since the turn of the millenium, it is quickly evolving to fit into the new era of streaming and social media. Last month, Netflix released The Circle, a remake of the successful British TV show of the same name. Heightening and parodying everyday social media interactions, The Circle is an odd but surprisingly endearing reality show about what really unites people.

Marketed as a mix between Big Brother and Catfish, The Circle invites eight contestants to live in separate rooms of one hotel, never interacting with each other but instead communicating through a social media interface known as ‘Circle.’ They post pictures, update statuses, and chat with each other in an attempt to win each other’s affection through entirely virtual encounters. They rank each other on popularity, and the lowest rated player gets ‘blocked’ by the highest. Think of it as a game-show version of Black Mirror’s “Nosedive” episode, but with a hefty

The show has eight contestants interact exclusively on social media to compete for a $100,000 prize.

(Anne McGrath / The McGill Tribune) $100,000 prize waiting at the end for the best-rated player.

For a competition show, there is little strategy involved, or rather, deliberately invoked. A common character trope in reality television is the cutthroat, competitive player who says something like, “I didn’t come here to make friends, I came to win.” Ironically, the entire strategy of The Circle is based on who can make the most friends. As the season progresses, some new players enter The Circle after the original players have gotten to know each other. You would think that the newcomers would have an advantage as they have less opportunities to get booted off, but this is not the case. The Circle is ulti-

mately a game of loyalty and competitive friendliness, not strategy.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of this show compared to others is the lack of action. The players hang out in their hotel rooms all day, reading books and cooking meals—it might be the easiest way to earn $100,000 on television. Yet their interactions are just as entertaining as those in the real world. The Circle offers incredibly moving moments that offer a new perspective of identity on the internet.

The question of authenticity influences every encounter in the show: Does authenticity matter online, and does it even exist? The Circle suggests that being ‘fake’ on the internet is just a fact of life.

For example, as the players dictate messages to the interface, they say things like “I’m dying of laughter! LMAO” or “I can’t stop crying right now” in a deadpan voice, with no expression on their faces. This is not portrayed as manipulative or deceptive, just as how regular humans virtually interact via text. More significantly, some players choose to catfish—use someone else’s pictures to create a false identity—not out of malice, but as an opportunity to challenge stereotypes. Their motives are a product of their social environment. For instance, Sean, a plus-size woman, chooses to use a model’s pictures for her profile; likewise Karyn, a butch lesbian, uses a random glamourous woman’s pictures. For these players, the anonymity of the internet offers a disguise that allows many of them to transcend toxic beauty ideals.

Social media often questions human genuineness, but reality TV has been exploring and subverting that issue since its conception. That is why The Circle works so well. It does not try to be a deep critique of modern society, but it nevertheless shows astute observations about the norms of online selfpresentation and relationship building, making it well worth the watch.

STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

13

Running toward a brighter future

McGill Students’ Cancer Society hosts seventh annual Relay for Life

The planning and execution by the MSCS team led to a successful seventh run of Relay for Life.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Jeffrey D’Ambrosio Contributor On Jan. 31, the McGill Students’ Cancer Society (MSCS) invited students to run around McGill’s favourite finals room for 12 hours straight for their seventh annual Relay for Life. After months of promotion and organization, the night kicked off at 8:30 p.m. with a welcoming ceremony and the introduction of the event’s many teams. By reaching out to other universities around Montreal, club coordinators

brought together students from Concordia, UQÀM, McGill, and other schools in the area. Many of these students rallied behind creative movie-based names including “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Life” and “Eat, Pray, Run!” Working closely with the three Canadian Cancer Society representatives supporting the university’s chapter, MSCS sought to raise awareness for contemporary cancer research, pursuing an ultimate goal of $30,000.

The overwhelming support from both the executive team and participants spoke

volumes to the committed members of the Montreal community dedicated to fighting cancer. Spectators set up picnic blankets, sleeping bags, and lawn chairs to last through the night. Food was provided by a myriad of local sponsors such as McGill’s own Student Housing and Hospitality Services and Deville Dinerbar. Allegra Mendelson, U3 Arts and MSCS president, showed enthusiasm about the growing support of external sponsorships over the years.

“It’s unparalleled, we have over fifty different sponsors,” Mendelson said. “We were able to have all food and prizes provided whereas in the past, we’d have to negotiate deals or buy food ourselves.”

As the Ontario division’s youth advocate in her years leading up to university, Mendelson helped found her high school’s cancer education group. In the past year, she has helped bring in larger sponsors to fund expenses such as the event’s food and prizes. Mendelson expressed great pride in the continual efforts of her executive team’s publicity efforts which have led to a yearly increase of the annual donation sum.

“Last year saw a $10,000 increase [of participant contributions] from the previous year, and this year we’ve been on track to have a $5,000 increase,” Mendelson said.

At 11:00 p.m, participants still showed incredible energy and devotion to the cause, spreading themselves across the track floor while eagerly awaiting to learn which team had raised the most funds and would therefore get to choose the movie that would

be shown at 3 a.m. Sophia Stegeman, U2 Science and director of entertainment for MSCS, explained why they incorporated team-based activities throughout the event.

“It’s not a competition between the teams, it’s all about rewarding the participants,” Stegeman said.

Stegeman described the effort that went into meticulously planning the night’s events such as heartfelt a cappella performances, a fierce lip sync battle, and the highly anticipated dodgeball tournament.

“As an [executive], we’re constantly on our feet,” Stegeman said. “I’ve practically run the entire night [in previous years]”.

Having surpassed their donation goal with $31,609.74 raised, Relay for Life concluded with a celebratory round of Timbits for the hungry crowd. According to the Canadian Cancer Society’s website, half of this funding will go towards research grants. With clinical trials underway using new breakthroughs such as CRISPR, which can be used to manipulate a patient’s immune system to destroy previously undetectable cancer, the funds raised support advances in cancer treatment. The remaining half of the funding goes to supporting programs and resources like Relay for Life across the nation. In the spirit of Terry Fox, many participants kept running long into the night in solidarity with those currently affected. With such support, MSCS successfully proved that even one person’s willpower is enough to encourage students, faculty, and staff to look forward to a cancer-free future.

Dining in a movie scene

Filmmaker turned restaurant owner opens Le Roseline

ET Wu Contributor This year, you can spice things up for Valentine’s Day by travelling through time.

Le Roseline, located at 5014 Saint-Laurent, is the product of Jean-Marc Renaud’s work.

With an illustrious career working on set design in TV shows and advertisements, Renaud opened a cafe-bar in December 2019 that recreates the atmosphere of Montreal in the ‘30s, giving customers a chance to experience what it would have been like to socialize in that era.

Before going into the film industry, Renaud had previously been immersed in the world of dining but grew disillusioned with the field.

Le Roseline represents his return with a new perspective on participating within the domain.

“So I said to myself, ‘I should try to go back into the restaurant industry, but with a different eye, a different way of doing it,’” Renaud said. “I didn’t like the energy back then which is why I quit, but now it’s different [....] I am going to combine all my experience doing movies and TV series, and I am going to create [a restaurant], like it is [in] a movie.”

Renaud had a lot of experience with hospitality growing up. His parents converted their family home in the Sainte-Rose district in Laval into a restaurant. The memories he made during this period of his life contributed to the design of Le Roseline as he was inspired

Le Roseline’s menu travels back to the early 20th century with offerings such as the Mary Pickford cocktail and the omelette norvégienne (Le Roseline) to recreate the environment of their hospitable family restaurant.

“When I finished [hotel management school], my parents opened their own restaurant in Sainte-Rose, Laval in our family home,” Renaud said. “It was a Victorian house, transformed into a restaurant, and maybe that’s why you look at the place here and you feel the homey kind of atmosphere.”

Renaud explained that he has always had a passion for design and wanted to be a fur-

niture designer. He drew inspiration from a combination of his family, Montreal identity, and filmmaking expertise to create the atmosphere in Le Roseline.

“It’s a combination of my roots, I am a 100 per cent Montrealer,” Renaud said. “[...]

My grandma was a musician, she was in a band in the early ‘30s, so what I created in the middle is inspired by my grandma’s living room, with this kind of carpet [and] with the sofa.”

Renaud also designed a menu that reflects the classic dishes of the time. The restaurant serves traditional dishes with minimal reinterpretation to fully capture the culture of Montreal cuisine at the time, which was heavily influenced by French culture. “[For example], the omelettenorvégienne we do a flambé,” Renaud said. “No place in Montreal does [omelette norvégienne] flambé anymore [...but] we decided to bring back this dessert that was very popular in the ‘30s. Even the cocktails, [...] we have the Mary Pickford cocktail, we have the French 75, and the Old Fashioned. Mary Pickford was an early actor of the early ‘30s [who] came to Montreal in 1949 [and stayed at the] Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and they created a cocktail for her. We make it here because it is part of the experience [of 1930s Montreal],” Renaud adds that he hopes customers can get a real feel of what it was like to socialize and relax in the ‘30s, adding that people during that time were more at ease. Open Tuesday through Sunday, Le Roseline hopes to take customers away from the stress of modern day reality.

“It’s really the vibes of the early ‘30s you feel here,” Renaud said. “[... I wanted] to do something to transport people back to the old times [....] [I wanted to] do something that allows people to disconnect with their own reality and go back in time and see how it was [in 1930s Montreal].”

14 STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

The Med Café reimagined

Upper campus dining area resuscitated after July 2018 fire

Janine Xu Contributor On July 13, 2018, a fire broke out in McIntyre Medical Building, known among students as McMed. According to the CBC, the fire started on the outdoor terrace of the building, with most of the damage sustained on the fifth floor, where Med Café is located.

This left the building without any dining locations. Though most of the building was up and running again by the following semester, Med Café remained closed until December 2019, when it quietly reopened with a renovated seating plan.

According to Marisa Albanese, the senior director of Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS) at McGill, the reopening of Med Café with a new seating plan, was a concerted effort that involved several McGill organizations working together. “[SHHS] is responsible for food services on campus,” Albanese said. “We worked in collaboration with Facilities Management and the Faculty of Medicine [on this project].

There was an [in-depth] design process, and the whole area was renovated.”

While the previous seating area featured long tables reminiscent of a classic high school cafeteria, the new space feels warmer and more welcoming, with smaller, round tables. Additionally, the café added a lounge area in the back, which features carpeted flooring and colourful couches for students to relax on. Furthermore, more microwaves are now available in the seating area to allow students and staff to reheat food from home.

“What we want is for students to feel comfortable in the space, to study and [...] hang out with their friends,” Albanese said.

“You’ll notice that the back room [...] was actually walled off before, so the Faculty of Medicine made a decision to tear down that wall and extend that space, [to] add more seating for students [....] You’ll notice [that there is more] window space [now]. We have a banquette that goes along the windows and seating, so you can actually sit outside while eating.”

Samuel Rahman, U3 Representative for Pharmacology Integrative League of Students (PILS), feels that the new cafeteria is a much more inviting and comfortable space compared to what it was before.

“The food is relatively the same, but the actual cafeteria is much nicer now,” Rahman said. “It’s actually [incredibly] nice. There are more seats, and if you actually go inside, there [are] sofas and a nice lounge area.”

While Med Café has made tremendous changes in revamping their appearance, the menu did not change drastically. Med Café offers the same selection of grab and go snacks, found in other spots on campus.

There is also a self-serve salad bar and a hot food buffet that offers both vegetarian and vegan meals. Options for the hot food buffet are changed frequently to allow for a variety of food from different cuisines, ranging from roasted potatoes to Asian-style crispy pork belly with buns. These selections remain relatively homogenous to other campus-owned cafés, since many spots on campus are owned by one operator, Dana Hospitality.

“The [food options] aren’t dramatically different,” Albanese said. “[They are fairly] similar [to what they were] in the past [....]

The only difference is that there’s a new operator managing the café [....] That really [motivated] all of our cafeterias and all restaurants on campus to get started with the

new vendor in June 2019.”

The re-opening of Med Café is important for students like Rahman, who work long hours in McMed. While the lower half of campus contains a multitude of food options within a short walking distance of each other, finding food on the upper side of campus— Stewart Biology and McMed—can be a trek.

“I work in a lab on the 12th floor, so I’m always [in McMed],” Rahman said. “Med Café is one of the only places in the area [to easily grab food or a coffee]. The [second] closest option is Second Cup [inside the Stewart Biology building] or the Subway [located on Dr. Penfield]. It’s not great, [especially] the coffee at [Second Cup], which is expensive.”

Especially during the winter, McMed can feel isolating. Diana Di Lorio, U3 Representative for Physiology Undergraduate League of Students (PULS), is happy that Med Café offers more expansive food options than Second Cup. However, she believes that Med Café can still do better in terms of its pricing.

“The options available in the café are on the pricey side,” Di Lorio said. “I’ve been to [... Med Café] during lunch hours and have seen more options than in the original, but [I still thought] it was pricey. In fact, I have [overheard] other people discussing the food prices [in Med Café] before, so I [don’t] think I’m [alone in this.]”

Issues with food affordability and availability have long been a point of discussion among McGill students. First-year students living in residence pay $5,975 for the mandatory meal plan, but often face a lack of options for their dietary restrictions. A 2017 article in The McGill Tribune argued that residence dining halls should have more

gluten-free, vegan-friendly, and non-dairy items for students who need them. In 2014, the Tim Hortons in Redpath Library was controversially changed to a Premiere Moisson, sparking debates about rising food prices on campus. Posts complaining about expensive food and the lack of good quality food can be found all over r/McGill.

However, Albanese explained that her colleagues had given positive feedback on the menu pricing at the new Med Café, saying that the food that they had bought was cheaper than expected.

“My understanding of the hot and cold food items that [can be] purchased there is [that they cost] about nine to 10 dollars, because it’s all about the weight,” Albanese said.

Rahman noted that he was surprised when Med Café had re-opened because it seemed out of the blue.

“I think it opened during late winter exams, but no one was here [so no one knew about it,]” Rahman said.

For now, Med Café remains a quiet affair, owing to the lack of announcements to its reopening.

“We [haven’t] done [any] advertising yet,” Albanese said. “We’re going to have a small launch very […] soon. We were set to have one last week, but we had to cancel unexpectedly.”

Even with some publicity, Med Café remains a cafeteria whose purpose is to serve the needs of the students and faculty who study and work in upper campus. With this purpose in mind, many students have voiced their admiration for its improvements in where they eat and study, as well as their disappointment in the lack of what to eat between their study period.

Med Cafe, a staple of the McIntyre Medical Building, has returned with better seating but a similar menu. (Iman Zarrinkoub / The McGill Tribune)

SPORTS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

15

Cabillo-Abante shines for Martlet Basketball at Beach Night McGill loses to Bishop’s in double overtime

Martlet Basketball (6–8) lost in a thrilling double-overtime match on Feb. 6 against the Bishop’s Gaiters (8–5) by a final score of 77–69.

The first quarter started with Bishop’s gaining a steady lead over McGill. A three-pointer from fifth-year guard Geraldine Cabillo-Abante put the Martlets back into the game, and they owned a 12–9 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Martlets held this lead through the end of the half, ahead by a score of 27–24.

After half-time, however, the tide turned against the Martlets. Bishop’s was back in front 42–40 at the end of the third quarter. The Gaiters carried on this momentum into the fourth quarter, exposing holes in McGill’s defence. The Martlets trailed 50–44 with only five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter but later reduced the deficit to three points (56–53) with only 15 seconds to play. A brilliant three-pointer from secondyear guard Delphine Robitaille tied the score at 56 at the buzzer.

The game went into overtime, where both teams put up an impressive effort for the full five minutes. One overtime period was not enough to separate the two sides, however, and the game went to a second with the score even at 63. Bishop’s dominated in the second overtime, taking the win by a final score of 77–69.

Martlets Head Coach Ryan Thorne was disappointed with the team’s performance, citing a need for more disciplined play.

“We had 32 turnovers in the game, and I think that is ridiculous,” Thorne said. “We let them dictate what was going to happen. We gave up offensive rebounds. They had 16 offensive rebounds, [and] they were better than us. We had a game plan, [but] so many times in the game, we did not execute it.”

Cabillo-Abante agreed that the team did not adhere to the game plan.

“If we are not sticking to the plan, then that’s going to hurt us,” Cabillo-Abante said.

Robitaille noted the importance of perseverance in close games.

“Basketball is a game full of ups and downs,” Robitaille said. “When you are down, it’s not a matter of staying down.

It’s what you do to get back up. We fought, but not [until] the end.”

The Martlets next play at home when they face cross-town rival Concordia (4–9) on Feb. 15.

MOMENT OF THE GAME

QUOTABLE

STAT CORNER

Karan Kumar Contributor

Geraldine Cabillo-Abante scored a game-high 16 points for the Martlets. (McGill Athletics)

With only three seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Martlets

“I think [the players and the fans] have different viewpoints

McGill shot a sweltering 37 per cent from three and

down by three, fifth-year guard Gladys Hakizimana hauled in a critical

on what the game was. The fans see this as an exciting game.

offensive rebound and found second-year guard Delphine Robitaille

Double overtime, that’s exciting. But [...] I do not think we played

91.7 per cent from the free throw line, but 32 per cent on field goals was too poor to overcome.

behind the line to drain a stunning three-pointer and send the game to

well.” - Head Coach Ryan Thorne on the team’s performance.

overtime.

2020 NBA All-Star mock draft Re-drafting alternate lineups for Teams LeBron and Giannis The 2020 NBA All-Star Game draft may have come and gone, but The McGill Tribune thinks that things could and should have gone differently.

Here’s a look at two alternate teams.

Team LeBron Alec Regino Contributor

Bearing in mind the dynamic new format for the All-Star Game this year, Team LeBron is built for the playful, buddy-buddy nature. But do not be fooled—there are two clear reasons why LeBron’s team has won in the past: Raw talent and strong bonds. I’ll be drafting players with the understanding that LeBron’s previous success has been predicated on team chemistry.

1

First Round: Starters

Anthony Davis I can’t imagine the fall out from not drafting your all-star teammate with your first pick. With their chemistry on the Lakers, the James-Davis onetwo punch combo is simply too good to pass up.

3 5

James Harden The league’s leading scorer—averaging an astronomical 35.4 PPG—is an obvious choice for LeBron’s second pick: The All-Star Game is about getting buckets, and that is what Harden does.

Pascal Siakam Pascal Siakam has had a career year following the loss of Kawhi to the Clippers.

LeBron will be betting on the first-time all-star relishing the opportunity to put the clamps down on his former teammate in front of the league’s best players.

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Trae Young While fun, Trae Young is just not on the same level as the other starters. At the very least, we will get to see what Young can do when he shares the court with talent that will make up for his defensive deficiencies.

Second Round: Reserves

Damian Lillard (pick #10), Ben Simmons (#12), Chris Paul (#14), Jayson Tatum (#16), Bam Adebayo (#18), Nikola Jokic (#20).

The Final Pick

Russell Westbrook (#22) While LeBron would love to watch Westbrook chuck up terrible three-pointers or stomp down the lane and draw an offensive foul, he probably wants to win this game, so Westbrook gets picked last.

LeBron James picks teammate Anthony Davis to kick off the NBA All-Star game draft.

(Associated Press, Getty Images)

Team Giannis Adam Burton Staff Writer Ever since losing to the Raptors in the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals, Giannis has been on a warpath to prove that he is the best player in the league. His loss in last year’s All-Star Game is sure to have him scouring basketballreference.com for hours in preparation for this year’s draft. With that in mind, I’ll be picking players most suited to Giannis’s dominant, high tempo, slash-and-kick offence.

2

First Round: Starters

Kawhi Leonard Fresh off a Finals victory, Kawhi is arguably the best player in the league. Giannis will need his incredibly efficient and overwhelmingly precise skills on both offence and defence.

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Luka Dončić Dončić is not just an unprecedented offensive talent; he is a symbol of the rising tide of young players that is slowly but surely flooding the league,

harkening a new era of basketball. Giannis will be sure to include the second-year phenom as his deadly starting shooting guard.

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Kemba Walker Ever since his tenure began in Boston, fans would be hard-pressed to find a teammate that has anything bad to say about Walker. This is not hard to believe considering that he had the “good vibes Celtics” all over for Thanksgiving. In addition to being a straight-up good guy, Walker is also an elite point guard, capable of passing and scoring with a quick style of play that will take Team Giannis to the next level.

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Joel Embiid Despite his offensive production and health inconsistencies, Embiid has moments where he looks like the most dominant centre since Shaquille O’Neal. Considering the notoriety of the All-Star Game, Embiid will be sure to bring his A-game.

Second Round: Reserves

Khris Middleton (#9), Jimmy Butler (#11), Kyle Lowry (#13), Brandon Ingram (#15), Domantas Sabonis (#17), Donovan Mitchell (#19).

The Final Pick

Rudy Gobert (#21) Let’s face it: The All Star game isn’t a show of defensive abilities. Unfortunately for Gobert, that is most of what he brings to the table. While his talents definitely merit him a spot on the team, Gobert probably won’t see much playing time.

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SPORTS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2020

Fournier scores brace in home defeat against Ridgebacks Rookie goaltender Vella breaks goalie assist record

The McGill Men’s Hockey team (16–10–2) lost on Feb. 9 to the Ontario Tech University Ridgebacks (13–12–3) by a final score of 5–3 in a nail-biting home game filled with highs and lows.

Despite strong efforts from McGill in the first and third period, the home side could not overcome the flurry of shots that bombarded first-year goalie Emmanuel Vella.

The first period started with sloppy play from both teams.

McGill and the Ridgebacks turned the puck over frequently and struggled to get any shots on net. It was only halfway through the first period that both sides sharpened their play and started getting direct shots on goal. With eight minutes remaining, second-year forward Jordan-Ty Fournier scooped the puck up behind the net and wrap it around the post into the goal past the unsuspecting Ridgeback goaltender. McGill closed out the period with a strong show of offensive strength, dominating possession and getting several shots on net.

Momentum quickly shifted, as the Ridgbacks came out strong in the second period. Ridgeback forward Austin Eastman snuck a quick wrist shot past Vella just one minute into the period.

The next 10 minutes were gut-wrenching for McGill fans: The Ridgebacks rarely gave up the puck and managed shot after shot,

eventually resulting in another goal for the visitors.

Frustrations were running high: Several near-fights and jawing matches popped up in the last five minutes of the period, as the Ridgebacks continued their stretch of offensive dominance.

Fresh out of the locker room, the Ridgebacks started the final period strong, scoring their third goal just 53 seconds into the period. However, fortunes quickly shifted in favour of McGill.

They dug in their heels, got scrappy, and cleaned up their passing.

Third-year forward Antoine Dufort-Plante capitalized on energy and dinged one in with 16 minutes remaining in the third period.

Fournier followed up 32 seconds later, scoring off a slap-shot from the blue line.

Unfortunately for McGill, their good luck did not last.

Despite offensive control throughout the third period, they could not convert, failing to put the puck in the net for the rest of the game. With just under seven minutes remaining, the Ridgebacks scored a quick wrist shot off the top of the net. McGill upped their pace and eventually pulled Vella to add an extra skater, but they were unable to use the added pressure to score a goal. Ontario Tech scored once more on an empty net in the final minute, ending the game in a loss of 5–3 for McGill.

Nonetheless, Fournier is optimistic about McGill’s chances heading into the playoffs.

“You know, I think we could have done better, but we have

MOMENT OF THE GAME

QUOTABLE

With just under 15 minutes remaining in the third period, second-year forward Jordan-Ty Fournier hit a slap shot from the back right offensive zone to bring McGill back from an initial deficit of 1–3. This came hot off a goal from third-year forward Antoine DufortPlante at the 16 and a half minute mark—an exciting moment for a crowd of enthusiastic McGill fans.

“I think this is a team that people have to be worried about. We’ve battled adversity all year, and come playoff time it’s not gonna change. We have one of the most talented groups of guys in there. I’d say come watch, come support the team, It’s gonna be a fun few weeks.” - Second-year forward JordanTy Fournier on McGill’s prospects in the postseason.

Adam Burton Staff Writer

First-year goalie Emmanuel Vella set a new goalie assisst record.

(Iman Zarrinkoub / The McGill Tribune)

a shot at redemption in the coming weeks,” Fournier said. “We might be playing them in the playoffs,” Head Coach Liam Heelis reflected on the positives he took away from the game.

“I thought our guys did a good job being resilient and trying to edge our way back into the hockey game,” Heelis said. “I think that’s an important characteristic of our team and think our boys have shown that all season.”

STAT CORNER First-year goalie Emmanuel Vella set a McGill record for goaltender assists in a single game, assisting two of McGill’s three goals.

Point-counterpoint: Is bowling a sport?

Jack Armstrong & Gabe Nisker Contributor & Features Editor This week, The McGill Tribune placed an incredibly contentious issue on the debate floor: Is bowling a sport? The answer is less clear than you may think.

Bowling is just like any other sport Gabe Nisker

Bowling is nothing more than a casual weekend activity Jack Armstrong According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a sport is “a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job.”

Bowling is played according to rules, and it can be played for enjoyment or a job, but it requires almost no physical effort. Many people compare the physical exertion of bowling to the established sport of golf, but in reality, golf is noticeably more physical. The only motions required to be proficient in bowling are walking a few paces and rolling a ball less than 20 metres down a slick surface. Almost anyone can do it. In golf, however, a player must be able to hit a ball nearly 180 metres in order to be considered any good. This requires an enormously forceful swing that not everyone can accomplish–and that is the key difference between the two activities.

This is not to say that there is no skill to be observed in bowling: There is obviously a gap between good and bad bowlers. However, the skills used in bowling are overwhelmingly mental, much like the game of chess, which is is decidedly not a sport.

Knowing where to throw the ball and how much spin to apply is so much more important than how hard you throw the ball, which is why players almost always roll strikes in professional games: They know exactly where to throw the ball. Knowing where to put the bowling ball, however, is not a physical skill. Since bowling’s skill set is overwhelmingly mental, rather than physical, it should be considered a fun activity for all ages but not a sport.

Bowling, on a surface level, seems fairly accessible: Grab some buddies, beer, and a pair of clown shoes and head down to the alley. But that is where the Professional Bowlers Association tricks you. Its design is accessible, but once you’re in, you’re in. Underneath the surface, the sport––yes, it is a sport––is ruthless, competitive, and challenging to the highest degree.

Bowling is likely the oiliest sport out there, but that slick quality makes it all the more difficult for one to succeed. Every bowling lane is coated in oil to protect it from catching fire. Most recreational bowling uses “house” coating, which helps funnel the ball toward the centre of the lane for greater shot success. Professional bowling uses a “sport” pattern, a more even distribution of oil across the surface that allows for little margin of error, which makes every shot a precise calculation.

According to Nick Bonahan, the sports performance specialist for the United States Bowling Congress, being an elite athlete alone is not enough to make you an elite bowler. However, elite bowlers are always elite athletes with impressive leg strength, flexibility, balance, and control. Their adaptability makes each shot—unique due to the changing oil surface—a different challenge that bowlers are well-equipped to handle. The physical and mental difficulty of hurling bowling balls at around 20 miles per hour regularly for 10 frames is not to be understated. The combination of mental and physical makes bowling similar to other sports, such as hockey or basketball, whose legitimacy as a sport is never questioned.

Bowling has been a contentious issue in the sporting community for many years. (Bowl.com)

Editor’s Pick Bowling is an activity that is generally not associated with superhuman athleticism or intense competition and cash prizes. But the reality is that both of these elements that are intrinsic to professional sports exist in bowling.

Bowling is a sport and should be afforded the appropriate respect.