The McGill Tribune Vol. 41 Issue 1

The McGill Tribune WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021 | VOL. 41 | ISSUE 1

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

FEATURE

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Reopen properly or close prematurely

The long arm of the law

New aortic prosthesis reduces heart surgery operation time

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PGs. 8-9

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(Elissa Dresdner / The McGill Tribune)

Tribune Explains: Vaccine passports at McGill

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Students and professors stage protest, demand vaccine mandate and a safer campus

Demonstrators gathered outside the James Administration building on the first day of classes Sabrina Nelson Contributor Members of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) protested outside the James Administration building

Sept. 1, calling for a safe and accessible return to campus. The common area outside was decorated with SSMU banners and posters that displayed slogans, with one asking whether McGill wanted its bicentennial to be remembered as one where students did not feel safe on campus. SSMU and McGill staff

demanded that McGill implement a vaccine mandate, make accommodations for both international and immunocompromised students, and include student consultation in decisions concerning COVID-19.

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Spotlight: McGill’s non-faculty froshes Athletes aggrieved by McGill’s cancellation of nine varsity sports The first week at McGill: Alternative orientation Baseball, rowing, lacrosse, among seasons cut with little explanation Sarah Farnand Sports Editor On July 21, McGill Athletics announced that nine sports seasons would be cancelled for the 20212022 season. The affected teams include artistic swimming, alpine skiing,

badminton, baseball, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, rowing, and woodsmen.

The announcement came as a disappointment to hundreds of athletes who were eager to return to competition after a nearly year-long hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic—

and left many confused, since little explanation was provided.

Auguste Guern, thirdyear infielder for McGill’s baseball team, shared his disappointment with the decision in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

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experiences Shirley Xu Contributor

While most students are familiar with faculty froshes, like Arts Frosh and Science Frosh, there is an exciting, and often overlooked, non-faculty frosh scene to be explored.

Outdoors Frosh Outdoors Frosh, hosted by the McGill Outdoors Club (MOC), offered climbing, hiking, and cycling options this year. The fourday orientation event was divided between exploring Montreal and venturing 1.5 hours outside the city. This year, Hiking Frosh trekked

up Sutton, a mountainous park in Quebec’s Montérégie region, and swam in the crystal clear lakes of MontOrford. Climbing Frosh scaled the towering rocks of Val-David, while Cycling Frosh went mountain biking at Val-David and biked approximately 35 kilometres to McGill’s Macdonald Campus.

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

Students and professors stage protest, demand vaccine mandate and a safer campus

Demonstrators gathered outside the James Administration building on the first day of classes Sabrina Nelson Contributor Continued from page 1.

SSMU vice-president (VP) of university affairs Claire Downie expressed her satisfaction with the demonstration, and argued that better accommodations for students is crucial.

“Everyone has different needs to feel safe on campus,” Downie said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Right now, McGill has not provided any accommodation for its international students who are stuck abroad, or immunocompromised students who cannot be safely on campus.”

According to Downie, SSMU’s efforts to address these concerns to the administration at the end of last spring were unsuccessful.

“We have been trying to communicate with the university for several months on this issue,” Downie said. “We spoke in June or May with Fabrice Lebeau and Chris Buddle and we were just told to look at the positive, ‘the vaccine rollout is going so well, everything is going to be normal and fine.’ But in reality that is not the case.”

Emily Black, U4 Arts and a participant at the protest, expressed concern about being back on campus as an immunocompromised person.

“McGill has suggested that students in such extraordinary situations should take a year off,” Black said. “If I were to do that, because I am on student aid, I would lose all my funding and would probably not be able to come back [to McGill].”

McGill’s response to student and faculty concerns has been to remind everyone of health and safety measures, including procedural mask requirements, distancing in non-classroom environments, contact tracing, and optimizing ventilation.

Downie explained that every Canadian university that has

Demonstrators gathered outside the James Administration building on the first day of classes.. (Brian Schatteman / The McGill Tribune) implemented a vaccine mandate has given students a buffer time of six weeks to get vaccinated or apply for a human rights exemption.

“A vaccine mandate never means that everyone has to be vaccinated or that you will be kicked off if you are not,” Downie said. “You might have to be tested three times a week in order to be on campus, whereas a vaccinated student will be exempt from that.”

McGill Faculty of Law professor Richard Gold argued that the university’s decision to not impose a vaccine mandate is discriminatory against vulnerable members of the community.

“Our view is that McGill is in breach of its obligations under article 10 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms by having adopted a policy that discriminates against disabled and pregnant [people], and those who live in families where individuals are at risk,” Gold said.

On Aug. 29, the Office of the Provost and vice-president (Academic) sent an internal memo to faculty deans, which a CBC reporter shared to twitter, that stated that fear of campus safety and concern about relatives who might be at risk to possible exposure to COVID-19, were not valid reasons for an instructor to teach remotely.

Gold argued McGill could, and should, implement a vaccine mandate as well as stricter requirements.

“We have asked McGill for months to explain the legal basis of its claim otherwise and it has refused to answer,” Gold said. “Provost Jutras at the University of Montreal concluded that the university could bring in a requirement if it decided to do so. McGill is in no different situation. In short, there is little doubt that McGill could, but refuses to, implement a proof of vaccination requirement.”

New Vic Project town hall reveals renovation plans The project will undergo further public consultation later this month Lily Cason

Contributor Leaders of McGill’s New Vic Project held a town hall on Aug. 31 to review proposed renovations to the Royal Victoria Hospital site and to answer questions from students and faculty. Among those present were the executive sponsors of the project, Provost Christopher Manfredi and vice-principal (Administration and Finance) Yves Beauchamp. Bruce Lennox, dean of the Faculty of Science and academic lead of the New Vic project, and Pierre Major, executive director and project lead, co-presented on the history and vision of the project, both architectural and conceptual.

Founded in 1893, the Royal Victoria Hospital has been an ever-expanding medical facility through the years, but it was decommissioned in 2015 and now sits in flux. (Elissa Dresdner / The McGill Tribune)

Manfredi provided opening remarks, explaining the overarching concept for the Royal Victoria Hospital site, emphasizing a focus on interdisciplinary dialogue and themes of sustainability and public policy.

“What we wanted to do was to bring together [...] a critical mass of the university’s best minds, both researchers and students, that were dedicated to addressing the defining challenges of our future,” Manfredi said. “We wanted to free them from disciplinary and even physical boundaries, and directly connect them to the expertise required to translate their knowledge into innovative solutions and policy action.”

The proposed 700-million-dollar construction took six years to plan. Now that the state-of-the-art facility is mapped out, in line with strict guidelines from the Société québécoise des infrastructure (SQI), the project is working its way through the approval process. It gained approval from the Quebec Government’s Cabinet in May 2021 and from Montreal’s City Council in June 2021, but now it must undergo public consultation, starting Sept. 8, 2021.

The implementation of the project’s plans has been an extensive process, in part because the Royal Victoria Hospital site, which rests on the side of Mount Royal, was publicly owned until 2015 when the Quebec government ceded 15 per cent of it to McGill. Critics of the project, including prominent Montreal organizations like Les amis de la montagne, argue that private ownership of the public landmark is not in the best interest of the community.

Lennox claimed that the New Vic Project’s vision maintains the integrity of the historic site and respects its importance to the public at large while simultaneously enhancing its functionality.

“The buildings, as [reenvisioned], especially with the new build, really are complementary [and] are in harmony with the mountain,” Lennox said. “In many ways the project is returning the mountain to Montreal and to Montrealers [....]

The architects [...] and the entire project team have worked very

hard, very thoughtfully, at how to restore this relationship to the mountain. This is critical for the acceptance of the project with the Montreal community.”

Major also highlighted the project’s goal of maintaining the integrity of the site during his segment of the presentation.

“The heritage aspect of the site is something that requires a great deal of thought and work,” Major said. “The heritage building represents about 30 per cent of the [...] future built space and [...] 70 per cent is new construction that has been nicely tucked away behind the heritage building, very respectfully.”

Further criticism of the project stems from uncertainty over what will happen to the unhoused people who were temporarily given shelter in the Royal Victoria Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Major addressed this briefly, stating that the SQI, not McGill, is responsible for determining the relocation of these individuals. “[SQI] is developing a site master plan [where they will] set the parameters for future development [and use of the site],” Major said. “If you look in the urban plan of the city of Montreal there [are] no bylaws that define or orient any future development.”

The Office de consultation publique de Montréal’s (OCPM) public consultation is set to begin on Sept. 8 and will last until November. The Royal Vic Coalition, which describes itself as a “Montreal-wide coalition that advocates for the Royal Victoria former hospital to remain devoted to the common good,” is circulating a questionnaire which encourages individuals to speak up against privatization during the consultation.

The leaders of the project expect a report from the OCPM

by Spring 2022, and the next step is to begin work on the site itself. “[W]e are on the verge of undertaking the statutory public consultation process [with the OCPM],” Major said. “If all goes well, and it will, we will start work on the site in 2022 and we will move in in 2028.”

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

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McGill researchers spearhead Canadian Election Misinformation Project McGill and University of Toronto head campaign to monitor false information during Canada’s 44th federal election Signy Harnad Contributor The Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO), an interdisciplinary research collaboration between McGill University and the University of Toronto, announced the launch of the Canadian Election Misinformation Project on Aug. 18.

The initiative is headed by Taylor Owen, the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics, and Communications and associate professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy, Peter Loewen, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, Aengus Bridgman, a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at McGill, and aims to chart and respond to cases of mis- and disinformation during Canada’s 44th federal

The project seeks to monitor online discourses surrounding viral news stories - including vaccine mandates, foreign interference, and climate issues. (Hermes Rivera / unsplash.com)

election The goal of the project, according to Chris Ross, a master’s student in the Department of Political Science at McGill and MEO researcher, is to improve understanding of the implications of false and faulty information about Canadian elections.

“There is a particular attention to the online space and how people talk in social media form,” Ross said. “It is all about getting an understanding of what, from that ocean of information, filters its way down into traditional media and what misinformation is present online [...] so we have better tools to work to prevent it.”

The project analyzes an array of online discourses, ranging from foreign interference and climate issues to pandemicrelated news and provincial vaccine mandates. Ross noted that the pandemic and the election have provided a timely backdrop for the MEO to expand its research efforts.

“The MEO has been writing since the 2019 federal election and, throughout the pandemic, [has] geared a lot of research towards pandemic misinformation online,” Ross said. “Now that we have another election, it is another opportunity to look for misinformation and understand what type of misinformation gets the most clicks.”

According to a viral BuzzFeed News analysis, in the final three months of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, the most popular fake news stories on Facebook outperformed the top election stories from 19 major news outlets. In an email to The McGill Tribune, professor in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies Carrie Rentschler pointed out that the surge of misinformation in recent elections can be attributed to the speed at which automated systems replicate it.

“There are whole industries organized to produce disinformation, [which] hide the evidence of their work and the

people who do it,” Rentschler wrote.

Rentschler advocated for robust research dedicated to analyzing how consumers of news respond to false and misleading information.

“We need research that helps us understand the realities of contemporary information environments,” Rentschler wrote.

“Debunking the falsehood of misinformation is not enough.

We need to understand why people believe it, but also why they want to believe it.”

Popular YouTuber David Freiheit, BA ‘02, a litigator representing the People’s Party for the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce– Westmount riding in the 2021 federal election, reflected on what he considers a double standard in the media’s use of the term “misinformation.”

“The label itself typically is one that the government or the mainstream media wants you to use to discredit alternative sources,” said Freiheit, whose VivaFrei YouTube channel reaches in excess of 300,000 subscribers. “Misinformation has always been around, like the National Enquirer, and viral stories that spread misinformation. But then you also get the viral stories in the mainstream media which turn out to be false, they just do not call it misinformation, they call it retractions.”

With the challenging demands of a full-time university schedule, staying on top of every development in the election news cycle borders on overwhelming for many students, explains Paulina Kasak, U3 Arts.

“Students are bombarded with a constant stream of conflicting information and flashy headlines, whether on social media or on campus,” Kasak said. “It makes you feel jaded at times, especially when you do not know who to trust.”

The MEO will be sending out updates via email as the project unfolds. To join the mailing list, visit their registration page.

Several McGill professors vocalize demands for vaccine mandate on campus

McGill administration says mandatory vaccination policy is not feasible under Quebec law Ella Fitzhugh News Editor With the return to in-person classes for the Fall 2021 term, some students have expressed concerns about the McGill administration’s current COVID-19 safety measures, while several faculty members have voiced frustrations about McGill’s proposals for in-person teaching during the Fall. Central to the unease about the administration’s plans for the semester is the ongoing debate about whether the university should implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

In a media roundtable interview with The McGill Tribune, Christopher Buddle, associate provost (Teaching and Academic Programs), and Fabrice Labeau, deputy provost (Student Life and Learning), spoke of their confidence in the safety measures the university has set in place for the Fall term.

“I do not want to diminish how people are feeling, because a lot of people are feeling anxious and scared,” Buddle said. “We certainly have heard that from our community.

But, we believe and are confident in what we are doing in terms of layers of protection in the classroom environment, so students can feel good about coming in and taking their inperson classes.”

According to Dr. Nicole Basta, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill, the health guidelines that McGill has in place are insufficient. Basta, along with other McGill professors, is rallying

for a stricter approach to preventing the spread of the virus at McGill.

“Implementing a vaccine mandate is the single most effective policy McGill could implement to protect the entire university community during this fourth wave, which is already underway,” Basta wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “Not implementing a vaccine mandate is contrary to all of the scientific evidence we have about how to most effectively increase vaccination rates and how best to prevent the spread of SARSCoV-2. At the very least, McGill could require routine testing multiple times a week for those who qualify for an exemption from being vaccinated.”

The administration’s stance against enacting a university-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandate relies on the Quebec government law which states that individuals have the right to refuse consent to medical procedures, with the university’s statement defining vaccinations as such. Labeau explained that while the university can act independently in certain cases, the administration must adhere to provincial legality.

“We as the university have some autonomy as usual in fulfilling our mission,” Labeau said. “We are bound by a legal framework and so there [are] things that we simply cannot do because of a legal framework. We are definitely trying to stay in line with public health recommendations and making the adaptations that make sense in our context.”

Richard Gold, a professor in the Faculty

Law professor Richard Gold urges students to ask McGill alumni to put pressure on the university to impose a vaccine mandate. (Mat Napo / unsplash.com) of Law at McGill, asserts that McGill can, and should, exercise autonomy in implementing a vaccine mandate, given the increasing prevalence of COVID-19’s more contagious Delta variant in Quebec. Gold also argued that the absence of a university-sanctioned vaccination mandate is discriminatory toward faculty and students who are more vulnerable to COVID-19.

“An analysis [by] 37 professors and teachers from the Faculty of Law concluded that McGill has the full authority to bring in a proof of vaccination requirement and would not violate any constitutional or human rights requirements,” Gold wrote in an email to the

Tribune.

Gold listed the main reasons why some professors are demanding the implementation of a vaccine mandate at McGill.

“There are three reasons a proof of vaccination requirement is necessary: [One], given the Delta variant, public health in Quebec has made it clear that we need the population vaccinated at the 90 per cent level; [two], it sends a message to the community that McGill believes in science and medicine and follows the recommendations of its own experts; [three], it provides a concrete reason to the hesitant to be vaccinated now, prior to infection.”

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

Tribune Explains: Vaccine passports at McGill

The McGill student guide to navigating Quebec’s vaccine passport mandate on campus Dima Kiwan Contributor

hubs, and flex-spaces.

McGill media relations officer Frédérique Mazerolle wrote to The McGill Tribune about the university’s future plans involving the vaccine passport.

“Our utmost priority has always been the health and safety of our students and staff,” Mazerolle wrote. “McGill has been working with and continues to work with the various government authorities to align with directives, and to adapt our plans and put in place the necessary measures that will ensure the successful return of students and employees to our campuses.”

As of Sept. 1, accessing non-essential services in Quebec will require a COVID-19 vaccination passport, which is a government proof of full vaccination. While curricular activities at McGill will not require the passport for participation, much of student life will.

What is the vaccine passport?

The vaccine passport is a Quick Response (QR) code issued by the Quebec government that confirms an individual’s double-vaccination status when scanned via the VaxiCode app. Individuals must present government-issued photo ID and this QR code—either on paper, in PDF format on a mobile device, or on the VaxiCode app—to access nonessential events and services.

How can students get a vaccine passport?

Fully vaccinated students wishing to obtain a vaccine passport are individually responsible for acquiring this QR code. Those vaccinated in Quebec who have not already received their QR code by email or text can download it online through the Quebec government’s selfservice portal.

Those vaccinated internationally or out-of-province must go to a clinic to register their proof of vaccination before downloading their QR code. One can register their out-of-province vaccination either by booking an appointment or by attending a walk-in vaccination clinic, where government-issued photo ID and official proof of vaccination documents are verified.

The vaccines recognized for the Quebec vaccine passport are Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca/Covishield, and Janssen/Johnson & Johnson; individuals who have received doses of a vaccine excluded

How is the McGill community reacting to this measure?

Walk-in lines and appointments at vaccine registration centres are filling up fast as people in Quebec try to get a vaccine passport.

(Elissa Dresdner / The McGill Tribune) from this list can receive an additional dose of an mRNA vaccine in Canada a minimum of 28 days after their last dose.

How do vaccine passports affect student life?

The list of non-essential activities at McGill that will require the vaccine passport include practising varsity or recreational sports and attending sporting events, concerts, non-curricular academic conferences, and other performances as an audience member. Additionally, students will need the vaccine passport to access fitness centres and common areas in student residences such as TV rooms. Students with vaccine passports will have access to dine-in services while those without passports will only be able to access take-out services.

Students will not need the vaccine passport to access non-curricular or health-related student services, their personal residence rooms, and associated essential common areas such as washrooms, libraries, study

The vaccine passport mandate has provoked controversy, both about the limits of government power in a pandemic and about how efficient vaccine passports are at limiting the spread of COVID-19.

Douglas Farrow, a professor of theology and ethics at McGill, expressed his views on vaccine passports in an open letter published on August 30.

“Students, in my opinion, would be very foolish to trade their rights, liberties, and personal autonomy for ‘protection’ they do not need,” Farrow wrote in an email to the Tribune. “That does not work very well, and that puts their health at risk in a new way.”

In an email to the Tribune, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) President Darshan Daryanani explained that he believes the vaccine passport should be needed to access the over 250 clubs and services at McGill, and the large cultural and fundraising events to prevent further outbreaks and campus lockdowns.

“We are here to support the student activities with tools and resources as best we can,” Daryanani wrote. “While the administration claims that a student without a vaccine will ‘miss out on the full and fun McGill experience,’ at SSMU, we hope to provide alternative events to respect the safety of all.”

McGill Governance 101

A look into the function and role of the four central governing bodies at McGill Madison Edward-Wright News Editor

STUDENTS’ SOCIETY OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY (SSMU) What it does: SSMU represents all undergraduate student interests and rights in the McGill Senate. SSMU consists of four bodies— General Assembly and Referenda, Board of Directors, Legislative Council, and Executive Council—and is led by seven elected executives, including the president, vicepresident (VP), VP internal, VP external, VP student life, VP finance, and VP university affairs. SSMU, specifically the student life portfolio, also plays a large role in student life by organizing events like Activities Night and by running the undergraduate student bar Gerts.

Recent Events: Over the last year, SSMU has focussed its efforts on helping students navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and advocating for student health and safety on campus. On Sept. 1, the Society staged a protest, and over the summer it wrote an open letter, and published a report on the impact of COVID-19 on McGill students. In addition, SSMU has involved itself in social justice movements that extend beyond the Roddick gates, for example, by standing in support and solidarity with survivors of residential schools in Canada in light of the discovery of thousands of unmarked graves of Indigenous

children on the grounds of these schools.

POST GRADUATE STUDENTS’ SOCIETY (PGSS) What it does: PGSS is responsible for representing all graduate and postdoctoral students at McGill. Its monthly Council meetings address its policies and committees, and monitor executives’ actions and projects.

There are five primary executives elected

by McGill postgraduate students, and four PGSS members sit on the McGill Senate.

The executives organize regular social and professional events for postgraduates at Thompson House, the PGSS’ headquarters.

Recent Events: PGSS has also been campaigning for wage increases for doctoral researchers in McGill’s Faculty of Science and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, as wages have remained stagnant for over a decade while living expenses and tuition fees have increased.

BOARD OF GOVERNORS (BoG) What it does: The BoG is responsible for making all final decisions regarding the university’s financial, academic, and business matters.

The BoG has 25 members who vote on policies and two non-voting student representatives, one from SSMU and another from PGSS. Notable members of the BoG include

Governance meetings have not taken place in-person since the beginning of the pandemic.

(Liam Maclure / The McGill Tribune) McGill’s Chancellor John McCall MacBain and Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier.

12 members of the BoG are appointed by other members, while the rest are elected or appointed by different campus organizations such as SSMU, PGSS, and the McGill Alumni Association.

Students may only attend the community sessions of BoG meetings.

Recent Events: In May 2021, Ehab Lotayef resigned from the BoG due to the Board’s refusal to consider a motion for the display of an equity statement on campus. In May 2021, the BoG approved a revised version of McGill’s Policy on Harassment and Discrimination.

MCGILL SENATE What it does: The McGill Senate is responsible for

overseeing all academic matters at the university, including the courses offered and their curricula. 52 of the 111-member body are elected student senators. The remaining seats are filled by representatives from all other constituencies at the university—like SSMU, PGSS, and BoG—as well as McGill’s chancellor, provost, principal, and the chair of the BoG. Meetings are held once a month and are open to the public, unless they deem a topic confidential.

Recent Events: At the final Senate meeting of the 2020/2021 academic year, the Senate approved the Fall 2021 calendar of key academic dates, including the implementation of a Fall reading week. In February 2021, the Senate presented a report on the university’s Policy Against Sexual Violence and its efforts to educate students about sexual violence.

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

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EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief Sequoia Kim editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Ruobing Chen rchen@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Kennedy McKee-Braide kmckee-braide@mcgilltribune.com Madison Mclauchlan mmclauchlan@mcgilltribune.com Maya Abuali mabuali@mcgilltribune.com

News Editors Ella Fitzhugh & Madison Edward-Wright news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Jonah Fried, Matthew Molinaro & Sepideh Afshar opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editors Shafaq Nami & Youssef Wahba scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Life Editors Holly Wethey & Wendy Zhao studentlife@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Tasmin Chu features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Lowell Wolfe & Michelle Siegel arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Adam Burton & Sarah Farnand sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Jinny Moon & Xiaotian Wang design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Kate Addison photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editors Alex Hinton & Noah Vaton multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Abby de Gala & Marwan Shiraz Khan webdev@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Jackie Lee copy@mcgilltribune.com

Reopen properly or close prematurely Thousands of students returned to the classrooms on Sept. 1, 2021. For the first time in almost two years, lecture halls were packed, podiums were filled, and at last, friends from all over the world were reunited. But as welcome as these nostalgic campus scenes are, McGill’s current safety guidelines are terribly inadequate.

From failing to provide remote course options for people who cannot be, or do not wish to be, on campus, to embarrassing itself with an underprepared vaccine registration program, administrative shortcomings are generating learning inequities and steering the university on a path toward further outbreaks.

McGill must push for government vaccine requirements, institute hybrid learning, and correct other accessibility issues before its reopening becomes its next unbearable shuttering.

Although Quebec law may prevent universities from instating a vaccine requirement the way many universities in Ontario and the United States have, the administration can still take a definitive stance on it.

Many of McGill’s own experts have argued that a vaccine

OFF THE BOARD Kennedy McKee-Braide Managing Editor

Social Media Editor Taneeshaa Pradhan socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com Business Manager Marilie Pilon business@mcgilltribune.com

TPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Angelica Voutsinas, Marilie Pilon, Namrata Rana, Reem Abdul Majid, Sequoia Kim, Shreya Rastogi

CONTRIBUTORS Anna Bergas, Valentina de la Borbolla, Elissa Dresdner, Henry Fletcher, Suzanna Graham, Avery Haley-Lock, Sophia Howard, Alexandra Jonas, Arian Kamel, Cyril Kazan, Louis Lussier-Piette, Brian Schatteman, Christina Monica Tifan, Isabella Vella, Shirley Xu

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On March 30, a TikTok user posted about a made-up word she and her friends use to describe things that encapsulate millennial, girlboss, out-ofstyle energy: Cheugy. Since then, gen-Z-ers have embraced the term, making TikToks and other social media posts about certain cheugy staples––think minions, millennial pink, graphic T-shirts, Rae Dunn home decor, and apparently, jean jackets.

Admittedly, the term is a fun addition to our ever-

mandate would not only be legally permissible but also ethically and medically expedient. Moreover, with the rise of the COVID-19 Delta variant—which numerous researchers believe can infect and spread through vaccinated individuals just as easily as those who are not—many are reluctant to return to campus due to legitimate safety concerns.

Administrators are doing McGill’s scholars a profound disservice: By disregarding their professional opinions, the university is effectively reducing professors’ relationship with the university to one that is merely transactional rather than one that is built on respect and academic accomplishment.

It would be unreasonable to demand that McGill violate Quebec law, even though some lawyers do not think implementing a vaccine mandate would do so.

But there is nothing stopping McGill from issuing a statement standing with its scholars, advocating for emergency legislation, or taking the lead on committing to leadership in accessibility moving forward.

Importantly, the institution does not need to wait for the government to do everything. It should offer a

hybrid model for instruction with remote options for students who either cannot enter Canada or who do not feel comfortable being in person. At the very least, it would be prudent to persuade instructors to record their lectures, as well as to prohibit mandatory attendance rules—which some professors have applied despite the precarious public health situation.

Recordings would also serve students experiencing COVID19-like symptoms by relieving the pressure to attend class when they are feeling unwell.

International students have also been ignored in McGill’s calculus. To be able to apply for Canadian residency, foreigners need to spend a certain number of years in the country. Even if they are enrolled in a Canadian educational institution, they must be physically present, and time spent at university sometimes only counts for half of the required time. By allowing an unsafe environment to fester, administrators are forcing international students to choose between their health and their immigration eligibility. Such a situation is morally wrong and professionally unethical, not least considering that students—

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EDITORIAL international students more than anyone—keep McGill alive with their tuition dollars.

Still, students are responsible for following public health measures, adhering to McGill’s mask-wearing requirements, and getting vaccinated despite it not being mandatory for essential activities. Although it is right to criticize McGill for inequitable policies that force people to be on campus while it remains an unsafe, infeasible, and inaccessible space for many, student organizations must lead by example and enforce stringent safety protocols at their events.

The rejuvenation of friendships, the revival of frosh, and the resumption of in-person instruction are all long-awaited experiences to be grateful for. But the pandemic is far from being overnot over yet. For the sake of the social stability that Quebec has fought hard to achieve and maintain, it is imperative that everyone continue to take infection prevention seriously and encourage others to do the same.

Together, the McGill community must create a culture of collective accountability to seal the holes in McGill’s rickety policy framework.

Stop trying to make ‘cheugy’ happen growing arsenal of internet vocabulary, and some may argue that those critical of its use are too sensitive. But below the surface, the word represents a worrying pattern amongst youth to subscribe to popular trends—which are almost always rooted in overconsumption—until they are no longer thought of as cool, at which point those who still enjoy them are seen as out of touch.

The term cheugy can be tied to another phenomenon–– micro-trends.

Also known as fads, micro-trends in the fashion world refer to garments or aesthetics that rapidly gain popularity but then just as quickly fall out of style. Some examples of recent microtrends include exercise dresses, the Y2K “coconut girl” look, and even specific pieces of clothing such as the House of Sunny Hockney Dress.

Since these kinds of trends come and go so quickly, keeping up with them can be extremely expensive. This exposes the privilege that comes with being able to adhere to them and, ultimately, to avoid being declared “cheugy.” Of course, the average person who throws around the term is likely not

doing so with any intention of making others feel tacky.

But the joke risks making lower-income people who are not able to stay on-trend feel inadequate. Especially as young people return to more in-person activities, the pressure to dress a certain way can be amplified.

The impulse towards this approach to fashion also encourages people to turn to fast fashion more often.

Surely, some need to make use of fast fashion due to financial restrictions or limited selection at thrift stores due to sizing. But some who feel the pressure to dress a certain way are more likely to make use of businesses that are notoriously unethical, like SHEIN, to keep up with trends.

Of course, individual young people cannot necessarily be blamed for this phenomenon. Companies are known to stage elaborate social media campaigns to push their products toward trend status, and most larger businesses make use of psychological manipulation tactics to encourage consumers to purchase the latest new item. Beyond these direct campaigns, the rise of social media influencers plays a role

in this as well. For example, Emma Chamberlain, a popular YouTuber, posted a picture on Instagram flaunting yoga pants and Ugg boots—a combination that would have been considered cheugy two years ago—and almost overnight, the influencer had sparked a new trend. This situation is only one of many illustrating how easy it is for tides to change when it comes to fashion.

But regardless of blame, young people who care about social justice, reducing waste, and overconsumption should be more mindful of their decisions to make fun of those who may be “behind” when it comes to trends in clothing, media consumption, or anything else.

Rather than subscribing to fastpaced micro-trends, McGill students should try and hold on to clothing staples they have and like, even if the internet is telling them they have to replace them with something new and shiny. Students can also make use of clothing exchanges and McGill’s free and for sale group. These kinds of individual choices may not end this cycle on their own, but they may be able to influence others on campus to stop caring so much about being on-trend.

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OPINION

COMMENTARY Valentina de la Borbolla Staff Writer Despite McGill’s numerous emails detailing their efforts to keep campus safe, the university is taking advantage of its international students. Although students and faculty alike have been anxiously awaiting the return to in-person classes, the return to Canada and Montreal has been fraught with obstacles for many international students. McGill’s substandard treatment of international students does not respect the financial

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

McGill should prioritize protection over profits and intellectual exchanges they offer to the university.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been significant delays in the distribution of study permits, as well as frequent changes to entry requirements for non-Canadians—whether it is the implementation of a mandatory hotel quarantine or the ban on incoming flights from India. Although these measures were put in place to prevent the spread of the virus, the lack of guidance has been daunting for those unfamiliar with the Canadian system, and has

Students returned to campus on Sept. 1. (Zou Zheng / XinHua)

COMMENTARY

forced students to make expensive changes to their study plans.

The travel ban limiting the entry of Indian citizens initially put in place to curb the spread of the Delta variant is perhaps the most worrisome measure for international students, especially given the fact that it has not been updated since April. Considering both the spread of the Delta variant and the history of racist travel bans in North America, this ban disproportionately targets South-Asian students. By contrast, students coming from the United States, a COVID-

19 hotspot where cases have been rising quickly, are not banned from entering Canada.

Although McGill cannot overturn the ban itself, it is the university’s responsibility to ensure that students have access to their education. This has not been the case. McGill has not announced substantive accommodations for students experiencing delays entering Canada, and, although it asks students to make a “COVID-19 Academic Accommodations” request through Minerva, there is no clearly advertised contingency plan. Furthermore, McGill has refused to provide online alternatives to in-person classes, citing pedagogical difficulties.

This means that in many cases, the education that international students are paying for will be up to the discretion and abilities of professors, rather than being ensured by the university itself.

In Canada, students who pay full international tuition are very profitable for universities, as McGill undoubtedly knows. In 2018, Quebec deregulated international tuition, which henceforth granted universities the freedom to set international tuition rates—as opposed to having a cap established by the provincial government. Principal and Vice-Chancel-

lor Suzanne Fortier recognized that the deregulation was beneficial for the institution because it would allow McGill to fully retain the tuition that international students “contribute” to without paying a portion to the Quebec government.

International students do not pay 20 thousand dollars in tuition to “contribute” to the university. They pay for an education with the expectation that McGill will deliver on the quality it is known for. The lack of accommodations for immunocompromised students and staff, as well as the refusal to adapt to the situation facing many international students, shows a deep neglect for the community that allows McGill to continue functioning.

McGill’s profits are on the line.

Yet even with economic incentives, the administration has failed to listen to the Students’ Society of McGill University’s demands, which include the implementation of a vaccine mandate and the publication of clear guidelines for accommodations. After almost two years of uncertainty, McGills owes its international students the peace of mind that their investment in their education will be worth it. Now, it is up to the administration to decide how much they are willing to do for their students.

Gratuity has reached a tipping point

Sophia Howard Contributor In the heart of Mile End sits Larry’s, a cafe-restaurant that has served breakfast, lunch, and dinner to its visitors since 2016. In May, the restaurant made a notable announcement: It would end the custom of tipping once it reopened its doors for indoor dining. While Larry’s is not the first restaurant in Montreal to implement this policy, it is the only one currently operating, as the others have closed. As restaurants adapt to a post-COVID world, Larry’s decision to get rid of gratuity is a bold step towards positive change for workers in the service industry.

The history of tipping is long and troubling. Its origins can be traced to feudal Europe, where lords would occasionally pay particularly helpful serfs extra money at the end of the year—both as an act of gratitude and as a way to flaunt wealth. In the 1850s and 60s, Americans traveling abroad learned about this custom, and, wanting to emulate aristocracy, brought the habit of tipping back to their servants at home. Initially, the practice received severe backlash as lower-income individuals were concerned that they could not afford it. Labour rights activists called it patronizing. Nevertheless, after the end of the Civil War in 1865, an influx of recently emancipated Black workers stimulated the United States economy. Restaurants, railways, and other industries employing servers liked the idea of not having to pay their new servers. Thus, tipping quickly spread throughout the South and slowly expanded into Canada. The practice of tipping has become ingrained in Canadian society in recent decades, even finding its way into some minimum wage legislation.

Beyond tipping’s racist roots, the practice causes discrimination in the restaurant industry today. White employees make more than employees of colour, staff on busier shifts make more than those on quiet nights, waiters make more than people working in the kitchen, and so on. Women

Many service industry employees are heavily dependent on gratuity dollars. (Dominique Lafond / Montreal Eater) in the service industry are more likely to face sexual harassment. The wage disparity between Black women and white men is twofold: Black women are more likely to work in more casual and less expensive restaurants, and they are often tipped less. Tipping is but another form of inequality in the restaurant industry. However, discrimination also goes in the opposite direction: Servers in restaurants are more likely to racially profile clients on how well they will tip. For instance, servers often offer worse service to Black patrons, as some waiters assume that they will tip less.

As the service industry offers many entry-level positions, it is common for university students to work part-time at restaurants, like Larry’s, or at bars to help pay for school.

Larry’s plans to have a starting salary of $18 per hour for their employees—a wage much higher than Quebec’s current $13.50 minimum wage and $11.40 service wage. Having a higher baseline wage means employees need to put in less

hours to make the same amount of money, allowing for more of a work-life balance. This is especially important for university students, who balance many responsibilities at once.

Paying employees a fair wage instead of forcing them to rely on tips treats the employees with respect, granting employees more autonomy and financial security.

While the pandemic forced many restaurants to close, employees who were fortunate enough to continue working often faced reduced hours and risked contracting COVID-19 at work. Despite these working conditions, restaurant workers were not considered essential during Quebec’s vaccine roll-out, and as a result, many people are leaving the industry.

Higher pay and equal treatment would incentivize workers to remain in the field. Larry’s might be the only restaurant in Montreal taking steps to offer a better salary and working environment for its employees, but hopefully it will not be the last.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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New aortic prosthesis reduces heart surgery operation time Medical device could be life-changing for those with faulty aortic valves Henry Fletcher Contributor On May 31, a research team at the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) became the first in Canada to implant a new cutting-edge biological prosthesis into a patient’s heart. The main purpose of the device is to substitute a faulty aortic valve—a valve that regulates blood flow between the heart’s main pumping chamber (left ventricle) and the main artery (aorta). After a defective aortic valve has been removed from the heart, the prosthesis acts as its replacement.

The novelty of this device is that the replacement tube and valve come pre-assembled, reducing the time patients spend on the operating table and minimizing the risk of technical errors by surgeons. However, according to Renzo Cecere, the director of cardiac surgery at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), the new valve generally shares the same design as older models.

“The advantage now is that we have this conduit that comes pre-packaged and pre-built with a biological valve contained within the conduit,” Cecere said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “But conceptually, there is nothing new or brilliant about this, it just has not been available on the market.”

Still, the new device is likely to help many patients suffering from aortic valve disease: In 2017, faulty aortic valves accounted for over two-thirds of all valvular heart disease deaths in the United States.

Valvular heart disease occurs when the aortic valve does not open or close properly. The valve consists of three flaps that open and close together with

each heartbeat and acts as a “gatekeeper” by controlling how much blood flows from the heart to the rest of the body. If the valve is diseased, it becomes either too narrow and stiff to fully open (stenosis) or too wide to close completely (regurgitation), causing some blood to flow backwards. Sometimes, valves can also be malformed due to a birth defect called congenital heart disease.

Given the prevalence of diseased aortic valves, replacing them is a common operation known as the Bentall Procedure. The process involves removing the aortic valve and root and then implanting an artificial tube with a mechanical or biological (tissue) valve inside of it.

Until recently, surgeons have had to sew the valve into the tube before inserting it into the patient’s heart. This step of the procedure is complex, timeconsuming, and carries the risk of surgeons making technical errors when stitching the tube and valve together. This new prosthesis, however, eliminates this step with it being pre-assembled and therefore ready to use.

Fortunately, this device will soon be offered to patients in the MUHC: Cecere has already submitted a formal request to acquire it. However, only a select number of patients could qualify as good candidates for this device—even though the MUHC performs about a thousand heart surgeries a year.

“There are a lot of things we do that are quite niche and not high-volume activities,” Cecere said.

“But nevertheless, the patients need to be served. It is our obligation to make sure we have the right tools on the shelf.”

The first artificial heart valve was only invented 70 years ago. (gettyimages.ca) For Cecere, this device is further evidence of the remarkable progress that medical technology has made since he became a cardiac surgeon.

“Whether it is in coronary disease, valvular disease, heart failure, or artificial heart technology, all of them have made a tremendous evolution in the last 15 to 20 years,” Cecere said.

Indeed, the first aortic valve replacement was performed in 1962 and now, nearly 60 years later, there is a pre-assembled prosthesis that can be implanted into a patient’s heart in 2.5 hours.

McGill researchers set the stage for new triple-negative breast cancer therapy New study identifies two drugs with potential to counteract tumour growth Cyril Kazan Contributor A cancer diagnosis can radically change the course of a person’s life. Nearly one in two Canadians is expected to develop cancer over their lifetime, and one in four is expected to die from it. Fortunately, physicians have an increasingly effective array of treatments available to counter this devastating disease.

Three types of receptors are commonly found on the surface of breast cancer tumour cells: Estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 protein receptors. These receptors fuel the growth of cancer cells. Existing therapies can block any of these receptors and successfully stop the growth of the tumour. However, none of these receptors are present in one specific subtype of breast cancer called triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). It is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer and it accounts for about 15 per cent of all cases.

The problem with TNBC is that cancer cell growth is not due to any of the three receptors, so current targeted therapies that block the typical receptors are not effective. The way these tumour cells grow is

not yet well understood.

Recently, a team of researchers led by Dr. JeanJacques Lebrun, a senior scientist in the Cancer Research Program at the Research Institute of the McGill Univer-

gene-editing technology called CRISPR to screen the entire human genome and successfully identified two key pathways that allow TNBC tumours to grow and propagate.

“There are absolutely no

Triple-negative breast cancer is most prevalent among young women-aged less than 40. (mdanderson.org) sity Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and a professor of medicine at McGill University, discovered novel mechanisms through which TNBC tumour cells grow.

The team used a state-of-the-art

targeted therapies for this type of cancer,” Lebrun said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “Patients will undergo chemotherapy or radiotherapy, both of which are largely inef-

ficient.”

The two pathways they identified include an oncogenic pathway named mTOR and a tumour suppressor pathway named Hippo. Both pathways play a role in the regulation of cell growth and programmed cell death, called apoptosis. In TNBC cells, the pathways become abnormally activated, leading to uncontrolled cell growth and tumourigenesis.

The identification of these two growth mechanisms was a major step forward in the search for a TNBC treatment.

Lebrun and his team subsequently investigated possible ways to interfere with these growth pathways in a recent study published in Nature Communications. They found two potential drugs that would accomplish the necessary interference: Torin1, a drug known to block the mTOR pathway, and verteporfin, a drug normally used for retina eye diseases that can mimic the Hippo pathway.

According to Dr. Meiou Dai, a research associate in the Lebrun Lab at the RI-MUHC and first author of the study, preliminary research has shown some very encouraging results.

“Torin1 led to growth inhibition on the cell models, and

verteporfin was able to induce apoptosis in cancer cells,” Dai said in an interview with the Tribune.

Their results show that these two drugs are effective at countering the growth of TNBC cancer cells. They also demonstrated that both drugs act synergistically and have an even better outcome when used as a combination therapy.

Lebrun and his team also tested the drugs for other breast cancer subtypes and found that they were all being affected by their combination therapy.

Although this study has paved the way to an effective targeted therapy for TNBC, there is still work to be done before it can become approved.

Trials must be conducted on patients to examine the effectiveness of the combination therapy in humans. However, the fact that these are already known drugs is an important advantage.

“One [verteporfin] is already approved for an eye disease while the second [Torin1] is currently being tested in clinical trials,” Dai said. “This is very important because it should really shorten the time it will take for the proposed combination therapy to be approved and start benefitting patients.”

The long arm of the law Toward alternatives to policing in Montreal Kennedy McKee-Braide, Managing Editor This November, Montrealers will head to the polls to vote for the next mayor of the city––and perhaps the future of its police. This year more than ever, a key issue on the ballot will be the role and budget of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM).

Global protests against police brutality that erupted in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd, a Black man murdered by police in Minneapolis, sparked renewed calls for a re-evaluation of policing. Increasingly, these calls have shifted from demands for reform to demands for defunding––and even demands to do away with policing altogether. According to a poll conducted in July 2020, approximately 51 per cent of Canadians support defunding the police and redirecting funds to social services.

Montreal’s first official police department and predecessor to the SPVM, the Montreal Police Department, was established in 1865.

However, various forms of policing have existed since the city’s founding in 1843, from small citizen militias to ensembles of nighttime watchmen.

Policing has its roots in slavery and settler colonialism, explained Ted Rutland, an associate professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University who studies urban issues in Montreal, including policing. In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Rutland likened early policing in Montreal to slave patrols in the United States, noting how white people were essentially “tasked with scrutinizing and reporting” racialized people.

“In Montreal, [...] it was basically the job of all white people to surveil Black and Indigenous people, who were not on plantations,” Rutland said. “There were no plantations in Canada.

[Instead], they were doing unpaid chores for wealthy Montrealers and so they were walking around the city, going to the market.”

Early laws in Montreal were also key in dispossessing Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) people of land and setting up rules and practices that limited their right to exist freely in the city.

“There were a bunch of laws around alcohol that were specifically targeting Indigenous people in order to ensure that they were not in public spaces,” Rutland said. “The law was also used to move Indigenous people off the island in the mid-1700s to the point where for a long time there were not a lot of Indigenous people in Montreal.”

Toward the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black people began to experience much higher rates of police surveillance and violence.

“You have examples of the police busting into Black community spaces, pinning everyone to the ground, searching the place, and then leaving without notice,” Rutland said. “You [also] have the policing of Haitian activists who are fighting deportations.”

He also pointed to the police raid on the computer centre of Sir George Williams University in 1969, also called the Sir G e o r g e Williams affair.

These legacies continue to manifest in the realm of policing today, with police

violence and mistreatment of racialized individuals prominent in the city.

In October 2019, independent researchers commissioned by the SPVM released a report stating that Black and Indigenous people are four to five times more likely to be stopped by police than white people. Further, Indigenous women are 11 times more likely to be stopped than white women.

Despite this, the SPVM does not collect or release any official data regarding police stops. In response to the deficit of data, researchers from universities across Montreal launched the STOPMTL project earlier this year, which gathers data from individuals who are stopped by the police. The team hopes to get a better picture of the reality of police stops in the city. Myrna Lashley, professor in the psychiatry department of McGill and a co-researcher on the project, pointed to legacies of racism as reasons why racialized individuals are “hypervigilant” when dealing with police––though she does not believe all police are racist or that police services are inherently bad.

“A lot of people who have been racialized and who have been subjected to unfair social and political practices are already carrying that burden of having these things thrust upon them,” Lashley said. “They have to have the talk with their kids: ‘If the police stop you, you are probably going to get associated with crime more than your friend that you are walking next to. You are both doing the same thing but you are more likely to be targeted.’ Parents have to have those conversations with their children, to prepare them and teach them how to survive within this world, which traumatizes the child and re-traumatizes the parent.”

Another crisis in the realm of policing is the treatment of unhoused individuals. For example, a study released in January 2021 showed that those experiencing homelessness in Montreal are given around 40 per cent of the total fines issued in the city, and that these ticketing rates have doubled in recent years. This practice amounts to criminalizing poverty in lieu of providing other services that could help unhoused individuals find secure housing.

“The police are giving tickets to homeless people for minor infractions that they cannot help but commit, like peeing in public, sleeping in public––things that most people do not do because they have a bed at home and they can access bathrooms,” Rutland said.

These issues often fall along racial lines. A disproportionate amount of those currently unhoused in Montreal are Indigenous. In 2018, Indigenous individuals in Montreal were 27 times more likely to experience homelessness than non-Indigenous individuals, with Inuit a staggering 80 times more likely than non-Indigenous individuals.

Unhoused Indigenous Peoples also tend to have a harder time accessing services like shelters and transitional housing as a result of colonialism.

Unoused Indigenous women or those in unstable living situations are also more likely to be affected by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis. Community organizations in Montreal have stepped in to fill the gaps where police have failed to act. Take the Iskweu project: Organized through the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, it provides support to Indigenous women, girls, transgender, and two-spirit folks who experience assault. The project offers resources to help individuals––and their families in cases of disappearance––to file police reports and ensure cases are pursued properly. Jessica Quijano, an intervention worker and coordinator at Iskweu, said Indigenous women are often let down by the police. “[Police inaction sometimes looks like] not responding or really treating the families poorly,” Quijano said in an interview with the Tribune. “We see examples like the Pickton case, where women go to police for many years and [the police] do not act upon it. Then there

are the extreme cases where sometimes the police officers are aggressors towards victims.

When you are Indigenous and you are told to call the police, there is always a risk [...] that you might become a victim of police brutality.”

Meanwhile, the city of Montreal allocated $679 million to the SPVM in its 2021 budget, an increase of approximately $15 million. At the same time, the housing budget is only $140 million, a decrease of $13 million from the previous year. Many of those in favour of defunding the police are call for funding to be reallocated from the hefty police budgets toward services that are better suited to prevent harm. Quijano would like to see more support for intervention workers trained in de-escalation.

“If you are [...] responding to someone in crisis who might be having a mental health crisis or might be dealing with psychosis from addiction, it is about reassuring the person and calming them down, and making them feel like they are safe with you,” Quijano said. “That is the opposite of what the police do. They often go in armed and will be shouting and screaming.”

It can be difficult to conceptualize a world where police do not play a significant role in dealing with social issues––problem that McGill political science professor Debra Thompson sees as deliberate. “[Defunding and abolition] requires this real shift in worldviews. When [activists were calling for it] last summer, I think people came around to it,” Thompson said in an interview with the Tribune. “And yet if you look at the data, the police have just gotten more funding.

Defunding has not been super successful.

I think in part because it is really hard for people to imagine a world without police.”

According to Thompson, this lack of change has to do with the way the police are “built into our national imaginaries,” meaning our beliefs about what Canada is as a nation. For example, children in Canada are taught to see the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) as part of Canadiana, but are very rarely told about its colonial origins. The RCMP, originally called the North West Mounted Police, was created as a tool to ensure the successful establishment of what we now call Canada––which meant forcibly removing Indigenous Peoples from their land. These sanitized narratives of the police extend into much of the popular culture the average person is exposed to, as well.

“The police are

Design by Jinny Moon, Design Editor

so omnipresent [in media] as the good guys in shows like Law and Order, NYPD Blue, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” Thompson said. “And if you expand the understanding of the police to include all national security agencies including the FBI, CIA, and military, we see this even in the fantastical realm of superheroes as part of a kind of government agency as well. We see the valorization of the police as saviours, as

protectors.”

Despite how difficult it may be to imagine a world where policing and punitive measures do not define how we deal with social issues and crime, organizations in Montreal and beyond are working to develop community-based solutions to these problems.

Rutland pointed to the CAHOOTS team in Eugene, Oregon as one way in which cities have reimagined responses to public safety. Since the 1960s, the team has had a “civilian public squad of community workers” responding to calls.

“In extremely rare cases, less than one per cent, they end up calling the police because the situation is dangerous, but in 99 per cent of the cases, they can handle these things and can provide support, which means that no one gets killed,” Rutland said.

Montreal-Nord, a lower-income area of the city that is also one of the most racially diverse, has seen repeated instances of police violence and murder at the hands of the SPVM. In response to the 2008 police killing of Fredy Villanueva, community activists founded Hoodstock, an organization that aims to support racialized youth through projects such as social forums, a youth leadership committee, the distribution of tablets to children and seniors, a legal clinic, and a sexual violence prevention campaign.

Dalila Awada, Public Relations and Media Manager at Hoodstock, believes it is important to look at the underlying causes of crime and to support the overall wellbeing of the community.

“One of the avenues for improving residents’ sense of security would be for community organizations

to be adequately funded and supported in their work in the field,” Awada wrote in an email to the Tribune.* “And of course, to seriously tackle the problems of poverty, social marginalization, precariousness, racism, and everything that reduces the quality of life of residents.”

The organization is also developing an alternative justice program that seeks to end the cycle of criminalization and incarceration in the community. The program aims to support those who have committed criminal offences through a logic of repair and rehabilitation rather than punishment.

“The goal of the legal clinic and the alternative justice project that we want to develop is to try and ensure that a ‘stain’ in a judicial file does not obstruct the professional possibilities of the accused or their possibilities of accessing housing,” Awada said.

“It is a question of preventing the long-term consequences of a single act, which may have been a youthful mistake, but can impact a lifetime.”

It may be some time before Montreal at large sees a major change in its approach to policing. The two major parties running in the November election, Projet Montréal and Ensemble Montréal, led by current and former mayors Valérie Plante and Denis Coderre, both favour providing more funding to the police. In fact, the Plante administration recently gave the SPVM an extra $5.5 million to deal with gun violence, a measure that some, including Rutland, say will only make the problem worse.

However, Montrealers may be seeing the greatest push yet towards re-examining policing: Mouvement Montréal, the party led by activist Balarama Holness, supports the redistribution of certain police funds to housing and social services, and a host of other independent candidates support defunding the police.

In the meantime, Quijano encourages people to get involved in their community and reassessing how conflict and crisis are handled.

“Get to know your community organizations in your neighbourhood and get to know the people in your community,” she said. “Sometimes people are just really going through a lot, sometimes they are just hungry. There are so many different solutions that we can come up with that do not have to escalate to have the police involved.” and

*Interview conducted translated by

in the

French author.

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

Proposed hydro dams put free-flowing rivers at risk

Policy-makers must consider trade-offs between renewable energy and river conservation Shafaq Nami SciTech Editor Many hydropower dam projects have been proposed around the world as countries shift toward renewable energy sources, in line with the United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, a recent study conducted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found that these proposed dam projects threaten the free-flowing status of 260,000 kilometres of major rivers around the world, such as the Amazon, Congo, and Irrawaddy.

Free-flowing rivers are characterized as

those whose flow and connectivity are unaffected by human-induced changes. A study conducted in 2019 found that two-thirds of major rivers have lost their connectivity to dams, resulting in devastating consequences on aquatic ecosystems. “[Dams] create a barrier in the river that, in most cases, cannot be surpassed by organisms that naturally would want to traverse the river system,” Bernhard Lehner, associate professor in McGill’s Department of Geography and member of McGill’s Global Hydrolab, wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “[The dams also] change the natural cycle of high and low water flows downstream of the

260,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers are at risk, which is six times the diameter of the Earth.

(Isabella Vella / The McGill Tribune)

dam, which can disconnect ecologically vital floodplains from the main river channel. They even can change the water quality as they often release water that is colder and contains less oxygen than natural flows.”

The new study, inspired by the effects dams have on river connectivity, assesses how 3700 hydropower dams currently proposed or under construction will affect the environment. One of the major obstacles of the study, however, was obtaining data regarding the projects.

“There is no international group or organization that collects and freely distributes information on global dams,” Lehner wrote.

“We only had one database available to us, which was compiled by a research colleague and which only included planned hydropower dams. So we are missing many other dams in our study, such as irrigation dams or dams built for flood protection. To overcome this general problem, we have now founded our own international consortium called Global Dam Watch.”

The study also found that the energy produced by these dams would contribute to only two per cent of the renewable energy needed by 2050 to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius: A small benefit with a hefty ecological price tag.

With the World Hydropower Congress taking place in September and the upcoming UN climate and biodiversity summits, the researchers hope that policy-makers will take

their findings into consideration and make informed decisions that benefit everyone— instead of sacrificing ecosystems for the sake of clean energy.

Lehner clarified that such a debate does not call for an end to all hydropower projects: The study includes a comprehensive list of science-based solutions to build hydropower dams in a more sustainable way, such as using computer simulations to find less intrusive dam locations.

“The best solution [...] is likely the most simple one, avoid building new hydro dams that are not essential, [like] those that produce little energy but have large environmental consequences,” Lehner wrote. “In the past, we have often built hydro dams, or other types of dams, on an opportunistic basis [....] We have not always asked whether this particular dam is indeed the most useful to be built.”

The team believes that research similar to theirs influenced the European Commission to set a goal of removing barriers from 25,000 kilometres of rivers as part of their “Biodiversity strategy for 2030.”

“We can now, quite easily, produce tools that help energy planners to prioritize ‘better’ from ‘worse’ future scenarios of dam locations,” Lehner wrote. “The ultimate decisions remain to be made by politicians and managers, but science can support them in this task in order to arrive at informed decisions, which we believe is an important step forward.”

Using AI to save lives

Machine learning can be used to study suicide risk in students Madison McLauchlan Managing Editor Content warning: Mention of suicide and suicidal ideation.

Young people aged 18-29 reported some of the highest rates of depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the social isolation wrought by the pandemic, rates of suicidal ideation among college-aged individuals were troubling: In a 2019 sample survey of 55,000 students, more than 10 per cent reported contemplating suicide in the 12 months prior.

University students are especially vulnerable to mental health struggles. When they do not have access to appropriate services or support systems, fragile mental health can spiral into self-harm or suicidal tendencies.

To prevent such tragedies, identifying primary risk factors for suicidal behaviour is paramount.

Researchers at McGill and the University of Bordeaux are on their way to doing just that, using machine learning. A new study, published in Scientific Reports, aimed to develop an algorithm to identify factors associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviours.

The longitudinal study used data from more than 5,000 students in

France from 2013-2019, collecting information ranging from lifestyle habits, to sociodemographics, to mental health symptoms. The algorithm then made data-driven predictions, which were compared to the follow-up questionnaires about suicidal thoughts and behaviours.

Marie Navarro, a PhD student at the University of Bordeaux, performed the statistical analysis for the study. In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Navarro explained the team’s reasons for using machine learning to find predictors.

“With more classical methods like regression models, you cannot study a lot of factors, [maximum] twenty, but otherwise, it is complicated,” Navarro said. “With AI, and especially machine learning, we used random forests, [which is] a good algorithm because you can include a lot of factors in your model simultaneously.”

Random forest algorithms are a type of supervised machine learning typically used to predict outcomes from data patterns—like the future behaviour of a stock, for example.

The novelty of machine learning in this context is twofold: Not only does it allow researchers to sift through large amounts of data at once, but it also accounts for the interactions between factors, giving the algorithm

better predictive power.

Indeed, suicidal behaviours do not result from a single, isolated factor; it is often a combination of circumstances. The study found that academic stress and depressive symptoms were top factors for those who identified as women, while selfesteem was one of the most important predictors of suicide risk across gender lines.

“Some sociodemographic factors, like sex, are already well established as risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviours,” Navarro said. “For example, broadly speaking, girls are more likely to report suicidal ideation and even attempts, but more deaths by suicide are reported in boys.”

Massimiliano Orri, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill and co-author of the paper, believes that universities can benefit from this behavioural data to improve suicide prevention efforts.

“Universities are uniquely situated to identify youths that need mental health support and help them to have access to care,” Orri wrote in an email to the //Tribune//. “Today, the wealth of data available and the computational advances such as artificial intelligence provide us with new eyes to identify those youths using simple screening tools that can be easily developed and implemented on a mas-

Canada lacks a national mental health monitoring service for college students.

(Avery Haley-Lock / The McGill Tribune) sive scale.”

The findings suggest that short assessments, perhaps through online, university-administered questionnaires, could reach a broader swath of students who may be hesitant to reach out for help.

Despite the promising results, Navarro stressed that their work is only a stepping stone to the ultimate goal of harm reduction.

“This study needs to be replicated and confirmed in other studies,

a very important point for research in general, before any application in real life,” Navarro said. “If they are, maybe this kind of analysis can open an interesting target for prevention in the future.”

If future studies confirm that artificial intelligence techniques like this one are an effective way of identifying at-risk individuals, then this research could result in more powerful screening tools and more lives being saved.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

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‘Haiti Trahie’ and ‘Invasion’ reveal the imperialist truths behind a facade of Canadian benevolence Cinema Politica Concordia hosts outdoor film screenings Alexandra Jonas Contributor The evening of Sept. 2 was chilly, but the back alley of the Milton Park Housing Co-op was hot with the buzz of political activism. Gathering for a viewing of Elaine Briere’s Haiti Trahie and Franklin Lopez’s Invasion put on

by Cinema Politica Concordia, viewers and concerned citizens ate pizza, drank coffee, and listened to Burning Cop Car. Both documentaries explore Canada’s role in the systemic racial and imperial oppression of people of colour within, and beyond, the Canadian border. In Haiti Trahie, Marie Dimanche, a Haitian activist, founder of Solidarité Québec-Haïti, and the FrenchEnglish translator of the film, examines how Canada, France, the U.S., and the United Nations actively worked to undermine Haiti’s success as a democracy. Dimanche explained how external forces condemned Haiti to poverty, violence, and social strife by pressuring the government to adopt neoliberal policies and privatize essential ser-

vices—as well as instigating a coup d’etat and exiling the democratically elected Jean

Documentaries Haiti Trahie and Invasion showcase the truth about Canada’s imperialistic and oppressive missions—both domestic and overseas.

(Alexandra Jonas / The McGill Tribune) Bertrand to Africa.

“There was a veil of secrecy,” Dimanche said. “The Canadian people were kept deliberately ignorant of [their] government’s role in undermining Haitian democracy.”

Meanwhile, well-respected non-governmental organizations defended the Canadian government’s actions, promoting the paternalist picture of “white saviours” intervening in the affairs of a nation deemed incapable of handling its own.

“It’s not that [the Haitians] do not know how to govern [themselves], it’s that [the Canadian government does not] let them govern,” Dimanche said in a Q&A panel after the presentation of the films.

In a similar exploration of Canadian imperialism, Invasion documents the Canadian government’s egregious violation of the Wet’suwet’en nation’s sovereignty for the sake of the Pacific Trail pipeline. The film follows Freda Huston, a Wet’suwet’en activist, tribal chief, and Unist’ot’en spokesperson, as she resists the pipeline swallowing up her people’s territory and contends for the sanctity of the waters that her people rely upon.

“We have already said ‘no’ to these projects and that no pipelines will come on our territory,” Huston said, rejecting bottled

water and tobacco offered by a Chevron representative. “No thanks, we have got clean water right there [...] and that is plastic that adds to the landfills.”

After the film’s screenings, guest speaker Renel Exentus, a Haitian-Canadian activist and member of the REHMONCO, detailed how the great powers of the international community resist Haitian prosperity as those powers value profit over all else and feel entitled to Haiti’s workforce and resources. When they face resistance, they push back mercilessly.

Together, the films encapsulate the clear pattern of imperial entitlement at the core of Canada’s foreign and domestic policies. Through emotional narration, horrorstricken interviewees, and disturbing visuals of destruction and violence, both Haiti Trahie and Invasion demonstrate the extent to which the history of our own country is saturated in oppressive ethnocentrism that we must never forget, and never forgive.

Cinema Politica will screen Haiti Trahie and Invasion again on Sept. 18 at 18:00.

‘Only Murders in the Building’ refreshingly reinvents the classic murder-mystery story

The new Hulu comedy follows a ridiculous detective trio’s attempt to create a popular true crime podcast

Suzanna Graham Contributor In a city filled with self-absorbed, isolated, and irritating people, it seems reasonable that New Yorkers rarely interact with their neighbours. Yet Hulu’s newest show Only Murders in the Building proves that boredom is a strong motivator for some to investigate the most despised person in their apartment complex.

Created by John Hoffman and Steve Martin, this “whodunnit” series focusses on the humour of the mystery, rather than the circumstances of the murder—effectively subverting the traditional murder-mystery genre. Set in the Arconia, a luxurious apartment building in New York, three strangers bond over their love for the same true-crime podcast—based off of the real podcast Serial—and narrated in the comedy by none other than Tina Fey.

Comedy legend Steve Martin plays Charles, a lonely former actor who repulses most people he meets, except for Oliver (Martin Short), a washed-up, over-exuberant Broadway director. Mabel (Selena Gomez), a cryptic young woman, rounds out the comedy trio with dry wit and an ostensibly secret backstory that fills the entire subplot of the series. When the motley bunch learn that fellow tenant Tim Kono (Julian Cihi) has died, they decide to investigate with the sole purpose of creating their own true-crime podcast on the mystery, an obvious satire to the rise of true-crime media in popular culture.

Although Only Murders in the Building prefers cheesy flashbacks over any presentation of serious backstory, the ironic melodrama is bizarre and whimsical. The three unorganized and chaotic “detectives” are charming enough that their unrealistic misadventures

add to the storyline. Tiny yet powerfully humorous details, such as Oliver’s intimate relationship with his bulldog, are the cherry on top

Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) discovery of a tenant’s murder in their apartment building prompts them to investigate the crime for themselves. (digitalspy.com)

of the cake.

The show expertly blends themes of loneliness and failure with its more fantastical elements. Each main character experiences strained family ties, financial distress, and trauma, grounding the show in some of the common anxieties of a post-pandemic world.

By intertwining comedy with the more complex aspects of the human condition, Only Murders in the Building is a refreshingly relatable modern dramedy. Though only the first three of 10 episodes have been released, the rest of the season is sure to include more comedic moments, plot twists, and hopefully, a solved murder mystery. And if not, releasing the trio’s chaotic true-crime podcast would be an acceptable alternative.

Viewers can watch Only Murders in the Building on Hulu, where a new episode is released every Tuesday.

Homeshake’s new album ‘Under the Weather’ is a musical rendering of distress and isolation Toronto-based artist releases his fifth studio album, a 12-track project exploring mental health and solitude Louis Lussier-Piette Contributor Homeshake, also known as Peter Sagar, is a Montreal-born and Torontobased artist known for his mellow sound and poignant lyricism. //Under the Weather//, his fifth studio album, is a 12-track confession of depression and isolation. Although Sagar wrote the morose album in 2019 after mental health struggles secluded him from the world, its release is timely in the context of a prolonged pandemic.

“People will probably think that I made Under the Weather during or about COVID-19,” Sagar said. “I was just already

living my life that way.”

Sagar’s lyrics of personal distress are widely relatable. Each track explores a different aspect of depression with lyrics so honest they could be from the artist’s diary.

The project’s hazy sound resonates like the fogginess of an anxious brain. Overall, the album is delicate and mellow, with passing songs melting into one another in the same slow, honeyed tempo.

“Oftentimes when you are in a dark place, you are supposed to journal, and that helps release the pressure,” Sagar said.

“For me, it always found its way into the music.”

However, such repetition also be-

comes the album’s main flaw. While some songs rise above the album’s homogenous nature, such as “Passenger Seat” and “Tenterhooks,” others become buried underneath the stronger tracks. “Feel Better” and “Careless,” for example, fail to depart from each track’s formulaic make-up.

Still, the album’s consistency does bring a sense of comfort and familiarity, with the melancholia of the album serving as the perfect remedy for the beginning-ofclass blues. While the imitative tracklist prevents the album from reaching its full potential, Under the Weather is definitely worth a listen for its empathetically brooding tone.

While Under the Weather was written in 2019, Homeshake released his moody new album at an apt time, after more than a year of quarantines and online courses. (homeshake.bandcamp.com)

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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

Émilie Monnet’s ‘Okinum’ forages for fervent dreams Performance artist Émilie Monnet acts out her recurring dreams of giant beavers in hopes of finding a connection to her heritage Arian Kamel Contributor On Sept. 2, Okinum made its English debut at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre to a sold-out audience. Originally a 2018 award-winning novel

by Canadian writer and performance artist Émilie Monnet, the English version of Okinum was adapted to the stage as part of Centaur’s Brave New Looks program and was co-produced by Onishka Productions and the Imago Theatre.

Inspired by the power of dreams, Monnet wrote the novel after experiencing three recurrent dreams involving giant beavers, who com-

Mesmerizing her audience with her self-composed ballad and versatile impressions of mythical beavers, Émilie Monnet not only reclaims her hereditary language but also her ancestors’ legacies. (centaurtheatre.com) municated powerful sentiments of belonging and healing which she could not fully grasp, but felt impassioned to express. Okinum portrays these dreams through an interactive performance, inviting the audience to decipher the giant beavers’ enigmatic guidance by observing Monnet’s personal reenactment and exploration of their words.

In the Centaur Theatre’s darkly lit auditorium, Monnet and her coperformer Jackie Gallant boldly act out a non-linear tale of self-discovery, intermingling scenes of Monnet speaking to her Anishinaabeg ancestors with representations of her profound dreams. The show’s climax occurs when Monnet portrays herself as a giant beaver, advancing on all fours and capturing an energy that hypnotized the audience into forgetting her human identity. Background noises such as the recordings of live beavers further transport the audience into a vivid aural environment—like that of a dream. Finally, Monnet performs an original song to honour the beavers.

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Monnet emphasized the importance of her identity as a member of the Anishinaabeg nation to Okinum’s creation. For example, her performance interweaves the French and English settler-colonialist languages with Anishinaabemowin, the language that Monnet’s ancestors spoke—and one of the many languages spoken by the Indigenous Peoples who lived in what is now called Montreal.

“I wanted to have the three languages coexist in the performance, the same way they coexist in me,” Monnet said. “I want for people to hear the language, which is so rarely shown on stage, and to actually experience the language born on this territory. They were eradicated by the government policies, but those were the languages that really connect us.”

This use of language extends to the play’s title, which means “dam” in Anishinaabemowin. The title not only references the wooden structures built by beavers but also the barriers placed upon Indigenous Peoples by colonialist powers, such as residential schools and reservation systems. In exploring the ethereal messages from the beavers in Okinum, Monnet deconstructs cultural walls, educating the audience about her own Anishinaabeg identity.

“My hope is to connect the beaver fur trade with the realities of many Indigenous women today,” Monnet said. “To reclaim my language and heritage [is] very powerful, [especially] how it solidifies you.”

Okinum’s zoomorphic performances continue until Sept. 11 at the Centaur Theatre.

End-of-summer concert

by L’OSM The Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s new Music Director hosts a free, public concert.

Sep 9, 7:30 p.m.

Parc olympique de Montréal/ Webcasted virtually Free but tickets required

Nick Bodoin Expo

See Québécois 3D-artist Nick Bodoin’s new exhibition, a landscape of faces.

Sept 11-12 Gallery Parfois Free

Online Art Hive

A virtual session of creation with anyone from Montréal artists to complete amateurs, hosted by The Yellow Door.

Sept 9, 1-2 p.m.

Virtual Free

Community Mural Painting

Eat food, make art, listen to music, and participate in community-building with artist Jimmy Baptiste.

Park Le Ber Sept 12, 11-4 pm Free

Ceilidh Michelle’s ‘Vagabond’ depicts hitchhiking’s joys and tears The book recounts the author’s transformative memories of living homeless along California’s coast Lowell Wolfe Arts & Entertainment Editor It takes days to travel by bus from Montreal to Sacramento, California, and even longer to hitchhike and squat along the state’s coastal highway—the famous California State Route 1. Montreal-based author Ceilidh Michelle’s new novel Vagabond condenses such a quest into just over 200 pages through a series of creative non-fiction vignettes. Vagabond takes readers into the vibrant, yet sometimes unpleasant, adventures that a younger Michelle experiences while wayfaring along the West Coast. Functioning somewhat like a memoir, the stories she tells are genuine and honest, for better or for worse.

The novel follows a 21-year-old Michelle narrating her journey, starting with her departure from an unhealthy relationship in Montreal to Vancouver, after which travels down south to the United States to pursue her dreams. All the while, Michelle reflects on the sights and scenery, transforming the physical distance she travels into a mental expedition of selfgrowth.

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Michelle spoke about the multiple journeys encapsulated in Vagabond.

“The only difficult part [about writing the book] was trying to stay true to the emotion of each experience,” Michelle said. “I did not want to make anything too melodramatic or overwrought. I really wanted to try and capture things as they [happened]. Some of it is embarrassing, and some of it seems silly to me [...] but it’s what happened, and I wanted to stay true to it.”

Michelle meets new friends along every step of her journey, such as the banjo-playing, train-hopping Half-Peach who

Michelle’s encounters with a spectrum of unhoused individuals can be fascinating, humorous, and occasionally traumatic. (douglas-mcintyre.com)

becomes Michelle’s close companion, as well as individuals worn down by living without homes. Michelle’s encounters with promiscuous drug addicts and unsavoury street bullies paint a somber depiction of living unhoused, reminding readers that her journey is nowhere near as cushioned as that of a university student’s gap year.

“An undercurrent [...] in my writing is affordable housing,” Michelle said. “Home is so important, and it is so essential to feeling human and having dignity.”

Released on Sept. 4 under Douglas & McIntyre, Vagabond is Michelle’s second book. The author’s first title, Butterflies, Zebras, Moonbeams, published through Palimpsest Press in 2020, was shortlisted for 2020’s Hugh McLennan Prize for Fiction. While she was busy pursuing her master of science degree in creative writing at the University of Edinburgh and writing other creative projects, Michelle felt an urge to distill her memories into something more concrete, which led to the spontaneous creation of Vagabond.

“I had written a very rough account of what had happened, as it happened, so I already had all of this archival writing to draw from,” Michelle said. “I had [another] project that I was working on with [my agent], and I basically cheated on that prototype and wrote Vagabond instead.”

Michelle’s narrative takes readers to exciting destinations, whether they be the sometimes-comical streets of Slab City, California’s famous squatter community, or the interior landscapes of a young, curious woman as she learns about herself and the world—each place complete with its own beauty and pain.

Fans can look forward to Michelle’s upcoming appearances at the Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival Thin Air in September and Junction Reads in January.

STUDENT LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

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‘Dans ma cour ça du chien!’: The story behind the colourful dogs in Place des Arts Montrealers and their canine counterparts on Saint-Catherine Street Holly Wethey Student Life Editor Walking through Place des Arts in the summer months, one is greeted by a variety of neon dog statues. These furry creatures are part of artist Mélanie Crespin’s interactive art piece “Dans ma cour ça du chien!” For me, the dogs have become an iconic part of strolling through the Quartier des Spectacles, and a frequent presence in photos with friends, family, and roommates.

In an email to The McGill Tribune, Crespin explained the backstory and inspiration behind the whimsical installation.

“The project celebrates the arrival of the spring days, allowing citizens and tourists to reappropriate the outdoor public space in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere,” Crespin wrote.

The piece was commissioned by Quartier des Spectacles in 2018 and has been on display every summer since 2019.

“In 2018, for the first ‘Dans ma cour’ edition […], the Quartier des Spectacles partnership invited me to propose a kitsch and ephemeral art installation to celebrate the return of the spring days, a proposition inviting visitors to wander,

to take time and to reappropriate SaintCatherine Street after long winters,” Crespin explained.

However, the project did not initially begin with the iconic dogs on display now. “[In the first edition], a dozen scenes offered to the citizens a playful and unusual experience inspired by the kitsch universe that can be found in North American backyards,” Crespin wrote.

“Colourful plastic animals […], artificial flowers, synthetic grass, deckchairs and lounge chairs allowed citizens and tourists to take the time to enjoy the first rays of the sun, in an original and offbeat atmosphere.”

The installation now comprises 10 scenes featuring different species of coloured dog statues. All the sculptures are handcrafted by Décors 3D, an interior designer from Montreal, who followed Crespin’s noted designs.

“Each dog portrait has been meticulously refined, which is expressed in the sculptures,” Crespin wrote. “The dogs have their own personality, story, and colour. Each scene is a friendly invitation for interactions between humans and dogs, between citizens and the installations.”

Crespin feels that viewers should approach it with a certain lightheartedness.

“Although this installation was thought of with seriousness, each animal has a profile, a temperament, a story, it has to be taken with humour and lightness,” Crespin wrote.

The installation invites passersby to have a bit of fun and explore the commonalities between ourselves and our canine companions.

“A german shepherd is waiting for someone to play with, a bull terrier is meditating with visitors, a rather psychological saluki is sitting on a bench waiting for a human confidence,” Crespin explained. “Some behaviours are more natural [...] than others, which are more caricatural. This installation is a kind of irony facing our human behaviours which are reflected in the canine figures.”

Although the pandemic has limited our activities in some ways, public art installations have remained an integral part of the city experience. While the summer months were at times isolating, installations like this one brightened the streets and made walks all the more exciting.

“For the 2020 and 2021 editions, […]

‘Dans ma cour, ç’a du chien!’ was exposed

Each dog was designed by artist Mélanie Crespin to bear its own unique look, personality, and story. (Vincent Sauriol-Nadeau / Quartier des spectacles) more than expected, as cultural gatherings were cancelled,” Crespin wrote. “It was [fortunate] that the installation was [displayed] in the street after the first three months of containment, and as a return to social and entertaining outings [….] [As] the first event in the Quartier des Spectacles, after three months of containment in 2020, I think it was a breath of fresh air.”

Crespin’s next projects are in the works for this fall at several locations.

One includes an upcoming exhibition in the McCord Museum and another includes an art installation for the botanical gardens with artist Alexandre Burton and the National Film Board of Canada.

Spotlight: McGill’s non-faculty froshes

The first week at McGill: Alternative orientation experiences Shirley Xu Contributor Continued from page 1.

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Josie Messersmith, Hiking Frosh coordinator and U3 Agriculture student, described the Outdoors Frosh experience as one in which froshies create their own adventure.

“Frosh is really what you make of it,” Messersmith said. “Make yourself uncomfortable and put yourself out there, and you can meet really cool people. [Outdoors frosh] is a great opportunity to have long, personal conversations [....] It is for people who like the outdoors [and] want more of a close-knit frosh experience.”

Jewish Frosh Jewish Frosh, organized by Am McGill and McGill Chavurah, is an opportunity for first-year students to learn about various Jewish events and spaces on campus, receive a meaningful Shabbat experience, and feel at home in the McGill Jewish community. It was Jewish Frosh that introduced Sam Hamroff, a Jewish Frosh leader and U2 Science student, to many groups that he is still part of.

“Not only will [students] have an experience that will introduce them to like-minded people and bring a little bit of home to Montreal, but it opens many doors to additional experiences,” Hamroff wrote.

Rad Frosh Rad Frosh hosts workshops, concerts, and dance parties, all with a focus on social and environmental justice. Organized by the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at McGill, Rad Frosh offers a unique opportunity to explore local activism and community groups. This year’s theme was “Radical Renewal,” made to symbolize new beginnings. The name was inspired by birch trees, which are often the first tree species to revive after forest fires and are known for their resilience. Events included an openmic concert where froshies met indie musicians, DIY workshops for success in university, and a drag show

by House of Gahd. Proceeds went to supporting Taking What We Need, a community group that supports lowincome trans women.

Fish Frosh Frosh events organized by student clubs and organizations offer alternative experiences and environments for students to meet peers and Despite being organized by four Christian fellowships explore Montreal for the first time.

(Mcgill Campus Life & Engagement) on campus, Fish Frosh, a non-alcoholic frosh, welcomes

participants of all religious backgrounds. Incoming students got to explore the city and visit destinations such as Saint Joseph’s Oratory and Old Port. This year’s event included a worship night where froshies gathered to sing Christian songs, and also attended more broadly geared events, such as a barbecue dinner and a talent show. “[Fish frosh] is a good way for students to be a bit more relaxed and embarrass themselves a bit [while having] fun and not feeling too restricted,” said James Kusardi, Fish Frosh head coordinator and U4 Engineering student, in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

MSA Halal Frosh Organized by McGill Muslim Students’ Association (MSA), Halal Frosh is a non-alcoholic, halal alternative to faculty froshes for Muslim and non-Muslim students alike, offering halal meals throughout events and providing time for prayer.

Sara Elkady, Halal Frosh organizer and U3 Nutrition, shared the highlights of her experience.

“This year was super special because we were able to have frosh in person again,” Elkady said. “My favourite events were the Mount Royale hike, The Amazing Race, and laser tag.”

During the four-day hybrid event, froshies also traversed the Old Port, canoed down the Lachine canal, and ended the event with a virtual cook-off and game night.

This year, MSA hopes to offer more hybrid social and educational events for their community.

“I’m so excited for what’s to come this year,” Elkady said. “We are working on finding a place for our weekly jummah prayers, and hopefully opening up more prayer spaces around campus.”

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STUDENT LIFE

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 2021

Hidden gems of McGill: Favourite spots to eat, study, chill, and explore

Hitting the sweet spots on campus Holly Wethey & Wendy Zhao Student Life Editors Coming back to campus, it is clear that a lot has changed. But a lot has remained the same. The McGill Tribune reflects on some tuckedaway spots—from familiar favourites to some more obscure—to visit, remember, and hopefully find our way back to.

1. Paddle Mac Located on McGill’s Macdonald Campus, Paddle Mac rents out kayaks and stand-up paddleboards at a discounted rate to McGill students. For $15 an hour, students can cruise down the river and enjoy a quiet escape from urban life. McGill also offers a free shuttle bus to Mac Campus from Monday to Friday, which makes this unique experience very affordable.

2. Frostbite This ice-cream shop, run by McGill’s own engineering students, seeks to remedy student blues with varied ice-cream flavours that are affordable and—if you have received less than 30 per cent on a major midterm—free. With events like Warm Cookie Week, Wafflebowl Week, and Rowdy Day running throughout the year, this spot in the McConnell Engineering building is a sweet relief from busy schedules.

Be sure to look out for their charming penguin mascot, Chub Chub, too.

3. Soupe Cafe Although many are familiar with the grilled cheese sandwiches from this Burnside basement cafe, one of their secret specialities is their tasty sweet potato burrito. While the McGill location is currently closed, you can still visit Soupe cafe on Rue Notre Dame to satisfy your cravings.

4. Vihn’s Cafe A perennial favourite at McGill, Vihn’s cafe serves filling yet affordable Vietnamese dishes that have become a staple for students on campus. Their $4-5 banh mi and their $7-9 pho are classic choices, while their steamed buns and array of desserts offer unique snack options.

Its Sherbrooke location, tucked away in the Strathcona music building, offers a tight but cozy escape from McGill’s main campus where one can chat—or commiserate—with friends. A warm bowl of pho always tastes especially comforting during winter and exam seasons.

5. Birks With its wooden tables and tall bookshelves, the Birks reading room in the Religious Studies building is a quiet, tucked-away environment perfect for independent studying and wistful daydreaming.

Inside the building, you will come across a beautiful two-story chapel that can seat 150 people.

6. Thompson House Restaurant Run by the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) and located next to the Education building, Thompson House is not only a venue for many events, but also its own restaurant. On the menu, you will find a variety of dishes ranging from bean burritos to South Indian curry.

7. The hidden hallways of the McConnell Engineering Building Exploring the large McConnell Engineering Building, you will typically find students testing drones in tall class hallways. There’s even a maze-like hallway with a dead end. Aside from the wandering Arts students, the space is allegedly used to test robots.

8. The industrial stairwell in Macdonald Engineering If you wander for long enough through McConnell, you might

Moyse Hall, a theatre tucked away in the Arts building, is also connected to a costume shop in the basement.

(Leanne Young / The McGill Tribune) just find yourself in another building entirely. McConnell Engineering connects to the Macdonald building through a huge industrial stairwell reminiscent of Victorian times.

9. Moyse Hall This theatre in the Arts building is frequently used to hold productions from the English department. The mysterious tower at the top of the Arts building is also rumoured to be accessible through Moyse Hall, though a key card is now required to enter.

10. The obscure corners of the Arts building and the deep depths of Leacock If you have never had a seminar on the top floor of the Arts building, you may not know that there are a number of high tables nestled in its dark and rustic corridors. Similarly, the Leacock basement, once home to Bar des Arts, is a fun place to explore—although it is not necessarily advisable to do so at night.

Four ways to make friends as a new student at McGill

Ways to foster new relationships at McGill beyond the lecture hall Cristina Monica Tifan Contributor

Though these places can be quite hectic during rush hours, you will be sure to find other students there. Other cafes popular among students include the famous Milton B, which is open 24 hours a day and always buzzing with students, and Chai Lounge, where you will find a wide selection of bubble tea. McTavish Street and Lower Field also have lots of places to sit and can be a great alternative to indoor study spaces before the harsh Montreal winter returns. Who knows, you might sit next to someone in a classroom you once shared a smile with at a coffee shop.

As a new student at McGill, trying to meet friends while learning to navigate academics and a new city can be difficult. The McGill Tribune has compiled four suggestions to help with making new connections on campus.

1. Join a club This comes as no surprise. McGill has over 200 clubs you can join, where you will surely meet other likeminded people and be able to socialize in a low-pressure environment. Reach out to the student groups that interest you and attend Activities Night, the bi-annual showcasing of various McGill clubs and organizations. Students can scope out and and explore the different areas of student life—you might spark a budding friendship, all while learning a new skill or rekindling an old hobby.

2. Get a job on campus Getting a part-time position on campus will allow you to meet students from various departments. McGill advertises many student positions on MyFuture and Workday throughout the year, including opportunities at the McGill Libraries, the Athletics Department, or with faculty members. While not all on-campus positions require an approved Work Study status, many of them do, or prefer Work Study-eligible employees. To become part of the Work Study Program, you need to apply on Minerva once a year. According to the McGill Scholarships and Student Aid website, your admittance to the program will depend on your

4. Take advantage of online platforms

Cafes popular among students include the famous Milton B and Chai Lounge (Daria Kiseleva / The McGill Tribune) financial need. At an on-campus job, your coworkers can relate to your experience at McGill and just might introduce you to the best places to unwind in-between classes or have a memorable meal.

3. Study at a nearby coffee shop Many McGill students choose to study at the McGill Libraries. However, because these environments are intended for quiet studying, building a connection in library spaces can be challenging—especially with COVID-19 regulations in place. Two of the nearest coffee shops for McGill students include the Tim Hortons on Sherbrooke Street and the Second Cup on McGill College Avenue.

Although online dating is becoming increasingly normalized, online friending is still catching up. One online platform that facilitates such friendships is Meetup, a website and app where you can find both online and inperson events in your community that cater to your personal interests. Though Bumble is primarily known for its dating option, Bumble BFF can be used to meet and chat with friends online––and chances are you will stumble upon another McGill student. Meeting people online can be especially meaningful if you live farther away from campus and do not always have the opportunity to attend social events nearby.

Keep in mind that friendships take work and grow over time, so remember to follow up and stay in touch with the new people you meet. Luckily, social media smooths the process by allowing you to interact through different online communities, including Facebook groups and Discord servers. If you are the daring type, you can challenge yourself by messaging peers through Zoom during class time.

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Athletes aggrieved by McGill’s cancellation of nine varsity sports Baseball, rowing, lacrosse, among season cut with little explanation Sarah Farnand Sports Editor Continued from page 1.

“McGill provided us with some explanations which were linked to health problems and the pandemic,” Guern said. “However, in my opinion, the reasons were not very clear. We did not receive clear [communication]. I can understand their motives of [wanting] to protect the athletes, but why [has] baseball been cut and not football, for example?”

Although McGill’s official statement cited that the continuation of COVID-19 protocols meant the Athletics staff had a limited capacity to provide support and care for athletes, many, including Lacrosse midfielder Daniel Chand, U3 Arts, believes this reasoning is senseless.

“With [McGill] opening up the school and having people from all over the world back, and also the CUFLA [Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association] creating a new division to keep teams from travelling too far, [the cancellation] did not make any sense to me,” Chand told the Tribune.

The CUFLA league announced

in mid-June that it would run the fall season, giving the McGill Lacrosse team the impression that their season would happen. The league would have included McGill, Bishop’s University, Queen’s University, the University of Ottawa, and Carleton University, with all teams still expected to follow pandemic protocols. The league is still set to take place this year with all other schools still competing, despite McGill no longer participating.

Chand was especially surprised to see his season cancelled after the McGill Lacrosse team was given a one-million-dollar donation by the Généreux family in June 2021, two months before the program was cut.

“One of our lacrosse alumni just donated one million dollars, so if [McGill Athletics] was worried about doing all the medical [protocols] and providing a trainer, they have more than enough money to hire some people,” Chand said.

According to Chand, McGill Athletics has provided no support to those teams whose seasons were cancelled since the announcement.

“We were going to try and play in a local league, but McGill [Athletics] would not even let us do that,” Chand said. “We are pretty

Despite having winning seasons for the past 11 years, the McGill Lacrosse program was among those cut for the 2021-22 school year. (Sarah Farnand / The McGill Tribune) much self-funded to begin with. The only thing we get out of McGill is the use of the name and the fields.

It is fairly obvious that McGill only let the bigger sports that are a part of USports and bring in sponsors continue to play.”

Guern shared similar sentiments regarding McGill’s lack of support, noting how varsity athletes whose seasons were cut were barred from

accessing the training facilities.

“The help after [being cut] is non-existent,” Guern said. “For example, varsity athletes whose seasons have been cut are not allowed to work out in the varsity gym anymore. We still want to stay in shape and healthy for next year, but now the only gym access we have is the main fitness [centre] [...] and we have to pay [like] every other

non-varsity athlete.”

For McGill to seemingly arbitrarily pick and choose which teams get to play and which do not is a disservice to the McGill teams and athletes that dedicate much of their life to training. Prioritizing the most popular teams or those that bring in the most revenue undermines the notion of a thriving athletics department.

Redbirds clinch win in home opener against Sherbrooke Vert et Or Two touchdowns from wide receiver Mathieu Soucy assured McGill’s decisive victory Adam Burton, Sarah Farnand, Madison Mclauchlan, Shafaq Nami Sports Editor, Sports Editor, Science & Technology Editor & Managing Editor On Sept. 4, the McGill Redbirds (1–1) defeated the Sherbrooke University Vert et Or (1–1) in their first home game of the season.

For the first time in 693 days, over one thousand spectators—1,628, to be exact—filled Percival Molson Memorial Stadium to witness an exciting return to varsity football.

Both teams came out with strong defensive presences in the first quarter, stopping each other in their tracks and never making it farther than a few downs before punting. McGill ended the scoreless streak with suffocating defence in Sherbrooke’s endzone, leading to a safety and a 1–0 score with 1:21 left in the first quarter.

The second quarter brought more action, with several convincing offensive drives, before quarterback Dimitrios Sinodinos beamed a bullet pass to wide receiver Mathieu Soucy in the back right corner of the endzone. After a successful field goal attempt, McGill led 8–0 with 6:38 remaining in the first half. Sherbrooke quarterback Anthony Robichaud, however, promptly retaliated with a 53-yard-arcing throw to wide receiver Kevin Morin, and, after a successful 2-point conversion, McGill and Sherbrooke were tied with 4:48 left in the quarter.

Both teams managed a field goal in the following minutes, leaving fans on a razor’s edge heading into the second half.

McGill came out guns blazing in the opening moments of the second half, but was quickly halted in what would be the worst of a string of 11 injuries throughout the game. Second-

Quarterback Sinodinos led his team to victory with two touchdown throws and 195 passing yards.

(McGill Athletics)

year wide receiver Dhandre Weekes suffered a severe lower body injury that had him carted away to an ambulance. The game was stopped for the next 45 minutes as both teams waited for another ambulance to assume its post.

“A lot of guys look up to and respect [Dhandre],” Sinodinos said when asked about his teammate’s injury. “He is a really emotional player and brings so much energy to practice. He wants it so bad. To see a guy like him go down really sucks, but we came out to play for him and we got the win for him.”

Come out and play, McGill certainly did; just a few minutes after the delay, Soucy completed his second touchdown off a 39-yard high-arcing throw from Sinodinos. Second-year kicker Antoine Couture furthered the Redbirds’ lead to 21–11 with a field goal, six seconds before the end of the third quarter.

The Vert et Or made an admirable run at McGill’s lead in the fourth quarter, but the Redbird defence ultimately stopped them in their tracks, allowing only one more touchdown with 54 seconds left in the game. The crowd erupted into cheers of celebration as McGill emerged victorious, with a final score of 21–18.

Despite the strong first showing, Soucy believes he and his team still have room to improve.

“We did good, not great,” Soucy said. “We could have put up more points and we have a couple of things to fix up but in the end, we got the W.” Head coach Ronald Hilaire agreed with Soucy, but was pleased with the players’ performance in the second half.

“I felt that we bounced back from a

lacklustre first half from our team,” Hilaire wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “At halftime, we regrouped, got our bearings, and came to play in the second half. I was proud of our team for responding that way. We need to be able to maintain [our] level of play notwithstanding the opponent we face.”

MOMENT OF THE GAME Quarterback Dimitrios Sinodinos lofted a 39-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Mathieu Soucy to take a 18–11 lead with 9:20 left in the third quarter.

QUOTABLE “It feels so nice to be back playing for a crowd. We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. We have been working hard, with Zoom calls, and training camp so it definitely feels good to be back on the field.” — Fifth year Mathieu Soucy on the return from the two-year hiatus from RSEQ sports.

STAT CORNER Running back Elijah Woods led McGill’s running efforts, rushing 70 yards over the course of the game.

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Nine best Olympic logos

The most eye-catching Olympic logos of the past century Adam Burton, Madison McLauchlan Sports Editor, Managing Editor Every two years, like clockwork, millions of people collectively spend two weeks with their eyes glued to a screen, rooting for their countries’ athletes and watching thrilling sports until our hearts, and our eyes, bleed. The Olympics have been a celebration of athletic excellence since their founding on a global scale in 1896, when Athens hosted 14 nations and 241 athletes at the first official International Olympic Committee (IOC)-run games.

Situating the Olympics historically can provide an interesting window into the past.

While records and medals are often most fondly remembered, the logos of the last 51 Olympiads can tell us about design movements, historical moments, and cultural touchstones—and they are also just cool to look at.

Without further ado, here are nine of The McGill Tribune’s picks for most notable logos from the last 125 years of Olympic history.

Cortina d’Ampezzo – Winter Olympics 1956

Tokyo – Summer Olympics 1964

Beijing – Summer 2008

(IOC Summer Olympics 1976)

(IOC Winter Olympics 1956) The Olympic emblem for the 1956 Italy Winter Games was the first logo to be selected through a design competition. Italian designer Franco Rondinelli used lots of colour—a first in emblem design—while also heeding the requirements of the competition by including the Dolomite mountains and the Olympic rings. This was also the first inclusion of a stylized “snowflake” design, with many others following in the subsequent decades.

Rome – Summer Olympics 1960

London – Summer Olympics 1948

(sportslogo.net.png) The Tokyo 1964 logo, one of the most minimal designs on this list, is also one of the most aesthetically pleasing. The logo’s striking colour scheme and bold theme were imprinted on programs and posters throughout the games. The main feature, a red disc with a subtle gradient, is drawn from Japan’s iconic flag, named “Hinomaru.”

The flag was only officially adopted in 1870, but its earliest origins date back to the eighth century. The red circle represents the rising sun but is distinct from the controversial Rising Sun flag associated with imperial Japan’s human rights abuses. The design itself was submitted by artist Yusaku Kamekura, whose works mixed Bauhaus influences with traditional eastern designs.

much of the park and recreation infrastructure built for the games remain integral parts of the city.

The rings extending upwards were emblematic of the prevalent design movement at the time called “Canada Modern.” The centre oval represents the track— often seen as the central sporting event of the Olympic games—the three pillars symbolize the medal podium, and the entire design loosely resembles the Canadian maple leaf. This clean and simple design pervaded the entire aesthetic of the games, and was included on everything from the uniforms to the architecture.

Atlanta- Summer 1996

(IOC Summer Olympics 2008) The Beijing 2008 logo, entitled “Chinese Seal-Dancing Beijing,” departs from its more clean-cut predecessors with its unique, calligraphy-inspired style. The white figure in motion is etched out of the red—a colour that bears significant cultural meaning in China—and gives the emblem the look of a Chinese seal. The figure not only depicts a dancing athlete but also bears resemblance to the Chinese character “Jing” to represent the host city. That year, Montreal rejoiced as McGill student Thomas Hall won a bronze medal in the men’s 1000m canoe race.

Tokyo - Summer 2021

Mexico – Summer 1968

(IOC Summer Olympics 1948) Although the Olympics began in 1896, their early branding largely consisted of distinct fonts, coats of arms, and travel posters—rather than logos. The 1948 London Summer games featured the first real “logo,” including the iconic five rings, which symbolize the five original participating continents in the inaugural games. The depiction of the Elizabeth Tower resembles a woodblock print and the hands on the clock tower are set to four o’clock—the time of the opening ceremony, demonstrating an incredible attention to detail. The presentation of a famous British landmark was meant to symbolize the power and stability of England coming out of the Second World War.

(IOC Summer Olympics 1960)

(IOC Summer Olympics 1968)

The Rome 1960 logo is majestic and sombre, evoking the ancient history of its host city. Pictured are Romulus and Remus, the feuding twin brothers described in the bloody legend of the founding of Rome. They sit beneath a snarling she-wolf, who, according to legend, found the twin boys abandoned on the river Tiber and nursed them back to life. She stares at the viewer from afar, as if daring us to rise to the Olympic challenge. Of course, this emblem would not be complete without Roman numerals, which only add to its overall mythical impression: It is as if the logo were etched into an ancient stone wall. Indeed, the games themselves have gone down in history for the notable achievements of Abebe Bikila, the first East African to win a gold medal—and who did so running the marathon completely barefoot.

This design is a visual delight: The slim parallel lines in the font catch the eye and are exceedingly representative of the design wave of the 1960s. “It was making geometry sing,” said Lance Wyman in an interview with Global Sports Matters, the artist who designed the logo. “It was making it expressive, making it beautiful, making it strong. It had a cultural characteristic when we put it all together.” The insertion of the Olympic Rings into the “68” was not only creative and sleek, but was also prominently featured on the advertising and merchandising of the 1968 Olympics, leading to the production of visually stunning hats, stamps, and posters.

Montreal – Summer 1976 This simple, yet pleasant design holds a fond place in many Montrealers’ hearts and is still seared into the city’s core, as

(IOC Summer Olympics 1996) The Atlanta 1996 logo is unique (IOC Summer Olympics 2020) from the others on this list for its vibrant colours and the “100,” marking the Finally, we return to Japan Olympic games’ centennial. Designed for another exemplary design, this

by Michael Collins, the eye-catching time a chequered pattern known as multicoloured stars rising out of the “ichimatsu moyo.” The design is said Olympic torch are evocative of ‘90s to symbolize prosperity due to the graphic design trends, that favoured colour pattern continuing indefinitely. bold colour choices and geometric The lattice is made up of three shapes. The stars also symbolize the different types of shapes to express athletes’ pursuit of excellence. The designer Asao Tokolo’s message of deep green background brings to mind strength in diversity. In addition, the the laurel wreaths originally worn by indigo blue is emblematic of Japanese competitors in Ancient Greece, as well culture due to its use as a dye dating as the tree canopy featured in much back to the 17th century. Though of Atlanta’s urban landscape. These the games took place in the summer were exciting Games for McGill and of 2021, the Tokyo 2020 banner Canada, as McGill graduates Tosha remained since merchandise was Tsang and Alison Korn won silver in already being mass-produced before the womens’ rowing eights. it was postponed for a year.