The Tribune Vol. 43, Issue 6

The Tribune TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023 | VOL. 43 | ISSUE 6

THETRIBUNE.CA | @THETRIBUNECA

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

FEATURE

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

We need collective action against Quebec’s push for financially inaccessible education

The Dread of McGill’s Deferred Maintenance

Annual Environment Public Lecture explores an economic approach to clean energy

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PG. 11

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Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera express concern over handling of potential evidence on New Vic site Manfredi shares that a shoe and bone fragments were found on the site Jasjot Grewal News Editor Content Warning: Mentions of death On Oct. 10, McGill’s Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Christopher Manfredi sent an email to all McGill students and

Nell Tov / The Tribune

staff providing updates on the work taking place on the former Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) grounds, where the university plans to construct its New Vic project—a state-of-theart research facility for sustainability systems and public policy.

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Rising Israel-Palestine conflict: Reactions at McGill and across Montreal Palestinian and Israeli communities gather, grieve, and protest

Staff of The Tribune

the community to act safely.

Content Warning: Descriptions of Israel-Palestine conflict, mentions of death, violence and mourning

CHANGE.ORG, OCT. 9 — A petition was started under the name “McGill Peace” pressing for the removal and discipline of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill (SPHR), a Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) club, over its “hateful speech.”

The petition came in response to a since-deleted post from SPHR McGill, which read: “Last night, the resistance in Gaza led a heroic attack against the occupation and has taken over 30 hostages.” As of Monday, Oct. 16, the petition had received over 2,700 signatures.

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ontreal’s Israeli and Palestinian communities organized events and rallies during the week of Oct. 8 in reaction to the escalating conflict in Israel and Gaza. The Tribune covered events across the McGill campus and city.

As of Monday, Oct. 16, the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 has killed at least 1,400 Israelis and wounded 3,900, according to a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office. Israel’s airstrikes in response have killed at least 2,700 Palestinians and injured 9,700, according to Palestinian health officials.

MCGILL CAMPUS, OCT. 8 — Fabrice Labeau, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning), and Angela Campbell, Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies), sent a message to McGill University students and staff acknowledging the rising conflict, expressing condolences, and urging

MCGILL CAMPUS, OCT. 10 — Christopher Manfredi, Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic), condemned SPHR McGill’s social media posts.

“I have directed the Deputy Provost to inform the SSMU that SPHR’s use of the University’s name is non-compliant with the terms of the [Memorandum of Agreement] and, furthermore, to revoke permission for this club to use the McGill name,” the Provost wrote.

The next day, SPHR McGill responded with a statement alongside other local pro-Palestine groups rejecting Manfredi’s statement and affirming their support for the Palestinian people.

“We reject the claims by the McGill administration that SPHR McGill’s social media posts ‘celebrate recent acts of terror and violence,’” the Facebook post said.

“We are not celebrating violence, we are looking at the prospect of liberation.”

In response to a question about Manfredi’s message, SPHR McGill told The Tribune that “this is not the first time our members and allies have been doxxed and threatened for speaking out.”

“SPHR is appalled by Manfredi’s direct targeting of a McGill student group whose values and demands have remained consistent and are supported by our broader university community,” the group wrote. “SPHR McGill is committed to providing a space for students of all backgrounds to meet and organize in support of Palestine. As long as Israel continues to indiscriminately bomb, killing thousands, we won’t be silenced and we will con-

tinue to educate our peers, organize, and reiterate our strong support for Palestinian liberation.”

DORCHESTER SQUARE, OCT. 10 — Some attendees cried and others stood stern as around 200 grieving adults and children gathered at Hillel Montreal’s 8 p.m. candle service.

The smell of burning wicks disseminated through the crowd as folks waited to place pocket-sized candles behind the Sir Wilfrid Laurier monument to mourn their Israeli loved ones from afar.

Police remained on the corners while a few men waving an Israeli flag watched the perimeters.

On the edge of the crowd was a middle-aged mother who does not normally come to downtown Montreal.

“I have a brother in Jerusalem,” she said, leaning backward.

“I’m worried for him, […] and for everyone.”

She watched on as the swaying crowd sang hymns and prayers, clapped, waved their phone flashlights in sync, and listened to a handful of speakers voicing community unity.

One of the speakers included a rabbi, who passionately spoke about 19th- and 20th-century Jewish oppression, citing a number of examples including the Holocaust.

As the service came to a head, many banded together, hugging their friends, community members, and family.

MCGILL Y-INTERSECTION, OCT. 12 — A crowd slowly amassed around Hillel Montreal organizers at the corner of Lower Field on Thursday evening, many bearing the Israeli flag. By 7 p.m., the crowd had grown to over 100 people.

The Tribune spoke to Avishai Infeld, BA’ 23 and Advocacy Coordinator at Hillel Montreal, before the event.

“The way the Jewish community works [...], because it’s so tightknit, and it’s pretty small, [...] everyone has family, they have friends in Israel,” Infeld said. “Many people know people who have unfortunately been lost, who are missing, who are taken captive. The most important thing right now, what people are really feeling, is just the need for community and to be together.” PG. 2

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NEWS

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

Rising Israel-Palestine conflict: Reactions at McGill and across Montreal Palestinian and Israeli communities gather, grieve, and protest Continued from page 1.

As organizers distributed and lit candles, the event began with the recognition of some of the people present, including Deputy Provost Labeau.

The rabbi then recited a series of prayers, some in Hebrew and some in English, for the still-growing crowd to repeat.

Throughout the vigil, speakers denounced Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and grieved those who had died or are missing. Many called for peace and heightened compassion in times of crisis. One speaker led a prayer for members of the Israel Defense Forces. Another speaker read a letter to his family in Israel. As the event wrapped up, the tearful crowd sang “Oseh Shalom”—a call for peace.

Kadi Diallo, a first-year law student at McGill, was one of the many attendees who had lost a friend or family member in the conflict.

“I came because a close friend of mine was killed at the rave,” Diallo said after the vigil. “He was doing security when Hamas attacked, and I just wanted to show solidarity with the Jewish people, but specifically try to mourn what happened.”

communities, citing a specific incident of a Montreal woman verbally assaulting a woman with a Palestinian flag on her car. Shamy added that more preventative measures need to be put in place and an official condemnation of hate crimes toward the Arab and Muslim communities is necessary.

“As we speak, Israel has cut off food, water aid, electricity and fuel from the Gaza Strip [....]

Canada is green-lighting this genocidal campaign by providing Israel with diplomatic cover and material support,” Shamy said. “Canada has made it clear to its citizens that they do not care about the Arab and Muslim communities despite having a sizable population of both.”

Shamy also spoke in support of SPHR McGill and criticized the McGill administration’s response to the organization after the conference in an interview with The Tribune.

“The work that the [SPHR] students are doing there is really important,” Shamy said.

“McGill has done things like threatening to defund the Student Union [SSMU] before [like] in 2021 when the [Palestine] Solidarity Policy passed with 71 per cent [of the vote].”

McGill Y-intersection, Oct. 12 (The Tribune)

David Ivanchikov, a Concordia student, echoed the sentiment about the importance of community and spoke about the “polarization and fear” that abounds.

“It’s really easy to get sucked into these cycles,” Ivanchikov said. “But, at the end of the day, we’re only feeding into the negative cycles if we allow ourselves to get sucked into that.”

MCGILL RODDICK GATES, OCT. 13 — On Friday morning, the phrases “YOU ARE WITNESSING GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINE” and “MCGILL IS OKAY WITH GENOCIDE” were written on the pillars of the Roddick Gates. The writing was removed by the afternoon.

NORMAN BETHUNE SQUARE, Oct. 13 — The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) called a press conference under the marble statue of the square’s namesake at 4 p.m. on Friday, where an audience of ten or so journalists huddled in a tight circle.

PYM representative Sarah Shamy, BA ‘21, demanded that the Canadian government condemn the hate crimes towards Arab and Muslim

Criminal litigation attorney John Philpot also spoke at the press conference, echoing Shamy’s criticisms of the Canadian government for not providing greater support to Palestinians in Gaza.

“When people are fighting for their freedom, after years of being slaughtered, massacred, losing their children––it is not tidy,” Philpot said. “It’s not a calm process. It’s a revolution.”

A number of interruptions occurred throughout the conference, with media and nonmedia attendees speaking out of turn and expressing their opposition to Shamy and Philpot’s words.

As the conference concluded, media members dispersed and supporters gathered in the square to prepare for the subsequent protest, organized by the PYM, SPHR McGill, and SPHR Concordia, at the Guy-Concordia Metro.

GUY-CONCORDIA METRO, OCT. 13 — The bellowing “SO-SO-SO, SOLIDARITÉ, AVEC-AVEC, AVEC LA PALESTINE” chants from pro-Palestine protesters echoed across downtown Montreal.

Attendees assembled around a black-painted truck, strapped with some half-a-dozen concert-

Norman Bethune Square, Oct. 13 (The Tribune) sized speakers and parked outside the Tim Hortons, at the All Out for Gaza protest.

Palestinian flags waved and a sea of signs with slogans like “Resistance until liberation!” and “End the siege on Gaza now!” moved up and down as a group of organizers, wearing keffiyehs, circled around the black truck, initiated the chants, and directed the crowd.

Dozens of people quickly turned to hundreds as the clock hit 5:30 p.m., with supporters overflowing off the sidewalks onto the Concordiametro junction. By 6 p.m., the hundreds had turned to thousands.

“WHAT DO WE WANT?” one of the speakers cried out. “JUSTICE!” roared the crowd.

Followed immediately by, “WHEN DO WE WANT IT?” “NOW!” “I’m here to show support for the people of Palestine,” a young woman who wished to stay unnamed told The Tribune. “In the upcoming days, we can expect a lot of tragedy,” she said.

As the truck maneuvered from outside the Tim Hortons to down in-between Rue Guy and Rue de Maisonneuve, the speakers reminded the crowd to remain peaceful and to stay behind the truck, which would slowly lead them. The crowd followed suit.

Yellow-vested organizers dotted the sidewalks and the perimeter, ushering the crowd together.

Bike-mounted police followed from behind— keeping some 50 metres back for the majority of the march.

“What I think is that there is too much injustice. It’s unfair. It’s unfair,” a woman, who did

not want to be named, told The Tribune.

The protest began to pick up pace as it moved along from downtown to Atwater—and toward the Consulate General of Israel in Westmount.

Thousands moved through the streets as passersby and residents in apartment blocks watched on.

Approaching the towering glass Israeli consulate on the corner of Av. Wood and De Maisonneuve, the crowd ushered around to the main steps of the building where they faced a line of riot police wearing helmets and armour guarding it.

And so the chanting continued until the protest wrapped up at 8:30 p.m. Flares and sparks turned heads as a drone with flashing Palestinian colours flew overhead. One of the men bearing the megaphone touched on the Palestinian lives lost and calmly and assertively implored everyone to stand together—now and in the weeks to come.

Resources: For faculty and staff: • The Employee & Family Assistance Program is available to McGill employees as a confidential support service.

For students: • The Student Wellness Hub offers counselling services for students located in Montreal.

• Keep.MeSafe is a service accessible 24/7 whenever you need to speak (or text) with a mental health professional for support. You can access Keep.MeSafe from anywhere in the world.

Downtown Montreal, Oct. 13 (The Tribune)

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

NEWS

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Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera express concern over handling of potential evidence on New Vic site Manfredi shares that a shoe and bone fragments were found on the site Jasjot Grewal News Editor Continued from page 1.

This comes as the latest update in the ongoing investigation into the New Vic site, where the Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) worry there may be unmarked graves of Indigenous children.

Manfredi’s email addressed a security concern that took place on Oct. 2, sharing that an individual placed themselves in front of active heavy machinery. McGill media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle explained in an email to The Tribune that it was one of the Mothers who found themselves in front of heavy machinery, which posed a serious security threat to all personnel on the site.

“The incident posed a very serious safety concern for herself, the cultural monitors, and the construction workers on site. As a result, strengthened safety measures, consistent with the terms of the Settlement Agreement, were put in place.”

In an interview with The Tribune, anthropologist and associate of the Mothers Phillippe Blouin explained that leading up

to the incident, archaeologists were moving above-ground piles of soil that had already been sifted for potential forensic evidence.

However, they proceeded to move piles of soil that had not been sifted for evidence, which the Mothers feared could potentially damage the forensic chain of custody.

“Then, one of the Mohawk Mothers, [...] she used a whistle,” Blouin said. “They have whistles there if there’s a problem on the site, to stop the machines, and to have a conversation with the archaeologists, and to see what’s going on.”

Mazerolle asserted that McGill had not provided the Mothers or anyone else with a whistle on the site.

Additionally, in a written statement to The Tribune, the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI)—one of the key defendants in the case—asserted that the piles of soil were being moved because the heavy machinery operating nearby made the area unsuitable for sifting such a large quantity of soil. Thus, at the request of archaeologists, the soil was moved to be sifted at a safer location.

The Mothers have not been to the site since the incident occurred, with no current plans to return.

Manfredi stated that no evidence of

unmarked graves had been found on the site; he reported that the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey conducted last month identified any anomalies with “likely” grave-type features, but also found several “unknown” feature anomalies. He did, however, acknowledge that some new artifacts were found on the site, including bone fragments and an additional child’s shoe sole. The sole was found in Zone 11 of the site—a zone that covers paved land and thus was previously thought not to contain anomalies.

Blouin alleged that the court-appointed Indigenous cultural monitors were not told about the initial recovery of the shoe—rather, they accidentally stumbled upon it in a ditch on Sept. 28. The Mothers are skeptical about whether an archaeologist was present during its discovery, as their settlement agreement mandates.

“The Mohawk Mothers didn’t receive any proper explanation of what happened [or] why [the shoe sole] was there. Seems like it had been tossed there in the ditch in Zone 11,” Blouin said “So, we don’t know whether an archaeologist was present when it was found, and if it’s not the case that an archaeologist was present, well, that would be a breach of the agree-

ment directly.”

Another growing concern for the Mothers is the restricted access to the physical building near the Hersey Pavilion on the New Vic Site—where Historical Human Remains Detection Dogs (HHRDD) previously detected the potential scent of human remains. Archaeologists recommended that a ten-metre radius around the area in which the HHRDD had detected an initial scent should be searched—and the building falls within that radius. Nevertheless, Blouin shared that the Mothers have not been allowed access to the building.

Farnoush Toupchinejad, U2 Science, told The Tribune that she feels that McGill communications to the staff and student body could be improved.

“It does seem like, because there is a legal battle going on, like obviously neither side wants to lose, and so, even though McGill does seem like they’re being transparent, it could also be like they’re not sharing a lot of information,” Toupchinejad said.

“So even though there is recent evidence that [the New Vic site] could possibly be a grave, they’re still like, ‘Oh well, it could also be this, this, and this.’ They don’t want to kind of be hindered in their goals.”

McGill students and staff respond to new language requirements for the PEQ

The government requires almost all program applicants to have French oral proficiency Caroline Sun News Editor

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n June 7, the Quebec government, led by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) in the National Assembly, implemented changes to the Programme de l’expérience québécoise (PEQ)—a program which many international students at McGill rely on as a path to permanent residency.

The PEQ has two branches: One for temporary foreign workers, and another for international students. The program provides a fast-track to permanent residency. If successful, applicants receive a Quebec Selection Certificate.

As of June, the program now differentiates between applicants who have studied in French and those who have studied English. Whereas Francophone applicants can apply right after they finish their studies, Anglophone workers and students will not be qualified to apply unless they have been enrolled in secondary and postsecondary courses in a French institution for three years beforehand. The program makes no specification about whether or not Anglophone applicants need 12 to 18 months of employment before applying, a condition that has been exempted for Francophones. In addition, all applicants must now have a knowledge of oral French that is of Level 5 or higher on a 12-point

French proficiency scale established by the Quebec government for immigrants.

English universities—including McGill and Concordia—have voiced their discontent with this new requirement, stating that it will hurt their current and future student bodies and negatively affect English universities’ ability to attract students. According to McGill’s data, around 30 per cent of the student body are international students. The academic institutions have requested that the Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, reconsider the new policy—a request the minister declined.

McGill’s media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle explained why McGill stands opposed to the policy in an email to The Tribune.

“Our primary expertise and focus lie in identifying and attracting the finest talents globally, irrespective of the languages they speak, to contribute to our world-renowned research initiatives and, in the case of our professors, enrich the learning experience for our students, a significant portion of whom are from Quebec,” Mazerolle wrote.

During the party’s election campaign in Fall 2022, François Legault—the leader of the CAQ and Quebec’s premier— publicly stated that allowing more than 50,000 immigrants per year into Quebec would be “suicidal,” arguing that it would further threaten the French language.

Despite this, the CAQ announced in late

May that it will allow more than 50,000 immigrants per year into the province.

When it shifted the language requirements for the PEQ, the CAQ also removed its cap on the number of students and temporary workers from outside of Canada who are eligible for the PEQ. McGill Political Science Professor Daniel Béland told The Tribune in an email that such changes in policy direction are ill-considered, but not uncharacteristic of the CAQ. “The CAQ government regularly changes course on key policy issues based on polling numbers and pressures from various constituencies,” Béland wrote.

“This is certainly the case in immigration policy, where the government’s lack of a coherent and compelling vision is hurting the economy and creating social anxieties that could have easily been avoided.”

Sumaira Nawaz, a fifth-year Ph.D. student at the Institute of Islamic Studies, pointed out that learning French requires time, which not everyone has in between the need to study and to find employment.

“I respect the [provincial government’s] intention, I understand that this is a French-speaking province,” Nawaz said. “Why would you change regulations? I’m in the fifth year of my Ph.D., I came here expecting that I can find employment in a bilingual setting at least. And now suddenly that’s gone?

That’s ridiculous.”

The latest development in the CAQ’s

policies impacting students is the plan to double tuition fees for out-of-province Canadian students. McGill’s Principal and Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini released a statement to the media, stressing that Quebec needs global talent to foster a successful economy.

“A thriving knowledge economy requires a global exchange of talent,” Saini wrote. “The measures announced today will have a major, long-term effect on Quebec’s economy. The skilled people we attract and retain contribute significantly to Quebec and provide our businesses with the highly qualified workforce they so urgently need.”

According to the Montreal Gazette, 93.3 per cent of Concordia’s international students who graduated in 2017 got their citizenship through the PEQ. (Harry Spink / unsplash.com)

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

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McGill Board of Governors votes to change title of ‘Principal’ to ‘President’ Principal Saini speaks to university advocacy on French-language policies in Quebec Lily Cason Managing Editor

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cGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) convened its first formal meeting of the academic year at 4 p.m. on Oct. 5. The in-person contingent of the meeting took place in room 301 of the James Administration Building, while others joined on Zoom. The open session of the meeting, which started just before 6 p.m., began with remarks from Principal Deep Saini, a report from the Senate, and finally reports from three committees of the Board.

Following a land acknowledgement, Saini affirmed his commitment to the university’s mission and values. The principal went on to address the University’s advocacy in the wake of new French-

The 2022-2023 McGill Endowment Fund Annual Report shows that McGill received $36 million in new gifts in the 2023 fiscal year. (L-A Benoit / The Tribune)

language rules that he believes negatively affect anglophone universities in the province.

“McGill tabled a submission to the National Assembly on the topic of Quebec immigration planning [and] appeared before the National Assembly Committee on Citizen Relations on September 20,” Saini said.

“We emphasized that such [language] distinctions could negatively affect the ability of anglophone institutions in Quebec to retain these students post-graduation, we also underscored that these changes of immigration policy might have unintended effects on the acquisition and retention of academic talent for all universities in Quebec, including the francophone ones.”

Saini recounted attending several campus events throughout the semester, proclaiming: “I will never forget [the] about 45 minutes I spent at the Open Air Pub.” In addition to visiting the Open Air Pub, the principal attended the Security Services Community Barbeque, Soup and Science, the launch of the Indigenous Awareness Weeks, and the second annual legacy lacrosse game.

The Principal also discussed the university’s ranking, reporting that while McGill has remained third in Canada, it has dropped in ranking internationally.

“We need to pay attention to that so that this doesn’t become a trend,” Saini said. “Although not everything at a university is about rankings. I often use the expression, ‘you live by rankings, you die by rankings.’ But I think they are an important indication of the health of the institution, in relative terms.”

Saini concluded his remarks by recognizing

recent awards earned by the McGill community, emphasizing that Professor Cindy Blackstock won the World’s Children’s Prize this year.

The Board then proceeded to hear a brief report from the Senate, also presented by the Principal, followed by reports from the Audit and Risk Committee, the Nominating, Governance and Ethics Committee (NGE), and the Investment Committee.

Stephen Halperin, chair of the NGE Committee, presented the committee’s report, including a motion to approve a title change for McGill’s top administrators.

“On behalf of the NGE, I’m requesting a resolution to approve the amendment to the statutes to change the title of principal to president, vice-principal to vice-president, and associate or assistant vice-principal to associate or assistant vicepresident, as the case may be,” Halperin said.

The motion passed and the university statutes will be amended.

Media Relations Officer Frédérique Mazerolle elaborated on the reasoning behing this change in a statement to The Tribune. She did not provide a timeline.

“The change of title [...] serves to align McGill with the majority of research-intensive universities in the U.S. and Canada, and will leverage its position at the international level, particularly in Asia, where the titles of President and Vice-President are more recognized,” Mazerolle wrote by email.

During the report of the Investment Committee, committee chair Donald Lewtas spoke about a committee resort that had taken place the day prior.

“Yesterday, the committee also reviewed the SRI [Socially Responsible Investing] report and CAMSR’s [the Committee on Sustainability and Social Responsibility] recommended strategies and commitments,” Lewtas said. “The committee [...] looked at each of the eight commitments and strategies and approved the adoption of those commitments and strategies [meaning] the committee believes the adoption of them will not impact the university’s ability to sustain a dependable source of endowment income.”

MOMENT OF THE MEETING

Lewtas announced the Investment Committee’s approval of up to $25 million USD in Basalt Infrastructure Partners IV and up to $20 million USD in Crown Global Secondaries (CGS VI), along with the approval of the 2022-2023 McGill Endowment Fund Annual Report, which was submitted to the Board.

SOUND BITE

“I think it’s fair to say that there is a gap between what government representatives would say to you in one conversation, and what they can go ahead and do for public consumption, and sometimes say for public consumption.”

– Saini on his advocacy with members of the National Assembly.

Science, storytelling, and stepping up: Conference highlights hope about the climate crisis

Bieler School develops first annual interdisciplinary conference Helen Griffiths-Barnhart Contributor

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n Oct. 12 and 13, McGill University’s Bieler School of Environment hosted the “Montréal 2140: Hopeful Futures in Science and Storytelling” climate conference. The conference included a series of events that worked toward inspiring productive discourse around climate change and enabling younger generations to uncover hopeful narratives for the future. The conference brought together researchers, writers, scientists, and activists to gather a multitude of diverse perspectives, and to craft an artcentric mélange of both scientific fact and fictional storytelling.

Over the two-day period, the conference hosted multiple panels, workshops, and keynote speakers. Much of the event discussed the newly emerging literary genre called Hopepunk—a subgenre of speculative fiction that seeks to illuminate the themes of scientific transformation, discovery, and empathy. The resulting conversations addressed the importance of art as a cathartic medium, and emphasized recognizing the privilege certain people have in regard to the immediate climate action they can take. The conference highlighted how respecting people’s diverse temporalities

and methods of communication is essential to creating a space for authentic, reflective conversation.

“There’s a lot of solidarity [at this conference],” Tamara Ghandour, U2 Science, said.

“When you lose hope in the world because you look at all these people in power who are just not doing anything about the environment [...] it’s nice to be reminded that there [...] are communities where you can foster that hope.”

Despite these conversations taking place on campus, many attendees did not feel that McGill adopts the same attitudes towards sustainability. When asked how the conference aligns with McGill’s sustainability goals, firstyear Ph.D. student B. Parazin pointed out, “McGill has yet to divest from fossil fuels, which is a pretty big sticking point.”

The Tribune reached out to McGill Media Relations Officer Frédérique Mazerolle to enquire about McGill’s progress on its sustainability goals and objectives. Mazerolle, citing the university’s climate strategy, stated that the university was on its way to achieving its targets.

“The University has a long-standing commitment towards sustainability and social responsibility in investment that has already expressed itself in several initiatives and measures,” Mazerolle wrote. “The University’s 2020-2025 Climate & Sustainability

Strategy identifies achievable actions focused ing climate change conversations and inspiron the University’s operations and academic ing hope in educational spaces. She examined activities that will further position McGill as the different ways people communicate in a leader among universities with respect to institutional settings and highlighted the emsustainability.” pathy required to create genuine conversations Along with faculty-led events, the con- about climate action and the future. ference included an entirely student-organized “I feel like in universities, we’re trained panel that sparked conversations about how to speak and write in a certain way to particistudents can shift their mindsets to incorporate pate in the disciplines we’re a part of, which hope and optimism in their lives. is important, but it’s also really important to Daphne Chalmers—a third-year mas- speak from the heart in a more casual and colter’s student in the Faculty of Education and loquial way because those are the real ways a member of the conference planning commit- we think and understand each other,” Dechief tee—expressed the value she sees in collabo- said. ration between students and faculty.

“What I was excited about here was the chance to have intergenerational dialogue because not often do students get to talk to faculty members and say what they want,” Chalmers said. “I think [the conference] breaks down some of that power dynamic.”

During the event, science communication and The conference hosted MAPP_MTL’s La Station de l’Avenir, a ecology professor Diane portable, solar-powered animation hub that challenged those in Dechief co-hosted a work- attendance to design digital animations depicting the future of shop that discussed prompt- the natural world. (Maksim istomin / unsplash.com)

opinion@mcgilltribune.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

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Editor-in-Chief Matthew Molinaro editor@mcgilltribune.com

We need collective action against Quebec’s push for financially inaccessible education

Creative Director Mika Drygas mdrygas@mcgilltribune.com

The Tribune Editorial Board

EDITORIAL BOARD

Managing Editors Lily Cason lcason@mcgilltribune.com Arian Kamel akamel@mcgilltribune.com Tillie Burlock tburlock@mcgilltribune.com News Editors Shani Laskin, Jasjot Grewal, & Caroline Sun news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Chloé Kichenane, Liliana Mason, & Monique Kasonga opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editors Ella Paulin & Athina Sitou scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Life Editors Abby McCormick & Dante Ventulieri studentlife@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Harry North features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Dana Prather & Suzanna Graham arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Anoushka Oke & Julie Ferreyra sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Drea Garcia & Sofia Stankovic design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Mason Bramadat photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editor Anna Chudakov & Alyssa Razavi Mastali multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Jiajia Li webdev@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Matthew Adelberg copy@mcgilltribune.com Social Media Editor Sainka Walia socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Sophie Smith business@mcgilltribune.com

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n Oct. 13, the Quebec government announced that tuition for incoming out-of-province Canadian students hoping to study at Quebec universities would double, at both anglophone and francophone post-secondary institutions. This measure will come into effect for all incoming students in Fall 2024 and would entirely reshape the province’s educational landscape.

According to French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge, the policy is a means to combat the decline of French in Quebec, which the provincial government blames in part on the influx of out-of-province anglophone students. The province claims that the money collected from the hike in tuition will serve to fund French universities in Quebec.

After the introduction of Bill 96 in 2023, this new measure is yet another addition to Quebec’s wide array of discriminatory language laws—with each new one further repressing non-native French speakers’ rights in the province.

While the provincial government claims that it will uplift and protect the French language and culture in Quebec, this rhetoric is nothing short

OFF THE BOARD Ella Paulin Science & Technology Editor

TPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ella Gomes, Shani Laskin, Matthew Molinaro, Jacob Northfield & Sophie Smith

STAFF Ali Baghirov, Ella Buckingham, Eliza Lee, Jayda Smith

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ometimes I wonder if I was destined to become the “Dad Friend.” The label attached itself to me well before my friends bought me “#1 Dad” socks for Christmas. It became almost certain when my roommate began saying “Thanks, Dad” as they slid over their leftover dinner for me to finish. By the end of my first year of university, I was forced to accept that I had slipped, inevitably and deeply, into this role––I even had the socks to prove it. By the time I looked up from doing the

of a weapon for the implementation of nationalist and exclusionary policies. The dangerous discourse that a nation can only be unified through a single language allows the Quebec government to discriminate on who gets represented in ideals of Québecois identity, while actively surveilling all of those who do not fit its exclusive standards.

For anglophone and allophone Quebecers, this is yet another sign that they are not welcome in their own home.

Fighting the decline of French by preventing out-of-province students, anglophone or not, from studying in Quebec presents a logical flaw. Many out-of-province students speak French or are actively trying to learn. For out-ofprovince anglophones who studied French before university, studying at English-speaking universities in a francophone province allows them to both foster their learning of French and submit academic work in their first language. Reducing Canadians’ interactions with Quebec and limiting who can learn in the province will only further disincentivize non-speakers from engaging with French language.

The Quebec government actively ignores the provincial economic ripple effects this measure will

have, especially in a bilingual hub such as Montreal. If the province is concerned about out-of-province students leaving to work elsewhere after graduating, the government must instead address the discriminatory and unwelcoming environment that they create.

Measures implemented by Bill 96, including requiring new immigrants to learn French within their first six months in Quebec, are completely unrealistic and only benefit the CAQ’s electoral viability.

McGill’s already high outof-province tuition fosters an environment where education is a class privilege. Increasing the minimum out-of-province tuition from 8,991.90 CAD per year to about 17,000 CAD will make higher education even less accessible,in a country where many entry-level jobs require an undergraduate degree. Considering the class demographic that could afford the tuition change, this measure risks causing a rent hike in Montreal and worsening the city’s housing crisis.

McGill penned an email to the student body against the measure, and must continue to confront the discriminatory policies the Quebec government has taken without university consultation. McGill must acknowledge its already

OPINION

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EDITORIAL inaccessible tuition for lowerincome people and people without intergenerational wealth, and follow the University of Toronto’s move to cover the costs of tuition for the nine surrounding First Nations.

Quebec should, of course, protect the French language.

However, the province’s blatant hypocrisy and racist double standards cannot be tolerated any longer. As long as Quebec continues to discriminate in deciding what French-speakers are deemed “acceptable” by prioritizing the financial support of francophone students from France and Belgium, while limiting support to those hailing from nonwhite Francophonie countries, the province continues to perpetuate colonialism. Quebec must recognize that discriminating against nonFrench speakers and imposing the French language on its citizens particularly affects Indigenous peoples whose land language rights the province has stolen. Students must resist the hike in their tuition fees for generations to come. The 2012 Quebec student strike was successful in preventing Jean Charest’s provincial government from raising tuition prices then, and collective action is the only thing that can save students now.

Diary of a Dad Friend dishes the other day to explain that the song playing was actually a cover of the Grateful Dead, it was old news.

Ticking 21 of the 29 boxes on BuzzFeed’s “Are You the Dad Friend?” quiz, I have to ask myself: How did I get here?

At first glance, many of these behaviours result from an imitation of my own Dad. The jeans and plain sweater uniform, the habit of ordering black coffee, and the taste for goofy jokes certainly seem to support this argument. Perhaps lesbian stereotypes play a role as well; when it comes to buttondowns and working with tools, I sometimes even out-Dad my own father.

However, I have come to believe that there is something deeper at play here. Some quirk of personality that underlies all these surface-level behaviors. But what is that, exactly? What is this “Dad essence” that my friends are constantly picking up on?

Asking around in preparation for this article, I got a variety of responses. Some friends emphasized a particular brand of “goofy intellectualism” or a “caring disposition,” two traits I think I can live with. But others noted a desire to educate, or even

a feeling that they needed to meet my approval. This is about when a troubling word began to surface: “Paternal.”

“Paternal,” in itself, means simply “pertaining to a father.”

However, its connotations are far-reaching, and its counterpart, “paternalistic,” which describes a government that makes decisions for its citizens out of a supposed sense that it knows their best interests, is an important reminder of the key role that unchecked power plays in fatherhood.

By nature, fatherhood involves an age gap, a degree of physical control over the home, financial authority, and, often, a gender imbalance. All of these factors, in combination with the emotional influence of having a child who will naturally seek their approval, contribute to a huge and unequal power dynamic between father and child. This creates an environment––as with any power dynamic––that can foster emotional distance, manipulation, and even abuse.

I am, as a result, in an interesting position. I have an “impression” of Dad-ness, but without the age gap, without the financial or physical power (as anyone who’s ever arm-wrestled

with me will tell you) and also as someone assigned female at birth.

So what does it mean, then, to be a Dad without the power imbalance?

Does this position allow me to subvert the unique dynamics of gender, age, and control and make being a Dad Friend an act of rebellion against the patriarchy?

Or, is this collection of habits and traits a result of internalized sexism, which recreates and reinforces existing power dynamics, even when the oppressor is absent?

This reminds me of a classic debate between second and thirdwave feminists: The former seeking to imitate men to gain equal power and influence, the latter embracing femininity as its own, uniquely valuable, asset. Perhaps a rewatch of the Barbie movie is in order to help untangle my position here.

Either way, when I pause a movie for the fourteenth time in the first five minutes, or as I offer an unrequested explanation of the nuances between USB-A, USB-B, and USB-C cables, it bears taking a moment to pause and ask exactly what power structures I’m participating in, exactly what interpersonal relationships I’m emulating, and whether I’m working to dismantle or to strengthen them.

OPINION

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COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

opinion@mcgilltribune.com

Becoming a 5-star chef has never been easier

Sarah Allen-Cheng Contributor

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he transition to apartment life can be a daunting experience for many students. On top of the heavy workload that accompanies attending McGill–– the prestigious academic institution we all know it to be––students are faced with balancing perhaps the most strenuous task of apartment-living: Cooking for themselves. Perpetual dissatisfaction with one’s meals seems to be a rite of passage for university students. For those surviving off freezer-burned bagels and cheap coffee for breakfast, followed by a box of Kraft Dinner every night, precarity makes the fulfillment of all the recommended food groups unfortunately out of the question.

For many already busy students, the reality of an unfulfilling diet satisfies the palate, or is simply unavoidable due to financial constraints and skyrocketing food prices. However, for those looking to create slightly more complex and nutritious meals while remaining within the confines of a student budget, they face a more tedious and stress-inducing experience. Luckily, a new and increasingly popular solution to this issue has emerged: Recipe videos on TikTok that teach university students how to cook quick, healthy, and oftentimes affordable meals with just a single swipe. This side of the app is more popularly known as “FoodTok.” Aspiring student chefs can say goodbye to the cookbook, with its inaccessibility and high prices, and hello to a new, more democratic online era of cooking.

One of the biggest constraints preventing university students from unleashing their full culinary potential is time. After all, figuring out which meal to prepare after a lengthy day of classes or endless hours studying at Redpath is often one of the last things a McGill student wants to do. Through the app’s design, users are shown seconds-long snippets that are interesting, entertaining, and informative. Users are guided by short, easyto-follow recipes that cater to beginner cooks. Here, the structure of TikTok provides a crucial service: It allows overwhelmed and overworked students not to think.

This online cooking explosion ensures that those with little-to-no culinary experience have the opportunity to whip up high-quality, michelin-star level meals in the blink of an eye. Want an under-25 minute meal idea?

TikTok has the potential to entirely reshape student diets. (Solenne Trequesser / The Tribune) Hop on TikTok and take your pick of delicious meals ranging from creamy pesto pasta to chicken chow mein.

Another issue facing today’s student chefs is the high cost of food—whether this involves eating out or grocery shopping. Fortunately, many of the TikTok cooking posts emphasize cooking on a budget. The high cost of food affects almost all students whether they are funding part or all of their college or university education, as home cooking is no longer a viable means to affordable and healthy food. TikTok videos exist for every possible budget, advising viewers about what to buy and where to shop for healthy bargains.

For college students, many of whom are living away from home for the first time in their lives and are inexperienced in the kitchen, this sense of community among student chefs is particularly helpful. The TikTok cook-

ing community lets participants share their creations, ask for advice, and learn from others, creating a supportive cooking network. This community acts as a constant source of culinary inspiration and innovation, encouraging students to step out of their comfort zones and try new recipes and techniques. Even celebrities contribute to “FoodTok” to share and popularize their creations–– any FoodTok frequenter is familiar with Gigi Hadid pasta and Dwayne Johnson’s famous coconut banana pancakes.

It turns out, cooking and other independent responsibilities don’t have to be as overly complicated as they’re so commonly painted out to be. Online cooking recipes have ushered in a new culinary culture in which students can create easy, affordable and delicious meals, and for that, all university students have TikTok creators to thank.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

arts@mcgilltribune.com

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

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Electric, ethereal, and earnest: An evening at Tommy Lefroy’s ‘Le Trashfire’ tour

Tommy Lefroy reckons with the transformative power of live music Izzi Holmes Contributor

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n Sept. 28, Tommy Lefroy fans at Montreal’s Le Ministère sent seismic sound waves across North America as the crowd chanted along to the duo’s ethereal and addictive harmonies.S With Wynter Bethel and Tessa Mouzourakis—who record as Tommy Lefroy—on electric guitar, and Blake Evans on drums, the hour-long set incorporated both of the band’s EPs Flight Risk (2021) and Rivals (2023) and a dreamy cover of Lana Del Rey’s “Norman Fucking Rockwell.” The show was divinely electric, powerfully precise, and most of all, unapologetically joyful.

Quebec-based musician and opener Claudelle prepared the audience with French pop tunes, while the tour’s supporting act Haley Blais initiated the night’s melancholy melodies. Blais also professed their love for Montreal bagels, arugula, and her home of British Columbia (BC) between songs “Baby Teeth” and “Coolest fucking bitch in town.”

Each artist expressed their love for the city’s culture. Bethel joked that after their dynamic opening set for indie pop star Samia at Le Studio TD last winter, the band begged their agent to return to Montreal for their North American headline tour. Since Mouzourakis grew up in British Columbia and Bethel hails from Northern Michigan, it was evident all the evening’s musicians hold their northern hometowns close.

Mouzourakis flaunts her Canadian roots in songs such as “Jericho Beach,” where the pair sings about the “seismic renovation” of British Columbia. Introducing the song, she recalled spending time at the spot in Vancouver that inspired the lyrics as a teenager, smiling as BC audience members cheered in recognition. Even more relatable was the description of flight anxiety in “Vampires.” The venue shook with the line “don’t mind the darkness, the ice, or the nightfall / Don’t worry the plane won’t go down out of Montreal.”

Beyond these Canadian ties, Tommy Lefroy’s unique audience resonance lies in the way they both literally and figuratively tell their fans “I’m just like you.” Bethel and Mouzourakis know what plagues their demographic: The crowd erupted with laughter as they dedicated their critique of a pseudointellectual “hopeless

Bethel and Mouzourakis cite Joni Mitchell, Bon Iver, Bruce Springsteen, The National, Taylor Swift, and Regina Spektor, among many others, as their musical influences (Izzi Holmes / The Tribune)

wordsmith” in “The Cause” to anyone who has dated someone with a liberal arts degree. Even their song order tells a story; they open their show with “The Mess,” detailing the realization that their experience of womanhood—the transformation into an emaciated disaster—is incongruent with its portrayal in media, and close their set with “Dog Eat Dog,” a satirical feminist anthem about stopping at nothing to get what you want. By structuring their critical account of gendered existence’s triumphs and tragedies as a cohesive narrative, the band invites their audience to collaboratively exorcize shared anxieties.

As self-professed superfans themselves, Bethel and Mouzourakis credit a shared love for indie supergroup boygenius— whose lyrics nod to Springsteen, the Bible, and literary inspirations—to be what drove Tommy Lefroy’s formation. The fact that their own references to “Springsteen ‘88,” “Take me out tonight,” and “Goliath” require interpretation is then by no means accidental.

This investment in fan culture pays off: Lyrics like these provide insight into Bethel and Mouzourakis’ artistic genesis while embedding Tommy Lefroy into a larger tradition of work.

Given that the very name Tommy Lefroy reanimates Jane Austen’s “heartbreaker muse” Thomas Lefroy, and warrants further analysis, it just makes sense that the band would use interactive literary platforms such as Goodreads to connect with fans. By considering the interpretive role of the fan in the legacy of their music, Tommy Lefroy makes use of their inherited genre, while leaning into their own unique literary feminist culture.

Though Bethel and Mouzourakis bind their work to their hometowns and inspirations, a Tommy Lefroy concert transcends individual experience. The band maps the personal onto the universal, and the universal onto the personal—their audience feels seen, and sees them too. Pay attention to the earnest nerd rock of Tommy Lefroy—their sword-like riffs are as mighty as their pens.

Tommy Lefroy’s music is available to stream on all platforms.

“Roaming” dives into self-discovery on an enchanting trip to New York Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s new graphic novel succeeds for its realism Kellie Elrick Contributor

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EW YORK CITY, 2009—Two Asian Canadian best friends, Dani and Zoe, have been planning this trip for ages. They seize the opportunity during their first winter break in university. Dani studies Fine Arts at Concordia; Zoe studies Life Sciences at Queen’s (she wants to study Neuroscience, but that’s just a plan, she’ll see how first year goes).

Soon enough, a problem arises. The problem’s name is Fiona, and she meets Dani at Concordia. Fiona knows New York—it’s the first place she got drunk. “With a drummer. In a Grateful Dead t-shirt.” She smokes and calls herself a bitch.

There is friendship. There is conflict. There is adventure.

There is vomit.

Award-winning duo Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s new graphic novel captures the feeling of being young and free and scared all at once with tenderness and incredible attention to detail. Even the illustration of an Ontario driver’s license is accurate—I checked it next to mine.

Reading Roaming is a peculiar paradox: At times, Zoe, Dani, and Fiona inhabit a comforting otherworld, but at others, they could jump off the page and walk down the street.

They brim with adventure, but also worry about turning on data roaming on their phones. I saw myself reflected in these characters not only as a fellow (half)-Asian-Canadian university student, but in small movements and expressions that are hard to articulate. Roaming will delight readers who have never experienced a life similar to the ones on the page. Reading it made me nostalgic for a New York I’ve never been to.

The characters inhabit a world coloured with only a black, white, lilac, and sort of peach-like hues. The reader sees the story unfold through a pastel, dreamlike, slightly hazy filter. It’s so beautiful and beguiling that—just for a moment—you forget that subway cars aren’t really pink and pepperoni isn’t really

purple.

Tamaki and Tamaki’s romanticized New York is arguably a realistic portrayal: Reading Roaming feels like visiting the city for the first time. The graphics are often drawn from the perspective of someone looking up in wonder. However, not everyone is so enchanted.

As a local tells Dani, “New York City is forty per cent vampire. And ten per cent psychopath.”

The characters’ struggles are both tremendous and trifling.

There are seemingly ordinary trials: Zoe is perpetually put off by the radical greasiness of New York pizza, and habitually dabs her pizza with a napkin. Dani goes shopping and can’t find any pants that fit her—an experience shared by nearly every teenage girl I know.

Between these everyday moments, or perhaps even simultaneously, they tackle issues bigger than any of us: During a conversation about the hyper-vigilance of American border security, Dani recalls her dad being pulled into an airport interrogation room. Fiona asks her if it’s because he’s not white.

Dani hesitates.

“Oh. Uh. Maybe? He’s Korean. So that’s like… different?”

Later that day, an older man harasses them at a bar. Fiona tells him to leave, and he leans over the table. She tells him to go fuck himself, and he calls her a fucking bitch. The moment may seem out of place in a pastel-coloured friends’ trip to New York, but it’s also one intimately familiar to many young women traveling with friends—one moment, you’re taking in a new, beautiful city, the next, you’re catcalled into a harsh reality.

Zoe and Fiona have a complex relationship—they share a kiss in the butterfly garden at the Museum of Natural History, and more. Zoe also bristles when Fiona tells her she has “that cool d*ke thing going on.” Roaming isn’t a fantasy.

Relationships aren’t only beautiful. They’re also destructive.

More often than not, developing feelings around race, identity, family, and sexuality are not articulable, much less understandable. Roaming is not a manifesto; it’s real life. The characters of Roaming struggle and fail and refuse to give us

clear-cut answers, just as real friends do.

Roaming was published Sept. 12th and is available at local bookstore Drawn and Quarterly.

Jillian and Mariko Tamaki’s previous graphic novel, This One Summer, won a Governor General’s Award in 2014. It also became one of the most banned books in the U.S. (Drawn & Quarterly)

The Dread of McGill’s

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Climate change and degrading infrastructure are forcin

hen I first applied to McGill in the middle of the pandemic, I had never stepped foot in Montreal, much less onto McGill’s campus. In an attempt to recreate a traditional university visit, I watched McGill’s promotional videos, trying to weave video fragments of the campus together to imagine the place I would call home for the next four years. Images of the Arts Building, with the McGill flag waving red and white from the top of the dome, and the Macdonald-Stewart Library Building with its half-moon windows were ingrained in my mind. What I didn’t anticipate, and what was never shown in these videos, was the constant noise of construction across campus. Buildings that McGill presented to me as the cornerstones of campus were, in fact, covered in scaffolding when I arrived.

McGill’s campuses are always going to be a work in progress. The inevitable trade-off is that historic buildings, while beautiful, require frequent maintenance to ensure that they meet modern building codes. McGill has 200 active construction projects at any given time, according to McGill Media Relations Officer Frédérique Mazerolle, due to the campuses’ sheer number of aging buildings and new construction undertakings. These projects range from the installation of electrical sockets to the New Vic project which is estimated to cost at least $700 million.

According to Mazerolle, McGill allocates about $150 million to construction projects annually.

McGill is currently playing catch-up to address all of its buildings’ maintenance issues, such as the ongoing construction in the Macdonald campus’ Raymond Building and Centennial Centre. As projects get

underway, new ones are slotted for future maintenance and different issues sprout up that require even more work. The inventory of construction projects has become larger than what funding can provide. This results in deferred maintenance, which refers to the stalling of projects that are slated to be completed. And now, as the institution stares down the reality of climate change, broader changes to the campus have to be made to adapt; changes that cannot be prioritized until deferred maintenance is resolved. How did McGill get to this moment, and what does it mean for its built environment?

Facilities Management and Ancillary Services (FMAS) is the department that oversees and plans construction at McGill. FMAS comprises six units: Operations, Campus Planning and Development, Design Services, Project Management, Campus Public Safety, and Risk Advisory and Insurance Services. It is clear that McGill’s priorities lie in management and maintenance; even in name, the department is focused on management rather than planning, with the latter being a subset of the department rather than its primary focus. Currently, the department oversees at least half a billion dollars worth of construction projects across the Downtown and Macdonald Campuses.

Climate change is no longer a vague phenomenon looming on the horizon; we are already witnessing the faults of McGill’s infrastructure and how climate change alters the environment we live in. As the beginning of the Fall semester feels hotter and hotter each year, and walking into the non-air-conditioned Arts Building for class offers no relief, the effects of climate change are palpable. Predictions for the Montreal area suggest that the summer heat trend will only worsen, and the region will experience much more precipitation. Extreme weather events such as flash floods and ice storms are also expected to be increasingly common.

Michael Jemtrud, associate professor in the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, told The Tribune that the most sustainable buildings are “the ones that are already built.” According to him, the problem is not in

Written by Shani L Design by Sofia Stan the resilience of McGill’s current buildings but in the planning being done at the institutional level.

He believes McGill and FMAS need to focus more on long-term planning rather than maintenance of buildings in order to transition the university’s infrastructure to one that is climate-resilient.

“I personally think [McGill is] way underestimating stuff,” Jemtrud said. “I think the five-year model [for climate change] was actually the twenty-year model. We have to be prepared for that and we have to plan our infrastructure accordingly.”

W h i l e FMAS’ Campus Planning and Development unit released a Master Plan in 2019 that outlines the long-term goals for both the Downtown and Macdonald campuses, little progress has been made toward these goals so far. Factors such as the need for maintenance, the pandemic, and now post-COVID inflation, have stood in the way.

Jemtrud, who is working on the BARN project—a new interdisciplinary research facility with a focus on decarbonization—on the Macdonald campus, told The Tribune that his team has faced bureaucratic roadblocks involving zoning issues that have delayed the project. With inflation, the grant he received pre-COVID is insufficient for the project, so the team has had to find alternative funding options. Jemtrud believes this speaks to the inefficiencies of FMAS as he thinks these issues could have been avoided by putting more money into research early on in the process.

“We need to have a more serious planning department, maybe campus architects, someone who’s looking at this in a different way, who’s more familiar with new construction,” Jemtrud said. “We need to fund that department as well as FMAS because this kind of cost-recovery model that the university has adopted as if we were some

Deferred Maintenance

ng McGill into a game of catch-up—will they ever win?

askin, News Editor nkovic, Design Editor corporation—which we’re not, we’re publicly funded—doesn’t work if you want to do strategic planning. In my opinion, it doesn’t work if you want to do proper risk management.”

In McGill’s construction projects, they work to meet certain sustainability objectives, one being Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. Jemtrud said that these objectives do not necessarily constitute sustainable infrastructure and in some cases are performative rather than substantially progressive toward sustainability. Jemtrud proposes thinking about innovative solutions and involving the experts who work and study at the institution.

“It sucks to have to plan for the worst-case scenario, but I think you’re foolish if you don’t at this point. On a day-to-day basis too, I think, there are ways that we can start to look at maybe some not-so-obvious solutions to things, use our expertise a little bit more, be leaders in using low carbon [design]— Seriously, though, not just the greenwashing crap that we do.”

McGill cannot hope to plan for the future if it is already struggling to keep up with the necessary maintenance needed for its aging infrastructure. Nowhere is this more evident than on the Macdonald campus. According to FMAS’ maps of current construction projects, over half of the construction budget at the Macdonald campus is allocated to deferred maintenance.

Mazerolle explained that in 2020, McGill “launched a $100-million building renovation program at Macdonald Campus,” and that the renovations “involve critical—and long-deferred— upgrades needed to bring the campus facilities up to modern building codes and standards.”

That means that the maintenance is long overdue but was delayed because of constraints, whether financial, labour-related shortages, or the prioritization of maintenance elsewhere.

Anja Geitmann, Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Associate Vice-Principal (Macdonald Campus), spoke to the obstacles faced when it comes to keeping up with maintenance at Mac. “The amount of aging buildings that McGill has with respect to other Quebec universities is probably higher than most others,” Geitmann said. “The total number of buildings, the situation on the labour market, the situation on the construction market, is really an overall perfect storm that lands us here in 2023 with a whole lot of challenges.”

Coupled with these obstacles is McGill’s consistent deprioritization of the Macdonald campus versus the Downtown campus.

“Each individual prioritization that a provost might have done in the last few decades might have made sense,” Geitmann said. “If you see there’s a building downtown that services 10,000 students versus a certain building at Mac that services 2,000 students [...] in that moment, that decision makes sense to go for the building that services 10,000 students. However, if you do that five times in a row, you never get to that building that only serves 2,000 students. So it’s a series of decisions where the global consequences were maybe underestimated in terms of what that means for Macdonald.”

When I walked around the campus with Meryem Talbo, President of the Macdonald Campus Graduate Student Society (MCGSS), the effects of the administration’s years-long neglect of the campus were clear. The Raymond Building, which houses the Department of Plant Science, has been closed for deferred maintenance since the fall of 2021. According to Geitmann, the building housed fifteen research labs and four classrooms that cannot be used until construction ends, tentatively in the fall of 2024. Talbo told me that while the loss of these spaces perhaps would not be significant on the Downtown campus, they certainly are on the Macdonald campus.

“It’s ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ ” Talbo told me.

“It’s a smaller campus, smaller student population, it’s [far away] [....] I completely understand the logic behind [prioritizing the Downtown campus], but I do think it’s a little bit flawed because you’re still impacting people’s lives. And students’ lives and their work and their research and their development in your institution. And here, because it’s a smaller campus, if you remove just a little bit, it’s felt. Like, if you close just one side, you lose half of your lab space.”

Neglecting maintenance on the Mac campus for so long has led to a situation where many maintenance projects—albeit, much-needed— are occurring at the same time, disrupting research and classes significantly.

Being a smaller campus, flex spaces are harder to come by. In the severe case when McGill abruptly closed the Raymond building last winter due to asbestos, it put additional pressure on the

already strained campus to find space for people who had lost their lab spaces. Talbo told me that, specifically with the Raymond building closure, multiple graduate students’ research was disrupted which, in some cases, delayed their graduation dates.

“A lot of my friends for example [...] their labs are wet labs, and everything was shut down. You have some experiment that you need to prepare for for weeks, suddenly shut down and you can’t access it. So that definitely impacted a lot of people, a lot of students as well. Either the projects needed to be further pushed, sometimes they needed to be canceled, or the students themselves needed to push their graduation dates [....] It definitely impacted not just the morale, but also the students’ [lives].”

There are many factors that play into the ineffectiveness of McGill’s infrastructure management, but underlying them all is the need to focus energy on long-term planning as opposed to patching up holes when they sprout up. While we spend a few years at this institution, expecting instantaneous change, the built environment that we engage with will continue to impact generations to come.

“It’s a complicated issue and it’s even more complicated now that [we’re getting] through this horrible phase of the deferred maintenance or a big chunk of it, but now we’ve got the Royal Vic on our plate, and we’ve got climate change on our plate,” Jemtrud said. “So I think it’s even more important now than ever to kind of rethink: Do we have the right structures in place to deal with all of that?”

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

arts@mcgilltribune.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

What we liked this reading break Eight suggestions to liven up your midterm media indulgences

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ith midterm season in full swing, this past fall reading week served as a much-needed reprieve from the academic grind—and the perfect chance to relax with a good book, movie, or album.

From stellar British hip hop albums to the Fat Bears gracing your Twitter timelines and everything in between, The Tribune’s Arts & Entertainment section share their highlights from the break.

Workshop: Phonostaliga In this listening workshop led by Rémi Belliveau, a trans non-binary Acadian artist, participants are invited to partake in a discussion nourished by music.

Artexte & VOX, centre de l’image contemporaine (2, Sainte-Catherine Street East, #301 & #401) Tuesday, Oct. 17, 5:30 PM Free

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui Maria Gheorghiu, Contributor Between midterms and researchheavy proposals, I fell in love with The Best We Could Do (2017), a graphic novel memoir by Thi Bui. Narrating over visually striking illustrations, Bui delves into her family’s flight from a war-torn Vietnam, recalling the memories of her grandparents and parents, from colonial occupations to dictatorial regimes. She contrasts depictions of her family’s migration to the United States and the hardships associated with being a newcomer in America with her and her parents’ recollections of their lives in their homeland. In the process, Bui explores themes of childhood, parenthood, and the emotional loads they impart. As a child of immigrants, I read the book through tears and will be recommending it to anyone who asks.

No Country for Old Men Sophie Naasz, Contributor A whirlwind of tumbleweeds and bloody travels, No Country for Old Men is a chilling twist on the classic Neo-Western film. The cinematic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel follows Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a hunter who discovers more than $2 million when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong. His inability to resist the cash, paired with his compassion to help a dying man at the scene, leaves him on the run from a twisted sociopath with only a bizarre air compressor for a weapon. The movie offers a look into the lives of war veteran Llewelyn struggling to get by, a deranged killer named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) at ease with life, and a determined but saddened Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). While its ambiguous ending will leave you feeling uneasy and unsatiated as you consider how evil morphs over time, this is a thriller you don’t want to miss.

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert by Little Simz Charlotte Hayes, Contributor With a jarring sense of confidence and genuine talent to back it up, Little Simz stands out as an anomaly in the British rap scene. Besides breaking barriers as a woman in a male-dominated sphere, Little Simz also delivers a powerful message of self-assurance and love. Her 2021 album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, takes the smooth sounds of modern British rap and weaves them seamlessly with orchestral and gospel music. The result is a captivating musical experience that feels both euphoric and cathartic, placing her miles ahead of her peers in terms of sonic innovation. Little Simz’s lyrics are a refreshingly introspective departure from the usual hook-and-verse formula, prioritizing storytelling over a catchy hook. At times, they resemble spoken word

Could be Good

A reading with Kasia Van Schaik & Padma Viswanathan

poetry, inviting the listener to embrace their emotional experience and identity with honesty and strength. Little Simz’s genre-defying masterpiece shatters both social and musical boundaries, cementing her as a force to be reckoned with in British rap.

The Haunting of Hill House Aimee DeLong, Contributor Picture a graveyard’s worth of ghosts, an episode of Fixer-Upper, and the most tense family Thanksgiving dinner that you can remember. Combined, this doesn’t sound like a successful horror show, but Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House proves that at the heart of every scary story is an even scarier piece of family drama. The show—adapted from American author Shirley Jackson’s celebrated novel of the same name— follows the Crain family across two timelines: A past fateful summer spent in a house that culminates in the death of the mother, Olivia, and a present-day tragedy that draws the estranged family to the house once more. Instead of relying on superficial tropes, Flanagan captivates audiences by tackling issues such as mental health and addiction—and, of course, the long-term effects of being followed around by ghosts for your whole life. Packed with twists and heart-wrenching turns, The Haunting of Hill House delivers a beautiful story about healing from a haunting past, both literally and figuratively.

“My Evil Mother” by Margaret Atwood Ava Ellis, Contributor After loving classic feminist novel The Handmaid’s Tale, I was intrigued by Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood’s other stories. A quick read, “My Evil Mother” follows a young, unnamed woman and her evolving relationship with her eccentric mother. In her formative years, the mother’s enigmatic behaviour—which includes eerily predicting her daughter’s boyfriend’s demise and offering assistance to local women with their marital woes— alludes to the possibility of her being a witch. As the story unfolds, we witness the protagonist’s intermittent presence in her mother’s life while she forges her own path. The simplicity of their conversations enhances the brilliance of this narrative.

While the mother is a social outcast, she has many profound quotes throughout the book about ignoring the judgement of

others. Atwood expertly crafts a poignant mother-daughter bond, illustrating the lengths parents will go to protect their children and how we often take such sacrifices for granted until faced with comparable dilemmas.

TAPE 2/FOMALHAUT by BERWYN Luke Pindera, Contributor During this past reading break, I couldn’t stop listening to TAPE 2/ FOMALHAUT by London-based artist BERWYN. It is unfair to put BERWYN in a musical box, as the self-taught musician raps, sings, produces (along with longtime collaborator Fred Again..), and writes on the follow-up to his Mercury Prize-nominated mixtape, DEMOTAPE/ VEGA. The Trinidad-born artist explores a multitude of personal grievances on his second mixtape, including betrayal, drug addiction, loss, and his precarious immigration status. BERWYN conveys the overarching theme of loneliness throughout the record, reflecting its title; Fomalhaut is known as “the loneliest star in the sky”.

BERWYN’s distinct writing style of direct and raw depictions of his reality showcases his vulnerability, which is a breath of fresh air in the ultra-commercial context of music. I believe it may only be a matter of time until the buzz around BERWYN crosses the Atlantic. the record by boygenius Dana Prather, Arts & Entertainment Editor Five years after releasing their eponymous debut EP, boygenius’s first full-length project, the record, proves that some things really are worth the wait. The indie trio comprises Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, each formidable solo artists in their own right. Yet, when the women of boygenius collaborate, the result is a masterful mix of Baker’s impressive guitar work, Bridgers’ eviscerating, confessional lyricism, and Dacus’ signature haunting vocals that is more than the sum of its parts. Freewheeling through a collage of rock, folk, pop, and even country sounds, the album’s throughline is the trio’s friendship; whether it’s the simple admission that, “it feels good to be known so well” in the Dacus-fronted “True Blue” or the trio’s harmonic reflections on a group beach day gone (almost) wrong during “Anti-Curse,” the band members prove time and again that platonic love can

McGill’s Dept. of English hosts a joint reading with two Scotiabank Giller Prizenominated authors, Kasia Van Schaik & Padma Viswanathan.

Maxwell Cohen Moot Court, New Chancellor Day Hall (3644 Peel Street) Thursday, Oct. 19 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM Free

Small Business Pop-Up Market by COF Circle of Fashion presents a pop-up market featuring local fashion vendors and small businesses offering everything from unique clothes to professional teeth gemming.

Tanna SSMU Ballroom (University Centre 4th floor, 3480 Mc Tavish St) Friday, Oct. 20 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM Free

Slasher - Improvised Comedic Horror Blending the thrills of old school slasher flicks with spirited improvised comedy, this Mojo Comedy Co. production is a devilish show you don’t want to miss!

5337 Boulevard Saint-Laurent Saturday, Oct. 21 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM $7.32 be as profound, lasting, and meaningful as any romantic connection.

Fat Bear Week Suzanna Graham, Arts & Entertainment Editor I don’t know about all of you, but my March Madness involves fat bears and intense Twitter (X) polls. From Oct. 4 to 10, twelve of Katmai National Park’s most winter-ready brown bears faced off in head-to-head battles that gathered over 1.3 million votes. An annual tradition since 2014, park rangers showcase each bear’s glow up between spring and fall of that year, educating the masses on the importance of bear nutrition and fuzzy little ears. But don’t fear—Katmai National Park gives bears of every size and shape the opportunity to win. Contestants included tiny teen bears like 806 Spring Cub, four-time Fat Bear champion 480 Otis, and defensive mamma bears like 435 Holly. With a roster like this, each bear has more personality (and diversity) than your average reality TV show. So connect to those 24/7 Love Island-esque livestreams, pick your favourites, and keep an eye on the gorgeous Ursa Chonkuses that bless your Twitter timeline.

scitech@mcgilltribune.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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Annual Environment Public Lecture explores an economic approach to clean energy A fiscal approach to the climate crisis involves cost-effective policies and technologies.

Elyse Dyck Contributor

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n Oct. 5, McGill’s Bieler School of Environment hosted their annual Environment Public Lecture. For this occasion, Moyse Hall Theatre was speckled with professors and students curious to hear how Gernot Wagner, a climate economist and lecturer at Columbia Business School, would argue that the solution to the climate crisis lies in the business world.

In his lecture, Climate Risks, Uncertainties, and Opportunities, Wagner argued that investing in sustainable climate technologies to reach global emission targets is the right thing to do, not only morally, but economically.

He stressed that the social cost of carbon (SCC)—an estimate, in dollars, of the economic damages that would result from emitting an additional ton of CO2 into the atmosphere—is an effective tool to guide policy creation, as it translates the consequences of climate change into economic language, which are more easily understood by policymakers

than future concerns about preserving the environment. “$200 [USD] is the bare minimum of the full social cost per ton of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere today,” Wagner explained in his lecture.

However, this estimate only considers what we already know.

What we do not know—the risks and uncertainties—may worsen the climate crisis, and push the value of the SCC higher. In other words, as the crisis worsens, the financial toll of each new ton of CO2 may change dramatically.

Since these unknowns are so critical to the future of climate change, Wagner considered environmental protection a global risk-management problem. He highlighted the importance of higher cost estimates, since inevitable tipping points, such as the Gulf Stream collapse, will likely double the social cost of carbon.

But using only SCC estimates leads to a seemingly simple solution: If we were to all pay $200-400 per ton of CO2 by policy, we could solve the climate crisis.

“News flash, we don’t live in that world,” Wagner said. “There is no one silver-bullet technical solution, or one silver-bullet policy solution either.”

Rather than treating carbon pricing as a fix-all solution, to see real change, governments must decide to frontload their funding, as opposed to spending a small portion each year.

Although legislators may have trouble justifying this hefty initial sum politically, pure economic reasoning can justify these investments even when we leave out the costs of climate-related disasters, health impacts, and loss of ecosystem services.

Wagner explained that, on a global scale, these measures are feasible.

If we redirect investments from highemissions assets, such as fossil fuel extraction, to clean energy, and consider how much is currently spent on clean technologies and infrastructure, then the costs of reaching global emission targets start to shrink.

“The difference between current policies and net-zero by 2050 is only $25 trillion in total spending over the next 30 years, or less than an extra $1 trillion per year on average,” Wagner said.

Production costs of wind and solar energy are decreasing largely due to technological advances and supply increases. Unlike fossil fuels, it is a common trend for renewables to get cheaper over time. (Mason Bramadat / The Tribune) This extra annual cost is less than half the total military spending worldwide in 2022, which amounted to 2.2 trillion USD. He stated that ultimately, the right policy would not be to simply price the “optimal fee.”

The solution is a mix of different measures: Subsidies and regulations, providing alternative sources of energy, redirecting funds away from high-emissions

technologies, and investing in efficient ones.

For context, Wagner used the example of a U.S. policy set in 2007 that enacted the switch from incandescent to LED lightbulbs. Predictions about initial investments paying for themselves due to dramatically higher energy efficiency drove this policy. Soon after the U.S. implemented this policy, many countries followed suit.

How exoenzymes changed the fate of organic matter Unearthing the crucial role of exoenzymes in marine life evolution.

K. Coco Zhang Contributor

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he very first life on Earth appeared 3.8 billion years ago as individual cells called heterotrophs, which were dependent on external food sources.

Over the years, these simple heterotrophic cells underwent countless evolutionary changes, transforming into the planet’s diverse range of present-day animals.

Despite the critical importance of evolution for life on Earth, the metabolic processes—life-sustaining reactions that convert food into energy—the evolutionary changes underlying them remain poorly understood.

In a recently published paper, Nagissa Mahmoudi, associate professor in McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and her team discussed current evidence in the evolution of Earth’s early oceans, particularly the production of exoenzymes—degradative enzymes used for digestion.

Mahmoudi’s team chose to write a Perspective paper—a type of article showcasing the author’s personal opinion. Perspective pieces are generally speculative and forward-looking. They also aim to raise awareness of the latest research in a certain field. Although a Perspective paper does not allow the inclusion of new data, it permits the re-analysis of existing data.

“The reason that we focused on [marine life] is because we think life started in the oceans,” Mahmoudi said in an interview with The Tribune. “We think that’s where life has evolved and where life is dominant.”

Mahmoudi aimed to extend the understanding of modern oceans and to make inferences about how early forms of life evolved and functioned in ancient oceans.

“We would like to gather geobiological evidence from the modern ocean where we know exoenzymes are really important and bridge the gap between our under-

exoenzymes to support various cellular functions essential for life.

For example, amylases break down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars; proteases break down proteins into amino acids; and lipases break down triglycerides—a type of fat that circulates in the blood—into free fatty acids and glycerol. A molecule with diverse functions, glycerol enables processes such as cellular respiration and photosynthesis.

Despite the importance of exoenzymes, Earth’s first heterotrophs lacked the ability to secrete them. As such, most food sources, primarily organic matter, were largely inaccessible to heterotrophs in the early evolution of life.

In addition to being a food source for marine microbes, organic matter also contributes to carbon dioxide Marine phytoplankton, such as algae, are the main producers of organic emissions and marine sediments.

“In modern oceans, 99 per cent of the organic matter matter in the marine environment. (commons.wikepedia.org) gets broken down and respired back to carbon dioxide, standing of the modern ocean and what it would have and one per cent is buried and sequestered,” Mahmoudi looked like in the past,” Mahmoudi said. said. “But in ancient oceans, the microbes weren’t able The emergence of exoenzymes represents a vital to break down and take up the organic matter. Then more step in the early evolution of heterotrophs. Exoenzymes of the organic matter will end up being buried in the botbreak down macromolecules—large molecules com- tom of the ocean.” posed of smaller constituents—into their subunits. The This phenomenon suggests that the fate of organic breakdown of macromolecules is crucial as it makes food matter in the marine environment has shifted with the particles small enough for the cell to take up. emergence of exoenzymes.

“The proteins and carbohydrates are too big for the “When the organic materials settle down into the [cells] to take up,” Mahmoudi said. “If you figure out a ocean, there would have been fewer nutrients available way to cut the protein in half to eat it up, then you have for the microbes in ancient oceans,” Mahmoudi said. access to way more food.”

Mahmoudi’s research points to the importance of For complex organisms such as humans, this pro- exoenzymes and their role in the evolution of marine cess occurs in the digestive system in which exoenzymes life. Her paper also identifies a need for future research break down foods into small molecules, including amy- into the processes underlying the emergence of exoenlases, proteases, and lipases. zymes as well as the biogeochemical context in which Cells then take up the small molecules produced by they appeared.

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

scitech@mcgilltribune.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

Based on traits: Selecting more resilient wood for future woodbuilding industries Preparing our forest ecosystems for climate change and more.

Jinha Suh Contributor

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efore concrete and steel, wood was the predominant material in many human endeavours. Nowadays, while wood has been mostly replaced, its usage remains common. Wood construction specialists, however, continue to rely on only a few species, limiting their survivability against climate change.

To ensure the viability of forestry and building industries, there must be long-term solutions that reduce the impact of such environmental disturbances. Peter Osborne, a PhD candidate at McGill’s Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, believes that building more functionally diverse and resilient forests is the key.

According to Osborne’s paper, ‘functional traits’ are biological characteristics of plants associated with their growth, survival, and reproduction. A ‘plant-building trait-based’ approach, therefore, analyzes tree species based on their ecological and construction-relevant traits.

The recent forest fires in Quebec started because forests in Chibougamau are mostly comprised of black spruce. (Josh Olalde / unsplash.com)

“[Trait-based ecology] looks at the underlying characteristics within that species, such as drought tolerance, leaf area, and diameter at breast height,” Osborne said in an interview with The Tribune. “[Construction-relevant traits] would be characteristics of wood that are desired in [construction], such as fire resistance and pest tolerance.”

By grouping species of similar construction-relevant traits, Osborne compared the current needs of the industry with the internal characteristics of each species. One of his case studies, performed in southeastern Quebec, found that softwood from coniferous trees remains the most desirable.

“Softwoods grow faster and straighter. And in Canada, they are extremely abundant,” Osborne said. “The workability, and the general physical and mechanical properties of these species are oftentimes advantageous.”

Coniferous trees, often used in wood-building, would be an ideal candidate for growing ecologically resilient, climate-adapted forests. Unfortunately, coniferous trees are prone to both fire and damaging insect species such as the moth genus, Dendrolimus.

Conversely, fire cannot climb the tight, smooth bark of deciduous trees, which can reduce forest fire spread.

However, the wood from these trees can easily bend and form knots, which is considered inadequate for construction lumber. Although not used structurally, these hardwoods can still be used in flooring for high durability.

“There are also silvicultural [science of controlling and managing forests] reasons why [hardwoods] are not as utilized—primarily due to their age, the time that they have to take to grow, and the silvicultural applications that surround them,” Osborne said. “A maple forest is not as functionally convenient to harvest as a pine forest.”

To examine long-term forest dynamics within the region where these tree species grow, Osborne simulates them on the LANDIS-II model by testing four forest management approaches—business-as-usual (BAU), climate change adaptation (CCA), and two variants of functional diversification network (FDN)—under different climate scenarios—current, warm, and hot. Then, he measures the changes in harvest output and species composition of the trees.

“In the business-as-usual [BAU] approach, there is a substantial increase in harvest volume, which does not align with the goal for carbon sequestration,” Osborne said. “Under the climate change adaptation [CCA] and the two functional diversification network [FDN] approaches, we find that the standard building groups (BGs) stayed more or less in their output, if not increased.

But where we found the most increases were obviously BG3BG7 [hardwoods].”

Furthermore, he found a 40 per cent increase in short-term harvest volume in the CCA and FDN approaches, resulting from a timely harvest at early growth stages. Prioritizing species with overlapping functional traits for harvest while planting ecologically foreign species would increase forest functional diversity.

Although the CCA and FDN approaches seem to offer promising avenues, the striking reality is that the outcome remains uncertain. Greater functional diversity and ecological resilience may increase chances of survival in case of ecological disturbances.

“This is why designers and engineers in the industry need to become more adaptable in the future,” Osborne explained. “To survive in any of these climate scenarios.”

To prepare for the unforeseeable future, it is critical to work with, and not against, our forests—by increasing the adaptability of wood construction and creating a dynamic and flexible usage of wood in response to current needs.

McGill Engine unveils students’ technological entrepreneurship 11 student venture teams pitched their startups at the TechAccel Showcase

Eliza Wang Contributor

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n Sep. 28, 2023, students, faculty, and sponsors gathered at the McGill Engine Centre—a Faculty of Engineering hub dedicated to supporting McGill’s technological innovators and entrepreneurs.

The TechAccel Showcase spotlighted a total of 11 student teams from both the Winter and Summer 2023 cohorts. As one of McGill Engine’s key experiential learning programs, TechAccel encourages and supports student startups, providing oneon-one business mentorship, project grants, community events, and more.

During her opening remarks, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Viviane Yargeau, reflected on the program’s successes.

“Since the start of the TechAccel program, [...] over $224,000 in funding has been distributed by the Faculty of Engineering Innovation Fund to support students in early stage ventures, and over 200 students have been trained and 40 per cent [of the benefitted students] are from faculties other than the Faculty of Engineering,” Yargeau said. “And that’s something that I’m very proud of because I strongly believe in multidisciplinary approaches to the work that we do.”

Ranging from software development consultancy to sustainable, iron-based energy storage solutions, the pitches at the TechAccel Showcase exemplified the interdisciplinary ventures that McGill students spearhead.

One of the many groundbreaking technological designs came from Fulcra—a startup focused

on orthotic devices to mitigate chronic lower back pain, the leading musculoskeletal issue worldwide.

“In the market, there is currently nothing available for chronic lower back pain. All of these cases and studies have proven that they develop patient dependencies and increase injury occurrences when you remove [back braces]. Now, heavy lifting, strenuous activities, and labour-intensive jobs are all causes of back pain, and all the current solutions are not appropriate for these situations,” Maria Calderbank, U4 Mechanical Engineering and one of the four co-founders, said during Fulcra’s pitch.

Fulcra, in response, designed a unique orthotic device that boasts the advantages of both a corset and an exoskeleton, drawing upon abdominal pressure to stabilize the spine and consequently reduce lower back pain without the restrictiveness or bulk.

By applying this pressure during strenuous movements only, like heavy lifting, their device is more sustainable through wear and tear, making it suitable for chronic cases.

The innovations at the TechAccel showcase did not stop at Fulcra’s award-winning orthotic device. Reeva Tech Solutions, a startup in IT system custom software development, also pitched its first product, Sterilization DB. “The problem that Sterilization DB is trying to solve is the limited amount of medical device tracking that is happening in medical clinics of Quebec.

This is a problem because the government of Quebec is following suit with the governments of Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia to develop new laws regarding the mandate of sterilization tracking,” Reeva’s founder and CEO Roko Baljak, U2 Science, said during his pitch.

Innovators in Action: McGill Engine’s student ventures unveiled at TechAccel Showcase. (Evan Rajkovic / Plumbers’ Photographer Union)

Baljak noted that medical device tracking is currently tedious, if not outdated. To track equipment, clinics label it with printed QR codes— undergoing a slow, costly process as they are often required to track over 200 devices per day.

“Sterilization DB is a software and hardware kit that allows medical professionals to track sterilization and usage of medical equipment quickly and simply. We feature a very simple user interface (UI) and all the data that we collect are stored on the premises at the clinic, which makes it very secure,” Baljak said.

Another significant advantage of this product lies in its compatibility with existing patient management software in Quebec. The

current patient record system could easily incorporate Sterilization DB, thus facilitating the tracking of all the medical equipment used during a patient’s visit along with their medical records.

As the various TechAccel teams continue improving their designs and developing their business ventures, the McGill Engine continues its instrumental work in fostering innovative technologies. On Nov. 30, they will be hosting their ninth annual Celebration of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, bringing together students, faculty, investors, and alumni to highlight emerging technologically-based startups at McGill.

studentlife@mcgilltribune.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

STUDENT LIFE

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Missing your pet 101 Four easy tips to help you make new furry friends while at university Sophie Naasz Contributor

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t’s official: October is here and fall is in full swing. If you couldn’t tell from the leaves changing or all the sweaters around campus, that crisp autumn wind is a telltale sign. Somehow we’re already addicted to pumpkin spice and apple everything, and it’s only a little while before the

Halloween decorations get put up.

While we all start layering up and leaving our windows open at night for that fresh cool air, there’s a strong desire to avoid homework.

So put on a classic fall favourite and curl up under some blankets next to someone whose ears pop out from under the blanket and gives you a big slobbery kiss on the cheek. Yep, welcome to missing-your-pet-101!

Who let the dogs out? (Mason Bramadat / The Tribune)

As a relatively diverse and international university, McGill attracts students from all over the world, who make the exciting journey to Montreal through planes, trains, and long automobile rides— trips that are hard for our furry friends. The reality is that most pets get left at home; even if they could journey to Montreal, uni-student life and city living space are often not conducive to pet ownership.

This means we’re left missing our best friends, texting in our family group chats for pet pictures, and then getting upset when they’re too cute.

For many students, one of the greatest losses of leaving their pets at home is the lack of a constant stress reliever. How can you relieve stress if you do not have that big dog hug, those purrs from that tabby, or the hiss of your (friendly) serpent on call?

Animals can be the best help when you’re overwhelmed as they offer a loving, non-judgemental companionship—something that is so often sorely lacking at university where everyone’s stress levels run

high. Whether you’re missing your cat, dog, bunny, or lizard, don’t worry: Here are The Tribune’s tips for staving away the pet blues.

1. Attend a Student Wellness Hub Animal Therapy Session Hosted every Monday and Thursday from 1-2:30 p.m. in the Brown Building, these therapy sessions are the perfect time to get some puppy love and de-stress while having snacks and conversations in a relaxing setting with other attendees.

2. Make friends with a neighbour who is a pet owner Although having a pet as a student is hard, many other city residents have pets, which can work in your favour. Make friends with your neighbours and offer to pet sit when they’re away. Maybe you can make some cash while also satisfying the need for a little cat cuddle.

3. Say hi to pets on the street Sometimes all a day needs is a little hello from a dog or cat.

Politely ask someone who’s walk-

ing their pet if you can give them a pat (try to hold yourself back from a whole-body hug—I know it’s hard). A little hello from a furry friend always leaves me smiling!

4. Volunteer at an Animal Shelter If these activities aren’t enough for you, and you have some spare time in your schedule, consider volunteering at a nearby shelter such as the Montreal SPCA or Friends of Humane Society International where you’ll get to work with animals oneon-one for multiple hours. Helping an animal find a new home is always rewarding, but the hardest part will be not taking one home with you!

Although you can never stop missing your pets, I hope these tips will help you decompress a little and enjoy the fall. As schoolwork and other stresses accumulate, make sure to take the time to relax and maybe make some new furry friends!

Savoury pumpkin recipes to keep you cozy this fall

Two comforting autumn dinner recipes that will make you fall in love K. Coco Zhang Contributor

Ingredients: 6 cups of vegetable broth 425g of pumpkin purée 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil 1 large shallot, finely diced 2-3 garlic cloves, minced ½ tbsp of sage leaves, sliced ⅛ tsp of nutmeg 2 cups of arborio rice ¾ cup of dry white wine (such as Pinot Grigio) ½ cup of vegan parmesan cheese, grated Salt, to taste Black pepper, to taste

2. Bring the pumpkin broth to a simmer over medium-low heat while preparing the rest of the ingredients; the broth should remain at this temperature when added to the risotto.

3. Pour the olive oil into a large pan over medium-high heat.

4. Add the shallot, garlic, and sage to the oil once warm. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until the onion is translucent and the garlic starts to brown.

5. Add the nutmeg and arborio rice to the pan and mix well. Toast the arborio rice for 2-3 minutes, until the rice becomes more translucent.

6. Pour the white wine into the pan to deglaze it. Simmer for 3-5 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated from the pan and until the scent of alcohol has left.

7. Combine ¾ cup of the warm pumpkin broth with the rice in the pan. Reduce the heat to medium-low and stir the mixture frequently to ensure the rice is cooked evenly.

8. When the spoon leaves a dry path after dragging it through the mixture, add an additional ½ cup of warm broth. Repeat this process with the remaining broth.

9. Cook the rice for 20-25 minutes until creamy. Turn the heat off and stir in the grated vegan parmesan. Season with salt and pepper to taste, if desired. Serve warm.

10. Top with a small drizzle of olive oil, extra sprinkles of parmesan, pumpkin seeds, and a sage leaf (optional).

11. Risotto is best enjoyed fresh. Leftovers can be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Steps: 1. Add the vegetable broth and pumpkin purée to a medium-to-large pot. Whisk until evenly combined.

These recipes were adapted from Jar of Lemons’s Creamy Pumpkin Pasta and From My Bowl’s Creamy Vegan Pumpkin Risotto.

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utumn brings about gorgeous golden-orange colours, crisp air, crunching leaves underfoot, and the smell of woodsmoke. It also means the arrival of pumpkins: Pumpkin soup, stew, pies, cookies, bread, pancakes, drinks, and candies. As pumpkin has become a flavour nearly synonymous with fall, The Tribune has compiled hearty and mouthwatering pumpkin recipes that are perfect for a chilly fall day.

For pasta lovers: Creamy Pumpkin Pasta While bolognese, carbonara, or amatriciana might be your all-time favourite, this soul-soothing pumpkin pasta is a great fall classic edition.

Ingredients: 200g of whole-wheat pasta (cooked according to package directions) ¼ cup of olive oil 2 tsp of garlic, minced 1 cup pumpkin purée 2 tbsp milk of choice 1 tbsp white wine vinegar ¾ cup vegetable broth 3-4 sage leaves (or ½ tsp of dried sage) ½ cup of parmesan, grated (optional) 2 cups of spinach ¼ cup of walnuts, chopped 2 tbsp of pumpkin seeds, roasted Salt, to taste Pepper, to taste Steps: 1. Over medium heat, cook the olive oil and garlic in a saucepan for 2-3 minutes.

The name “pumpkin” comes from the Greek word “pepon,” which means a “large melon.” (unsplash.com)

2. Add the pumpkin purée, milk, vinegar, broth, salt, and pepper to the saucepan.

Whisk and let simmer for about 5 minutes.

3. Add the sage and parmesan to the saucepan. Let simmer for about 2-3 minutes.

4. Remove from heat. Add the spinach and mix together.

5. Add the cooked pasta. Top with walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and extra parmesan (optional). Garnish with sage. Serve warm.

6. Store the leftovers in the fridge for 3-5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

For rice lovers: Creamy Vegan Pumpkin Risotto When you feel like treating yourself on a relaxed weeknight, this hearty pumpkin risotto full of fresh fall flavours is an amazing choice.

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STUDENT LIFE

studentlife@mcgilltribune.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

Indigenous Voices of Today exhibit showcases culture and resilience McCord Museum exhibit embodies Indigenous curator Élisabeth Kaine’s legacy Mia Helfrich Contributor

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ou’re in a forest. Dappled light filters through a lush maple canopy and wraps you in a green cocoon. This is the entrance to the Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, and Resilienceexhibit at the McCord Stewart Museum, which displays various Indigenous artifacts that highlight Indigenous cultures and histories.

The exhibit opened in 2021 and is on permanent display, with over 100 artifacts on rotation. For over eight years, Huron-Wendat curator and professor Élisabeth Kaine, who passed away in 2022, travelled to all 11 of the Indigenous nations in Québec and gathered around 800 testimonies.

Quotes from her travels adorn the exhibit.

The exhibition is divided into two main rooms: One on Indigenous culture, and one on Indigenous trauma.

In the center of the forestthemed foyer, a large circular screen provides video interviews of Indigenous spokespeople, including Joséphine Bacon, an Innu author from Québec. Immediately,

Cheryl MacDonald, a Kanien’keha:ka woman from Kanesatake, speaks in a video at the exhibit’s entrance. (Wilder McNutt / The Tribune)

visitors are greeted by Indigenous voices and perspectives.

“It’s truly Indigenous people expressing themselves and what they went through, what they believe is important, and what their aspirations for the future are,” Johnathan Lainey, a member of the Huron-Wendat nation and Curator of Indigenous Cultures at the McCord Museum, said in an interview with The Tribune.

The first room is white and well-lit. Canoe-shaped tables hold artifacts from many aspects of Indigenous culture. One table, titled Moving, displays Indig-

enous transportation methods, with models of canoes, toboggans, and snowshoes. Other Indigenous technologies include hunting equipment such as Inuit harpoons and knives, highlighting groups’ no-waste and efficient hunting practices. The materials of the artifacts range from ivory to sinew.

The section titled Children are the Centre showcases the love within Indigenous families One table is dedicated almost entirely to baby carriers called cradleboards. A series of monochrome photos display mothers from different Indigenous communities

and their children. They are smiling, the babies laughing in their cradleboards. While the physical objects inform one of the items that Indigenous peoples make and use, the photos help connect those objects to the people using them.

“The [quotes] are written with ‘we,’” Lainey noted. “So it’s our stories, it’s our traumas. It’s us.”

Other features of the exhibit help contextualize the artifacts and photos. A map on the left-hand wall shows Indigenous communities across Canada, with markers for the 11 nations in Québec. Videos document Indigenous craftspeople and homelands.

“The more you appreciate the first section, the more you feel the violence of the second section,” Lainey said.

The following room is black and dim, with a burnt forest along the back wall. Monochrome photos show the inside of residential schools, capturing how white supremacist, settler colonial policy stripped away Indigenous children’s culture and language. Totems are featured to explain how Indigenous religious practices were invalidated and judged. A television presents movies that feature damaging stereotypes of

Indigenous people. In the center, a beaded, bright red dress is dedicated to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Each testimony, written in red, is impactful and revealing. The walls are lined with artifacts, forcing the visitor to circulate in near-darkness.

“Now that we acknowledge Indigenous trauma, what do we do? So this is where the exhibition becomes a tool for better understanding and living together,” Lainey told The Tribune.

The exhibit ends with a room similar to the foyer, with trees and a video greeting. Centred on resilience, the room encourages visitors to be proactive about supporting Indigenous communities.

One can write a message in a notebook and receive a pamphlet with ten actions they can do to support Indigenous peoples.

“We must rewrite the story of our lives by breaking the silence,” Kaine wrote on the wall at the end of the exhibition.

The exhibit is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. TuesdayFriday.

Admission is $15 for students and free for members of Indigenous communities.

Polyamorous dating drama and high school theatre trauma The unfortunate similarities between monogamous dating and high school theatre auditions Zeynep Alsancak Contributor

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have had the privilege of performing in the McGill Classics Play these past two years. From the very beginning, the audition process set itself apart from any previous theatre experience I had: Actors go out for any part, not knowing more than basic character descriptions for a few of the leads.

This has eliminated the stress I always felt in high school when auditioning for a specific role and waiting for the fateful day that the cast list goes up. Not only does this process alleviate the “failure” of not getting a part, I find it’s better at giving us what we need, rather than what we think we want.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable part of this realization was recognizing that what I dislike about high school theatre is also what I now dislike about monogamy.

Now, I am not a relationship person. Yet, I still consider myself to be polyamorous. So, why do I go through the hassle of explaining polyamory to tons of people I won’t meet again? Why do I bother explaining the boundaries I would set in a relationship to someone I don’t intend to date? Why explain to people how I might navigate several romantic partnerships when I find it unlikely that I will meet several people I want to date?

Well, it’s because the way I would navigate a romantic relationship isn’t different from how I navigate any other interpersonal relationship. I don’t see romance as the pinnacle of human connection, but rather just a permutation of it.

I am polyamorous because one person’s place in my life does not depend on my relationship with any-

body else. So, for me, monogamous dating feels like an audition. While I am getting to know someone and building the foundation of a relationship with them that’ll last as long as we enjoy each others’ company, they are auditioning people to fit the role of “partner” in their life. Their relationship with me will last

Polyamory is not practiced because any one partner is insufficient, but rather because it is more fulfilling to be enriched by several people simultaneously. (Cottonbro Studio)

only until they cast someone else in that role, unless they cast me, in which case it’ll last for as long as I fulfill the criteria slightly better than anyone else.

This also means that I will be cut from people’s lives because I fit their requirements for dating a little too well yet not enough. Their feelings toward me exceed what they deem acceptable for a friendship, but other differences make me unsuitable to be their singular partner. I think it’s quite unfathomable for a polyamorous person to cut contact with someone because we do care about them, but showing that we care about someone else means we cannot care about any other person in a comparable way.

I also want to clarify that being polyamorous certainly does not mean you have to be dating several people at once or have the same closeness or boundaries with all of your partners. Take it as a matter of choice: Are you doing certain things you consider exclusive to a romantic partnership with one person because you want to or because you have to?

So, I will ask you to think about a few questions to consider whether you might be more polyamorous than you think. Why do you want to be in a relationship? Is it emotional or physical intimacy? Where do these overlap, and importantly, where do they not? What are things you might want that, socially, are only acceptable to want from your partner? Will these things actually take away from what you personally consider important for your relationship?

Will getting the best head of your life once again take anything away from everything you love about your current partner? From my experience: If it was just sex then, it’s just sex now, and I hope you choose monogamy for a hell of a lot more than good head.

sports@mcgilltribune.com

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

SPORTS

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McGill’s lack of varsity sports culture needs to change

Buy-in from students and administration makes for a better fan and athlete experience Julian Tabbitt Contributor

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cGill has a long history of pioneering innovation within the sports world: James Naismith, the creator of basketball, studied at McGill, the university’s annual carnival hockey game first took place in 1883, and McGill participated in the first American football game of all time.

In April 1874, McGill played Harvard in what is widely viewed to be the first time that North American football rules were played with, otherwise known as Boston rules. Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of this first football game, though most are likely unaware of the milestone and McGill has not made any public plans to celebrate this momentous occasion.

This speaks to a wider issue within McGill varsity sports. McGill has struggled to maintain school spirit around its sporting events, and fans in attendance are often few.

The administration has previously expressed that they would increase ticket sales if there was higher demand. Yet, playoff games and rivalry games often fail to generate enough interest for McGill to expand how many tickets are sold. Leaving fans out of the stadium delivers a weak atmosphere at our games, both diminishing the accomplishments of McGill’s student athletes and failing to build a cohesive community culture.

Next week is the Redbirds’ homecoming football game against Concordia, and players are concerned about a lack of publicity for the game. Fourth-year offensive lineman Klaus Calixte wished that there was a larger effort to make homecoming an event for all of McGill sports.

“The stadium should be opened to 100 per cent capacity for homecoming, yet there is little marketing done by the school to even sell these tickets,” Calixte told The Tribune.

“We have a generational QB [quarterback] talent in Eloa Latendresse-Regimbald and Scott Walford, a third-round draft pick to the NHL [on the hockey team]. People should come see them!”

The lack of engagement with our teams not only delegitimizes the hard work of student athletes but reflects poorly on McGill’s university culture. Is the problem due to post-COVID students who never saw pre-COVID sporting events at McGill? Or, is there a pattern of apathy stemming from McGill Athletics?

For some varsity teams, this lack of school spirit extends beyond having a limited number of fans at games. The Martlets’ field hockey team has not played a home game since the 2018-19 season. According to Madeline Cohen, the team’s captain, McGill Athletics has not provided a “solid reason” as to why they cannot play regular season games at home, and also claims their Ontario University Athletics’ competitors have expressed a willingness to travel.

“Athletics is so fan oriented,” Cohen said. “Most of our athletes would tell you that they could name 10 people instantly who would love to come to a game. We all have huge support bases here [....] But there isn’t even a video stream for them to be able to watch us play.”

If McGill Athletics cares about creating a McGill culture around our sports, there are lots of simple steps they can take. McGill must follow in the footsteps of schools by offering free tickets to their students and faculty like the University of Toronto or a package with tickets at less than one dollar per game like the Université du Québec à Montréal. Lowering ticket prices for students and having a set amount of free early bird tickets, in combination with

greater marketing efforts on campus could easily increase fan engagement. Those who frequent the quad will notice Marty the Martlet advertising a few football games a year, which begs the question: Why can’t this happen for every game and for more teams?

By not playing into historic sporting events and disappointingly marketing players and teams, and an overall lack of care to its sports teams, they are doing a disservice to their athletes, fans, and McGill culture. The McGill community must celebrate the talent we have at our school and revive our sports culture.

Sports Editor and Martlets field hockey goalkeeper Anoushka Oke did not contribute to this article.

The highest attendance at a McGill varsity game is 6,218, during 2008’s ‘Fill the Stadium Game’ against Bishop’s University. ( Jarrod Erbe / unsplash.com )

Know Your Athlete: Lauren Minns The second-year law student details her ambitious aims for the Martlets Anoushka Oke Sports Editor

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espite missing the past two seasons due to a sprained ankle and then a coaching job at Vanier College, Lauren Minns was quick to make an impression with the Martlets’ rugby team, scoring three tries in the Martlets’ historic win in the first game of the season. After back-to-back seasons stuck on the bench, Minns sat down with The Tribune to discuss her journey to falling in love with the sport and her excitement to finally play a full season at McGill.

Minns grew up in the Montreal neighborhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, and only started playing rugby as a sport in high school. Growing up, she exclusively played soccer and wrestling. After playing a bit of rugby in high school, she switched her focus to wrestling, but felt that it was not giving her what she wanted from athletics.

“I really missed that team-sport vibe, which is what led me to try out for the rugby team at John Abbott [College] in my third year,” she explained. “Also, wrestling wasn’t [competed] at the CEGEP level, so I wasn’t playing for John Abbott when I wrestled—I was just part of my own club. I wanted to get reintroduced into the studentathlete life in college.”

Minns’ rugby prowess in CEGEP caught the attention of the University of Ottawa (UOttawa). UOttawa representatives

invited her to rugby recruitment weekend programs before she later committed to the school. At UOttawa, Minns experienced the glory of a national championship in her rookie year; that season, she won Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) Rookie of the Year and was a first-team All-Star. She played three seasons for the school before the pandemic wiped out her senior season.

After graduating from UOttawa, Minns came to McGill Law and decided to continue her rugby journey with the Martlets.

“What I thought was very unique about this opportunity was to just see [...] how we can continue helping this program slowly and surely get back to the top—because, at one point, McGill was the best in the RSEQ,” Minns said.

Despite the Martlets’ poor record over the past few seasons, Minns believes that the key to success lies in attitude and in strong defensive play.

“For me, [the mindset] is: How, in any way, shape, or form, can I help decrease the gap between the points we score and the points that the other team scores against us?” she explained. “The goal was to shorten that gap so that every single game felt more competitive, every game felt more like the other team actually had to work for their win, work for every point. I didn’t want [opposing] teams to feel like they could do whatever they wanted.”

In Minns’ eyes, the game against Bishop’s on Aug. 31 exemplified that

changed attitude in action as McGill not only rallied to keep their defense tight while scoring points but also made one last try towards the end of the game just to make a point, despite not needing the try to win the game.

At the start of the season, nobody on the team had experienced a win while playing for McGill. With a win under their belt now solidifying their foundation, the team is set up well to keep building their program.

Outside of rugby, Minns is a travel fanatic. Her favourite trip was with one of her best friends to Greece, where she

spent six weeks in Sparta volunteering and teaching English to kindergarteners.

“It completely changed my outlook on life—the way people approach life in Sparta is so different from how I was used to approaching it here,” she said. “Nothing felt like a rush there; everyone took the time to do what they wanted to do throughout the day, properly [...] the human interaction was so much more genuine and thoughtful.”

The team’s last game of the season was a loss on Oct. 1 against the Université de Montréal. With this season’s conclusion, Minns hopes to make the most of her last year of eligibility in 2024.

Outside of rugby, Minns enjoys going to coffee shops and museums ( Matt Garies / The Tribune )

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SPORTS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 2023

sports@mcgilltribune.com

Varsity Round-up: Oct. 3 to 16

Everything you may have missed in McGill sports over Fall break Madigan McMahon & Megan Belrose Contributors Martlets’ Soccer: T 1-1 The Martlets faced Laval’s Rouge et Or in their Homecoming and Alumni match on Oct. 13. Laval tested McGill goalie Sophie Guilmette multiple times in the first half after McGill conceded free kicks outside the box, however, midfielder Chloe Renaud gave the Martlets a 1-0 lead with her second goal of the season in the 43rd minute.

The second half opened with a solid shot on goal from midfielder Hana Yazdani in the 53rd minute. Laval reacted quickly, nearly scoring before making two substitutions in the 56th minute.

The Rouge et Or was awarded a free kick in the 63rd minute that Guilmette saved, as she registered seven saves during the game. Laval equalized the score by finding the back of the net with an unlucky rebound after it hit the crossbar in the 76th minute.

Despite the Rouge et Or having a 12-5 advantage in attempted shots, the Martlets stayd consistent with their pressure and fought for possession in an aggressive manner throughout the game.

“We were really disciplined. We were really patient with it. [....] We held on [...] and we got some momentum going. [....] We stood our ground [...] and were able to keep our calm and just keep doing our thing,” winger Stefanie Kouzas explained to The Tribune.

The Martlets will face UQÀM on Oct. 15.

Moment of the game: McGill goalie Sophie Guilmette saved a last-minute shot in the 90th minute.

Quotable: “The girls were focused all week.

They played well [and] defended well. It’s time to get ready for the playoffs and that’s the kind of game that you need in the playoffs and hopefully nationals.”

–Head coach Jose-Luis Valdes explained.

Stat corner: The Martlets are undefeated in their last seven games.

Redbirds’ Soccer: T 1-1 The Redbirds faced off against Laval’s Rouge et Or in their annual Homecoming and Alumni game on Oct. 13. In the first half, Laval conceded several fouls while the Redbirds attempted many shots on a goal. The referee stopped play in the first half after McGill defender Oliver Onye was knocked to the ground in the 35th minute and was able to walk it off. Defender Matisse Chretien

scored for McGill in the 39th minute after a free kick led to a scramble around the net.

McGill started off strong in the second half with a shot on goal in the 48th minute. Laval quickly responded by scoring after a free kick in the 55th minute. Each team was frustrated and the energy on the field escalated as the game came closer to the end, with McGill and Laval picking up 16 and 13 fouls respectively. The crowd shouted when several fouls were called or when they felt that the referee should have blown his whistle.

In the 73rd minute, Onye exited the field after sustaining an injury. The last 10 minutes were filled with chances for Laval, yet, redbirds’ goalkeeper Chris Cinelli-Faia made an essential save in the 86th minute after a dangerous cross into the box from Laval. As tensions between the teams rose, McGill midfielders Emilio Rossi-Levin and Yosr Frej were given yellow cards for discipline in the 86th and 90th minutes. Cinelli-Faia made an additional save in the 90th minute while Laval hit the post minutes before the game ended in a tie.

The Redbirds will face the University of Quebec à Montreal on Oct. 15.

Moment of the game: As the referee whistled to signal the end of the game, both teams collapsed on the field in frustration.

Quotable: “I would say the two center backs, Matisse Chretien, Stuart Klenner. They’ve been solid the whole season. But today, I think they did an amazing job of not letting the opponent have chances, especially the first half where they were solid.”

–Defender Bilal Bouchemella on which players played a good game.

Stat corner: This game moves McGill’s conference record to two wins, five losses, and three ties.

Martlets Volleyball: W 3-0 The Martlets volleyball team (1–1) opened their RSEQ season against the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières’ Patriotes (0–1) on Oct. 13.

The Patriotes started the game off with a two-point lead before McGill quickly regained an advantage of 5-2. Middle blocker Meaghan Smith had an excellent block and the first set ended 25-16.

McGill dominated the second set and ended it with a 19 point advantage of 25-6 over the Patriotes.

During the third set, McGill scored two points and maintained a lead until UQTR tied the score 15-15. The teams remained within a point of each other until right-side hitter Clara Poire and middle

blocker Erin Keating stunned the Patriotes with their stellar defence , allowing McGill a two point lead of 18-16 but UQTR came back to tie the game 21-21. Neither team was able to score the two point lead to end the set until power hitter Rio Pesochin and Smith blocked a return, making the score 28-27 and leading McGill to take the set 30-28 and the match 3-0.

The Martlets will face the Université de Sherbrooke next Oct. 15.

Moment of the game: Rio Pesochin won five points straight off her serves in the third set.

Quotable: “Rachel Leduc went on a serving run in the second set that ultimately led to us dominating that set. I gotta give so many props to her, she’s been putting in so much work this summer. I could tell how dialed in she was here.

And Meg came off the bench in the third set when we were tied 27-27 and she stuffed the ball and that’s the kind of presence you want from your bench. ” – Libero Olivia Krishnan on which teammates stepped up and led the way.

Stat Corner: McGill had 32 kills this game, 13 each from Poire and middle blocker Charlene Robitaille and six from Leduc.

Lacrosse: W 16-4 On Oct. 15, the Redbirds lacrosse team (4–2) hosted the University of Ottawa Geegees (0–7) for their annual Homecoming game. The game opened with attacker Isaiah Cree scoring the first goal just four minutes in. The Redbirds peppered the Gee-Gees with shots on net, with midfielder John Miraglia scoring from the top of the crease with four minutes remaining to give McGill a 2-0 lead. Goalkeeper Joseph Boehm made a great save, giving the Redbirds a fast break and allowing Cree to score a final goal to end the quarter 3-0.

In the second quarter, both teams ramped up the aggression and number of fouls as Ottawa scored just 11 seconds in. Midfielder Dylan James scored a shot from the top of the crease in the 11th minute of play. Miraglia netted two more goals within a minute of each other and the half ended with McGill up 7-1.

Play in the third quarter slowed down and midfielder Joshua Jewell scored a goal at the top of the eighth minute before the Gee-Gees buried their second goal. Face-off specialist Samuel MacDonald won the face off and took off down the field to sink yet another goal and with under a minute left James and Miraglia each scored a goal to make it 10-2.

With an eight goal lead, Miraglia scored his fourth goal in the ninth minute of play before attacker Massimo Thauvette buried two shots in the net within three minutes. Attacker Mark Symon made the 15th shot of the game before Ottawa scored their last goal of the game. Face-off specialist Chris Koran scored the final goal after winning the face off, securing a dominant 16-4 win for the Redbirds.

The Marlets will face the Bishop Gaiters (1–4) on Oct. 18.

Martlets volleyball preserves their 18-year win streak over UQTR, which spans from 10/30/2005 - 10/13/2023 ( Zeyuan Fu / The Tribune )

Moment of the game: After a save, Boehm brought the ball outside the crease, leaving the goal undefended. As an Ottawa player gained control of the ball, Thauvette stepped up and blocked the attempted shot before sending the ball down the field for Miraglia to score the second goal of the game.

FINAL SCORES Redbirds Hockey Oct. 4: L 4-3 (OT) vs Ontario Tech Oct. 5: L 4-3 vs Concordia Redbirds and Martlets Swimming Oct. 6: Martlets: 1st out of 5 at UQTR (University Cup 1) Redbirds: 1st out of 5 at UQTR (University Cup 1) Martlets Soccer Oct. 6: W 1-0 at Bishop’s University Oct. 15: T 0-0 at UQÀMl Redbirds Football Oct. 6: L 36-14 vs Universite de Montéal Martlets Field Hockey Oct. 7: L 3-0 and 2-0 at Queen’s Oct. 14: L 4-0 at University of Toronto Oct. 15: L 11-0 at University of Toronto Martlets Hockey Oct. 12: L 4-1 at Concordia (Regular Season Opener) Redbirds Lacrosse Oct. 12: W 12-7 at Queen’s (Homecoming Game) Oct. 15: W 16-4 vs Ottawa Redbirds Basketball Oct. 13: L 89-77 vs Calgary (Calgary Cup Tournament) Oct. 14: L 73-56 vs Windsor (Calgary Cup Tournament) Oct. 15: L 105-61 vs UNB (Calgary Cup Tournament) Martlets Volleyball: Oct. 14: L 78-49 vs Queen’s Oct. 15: L 5-1 at Université de Sherbrooke Redbirds Baseball Oct. 14: W 4-0 and W 11-1 vs Concordia (Best-of-three RSEQ semi-finals) Redbirds Soccer Oct. 15: W 3-1 at UQÀM Redbirds Rugby Oct. 15: W 23-22 at Concordia Martlets and Redbirds Cross Country Redbirds: 1st place at Sherbrooke Invitational Martlets: 2nd place at Sherbrooke Invitational Quotable: “A guy that I was really proud of in this game is number 99, Kyle Glick. He’s our fourth long pole so he doesn’t play too much in games. Today [when] his older brother went out with an injury, he went out there and played three and a half quarters. [...] He’s just pushing himself up on our roster in terms of guys who should be playing more minutes. It was really fun to see a guy who maybe doesn’t play as much just jump out there and play very well.”

– Head Coach Nicolas Soubry on players that impressed him.

Stat corner: The 16-game win streak over Ottawa spans from 9/6/2014 - 10/15/2023 and is the Redbirds’ longest.