The McGill Tribune Vol. 42 Issue 10

Dashiell Rich Contributor

Across the planet, cor porations and municipalities account for over 30 per cent of accessible and renew able freshwater usage. They generate colossal amounts of wastewater containing

various concentrations of el ements such as copper, zinc, titanium, and mercury, which unfortunately make their way into our drinking water.

Now, instead of worry ing about what’s in your next glass of tap water, imagine you could point your phone’s camera at it and know exactly

what substances lie within. It sounds like complete sci ence fiction, right? As crazy as it may seem, a team of McGill researchers recently published a ground-breaking paper documenting a new technique that may be able to detect these substances in waterways in real-time.

Molinaro Managing Editor

It’s Friday night and you’re done with midterms. You leave the heteronorma tive institution (if you really ever can), text a few friends, pick your favourite club, and dance the night away. You’re listening to queer icons––Cher or Madonna, Gaga or Ri hanna, Diana Ross or Gloria Gaynor, Fiona Apple or Kim Petras, take your pick. When

Gaga, hitting new heights in “Free Woman,” sings “This is the dance floor / I fought for,” we must remember this place remains a welcome site of ref uge, of possibility for queer life. You feel unbound to het eronormativity, you see a new world on the horizon.

A perplexing problem arises when considering the very fact that this night seems universally enjoyable. What’s better than spending the night with some of the best dressed

or funniest or most dynamic people you will find? Why wouldn’t straight people want a queer world? On a serious note, for straight women or women who do not label their sexual ity, queer spaces can be one of few places where there isn’t the outright threat of predators, protected by patriarchal (or frat) legal systems. This rings true, even despite the fact that intracommunal violence affects lesbian women and queer men can still be aggressive.

Association of McGill Professors of Law to become first faculty union at McGill

(Jasmine Jing / The McGill

Matthew

Association of McGill Professors of Law to become first faculty union at McGill AMPL wins year-long legal battle against McGill for certification

Adeline Fisher Staff Writer

Adecision rendered by Quebec’s Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) on Nov. 7 certified the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) as a union and bargaining agent for tenured and tenure-track professors at the Faculty of Law. This is the first time in McGill’s history that an individual faculty association will be allowed to unionize. The judgement marked the finale of McGill’s legal battle with AMPL, which began in November 2021 when AMPL first petitioned the TAT for certification.

AMPL Interim President Evan Fox-Decent was delighted by the decision. He believes that the establishment of a union is opening a bright new chapter for the Faculty of Law and McGill.

“We want to make our faculty a better place,” Fox-Decent said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “We are of the very strong view that with this decision from the Tribunal, we will be in a position to do that, so naturally the decision was received [...] with great joy and enthusiasm.”

Although the application to certify AMPL was filed a year ago, law professors have had the desire to unionize for a while. According to FoxDecent, the primary motivation for a union was to counter the “creeping centralization” plaguing McGill’s faculty-administration relations over the past few decades.

“Whereas we used to do many things entirely at the faculty level, now various things are done centrally or have to be done through centralized

processes,” Fox-Decent said. “So we are hoping to recover a certain amount of local control.”

Communication between McGill’s faculties and administration occurs mostly at the McGill Senate, which meets roughly once a month to discuss academic and administrative affairs.

Jonathan Sterne, a McGill professor in the department of Art History and Communication Studies, shares Fox-Decent’s aversion to McGill’s centralization. Sterne believes that the balance at the Senate is unfairly tipped in the administration’s favour.

“The composition of the Senate is weighed down with people in administrative positions, such that it is very difficult for it to be run as a faculty majority,” Sterne said in an interview with the Tribune. “I always thought I would be the kind of professor who would take his turn on faculty Senate, and I’ve actually had colleagues advise me not to do it because they say it’s a waste of time, it’s not an effective mode of governance [....] I believe the Senate is broken as a mode of faculty governance.”

Although she was “really thrilled” with the law faculty’s victory against the administration, Charlotte Sullivan, L3 and President of the Law Students Association (LSA), still wonders why McGill opposed AMPL’s certification in the first place. She condemned the university’s uncompromising position against unionization efforts.

“I would love to ask McGill why they would even try to fight this in 2022, when every other school in Quebec also has unions involving their professors,” Sullivan told the Tribune. “To me, it

is shocking that McGill has waited this long [to see a faculty union], and it is even more shocking that McGill would try to counter this measure.”

The TAT’s decision to certify AMPL has left Fox-Decent optimistic about the upcoming negotiations with McGill to ratify their first collective agreement. A collective agreement is a written agreement between employers and unionized employees that outlines the rights and duties of all implicated parties.

“When we gather members in our faculty now to decide on what our bargaining position is going to look like, we’re going to discuss that

amongst ourselves, and we’re going to vote on it, and we’re going to assert it as fairly and forcefully as we can with the university,” Fox-Decent said. “Hopefully we will find that our interests align [...] and we’ll reach an amicable collective agreement.”

In a written statement to the Tribune on behalf of the administration, McGill media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle said that “the university acknowledges the decision rendered by the Tribunal administratif du travail. We will be examining the decision thoroughly over the coming weeks.”

Lily Cason News Editor

On Nov. 14, McGill announced that Professor H. Deep Saini will be the next Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the university. The Principal is tasked with representing the university on the global stage and helping shape the future of the institution.

Saini will take over the role from Christopher Manfredi, who has occupied the position of Interim Principal since McGill’s former Principal, Suzanne Fortier, stepped down

at the end of August. McGill Principals serve fiveyear appointments, and Saini will begin his first renewable term on April 1, 2023.

Saini holds a Master of Science (Honours) in Botany from Punjab Agricultural University in India and a PhD in Plant Physiology from the University of Adelaide in Australia. He is currently serving as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Dalhousie University, a role he has occupied since January 2020. He will be McGill’s first nonwhite Principal in its more than 200-year history.

McGill Principals are approved by the Board of Governors (BoG) upon recommendation

from the Advisory Committee for the Selection of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor, which was assembled after the university announced in January 2022 that Suzanne Fortier would be departing. In a statement to //The McGill Tribune//, McGill media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle elaborated on the role of the Advisory Committee, which is composed of 14 people, including members of the BoG, faculty, students, and outside consultants.

“The Advisory Committee was responsible for defining the role and set of competencies for the position of University Principal and ViceChancellor,” Mazerolle wrote. “As part of the Committee’s work, consultation sessions were held with various groups and individuals in the University.”

Richard Gold, a law professor at McGill, sat on the Advisory Committee that unanimously nominated Saini. He is confident that Saini will bring much-needed transparency and trust to McGill.

“There was a hunger for someone who was transformative—that is, someone who would not merely rely on McGill’s past glory but who understood that a contemporary university needed to actively embrace the world and current problems,” Gold wrote in an email to the Tribune

“We heard a strong desire for someone who does not just speak about [Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion] but who embodies it and is committed to it. I believe that Dr. Saini is such a candidate, someone who will strive to repair the broken trust on campus, who will restore collegial governance, and who will engage rather than talk down to us.”

Kerry Yang, Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) vice-president University Affairs, expressed similar optimism about Saini’s leadership. Yang, who also sat on the Advisory Committee, felt great responsibility representing the undergraduate student body, stressing the importance of choosing a leader who would communicate with students and take student advocacy to heart.

“Even though Suzanne Fortier did a good job, she wasn’t able to really connect with students,” Yang said. “Being able to sort of find a next Principal who is more student-centric, is able to connect with them [...]I think was something that I really went on.”

Karol Kapsa, U3 Arts, hopes the new Principal will work to address the staffing shortage and program cuts they have witnessed during their time at McGill.

“I know like in the English Department and other Arts departments, there’s been a serious lack of just teachers, of like, professors, to the point that a lot of undergraduate courses, and programs are getting slashed because like [Master’s] students take priority,” Kapsa said in an interview with the Tribune. “That’s pretty worrying to see, like the wheels just kind of feel like they’re falling off after COVID.”

According to Gold, a smooth transition of power should be a priority for the McGill administration ahead of Saini’s arrival. .

“As we go through the next few months, I hope that the current administration will start building bridges so that Dr. Saini starts with a strong and united community,” Gold wrote.

Saini has also been made a Full Professor in the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at McGill. (dal.ca)

Prior to the Nov. 7 judgement, McGill was the only university in Montreal that did not have a union for its professors. (Jasmine Jing / The McGill Tribune)

SSMU’s VP Operations and Sustainability exec position remains vacant despite attempts to fill it

Board of Directors abolishes position without referendum vote

Shani Laskin Staff Writer

Since the resignation of Anuradha Mallik in 2017, the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) vice-president (VP) Operations and Sustainability position has been vacant. The SSMU Legislative Council approved a motion in January 2022 to remove the position from the SSMU Constitution. The motion, however, was never ratified through a referendum, despite it being the required procedure for amending the SSMU Constitution per section 20 of the governing document.

In an email to The McGill Tribune on behalf of the entire executive team, SSMU President Risann Wright explained the position’s origins and why SSMU has since phased it out.

“The role was established in 2016, following the reorganization of the vice-president (Finance and Operations) role,” Wright wrote. “In 2017, the former VP Operations and Sustainability resigned from the position in the summer, and the Executives and the Board opted to not reelect the position for that year. Following this, the subsequent cohorts of executives have approved motions to not elect a VP Operations and Sustainability role via the Legislative

Council and Board of Directors (BoD), and the responsibilities have been absorbed by the executive committee.”

Ahead of the 2022 SSMU executive election, Alice Clauss, U3 Arts and Science, submitted her nomination packet to Elections SSMU with the intent of running for VP Operations and Sustainability. She was informed, however, that the position would not be included in the election, despite it being mandated by the SSMU constitution to hold a seat on the BoD.

According to Sarah Paulin, 2021-2022 SSMU VP Internal, the VP Operations and Sustainability portfolio needed to be more substantial to warrant a full-time executive role. Paulin explained that the responsibilities of the position were redistributed amongst other executives and full-time SSMU staff to compensate for its removal.

“After [...] COVID started, we found [...] ways through hiring more full-time staff and redistributing the positions within the executives, that having a VP Operations would just be a financial strain on the company,” Paulin said in an interview with the Tribune. “So we figured, why pay another salary when we’ve already found a way to manage without a [seventh] executive?”

Clauss believes this decision violates SSMU’s constitutional mandate to fill all executive positions or otherwise ratify any motions to amend the constitution through a student referendum. She brought the issue to the SSMU Judicial Board at a hearing on April 5 to determine whether SSMU’s decision not to run

the election was unconstitutional and if the role should be reinstated. Six weeks after the hearing, the Judicial Board released their ratified decision, determining that the role would not be reinstated and that SSMU’s decision to not run the position was constitutional. The decision stated, “the Board of Directors’ decision supersedes what is written in the SSMU Constitution.”

In an interview with the Tribune, Clauss said she finds SSMU’s internal structure to be overly bureaucratic and believes that SSMU’s actions demonstrate a lack of accountability.

“It’s really important that our students’ Society is accountable to us; it’s a student society,” Clauss said. “The reason I went through this process is I thought it was important to try to find that accountability there. And then in an ideal outcome, it would have ended up with that role being returned and then having that more focused attention on the environment and sustainability at SSMU.”

Clauss argues that SSMU must dedicate a full-time executive position to adequately address environmental concerns.

“Sustainability is a very important concept right now,” Clauss said. “Imagine all the different sustainability initiatives that could have been happening if it had been [...] someone’s sole duty.”

The Tribune reached out to all current SSMU executives to learn more about how the Society has reallocated the VP Operations and Sustainability’s salary and responsibilities, but none responded.

McGill’s volunteer-based note-sharing service falls short according to users and volunteers

AGSEM efforts to unionize note-takers blocked by McGill

Allie Harrison Contributor

Three years ago, Student Accessibility and Achievement (SAA) transformed the note-taking role from a paid to a voluntary position. Notetakers are students who provide their notes to other students registered with the SAA. Since the change, many students registered for the SAA’s note-taking accommodation and note-takers themselves have been disappointed with how the service is run. The McGill Tribune looked into how the service functions and the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM)’s fight to unionize note-takers and secure fair compensation.

Note-sharing is a service provided by the SAA, formerly known as the Office for Students with Disabilities. Students with disabilities can obtain class notes from other students registered in the same course who sign up with the SAA to provide detailed, high-quality notes. In exchange for their services, noteproviders now get volunteer hours added to their Co-Curricular Record and are entered into a raffle to win a

$50 gift card to a McGill service, such as Le James Bookstore or the McGill Gym.

Teri Philips, SAA Director of Communications, believes that the accessibility of the note-sharing program has not been affected by the switch to a volunteer-based service.

“Student Accessibility & Achievement ensures that its resources provide the best possible acrossthe-board support for students with disabilities, and we have seen from our peer institutions that a non-financially driven volunteer model works for notes,” Philips told the Tribune in a written statement. “The change in monetary recognition was frustrating for some students, but those resources are now being redirected to a wider range of supports for students with disabilities [such as] a new platform [Clockwork] making it easier for students to request and manage their supports and accommodations.”

For some note-providers, the change disincentivized them from continuing to share notes. In an email to the Tribune, former note-taker Natalia Savkovic, BA ‘21, explained that she stopped participating once SAA stopped paying note-takers.

“Personally, I no longer

wanted to be a note-taker after they implemented the change. I knew the workload, and it didn’t seem fair for it to be essentially a volunteer position,” Savkovic wrote. “For me [note taking] meant spending an hour or two after every class ensuring that I had all the information and that it was represented well.”

Noor Jetha, U2 Engineering, who relies on the note-sharing service, has not found any note-takers to assist her since she registered with the SAA in Fall 2021. Jetha explained in an interview with the Tribune that she has had to find other ways to access notes, including asking friends and posting requests on various social media platforms.

“It was incredibly difficult to find a note-taker, even when they were paid. And now that they are not paid, it is virtually impossible,” Jetha said.

When she was first accepted to both Concordia and McGill, Jetha was told that the student services at both universities were of the same quality, so she chose McGill. However, after reaching out to her friends at Concordia, she found out that they were all immediately assigned note-takers who were financially compensated. Jetha told the Tribune

that she regrets her choice to attend McGill.

AGSEM has been trying to unionize note-providers since 2020 and has repeatedly requested a list of all the note-takers at McGill. Yet, AGSEM President Mario Roy told the Tribune that McGill has curtailed its efforts.

“McGill has done everything possible to slow down the process by providing a list of note-takers, which we consider incorrect, and created long delays in their response,” Roy

said. “The university is primarily responsible for giving quality education to their students, so they should provide good tools to the workers and people at the university in order to succeed. That includes paying part-time academic workers for all tasks, including note-takers.”

Roy stated that AGSEM will not stop fighting until all academic workers are unionized, and that the union invites people to join the movement and mobilize against the university for fair wages.

In the absence of VP Operations and Sustainability, SSMU Sustainability Commissioners currently report to the SSMU President. (Kowin Chen / The McGill Tribune)

Before Fall 2019, note-takers were paid $50 per class per semester. (Soraya Ghassemlou / The McGill Tribune)

McGill Policy Association hosts ‘Indigenous Voices in Resource-Sector Policy’ panel

Panel discussed Indigenous communities’ roles in shaping environmental policy4

Shani Laskin Staff Writer

On Nov. 9, the McGill Policy Association (MPA) hosted a panel titled “Indigenous Voices in Resource-Sector Policy,” which centred around Indigenous activism within environmental policy.

The first of the two panellists was Yolanda Lopez-Maldanado, an Indigenous Maya from Mexico and the recently appointed Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Affairs Officer at the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation. The second

panellist was Jen Gobby, an activist, scholar, and current course lecturer at McGill’s Bieler School of Environment and an affiliate assistant professor at Concordia University.

The panel began with a discussion of the challenges Indigenous groups face in the context of environmental policy and protection. As a researcher, Lopez-Maldanado spoke to the neglect of traditional forms of knowledge within academia and the effects that this exclusion has on environmental policy.

“We [...] forget that Indigenous peoples are [at] the forefront of conservation and the majority of the information that is around the government policy in environment is

influenced by science,” Lopez-Maldanado said. “We need to understand that over the years, science has not been including the voice and the perspectives of Indigenous peoples [...] for understanding the natural world.”

Gobby added that Indigenous communities are mostly excluded when it comes time to make policy decisions. She explained that many corporations and governments, including the Canadian federal and provincial governments, claim to consult with Indigenous groups but often do not heed their suggestions or needs.

“When an industry wants to put a pipeline or a mine in [...] they consult with Indigenous people, tell them what they’re planning, ask for their feedback, and then do what they want anyways,” Gobby said. “That’s how our federal climate policy was made, reproducing the same settler-colonial relations [....] In my view that’s a very big challenge that needs to be addressed immediately if we have any hope of addressing the climate crisis.”

Lopez-Maldanado stressed the nonhomogeneity of Indigenous communities around the world. The nuances of Indigeneity are overlooked, she says, and to be good allies, settlers must acknowledge that Indigenous people are more than capable of determining what solutions are best for them.

“Stop romanticizing Indigenous peoples. We are the same [as] you. We go to school, we get our PhDs, we are very well prepared

to defend ourselves,” Lopez-Maldanado said. “So you can be allies to us and not [...] always trying to defend [us] because we can do it by ourselves.”

The panel helped fulfill the MPA’s goal of diversifying the content of the organization’s events and engaging students from different backgrounds and academic interests. MPA Executive Director, Michelle Marcus, expanded more on the organization’s goals for the year in an interview with The McGill Tribune

“One of our goals as an organization altogether is to really play into the interests of not just political science and [economics] students, but really trying to be interdisciplinary and appealing to a wide range of students on topics that are relevant, but that people don’t always realize have such deep roots in policy,” Marcus said.

Marcus is a firm believer in the importance of intersectional conversations in the context of policy.

“I think the idea of having both Indigenous perspectives represented, but also the point of having those cross-conversations [...] puts us, as settlers, in our place,” Marcus said. “[These conversations allow us] to change how we’re approaching policy, especially in a sector like environmental policy where Indigenous [...] prioritization of land is so crucial to how we approach and tackle anything related to the climate or sustainability.”

OPINION

opinion@mcgilltribune.com

Fall 2022 SSMU referendum endorsements

Renewal of Daily Publications Society Fee: Yes, with reservations

The Daily Publications Society (DPS) operates two independent, student-run newspapers that publish weekly: The McGill Daily and Le Délit. The proposed fee renewal would allow the DPS to continue funding their operations and collect a non-opt-outable fee of $6.00 per term from every Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) member. If this fee is not renewed with a majority “Yes” vote, then both the Daily and the Délit would cease to exist. A thriving free press on campus, especially with a French option for francophone students, is vital to provide a range of news and opinions to the student body. Both publications work to hold institutions such as McGill and SSMU accountable for their actions. In addition, both publications offer an alternative to formal journalism training that is especially crucial at a university without a journalism program. However, The McGill Tribune cannot wholeheartedly endorse the DPS without acknowledging the areas where the Daily could improve its coverage and journalistic practices. The Daily could do more to fulfill its mandate of anti-oppressive journalism by platforming the voices of Black, Indigenous and racialized writers—this includes reflecting on particular articles that lack nuance and deprive subjects of agency. Further, running Amazon ads on the front page of its print issue is contradictory to such principles of anti-oppression. A greater breadth and volume of content would also benefit the Daily’s readership and help ensure that competition remains alive and well among student papers on campus. Overall, the Tribune votes “Yes” to the continued existence of the Daily and Le Délit with reservations that will hopefully spur a commitment to continuous improvement.

Renewal of Sustainability Projects Fund Fee: Yes

The Sustainability Projects Fund (SPF) was originally founded in 2010 by the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), Post-Graduate Students’ Society McGill University (PGSS), Macdonald Campus Students’ Society (MCSS), and McGill itself to promote a more sustainable campus through funding of community-member-led initiatives. All students currently pay $0.55 per credit—up to 15 credits—per semester through their tuition, and these funds are then redirected to the SPF. The SPF currently collects about $1 million a year and has been able to fund over 300 projects. It is governed by the SPF Governance Council, which has eight members total: Two from SSMU, one from PGSS, one from MCSS, two academic staff members, and two administrative staff members at McGill. The currently non-opt-outable fee is up for renewal during this term’s SSMU Referendum. A “No” vote would result in the abolition of the SPF as it is funded solely through student fees. This would mean that projects such as the Macdonald Campus Orchard, which aims to revive the campus orchards that are more than 30 years old, the Interactive Accessibility Map, an online interactive map that plans accessible routes for students across campus, and Bringing the Flat Back, an initiative to encourage more sustainable travel to campus, would be no more. The SPF has consistently supported sustainability initiatives on campus and for this reason, the Tribune votes “Yes” to the fee renewal. The continued efforts to make McGill a more environmentally-friendly campus must continue as the world faces an ever-worsening climate crisis.

ERRATUM

An article published in the November 8, 2022 issue ("SciLearn helps connect students with course material outside the classroom") incorrectly stated that Ezelbahar Metin and Kira Smith were employed by SciLearn. In fact, they are employed by the Office of Science Education. Moreover, the Tribune misquoted Metin. SciLearn Peer Collaboration is primarily a learning environment, not a social one. Finally, the article omitted the fact that professors accompany their TAs to SciLearn sessions.The Tribune regrets these errors.

Canadian environmental policy often fails to uphold free, prior, and informed consent. (facebook. com/mcgillpolicy)

The McGill Tribune Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief

Madison McLauchlan editor@mcgilltribune.com

Creative Director

Anoushka Oke aoke@mcgilltribune.com

Managing Editors

Sepideh Afshar safshar@mcgilltribune.com Matthew Molinaro mmolinaro@mcgilltribune.com Madison Edward-Wright medwardwright@mcgilltribune.com

News Editors

Lily Cason, Juliet Morrison & Ghazal Azizi news@mcgilltribune.com

Opinion Editors

Kareem Abuali, Leo Larman Brown & Valentina de la Borbolla opinion@mcgilltribune.com

Science & Technology Editor

Mayuri Maheswaran scitech@mcgilltribune.com

Student Life Editors

Abby McCormick & Mahnoor Chaudhry studentlife@mcgilltribune.com

Features Editor Wendy Zhao features@mcgilltribune.com

Arts & Entertainment Editors

Arian Kamel & Michelle Siegel arts@mcgilltribune.com

Sports Editors

Tillie Burlock & Sarah Farnand sports@mcgilltribune.com

Design Editors

Mika Drygas & Shireen Aamir design@mcgilltribune.com

Photo Editor

Cameron Flanagan photo@mcgilltribune.com

Multimedia Editors

Wendy Lin & Anna Chudakov multimedia@mcgilltribune.com

Web Developers

Sneha Senthil & Oliver Warne webdev@mcgilltribune.com

Copy Editor Sarina Macleod copy@mcgilltribune.com

Social Media Editor Taneeshaa Pradhan socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com

Business Manager Joseph Abounohra business@mcgilltribune.com

Unionize McGill

The McGill Tribune Editorial Board

On Nov. 8, the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) became McGill’s first professor’s union. The AMPL, which represents tenured and tenuretrack professors, filed to certify their union in November 2021. However, they faced a combative McGill administration that attempted to discredit the AMPL’s attempts every step of the way through aggressive litigation. The university’s attempts to prevent unionization are disappointingly consistent with a history of indifference and hostility towards workers’ rights. Despite this victory for McGill professors, university employee organizations are still fighting for their rights, and the momentum from the AMPL’s unionization must be harnessed to improve workers’ rights for all of McGill.

The university’s litigation stood on the grounds that law professors were already represented by McGill’s Association of University Teachers (MAUT) and that it would be unfair to prioritize the unionization of law professors over others. This argument, however, conveniently ignores that MAUT cannot represent workers’ rights in the same capacity as a union.

OFF THE BOARD

Sepideh Afshar Managing Editor

The AMPL argued that a facultyspecific union is important to preserve its members’ rights in a highly-centralized university. Despite these arguments, McGill assembled student tuition dollars to fund a litigious union-busting campaign against attempts to receive proper representation from professors at its very own law school.

Unionization gives workers the power to negotiate with their employers through collective agreements:A framework to defend their rights, avoid exploitative contracts and salaries, and create safer working conditions. In 2020, Quebec had the highest rate of union coverage in all of Canada. Despite this, prior to the faculty’s win, McGill was the only Quebec Labour Tribunal Federation member where no teaching staff benefitted from negotiated employment contracts. This allowed the McGill administration to trample on professors’ rights: They are overworked and baited with the prospect of tenure while the university maintains its prestige. A blatant example of McGill’s disregard for law professors’ rights took place during the COVID-19 pandemic when the administration forced instructors to teach in person and refused to implement a vaccine mandate despite persistent pleas from the faculty.

The untenable working conditions that law professors endure are consistent with McGill’s treatment of its workers beyond the classroom. In Winter 2022, students at the McGill School of Social Work went on strike after McGill refused to offer online options for students, knowing their in-person placements were a risk to both students’ health and that of the communities they serve. In the past year, two unions representing non-academic employees at McGill, the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) and the McGill University NonAcademic Certified Association (MUNACA), went on strike due to abhorrent working conditions and unfair pay. As of Sept. 13, only one of McGill’s 14 labour unions has an updated collective agreement with the university due to internal administrative delays. Collective agreements dictate the wages, hours, and working conditions of unionized members, and because of their delayed renewals, most union workers are being paid outdated salaries that are not adjusted to inflation or minimum-wage increases.

Although AMPL’s unionization is a big victory, it is important to note that its membership is made up of predominantly white, socioeconomically advantaged

men. Meanwhile, non-tenured lecturers and teaching staff, who are more likely to experience precarious working conditions, remain unrepresented. The AMPL has laid the groundwork for the unionization of other faculties at McGill, who must follow the AMPL’s example as soon as possible and take advantage of this ruling’s momentum. This decision, however, must also motivate a renewed push to support the rights of unionized workers, like those represented by MUNACA—who have been in an ongoing fight with the McGill administration to secure a collective agreement and improve their conditions.

The Faculty of Law’s push for unionization is especially significant as they are educating a future generation of policymakers to understand the importance of the right to collective organization and representation. The security and protection provided by unions will facilitate better teaching from professors, who will be put on equal footing to advocate for their rights to the McGill administration. The AMPL’s work is commendable and sets a historic precedent for all McGill workers. Moving forward, McGill students must encourage professors in positions of leadership to advocate for unionization, and recognize that all workers at McGill should be treated with respect and dignity.

I’m so tired of being a person of colour

I stop imagining my life without this roadblock? How do I accept this relentless stream of oppression as normal?

These days, when I, or those around me, experience racism, all I feel is a resigned exhaustion. As I desperately grasp for the anger I know must be inside me, I can’t help but wish it were different, that I were different. I get lost in the daydream.

fully Persian? I’m, like, way darker than you though!” The look of pity when I say I’m from Iran is one that I can’t stand. White people tell me that it is so great that I work hard to humanize the people in Iran when all I’ve done is talk about their current struggle. As they leave the conversation, happy with their antiracism, I am left wondering what they saw in front of them before I was humanized.

emotion, when I use the sharp words that come to me too naturally, I play it back in my head a million times. I lay in bed, paralyzed by fear, condemning myself for making mistakes, for being human, for forgetting that I am not allowed to be. Some days I worry my passion will be permanently muted out of fear. Will this silencing come from my surroundings or from me? The question haunts me.

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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 responsibil ity of The McGill Tribune and the Société de Publica tion 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. Sub missions judged by the Tribune Publication Society to be libellous, sexist, racist, homophobic or solely pro motional 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.

Ot’s a thought that fills me with unparalleled shame. As soon as it forms, I want to bury it. But as I sit with my friends, at home, at work, I feel the burden of existing as a radical act, as political praxis: The thought creeps back in. How do I stop dwelling on something I will never be? How do

I imagine being vocal, loud, and confident in my opinions without being characterized as aggressive. I imagine being allowed to only have a surface-level, condemnatory understanding of racism. Ignorance is a bliss I too often long for and trust me, I’m ashamed of it. A world where all my articles are not somehow related to race, because my life does not revolve around it. Where I don’t give up, smiling like I don’t care, shortening my name to “Sepi” whenever somebody mishears me (no matter how many times I promise myself I’ll stop).

I snap back. Back to the place where people press their arms up against mine, “oh my god, you’re

A defining feature of musing with whiteness is the overwhelming need for secrecy. It isolates me. I could never mention the exhaustion of being racialized to non-racialized people because this is not the strength expected of, almost mandated onto, people of colour. When allyship is so fragile, any wrong move can project “allies” into a frenzy rife with racist sentiments. I am not allowed to represent myself. I am a woman of colour, a journalist of colour, an unwillingly elected representative. The consequences of every mistake I make will reverberate on all those I am forced to represent. And it’s scary.

When I speak with “too much”

I wish I could present a solution for this exhaustion, but I don’t have anything. I don’t need to have anything yet. All I know is that writing it down helps. That talking to other people of colour helps. I make a home out of people of colour I love, make sure they know that my heart aches for them as I watch them be forced to mince their words the way I work hard to mince mine. As sad as it makes me, not sharing a fake smile or greeting but exchanging an exasperated, defeated, “I’m so exhausted,” acts as solidarity and understanding in a way that I cannot fully describe. And right now, maybe that’s all we’ve got.

Joseph Abounohra, Kareem Abuali, Yasmine El Dukar, Ella Gomes, Sequoia Kim, Shani Laskin, Kennedy McKeeBraide, Madison McLauchlan, Michelle Siegel, Sophie Smith

Julia Buckle, Gillian Cameron, Kowin Chen, Aimee DeLong, Noa Garmaise, Soraya Ghassemlou, Naomi Gupta, Philippe Haddad, Nicholas Hayek, Lauren Hicken, Jasmine Jing, Alice Kreinin, Elena Lee, Dashiell Rich, AnnaClare Sung, Osman Warsi, Alex Zhou

TPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

STAFF

Margo Berthier, Ella Buckingham, Melissa Carter, Adeline Fisher, Drea Garcia, Suzanna Graham, Jasjot Grewal, Charlotte Hayes, Monique Kasonga, Chloé Kichenane, Shani Laskin, Zoé Mineret, Chetna Misra, Harry North, Ella Paulin, Dana Prather, Maeve Reilly, Sofia Stankovic, Athina Sitou, Yash Zodgekar

Matthew Molinaro Managing Editor

Continued from page 1.

By “queering” our mainstream, public cultures propel rights and advancements––do queer people exist if they are not seen? While understandable, straight people’s increased entrance into queer spaces of gathering should be addressed critically. In fact, this problem, minor yet overplayed, detracts from the ways queer spaces––tending cis, white, male, and gay––currently do not serve or promote the diversity of the community.

Typical points about keeping queer spaces queer rest on dangerous, exclusive premises upheld by interlocking systems of domination. We fall down slippery slopes by insisting everyone must be queer. How does one prove this? Queer people of colour do not have the same, full privileges of disclosure that white queer people often conceal. Your coming out story is valid and important. You are heard. And we also see you. We see the spaces you hold. Thank you for teaching us the word intersectional.

We need queer spaces that centre not on profit, not on drinking cultures exclusively, but on inclusion and listening. For instance, the police regulate Black and Indigenous embodiment and transness––identities so often transcending the limited and repressive Western sense of the binary. They are threats to white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity. People want to venture into these spaces without suffering a politics of recognition that alienates them. I worry that this surveilling

On queer space, futurity, and inclusion

mode, both in its informal approach and its business strategy, of “knowing one’s queerness” legitimates an unjust security apparatus. We have internalized that establishments must know everything about their patrons to manipulate them, and this system works to kill us all and our planet. Alternatives abound.

You might be thinking: “We fought for this very approach!” We can do better. Perhaps our more radical ancestors can help us return to our community, re-vision this contested, uneven ground. It starts from a multitude of communal forms of being with each other that do not rely on sex, alcohol, or drugs, and that do not replicate the chains that bind us. Isolating our queer comrades who do not partake for religious reasons and our queer family members in recovery, we raise a momentary, and even unbeatable, buzz over our shared experiences. This haze blocks other opportunities from materializing, trounces networks of solidarity. The potential of queer libraries, cafés, and bookshops matter, but so do democratic and popular forms beyond institutions.

In taking these simultaneous options of the specialized bar and public space, and the uninstitutionalized private space with care, we may find pathways to inclusion. If queer culture values constructed spaces above all with no liberatory force, we neglect meaningful transformation, like with the land; we obfuscate queer complicities in the settler colonial project here and abroad. Where we can converse, find joy, love, and hope from one another across our differences, and no longer be alone, is where we can be authentically queer.

Oil and soup don’t mix: Why souping paintings is harming climate activism

Chloé Kichenane Staff Writer

On Oct. 14, British climate activism group Just Stop Oil entered the spotlight by throwing a can of tomato soup on Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers painting at the London National Gallery. Although the glass-protected painting was unharmed, the action spurred a wave of outrage, to which the protesters systematically responded with a signature phrase: “What is worth more, art or life?”

To this I ask: Why do I have to choose?

Why can’t I have both art and life? It seems obvious that we should not have to choose between the two, and that artistic creation is another powerful means for activism.

Yes, I might be critical about the means used by Just Stop Oil to spread their message, but the case for their ideas needs to be made. It is important to stress that the painting was intentionally left unharmed in order to shine light on a hypocritical contradiction within our society. As soon as people learned that activists had thrown soup on a Van Gogh painting, social media was flooded with reactions of horror. In the meantime, 10 million children in Pakistan

were in urgent need of lifesaving support caused by one of the most devastating climate disasters in the country’s history—but the outcry was not nearly as loud.

This raises questions about Just Stop Oil’s actions and subsequent condemnation, as maybe they are not directly the problem. In fact, maybe the problem is the media’s reaction, insensitive to the message conveyed and only focusing on an unharmed painting. Maybe the problem is headlines such as “Climate activists throw soup at Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’” and articles devoid of nuance that only portray the group’s vandalism without mentioning what they are protesting against: The hundreds of licences about to be distributed by the British government for North Sea oil and gas projects. Most people who have heard about the soup incident have never heard about the British government’s disastrous intentions, which shows the failure of modern journalism to take decisive action in the fight for the climate. It is obviously easier for journalists to feed into the scandal and the instant buzz rather than tackling the real issues at play.

However, for anyone who did not research the group’s action further, Just Stop Oil’s last strike is just provocation for the sake of provocation, which, unfortunately, only leads to further discrediting of climate activism led by young figures. For those doubtful of recent

climate movements, attacking such a beloved painting reinforces their depiction of climate activism as being “performative.” The clock is ticking, and groups like Just Stop Oil do not have the time to wait for journalists to change their methods. Instead, it is time they focus on spreading their actual message, by learning how to how to frame issues so that they are properly covered by the media and sticking with traditional protest methods against the British government.

I am not arguing that climate activism must be clean and non-disruptive in order to be successful. Yet, I draw the line between disruption and destruction. The assault of a painting, even symbolically, is where activism loses its meaning, where it becomes nothing more than a bad publicity stunt meant to be trending on Twitter and disappear the day after. Better examples of climate activism have been seen here at McGill. Divest’s occupation of the Arts Building in March 2022 to demand the university cut their investments in fossil fuels, is a case in point. This action was the illustration of what climate activism should look like: Disruptive, thought-provoking, and pressuring the actual targets. So, I say, take to the streets, block the cars, scream as loud as you need so that people hear you. But—please don’t take my art, for oil and soup don’t mix.

The surveilling rhetoric of queer arguments in favour of institutions doused in white supremacy is an affront to queer people of colour at the centre of all major movements for 2SLGBTQIA+ rights. (Joules Garcia)

Van Gogh’s Sunflowers tomato-souped by Just Oil. (Rich Felgate)

Letter to the Editor: The Tribune flirts with anti-Semitism

It’s a frightening time to be a North American Jew. Kanye West’s rants are only the most visible example of the shocking reentry of ant-Semitism into the American public sphere. Last week, I exchanged worried messages with friends after the Newark FBI warned of a “broad threat to synagogues” in New Jersey (thankfully, the threat was mitigated).

The spontaneity and indiscretion of Kanye West or Marjorie Taylor Greene risks distracting from what has been a strategic deci sion by the top minds of American conservatism. They adopt their model from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, whose racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic movement was propelled through propaganda casting George Soros, a Hungarian-born Jewish philanthropist, as a nefarious manipulator of Hungarian institutions and politics. One term remains inescapable in descriptions of both American and Hun garian anti-Soros dogwhistles: The “puppet master,” an anti-Semitic trope dating from the late 18th century that has since become a central image of anti-Semitic ideology.

The trope has distinctly ethnonationalist implications—rightwing American politicians can therefore threaten Jews in their own society in the same breath as they admire far-right currents in Israeli society. For many on the left, the association between pro-Israel poli

tics and the attacks on Soros demonstrate that modern anti-Semitism is exclusively a problem of the right. But the pro-Israel shell of rightwing anti-Semitism has begun to crack. Kanye West took aim at “Jewish Zionists” in one of his rants. Candace Owens, a pundit at the far-right Daily Wire and defender of West’s comments on Jews, re cently shared a tweet from hard-left anti-Zionist Max Blumenthal dis missing criticism of Kanye West as a ploy of the “Zionist enterprise.”

Here we see the overlapping connotations of “Zionist”: On the one hand, a word for a particular ideology and movement, on the other, a code denoting unwanted Jewish influence. Indeed, the infa mous anti-Semitic forgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is pur ported to describe Jewish plans for world domination as discussed at the first Zionist congress. Playing on this double meaning, anti semites with varying perspectives on Israel will often target Jews by condemning “Zionist” influence. Labelling all opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitism is a transparent and unjustifiable effort to suppress Palestinian advocacy. Nevertheless, where the term “Zionist” is today abused or attached to common anti-Semitic tropes, it becomes appar ent that the left and right have both contributed to the construction of a language of anti-Semitic dogwhistles.

Look no further than the recent article in The McGill Tribune on a donation to McGill by Jewish philanthropist Charles Bronfman! I struggle to find daylight between anti-Soros canards and Students for

RETRACTION

Palestinian Human Rights’ (SPHR) unchallenged assertion, quoted in the Tribune, that McGill administrators are “puppets to their Zionist donors.”

This dangerous rhetoric has no place in student life. The Tribune owes its Jewish readers an apology and the promise that the next time we open the paper, we won’t be confronted with the same language disrupting Jewish life across North America.

When Tucker Carlson interviewed Kanye West a few weeks ago, he did not challenge West’s hateful ranting – Fox News just cut out the most overt anti-Semitism in favour of coded anti-Semitism that matched Carlson’s rhetoric. The example of Carlson and West demonstrates the insufficiency—and dishonesty—of merely scan ning for blatant bigotry. The invocation of these tropes and their ap proval by editors across the Tribune hierarchy reflect systemic prob lems.

This week’s incident should be taken as a signal to revisit the Tribune’s uncritical relationship to politically-aligned student groups like SPHR. Among other things, what institutional atrophy brings us to the point where a News article will adopt SPHR’s prejudicial fram ing based on a written statement—without so much as an interview?

With frustration, Benjamin Wexler, U2 Arts

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Pneumococcal vaccination coverage concerningly low among at-risk adults

Related infections include pneumonia, bronchitis, and meningitis

Gillian Cameron Contributor

In the past few years, we have all become intimately familiar with upper respiratory infections. With the annual cold, flu, and respiratory syntactical virus all on the rise, and the ever-present threat of COVID-19 looming over every crowded room, there is a lot to worry about during the upcoming winter season. Luckily for us, many of these diseases are prevent able through widespread vaccination.

Streptococcus pneumoniae, commonly called pneumococcus, is one of these vaccine-preventable dis eases. Pneumococcal infections have many presentations—the most com mon being pneumonia, an infection of the lungs. However, it can also present as meningitis, bronchitis, eye infec tions, septic arthritis, and other types of infections. While symptoms differ depending on the infected region of the body, pneumococcal pneumonia symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, chest pain, and chills. It spreads through respiratory droplets containing bacteria, direct oral contact with an infected person, or contact with contaminated material.

While pneumococcal infections are most common in children, they are more likely to result in hospitalization and death among adults over 65 and people with chronic medical condi

tions. While a reliable and effective vaccine against pneumococcus exists, McGill researchers recently published a study in PLOS One that found con cerningly low pneumococcal vaccina tion rates among at-risk populations.

“There is very little discussion about this intervention among the general public and especially among those who are at highest risk,” wrote Dr. Giorgia Sulis, a postdoctoral re

searcher at McGill who worked on the study, in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Knowing what proportion of high-risk individuals are not get ting the vaccine and understanding their characteristics—e.g. where they live, what is their income or educa tion level, what is their health status, etc.—are key steps to take action and improve vaccination coverage rates.” Dr. Sulis and her colleagues

found that 45.8 per cent of participants in the study who were 65 or older and 81.3 per cent of participants aged 47 to 64 with a chronic health condition self-reported that they never got the pneumococcal vaccine, despite being eligible and at high risk of complica tions if they contracted the disease. Participants from across Canada were sourced through the Canadian Longi tudinal Study on Aging. Researchers collected data on the vaccination sta tus of participants via survey. Partici pants who had gotten a flu shot or who had an appointment with a family doc tor in the past year were more likely to have received the vaccine. There was some provincial variation in vac cination rates—Quebec, Alberta, and Manitoba had the highest pneumo coccal vaccination rates, while New foundland and Labrador, New Bruns wick, and Prince Edward Island had the lowest.

The researchers also found that of the participants who received the flu vaccine, 32.6 per cent of those over 65 and 71.1 per cent of those between 47 and 64 years of age with a chronic medical condition did not receive the pneumococcal vaccine. Missed op portunities for vaccination were also seen among participants who had vis ited a family doctor within a year of the study, with 44.8 per cent of those over 65 and 80.4 per cent of all those with a chronic medical condition missing out on this vaccine.

According to Sulis, who is also a member of the International Tubercu losis Centre, the main barrier to at-risk groups receiving the pneumococcal vaccine is a lack of awareness. “Past surveys in Canada and elsewhere have shown that one of the main reasons for not getting a pneumococcal vaccine is never having heard of it. I think this speaks to the widespread lack of infor mation about pneumococcal vaccina tion programs and who is eligible to receive this vaccine,” Sulis wrote.

Other barriers include the cost of the vaccine—not-at-risk people in Quebec must pay $49 to receive it— and limited availability of the vaccine in pharmacies and doctor’s offices. So then, how can vaccination rates be im proved?

“It is essential to talk about pneu mococcal disease and pneumococcal vaccines so that people learn about this issue and become aware of the benefits of getting vaccinated,” Sulis explained. “Almost everyone has heard about influenza, but very few can say the same about pneumococ cus, right?”

In Quebec, the pneumococcal vaccine is free for people over 65 or who have chronic medical conditions. To find out how to receive the vaccine, contact your doctor or pharmacist. Call Info-Santé at 811 to find the clos est location with pneumococcal vac cines available.

In the Nov. 8 issue of The McGill Tribune , an article titled “Charles Bronfman’s $5 million donation to MISC raises concerns about academic freedom” quoted Students for Palestinian Human Rights McGill (SPHR) about Charles Bronfman’s latest donation. A portion of the quote played int o anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jewish people being “puppet masters” of institutional decisions—a trope that is both harmful and untrue. The Tribune apologizes for allowing this language to be published and deeply regrets any harm this caused to Jewish readers in the McGill community and beyond.

By 2025, The Canadian National Immunization Strategy aims to have 80 per cent of eligible people vaccinated against pneumococcus. (Drea Garcia / The McGill Tribune)

The resistance politics of art through an honest lens

A meditation on radical forms of filmmaking and its provocative doctrines

By Kareem Abuali, Opinion Editor

In my first year at McGill, I took ENGL 279, an intro to Film History course. We started with what is widely recognized as the first film in history, Man Riding Jumping Horse, explored slapstick comedies by Buster Keaton, and traversed the advent of sound in motion pictures until arriving at post-war Italy’s neore alist movement in the 1940s. This is when I was first introduced to the wonders of neorealist cinema—ini tially a conscious move away from Hollywood filmmak ing and towards a distrust of government and large institutions. The form is characterized by the use of non-actors, on-location shooting, heavy dialogue, and ultra-realistic depictions of everyday situations. The movement brought the medium of film into the hands of everyday people, providing a domain to portray the struggles of the working class and placing a critical lens on the role of the ‘actors’ and filmmakers. This introduction to the movement would later open the door for me, as an amateur filmmaker, to discover different forms of self-reflexive media that completely redefine the conventional roles of the camera, cast, and audience.

With my past projects, I had always felt like I was striving toward a message that was some what inauthentic and contrived. As I’ve started to take filmmaking more seriously, I’ve realized that my politics would always be inextricable from any story I hoped to tell. Exploring the techniques of self-refer ential and neorealist media has made me realize the extent to which radical and anti-oppressive doctrines can bear on a film project.

Later in the film history class, we visited the Iranian New Wave, a movement influenced in part by Italian neorealism and pioneered in the years af ter the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Filmmaking in Iran, fettered by heavy state censorship post-revolution, required creative mediums to critique the government, often resulting in self-reflexivity, if not total political transgression. Jafar Panahi, a filmmaker barred from making films in 2010 and placed under house arrest for making “anti-system” propaganda without a permit, documents his life under confinement in This Is Not A Film. He films illegally on his iPhone, forbidden by the government to even speak the words “action” or “cut.” Upon completion, the film was smuggled on a USB stick hidden inside a cake sent to France, where it was screened at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Panahi’s story exemplifies the perpetual risk of exile for filmmakers in Iran. Under the Islamic regime, where the political ramifications of consuming and producing anti-government content can be life-threatening, the producers and audiences of films are hyper-aware of the fact that they are watching films. The real threat

of violence makes it ever more necessary for Iranian filmmakers to probe the intention behind their films. What makes a film worth risking a prison sentence? This underlying question shapes self-reflexive media and its provocative techniques at large.

Reenactment, one remarkable filmmaking tool of the neorealist tradition, requires real people to recre ate scenes from their lives. The technique can help its participants process trauma, explore radical degrees of honesty, and challenge institutional oppression. It lev els the playing field of everyone involved in filmmaking and its consumption, giving its subjects and audience greater agency over each narrative and its real-life implications.

Despite the space that reenactment gives people to process their trauma and challenge higher powers, the ethics of this technique are highly debated.

In Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, for in stance, Fielder guides real-life people as they rehearse elaborate re-creations of their regular lives to prepare for stressful moments in the future. In one episode, Fielder helps a man, Patrick, prepare to confront his brother about the will of their late grandfather. He and Fielder exhaustively rehearse every possible scenar io of the conversation for days. After Patrick erupts into tears during one rehearsal, embracing the paid actor playing his brother and wishing they could leave the matter behind them, he leaves the set and never returns. In another episode, where Fielder creates an orchestrated simulation of a family, he hires a child actor to play his son. Without a real-life father figure, the child becomes attached to Fielder and starts call ing him “daddy” outside the simulation.

Jonathan Liu, U3 Arts and creator of McGill’s Facebook film group, sees the blurring of boundaries between real and fake as a productive method for managing personal hardships.

“When you consider The Rehearsal, you might want to consider what’s real and what’s fictional, or whether or not this question still matters,” Liu said. “In a way, the person who immerses himself in a con

structed rehearsal of trauma is experiencing a fake reality. But it is precisely such fake reality that facili tates his reconciliation with his reality.”

Ned Schantz, a professor of cultural studies and cinema at McGill, notes that as projects like The Re hearsal progress, they develop an intimate relationship with failure.

“So what seems to happen is that the projects keep evolving,” Schantz said. “Because you can’t get what you thought you wanted, so you change what you want a little bit, and that changes the project. And then that fails. So there’s something about reen actment as a mechanism of spiralling failure that is worth looking into.”

Schantz reminded me that with reenactment, it’s not uncommon for deceit, exploitation, and manipula tion to coil around each other in dynamic patterns.

“There’s always a question of: When could some thing tip over into exploitation? When could [the director] essentially be stealing their mean ing and conscripting it for his own ends?” Schantz reminded me. No show ex emplifies this ethical tension better than The Show About the Show by Caveh Za hedi. Za hedi, an independent filmmaker and professor of screen studies at The New School in New York City, is the mastermind behind the first and only show about its own making. The first episode outlines how he came up with the idea for the show, and how he pitched it to a Brooklyn cable network. Each subsequent episode is about the making of the previous episode, featuring reenactments of events behind the scenes. If his wife is upset that he’s divulging too much in the show, he’ll ask her to reenact their argument with him so that he can include it in the following episode. Throughout his career, Zahedi has employed radical honesty: He expresses exactly how he feels about everything, even if it makes others angry or upset. Zahedi gives his complete and unsuspecting trust in the story, expect ing it to write itself.

“The word on the street about my work, isthat it like, ruined my life, destroyed my marriage,” Zahedi told me one morning on FaceTime. “You know, some kind of like, I don’t know, Kamikaze? And my work

has definitely created fault lines that have pushed things in a certain direction. But I think those things would have happened anyway. And it just sort of sped up a process. I mean, the thing about honesty is it speeds up the process of growth, right?”

Albeit sometimes self-destructive, Zahedi’s philos ophy is certainly freeing. Stylistically, we often see the director working on the project, silently puppe teering and engaging with the actors and subjects. For Fielder and Zahedi, they’re confronted about their intentions. Understandably so: Why would they subject people to uncomfortable, seemingly gratu itous, and even personally traumatic situations? To what degree is this kind of filming exploitative? Some friends of mine that I’ve shown Fielder or Zahedi’s work are appalled, ethically stumped, but mostly uncomfortable. The self-righteous neorealist in me begs to challenge them by asking how they’d react differently if what they’d seen was entirely fictitious. These directors decided to include their confronta tions in the final product. They are honest about the problems that arise. Fielder breaks down, and Zahedi files for divorce. But they never try to absolve them selves from wrongdoing, and they never shy away from moral condemnation.

Most of the films I’ve seen that offer social and political commentary tend to replicate, within their own production, the same systems of oppression and exploitation that they critique. I feel a deep dis appointment when monolithic Hollywood production houses spoon-feed us anti-capitalism on their own terms. And the worst part is, people buy it. Take Don’t Look Up, whose A-list cast gets to critique climate inaction on screen and then cruise the world by private jet, or Nomadland, Hollywood’s attempt at realism, which enlisted a well-endowed award-winning actor to try her hand at acting ‘poor.’ Many self-re flexive works, however, are challenging the bureau cratic structures and dehumanizing institutions that dominate our lives. I see them as authentic, polit ically revolutionary responses against grave social injustices and frameworks of oppression.

In my second semester at McGill, I enrolled in ENGL 382, International Cinema 1: Arab Cinema at 3475 Peel. Each Friday at noon, we would watch a film. One of these films—a 2015 Egyptian experimental documen tary entitled Out on the Street—stuck with me. Filmmakers Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk deploy reenactment and enactment to expose the exploitation faced by nine factory workers in the context of Egypt’s January 25 Revolution, the upris ing against Hosni Mubarak’s regime in 2011. These men begin by constructing their set, painting white outlines marking the factory’s different rooms and offices on the floor of an aban doned building. They then proceed to reenact lived interactions with corrupt police officers who harass and detain them, as well as factory superiors who

constantly threaten to fire them. The workers func tion as writers, directors, and characters, drawing upon collective and individual experiences of their exploitation at the hands of both the public and private sector.

“On one hand, it gave the ac tors more agency,” Rizk told me in an inter view. “They weren’t following a script but were writing the script as they were speaking.”

Techniques of enactment ven ture to democratize filmmaking by accurately representing its subjects, holding the audience accountable, and reducing the camera to a passive observer—refuting the sensa tionalist lens Western media imposes on narratives of Egyptian resistance and Arab struggles more generally.

I recently watched Ghost Hunting, a Palestin ian film by Raed Andoni. To me, the film revealed the potential of reenactment to offer methods of processing trauma, both collective and individual, and resistance against oppression. Andoni starts by asking a group of Palestinian men to rebuild the interiors of the Al-Moskobiya, the infamous Israeli prison in occupied Jerusalem used to incarcerate and abuse Palestinians. From memory and by hand, the men reconstruct the interrogation rooms and extremely small solitary cells where they were once incarcerated. As the prison begins to take form, the former inmates call upon fragmented—in some cases, repressed and guilt-ridden—memories of the humili ating torture the Israeli occupation forces subjected them to.

One participant, incarcerated at the same time as his brother, who committed suicide in his cell, breaks down as he recollects his memories from the prison. Another describes how, handcuffed and with a bag over his head, he hallucinated his mother uncovering his head and feeding him water. Togeth er, the men reflect, comfort each other, and reenact their experiences to better process their trauma. Since 1967, the Zionist regime has detained over 700,000 Palestinians, and Palestinian men, wom en, and children are still regularly incarcerated in Maskobiya and elsewhere.

Both Ghost Hunting and Out on the Street depict a collective experience of processing severe mistreatment—the resistant and confrontational purpose they serve requires the films to transcend the traditional hierarchy of director and directed subjects. Andoni has made it clear that the men in Ghost Hunting are not actors, but protagonists who are in charge of what they decide to portray. Despite intense, emotional interactions with the past, both films are forward-facing and look to envision the future. Ghost Hunting ends with a celebration of the upcoming marriage of one of the men, while the workers from Out on The Street imagine a future where they take ownership of the factory and run it as a cooperative.

“[Enactment] opens the power of the imaginary because you’re not engaging with a past event and so you’re not restricted by how events occurred,” Rizk explained. “[It] instead opens up a large number of possibilities and scenarios that are not tied to the political deadlock of the moment when we were

shooting Out on The Street.”

These films taught me the potential that radical filmmaking has to re negotiate conventional power dynamics. The potential to be revolu tionary in nature.

McGill is an institution that holds its own board rooms of concentrated power and heavy-hand ed indifference. We have lost multiple leaders fighting for a more just campus. Dr. Greg Mikkelson resigned in 2020 due to the university’s refusal to divest from fossil fuels, and Dr. Charmaine Nelson in the same year, due to its failure to redress how slavery structured James McGill’s rise to power and their lack of commitment to Black and Indigenous faculty and Black Canadian Studies. This past May, SSMU slashed the democrat ically passed Palestine Solidarity Policy. It’s easy to see how its countless failures to recognize student demands demoralizes the student body. It’s even easier to feel as a student that you’re fighting with brutalist buildings, documents, and statues, all of which are absurd, arbitrary, and remarkably unre sponsive to real-life human needs. I don’t doubt that any of the filmmakers I spoke with would think of what a challenging and fascinating exercise it would be to overcome and harness this absurdity.

Earlier this year, I saw someone freak out when their laptop got stolen after he left it unattended on the fifth floor of McLennan. I found the build ing deserving of a bureaucratic-nightmare story and wrote a short screenplay about a student whose laptop gets stolen at the library. I imagined how this student might spend the next hour lamenting to the library staff at the front desk. I then imagined that he might spend the following hour arguing with the head of security because they told him they weren’t responsible for it, that he hadn’t read the signs say ing not to leave his property unattended. He might ask to view the security footage, and they might say they aren’t authorized to review it until an investiga tion is opened.

He might give up, wait it out, or use the desk tops on the McLennan main floor to search in the “Low to High” price range of Best Buy’s laptop list ings. He might not, though, and instead swim upriver, thrusting against the currents of statements from aloof employees like “there’s nothing I can do” and “this office might be able to help you.” Ultimately, the emails he sends might get lost in the void, and the people he chooses to confront at their offices might be on their lunch breaks. Such a sequence might seem hardly worth capturing. But envision this real person, boxed within the soulless, artificially lit, lime-green painted walls of the back offices of McLennan main, beaming with tremendous frustration and bitterness.

Design by Mika Drygas, Design Editor

What’s in your water? This revolutionary AI technology breaks it down

Holographic microscope technology to improve water-based composition analysis

Rich Contributor

Continued from page 1.

It involves combining artificial intelligence (AI) with the com pany’s digital in-line holographic microscopes, also called nano-

DIHM technology.

This amalgamated AI-nanoDIHM technology is made up of two essential parts: Hologram re cording and reconstruction. With hologram recording, the nanoDIHM shoots out a beam of light through a pinhole that hits a water sample. From there, the object

produces a magnified diffraction pattern that is recorded by a com puter. The hologram is then re constructed and processed by two aptly-named aquatic AI software programs—Octopus and Stingray.

Hundreds of previously re corded holograms were used to train Octopus and Stingray; by the end of the process, each pro gram could accurately determine the composition of whatever sam ple was placed in front of them. The AIs registered an accuracy of over 99 per cent when tested on their ability to identify oil drop lets in mixtures of metal oxides.

The software does not just define a sample’s composition but also assists researchers in describing the water’s character istics.

“For the contaminants [...] the things you do not know exist, [the software] would be able to identify it,” said Parisa Ariya, a professor in McGill’s Department of Chemistry and Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences and one of the lead researchers of the study, in an interview with The McGill Tribune . “By clas sifying the things you know [...] the things you do not know can be

identified physically, so it has a lot of potential.”

However, the water compo sition identification goes beyond describing physical characteris tics such as size and shape.

“We are working at doing chemical composition as well [as] it allows, for example, [for the further study of fields] from medicine and pharmaceutics to aerosol and climate change, to pollution in air and water,” Ariya explained.

More remarkable is nano-DI HM’s processing speed—its lim its are based solely on the compu tational power provided.

“This technology allows us to do two things—one of them is form a sensor that will be detect ing contaminants [using] AI [...] in the blink of an eye, 32 millisec onds, and we can do better than that,” Ariya said.

Like many recent technologi cal advances, Ariya’s research began because of COVID-19. The research took inspiration from an other of the researchers’ papers that focused on using nano-DIHM on aerosolized particles.

“COVID served as a cata lyst,” Ariya said. “We wanted to

serve humanity better, and we [...] also [...] got our alarms up. We knew that a [...] major part [...] was airborne, and we wanted to provide solutions.”

Nano-DIHM is not without competitors. The image resolu tion of nano-DIHM is worse than that of the previous method of choice—scanning transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM). But S/TEM microscopes are not portable and are far more expen sive. They can weigh up to 80 ki lograms, be half a metre tall, and cost anywhere from $60,000 to $250,000 USD.

Since nano-DIHM is physi cally much smaller than S/TEM and can work with live and mov ing samples—such as rushing water—, scientists can bring nano-DIHM on-site and perform the technique there, hopefully decreasing the timeline for data collection and analysis. The pos sibilities do not end there.

“Oil spills happen around the world very, very often, [so hope fully] we can look into [spills] for forecasting as well as [...] how we can actually sustainably remove it, and how much [...] less energy [...] we can use,” Ariya said.

Innovative algorithm develops theories on rules of human language

McGill and MIT researchers collaborate on AI that can solve simple linguistics problems

Ella Paulin Staff Writer

Over the last several years, artificial intelligence (AI) has made huge strides forward in the areas of language modelling and translation. Recent improvements are exemplified by the accuracy of machine translation services such as Google Translate, the ability of devices like Amazon’s

Alexa to interpret and respond to instructions given in conversational speech, and the automated pro duction of summaries based on a source text.

However, traditional lan guage-modelling AIs still require exposure to massive amounts of examples, often in the millions, to learn how to understand or produce language. Additionally, while these AIs do develop an understanding of

language rules, exactly how this un derstanding works remains unclear.

“There’s been this huge and quite breathtaking improvement in the performance of things like language models [...] but what they do internally, the kinds of implicit theoretical representations that they learn, are just not available for hu mans to read,” explained Timothy O’Donnell, assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Linguis tics, in an interview with The Mc Gill Tribune.

O’Donnell recently co-au thored a research article published in Nature Communications de scribing an innovative approach to training AI to understand the rules of human language. O’Donnell and his team of researchers from Mc Gill and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on an area of linguistics problems in morphol ogy—a branch of the discipline that seeks to understand the inter nal structure of words. The team looked more specifically at patterns of sound change within languages and they took morphology prob lem sets from standard introductory textbooks as their testing grounds for the AI.

To solve these simple linguis

tics problems, the researchers de veloped an AI that could turn them into complex logical expressions, which could then be understood and solved by a computer.

“We took a problem that we can read, we transformed it to an extremely complicated logic prob lem, which we can’t,” O’Donnell said. “If you looked at it, you would have no idea what was going on. But there’s specialized software that’s really good at solving these kinds of logic problems.”

By transforming linguistics problems into logic problems, O’Donnell and the researchers could train their model to develop morphological rules and patterns using significantly fewer exam ples than traditional AI techniques would usually require.

Another advancement is that its output is completely humaninterpretable. In other words, the system creates rules that can be read and understood by a human researcher. Taken as a whole, the process is remarkably similar to the way that human linguists develop theories about language.

“We are very inspired by the way in which [...] profession al linguists proposed theories,”

O’Donnell said. “If you go and you’re studying a new language somewhere, you collect some data, and then people immediately, even when the datasets are relatively small, start proposing theories of phonology and the morphology of these new languages.

This software could even be considered a “theory builder,” or an AI that analyzes a set of data and is able to develop its own scientific theories to explain the data. Mod els like this, which are also being worked on in other scientific fields, have the potential to drastically change the way that researchers de velop theories.

“One of my collaborators called it thinking prosthetics, so, a way to extend the ability of re searchers to think by using auto mated tools to help them search for good theoretical proposals,” O’Donnell explained.

This particular model is still functioning at a fairly basic level and being tested mostly on predetermined examples. However, given the speed of development in AI right now, one can imagine a near future where researchers are assisted by, or even surpassed by, this type of theory-building AI.

Dashiell

Human activity is the primary source of contaminants in our already incredibly limited natural water supply. In 2021 alone, one large (greater than 700 tonnes) and five medium (between 7 and 700 tonnes) oil spills occurred worldwide. (Alex Zhou/ The McGill Tribune)

Deep learning is a powerful tool for teaching AI to use human languages, but it has to be trained on millions, or even billions, of examples. (Julia Buckle/ The McGill Tribune)

Oh, the tattoos we’ve inked

Poline Harbali’s new exhibit reflects on immigrant experiences in a unique way

Ella Buckingham Staff Writer

An ornate stone house with a plaque reading “FaisMoi L’Art Gallery’’ sits on the corner of Rue Cherrier and Saint André, spilling light onto a quiet, dark street. It is the opening night of Poline Harbali’s exhibit They wrote the countries borders on my skin, and all the commotion is inside. People huddle around cu rated displays featuring photos and journal entries, chronicling the tat too journeys of 10 women and nonbinary people. Working with Poline Harbali, these individuals each de signed a tattoo invoking the spirit and personal importance of their Canadian immigration story. Taking four years to complete, her exhibit highlights the immigration journey and its diverse challenges.

“The first three years were about meeting all the participants and researching all the materials,” Harbali explained in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do visually. It was more about [...] cre ating a link with them and working on the tattoo.”

The project is divided between two rooms, each with its own focus. In the first, transcripts of interviews with the participants and working

designs of the tattoos are displayed on the walls. A true chronicle of the process, this space shows the ups and downs of the journey. The second room, using multimedia, immerses the audience into a tattoo session with the participants. It can be jarring; a tattoo table covered in sheets and imitation blood placed in the centre captures the eye. There are, however, more subtle aspects as well: 10 screens lining the wall show the participants’ eyes, and by donning headphones, one can listen to the tattoo gun’s whirl, the light breathing of participants, and ambi ent music which all together give the impression of being inside the tattoo parlour.

The women and non-binary people Harbali covers in the exhibit have immigrated from countries such as Lebanon, Senegal, and Guatemala. Originally, she had in terviewed people of all genders, but in seeing common themes amongst these two groups, Harbali decided to narrow her search.

“[A]fter many interviews, I realized we, like women and non-binary people, have the same relationship to our body in public spaces, like our body is not really our body,” said Harbali. “It’s al ways something people command and see and discuss so something in common between all of them came out. [Tattooing is an] act of reinte

grating our own bodies and not hav ing to ask for permission.”

Harbali’s own journey with tattooing started in concurrence with this project. She remarked that during the immigration pro cess, feeling passive and alone, she wanted to get tattooed to have power over her own body and feel stronger. She learned how to tat too for the project because she felt it created a more intimate link be tween herself and the participants. Harbali worked with each person to fashion a design reflecting their immigration journeys. She empha sizes, however, that the design itself is not what’s important.

“It’s not really about the de sign of the tattoos because it’s very personal, and this is their own story,” said Harbali. “It’s more about the relationship between the

body as immigrants and the tattooed body, like why do you want to get tattooed as part of your immigration journey?”

Harbali said she hasn’t seen any common themes emerge among the many immigration pro cesses and hopes the project reflects that diversity.

“This is […] 10 stories amongst thousands…but all of those stories are very different. Some of them have very difficult times during the immigration pro cesses, others [did not],” Harbali concluded. “[There’s] not just one [story] about immigration, there are many.”

They wrote the countries bor ders on my skin by Poline Harbali will be displayed at the Fais-Moi L’Art Gallery until Dec. 30.

Indigenous Winter Market

Visit the Southern Quebec Inuit Association (SQIA) and Native Friendship Centre of Montreal (NFCM) for its second annual Indigenous Winter Market. Shop for all your holiday needs with Indigenous handcrafted gift items from over 20 Indigenous vendors.

Saturday, November 19th and Sunday, November 20th, 2022, from 10 am to 4 pm 2001 St Laurent Blvd, Montreal, QC

Sunday Workshop: Looking after the stories of Montreal/Tiohtiá:ke

This community workshop takes you on a journey telling the untold stories of Chinese, Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities. The workshop will include viewing photographs of 19th and 20th-century Montreal from the McCord Museum’s Photography collection.

Sunday, November 20th, 2022, 11 AM. to 3:45 PM

McCord Museum, 690 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal FREE event limited seating; arrive 15 mins in

McGill Comedy Revue

The McGill Improv is proud to present its 10th and final McGill Comedy Revue show of the year. The show will be action-packed with comedy, special guests, and a musical performance.

November 15th, 2022, 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm / Doors: 7:30 pm

Théâtre Sainte-Catherine 264, Sainte-Catherine Est, Montréal, QC, Canada Tickets are $7.31 and are available at https:// lepointdevente.com/tickets/mcgcr

The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM)

The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) is one of North America’s most prominent documentary film festivals. This year the RIDM is presenting more than 150 international and Canadian documentaries. November 17- 27, 2022

Screenings at: Cinema du parc (3575 Park Ave), Cinéma du Musée (1379-A Sherbrooke St W) and Cinémathèque québécoise (335 Boul. de Maisonneuve E) Tickets are $13.50 per screening and are available at https://ridm.ca/fr/billetterie-ridm

The insipid paradox of ‘Love is Blind’ season three

Alice Kreinin Contributor

Reality TV tends to teeter between frivolous, Kar dashian-esque antics and deranged social experiments. Com bining these unique worlds is a puz zling balancing act, but one that’s kept the genre afloat for years. Argu ably the most prominent category of reality TV is dating shows, such as The Bachelor, Love Island, or, more recently, Too Hot to Handle. Typical dating shows feature overblown ar guments and theatrics, usually thanks to the artifice of overzealous editing.

Authenticity isn’t exactly a trademark of reality TV—yet it is the central theme of the Netflix origi nal, Love is Blind. The show aims to have contestants get engaged “sight unseen”, as hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey put it. Condemning the shal lowness of modern dating culture, contestants decide to marry solely based on blind conversations held in windowless pods over the course of 10 days. Only those who accept their proposals will finally get to meet their partners face-to-face.

Love is Blind flaunts the prom ise of a blissful world where appear ances don’t matter—because every

contestant is convention ally beautiful, anyways— and everyone is loved for their true selves. But this obvious farce has made for a tedious third season compared to its predeces sors. As in the previous seasons, we see couples toil to stay together for the sake of upholding the show’s gimmick, a rou tine that quickly becomes exhausting. This season, five engaged couples leave the pods, three of which al most immediately crumble in the so-called real world (i.e., a resort in Malibu). Their endless cycle of vapid arguments eventually grows stale, only enlivened by changes in location and royalty-free pop music.

Season three features the most dysfunctional relationships we’ve seen so far, but their dysfunction isn’t absurd enough to be entertain ing—at best, it’s uncomfortable. For instance, Bartise and Nancy’s tense disagreement on abortion takes a jar ring shift towards an uneasy tone that feels intrusive to watch. Most of the other, lighter conflicts arise from the contestants’ insecurities, which seem

to reinforce that love is not, in fact, blind. It’s a tiresome charade that takes up most of the season.

This season embodies perfor mative authenticity and thrives on proving itself wrong. If love really was blind, we’d be left with an unbe lievably dull show. It capitalizes on the entertainment value of watching relationships crash and burn—the sadistic tradition of dating shows. Drama is indispensable. But Love is Blind lacks the self-awareness to make this paradox work.

It’s near impossible to enjoy the chaos of the show when, all the while, it preaches authenticity under the most contrived circumstances pos sible. Even as relationships unravel, contestants continue to obnoxiously proclaim their faith in the blind en gagements. Reality TV depends so heavily on its own messiness that it seems entirely antithetical to clut ter it with eye-roll-inducing mantras about the power of being you. This, paired with the repetitive drama, places Love is Blind in a monotonous

in-between, where it fails both to en tertain and to make social commen tary. It doesn’t lean far enough in any direction to be compelling.

While other dating shows tend to embrace artifice and gratuitous drama, Love is Blind maintains a façade of realism that isn’t suf ficiently sensible. Season three’s contestants are all based in Dallas, Texas, which is a commendable departure from other dating shows where couples are often split up by long distance. However, the show’s structure undermines this addition, only giving contestants 10 days to “date” before getting engaged.

It is unclear how Love is Blind will retain its intrigue throughout its fourth and fifth seasons, which have already been greenlit by Netflix. But one thing is for certain: Reality TV is no longer the debaucherous jumble of contrived drama that we know so well. No, reality TV is intel ligent now. Reality TV is deep. And most of all, it’s “authentic.” Because if there’s one place where you can truly be yourself, it’s in a room full of cameras.

Love is Blind is currently streaming on Netflix.

Highly awaited third season is totally dysfunctional and not in a good way

Poline Harbali enjoyed learning how to tattoo for this project so much that she now works as a tattoo artist. (Cam Flanagan/ The McGill Tribune)

Chris Coelen, creator of Love is Blind, has confirmed that the on-screen marriages are, in fact, legally binding. (cosmopolitan.com)

Contemporary dance ‘If My Body Had a Name’ narrates one dancer’s path to self-restoration Hoor Malas seeks

mind-body reconciliation through dance in evocative performance

AnnaClare Sung Contributor

Syrian dancer and choreographer Hoor Malas is cloaked in a pink shawl, lying in near-darkness in a fetal-like position on the floor. Malas’s breaths echo through the performance space. Her arm extends weakly, yet with purpose, as she attempts to pull herself over to the singular illuminated light, beaming at her eye-line on the opposite side of the stage. Thus commences the four movements of If My Body Had a Name, a fervent and vulnerable psychosomatic exploration of self through dance.

The contemporary piece, inspired by British author Ken Robinson’s link between the mind and the body, was Malas’s first endeavour as a solo creator. It was produced jointly by Montréal Arts Interculturels (MAI) and Danses de résistances and ran from Nov. 3-5 at MAI. Using Stockholm-based musi cian Shadi Ali’s compositions and Montrealer Mark Croteau’s lighting designs, If My Body Had a Name addresses Malas’s relationship between her mind and body, investigating the hand and full-body gestures she frequently encountered in Syria dur ing her youth and revealing their influence on her through vari ous life stages.

The first movement portrays Malas in-vitro. In near-dark ness and silence, she is a being that has yet to develop, but is al ready experiencing struggle. Malas pursues light after light––small bulbs that surround the stage floor––each one going dark until, at last, the light remains on, projecting a quasi-birth as Malas removes her shawl. What follows in the second move ment is a physical self-realization of infancy and childhood: In one moment, she sits, observing her hand as if just discov ering its existence. In the third and fourth movements, Malas examines her adolescence and adulthood, respectively. In my conversation with Malas, she explained that each movement grapples with “a certain amount of time and certain ideology of a place.”

This phenomenon is particularly present and poignant in

the third movement. Malas places herself in squares of light on the stage floor—each associated with a specific gesture. In one, she salutes, alluding to the presence of military ideology in her Syrian education. She flits from square to square, frantically repeating motions and poses—a nod to how imposed ide ologies harmed her ability to shape her individuality. The movement prompts the audience to consider what forces have influenced their own identities. One member (whom Malas later told me was a friend of hers from Syria) was moved to tears.

If My Body Had a Name show cases ragged, disconnecting move ments, with moments of bodily isolation that expose the mind-body struggle endured on her journey of self-discovery. Malas’s talent is evident in the piece’s fluidity. Slower, sharper, articulated motions display her masterful control and quality of movement. The soundtrack seems to inform Malas’s dancing rather than guide it; the two, along with the lighting, are intimately engaged with one another. The piece was ob viously rehearsed with purpose, but Malas gives glimpses of improvisation. She incorporates flairs of creativity that add to the piece’s genius and vulnerability as a genuine, stripped ex pression of the self.

In our conversation, rehearsal director Neil Sochasky described this vulnerability similarly, saying, “[the dance] is very naked [...] what made it seem this way is [Malas is] not hiding behind techniques and tricks.”

In If My Body Had a Name , Malas uses dance as an

expressive medium similar to that of a diary. Through movement, Malas, jarringly yet gracefully, addresses past traumas and victories. Focusing on the individual mind and body, she extracts herself from the impositions and interpolations of the external. The contemporary cho reography, along with her use of Syrian gestures in the piece, resists and reclaims the power that individuals and institutions previously held over her, finding hard-fought peace at the performance’s end. Malas’s connection to dance provides catharsis in dissecting her traumas, but not everyone would approach such journeys similarly. If the mind and body may be reconciled for Malas, perhaps they can be for everyone.

Aimee DeLong Contributor

When thinking of Matthew Perry, it is nearly impos sible to separate him from his popular role on the hit TV show Friends. While his name has largely been synonymous with Chandler Bing, it also is associated with a much more stigmatized term—addict. In Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, the Canadian-American actor holds noth ing back when chronicling his mental health challenges. He shares his crush ing abandonment issues with unabated honesty and doesn’t shy away from the mistakes he has made in his life.

It is no easy feat to admit to suffering from addiction, let alone delving into the difficult process of getting clean, all while living in the public eye. Though there are many things to take away from this memoir, we cannot ig nore one statement—could he be any stronger?

Throughout the memoir, Perry emphasizes time and time again that he should be dead. The actor recounts his copious use of narcotics, opiates, and alcohol, along with many trial-

and-error stints in different rehabilita tion centres. Considering the media’s distortion of mental illness, Perry’s frank retelling of his substance use disorder remains an incredibly coura geous act. Given the severity of his affliction, the fact that he is still work ing towards self-improvement today proves that he is a fighter at heart.

Naturally, this cycle of rehab and relapse was not the only one Perry became trapped in. He recalls letting fear get the best of him and destroy ing multiple relationships, including his romances with actresses Julia Rob erts and Lizzy Caplan. Readers have a front-row seat to the unreliability in his love life, and the author divulges many regrets regarding his failed romances.

Unfortunately, Perry’s acting cre dentials and flawless comedic timing do not equate to great writing. The book reads very disjointedly, with no discernible timeline. Between para graphs, Perry jumps from his child hood in Ottawa to his time filming The Whole Nine Yards to his experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, all without warning. Readers find it dif ficult to determine whether Matthew was 15 or 50 in certain scenes, and

the confusion is only cleared up by several overt contextual cues. Ad ditionally, his complaint of making only $50,000 for a project after making millions per episode on Friends seems in poor taste.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the autobiography is the sheer amount of Canadian content: Matthew was born in Montreal, and he even references McGill University. He reveals his quotid ian life in Ottawa, including his surprising connection to the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his son Justin, whom he claims to have once physically fought. Sadly, the finer details of this altercation re main shrouded in mystery.

Interestingly enough, Friends does not play as big of a role in Perry’s narrative as fans might think. He does talk about how the TV show changed his life—especially his bank ac count—but audiences looking for hot gossip from the set will be sorely dis appointed. He speaks about his former castmates and crew members with fondness. The only tumultuous memo ries included are those caused by Perry himself—he recalls falling asleep dur

ing a scene and having to be nudged awake by Matt LeBlanc—which are interesting but not buzzworthy. All that to say, Perry still engages his au dience. His distinct voice manages to captivate readers, even if it is being used to take strange digs at Keanu Reeves that he refuses to elaborate on.

Fundamentally, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is exactly what you would expect from Matthew Perry: An exhausting and heartbreak ing book that blends comedy and bru tal honesty. Even so, the writing comes

off a tad lacklustre and inconsistent throughout the narrative. He’s a tal ented, but broken man, and he appears to be taking his time putting himself back together. Even if he can be out of touch or self-centred, his frankness and vulnerability are brave and com mendable. So whether you love or hate him, let’s wish Ms. Chanandler Bong the best.

Friends, Lovers and the Big Ter rible Thing by Matthew Perry is avail able wherever books are sold.

Matthew Perry may be hilarious, but his mental health struggles are no laughing matter

‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing’ is a moving, yet disappointing memoir

Malas is the recipient of the Montréal Arts Interculturels and Conseil des Arts de Montréal joint fellowship, which aims to support marginalized artists from visible and invisible minorities.(Maeve Reilly/ The McGill Tribune)

As a teen, Matthew Perry was a nationally-ranked tennis player in Canada. (people. com)

Tips to survive the impending Montreal winter Your snowy questions answered with seasoned advice

Naomi Gupta Contributor

With the temperatures steadily dropping and the leaves quickly disappearing, it’s time we accept the inevitable: Winter is coming. If it’s your first winter here, you’re in for quite the treat. If it isn’t, then great—I hope you remembered your jacket.

After some 12 years of living in Montreal and experiencing these gruelling winters, I’ve grown accustomed to the bitter winds that slap me in the face on a brisk winter morning, the feeling of snow melting into my “waterproof” boots, and the sun setting before I’ve even had a chance to grab a second coffee. Not only is it the most brutal season of the year, but it’s also the longest. So, it’s important to know what to expect and how to deal with winter when it arrives. “Attache ta tuque,” as the Quebecois say.

Punctuality is overrated; dressing appropriately is not

The key to preventing a “winter

burn-out” is merely this: Staying warm. So let’s not beat around the bush—if you want to be fully functioning by the end of the season, first things first: Wear a coat! A winter one. I know it can be hard to make the distinction between what is considered a “fall coat” and a “winter coat,” so let me help you out. If your coat looks like one of those light, skinny ones middle-aged people buy when they’re having a midlife crisis, then that’s probably not what you should be wearing when it’s -15 degrees Celsius outside. Get yourself a proper coat—the thick, padded, warm, insulated-to-the-teeth kind that shields you from the cold.

Along with coats, hats, too, are a must. It’s one thing not to wear gloves and shove your fingers in your pockets, but there really is no equivalent for your head, nose, and ears—let’s stop pretending that pulling your hood over your head does the job. While you’re at it, maybe consider investing in a scarf or even a pair of earmuffs. The bottom line is: Don’t rush out the door in minimal winter clothing. Take time to bundle up—even if it might cost you a few extra minutes of your day.

Getting around town in the wintertime

To the students who plan on boycotting public transport, thinking they can walk instead… well…good luck. Walking is certainly doable when you live within a five-block radius of campus, but if you’re located anywhere beyond that, you might want to consider investing in an OPUS card. With over 215 bus

Quick and easy recipes for crunch times

Time-friendly meals to prepare for the end of term

Lauren Hicken Contributor

Alas, we have arrived in November, a time when we are plagued by grey skies, the end of daylight savings, and store shelves prematurely filled with holiday decorations.

Although the days are supposed to get shorter, they feel much longer as midterm season comes to an end and exam prep begins. Whether it’s too many late nights at the library, working on assignments up until 11:59 p.m., or just overall exhaustion from trying to save your GPA at the last minute, allocating time to cooking meals becomes more and more of a challenge. I can’t blame you—when you walk out of class at 5 p.m., and it’s already dark outside, all you want to do is get home, be warm, and relax with some hot cocoa. However, as we all know (but never actually stick to), the better we eat, the better we feel, and the more energized we will be to get through those assignments. But don’t fret— The McGill Tribune is here to share some easy home-cooked meals and snacks to help get you through those long, exhausting days.

Easy cream of mushroom chicken Ingredients

• 4-5 chicken breasts or 5-6 chicken thighs

• 1 box of white mushrooms (sliced)

• 1 tsp of olive oil

• 1 tsp butter

• 2 cloves of chopped garlic

• 1/3 cup chicken broth

• 1 cup heavy cream

• ½ tsp lemon juice

• A few pinches of cracked pepper

• Optional: spinach, pasta

1. Add oil and garlic to a large pan over medium heat.

2. Sauté garlic until fragrant.Add chicken, salt, and pepper if desired.

3. Cook the chicken on each side for five minutes (or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit).

4. Remove chicken from the pan, then add butter, more garlic, and sliced mushrooms.

5. Sauté mushrooms, then remove from the pan.

6. Add chicken broth and lemon juice to the pan and simmer until about one-third reduces.

7. Add in cream, cooked mushrooms, and cooked chicken.

8. Cook until the sauce begins to thicken, then serve!

Baked salmon with sweet tomato sauce

Pairs well with quinoa

Ingredients

For 1 large filet of salmon

• 2 tbsp tomato paste

• 2 tsp honey

• 1 tsp melted butter

• Chopped garlic (as much as you desire)

• ½ tsp lemon juice

• 2 pinches of cracked pepper

• 2 pinches of thyme

• 2 pinches of basil

• Parmesan cheese (enough to create a thin layer over the fish)

• Optional: Cherry tomatoes, sliced

white onion

lines and 68 metro stops across the island, the public transport network saves Montrealers a lot of trouble when it comes to getting around. And here’s a not-so-secret-secret for you: McGill students get access to an OPUS card with discounted student fares, which you can order through Minerva!

Resisting the urge to hibernate

Let’s face it: Joining the

squirrels in hibernation has never looked more appealing. Now, however tempting this may be, it’s essential to get outside and spend time with friends. The city has many outdoor activities to keep you occupied, which are often free and accessible. If you’re steady on your feet, there’s skating at parks such as La Fontaine and Maisonneuve— they offer skate rentals. Or perhaps if you’d rather hurtle 100 miles an hour down a hill—then maybe sledding is for you. If you need a break from your studies, you could enjoy a scenic walk up Mount Royal or attend events hosted by the city’s annual “Montréal en Lumière.”

Winters in Montreal are certainly not for the faint of heart, especially when they last until late April, but you will quickly get used to them. Just remember to wrap up and get outside when the sun’s out. Reserve the Netflix days for blizzards and freezing rain storms— did I mention those? Oh, right… anyway, don’t worry, you’ll survive. And before you know it, the warm weather will return, and you will be back on campus, in the sun, waiting in line for a hot dog again.

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F (or 200° C).

2. Mix tomato paste, honey, butter, garlic, lemon juice, basil, and thyme in a small bowl.

3. Oil a sheet pan and place the salmon on it.

4. Poke the salmon with a fork and season lightly with salt and pepper.

5. Spread the topping (from step 2) over the salmon and season with more herbs if desired.

6. Optional: Place halved cherry tomatoes and onions on the salmon.

7. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over fish (you can be very generous––if you add more parmesan, it will create a crunchy texture).

8. Place in the oven for 10-14 minutes.

9. Optional: Add more parmesan and broil for one minute for a crisp topping.

10. Serve!

Sweet and savoury quinoa bowl: Ingredients

• ½ cup of quinoa

• ½ of a red or orange pepper (sliced)

• ½ white onions (sliced)

• 2 inches cucumber (diced)

• ½ tomato (diced)

• Handful of mixed greens

• Feta cheese (as much as desired)

• ½ cup tomato sauce

• 1 tsp of honey

• Handful of dried cranberries

• Handful of sliced almonds

1. Cook quinoa according to package directions, after rinsing thoroughly.

2. Sauté onions and peppers.

3. Once onions and peppers brown, add quinoa to the bowl and season to taste.

4. Mix in tomato sauce and honey, then mixed greens.

5.Optional: Add in tofu, legumes, or other proteins.

6. Add feta, cranberries, and almonds on top, then serve!

Scenic walks through the Old Port are a great way to make the most of this winter. (oldportofmontreal.com)

Shrimp mac and cheese is an easy, protein-filled meal to help keep you going as the weather gets colder. (Sofia Stankovic / The McGill Tribune)

Patati Patata is the charming, local diner we all love A Plateau gem

vegetarian options

Harry North Staff Writer

Oh, I’m exhausted. Now there’s an opening sentence to remember.

I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to yawn in your face. It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday and St. Laurent is subdued. It’s not deserted—the street’s just napping before the partying commences. Normally I’m able to find some time to write, but it seems this Saturday got away from me.

This week I’m reviewing Patati Patata. Heard of it? Thought so. But for those who haven’t been confined to their houses, Patati Patata is a petit diner on the corner of St. Laurent and Rue Rachel.

The exterior is plastered with jagged blue and purple on one side and yellow and red on the other, along with a dash of illegible graffiti, and a ginormous ‘Patati Patata’ billboard that lights up at night. Also, before I forget: It’s not Pa-ta-ti Par-ta-ta. It’s Pa-tar-tee Pa-tar-tarrr—roll those Rs. Hermione Granger would be all over this.

By the way, if you are still here, I’m now on overtime, and I most certainly do accept cash as payment—none of that fiddly crypto stuff. Call me old-school, but it has to have Queen Liz’s smutty smile on it.

The line for Patati Patata normally comes outside and snakes around the

block. Most go for takeout here, which is fair enough if you prefer eating hot food cold. I try to dine in for this reason. So, I wait in line and eventually grab a stool at the far end of the serving counter.

It’s a compact, chaotic room, but the chaos adds to the design. Students flock here like excited cattle, but families, with children under 10 years old, as well as local workers, come for a bite, too. The walls are a modest yellow with lightbrown wooden beams and are covered in Quebecois posters and local music fliers. The cooking area takes up the biggest chunk of the room, leaving an L-shaped area for customers. There are only about 12 stools, so it’s cramped—but cozy, like

an inner-city Quebecois cabin. There’s also a sign that says, “To go or for here? Think about it please do not change your mind,” just in case you forget you’re in Quebec.

The menu offers poutine, the real crowd-pleaser for students at 3 a.m., from $9.50 and beef burgers from $4.50, which are like sliders. There are also ample veggie options, a selection of breakfast sandwiches, and pints of sweet malty beer for $7.

I order two beef burgers, with fries on the side. The burgers could fit in the palm of my hand, with faintly char-grilled black patties that are thinner than a cigarette. The patty is tucked in between an overflowing

pile of lettuce and a soft, lightly toasted bun. Surprisingly, the burgers are neither fatty nor greasy and hit the spot in the same way as a mini muffin. I could munch on these all day.

The fries suffer from height complications. I don’t want to heightshame them, but they’re on the shorter end of the spectrum. Something I can personally sympathize with. But no, seriously, they can’t ride the roller coasters. Stabbing them with a fork is recommended—but watch out, the inspired might try to abandon ship. Despite this, these crispy wee potatoes please the heart. I left full.

As you eat, you’re able to watch the 20-something, tank-top-wearing servers hustle strenuously: Chopping, cleaning, frying, grilling, cleaning some more, taking orders, and dishing them out. Time begins to slow down and the world begins to speed up; you’re able to appreciate the simpler moments. This hole-in-the-wall is not your average fast-food diner. It offers something more unique: A taste of the local hustling Plateau. It’s the pulse of St. Laurent, the gem everyone knows, and the one that offers warm, delicious food through the day and well, well into the night.

Score: 4 / 5 Stars

Tote bags: Tote-ally cute

Mahnoor Chaudhry Student Life Editor

From my daily commute, to literature classes, to my close friend group—everywhere I go, tote bags follow me. I have always dismissed this as an aesthetic trend, making fun of my friends carrying a tote to campus compared to the practical, and may I say classy, backpack. However, I recently bought one as a birthday gift for a friend and, as hypocritical as I feel in admitting this, am now considering buying one for my own daily use. Why this change in opinion, one may ask? Simply, because I have been convinced that, in some cases, they may be even more practical and convenient than the ageold backpack itself. There, I said it. Phew.

The tote bag market has seen a boom because of the multi-faceted nature of this versatile bag. Going grocery shopping? In go your (expensive) fruits, vegetables, bread, milk, and that extra thing you don’t really need but bought anyways. Headed to the gym? You’ll only need one bag for your towels, water bottles, shoes, and headphones. Heck, you can even take it to work or university, with all your books and chargers thrown in with your laptop—as long as that expensive MacBook you bought last semester is covered for accidental damage.

As Mira Cantor, U3 Arts, explained, the tote bag is helpful in more than one way.

“I prefer to carry a tote bag because it gives me something to do with my hands. I can grab the handles while walking, which is something I’m unable to get with a backpack,” Cantor told The McGill Tribune

Aarthy Thiruthanikan, U3 Arts, further highlighted the versatility of a tote.

“It allows me to focus on the essentials, easier on my shoulder[s], and it’s stylish,” Thiruthanikan said. There are many factors that go into deciding what

or

tote-ally

cringe? Unstitching one of 2022’s biggest fashion trends

your perfect tote bag would be . However, the aesthetics of its design and the quality of the material often take precedence. So, when you head over to buy your first tote bag, make sure the art on it speaks to your soul and that it’s built strong enough to last through those heavy grocery runs and your twokilogram laptop.

“[The key to a successful tote bag purchase is] getting one with long enough handles that don’t slip off your shoulders and having one with a unique design,” Cantor said.

So, where did this trend emerge from? The Tribune tried to get to the bottom of this new and popular fashion statement, only to find out that it largely arose out of peer pressure.

“I saw all my roommates get one to go grocery shopping and I thought, ‘why do I not have one?’ and that’s the story of why I bought my first tote,” Cantor admitted.

Thiruthanikan was also driven to this trend by a thoughtful friend.

“When I got my first tote bag as a gift, I decided to see if I would actually use it in my everyday life. I found it to be extremely practical and decided that I wanted many more in different designs,” Thiruthanikan said.

Now, you may be wondering—after this wonderful, albeit unpaid, promo of tote bags—where can you get one? Thiruthanikan recommends Society6 or Amazon and

Cantor swears by Citizen Vintage. However, both of them also claimed that most of the tote bags they currently own are gifts from friends—so, perhaps the best way to obtain some totes is to invest in generous friends whose love language is gift-giving.

Or, for those of you who are lucky enough to have been blessed with the art of graphic design (yes, I’m envious), you could also consider options that allow you to customize your own totes, such as Custom Ink, Vista Print, and Zazzle.

Whichever option you choose, this purchase is guaranteed to be a life-changing experience for those who have shunned this trend until now. While backpacks and crossbodies will always have a special place in my heart, the versatility of the tote will make it tote-ally worth it, I

offering burgers, poutine, sandwiches, and heaps of

Located on the corner of St. Laurent and Rue Rachel, Patati Patata offers its patrons the quintessential and comforting taste of the Plateau. (cntraveller.com)

Tote bags can often be used to convey a political and social message, along with being a trendy fashion statement. (nymag.com)

The 2022 World Cup and the murky ethics of sports consumption

Former FIFA president admits giving World Cup to Qatar was a mistake

Zoé Mineret Staff Writer

On Nov. 20, the long-awaited FIFA World Cup will kick off in Qatar. Despite the excitement of fans worldwide, the 2022 World Cup has been rife with intense controversy. Qatar has been accused of devastating human rights violations against the workers who built the stadiums, and the country’s lack of environmental concern has also been a source of international contempt.

In 2010, FIFA officials granted Qatar the prestigious right to host the World Cup––a right that brings financial and political benefits. This decision was met with immediate backlash after allegations arose that a number of senior FIFA officials had been bribed to vote for Qatar. After a two-year-long investigation, FIFA’s ethics committee concluded that Jack Warner, Mohammed bin Hammam, and Reynald Temarii—the individuals most likely to be implicated—were no longer involved in football and elected to allow Qatar to host the event.

However, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter revealed in his autobiographical book, Ma Vérité, that the Qatar bid committee cheated to gain the rights to host the World Cup. Blatter explained that the Qatari government bribed and placed intense political pressure on FIFA’s senior officials, and that if the officials had properly reviewed Qatar’s candidacy, they would never have awarded Qatar the rights.

In the decade that it has taken for Qatar

to build the necessary accommodations to host the World Cup, sources have reported over 6,500 migrant worker deaths due to the inhumane working conditions at many of the country’s construction sites. Despite reforms put in place, Qatar largely abides by the kafala system, which creates a fixed sponsorship between migrant workers and their employers. Workers are highly dependent on their employers, leading to rampant human rights abuses and exploitation. Amnesty International disclosed that workers’ passports were stolen, that they had been lied to about their salaries, and that their remuneration had been withheld from them. Workers were also prevented from

leaving not only the country but the stadium itself, receiving constant threats from their superiors.

Furthermore, FIFA pledged that the 2022 World Cup would be carbon-neutral and many are now accusing Qatar of green-washing due to the significant amount of carbon emitted during construction.

These environmental and humanitarian concerns make the 2022 World Cup a highly contentious event, leaving many fans to debate boycotting the event. For Blanche Cartier, BA ‘22, the right choice is clear.

“I will be boycotting the World Cup because it is an environmental and humanitarian

disaster,” Cartier told The McGill Tribune. “I feel absolutely no desire to watch games that were built on the deaths of over 6,500 people. Even though Belgium and Canada are playing, which are my two favourite [teams], I refuse to watch because I do not want to support this.”

With the World Cup only taking place every four years and the Canadian National men’s team qualifying for the first time since 1986, many football fans are choosing to watch simply out of their excitement and love for the sport. For Peter Cocks, a third-year political science and history major, the decision to watch is complicated yet worthwhile.

“Football has a magical quality; regardless of controversy around a game, once that ball is in play half the world forgets everything other than the game,” Cocks told the Tribune “We all get hooked in by the spectacle, it’s an escape from the real world and all the troubles it holds. FIFA can’t just pull wool over our eyes. Football can, but only for 90 minutes.”

Regardless of who chooses to boycott the World Cup, the event is undoubtedly tainted by the appalling human rights violations faced by the workers. Ignoring human rights violations sets a precedent that FIFA cares more about money than migrant lives. FIFA’s decision to allow the World Cup to proceed in Qatar— despite their knowledge of the conditions— has upheld the demand for migrant labour, exponentially increasing the number of lives harmed during the construction process. This event has tarnished the legacy of FIFA, and for many fans everywhere, it has marred their respect for the organization.

McGill cross-country finishes season strong at U Sports Nationals

Matthew Beaudet claims tenth, Redbirds place ninth in horrible weather conditions

Sarah Farnand Sports Editor

On Saturday, Nov. 12, the McGill cross-country team headed east for the U Sports Championship meet in Halifax, Nova Scotia. With the aftermath of Tropical Storm Nicole hitting the area early on Saturday, the weather was absolutely abysmal. Heavy rain and winds of up to 80 kilometres per hour were reported by the race announcers as the runners laced up to get going. While first-year Sophie Courville and third-year Ann-Rebecca Drolet were the only runners for the Martlets, the Redbirds represented McGill

as a team after placing second in the RSEQ championships.

The men’s eight-kilometre race set out first, with the Redbirds’ top runner, third-year Matthew Beaudet, settling in at the top of the pack right from the get-go.

Mitchell Kirby of Queen’s University made the first big move of the race, separating himself from the front pack and taking an early lead around 10 minutes in. Kirby didn’t hold first for long, though, as the chase pack, including Beaudet, quickly caught up to regain the lead. In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Beaudet explained his strategy for this year’s race.

“My goal for the race was to finish on the podium, so I ran pretty aggressively instead of adopting the more conservative strategy I ran with last year where I was just aiming for a top 10 finish,” Beaudet said. “I was in the lead group of four which had a good lead 7.5 kilometres into the race.”

Unfortunately, with around 500 metres to go, things took a turn for Beaudet and he was not able to maintain his pace to finish with the top pack, instead falling back several places.

“I hit a wall and had trouble breathing and finished pretty slowly and got passed by a bunch of people there to finish 10th,” Beaudet explained. “Although the final placement was disappointing, I was happy with how I ran as I know running with confidence and taking risks will eventually pay off.”

Other notable performances on the Redbirds’ side included third-year Tom Secheyron’s 27th place finish, and Noah El Rimawi-Fine and Jack Stanley’s 55th and 57th place finishes, respectively. Fourth-year Felix Bedard rounded out the Redbirds’ top five to put McGill in ninth place overall, the same place in which they qualified.

With rain continuing to flood the course and winds so strong you could barely stand, the women’s eight-kilometre run kicked off at 1 p.m.

A large front pack formed, led by runners from Université Laval and the University of British Columbia. Leading the Martlets was Courville, settling into the front half of the competition.

Courville, a physiology and mathematics student, explained how despite the weather, her first U Sports experience was exhilarating.

“It was not easy because of the rain which made the course extremely slippery, and huge gusts of wind, but with all the spectators it helped a lot,” Courville said. “It is one of the highest levels I have ever raced so it was interesting to measure myself [against] older and more experienced runners from around the country.”

While Courville was pushed towards the back at the beginning of the race, she quickly found her stride and made the most of her circumstances to gain places.

“[I] was able to move up gradually during the race and make my way to 62nd which I was pretty content with,” the first-year continued. “I think as a first U Sports experience, I couldn’t have asked for better and I am excited to level up and be more competitive in the next years.”

Courville and Drolet worked together throughout the race to finish 62nd and 89th respectively, roughly 45 seconds apart.

“[I] worked with Ann-Rebecca [...]for a fair portion of the race which helped to have a mark in this new field,” Courville said. “She also did great and as the captain of the team led us all season to having a great race today.”

With the winter months steadily approaching, the McGill runners will move indoors and switch to the track. Their first meet of the indoor season, the McGill Open, will take place on Nov. 26.

The Denmark national team’s request to wear jerseys that said “Human rights for all” was de nied by FIFA. (Nick Potts / PA)

Despite the weather, both Tom Secheyron and Noah El Rimawi-Fine ran roughly a minute faster than at last year’s championship. (David Grandy)

Mitchell Miller and hockey culture’s continued failure

Boston Bruins give Miller another chance despite history of anti-Black and ableist abuse

Tillie Burlock and Anoushka Oke Sports Editor and Creative Director

the juvenile magistrate contended that Miller showed no remorse for his actions.

Content warning:

Racism, ableism, physical assault, bullying

What comes to mind when you think of hockey culture? Sexual assault?

Hazing? Racism? There is no doubt that the culture of Canada’s game is a travesty to all those it touches. The recent Hockey Canada scandal has provoked an unprecedented level of scrutiny regarding the sport’s culture and despite public outcry for systemic change, the Boston Bruins signed defenceman Mitchell Miller to an entry-level contract on Nov. 4.

In 2016, Miller and a fellow classmate pleaded guilty to one count of assault and one count of violation of the Ohio Safe Schools Act. From the second grade onwards, Miller emotionally and physically abused Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, a Black and developmentally disabled classmate. The bullying ranged from racial slurs to physical attacks, with Miller repeatedly calling Meyer-Crothers the N-word and forcing him to eat a piece of candy that had been rubbed inside of a urinal. At the time of his plea,

In 2020, the Arizona Coyotes selected Miller in the fourth round of the NHL draft. Upon receiving major backlash, the Coyotes renounced their rights to Miller. In an attempt to absolve themselves of blame, the Coyotes cited a background check that did not involve contacting Meyer-Crothers or his family and a desire to be “part of the solution.” In a letter to the Coyotes following the draft, MeyerCrothers’ mother outlined the damage that Miller inflicted on her son and explained that Miller had continued to harass Meyer-Crothers for two years after the court case had been settled. The Coyotes did not respond.

Many, including MeyerCrothers’ family, believed this would be it for Miller. He was cut from the University of North Dakota hockey team and sat out the 2020-21 season. But Miller was given yet another chance, returning to his former United States Hockey League (USHL) team, the Tri-City Storm. Not only did Miller play, he was awarded USHL Player and Defenceman of the Year for the 2021-22 season.

This recognition from the

USHL put Miller back on the NHL’s radar. Almost two years after the Coyotes scandal, the Bruins moved forward with his signing. Anticipating backlash, the team reassured fans that they had worked on the signing for “almost a year” and believed Miller deserved a “second chance.”

In the days following, the Bruins doubled down on their decision, citing attempts at “restorative justice” and releasing disingenuous statements about working with organizations to help “rehabilitate” Miller. Once again, neither Meyer-Crothers nor his parents were contacted by the Bruins as general manager Don Sweeney did not believe it was necessary.

After three days of public outcry from fans, media, and the Bruins locker room, team President Cam Neely announced that, based on “new information”, the team would “part ways” with Miller. Neely claimed the team believed that Miller’s pattern of abusive behaviour was an “isolated incident” and concluded his statement with a warning “as a father” to young people that the repercussions of “careless behaviours” can be felt for a lifetime.

On Nov. 9, Meyer-Crothers

Following backlash for awarding Miller USHL Player of the Year, Tri-City Storm head coach and president of hockey operations, Anthony Noreen, told reporters “this is what our league exists for.” (Ian Kennedy / Substack. com)

released his own statement on the Hockey Diversity Alliance’s Twitter account detailing the ways in which Miller tortured him. He spoke of racist and hateful messages he has received from those defending Miller on social media. He described Miller’s insincere attempts at an apology, and ended with the heartbreaking line: “I can’t take more of this.”

Despite NHL commissioner Gary Bettman condemning the signing, Miller’s contract would have been approved by the NHL’s central registry as per the collective bargaining agreement. Regardless,

the Bruins will likely have to pay Miller’s contract through the 202223 season and many believe that the NHL Players Association will file a grievance on Miller’s behalf despite him not having played an NHL game.

Playing in the NHL is a privilege. A privilege that cannot be extended to those who display a pattern of anti-Black and ableist abuse. Professional hockey leagues cannot continue to exist for the purpose of saving privileged white men from their actions—they need to be punished. And until they are, hockey will continue to fail.

Philippe Haddad Contributor

From its inception, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has not only been an arena for high-flying hoopers, but also for advocates for equitable sport. The league began as an all-white initiative following the commercialization of the sport in 1946. Black athletes began to be integrated in 1950, but did not reach high levels of visibility until two Hall of Famers emerged onto the scene in Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Russell stands as one of the bastions of Black civil rights leadership, pushing for Black civil rights from his entry into the league until his recent death. His legacy as a vocal player has been adopted by many who play in the league today. Efforts within the NBA to hold each other to an equal standard of accountability, however, are lacking, especially between players.

Players have begun to harness social media and accessible sports journalism to ensure that their personal activism echoes across their platforms. What began with Russell boycotting a game to protest segregation in 1961 culminated in the NBA’s single largest boycott by its players to rally against police brutality in the summer of 2020 amidst a global pandemic.

As the league has exploded with talent and profitability, the breadth of the individual players’ voices has grown accordingly. Advocacy on grassroots levels from players across the league has demonstrated the power of individual players’ voices in realms outside of basketball: Michael Jordan showed that dominant play and offcourt charisma could turn a hooper into a global icon, but players such as Chris Paul and Giannis Antetokounmpo showed that meaning behind play could turn icons into activists.

NBA players have demonstrated a willingness to advocate for equality and condemn external discrimination, whether that be supporting the Women’s National Basketball Association, taking a stand against police brutality, or supporting the economic empowerment of Black communities.

But outspoken advocacy in the NBA has historically been met with resistance, often resulting in players being blackballed from the league. In 1993, three-time NBA champion Craig Hodges handed George H. W. Bush a letter denouncing the treatment of Black communities during the Bulls’ post-championship White House visit and has not played a minute in the NBA since. In 1996, Mahmoud Adbul-Rauf boycotted the

national anthem and, despite putting up career-highs in stats, was traded, cut, and denied NBA tryouts to rejoin a team.

The onus of accountability for racial, religious, or economic equality has been placed on NBA management, but rarely its own players. The NBA Players’ Association (NBPA) formed as a union to address financial inequality through their first collective bargaining agreement under Bob Cousy in 1964. In 2005, they fought David Stern and his efforts to whitewash Allen Iverson’s “ghetto realness.” The NBPA grants players representative power in many domains, but addressing discrimination from among their own is not yet at the top of their priority list.

It is no secret that the NBA has had difficulty managing forms of racial discrimination among its players. Taiwanese-American Jeremy Lin has often spoken about antiAsian discrimination in the league, such as his experience being called a “coronavirus” on the court. Even so, it was only after his retirement that he felt comfortable speaking out. As recently as September, Timberwolves superstar Anthony Edwards broadcasted homophobic slurs on Instagram before issuing a PR-led Twitter apology. In late October,

)

Kyrie Irving tweeted a misinformative documentary filled with anti-Semitic narratives, quickly following it up by peddling Alex Jones’s New World Order conspiracy.

On all these matters, the league’s most vocal advocates, its players, have been eerily silent. Hall of Famer Reggie Miller is one of many voices condemning such stillness, saying that players leaving such discrimination unaddressed is disappointing to many in a league built on the shoulders of activists.

An arena within which advocacy was once taboo has now become

a catalyst for change, as players have begun to use the basketballindustrial complex to their advantage. Loose standards of accountability targeting only league management have tarnished such conceptions of advocacy, as a culture of discrimination remains rampant. The issue is not one of regulation, but rather education to prevent further injustices. To follow in Bill Russell’s gargantuan activist footsteps, the NBA’s players, as well as its management, must commit to the condemnation of bigotry in all its iterations, and they must begin immediately.

Contemporary player accountability should reflect athletes’ historical advocacy

NBA: Notoriously Bad (at) Accountability

Bill Russell won 11 NBA championships in his 13-year career and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. for Black civil rights. (Frank Curtin / Associated Press