The McGill Tribune Vol. 40 Issue 20

The McGill Tribune TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021 | VOL. #40 | ISSUE #20

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

FEATURE

Virtual student government elections offer a more accessible framework

Isolated nights

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

SPORTS Know Your Athlete: Juliano Cobuzzi

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(Signy Harnad / The McGill Tribune)

Ongoing Divest McGill boycott of Metro continues into March

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AGSEM pens open letter condemning continued issues with Workday Unions call on McGill to implement a centralized problem-solving process Sequoia Kim News Editor In October 2020, the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) sounded the alarm over technical issues with the newly implemented Workday Human Resources (HR) system, which left hundreds of employees

without for months. Two months into the Winter 2021 semester, some McGill employees are still without pay from Fall 2020, others have yet to be paid for work completed since January 2021, and many continue to experience technical difficulties with the Workday interface. In response to the persisting issues, including its decentralized problemsolving method, AGSEM sent an open letter to the McGill

Accessing local arts scenes— TikTok style

How Montreal artists are finding space to thrive on TikTok Deana Korsunsky Staff Writer Most Montrealers are familiar with the vibrant, animated entertainment cornucopia that is its arts scene.

With safety restrictions suspending live performances, artists have had to adjust to the hindrance of lockdown life. Creatives, however, are by no means taking a break from showcasing their art;

from comedy to dance to drag, artists have adapted to virtual performances. Yet, there is a digital sphere ripe for the taking—and one that a few Montreal performers have recently started onboarding: Everyone’s favorite procrastination guilty pleasure, TikTok. What makes TikTok stand out amongst other social media apps is its notoriously addictive, algorithm

recommendations. Unlike other competing platforms, the app does not prioritize showing users content from accounts that they already follow, but rather promotes new videos based on viewer preferences collected from user data. The subsequent result is an endless self-reinforcing stream of content that digitally bewitches any unsuspecting user.

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Administration on March 2 condemning the university’s response to their complaints and set forth several demands.

Although most delayed pay cases were resolved by the end of the Fall 2020 semester, Jessica Rose, AGSEM’s grievance officer, estimates that there are still roughly one dozen outstanding incidents, with new cases arriving in her inbox on occasion.

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Student Refugee Program changes lives through education

Student integration is top priority for the refugee resettlement program Taneeshaa Pradhan Contributor In 1978, the non-profit organization World University Service of Canada (WUSC) implemented the Student Refugee Program (SRP) at Carleton University. SRP is a refugee resettlement program that focusses on financial sponsorship and integration for students hoping to study and work in the country. In the years since, the initiative has grown

to support students in over 95 postsecondary institutions in Canada. As part of this program, all SRP scholars gain permanent residency status after they arrive in Canada. This is made possible through the organisation’s status as a Canadian National Sponsorship Agreement Holder with the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship.

The SRP was implemented at McGill in 1986 with the resettlement and integration of one student.

Since its conception, the intake has increased to support three new students arriving each year. The management of SRP at each school is delegated to the campus’ Local Committee. The McGill Local Committee is made up of volunteers who ensure that SRP scholars are supported during their resettlement.

Alice Ishimwe, U2 Arts and a social work intern at WUSC, explained the role of the Local Committee.

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TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

NEWS

AGSEM pens open letter condemning continued issues with Workday Unions call on McGill to implement a centralized problem-solving process Sequoia Kim News Editor Continued from page 1.

“I was talking to someone earlier today [and] they have not been paid a single cent for the work they did in the fall,” Rose said. “We just had a partial resolution for somebody who just got paid for work [they] did in the summer [2020].”

With the volume of incidents reduced to dozens of isolated cases this semester, the letter calls attention to the operational and managerial shortcomings of the Workday module. The system’s hiring and registration process is one such shortfall: Employees must be “terminated” from any previous employment before they canare able to be registered as “hired” in the system for a new position. According to Rose, explained how this setup inconveniences employees who work multiple jobs at the university.

“For Workday, you are supposed to have one profile that covers all [your jobs],” Rose said. “But there is no way for all these different offices who are hiring the same person to coordinate with each other. If different information is put in at those two different levels, [employers] are not going to see it, payroll is going to see it. Payroll does not know where it comes from and [...] is not set up to take the initiative to troubleshoot anything that comes their way.”

While delayed pay was a recurring problem in the Fall semester, Rose was surprised to see the reverse happen this semester. “[Some employee] contracts were entered for the wrong number of hours, or they were given extra hours but were never actually paid for them,” Rose said. “We are also seeing a ton of issues where people were apparently overpaid.

Now McGill is trying to garnish their wages, except there are a ton of errors in the way that they have calculated that.”

Raad Jassim, President of the McGill Course Lecturers and Instructors Union (MCILU), echoed some of the letter’s frustrations about the transition to Workday, reflecting on his experience with the Banner/Minerva system— the HR system McGill used preceding Workday. “[In Banner], I could see my taxes, I could see my address, I could see my deposit of salaries, I could see my job description,” Jassim said. “If I want to go back 20 years, it [was] all there.”

Following the transition to Workday, Jassim said he lost access to his previously logged information and that it could only be made available via letter request to HR. In one instance, Jassim remarked that improper data input that left a funny mistake was a testament to the system’s poor infrastructure.

“Sometimes [Workday states] I am hired in 2020, sometimes I am hired way back in 1990,” Jassim said. “So [...] when did I start my masters at McGill?

When I am looking at the data, it shows that I started in 1901.”

Jassim has been working since the summer to resolve Workday-related problems for MCILU constituents and is currently pushing for reforms, including asking for profile information to carry over for longer periods of time instead of having to re-input information for every new employment session.

“If you reinstate yourself in the onboarding [and] you forget to put your pension plan, [...] your retirement savings plan, [or] you do not know how, you will be deprived of the benefits,” Jassim said. “So I am asking McGill [to change this] because I do not want to do that every time, it has to be automatic.”

Mario Roy, President of AGSEM, felt that the various obstructions have

Roughly 30 workers impacted by delayed pay in the Fall accepted the $1,500 loan McGill issued as a temporary solution. (agsem.ca) burdened both employees and unions, with the latter picking up extra slack in troubleshooting and resolving a wide array of individual complications.

“I’ve been receiving a lot of comments from the hiring units, on the fact that this system is much harder to manage, as compared to the past system,” Roy said. “When we receive complaints from our members, sometimes they have been working hours and hours on the phone trying to resolve something [....]

When they call HR it is always a back and forth with the union, with HR, with IT services. [McGill] needs [...] to improve [the system] overall, instead of looking at it case-by-case.”

The letter demands that McGill conduct an audit of outstanding employees who have experienced issues with Workday and that it form a task force to ensure systemic solutions are put in place. Rose stated that McGill should actively engage unions and workers in consultations for solutions moving forward, and urged McGill to implement a more streamlined and centralized management process.

The letter was addressed to Principal Suzanne Fortier, the two Workday Sponsors, Provost and vice-principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi and vice-principal of Administration and Finance Yves Beauchamp, and Workday Program Steering Committee. (Sequoia Kim / The McGill Tribune)

“We want to see that McGill is putting in the management infrastructure that is needed,” Rose said. “There is no software solution for this, it is a manpower and managerial issue. It has to be something that has central coordination because staff in the hiring units are working as hard as they can.”

In an email to The McGill Tribune, the McGill administration stated that it has resolved all known delayed payments existing from the Fall 2021 semester and that it is moving quickly to resolve cases as they arise.

“Since the roll-out of Workday back in August, more than 30 staff members from the R2R team and the HR Service desk, in addition to staff in Payroll, Staffing and Academic Personnel have been focussed on supporting end users and resolving the various business process issues that have surfaced over the course of the fall semester,” a representative for the university wrote. “Since then, a number of measures have been put in place to help ensure the next round of hiring for Winter 2021 goes as smoothly as possible. Enhanced user support and training and process improvements are ongoing and will continue to be a priority.”

Rose, however, believes that McGill’s response to the Workday situation constitutes a demonstrated failure of leadership on the part of the university.

“The one comment from our members that keeps ringing in my head is, ‘I feel completely abandoned by McGill,’” Rose said. “It is one thing to be frustrated by the circumstances of the last year, but to feel abandoned is assuming that the university leadership has completely forgotten about you and has moved on from the problem before fixing it. There are people who are taking home six figures who are supposed to be fixing this and they are not.”

AGSEM has filed for arbitration for collective grievances on late payments from Fall and Summer 2021. The union is hoping to reach a settlement with McGill to compensate its members but will move the case in front of an arbitrator to settle those grievances if a settlement is not reached.

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

NEWS

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Expanding Economics panel considers importance of decolonizing economics

Panelists challenge the legacies of colonialism in the field Saylor Catlin Contributor Expanding Economics, a McGill initiative that aims to promote pluralism within the field of economics, hosted the virtual panel, “Decolonizing Economics” on Feb. 27. Panellists discussed how colonial legacies have influenced economic development and economic theory and suggested ways to decolonize economics from an academic perspective. The event featured Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of postcolonial studies, and Carolina Cristina Alves, a research fellow in heterodox economics, both at the University of Cambridge. Joining them was Carol Anne Hilton, the CEO and founder of Indigenomics Institute, an Indigenous economic advisory group.

Shanaya D’sa, U3 Arts and Expanding Economics co-vicepresident events introduced the event’s panellists and spoke on the relevance of decolonization in a colonial capitalist society.

“Our goal for today is to bring to light the ways in which colonialism has played a formative role in present mainstream economics and economic development so that we can actively decolonize our mindsets and our education,” D’sa said.

Gopal began the discussion, offering insight into the ways imperialism and monoculturalism have shaped contemporary academic curricula. She explained how post secondary institutions have greatly benefited from the flow of resources

Gopal said. “All of these things [were] afforded to them [...] by colonial knowledge gathering.”

Gopal felt that there is no single way to go about decolonizing higher education and curricula, but emphasized that attention to history is es-

The panellists focused on the importance of creating space for discussion of colonial impacts and legacies. (Sabrina Girard-Lamas / The McGill Tribune) and profits produced by colonialism.

“Universities in the West [...] were able to accumulate archives, specimens, objects, information,”

sential.

“Decolonization is meaningless without a set of principles [...] that allow it to emerge as a practice

that is sensitive to the present and to context steeped in historical awareness,” Gopal said. “There is something still to be said for universities as sites where intellectual and transformative work can intersect.”

Alves then detailed how heterodox schools of thought—economic theories that diverge from mainstream economic principles— play a role in decolonizing economics by diversifying economic theory.

She argued that the normalization of capitalism in economic development theories and the Eurocentric underpinnings of the discipline necessitates heterodox thinking.

“Economic theories that developed in Europe are the ones that become the starting points for economists to analyze everything,” Alves said. “[These theories are] literally one size fits all. There is this idea that [Western] scholarship [...] is the one that is valued, so we exclude local knowledge [and] we do not consider theory […] that is related to scholars from the Global South.”

Alves argued that universities should acknowledge and integrate non-Western ideas into economics curricula.

“Representation [of what?] is really about how we understand [...] the development of our economic theories,” Alves said. “[We try] to

understand who gets to define what we are studying, who gets to define what is economics, and then [we try] to break this intellectual hierarchy that we see in our discipline.”

Hilton concluded the panel by highlighting the ways that Canada’s Eurocentric economy has challenged Indigenous communities and exploring how these barriers could be overcome.

“Here in Canada, the Indigenous peoples [...] are the only ones who have had to fight for the right to an economy,” Hilton said. “There is no other population within this country who have had to express what our rights were across time, what our rights are today, and how we create that economic and legal space today and in our future.”

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, D’sa emphasized the importance of creating space for discussions on the legacies of colonialism.

“The colonizer [versus] colonized superiority [complex] and [the] power dynamic is something that has seeped through the generations,” D’sa said. “It’s important for us to […] be aware that the economic theory that we study today is […] a byproduct of colonialism to begin with.”

Student activists host virtual rally calling for divestment from Line 3 pipeline

Ralliers highlight pipeline’s effect on Indigenous Peoples Ella Fitzhugh Staff Writer Content warning: Human trafficking Nearly 350 students across Canada and the United States attended a virtual student-led rally on March 5 to call for the defunding of Line 3, a tar sands pipeline project set to run from Alberta to Minnesota.

The featured keynote speaker Tara Houska, a tribal attorney, Indigenous rights activist, and Couchiching First Nation citizen, along with other student speakers from across North America, called for universities to divest from the project and for students to take action against the pipeline. During the rally, representatives from Divest McGill provided resources for McGillspecific student action.

The Line 3 project is managed by Enbridge Inc., an energy company based in Alberta. Stine Myrah, a student from the University of Minnesota Duluth, detailed the pipeline’s impact on Indigenous peoples and climate change.

“Line 3 harms people, particularly the Anishinaabe people whose land the pipeline is being constructed through,” Myrah said. “[The pipeline’s construction] violates treaty rights and ignores Indigenous sovereignty by threatening their lands, food, cultural resources, and traditional ways of life. Pipeline construction is also directly correlated with increased human trafficking in neighbouring communities, particularly impacting Indigenous women, girls, and relatives.”

Myrah also argued that Enbridge showed a lack of accountability surrounding the sex trafficking that the pipeline has instigated.

“Enbridge and state regulators are aware of this

direct link between Line 3 construction and human trafficking, but they don’t care,” Myrah said. “They do not value human well-being or human life.”

The Line 3 pipeline will require 227 surface water crossings in Minnesota. Myrah noted that Enbridge has a track record of oil spills, having been the culprit of the largest ever oil spill in the state in 1991.

During the rally, attendees were invited to sign petitions and participate in calendar jams, which involves spamming bank CEOs with calendar invites to pressure their divestment from the project. Divest McGill also called on McGill students to sign its petition supporting the boycott of Metro Inc. The boycott aims to put pressure on Maryse Bertrand—Vice-Chair of McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) and a key member refusing for the university to divest from fossil fuels— by targeting her personal investments in Metro Inc. Houska highlighted the importance of divestment from industries complicit in abuses of Indigenous people and exploitation of the land.

“Divestment [...] is a very effective thing,” Houska said. “Morality is just not something that the banking industry, the tar sands industry, the big oil industry, the mining industries are really interested in [....] They are the destroyers of the planet, the destroyers of life.”

Houska claims that universities cannot truly be committed to inclusivity if they are investing in unethical companies. “[It is important to bring] these arguments forward to your colleges and your universities, especially [in] places that are really proud of their social justice programming,” Houska said. “[Universities are] always bragging about their ‘space that is inclusive of all’ [....] Well, why are you a space that is investing in the destruction of Indigenous peoples’ homelands? Why

Aashu Lele, a student from Carleton College, gave a first-hand account of the repressive tactics police use against Indigenous protestors of the Enbridge pipeline. (Jane Canuel / The McGill Tribune) are you a space that is investing in the destruction and theft from my future [and] our futures?”

In an email interview with The McGill Tribune, Zahur Ashrafuzzaman, U1 Arts & Science and Divest McGill representative, detailed McGill’s investments in the project and called on students to take direct action.

“We know about the impacts of these extractive projects on climate as well as their effects on missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people,” Ashrafuzzaman wrote. “McGill must end its complicity in this violence by ending their investments in [the] extractive industry. Beyond that, we can all commit not to bank with the big banks that are funding these projects.”

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NEWS

TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2021

Tribune Explains: McGill’s upgrades to campus building ventilation

McGill upgrades ventilation systems in preparation for Fall 2021 Madison Edward-Wright Contributor In preparation for the in-person Fall 2021 semester, the McGill administration is working to upgrade campus heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.

Denis Mondou, associate vice-principal (VP) of Facilities Management and Ancillary Services, maintained that all changes will be made in accordance with recommendations from Canadian public health agencies.

Why are new ventilation units being installed?

Ongoing renovations of the Stewart Biology Building has made it the centre of McGill’s ventilation upgrades. In addition to various HVAC projects that were planned prior to the pandemic, the building will contain new state-of-theart laboratories and boast new interior and exterior facades.

New HVAC system upgrades have been installed on campus since 2017, notably in Burnside Hall, the University Centre, and the Education Building. As students and staff return to school, the new ventilation units will serve to make campus safer for everyone.

The Canadian government and public health agencies have consistently emphasized the importance of good ventilation and have created guidelines for maximizing the circulation of clean air in indoor spaces. Proper building ventilation is essential for mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks because constant air exchange moves viral particles out of rooms, replenishing spaces with filtered air.

“In response to COVID-19, McGill has implemented [several] measures regarding the operation of its HVAC systems,” Mondou said.“These [measures] are focussed on maximizing fresh air intake [by] extending the operating hours of the systems.”

How will ventilation systems change on campus?

A major change to ventilation in buildings on campus will entail extending operating hours of the filtration systems. HVAC systems will be turned on “high output” two hours before the school day begins until two hours after the day ends; exact times will vary between building to building. During after hours, HVAC systems will be kept on a lower setting since there will be fewer people in the buildings.

The new HVAC systems being installed will also have the rating MERV-13, which ranks highly on the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) scale. MERV-13 rated filters are highly effective at trapping smaller particles in the air, including airborne viruses, and will be replaced regularly.

How will McGill fund their ventilation projects?

Conversations on how to fit these ventilation projects into McGill’s annual budget are still ongoing as approval for exceptional COVID-19 expenditures depends on trends that the university notices in monthly spending and revenue. In an email to The McGill Tribune, McGill’s Associate Director of Media Relations Cynthia Lee explained that McGill will consider the expectations of different academic and administrative units when finalizing the 2021-2022 budget.

The upcoming university budget will be discussed and put to vote on April 22 by the Board of Governors (BoG).

What do these changes mean for students?

According to Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP University Affairs Brooklyn Frizzle, student associations and representatives have allegedly been excluded in the conversations or decisions regarding COVID19 safety on campus. Frizzle expressed concern over the feasibility of a full-scale return to in-person classes this fall

Of the 744 active COVID-19 outbreaks in Quebec, 236 (31.7 per cent) of them occurred in educational environments.

(Sabrina Girard-Lamas / The McGill Tribune) despite the new ventilation installments.

“I am unconvinced that ventilation upgrades [and changes] are anywhere near enough to compensate for the university’s aggressive plans to return to in-person learning in the Fall,” Frizzle said.

The McGill administration is confident that along with the new ventilation systems, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is sufficient to keep the university’s community safe when students return to in-person classes.

“The health and wellbeing of our community will [...] remain a top priority,” Lee said on behalf of the university.

“All necessary health and safety measures will continue to be implemented to ensure that our campuses remain safe places to learn and to waork in the coming year.”

Ongoing Divest McGill boycott of Metro continues into March Divest McGill members highlight the effectiveness of targeted boycotts Signy Harnand Staff Writer Five members of Divest McGill met to picket outside the Plateau’s St-Hubert Metro location on March 8 as part of a boycott campaign launched in summer 2020. The small but energetic crowd wielded signs in front of the store for over one hour, braving temperatures below freezing as they engaged Metro customers and passers-by into conversation about the campaign.

The boycott Metro initiative, which was kickstarted by Climate Justice Montreal in June 2020, is aligned with Divest McGill’s call for the McGill Board of Governors (BoG) to divest investments from their holdings in some of the top 200 fossil fuel companies. According to Sofia Mucci, U3 Arts and Divest McGill member, the goal of the boycott is to put pressure on BoG Vice-Chair Maryse Bertrand—a key BoG member against divestment—by targeting her personal investments and involvement in Metro Inc. “We are specifically targeting

Metro because the Vice-Chair of the Board of Governors is Maryse Bertrand, who earns a salary from Metro Inc. and wields power there,” Mucci said. “We are put-

“Some people will come to us with questions, especially younger people,” Mucci said. “Especially because of COVID, people often really want to have conversations

The group’s aim is to pressure the McGill Board of Governors through ongoing calls for boycott. (Signy Harnand / The McGill Tribune) ting pressure on her by attacking her financial assets.”

Mucci explained that the boycott campaign relies on public engagement and emphasized the curiosity that some customers have shown toward the initiative.

with strangers, so they are willing to talk to us.”

According to a 2020 report, Bertrand earned a retainer of $131,660 from her investments with Metro and held over half a million dollars in shares. Samuel

Helguero, L2 Law and Divest McGill member, explained that targeting Betrand is not the sole factor behind the boycott of Metro. “[Metro] is an oligopoly,” Helguero said. “Along with a couple of other industry giants, Metro cut their worker’s pandemic pay, but still, at the end of the year, gave their executives [...] the nearmaximum bonus they could have given to their five top executives.”

Laura Doyle Péan, L2 Law and a Divest McGill member, hopes that the campaign will help stoke a broader conversation about the BoG’s powerful role within the McGill community.

“We are hoping to find ways to get rid of the Board as it currently exists and replace it with something that would allow [...] the McGill community to have a say,” Péan said. “We are looking into recruiting people from different subgroups that form the McGill community and all have an interest in democratizing how decisions are made.”

Helguero felt the effectiveness of targeted boycotts lay in their focus on targeting money

flows as a powerful form of leverage to influence professionals and key decision makers.

“When you start targeting people’s financial and professional interests, they really have to think about what they are doing,” Helguero said. “There are only so many people that can be convinced when you have hit the democratic walls, because then you [have to] appeal to the moral and intellectual sensibilities of people [....] Many sit on national banks or on the boards of Metro, or have worked for the fossil fuel industry before, like Cynthia Price Vereaux, who worked for Petro-Canada for 18 years.”

Helguero reflected on the course of the campaign, and looked ahead toward educational initiatives that he hopes will spring from the boycott.

“Maryse Bertrand is now part of a company [that has] a boycott [...] against it by environmental activists,” Helguero said. “Hopefully in the future we will be able to use the boycott as a bouncing off point to talk about fossil fuel investments in Canada.”

OPINION

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

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EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief Helen Wu editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Aidan Martin amartin@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Katia Lo Innes kinnes@mcgilltribune.com Kennedy McKee-Braide kmckee-braide@mcgilltribune.com Sophia Gorbounov sgorbounov@mcgilltribune.com

News Editors Maya Abuali, Kate Addison & Sequoia Kim news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Jonah Fried & Sepideh Afshar opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editors Madison Mclauchlan & Shafaq Nami scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Life Editors Alaana Kumar & Leyla Moy studentlife@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Kevin Vogel features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Vanessa Barron & Jonathan Giammaria arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Adam Burton & Sarah Farnand sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Ruobing Chen & Chloe Rodriguez design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Jasmine Acharya photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editors Sarah Ford & Alexandre Hinton multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developer Benjamin Alexandor & Marwan Khan webdev@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Jackie Lee copy@mcgilltribune.com

Virtual student government elections offer a more accessible framework As the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) executive election campaign period takes off this week, this year’s candidates will migrate to virtual platforms and social media to campaign. Online elections present new challenges to student engagement and require innovative approaches to campaigning. But if harnessed properly, the remote circumstances could serve to expand election accessibility in the long term. SSMU can take this opportunity to reflect on the barriers of past elections and maintain the benefits of a virtual campaign period even after the pandemic.

With Zoom fatigue worsening as the pandemic drags on, student leaders must think outside the box to engage students. Remote learning has made it more difficult than ever for students to remain connected to the community, ultimately decreasing their likelihood of participating in student politics. For instance, SSMU’s September 2020 special referendum saw a meager 12.8 percent voter turnout, the lowest in five years. Engagement in this year’s election is of particular importance, considering McGill’s plans to return to in-

OFF THE BOARD

Social Media Editor Marie Saadeh socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Marilie Pilon business@mcgilltribune.com

TPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Helen Wu, Caitlin Kindig, Ezra-Jean Taylor, Tara Alami, Yara Shaheen-Abuelreish, Deana Korsunsky, Sequoia Kim, Kennedy McKee-Braide, Shreya Rastogi, Marilie Pilon, Heela Achakzai

STAFF Reza Ali, Margaret Askey, Zoe Babad-Palmer, Rory Daly, Ella Fitzhugh, Justin Galouzi, Defne Gurcay, Signy Harnad, Zoe Karkossa, Lucy Keller, Deana Korsunsky, Erika MacKenzie, Maya Mau, Adam Menikefs, Ella Milloy, Naomi Mirny, Matthew Molinaro, Jinny Moon, Respina Rostamifar, Brian Schatteman, Noah Vaton, Josephine Wang, Xiaotian Wang,Youssef Wahba, Margaret Wdowiak, Lowell Wolfe, Wendy Zhao

CONTRIBUTORS Reem Abdul Majid, India Blaisdell, Saylor Catlin, Laurie Chan, Elissa Dresdner, Madison EdwardWright, Chloe Gordon-Chow, Atsushi Ikeda, Cyril Kazan, Daria Kiseleva, Taneeshaa Pradhan, Michelle Siegel, Isabella Vella, Angelica Voutsinas, Holly

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The McGill Tribune is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the Société de Publication de la Tribune, a student society of McGill University. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of The McGill Tribune and the Société de Publication de la Tribune, and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Letters to the editor may be sent to editor@mcgilltribune.com and must include the contributor’s name, program and year and contact information. Letters should be kept under 300 words and submitted only to the Tribune. Submissions judged by the Tribune Publication Society to be libellous, sexist, racist, homophobic or solely promotional in nature will not be published.The Tribune reserves the right to edit all contributions. Editorials are decided upon and written by the editorial board. All other opinions are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the McGill Tribune, its editors or its staff.

Helen Wu Editor-in-Chief Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, incidents of anti-Asian racism across the country have surged.

In Montreal, several statues at Quan Am temple were defaced, the main gates of Chinatown were vandalized, and a Korean man walking to a market was stabbed in the city’s Notre-Dame-deGrâce neighbourhood. Between March and December 2020, the Montreal Police Service (SPVM) recorded 30 crimes targeting Asian-Montrealers, a fivefold increase from 2019. These statistics are disheartening, but they still do not reflect the

person learning for the Fall 2021 semester, which will surely present unique obstacles for incoming representatives.

To make better use of online tools, SSMU could help candidates reach more students by allowing them to campaign on more platforms, in line with the Science Undergraduate Society’s Feb. 17 decision to allow candidates to campaign beyond Facebook.

Additionally, the implementation of online resources like recorded information sessions and condensed versions of official SSMU election documents could remove the red tape around running for a position. Reading through SSMU’s lengthy election bylaws is daunting––the Internal Regulations of Governance is 54 pages alone and is only one of five internal regulation documents candidates are charged with reviewing. Making condensed online materials available can encourage students to run for positions that may have otherwise intimidated them, promoting accessibility.

Some of the potential advantages of this new format are already evident. For individuals who are well-suited to a role, but who may be uncomfortable

approaching strangers in-person about their platforms, expanded online campaigning can facilitate community outreach.

Online flexibility also allows candidates to diffuse their election platforms easily. While corruption regarding unsolicited online messaging has been a concern in the past, SSMU can create a more equitable legislative framework to facilitate online campaigning. For instance, election rules must be updated to eliminate hostile or exclusive environments, setting a positive precedent for years to come.

Despite the benefits of online platforms, the merits of inperson information dissemination about SSMU elections cannot be ignored. Candidates may have trouble reaching those to whom they have no prior connection, as their social media posts tend to be seen only by their friends. One possible solution is to require that all Facebook campaign pages link all the other candidate’s pages to ensure easy access to each platform. And although it appears unlikely that elections will take place entirely online past this exceptional year, virtual platforms like Gathertown and Glimpse that mimic in-person booths can further complement existing

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EDITORIAL election norms.

When students return to campus, SSMU must find ways to maintain the accessibility of this virtual election while transitioning back to in-person events. In-person campaigning techniques like handing out flyers and approaching people on campus are integral to the campaign process and should not be abandoned, but giving candidates more campaigning tools will improve engagement in student government.

While many students will want to be rid of any reminders of life during the most isolated stages of the pandemic upon their return to campus, SSMU should think about how it can use lessons learned throughout this tumultuous year to make student politics more welcoming and engaging in years to come. Despite the drawbacks, this new online experience will result in overdue technological updates to the in-person election regulations currently in place.

SSMU’s mission statements enshrine accessibility for the diverse needs of students. Now that new campaigning options have been unearthed, SSMU can act on its mission by adjusting elections to be as equitable as possible.

Anti-Asian racism was rampant before COVID-19–related hate underreported racial slurs and stereotypes that Asian-Canadians face every day in the workplace, at school, or simply while minding their own business in public. Often, anti-Asian racism is dismissed as harmless, which only normalizes discriminatory behaviour and undermines the severity of these issues.

Walking through the streets as an Asian person in Montreal or even on McGill campus, it is not unusual to hear a racial slur directed my way. A significant part of my racialized experience is not necessarily being a target of racism but constantly anticipating when it will come next. That is why I plug in my AirPods, hit shuffle on Spotify, and turn up the volume to avoid hearing any racist remarks hurled my way. When asked where I am from, no one is satisfied with my answer of “Vancouver”—where I was born and raised—and often go on to ask where my parents are from, only content when I reply with “Hong Kong.” Time after time when I rebuke these remarks, I am told by a nonAsian person that their behaviour is not racist and that their “Ni Hao” just meant that they wanted

to say hello. These incidents are hostile and enraging; I remember every one, and I dwell on some for months.

The recent spike in hate crimes towards Asians in North America has been attributed mainly to the rhetoric purposely used by the previous U.S. President, who referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus.”

While the former President’s large platform amplified his remarks, they are still no different from the derogatory slurs that have long been casually tossed around by individuals. These remarks encourage hate, and their widespread use normalizes antiAsian racism to a point where the damage to Asian people is overlooked. As a result, I often shove aside my experiences of racism, believing that they are less important because there are other BIPOC facing more severe forms of oppression.

Anti-Asian racism is not limited to harmful rhetoric— these beliefs also perpetuate discriminatory behaviour.

Common stereotypes labelling Asian people as smart and hardworking have portrayed them as one-dimensional, reducing

their chances of getting hired or promoted to managerial positions.

A report presented by Ascend Pan-Asian Leaders found that, of minority groups, Asians were the least likely to be promoted to executive positions in Silicon Valley—even though they are the most likely to be hired by tech companies. The pandemic has only surfaced how harmful these attitudes can become, and yet anti-Asian racism is still swept under the rug until a videotaped assault grabs our attention.

As McGill students return to campus for the Fall 2021 semester, many Asian students will be doing so in fear of becoming the victims of COVID-19–related hate. As social distancing and quarantine have instilled a sense of loneliness in all of us, the additional xenophobia rampant towards Asian Canadians adds to feelings of ostracization.

Asians are not the carriers of coronavirus, and rhetoric blaming us for the pandemic must stop.

While vaccines can snuff out the pandemic, Canadians must dismantle the discrimination that faces Asian-Canadians and continue to examine underplatformed forms of racism.

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OPINION

COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

COVID-somnia is ruining students’ schedules

Taneeshaa Pradhan Contributor As student routines change due to COVID-19, many are noticing disturbances in their sleep schedules. Experts attribute “COVID-somnia” to anxiety surrounding the pandemic, such as feeling helpless in the face of a global crisis. While students at McGill lead efforts to combat these mental health difficulties, educators and administrators must show support by being accommodating and ensuring that students are not overwhelmed by isolation, despair, and loneliness.

In addition to McGill’s pre-existing culture that prioritizes academic results over mental well-being, COVID-somnia is a dangerous phenomenon. Research reports that this pandemic-induced sleep deprivation, while sometimes motivated by physiological factors, mainly stems from fear and anxiety caused by the disruption of normal routines. Before the pandemic, students connected with peers at communal spaces on campus, but the social lives of everyone are now limited by measures that prevent gatherings. For some students, this is coupled with a change in living environment, ranging from moving in with roommates that are near-strangers or returning home to family.

Most instructors offer helpful asynchronous learning options for those in different timezones. Despite this, students have to resist allowing lecture recordings to pile up when they choose to take a break from school work.

When the boundary between school and the home is blurred, it becomes difficult to find

COMMENTARY

time and space for relaxation. With unfamiliar and overburdened schedules, students resort to revenge bedtime procrastination, staying up late doing leisure activities because they may feel that time has been exhausted by the mental labour of work-related activities.

To counter COVID-somnia, students can benefit from adopting sleep hygiene practices such as creating a space dedicated to attending “Zoom university.” Humans associate brain function to specific environments, which is why studying in bed can make it harder to fall asleep in it. Meanwhile, course instructors should initiate dialogue with students to identify changes that can be made to mitigate the challenges of online learning. During these unforeseen and stressful circumstances, professors can help alleviate stress by eliminating requirements for medical notes and other forms of proof for those in need of extensions.

For international students, altering normal sleep cycles is often the only way to engage with classes and virtual student life in real-time.

Different time zones and living environments create unequal experiences, and some students face even more barriers to a healthy sleep routine than their peers living in Montreal.

Effectively living in two time zones amplifies a sense of disconnectedness from university life, which can intensify feelings of loneliness and anxiety. Increased screen time also exposes students to blue light emissions, which interrupt circadian rhythms in the body that sync sleep schedules with outdoor light levels. Coupled with COVID-19 anxiety, these hybrid schedules present unique challenges. Meanwhile,

The irregularities in stress, and social interactions as a result of the pandemic both compound and contribute to worsening sleep habits. (Defne Gurcay / The McGill Tribune)

student club events are usually inconvenient for those in most other time zones. Students face the dilemma of choosing between attending the event and having an irregular sleep schedule or sleeping at a time suitable to their time zone but missing out on social engagement.

This general trend of late timings is largely unaccounted for by student organizers due to a lack of alternatives. Student groups tend to host events after school hours to ensure that those in Montreal are able to attend. To find a solution for international students, student services like International Student Services and the Student

Wellness Hub can equip students with the tools to manage new and unusual routines. These services can also serve to connect students going through the same experiences.

When addressing challenges posed by a pandemic, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Consequently, trying to replicate pre-COVID realities is inadequate. Instead, improving morale requires abandoning previous conceptions of academic excellence and fostering an environment where students can prioritize something integral to their functioning—a good night’s sleep.

Gratitude alone does not help emergency workers

Rory Daly Staff Writer Gratitude, like many conventions observed in everyday life, is remarkably pleasant yet wholly unnecessary. No one would lose sleep without it, but small gestures of thanks have their purpose. Whether someone has held the door open or returned a lost belonging, showing gratitude demonstrates care for others and reminds people that they are worth our time and effort. In the context of the pandemic, gestures as simple as giving someone an extra mask can have a similar impact. However, gratitude alone cannot sustain someone.

Showing thanks is important, but ultimately does not satisfy fundamental needs, which are going unaddressed for many emergency workers.

One popular act of gratitude that emerged during the pandemic is Clap for Our Carers.

During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, many used applause to express appreciation for front-line health professionals. Organized through social media and performed from open windows and balconies, these events originated in countries such as Italy that were hit particularly hard in the early months of the pandemic. The movement became prominent after it spread to Britain, where it continued weekly until the end of May. Similar tokens of thanks have appeared elsewhere in the world, whether plastered on billboards as in Beirut, or lit-up on national monuments, like the Christ the Redeemer statue

in Brazil. In Montreal, police even flashed their lights and sounded their sirens in appreciation.

These acts of gratefulness have unfortunately overshadowed the tangible challenges many of these workers are facing.

In Quebec, around the same time as these campaigns were taking place, the province

that is a positive message, it can conceal the need for extra support to maintain workers’ physical and mental health during this trying situation. The government can regulate overtime rules for individuals who have to work long hours and subsidize extra pay for those working excessive, yet often necessary,

75 per cent of healthcare workers in contact with COVID-19 patients in Canada have reported worsening mental health. (Graham Hughes / The Canadian Press)

was suffering from a critical lack of frontline workers at nursing homes, further compounded by a preexisting lack of funds. This disconnect highlights one of the main issues concerning emergency workers: Rather than viewing them as real people with real needs, they are portrayed as one-dimensional heroes. While

amounts of overtime.

Even as vaccinations are underway, we must acknowledge that the plight of emergency workers will not be remedied overnight. In some parts of Canada, the vaccine rollout has not sufficiently reached frontline workers, with some hospital public relations executives

receiving their inoculations first. Similarly, workers who may not be labelled “frontline workers” but who are nevertheless considered essential workers, such as grocery store employees and teachers, have been given no clear message on when they will be vaccinated.

Gig workers, like delivery drivers, are also in similarly vulnerable positions, as some see them as independent contractors instead of essential workers.

Teachers and professors are other examples of people who are forced to adapt their routines and take on more difficult work for the same pay. Not only are instructors expected to teach both virtually and in-person, but they also have to deal with hostile parents who are facing their own difficulties. University professors who are expected to adapt to constantly changing plans face similar issues. For example, McGill’s Faculty of Arts remote teaching guidelines were modified from Fall 2020 to Winter 2021, a change that impacted both professors and students.

There is no question that gratitude can feel wonderful on the receiving end.

However, kindness cannot keep someone from falling sick, nor can it ensure they have access to fair compensation. While change is necessary on a systemic level, everyone can do better to show tangible appreciation to workers, from McGill students tipping delivery drivers more, to executives and administrators providing better emergency benefits. Platitudes must not drown out the real needs of essential workers, especially not during a time like this.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 7

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

Words with Will lets playwrights talk back to Shakespeare Annual theatre workshop explores cultural imperialism in Shakespeare Erika MacKenzie Staff Writer Content warning: The following deals with discussions of sexual assault and death.

Words with Will is an annual theatre workshop hosted by Repercussion Theatre Company that explores William Shakespeare’s works through a critical lens. Each year, playwrights are invited to personally engage with Shakespeare and his texts, as well as debut their new projects. This year, Works with Will took place from March 2 to 4 on Facebook Live and showcased the plays Black Fly, created by Omari Newton and Amie Lee Lavoie, and Wardo, created by Jimmy Blais.

On the first evening of the three-day event, Repercussion’s Artistic and Executive Director, Amanda Kellock, led a roundtable discussion with the playwrights to talk about their upcoming projects and their relationships to Shakespeare’s work.

Black Fly co-creator Omari Newton noted that his frustration with Shakespeare’s portrayal of BIPOC characters inspired him to write an adaptation of Titus Andronicus. Co-creator Amy Lee Lavoie was also dissatisfied with the lack of agency and dialogue that Shakespeare gave his female characters compared to their male counterparts in the original play.

The workshop allows playwrights to engage with Shakespeare in a way that reflects their personal experiences. (stevennoble.com) In their adaptation, Newton and Lavoie shift the focus away from the Romans and place the attention on the play’s victimized characters, allowing them to gain restitution. Aaron, who plays a minor role in the original play, is a protagonist in Black Fly, and notably speaks in verse with a hip-hop cadence.

Newton elaborated on why he felt it was important to use hip-hop in this adaptation.

“I came into Shakespeare [… and] immediately felt a connection to acting in verse because I was a big hip-hop fan,” Newton said. “Part of my work as a writer […] is to make the establishment recognize that urban art forms are as impressive and as worthy of study and reverence as classic works.”

In the original play, the character Lavinia is

sexually assaulted, mutilated, and then left mute for the rest of the show. In Black Fly, Lavinia regains her voice, which allows her the opportunity to condemn her perpetrator.

During the event’s third evening, Jimmy Blais, the creator of Wardo, discussed how his relationship to Shakespeare as a form of colonialist art inspired him to write Wardo.

“I fell in love with Shakespeare at a young age […] but later in life I started to question Shakespeare’s position in my life, and I started to see it as an abusive relationship in some ways,” Blais said. “It’s hard to get away from the fact that it’s […] a cultural flag for colonialism.”

Inspired by the activists who protested the Coastal Gaslink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en lands in 2020, Blais strived to express his frustrations

with the RCMP’s treatment of Indigenous people through art, and chose Shakespeare as his target.

Wardo is the story of an Indigenous teen, Dylan, who ends up in the home of a Shakespeare-loving family after spending much of his youth in the foster care system. The play explores how Dottie, Dylan’s foster mother, has good intentions in teaching her children Shakespeare, but ultimately falls short in recognizing the colonialism embedded in the playwright’s work.

In the scene that Blais showcased at Words With Will, Dottie takes Dylan and his foster brother to Parliament Hill to roast marshmallows. While playing with a stick, Dylan is tragically shot and killed by RCMP officers, jolting both the play’s characters and its audience back to the reality of the systemic racism that oppresses Indigenous peoples in the Canadian justice system.

When Blais discussed his play, he explained his reluctance to rework an existing Shakespeare text.

“I didn’t want to do it within Shakespeare’s frame,” Blais said. “There’s a big part of me that’s conflicted, but […] in doing Shakespeare in any form, I am perpetuating this colonialist art [....] I feel like at this point in my career […] I am done doing Shakespeare because of the time and space and resources that we still give it still to this day […] and the only way for me to cut ties with it is to burn it down.”

Stuff we liked this Reading Week

For most students, the break was better spent relaxing than studying Erika MacKenzie, Michelle Siegel, Angelica Voutsinas, India Blaisdell, Atsushi Ikeda Staff Writer, Contributors There was no chance we’d be studying over the break. So, with lockdown limiting our options for respite, the solutions to burnout were simple: Media, lots of media.

From a never ending supply of TV shows, books, movies, and music, here are The McGill Tribune’s favourites from Reading Week 2021.

A Discovery of Witches, India Blaisdell Adapted from the trilogy by Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches is a must-watch show for lovers of fantasy and dark academia. Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) is a witch and university professor who, while conducting research at Oxford, accidentally finds a magical book that has been missing for centuries. Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode) is a vampire who believes this book could save vampires, witches, and daemons from extinction. Once Matthew and Diana meet, they quickly fall for each other. Bathed in gorgeous orange and blue lighting, and led by a strong cast and script, the show hooks its audience with an enthralling, romantic, and binge-worthy narrative.

Clone High, Michelle Siegel In the midst of everything 2021 has thrown at students thus far, I found solace in returning to a simpler time: The early 2000s. Released in 2002, Clone High is an odd conglomerate of historical science fiction animation mixed with a healthy dose of parody and self-referential humour. The show follows the teenaged clones of historical figures as they navigate the woes of high school life in the shadow of their biological counterparts. Created

by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse fame and Bill Lawrence of Scrubs fame, Clone High is an angsty and humorous portrait of a time that many university students do not actively remember, yet feel immense ownership and kinship toward.

One Night in Miami, Angelica Voutsinas On Feb. 25, 1964, following Cassius Clay’s shocking defeat of Sonny Liston, the infamous boxer met with Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown to celebrate his historic win. While the world will never know what these four influential actors in the civil rights movement discussed, One Night in Miami depicts playwright Kemp Powers’ fictional account of the evening. The play-turned-film’s one-act structure features a series of conversations between the four together and broken

A&E escaped 2021 by delving into 00’s clone comedies and ‘80s Ted Hughes movies. (Chloe Gordon-Chow / The McGill Tribune) off in pairs, allowing for the cast’s intoxicating performances to shine.

Each actor’s ability to depict such iconic figures—not mention their enthralling group dynamics—makes for a captivating account of this historical and elusive meeting.

You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried, Erika MacKenzie If you are as obsessed with 80s teen movies as I am, you will love Susannah Gora’s 2010 book on the stories behind some of the most beloved movies, filmmakers, and actors of the era. Gora dives into the history behind films like The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Say Anything. She also

discusses John Hughes’ legacy and his reputation as the most prolific writer of the decade. The book explores how the young actors of the 80s, such as Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson, were named the “brat pack” after an infamously unflattering 1985 New York Magazine article was published describing the group as hardpartying, spoiled Hollywood royalty.

Despite the challenges that the article posed for these actors’ careers, their films remained the most cherished works of a generation.

“YESS I’m a MESS,” Wheelchair Sports Camp, Atsushi Ikeda “The hardest shit since MC

Ren”? Contentious maybe, but let’s roll with rap scholar Mac Foster’s comment, since Kalyn Heffernan, the queer, disabled MC of Wheelchair Sports Camp just dropped the hardest track you have heard since lockdown. Think Crumb’s pristine psychedelia mixed with up-yourass brass hits and a flow that is as ruthless as it is relatable; “boo hoo” and “me too.” Better yet, do not think at all and just watch the band tear it up in full PPE as Heffernan flies out of her ballpit of a bedroom to declare “YESS I’m a MESS / YESS I’m in debt / YESS I’m upset / But I got outta bed / So it can’t be that bad / can it?” Just try to answer that one.

Isolated nights The changing landscape of Montreal’s nightlife Leyla Moy, Student Life Editor

In March 2020, many McGill students unwittingly set off on what would be their last night out for a very long time. Students currently sequestered at home often long for nights spent in dimly lit, sweaty spaces. Even for those who abandoned the Saint-Laurent club scene after their first year at McGill, the loss of Montreal’s 2SLGBTQIA+ and alternative nightlife spaces, along with the unique sense of community fostered within, has been deeply felt.

As lockdowns swept across the globe, most will remember where they were when restrictions first affected them directly. Drag queen Uma Gahd was midway through a drag brunch.

“During the brunch, the staff had to get up and lock the doors because [...] the lockdown was put in place in the middle of our show,” Gahd said. “So we basically looked at the audience and we were like, ‘You’re allowed to leave if you want, but we can’t let anyone in. And this is the last thing you’re going to be doing for a while.’”

The beating heart of Montreal’s nightlife was quickly quieted as fears mounted about the spread of the virus. Everything appealing about nights out—the anonymity of crowds, the promise of encounters with strangers—was antithetical to the measures now required to curb viral spread.

Will Straw, a professor in McGill’s Department of Art History and Communication Studies, is researching the urban night and the structures that govern it. He recounted the near-instant impact of the pandemic on nighttime culture across the world.

“Between [...] March 7 and March 15, 2020, you had this massive shutdown of nightlife around much of the world,” Straw said. “So we can really say the culture of the night was one of the first non-human victims of the pandemic, because it was believed [that you had to] begin by controlling what people do at night.”

Montreal has long been known for its nighttime thrills. During the prohibition era, the city’s proximity to east coast cities in the U.S. earned it a reputation as a party haven for parched Americans. This reputation persisted throughout the 20th century, as Montreal became internationally recognized for its jazz and nightclub scene even as organized crime and police corruption rendered the city’s nights uncontrolled and dangerous.

More recently, some feel that Montreal’s nights have become overly controlled through increased police presence and prohibitive licensing restrictions, stifling some of the freedom that previously defined it. Although attempts to monitor nightlife predated the pandemic, nighttime culture remains a significant—and somewhat unavoidable—casualty of the last year. This loss was well-documented across the internet, from Peter McCabe’s eerie Empty Montreal photo series to YouTube videos pronouncing the city’s nightlife dead and gone.

Nightlife entertainers like Gahd and her real-life husband, who goes by both Noah and Selma Gahd on stage, had to quickly adapt to online shows. Inspired by drag gamer Sierra Myst, the pair set up a unified House of Gahd Twitch channel where they now host a variety of virtual drag events. As a frequent hostess of her own drag theatre events and countless viewing parties, Uma Gahd initially felt a sense of disconnect with her audience, which faded as the two leveraged the streaming site’s features to improve the interactivity of performances.

“It’s great that [...] my audience from the bars followed me online [and] I know what’s going on [in the chat] to the point where when I’m looking in the camera, I feel like I’m looking at them,” Gahd said. “The feeling of disconnect and the uncertainty [...] diminished, and I’m blessed to have a quality relationship with my audience that’s [...] unique and just as rich as when I was in person at the bars.”

Design: Chloe Rodriguez / The McGill Tribune

Online shows, while limited in their ability to mimic reality, can have an important role in keeping communities connected amid a turbulent, isolated year. In October, Gahd hosted an online edition of her in-person show Church alongside Ottawa psychotherapist and drag king Cyril Cinder, titled Mental HELL-th, in response to the despair she observed as the pandemic dragged on. Uniting drag audiences from two cities, they discussed mental health, community, and resilience. In her regular circuit of online events, Gahd is motivated by a desire to foster connection within her audience.

“I want people to feel uplifted and seen,” Gahd said. “I want people to feel included, like, literally included. I want people to feel like I’m talking to them and they’re talking to me. During the pandemic, people needed that sense of connection, they needed to feel like they weren’t alone in their apartments.”

Gahd described hosting an online watch party in February for the RuPaul’s Drag Race documentary Corona Can’t Keep a Good Queen Down, which some feared would be a grim reminder of the tumultuous past year and the still-uncertain future. As the stream concluded, Gahd congratulated her audience on coping through a difficult year and marvelled at the resilience of the drag community.

“I was on the stream and I was starting to cry, and then people in the chat were telling me that they were crying [It showed] the power of social media and drag coming together [....] I can cry on the internet because [...] I’m celebrating my community [which] is still there with me, and that’s so powerful,” Gahd said.

For Mauro Pezzente, who owns the live music venues Casa del Popolo and La Sala Rossa with his partner Kiva Stimac, hosting online shows was a matter of duty to the artists they showcase at their venues.

“One of the reasons Kiva and I [...] started our venue was to support artists who performed music that 20 years ago was seen to be very weird,” Pezzente said. “Our venues [...] were there and are there as a free space [for] artists to perform their art. So as much as we can, [...] we’re trying to support artists by giving them online video gigs [and paying them through our government subsidies].”

In June, Pezzente announced the closing of the couple’s third venue La Vitrola, which joined a growing list of small, independent music venues shuttered by the pandemic. At the time, government rent subsidy was insufficient to keep small venues afloat. Small business owners have since pushed the provincial government to instate the Emergency Assistance Program for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (PAUPME). Pezzente credits this aid, alongside the Canada Emergency Rent and Wage Subsidies, for the survival of Casa del Popolo and La Sala Rossa, although the support came too late to save La Vitrola.

Financial strain on small music venues had been plaguing Montreal’s independent music scene long before the pandemic. The loss of Divan Orange and relocation of Le Cagibi in the Mile End, along with the closing of Katacombes near Places des Arts, highlighted the threat of both rent hikes spurred by gentrification and conflicts over nighttime noise in neighbourhoods that were rapidly changing in character. In October, Bar Le Ritz PDB was denied a request to delay a court hearing for a noise complaint lodged in 2019 until after the pandemic. Evidently, the pandemic has exacerbated existing issues Montreal’s nightlife establishments face.

Over the summer, Casa del Popolo’s stage was removed to accommodate retail space for the in-house print shop Popolo Press, and La Sala Rossa was set up as a studio for live online music streams. As a venue owner, Pezzente feels a sense of responsibility to support artists, and to facilitate paid online shows—even if these events produce little income for the larger business.

“A lot of venues are totally shut [...] and not doing anything [online],” Pezzente said. “As much as I understand that [...], I question why everyone has to be 100 per cent closed and not do something to support artists.”

Gahd also emphasized the importance of directly supporting independent artists who share their work online. Unlike venues that receive some level of government funding, the artists who contributed to the texture of in-person nightlife have faced even more financial precarity during the pandemic. For online drag, this support entails tipping whenever possible and spreading the word about online shows.

Looking toward the transitional period and post-pandemic future of Montreal’s night culture, Will Straw is advocating for nighttime activities to be spread out in space and time. In a CBC video, Straw envisioned a post-pandemic map that disperses nightlife away from downtown Montreal and onto Beaubien St., Sainte-Catherine Street E., Monkland Ave. in NDG, and the Saint-Michel neighbourhood. Straw also believes that allowing bars and clubs to stay open later will both create safer, less crowded spaces as the pandemic fades. The idea of spreading out nightlife temporarily during the pandemic is borrowed from conversations about nighttime safety in Manchester, U.K., where authorities proposed that by leaving pubs open until later hours, venues could limit the altercations that were expected to arise when all patrons leave at the same time. “[In the summer of 2020,] when the city of Montreal was trying to think of what to do about the night, [...] they had the idea of trying to space it out, have lots of streets in different neighbourhoods with tables in the streets and bars and restaurants [with] terrasses,” Straw said. “The problem is [...] they still made it necessary to close at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m [due to restrictions].”

As artists anticipate the end of our socially distanced nights, Uma Gahd sees the potential for blended online and in-person nightlife to continue during the transitional period.

“We did notice that there was an interest in doing shows dual [online and inperson],” Gahd said. “During that transition period [...] we might continue to do some of our shows online and in person [...] There’s going to be a period where we figure out what people [will] keep coming back for online and what was just filling the gap.”

Broadly, Gahd foresees the pandemic changing the face of drag, from the interactions performers can safely have with audience members to individual artists’ relationships with their work. Those who managed to weather the storm will emerge armed with an arsenal of technical skills and the support of a loyal community willing to follow them through uncertainty.

Straw, a longtime Montreal resident, is hopeful about the potential for the pandemic to bring about a new era of smaller scale, varied nightlife. In particular, he hopes that government support for nighttime culture in the form of grants may help reinvigorate the city’s downtown.

“I hope that [post-COVID reopening can be] a chance to reinvent nightlife to a certain extent, make it more small scale, and make it more interesting and creative,” Straw said. “There’s a big interest in what [we can] do to save downtown Montreal after COVID, [so if] we have a lot of unused empty space in Montreal’s downtown, [...] I say, let the government give grants [to] McGill students or others to create new kinds of alternative spaces.”

Gahd envisions a similarly triumphant return to the drag bar scene once restrictions are lifted.

“Honestly, I’m looking forward to that first Drag Race screening at the bar where I know it’s going to be disgusting,” Gahd said.

“People are going to be crammed in there, sweaty, [...] nasty and gross, and I’m going to walk out on stage and they’re going to register the screaming and clapping on the Richter scale.”

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

10 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Accessing local arts scenes— TikTok style

How Montreal artists are finding space to thrive on TikTok Deana Korsunsky Staff Writer Continued from page 1.

But it is possible to use this algorithm to work for you, not at you. Recently, I embarked on a quest to discover the Montreal side of TikTok. Several “mtl” hashtag searches later, my feed figured out what I wanted.

Indeed, the Montrealers of TikTok have fostered a community on the app, sharing inside jokes about the city’s various neighbourhoods, its penchant for ongoing construction, and its pre-pandemic nightlife. Recently, one TikTok that features a comedic, fauxFrench-accent voiceover assigning various Montreal icicles ratings from one to 10 went viral, amassing 4.3 million views. The user who posted the video, Maryze, is a Montrealbased alt-pop singer, whose TikTok follower count grew by 20,000 within the first few days of posting the video. In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Maryze admitted that she did not anticipate going viral, but was particularly pleased with how many TikTok followers became listeners of her music.

“I received a lot of messages from people who [wrote], ‘We came for the icicles but we stayed for the music,’” Maryze said. “I was getting about 50 song plays a day, but when the icicle video came out, my music was up to [about] 500 plays a day.”

As Maryze noted that when she was inundated with icicle-related comments, fellow Montreal artist and TikToker Eve Parker Finley reached out to offer support and encouragement.

Musician, singer, and sketch comedian Eve Parker Finley observed how, like many millennials, she downloaded TikTok at the start of the pandemic to pass the time. Eventually she ended up making short comedy videos in October 2020, inspired by the TikTok culture and the medium itself.

“I was so enthralled by its intense energy,” Finley said. “[Making TikToks] turned into a way to connect with people and also grow an online community. People discover me through comedy, but then also come to see my music, and vice versa.”

As an entertainment platform, TikTok does not limit the scope of its creators’ videos. Finley’s content ranges from showing off her instrumental abilities—her repertoire includes violin, viola, piano, and saxophone—to reacting to viral videos, to lovingly poking fun at Montreal life. Yet, the platform appears to function beyond simply connecting artists to audiences. Finley recalled one of her videos, in which she films a mattress on the street, with “Je reste debout jusqu’à la fin” spray painted on it.

“People are always like, ‘The Montreal art scene is dead,’” Finley says in the video.

“And I’m like, ‘Oh really? Take that.’”

It only took a few hours for this video to make its way over to Lorem Ipsum, the very art collective that spray-painted the mattress.

Through the power of the algorithm alone, artists are able to connect on TikTok, signalling an evolution toward digital collaboration.

Montreal drag queen Matante Alex also enjoys the sense of community she has found through TikTok. Her content largely consists

While the Montreal side of TikTok is active and entertaining, many local artists are still hesitating to join the platform. (bark.us) of makeup and drag outfit videos, masterfully edited to emphasize transformations with sassy voiceovers peppered throughout.

“I like replying to [commenters and] being sarcastic with them,” Alex says. “On Instagram, there is no interaction.”

TikTok’s sense of community permeates the platform from a local to a worldwide scale. Fans can gain an authentic, personality-driven perspective of an artist while also engaging in more personal interactions.

“People don’t follow you for that one specific thing you do,” Alex says. “They follow you because of you.”

Much of Alex’s content is in French. She noted that while the TikTok Francophone community is smaller than the Anglophone one, local Francophones can still quickly build a following and community.

Increased viewership can build a community, but it can also result in the need to remain consistent in maintaining one’s brand. Professional drummer and TikToker Domino Santantonio has gone viral from her drumming videos, which have garnered over 650,000 TikTok followers and even scored her an invite to TikTok’s “It Starts On TikTok” campaign. Santantonio, with her signature high-ponytail, has created a brand for herself covering well-known songs on her drum set out of her home studio. Now, collaborating with brands from all over the world, Santantonio felt the pressure to post everyday, a common sentiment among artists on TikTok. “I try to post every day, but sometimes it’s hard to be regular,” Santantonio said.

“You have to be creative and sometimes you just don’t feel it.”

For Domino, however, this pressure acts as a compelling force to produce quality content and keep fans engaged. Consistently posting content is simply becoming an alternate career.

In the wake of the pandemic, Cirque du Soleil temporarily laid off the majority of its staff, leaving many performers stageless. No longer performing in Axel, Cirque’s ice show, Abad Al-Obaidi, skater and artist, began performing on TikTok, posting ice skating and acrobatics trick videos daily. AlObaidi, however, is no stranger to performing digitally. He has garnered over 600,000 TikTok followers not only through sheer talent, but also from his pre-existing fan bases on Flipagram and Musical.ly, which later became TikTok. The content creator veteran has encouraged his performer friends to join the app, pointing to the potential it holds for the art community.

“I keep telling all my artist friends, ‘You need to get on TikTok,’” Al-Obaidi said. “There are no rules. You will find people who like what you’re doing and you can focus on your art.”

Slowly but surely, the app is proving to be a looking glass into the Montreal art community. Many Montreal artists have yet to join the platform, but the momentum is building: Noted singer and comedian Tranna Wintour recently joined, as well as band La Fièvre. Artists are beginning to realize that the platform stands out among other social media networks. Users can attempt to localize their For You page to their respective communities, and they may ultimately find that discovering new artists during a pandemic is not as impossible as it seems.

Conversation with Margaret Atwood

Commemorate International Women’s Day with Atwood and Bianca Wylie Mar. 9, 2:00 p.m.

Free, Online

CASCO 2021: Met Gala

A talent and fashion show to raise money for the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Mar. 12, 8:00 p.m. $6.32, Online

De Yerevan à Montréal (Webdiffusion)

Armenian-Canadian soprano Aline Kutan will perform songs from Armenia and Montreal.

Mar. 9 - 23, 7:30 p.m. $20.00 plus tax, Online

Nuit Blanche au Musée | at the Museum

Manuel Mathieu leads audiences through a visit of the Montreal Museum of Fine Art Mar. 13, 5:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.

Free, Online

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

11

Determining the criteria for postmortem organ donation International study examines standards of declaring a patient deceased

Cyril Kazan Contributor In the past, a person’s death was determined by the absence of breathing and a heartbeat.

However, the introduction of the mechanical ventilator has complicated death determination.

In patients with severe damage to the brain, breathing stops, which causes the heart to stop beating.

Through life support, doctors can now keep a patient clinically alive by mechanically ventilating them with a machine, even if they do not have a functioning brain.

“When things cannot get better with time or treatment, all life support does is prolong an inevitable death,” Dr. Sam Shemie, an intensive care doctor at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McGill, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “When the patient cannot recover, or cannot recover with any quality of life, there is usually a decision with the family to stop life support.”

In cases of brain death, doctors often bring up the question of organ donation to the

Five minutes is a safe waiting time to call death. (The Mercury) patient’s family.

“Someone’s inevitable death can still help many other people through organ donation, to prevent death for other people,” Shemie said.

Some organ donations, like kidney transplants, can be performed with no significant impact on a living donor’s health.

When it comes to donating vital organs, the “dead donor rule,” an ethical and legal requirement in Canada and the United States, states that the donor must be deceased before their organs are removed.

Until recently there was no formal scientific study defining when exactly a patient can be considered dead. The “fiveminute rule” was the most widely accepted standard, which simply suggests that doctors should wait five minutes after removing the patient from life support before proceeding with organ removal.

An international study conducted in three countries including Canada was the first to examine the five-minute rule in great detail. Shemie, who is also the senior investigative researcher of the study, described

the goals of their inquiry.

“We wanted to confirm that this is a safe waiting period before proceeding to donation,” Shemi said.

The results showed that out of 480 patients, there were 67 instances where a resumption of cardiac activity was detected, all within a maximum of four minutes and 20 seconds after the removal of life support.

“At the end of life, the heart can sputter, stop, and restart transiently to a minor degree before it stops completely,” Shemie said. “But as long as we wait five minutes, it is safe.

These transient resumptions are of unclear significance.”

Organ donation is a race against time, as any unnecessary delay increases the risk of unsuccessful transplantation and deterioration of the organs. The study confirmed that five minutes is a safe waiting time.

“Once the heart stops beating, all the organs that can be transplanted start to suffer, so they have to be removed for transplant very quickly,” Shemie said. “We don’t have to wait more, and we shouldn’t wait

less.”

The most common form of organ donation in Canada remains donation from patients who are brain dead, meaning an absence of activity is detected from electrical measurements of a patient’s brain. It is important to distinguish brain death from cardiac death, where the brain may still have some residual function when life support is removed. In the case of cardiac death, the study has shown that waiting five minutes after the removal of the ventilation machine assures that the patient is dead and that it is safe to proceed with organ donation. “[The results] just add to the trust of families, doctors, and nurses,” Shemie said. “If any doctor has ever seen the heart restart beating on its own, they might have some questions or concerns about that. We now have answered this question very clearly. Our goal as doctors is to save as many lives as we can [….] Organ donation is really the intersection of the unpreventable death of one person, and the preventable death of many people.”

Study finds gender gap continues to persist in archaeology More women receive doctorates in archaeology, but more men are tenured Laurie Chan Contributor For centuries, women have fought to have their scientific contributions recognized, and the challenge to secure tenuretrack positions in academia is no different.

Despite women representing two-thirds of all Canadian doctorates in archaeology today, they only comprise one-third of the country’s tenured faculty.

Lisa Overholtzer, an assistant professor of archaeology in McGill’s Department of Anthropology, and Catherine Jalbert, a member of the advisory board of the Canadian Archaeological Association, conducted a study that examined gender disparities in academia, probing four main areas: Doctorates earned, research awards received, tenure-stream faculty, and the placement of PhDs. Using data from Statistics Canada, Overholtzer and Jalbert analyzed PhD recipients by gender over the past 15 years.

They found that women received 58 per cent of archaeology doctorates during the 15-year period, and that two-thirds of all archaeology PhD recipients in the last five years were women. The current representation in faculties, however, does not reflect these statistics, with women composing only 33 per cent of archaeology faculty members across Canada.

Overholtzer and Jalbert found that some women leave academic positions

Researchers say that women are falling through the so-called “leaky pipeline” of academia.

(Daria Kiseleva / The McGill Tribune) due to its “chilly climate,” a term that refers to the subtle practices that stereotype, exclude, and devalue women in the workplace. These actions include gender stereotyping, dismissing women-led research accomplishments, perpetuating sexual harassment, and ignoring the disproportion-

ate care responsibilities of women.

According to the study, obstacles facing women in the field became more prominent when the representation of women reached a level considered threatening by men—somewhere between 20 and 35 per cent. Such obstacles pushed women out of the discipline, a trend the study termed the “leaky pipeline.”

“The biggest leak in the ‘pipeline’ happens precisely at the moment we are close to breaking the glass ceiling—that is, entering as assistant professor,” Overholtzer said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “The point that we saw most women leaving was right after getting a PhD and before getting a tenure-track job.”

The study shows that women’s lower success rates in grant competitions, tenure-track job searches, and tenure-track hiring in archaeology all contribute to poor retention of women in the proverbial pipeline of archaeology.

“Given that these women are doing so well on the market in the U.S., I do not think you can say that all women archaeologists are unqualified, poorly trained, or [are] leaving academia entirely,” Overholtzer said.

While this study focusses on gender disparities within archaeology, the findings closely mirror sexism in other fields.

“As it turns out, archaeology in Canada fairly closely approximates the average

for all the professoriate overall,” Overholtzer said. “Malinda Smith, [a Canadian political scientist], demonstrated how despite the increasing number of women as PhD recipients, the faculty representation remains stalled at one third. That is exactly the number we found for archaeology overall.”

These gender disparities are often more pronounced for women with other marginalized identities.

A recent survey by the Canadian Archaeology Association (CAA) of Canadian archaeology faculty found that between 87 and 90 per cent of the 551 respondents self-identified as white. The Indigenous and Latin American scholars were represented in similar numbers to the Canadian population, at 5.3 and 1.1 per cent respectively. However, Black and Asian archaeologists were starkly underrepresented in the survey, at zero and 2.7 per cent.

Overholtzer hopes this research will prompt people to think critically about hiring practices to identify where biases must be addressed. She aims to use her position as an assistant professor to open doors for more women and people from underrepresented communities.

“Part of the reason we talk about needing to diversify higher education [is because] faculty serve as role models,” Overholtzer said. “If you see yourself represented in the professoriate, then you see a place for you.”

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

From the BrainSTEM: The ocean is scary but deserving of love The depths of the ocean are largely uncharted and full of potential

Zoe Karkossa Staff Writer Despite covering more than two thirds of Earth’s surface, the ocean remains notoriously unexplored. In fact, the American budget for ocean exploration is 150 times smaller than that for space exploration, which has successfully captured cultural and public imagination for decades. While the moon’s surface has been mapped to a resolution of seven metres and that of Mars to six metres, the best maps of the ocean only have a resolution of slightly over one kilometre.

There are a host of reasons limiting ocean exploration.

From the technological challenges of mapping the ocean floor through kilometres of water to a common fear of the dark abyss, the Earth’s waters rarely receive the same level of enthusiasm as deep space exploration. However, the ocean is far more significant to modern human life and its sheer size holds great potential for discovery.

The health of the ocean is essential for human well-being.

From an atmospheric standpoint, plankton in the ocean produces between 50 and 80 per cent of the oxygen on Earth. One species known as Prochlorococcus produces 20 per cent of Earth’s oxygen, more than all of the tropical rainforests on land combined. The ocean also absorbs 25 per cent of the carbon dioxide humans emit every year.

Earth’s oceans have a large impact on weather and climate, playing major roles in the distribution of precipitation and moisture around the globe, and storing solar radiation. Additionally, it distributes heat throughout the planet, which is essential for temperature and weather regulation, even on dry land.

The flora and fauna of the ocean are also of great importance. Seafood has been a part of the human diet for millennia, and the increased demand has put a strain on fish populations.

The ocean hosts an incredible array of biodiversity: 91 per cent

Tiny shelled organisms called foraminifera have been used to analyze the evolution of Earth’s climate and ocean conditions over the past 250 million years. (National Turk)

of the 2.2 million marine eukaryotic species have yet to be identified. Marine eukaryotes make up a quarter of all species on the planet, and more than half of them may be on the verge of extinction by 2100.

A better understanding of the effects of climate change on the oceans can allow scientists to mitigate environmental damage. Additionally, gathering data on the oceans is essential for developing sustainable management of marine natural resources, from sustainable shrimp and salmon farming to deepwater drilling.

Scientific progress in a variety of fields benefits directly from ocean exploration. Underwater sediments can reveal the history of tectonic activity, and researchers can predict tsunamis and their impacts by using computer models of the ocean floor.

Natural products found in the ocean also have numerous applications in the medical industry. Substances found in plants and animals have been used for treating illnesses throughout

human history and still have their place in modern healthcare.

Marine substances also provide essential compounds used in modern medicine, such as chronic pain medication developed from cone snail venom and herpes treatment developed from sea sponges.

It is impossible to predict what strange organisms remain to be discovered in Earth’s oceans, considering the surprises of “immortal” jellyfish, and Jurassic era microbes that would need to be observed for a thousand years to ensure they are alive. Even the giant squid, which had long been mythologized as the beastly Kraken, was only caught on camera in the depths of the ocean in 2004.

The ocean is likely filled to the brim with valuable discoveries. Learning more about the depths of Earth’s waters and the innumerable forms that life can take is a worthy pursuit.

Human curiosity has driven the discovery of our planet’s hidden expanses for millennia and the ocean is worthy of our time, effort, and passion.

Fact or Fiction: Does money really buy happiness?

McGill study bolsters the argument that money does not buy happiness Margaret Wdowiak Staff Writer Many communities continue to live traditional lifestyles detached from moneybased markets. Yet contrary to popular belief, they lead fulfilling lives and their mental well-being is comparable to individuals living in moneyfueled societies. This prompts the age-old question of whether money truly buys happiness.

In recent decades, people with more money have been shown to be happier. Financial insecurity, on the other hand, is associated with stress-related health problems such as heart disease and high blood pressure.

However, skeptics argue that money is not the key to happiness because one can never have enough of it. The more wealth someone has accrued, the more they seek out monetary gain. This occurs because the more money one has, the less effective it is at bringing comfort and pleasure. Research argues that once people have their basic human needs met, the increase in happiness associated

with

each dollar diminishes.

There are three main reasons for this phenomenon. Firstly, once people are financially secure, they overestimate the value of excess funds—humans are adaptable, and swiftly adjust to new wealth

compare themselves to their peers, rendering happiness fleeting; in such instances relative happiness matters more than absolute happiness.

Another challenge to the notion that money can buy

Rising income stops increasing happiness after 75,000 dollars a year (blog.policystreet) and everything it affords.

Therefore, the satisfaction from higher earnings quickly fades.

Secondly, studies have shown that increased economic standing leads to stress that arises from lifestyle changes that include moving to the suburbs, where longer commute times to and from work induce anxiety.

Finally, money-fixated societies encourage people to

happiness is that high happiness levels have been observed in less economically developed nations.

A recent study conducted by a group of McGill researchers found that high levels of wellbeing can be achieved in minimally monetized societies.

“In a minimally monetized society, people don’t need money to fulfill their basic needs,” Eric Galbraith, a professor in

McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

“Instead they can grow or forage their own food and build most of their own houses and tools.”

The researchers compared the subjective well-being levels in the Solomon Islands, a remote island chain in the western Pacific, and that of low-income communities in Bangladesh to high income societies in the West. They conducted a survey measuring emotional well-being, affect balance, and momentary affect.

Emotional well-being refers to the mood generated from a particular experience, while affect balance measures the difference between positive and negative emotions.

To determine affect balance, researchers interviewed participants about the emotions they had experienced the previous day. Data on momentary affect was studied by telephoning participants at random times to assess their emotional state.

The team found high subjective well-being within minimally monetized societies.

“We were surprised to find that people in the least monetized society reported being just as

happy as people in the wealthiest countries, and reported being much happier than people in monetized societies with low incomes,” Galbraith wrote.

Solomon Islanders reported sources of happiness such as nature and relaxation, while Bangladeshis emphasized the importance of social and material factors.

“The answers we got from the less monetized societies were more about experience, more about certain activities, and they were less about social ties and economic outcomes,” Christopher Barrington-Leigh, an associate professor in McGill Department of Economics, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

Overall, the study challenges the perception that personal financial growth inevitably leads to increased life satisfaction.

“Our results show that, although people with high incomes are (on average) happier, it’s not the income itself that matters,” Galbraith wrote. “Rather, it’s probably a combination of factors like the freedom to make choices, social recognition, and living within a functioning society that matters.”

STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

13

The history behind Women’s History Month

From California school district to international stage Maya Mau Staff Writer Content warning: Sexual assault What started as Women’s History Day on March 19, 1911 eventually became Women’s History Month, an international worldwide celebration in March. Today, Women’s History Month prompts us to commemorate the powerful women who have changed the world and advocated for gender equality.

Although two lengthy world wars saw more women working outside the home in roles previously filled by men, social and political change was largely pushed to the back burner throughout these periods of crises. Nevertheless, women advocated for their labour to be recognized and for more employment opportunities. During the first celebrations in 1911, over one million people worldwide marched for social reform on March 19. There was a growing consciousness that women should not be confined to the domestic sphere and should have access to the professional world outside the home.

The United Nations has sponsored International Women’s Day since 1975 to spotlight the fight for gender equality. In 1978, a California school district dedicated a week to educating students about women’s contributions to culture, history, and society.

The idea spread quickly––U.S. President Jimmy Carter made Women’s History Week official in 1980. Six years later, in 1987, a National Women’s History Project petition successfully extended the celebration to one full month.

Although the Canadian government officially recognizes Women’s History Month in October, many Canadians still celebrate women who have made an impact in March. There have been many notable Canadian women throughout history, such as the Famous Five, who advocated for women’s political rights in the 1920s when the Canadian government did not legally recognize women as people. Feminist activists have shaped the Canadian social landscape and paved the way for better legal rights and professional opportunities for women. However, figures like the Famous Five also leave behind a fraught legacy of racism, eugenics, and anti-immigration. In celebrating their achievements, it is crucial to recognize that their advocacy did not include

all women.

Marie-Lynn Mansour, U3 Engineering and McGill Women in Tech’s vice-president (VP) external, and Safiya Rizwan, U2 Science and VP communication, emphasize the importance honouring the women who have fought for gender equality.

“We cherish Women’s History Month as it is a time to honour and recognize the past, [to] acknowledge accomplishments made [in] the present, and [to] work towards improving the future,” Mansour and Rizwan wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune.

“We believe there is no better way to learn than from understanding the history of the struggles women have endured as well as their triumphs. [In addition], we believe Women’s History Month is also a time to

The United Nations has sponsored International Women’s Day since 1975 (Isabella Vella / The McGill Tribune)

inspire younger women to become passionate about their rights.”

In celebrating Women’s History Month, it is crucial to examine the figures we celebrate and recognize that meaningful feminism must be intersectional. There are many women from marginalized backgrounds who have not always enjoyed the same rights as white women or seen their advocacy recognized––a trend which continues today.

Among them is Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who helped other African Americans make their way to Canada in the early 19th century, and founded a weekly publication to assist other escaped and formerly enslaved people. Edith Anderson Monture, a Mohawk WWI veteran, was the first Indigenous woman to gain the right to vote in a Canadian federal election and the first to become a registered nurse during WWI. Lea Lepik, U4 Arts and co-president of McGill Women in Leadership, believes that it is particularly important for McGill students to recognize current and past gender inequalities within the university’s community. In particular, Lepik noted recent sexual assault allegations on campus.

“The fight against patriarchy (among other sources of oppression) is far from over, as is evidenced by the tragic events of last semester in which a string of sexual assaults on campus came to light,” Lepik wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Having experienced on-campus violence myself, this hit close to home as I could, unfortunately, relate to the brave women who came forward.

I stand by them and hope they are able to get justice and some peace.”

Montreal lights up with Luminothérapie Art in Quartier des Spectacles illuminates quiet nights Holly Wethey Contributor Under curfew, the city sleeps early. The flame of Montreal’s infamous nightlife seems to have been extinguished, leaving no trace of the nocturnal glowscape it once was.

If you have wandered downtown recently, you’ve likely encountered a series of spinning wheels in Quartier des Spectacles. These glowing rings are no alien spacecrafts––they are part of the public art installation LOOP, which hopes to bring back the light that the city has been missing.

LOOP, the 2016-2017 winner of the Luminotherapié multidisciplinary competition for public art installations, features 13 giant glowing loops, which use visual art, light, and sound to pay homage to Quebec authors and artists.

Olivier Girouard, the artistic director of Ekumen, the company behind LOOP, began the project in 2017. His background in music helped him create LOOP. “The tools that you use for live performance and outdoor performance art are basically the same,”Girouard said in an interview

with The McGill Tribune. “Once you’ve done that, it’s easy to transpose that into bigger space.”

Girouard and fellow artist Jonathan Villeneuve were also interested in creating a public merrygo-round, but could not do so for security reasons. Instead, they found a creative alternative.

“I had just run the Toronto marathon and I was interested in human-powered machines,” Girouard said. “With LOOP, we used that same idea and we took the merry-go-round and flipped it on its side.”

The artists were inspired by the Zoetrope, a device that predates film reels and uses the same circular motion to produce moving images.

“We reproduced [the Zoetrope] with flickering light,” Girouard said.

“The brain creates the illusion that the images are moving.”

This year, LOOP took an interesting turn when SODEC, a government organization supporting Quebec’s cultural enterprises, was invited to show a piece at the Frankfurt Book Fair, an event which features a pavilion dedicated to a different country each year. This year, with Canada being featured, SODEC

hoped to highlight Quebecois culture in the installation and reached out to the creators of LOOP to do a variation of the piece for the book fair.

“SODEC wanted Quebec to be more represented and approached Quartier des Spectacles to do an installation, and we adapted that this year into a new version of LOOP, with 12 stories all representing a Quebec author or book,” Girouard said.

Each loop tells its own story, such as that of the children’s book AuDelà de la Forêt by Nadine Robert and Gérard Dubois. The images depict the tale of a rabbit curious about what lies across its forest and climbs the trees only to find a deer in another forest staring back at him.

Not only does the exhibition feature a wide assortment of literature, but its interactivity makes it unique. The lever-pulling action required to activate the installations keeps visitors warm during the winter months.

“In the public space, interactivity is really important,” Girouard said.

“What makes [LOOP] special is the different layers of experience; from a distance it’s a light sculpture, already an experience from afar. When you

LOOP, a series of glowing, spinning wheels, is the 2016-2017 winner of the Luminothérapie public art competition. (Reem Abdul Majid / The McGill Tribune) get closer, you see people activating it and you have the option of activating or not. It’s a combination of the sound, the images, the literature, and the sculpture; a meeting of all that art together.”

LOOP is not the only installation to light up Place des Arts this year; Entre les Rangs allows visitors to walk through a variety of ethereal winter vegetation, and Nouvelle Lune uses music, shadows, and light to reveal images representing the culture of the Quartier des Spectacles.

Girouard is also behind Coeur Battant, a five-minute light show on Rue St. Catherine that can be seen every night at 6:00 p.m. from different buildings throughout Montreal.

“I wanted to create a piece in solidarity with the public and artists of Montreal to say that we’re still here,” Girouard said. “It’s a fiveminute short story representing the year we’ve just been through—the disillusion, the changes, but with an ending describing better days ahead.”

14 STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

Student Refugee Program changes lives through education

Student integration is top priority for the refugee resettlement program Taneeshaa Pradhan Contributor Continued from page 1.

“While we are assisted by WUSC [...], the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and the Canadian government, it’s mostly the Local Committee that takes care of the ins and outs of integration for the students,” Ishimwe said in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

The student-led Local Committee prioritizes the creation of a peer support network that connects resettled students with one another. Ishimwe described the importance of student involvement in the Local Committee.

“We call it the Peer-to-Peer Sponsorship model,” Ishimwe said. The big organizations help us with interviews on the ground [...] in the camps [...], but when students come here they are our responsibility.”

Student-led support begins from the moment students arrive at the airport. To SRP scholars like

Manyang Lual Jok, U3 Science, who arrived in Montreal in 2017, these efforts help to create a support system.

“What makes WUSC unique in terms of integration is the point that [...] the first people who pick you up are schoolmates, [ which makes] it easier to interact and ask questions,” Jok said. “For all of us, the first point of contact is always the Local Committee [....] They can go on to become your mentors.”

The SRP program currently relocates students from Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda to Canada and sponsors the students’ expenses for one year, after which they can apply for federal student loans. In the six countries where the SRP operates, there are government-mandated restrictions on higher education. JeanneArmelle Uwilingiyimana, U3 Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, explained the necessity of a program like SRP in aiding her relocation to Montreal from Malawi in 2017.

“The whole experience was a life-changing opportunity [....] In

my cohort, 250 people applied and 22 were selected,” Uwilingiyimana said in an interview with the Tribune. “It is very soughtafter [....] When you graduate high school, you could apply to university but [...] the government does not fund refugees or nonMalawians to go to university [....]

I don’t see how my future would have been beyond WUSC.” WUSC McGill recognizes that limited quotas on students admitted through SRP to Canadian universities can leave behind many deserving students during the selection process. Ishimwe explained that in an effort to address this constraint, the upcoming Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) referendum will include a question that asks for an increase in the fees that students pay to support the program. “[Currently], each student at McGill [is] paying $2 per semester to help us sustain the program,” Ishimwe said. “We are going to see if we can increase that due to the high number of refugees across the world, especially because of COVID-19.”

The McGill Local Committee welcomes three new SRP scholars each year.

(WUSC McGill) The organization hopes to increase the student fee from $2 to $4 through the referendum. 2018 SRP scholar Gattuoch Kuon, U2 Science, explained the significance

of this proposed change.

“To do good for the world [...], don’t see it as four bucks,” Kuon said. See it as four people and their families. You are changing lives.”

Opening up Saint-Henri’s community fridge Le Frigo Communautaire allows neighbours to share food Josephine Wang Staff Writer

one, located behind Friperie Sidneys at 5165 rue Notre Dame Ouest.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated food insecurity—with unemployment and poverty rates skyrocketing, healthy groceries have become unaffordable to many. Thankfully, Le Frigo Communautaire is receiving a consistent

staircase,” Chevalot said. “We would rush to get everything to the fridge [.…] We made more and more partnerships with local merchants.”

As many people regularly frequent the fridge, most of the supplies are quick to run out and some residents cannot arrive in time to access their share. To address the demand,

A little over four years ago, a previously unhoused man in Saint-Henri came up with an idea to give back to his community. Seeing that there were few resources available in the east of Montreal to individuals in precarious financial situations, he decided to start a community fridge to ensure access to healthy food and reduce food waste. The idea behind the initiative is straightforward: Stationed in a public space, the community refrigerator encourages neighbourhood residents to contribute food.

The fridge has since blossomed into Le Frigo Communautaire Saint-Henri, a community initiative fuelled by donations and loyal volunteers who organize the fridge and prepare food.

“When I moved back to Montreal three years ago, I found out about the fridge and would bring food almost everyday,” Claude Chevalot, the manager of Le Frigo Communautaire, said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “We managed to raise money and made meals during Christmas.

It went on like this for a while [until] the fridge broke down. We couldn’t put a new one in the same spot [anymore] since the landlord did not want us to.”

The original fridge was located in The fridge, which was originally located in Fattal, now resides behind Friperie Sidneys. (thesuburban.com) Fattal, a cluster of commercial loft buildings populated primarily by low-income flow of donations, which has helped the Chevalot puts together weekly food baskets individuals. Many residents in the area relied initiative remain up and running throughout for people in the community upon request. on the community fridge for food. After it the pandemic.

With the help of five dedicated broke down, it took Chevalot six months to “Restaurants and food services were volunteers, the project quickly gathered find a suitable location for its replacement; closing, so I would often wake up to momentum. As Le Frigo Communautaire the new fridge is not far from the original find boxes of food on every step of my hopes to prepare more food baskets for

families in need, their biggest challenge is finding storage space.

“We are not a registered charity, which means that we cannot give tax income receipts,” Chevalot said. “The best thing that could happen to us is to have a sponsor who could allow us to have a large storage space. We [also] need volunteers with cars able to carry heavy boxes to help us pick up donations.”

Community refrigerators have been popping up across Canada in response to increasing rates of food insecurity and food waste. Given how the pandemic has aggravated issues of financial precarity, seeing people come together to support their neighbours through difficult times is what makes initiatives like Le Frigo Communautaire so fruitful. Communityled efforts like these put resources directly into the hands of those in need. Mutual aid initiatives like the Community Cooks Cooperative are based on similar principles of community support.

“Right now [...] we make gigantic food baskets for over 35 families,” Chevalot said. “Many times people who receive these baskets write to us to tell us that they feel loved and cared for, because we take the time to know them. We will put some surprises for the kids and [...] prepare meals to give parents a break.”

If you are looking to get involved with Le Frigo Communautaire, you can donate via Interac using the email address dons. feedthehen@gmail.com, bring food to the fridge, or make food donations for the food baskets.

SPORTS

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

The many exclamations of professional sports commentators

15

Play-by-plays that defined our favourite sports moments Sarah Farnand, Adam Burton, Zoe Babad-Palmer, Adam Menikefs Sports Editors, Staff Writer, Contributor Any sport can have its defining moments, be it a buzzer-beating shot or a record-breaking win.

While some moments are more awe-inspiring than others, many of the most popular are defined by the sports commentators that bring them to life. The McGill Tribune highlights its favourite sports commentator moments to celebrate the memorable dialogues of the the wordsmiths of the sporting world.

“Touch em all Joe” - Tom Cheek Blue Jays radio announcer Tom Cheek delivered one of the most iconic calls in sports history

this line after the St. Louis Cardinals escaped elimination in the 2011 World Series by winning Game 6, one of the greatest games in Fall Classic history, on a walkoff home run by third baseman David Freese. The line was a perfect homage to his late father, who also commentated and used it 20 years earlier during the 1991 World Series. The Cardinals trailed the World Series three games to two at home, and were down to their last strike before David Freese tied the ball game in the bottom of the ninth inning. As the game continued into extra innings, Freese led off in the bottom of the 11th. The Cardinals’ third baseman took a 3-2 pitch to dead center field, homering to end the ball game and having Buck proclaim, “We will see you.. tomorrow night!”

The Cardinals would defeat

The 1973 face off saw thenundefeated boxing legends George Foreman and Joe Frazier go head to head in one of the most anticipated fights in boxing history.

The fight lasted only two rounds, with Foreman coming out confidently in the opening moments of the fight. Less than two minutes in, he knocked Frazier down with a right uppercut, and did so six more times in the next round. Foreman ended the fight with an overhand right followed by a powerful right hook. Sport commentating legend Howard Cosell was so shocked by the show of dominance that he exclaimed, “Down goes Frazier!” three times in a row.

Foreman defended his title two more times, eventually losing to Muhammed Ali at the famed “Rumble in the Jungle.”

favoured Soviet team composed of professionals. The teams met in the first medal round, and at the end of the first period, the score was tied at 2-2. The Soviets went up in the second period 3-2, but blew their lead in the final period when the U.S. scored two goals. The gravity of the win struck Al Michaels in the final seconds of the game. His voice grew more excited, and with three seconds to go, Michaels shouted, “Do you believe in miracles?”

At the 2008 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) gala, the “Miracle on Ice” was honored as the best international ice hockey story of the past 100 years.

“Bang! Bang!” - Mike Breen

(OZY.com) during Joe Carter’s famous belt to left field that won Toronto the 1993 World Series. Leading up to the moment, the defending champion Blue Jays were down by a single run heading into the ninth inning after the Philadelphia Phillies had taken a 6-5 lead late in the game. Phillies reliever Mitch Williams was called in to secure the win and send the Fall Classic to Game 7. After two batters reached base safely, AllStar outfielder Joe Carter arrived at the plate as the winning run. Carter, who had recorded the final out of the 1992 World Series the year prior, took a 2-2 pitch to deep left field and ended the World Series with a walk-off home run for only the second time in Major League Baseball history. As Carter rounded the bases, Tom Cheek delivered a line that will forever be etched in Canadian sports and baseball history: “Touch ‘em all Joe, you’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life!”

the Texas Rangers in Game 7 the following day to win the 2011 World Series.

“We will see you... tomorrow night!” - Joe Buck

This call by Howard Cosell is nearly as iconic as the event where it occurred: “The Sunshine Showdown” in Kingston, Jamaica.

Joe Buck famously delivered

ABC sports commentator Al Michaels made a name for himself with his iconic play calling of “The Miracle on Ice” in 1980. His overjoyed exclamations only made the improbable victory over the USSR more exciting. (NHL News)

“The Canadiens win the Stanley Cup!” - Bob Cole On June 9, 1993, the Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 in the last game of the Stanley Cup Finals. Even 29 years later, the call from Bob Cole at the end of this game will forever live in the memories of Montreal Canadiens fans: “And now, a 24th Stanley Cup banner will hang from the rafters of the famous Forum in Montreal! The Canadiens win the Stanley Cup!” The Canadiens have not won a Cup since 1993, but fans still hold out hope. One can only imagine what the call would be when they win their elusive 25th championship.

“Do you believe in miracles?” Al Michaels In perhaps the Olympic hockey “Miracle on Ice” of mostly amateur face off against

“Down goes Frazier!”- Howard Cosell

(Runner’s World)

most famous game, the saw a team U.S. players the heavily

NBA superstar Stephen Curry has hit some of the most improbable clutch shots of the last decade, and his game winner against the Oklahoma City Thunder in overtime on May 30, 2016 takes the crown.

The Warriors came into the

game with a 52-5 win-loss ratio, and would eventually set the record for the most regular season wins at 73-9. Curry scored an astounding 46 points, 31 of which came after halftime. He also set the record for most three pointers in a game, the last of which was one of the most audacious 35-foot shots with two seconds remaining on the clock.

Commentator Mike Breen could not believe his eyes, gasping before shouting, “Bang! Bang! Oh, what a shot from Curry!”

After the game, Breen commented further on the shot.

“The team took your breath away some nights. And to cap it off with that shot, I just kind of lost it.”

This shot will go down as one of the most emblematic game winners for one of the greatest basketball teams of all time.

“Look at Mills! Look at Mills!” Dick Bank Two years after almost taking his life, Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota U.S. Olympic runner, won the gold medal for the 10-kilometre race in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The victory was one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history as Mills, unknown in the running world at the time, outsprinted Australian Ron Clarke, the then world record holder. The historic race was even more memorable because of Dick Bank’s announcing.

When Bank, who was working as a spotter with NBC’s Bud Palmer, saw Mills coming towards the finish and, started cheering enthusiastically when Palmer did not mention Mills’ name: “Look at Mills! Look at Mills!”

A few days after the race, NBC fired Bank for shouting over Palmer as Mills sprinted the final 80 yards of the race. Mills remains the only American to win Olympic gold for the 10,000-metre run.

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TUESDAY, MARCH 9 2021

SPORTS

Sylvia Sweeney: Trailblazer, leader, visionary

Recognizing a former Martlet’s impact on the worlds of sports, media, and arts Zoe Babad-Palmer Staff Writer Montrealer Sylvia Sweeney has had a career that is nothing short of extraordinary. As a member of the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame, World Championship MVP and bronze medalist, an original board member of the Toronto Raptors, member of the Order of Canada, and Canada’s “First Lady of Basketball,” Sweeney has proved to be a tremendously talented athlete.

Since retiring in 1984, Sweeney has continued to make an impact outside of the world of sports, telling stories in documentaries and spreading cultural awareness through the arts.

It is no wonder that U SPORTS and TSN have honoured her with the creation of the Sylvia Sweeney Award, presented every year to a women’s basketball student-athlete who is well-rounded and dedicated to both athletics and academics.

Sweeney’s first experience with basketball was facing off against boys in her neighbourhood.

She would bet them a quarter that she could beat them one-on-one and would happily accept her coins when they underestimated her. Years later, she made waves in the world of Canadian university sports when she set the record for most points scored

in a game playing for the McGill Martlets in 1973. Sweeney later played for the Concordia Stingers in 1977 and the Laurentian Lady Vees from 1978 to 1979, taking home the national championship in her final year with the Vees.

When women’s basketball was first introduced to the Montreal Olympics in 1976, Sweeney played for Team Canada. She was made captain in 1979 and led her team to a fourth-place finish at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, which remains the team’s best showing to this day. At the 1979 Pan American Games in Mexico, Sweeney received the honour of bearing her country’s flag at the opening ceremony. The Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame recognized Sweeney’s achievements in 1996, making her the first woman inducted into the Hall for excellence in basketball.

After her basketball career, Sweeney turned her talents to media. She worked as a researcher, journalist, anchor, and sportscaster for CBC and CTV. Sweeney founded Elitha Peterson Productions Incorporated, a motion pictures production company and studio in Toronto. Sweeney also produced several award-winning documentaries, and was eventually named an executive producer

of the National Film Board of Canada in 2002. One of her 1992 documentaries, In the Key of Oscar, told the story of her uncle, the legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.

In addition to sports and media, Sweeney also holds a clear passion for the arts. She studied classical piano in the Department of Performance during her time at McGill, and managed the funk/R&B band Tchukon while working at CBC. She has continued to combine her love for arts and sports, most notably in her production of the 2008 Marriage of Excellence concert series, which featured disabled artists in performances that occurred between the Olympic and Paralympic Games. She recently directed her efforts toward ArtsGames, a global competition that she founded to celebrate artistic achievement in media arts, literature, visual arts, dance, and music. During her 20 years working for the ArtsGames, Sweeney staged several concerts and festivals, including the 1999 Blueprints Arts & Entertainment Festival in Toronto and performances at the 2004 and 2008 Paralympic Games.

Sweeney’s mission, whether in her athletic career, media work, or artistic endeavours, has always

Sylvia Sweeney, Canada’s “First Lady of Basketball,” was one of the first Black women on CBC television. (olympics.ca) been to build bridges between communities and foster connections.

She believes that excellence should be visible and celebrated, and used as a tool for promoting cultural awareness, acceptance, and education. Her presence as one of the

first Black players on the Canadian National Team and one of the first Black women on CBC television has led to a greater platform for Black women in sports and the media, and has opened doors for those yet to come.

Know Your Athlete: Juliano Cobuzzi

The star Redbird soccer player started building his skills from a young age Reza Ali Staff Writer

to a couple of national team camps and was a part of the provincial team. My original goal was to play professionally in some capacity, but that never really worked out. I had a lot of injuries, and obviously, it is difficult.”

After high school, Cobuzzi knew he wanted to go to university while continuing his soccer career as well. As a chemical engineering major and a computer science minor, Cobuzzi currently serves as a machine

McGill Redbirds Soccer centre-back Juliano Cobuzzi, U4 Engineering, spends most of his spare time on the soccer pitch and in the kitchen, two places central to his upbringing.

Cobuzzi’s soccer career began under the watchful eye of his father, his first coach. Some of his earliest memories centre around his time playing soccer.

Cobuzzi realized his love for the sport from a young age, when he noticed that game cancellations affected his mood.

“I distinctly remember games being cancelled because it would rain and getting super upset about it,” Cobuzzi said in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

Cobuzzi developed his love of the game into a skill, competing in high-level club soccer throughout his youth and playing with the Montreal Impact Development Academy, an elite soccer program.

After training with Impact, Cobuzzi even considered playing professionally.

“I was a part of the Impact Juliano Cobuzzi has maintained thriving relationships with his teammates throughAcademy from 13 or 14 to 19 out the pandemic. Weekly runs, Zoom calls, and snowshoeing are just a few of the years old,” Cobuzzi said. “I went things the McGill Soccer team has done to build camaraderie. (Juliano Cobuzzi)

learning research assistant. In March 2020, he was granted the Eugenie Ulmer-Lamothe (EUL) Award, a scholarship awarded to fund summer research projects for undergraduate chemical engineering students.

Outside of academics, Cobuzzi cited the camaraderie amongst his teammates as the best part of his experience at McGill.

Most of his friends are either current or former members of the program, and they have developed lasting bonds while on the team together. Cobuzzi enjoys spending time with his teammates, whether it be on pre-season trips or away games in Quebec City.

“That is another reason why I really love the game,” Cobuzzi said. “It is not a solo game, it is with a team, and I really excel at that. That is the main part I enjoy.”

Team bonding is critical to team success; however, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult, forcing the team to carry out all bonding activities virtually.

Although many members of the men’s soccer team are not currently in Montreal, Cobuzzi believes that his team has improved in communication since the start of the winter semester.

“We have Facebook chats and the coach sets up Zoom meetings sometimes,” Cobuzzi said.

“Once a week, we get together for a run, and [...] we even went snowshoeing.”

Cobuzzi remembers being raised in two foundational places: The field and the kitchen. Cobuzzi, who was born into a 100 per cent Italian family, said his heritage and culture are big parts of his life. His favourite dishes to cook include chicken stir fry and the Italian classic: Baked rigatoni.

“A big part of my upbringing is being in the kitchen with the family cooking Sunday lunch,” Cobuzzi said.

All four of Cobuzzi’s grandparents were born in Italy.

With such a strong Italian heritage comes a rich culture passed down through the generations. For him, that culture is best expressed through cooking.

“I feel like most stories and traditions are passed down at the dinner table,” Cobuzzi said.

Cobuzzi is looking forward to being an independent adult once he graduates from McGill this spring.

“Hopefully, the things I learned at McGill can be used in the future and the rest of my life.”