CaPS Diversity Week 2009
Women in the World of Work
Teach English Abroad Panel Discussions
TESOL/TESL Teacher Training Certification Courses • Intensive 60-Hour Program • Classroom Management Techniques • Detailed Lesson Planning • ESL Skills Development • Comprehensive Teaching Materials • Interactive Teaching Practicum • Internationally Recognized Certificate • Teacher Placement Service • Money-Back Guarantee Included • Thousands of Satisfied Students
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Classifieds To place an ad, via email: ads@dailypublications.org phone : 514-398-6790 fax : 514-398-8318 Cost : McGill Students & Staf : $6,70/day; $6.20/day for 3 or more days. General public : $8.10/day; $6.95/day for 3 or more days. 150 character limit. There will be a $6.00 charge per contract for any characters over the limit. Prices include taxes. MINIMUM ORDER $40.50/ 5 ads. Categories : Housing, Movers/Storage, Employment, Word Processing/ Typing, Services Ofered, For Sale, To Give Away, Wanted to Buy, Rides/Tickets, Lost & Found, Personal, Lessons/Courses, Notices, Volunteers, Musicians, etc. Lost & Found ads are free.
Housing 4 1/2 - MTL North, renovated, large rooms, very quiet and clean, close to buses, metro and all services, 15 mins. away from downtown (Pie-IX metro station), available Oct 1st. $545. Call (450) 661-6110 Looking for a friendly roommate to share a large 4 1/2 with one girl, two cats. Huge room, great neighborhood (NDG right near Hampstead), close to Snowdon metro, buses and all services. Available January or earlier, 417.50$. Email kodamastore@gmail.com
Employment MASTER SCHOOL OF BARTENDING Bartending and table service courses Student rebate Job reference service • 514-849-2828 www.Bartend.ca (on line registration possible)
GET YOUR CLASSIFIEDS ON THE WEB! www.mcgilldaily.com/classifieds
Workshops
Women & Activism: Advocates Unite!
Putting the Power in Your Resume
November 2, 4:30-6:30: Brown, Room 2200
November 2, 1:30-3:00: Brown, Room 5001
Montreal Women in Business Luncheon
Women & Salary Negotiations: Because YOU’RE Worth It!
November 3, 11:30-1:00: Faculty Club Ballroom
Women Entrepreneurs: Taking the Lead
November 4, 1:00-3:00: Brown, Room 5001 ($5 fee)
November 3, 4:30-6:30: Brown, Room 5001
Looking for a church home while attending University? Maybe we’ve got just what you’ve been looking for! Consider the Church of St.Andrew & St.Paul. We are a vibrant Christian community located in the heart of Montreal’s downtown. Our College & Careers groups meet regularly for Bible Studies, social events, and retreats.
And if you visit us this November 8th we’ll treat you to lunch following the service! Service begins at 11:00am
(Sherbrooke St. @ Bishop) 3415 Redpath St. Montreal, Quebec H3G 2G2 514-842-3431
For more information :
youthco@standrewstpaul.com
Check us out on the web :
www.standrewstpaul.com
To register, log-in to myFuture (caps.myfuture.mcgill.ca), click on the “Events” tab, then the “Workshops” tab and keyword search “Diversity Week.” Career Planning Service Service de planiication de carrière
LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM
Leadership Skills Development Workshops If you are a student involved in campus activities as an executive, organizer or event planner, you qualify for the Leadership Training P ro g r a m ’s F R E E S k i l l s Development Workshops. Develop and build your leadership skills. Attend a minimum of five workshops throughout 09/10 academic year and receive a certificate of completion. Coming this November...
Balancing Act of School, Work & Social Life Tuesday, November 3, 5:30-7:30pm (Downtown Campus) Having a tough time juggling all of your different school, work and social commitments? Take steps towards a more balanced life by attending this practical workshop focusing on time management tips and strategies.
Communication Skills for Dealing With Different Personalities Monday, November 9, 4:00-6:00pm (Macdonald Campus) Thursday, November 12, 5:30-7:30pm (Downtown Campus) Is there a clash in personalities in your organization or club? Learn techniques and strategies that will allow you to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with skill and confidence.
Registration now available via Minerva! To access the site, go to our website at: http://www.mcgill.ca/firstyear/leadertraining/ For more info, drop by the First-Year Office in the Brown Building, Suite 2100, or call 514-398-6913
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The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
Table of contents “The mass movement of people across the globe constitutes a major feature of contemporary world politics. Whatever the causes of that movement – usually characterised as war, famine, economic hardship, political repression, climate – the governments of western capitalist states see ‘torrent of people in flight’ as a serious threat to their stability.” —Phillip Cole, Philosophies of exclusion: liberal political theory and immigration
News
Art essay
Sri Lankan Tamils file for refugee status
The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Ciric
Scholars against post-colonial invisibility Supreme Court rejects Bill 104 Reasonable accomodation debate reopens Canada to restrict refugee policy Refugee deportations up 50 per cent
by Rebecca Chapman
Science+Technology Cosmic oversights and migrant moons
Features Freedom of the press
Commentary Traversing the border as a trans person Give permanent residents the right to vote Save your pity: re-engaging with immigration Ni banal ni normal: l’expérience canadienne Climate justice now!
Culture Breaking the silence of immigration Silken movements Putting the story back in history Going somewhere
Editorial Racist immigration policy must change
4 News
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
SSMU and AUS Council to debate Choose Life status Notice of motion submitted to SSMU to revoke club status Eric Andrew-Gee News Writer
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motion to suspend Choose Life’s club status was deferred to the next SSMU Council meeting by Speaker Zach Newburgh when Council convened Wednesday. The motion, tabled by VP External Sebastian RonderosMorgan and Arts Senator Sarah Woolf, raised eyebrows at SSMU due to the ambiguous meaning of the word “suspension” in the council by laws. In an effort to clarify the motion, Arts rep Joël Pedneault and Woolf tabled a Notice of Motion for next Council which would “revoke” Choose Life’s club status rather than “suspend” it. According to the SSMU by-laws, a club must also be given a 14 day notice period before revocation of club status is considered by Council. Due to last week’s Four Floors event in the Shatner building, SSMU Council had to bump up their usual Thursday meeting to Wednesday, which created a time conflict with
the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) Council meeting. While Pedneault and interim representative Connie Gagliardi caucused with SSMU, AUS VP External Marco Garofalo asked the AUS council to give its four representatives to SSMU – Pedneault, Gagliardi, himself, and the interim representative Jade Calver – a mandate on how to vote on the Choose Life motion in SSMU Council. Without Pedneault and Gagliardi present, and in spite of Calver’s vote against the motion, AUS Council approved a motion asking the four to vote against a suspension of Choose Life’s status. Pedneault said it was “a little bit troubling” that he did not have a chance to discuss the motion in AUS Council. AUS Council will, however, have the opportunity to amend the motion when they meet on November 11 – one day ahead of the next SSMU Council meeting. Pedneault indicated that he would pursue this option, saying, “I will be in touch with people from AUS to see if we can revise this.” According to VP Clubs and Services Sarah Olle, if the SSMU
Choose Life motion passes, it will be the first time the sentence has been applied to a SSMU club. After leaving AUS Council for SSMU Council, Garofalo tabled a motion to increase the visibility of the SSMU executive on campus. He pointed out that a similar motion to combat low voter turnout had recently expired, and accused the SSMU executive of being out of touch, “What we have here is a SSMU executive that doesn’t really know what the views of the students are.” The motion proposed that the SSMU executives spend at least two hours outside of their offices every week, on campus, engaging with “disinterested and apathetic students.” It further stipulated that the executives should wear clothing identifying themselves as executives. An amendment was added later extending the terms to nonexecutive councillors. VP Internal Alex Brown, one of the executives opposed to the motion, said, “I think you misunderstand our job: we all spend a lot of time talking to students…and a lot
of them don’t care.” Brown added that she felt the measure was a “band-aid solution” to a much larger problem. After an almost hour-long debate, a slim majority voted down the motion. A motion moved by RonderosMorgan was unanimously approved in Council to extend candidacy period during executive elections by two business days if only one candidate runs for a position. If a position remains acclaimed, the candidate’s name will still appear on the ballot to be voted on. Ronderos-Morgan noted that four out of the six current executives were not even on the ballot of last year’s student elections, and that members of Council were disturbed by this trend. VP University Affairs Rebecca Dooley and other councillors were critical of President Ivan Neilson for not ensuring that the October 21 SSMU General Assembly (GA) was better publicized, after it lost quorum four motions into debate. Referring to the executive’s threeday advertising blitz prior to the GA, Dooley said, “[This] is to me, and to
a lot of students who expressed this to me, an unacceptable amount of time.” Neilson responded by saying that his intention was to have the event fresh in the minds of students when the day came. He also criticized the councillors’ own attendance record, saying, “I don’t think there was enough of an effort.” Council also passed a motion put forward by Olle to perform an audit of Shatner’s energy efficiency, following up on a similar motion approved in the GA. Olle suggested the audit be performed by BPR, a company that has done similar work for McGill sports facilities and libraries, including Redpath. The audit will likely target Shatner’s lighting, steam heating, cooling, and ventilation. Olle projected the cost to SSMU will be $10,819, with Hydro-Québec contributing an additional $6,165 to cover the cost. She said the audit should bring down SSMU’s utility bill, which has been between $400,000 and $600,000 for the past 10 years.
Elections McGill Presents:
FYCC and Referendum Debate Thursday November 5th, 2009 at 5:00PM in Shatner Building Room 302 Come ask the Tough Questions! Find out More About the Referenda that Affect you!
Advanced Polling Begins November 6th! Regular Polling Continues: November 10th-12th Vote online at www.electionsmcgill.ca or at the following polling locations:
Questions? elections@ssmu.mcgill.ca
Leacock Lobby November 10th-12th, 10am-4pm
Burnside Basement November 10th-12th, 10am-4pm
Bronfman Lobby November 10th-12th, 10am-4pm
McConnell Engineering November 10th-12th, 10am-4pm
Shatner Lobby November 10th-12th, 10am-4pm
Advanced Polling Online at www.electionsmcgill.ca from November 6th-10th
News
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
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Glenn MacIntosh / The McGill Daily
3,000 rally for bolder climate change policy Power Shift summit and Fill the Hill rally target Canada’s role at December’s Copenhagen talks Toby Davine News Writer
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TTAWA– Over 1,000 young Canadians gathered in Ottawa last weekend to attend the largest youth summit on climate change in the nation’s history. Power Shift Canada was timed to coincide with the International Day of Climate Action, with over 5,200 demonstrations taking place in 181 countries. The three-day summit featured workshops aimed at equipping students to build a successful climate movement. Participants joined prominent environmental activists to discuss environmental justice and climate policy, and attended a green job symposium. The events led up to a day of lobbying with members of Parliament. Maggie Knight, a SSMU Environment Commissioner and the National Recruitment Coordinator
for Power Shift, explained the need for Canada to adopt a better climate change policy in anticipation of the 15th annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15). “Currently, Canada is an international laggard when it comes to climate change. Our nation is expected to be a major detractor from efforts to come to an agreement on international climate policy at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen this December,” said Knight. “We have yet to see meaningful climate policy that has science-based targets, which leaves Canada in a disgraceful position heading to the negotiations.” On Saturday, summit participants joined forces with 2000 other environmental activists at the Fill the Hill climate change rally, to demand that the federal government establish more comprehensive climate change legislation. Events included a speech
by Green Party leader Elizabeth May and a flash mob dance performed by Power Shift Canada participants. Demonstrators synchronized phone calls to Prime Minister Stephen Harper dialed by hundreds of cell phone-bearing protesters, ultimately disabling his office voicemail. The conference brought together a diverse group of students from all provinces and territories. Nearly 100 McGill students took part in the event, and SSMU provided buses to transport 50 McGill students to and from Ottawa on the day of the demonstration. Knight explained that “marginalized communities often bear the brunt of climate change. We worked hard to bring together youth from every province and territory – including many indigenous, northern, rural, and immigrant youth, as well as young workers and young parents.” COP15 will take place in Copenhagen this December, with a G8 Leaders’ Summit planned for
Huntsville, Ontario in July 2010. Both are key intergovernmental gatherings, where countries will have the opportunity to launch strategies to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Canadian environmentalists have demanded the government pass Bill C-311, a bill for climate change accountability that would tie the federal government to sciencebased targets for greenhouse gas emissions. It was hoped that the bill would pass in time for the climate change talks, but was delayed in the House of Commons on October 21. McGill student Devon Willis, who will represent Canadian youth at the COP15 conference, commented on the importance of the bill. “What we are asking is for the government to pass Bill C-311, and to be a progressive force at the UN Climate Change Summit to attain a fair, ambitious, and law-binding agreement.” Last Monday afternoon, pro-
testers disrupted the House of Commons during Question Period, chanting “Pass Bill C-311” and “When I say ‘climate’, you say ‘justice,’” from the public gallery. All 120 individuals in the gallery were removed, with six protesters detained. Powershift organizers said the summit and rally mark the beginning of a nationwide action on climate change. Rosa Kouri, the former director of the Sierra Youth Coalition and the founder of Sustainable McGill, said that, “[Power Shift] has catalyzed a powerful social movement to tackle global warming head on. Young people are ready for the clean energy economy. In fact, we are building it already.” Hosted by the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, Power Shift Canada is a part of an international youth climate movement that began in the United States in 2007. Since then, youth have participated in the similar summits in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Sri Lankan Tamils file for refugee status Group remains in CBSA detention in Vancouver Niko Block The McGill Daily
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eventy-six Sri Lankan Tamils who arrived in the port of Vancouver last month have begun the process of filing for refugee status, though they continue to be detained by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The passengers, all of whom are male, were apprehended on October 17 when their ship was seized by the coast guard and the navy. Canada’s Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Jason Kenney, has stressed the importance of carefully screening the migrants for any connections to the blacklisted minority separatist organization the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), and has stated that Canada needs to do “a much better job of shutting the back door of immigration for those who seek to abuse [the] asylum system.”
All of the passengers have obtained legal assistance with their refugee claims, often from the lawyers who had represented their relatives now living in Canada, or through Canadian Tamil community groups. Sue Nathan of the Canadian Tamil Congress said that the men have fled Sri Lanka because of the government’s chronic mistreatment of the country’s Tamil population. “The target group mainly was based around young men and women, especially young men,” Nathan said. “Living in Sri Lanka is almost like having a death warrant. They will, one way or the other, be persecuted by the Sri Lankan military and Sri Lankan government.” Nathan cited reports that have emerged from the country that over a quarter of a million Tamils remain trapped in government-run internment camps following last spring’s spate of violence between the LTTE and the Sinhalese-dominated government.
The government’s recent seizure of power in the Tamil-dominated north of the country is widely seen as the peremptory end to a civil conflict that has killed as many as 100,000 people since it began in the seventies. In recent months, greater numbers of displaced Tamils have attempted to seek asylum outside their native country; another boat of Tamil refugees arrived in Indonesia last month on the way to its intended destination of Australia, but both countries have refused to let the passengers ashore. Since the arrival of the 76 Tamils in Vancouver, the Sri Lankan government has claimed that one of the passengers is affiliated with the LTTE. The man’s name was subsequently leaked to the press – a development Nathan was extremely displeased with. “As a refugee you’re seeking asylum in a country because your life is in danger. His life, and also the lives of his family members,
have been put in jeopardy, and if he is ever sent back to Sri Lanka I can definitely say that his death warrant has been issued,” Nathan said. Lee Rankin, a Vancouver-based lawyer who has offered preliminary legal counsel to about 30 of the passengers, said that since the Tamil men have now been identified and their refugee claims are currently being processed, the government should not continue holding them. “The government’s comments suggest that they are intending to take a hard line on this particular boatload of people,” Rankin said. “The ones that I’ve dealt with do not seem to be any different from any of the thousands of Tamils that come to Canada. They’re ethnic Tamils; they obviously feel vulnerable. I haven’t met any that said that they were in any way associated with the LTTE.” Processing the refugee claimants before the immigration review
board has been a slow process, and only a handful of them were brought before the board within 48 hours of their detention. “They should be released in the ordinary course once their identities have been established, but we’re learning that the CBSA, on behalf of the Canadian government…are now bringing forward allegations that there’s security concerns with respect to them,” said Rainkin. “There’s no obvious reason to do this, other than the minister’s promise to get tough with this group of people. They’ve established their identity, and now they’re going to go after them on security grounds.” Another passenger, a minor, was released from detention last week. Canada has accepted 93 per cent of the Tamils who claimed refugee status in the past nine months, Officials at the Ministry of Immigration and Citizenship, as well as the CBSA, declined to comment.
6 News
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
WHAT’S THE HAPS
Against post-colonial invisibility Braden Goyette The McGill Daily
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ORONTO - Friday, October 23 marked the first-ever national symposium for Filipino-Canadian scholars. Academics drawn from across the humanities and social sciences came to the University of Toronto’s (U of T) Ontario Institute for Studies in Education to discuss challenges facing Filipinos in Canada and their underrepresentation in public life despite being Canada’s fourth largest visible minority group. “As far as I know there are only seven professors of Filipino descent across Canada,” said U of T professor Roland Sintos Coloma, symposium organizer and featured presenter. The all-day symposium, entitled “Spectres of In/visibility: Filipina/o lives in Canada,” was organized by the Kritikal Kolektibo, a year-old research group of U of T faculty and graduate students. It featured nearly 20 presenters and performers. As a first conversation for the FilCan academic community, the symposium covered a lot of ground in a short period of time, touching on political participation for migrants in Canada, representations of youth violence in the media, queer Filipino issues, and the role of the arts in community activism. The Daily caught up with a few of the presenters and participants afterwards to further explore some of the points addressed at the symposium.
Filipino migration and Canadian economic interests The first wave of Filipino migration to Canada began in the sixties. Valerie Damasco, a U of T PhD student in the Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology, discussed the findings of her Masters research on Canadian recruitment of Filipino nurses during that time. Her findings suggest Canada had a vested interest in recruiting Filipino health
care professionals during the nursing shortage in the sixties. Moreover, Damasco’s research supported the idea, echoed throughout the day’s presentations, that Canada’s economic needs drove Filipino migration to this country, not just the introduction of the point system or the political and economic crises in the Philippines Yet coexistent with the need for Filipino labour were discriminatory practices that set barriers in their path once they got here – a paradoxical situation that reflects the conditions immigrants face today. “The Ontario College of Nurses were very reluctant to bring over health care professionals from the Philippines,” Damasco explained. “They were more interested in bringing over nurses from Europe.”
Collective amnesia There is a collective amnesia about the history of Filipino migration to Canada. When Damasco asked a spokesperson from the Ontario Nurse’s Association for information about the recruitment of health care professionals during the sixties, the representative replied that Filipino nurses didn’t enter the country until the eighties and nineties as domestic workers and personal support workers. Coloma presented a paper discussing how Filipinos have been written out of Canadian history textbooks, grouped together with other Asian groups in ways that mask the conditions of Filipino life in Canada. He drew parallels between the current experience of Filipino women in the Live-in Caregiver Program and that of Black Caribbean women in the forties, fifties, and sixties, who also occupied domestic work and caregiver roles. “If we can connect this to increasing numbers of Latinos and Caribbeans coming through temporary agricultural and service sector work, this starts disrupting certain ways we analyze race and multicul-
Kim Abus for The McGill Daily
First Filipino-Canadian symposium tries to bridge ivory tower and community activism
Live painting accompanied one of the talks. turalism in Canada,” Coloma said.
The Live-in Caregiver Program: scrap vs. review Heated discussion followed the screening of Scrap the Live-in Caregiver Program, a documentary made by members of the FilipinoCanadian Youth Alliance, that shed light on internal divides within the community surrounding the LCP. The film documented the ripple effects that the exploitative nature of the program has for generations of Filipinos coming to Canada, including the periods of family separation involved, which contribute to young people’s difficulties integrating and high high school dropout rates. Nora Angeles, a professor of Community and Regional Planning and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of British Columbia, called for review and reform of the program rather than scrapping. “There are only so many doors to immigration into Canada. If we close this door, will there be other ones open?” Cecilia Diocson, founder of the Philippine Women’s Centre of Vancouver, countered that the program constitutes a form of modernday slavery. “People don’t openly ask: is it worth it? Is the violence, is the abuse worth being able to send money to the Philippines to save
their families… worth it in terms of being overworked and underpaid? … Some would say it isn’t worth it because ultimately it is about dehumanization – and others would say perhaps it’s not completely worth it, but what are the alternatives?” Coloma asked.
Toward engaged scholarship Audience members at the symposium left thinking about how to bridge the gap between academia and the concerns of their communities. Jennilee Austria, a school settlement worker in Rexdale-Etobicoke high schools, who focuses on helping Filipino newcomers, encouraged the academics present to support her students in the classroom, and to work with Filipino youth on a more case-specific basis. Alex Felipe, who works with the Kapisanan Centre for Philippine Arts and Culture, as well as Migrante and Migrante Youth, thought there was a good deal of potential in FilipinoCanadian scholarship. He expressed the need for a stronger community presence at events like these, particularly reaching out to more livein caregivers. “Academia, when it’s done well, speaks for the people. It compiles the voices of the people in a manner that’s suitable for academics and scholars, but it’s still the voice of the people,” said Felipe.
McGill to temporarily change sick-note policy Sam Neylon The McGill Daily
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cGill will officially announce this week that it is relaxing its medical-note policy in light of a large amount of possible absences due to the H1N1 virus. A self-reporting system will be available on Minerva, which will serve as an acceptable document for absences up to nine days for class and assignments, and seven days for pratica, fieldwork, and placements, according to Morton Mendelson, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning). Wayne Wood, the Associate Director for Environmental Health and Safety and chair of the
Pandemic Contingency Planning Committee, explained that the policy was enacted as part of the University’s efforts to contain the virus. “We don’t want to send people out there who are sick and infect others,” Wood said. Mendelson explained that although cases of the flu are not yet prevalent, McGill set up the system, in part, to gain information on the spread of the flu. “We have the self-report in play before we have lots and lots of sick students. By having a selfreport, it allows us to better track cases, and estimate how prevalent flu is on campus,” Mendelson said.
Rebecca Dooley, SSMU VP University Affairs, who also sits on the Pandemic Contingency Planning Committee, explained that the committee is focused on ensuring that McGill’s response to the virus will be effective and dynamic during the flu season. “A lot of the planning was around how do we make ourselves flexible, and how do we make our courses flexible. So that if a professor gets sick, if a student gets sick, it doesn’t throw everybody completely off track,” Dooley said. “It was understood that there would definitely be a point where there would be a spike in cases, and we would have to move to an honoursystem.”
Dooley explained that there were some difficulties dealing with specific labour laws, but the committee felt the notion of flexibility was essential. “Everybody would say, at least once at every meeting, in the event of a pandemic, you have to be flexible, you have to make sacrifices,” Dooley said. Though Mendelson said the new self-reporting policy is only temporary, Dooley stated that she hopes the practice of encouraging professors to have more frequent and varying examinations during regular flu season would become common practice once H1N1 has passed.
Culture Shock 2009 Monday, November 2 – Friday, November 6 Brought to you by SSMU and QPIRG McGill, Culture Shock is a week of events dedicated to exploring the myths surrounding immigrant, refugee, and communities of colour. It will feature a keynote panel, a party, roundtable discussions, a walking tour, and a series of fun workshops. For more information, check out qpirgmcgill.org/2009/10/ culture-shock-2009/ or email qpirg@ssmu.mcgill.ca TVMcGill Editing Week Monday, November 2 – Friday, November 6 Shatner B-23 Interested in editing your own stories? Get to know Final Cut Pro with the help of the TVMcGill executive members during their annual Editing Week. Sign up for an hour-long workshop outside the TVMcGill office in the basement of Shatner, across from Gert’s. All are welcome! CKUT Feedback Collective Monday, November 2, 4:30 – 6 p.m. 3647 University Interested in constructive criticism from other radioproducing folks? Curious about basic interview styles, practicing speaking for radio, or to advanced audio editing and mixing? We are too! Come to CKUT’s office every Monday to participate. Canada and the Mining Industry Tuesday, November 3, 6 – 9 p.m. Shatner clubs lounge A panel discussion will feature Judy Da Silva, community member and activist from Grassy Narrows; Enrique Rivera, a Mexican activist and political refugee targeted by Canadian mining company goons in Mexico; Alain Deneault, professor at UQAM and antimining activist who is being sued by Barrick Gold and Banro for his anti-mining work and writing focusing on Canadian companies in African countries. Cinema Politica: Art and Apathy Thursday, November 5, 8 p.m. Leacock 26 Art and Apathy is a film project that documents the complexity of life in Israel and Palestine as experienced by local artists. It examines several political and social elements that are often oversimplified in international media, and defines terms such as the green line, the right to return, Palestine 48, Intifada, Zionism, and other key concepts.
News
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
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Supreme Court rejects Bill 104 Immigrant families relieved to gain greater access to English education Jeff Bishku-Aykul The McGill Daily
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he Canadian Supreme Court has declared Quebec’s Bill 104, legislation passed in 2002 restricting students’ access to English-language public schools, as unconstitutional, and has given Quebec’s National Assembly one year to repeal the law. The ruling has been hailed as a victory for thousands of immigrant families in Quebec, who typically opt to have their children educated in English Since Bill 104’s inception as an amendment to the Charter of the French Language, the legislation has stirred controversy. The Quebec Court of Appeal first ruled that the law was unconstitutional in 2007. The ruling was then appealed in Canada’s Supreme Court by the Quebec government. The law prevents students who have undergone one year of instruction in private English schools from entering English public schools. During the appeal, Montreal lawyer Brent Tyler represented 25 families struggling with the law. Despite the widespread description of Bill 104 as closing a “loophole,” Tyler said he did not agree with this perspective. Instead he viewed the choice of parents to send their children to a public school after attending private school as an issue of constitutional freedom.
“The exercise of a constitutional right should never be considered a loophole,” Tyler said. “It’s a question of giving proper priority to the constitution.” Tyler maintained that many francophone parents also choose to send their children to English schools because the quality of bilingual education is better at these schools. About a quarter of the families represented in his case were francophone, Tyler claimed. “They want bilingual children, and the French school system is pitiful in teaching English as a second language,” Tyler said. Enrolment in English schools has dropped in recent years. Like Tyler, the Quebec English School Boards Association, which intervened in the Supreme Court case, believed that Bill 104 is responsible for this change. The organization wrote an online press release stating that “Bill 104 eliminates access to English schools for at least 500 students per year – primarily in the greater Montreal region. Those students are essential to our system, and the consequential impact on the French school system would be very modest.” One of the families represented by Tyler includes Montreal mother Audrey Smith, who moved to Canada from Jamaica around two decades ago. Smith believed that the system can be fixed only if both English and French are taught
Sarah Mongeau-Birkett/ The McGill Daily
New resident families will no longer be forced to send their children to French schools. equally. “You think you’re coming to Canada, and Canada is bilingual. I figured it would be predominantly French here, but that English would be spoken and learnt by all, so that you could function well in both,” Smith said. “It’s extremely easy to fix the situation…to have French Canadians learning English where they will be able to function in English and have anglophones learning French to a point that they
will function.” While Quebec has been busy debating its language laws, the province’s demographics have also rapidly changed. Fewer Quebeckers speak English as a native language than French, but the number of allophones, those whose first language is neither French nor English, is rapidly rising. 75 per cent of recent immigrants, those who arrived between 2001 and 2006, are allophones.
Both Smith and President of the Quebec English School Boards Association Debbie Horrocks hope to be included in the process of determining what legislation might replace Bill 104. “What a year is going to mean, I don’t know,” Horrocks said. “We don’t have to be included in the process, but we have sent a letter to Premier Charest saying we want to be part of the discussion coming up with the new legislation.”
Reasonable accomodation debate reopens Muslim community at centre of contentions over cultural diversity Nicholas van Beek News Writer
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ill 16, which has already passed one vote in the Quebec National Assembly, has recently sparked a resurgent debate over reasonable accommodation. The bill is the legislative manifestation of the BouchardTaylor commission of 2007, which called on the government to encourage cultural diversity in the province. Christiane Pelchat, chairperson of the provincial government’s advisory council on the status of women, reopened the debate when she said that in the pursuit of cultural diversity, the new legislation would strengthen religious freedoms but compromise the rights of women. Pelchat was critical of the pending legislation for ignoring secular values. She suggested that Bill 16 be amended to give equality between men and women precedence over freedom of religion. She charged that Bill 16 would be “creating a hierarchy of rights [where] freedom of religion has priority over all other rights.”
The Parti Québécois, l’Action democratique du Québec (ADQ), and members of the Liberal party, such as provincial Immigration Minister Yolande James, voiced similar concerns. Gada Mahrouse, of the Simonede-Bouvoir Institute at Concordia University, is an expert on the topic of reasonable accommodation, and responded to Pelchet’s decision to reopen debate. “It is obvious that the concern in Quebec is not with all religious practices, but very particularly Muslim practices. What Pelchat and the Conseil have been preoccupied with from the start is the veiled Muslim woman. Yet, if you were to ask women in Quebec who are practicing Muslims about what concerns them most, they would reply things like employment, poverty, violence…and racism that members of their community face.” It is a “great example of feminism missing the mark…. It is an instance where feminism is inadvertently mobilized in ways that perpetuate racism.” The French-language media has been vocal in questioning the
actions of the Charest government. Moderate voices included Michel David from Le Devoir, who said that the absence of defined “secular values” in Bill 16 enabled the courts to shape the nature of reasonable accommodation. Richard Martineau from Le Journal de Montréal offered a far more controversial opinion, stating that religious symbols have no place in public space. He even asked Quebeckers to take matters into their own hands by refusing to be served by public employees wearing a hijab or burqa. The president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, spoke directly to the Journal columnist, saying that “Muslims in Quebec get abused by people like Martineau.” “We have a serious problem in Quebec. How can you go ahead and vote for something like [Bill 16] when day in and day out people are exposed to anti-Muslim sentiments?” Elmenyawi said. Elmenyawi said that since 2001, the Muslim community has been faced with “all kinds of problems,” which he thinks were at least partially resolved in the Bouchard-
Taylor report. “Bouchard-Taylor was reasonable for all parties involved, and I thought that was fair, and with all that debate, and now we are back where we started.” The oft-cited Bouchard-Taylor report (produced by former McGill professor Charles Taylor) was commissioned by the provincial government in February 2007 to understand previous instances of insensitivity towards ethnic minorities, especially against the Islamic populations of Quebec. In contrast to Elmenyawi’s views was a demand by the Liberal Canadian Muslim Congress, who recently asked the federal government to ban the burqa in Canada. They argue that the Koran does not require women to wear a burqa, and it is a disingenuous evocation of religious freedom. Mahrouse also responded to Martineau’s column. “Reports such as these succeed at perpetuating a moral panic about the loss of [Quebec] identity. It is important to bear in mind that the question of secularism that has become such a preoccupation in Quebec is part of a much larger phe-
nomenon in the West since 9/11.” McGill professor of Christian thought Douglas Farrow was questioned after his lecture at the Religion and the Public Sphere lecture series entitled “Ethics and Religious Cultures: Why the Fuss?” When asked whether or not Pelchat’s concerns were justified, Darrow responded that “Yes I do actually. Rights for human beings that are specific have to be rooted in some sense of what is human dignity, justice; the common good…. A certain belief will support a different conception of rights.” Addressing Islam, Darrow said that “this particular religious view has particular implications for how you treat certain people, including women.” Mahrouse described the complex nature of the debate, where progressive initiatives are not always what they seem. “In many ways this debate is reminiscent of old-fashioned patriarchal citizenship projects that were overtly gendered and racialized, yet it is one that is paradoxically supported by feminist calls of equality and progress,” she said.
8 News
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
Canada to restrict refugee policy Critics say government overlooks reality in “safe” countries Cynthia Beaudry and Nicholas Wang News Writers
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he Canadian government is preparing important changes to Canada’s refugee policy that critics fear may prevent people suffering persecution from seeking refuge in Canada. “This is a broken system and it needs to be streamlined,” said the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, in a recent statement to the Commons Immigration Committee. Kenney has repeatedly blamed “false refugees” and “bogus” claimants for overburdening the refugee claimant system, which faces a backlog of 61,000 cases awaiting decision. Currently, all refugee claimants within Canada have the right to a hearing, presided over by one commissioner from the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). However, refugee claimants wait an average 18 months before their hearing, and some are left in limbo for up to 7 years before knowing their fate. In order to weed out supposedly “false” refugees, Kenney has proposed favouring UN-approved refugees over refugee claimants in Canada. In an interview with Embassy Magazine, Kenney alleged that “false” claimants in Canada are
“clogging up our asylum system and delaying processing times for real victims of persecution.” Janet Dench, the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), notes an alarming increase in cases of discrimination against refugee claimants within Canada. “We have heard of many instances where refugees’ access to basic services has been compromised. People, believing that they are bogus claimants, refuse to offer them services,” Dench said. De Sales Kouassi, a refugee claimant from Cote D’Ivoire, expressed concern about Kenney’s comments. “The moment when we make such unfounded statements, we push the masses towards rejecting asylum claimants,” Kouassi said. He added that such comments were irresponsible for a government minister to make. “Calling people liars when you have no proof is a denouncement.” Kenney has also speculated about fast-tracking refugee claimants from countries, notably democracies, where citizens are generally thought to be safe from persecution. Critics charge that this proposal will further undermine Canada’s obligation to protect those fleeing from persecution by rushing these people through the evaluation process. “We completely oppose any
change to the system which will lead to discrimination of claimants based on their country of origin,” Dench said. “Women fleeing gender persecution and those seeking protection based on sexual orientation will be particularly affected by these changes.” Dench noted that such instances of persecution persist in otherwise relatively “safe” countries. On July 14, the Conservative government imposed visas against citizens of Mexico and the Czech Republic, in an effort to stem refugee claims from countries deemed “safe.” The Harper government has targeted these countries as being major sources of “false” claims, although observers point toward the increasing drug-related violence in Mexico and numerous, well-documented cases of ethnic persecution against the Roma in the Czech Republic. Sylvain Thibeault, coordinator of Projet Refuge, a temporary residence for refugee claimants in Montreal, fears that the visa requirement has seriously endangered the lives of genuine refugee claimants, who have been pre-emptively denied protection. He argues that IRB commissioners are more qualified to evaluate refugee claims than the minister, who acts on political biases. “We have to trust those that represent expertise. Kenney represents immigration,” said Thibeault.
Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily
Evanivaldo Tinajero, a refugee claimant from Mexico, agreed that Kenney lacks understanding of the situation in Mexico. “Arriving in Canada one week before the visa, I was one of the last refugee claimants from Mexico. The minister has never lived in Mexico and doesn’t understand the dangers from the government’s association with narco-trafficking,” Tinajero said. Others point to the lack of staffing in the IRB as the primary source of the backlog. According to the CCR web site, “The current large backlog of claims is caused by the government’s failure to appoint sufficient Board members to make decisions. The government has thus created an incentive for people to make a claim in Canada in order to work here for a few years, even if they expect that their claim will eventually be refused.” Critics have also expressed concern about another significant policy change implemented July 23. The
“Safe Third Country Agreement,” which prohibits potential claimants arriving from the United States from entering Canada, was expanded to previously exempted citizens of countries such as Burundi, Haiti, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thibeault notes that many of the refugee claimants who have received protection from Canada in the past had passed through the United States first, and that they will no longer be able to seek protection here. This change has particularly affected francophones who would have sought asylum in Quebec. “Toronto is overflowing with claims, but here we had to close residences,” Thibeault said. Thibeault explained that although it is often easier to access United States territory, because of language, it is harder for francophones to both make their claim effectively and integrate in the United States.
Refugee deportations up 50 per cent Lack of appeals process, hasty deportations a growing trend in immigration policy Humera Jabir The McGill Daily
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he number of deportations from Canada has increased by an unprecedented 50 per cent in the last decade. Statistics released by the federal government under the Access to Information Act earlier this month show that Canadian Border Services deported 12,732 individuals last year, up from 8,361 removals in 1999. Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, criticized the federal government’s approach to refugee claimants. “What we saw and heard was that there was an increase in the budget allocation to respond to the September 11 attacks and demands for new security measures. More money went for more detentions and removals,” said Dench. “They had more money and because of that they do more deportations.” Dench also criticized the refugee application process, noting the inability of refugee claimants to appeal decisions made by the Immigration Board of Canada. The
decision to accept or decline an application is currently made by a single decision-maker – something Dench viewed as a major flaw in the system. “The problem in the refugee system, its failure, is that it doesn’t have an appeal [process] at the moment.... Canadians get an appeal on all manner of things – even parking tickets. But in the case of refugees, for those whose lives may be at stake, there is no appeal,” said Dench. Last Thursday, a Montreal family of four was deported to the United States – where they face probable deportation to Bangladesh – after their final bid for permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds was refused by Immigration Canada late last month. Ranjit Dey Roy, Ranta Ranni Dey Roy, and their two sons had arrived from Bangladesh in 2004 after fleeing persecution for their religious beliefs, but their application for refugee status was rejected the following year. Members of Parliament Lise Zarac and Thierry St-Cyr met with Minister of Immigration and Citizenhip Jason
Kenney on Wednesday to request an emergency stay of deportation for the family but were unsuccessful. The family received support from the Montreal Immigrant Workers Center and Hindu Association of Montreal during their stay in Quebec. Mostafa Henaway of the Montreal Immigrant Workers Center suggested that the family’s case was one of many that indicate the growing trend of hasty deportations. “The fact that deportations are up by 50 per cent is very clear that the Conservative government has actually been making enforcement [of deportation] their major policy drive,” Henaway said, stating that the immigration officer who handled the Roy family case had overlooked the dangers the family might face in Bangladesh. “The problem is that [the system] is so arbitrary…. There was not even a written decision as to why [the Roy family] were refused,” said Henaway. “It is very clear that Canada is disregarding the actual safety of people’s lives, from 76 Tamil refugees off the coast of Vancouver,
to the Mexican women who was killed [after she was deported]. These people are not in the few, they are in the many,” Henaway added. Though Kenney declined to comment on the increase in the number of deportations, the federal government has suggested that the spike in deportations is a result of a rising number of refugee claims in Canada. But statistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board suggest that the number of individuals seeking refugee status in Canada has dropped recently: 35,000 claims were received last year, significantly lower than the 44,000 claims in 2001, and the 39,000 claims in 2002. Obiora Chinedu Okafor, a law professor at Osgoode Hall, commented that the federal government’s practices demonstrate that the enforcement of deportation orders is a growing priority. Okafor also said that a growing focus on enforcement could easily overlook the risks faced by individual claimants. “Anytime that you are enforcement-minded, mistakes are bound
to happen,” said Okafor. Individuals facing deportation can apply for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) which allows claimants to present new evidence of risks they may face if sent back to the home country. Okafor felt, however, that the PRRA process was problematic. “It is not an appeal, just an assessment, done by immigration officers, not by someone who is independent,” he said. Okafor also took issue with the Canadian government’s willingness to deport individuals to countries with shoddy human rights track records. Most deported individuals are sent to the U.S. and Mexico, although hundreds have also been sent to countries known to violate human rights, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, and Zimbabwe. “It is shocking but in the past we have deported people to places where even immigration officers would not go to. If the place is not safe enough for Canadian officers to go to, then how can we deport people there? Even if they are convicted criminals, convicted criminals have rights,” said Okafor.
News
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
9
In solidarity with indigenous sovereignty Activists discuss indigenous sovereignty
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ndigenous Sovereignty Week, a pan-Canadian event to raise awareness about the fight of Native peoples for self-determination, was held from October 25 to 31. Montreal hosted educational and awareness-raising events to draw attention to the issues that affect Native communities today, from ongoing instances of oppression to the denial of basic rights on reserves. The Daily attended a series of talks and workshops organized by the Defenders of the Land Network, a group of elders and youth who are leading the struggle for land rights across Canada in an effort to reach out to Montrealers and all citizens.
Indigenous solidarity without borders Kayle Towsley and Marina Chirchikova of the Indigenous Solidarity Collective discussed the ongoing struggle of the Innu people of the Natassinan, a territory located in Labrador and eastern Quebec, at a workshop Monday at QPIRG Concordia. The Innu have never signed a treaty ceding their lands to the Canadian government, though white settlement, mining companies, and the Canadian air force – which frequently conducts low-level flying exercises in the area – have gradually encroached upon much of their land. Towsley and Chirchikova focused much of their presentation on the work of Innu elder and activist Elizabeth Penashue, who is currently resisting the construction of the Lower Churchill Dam. In the sixties, the construction of a similar dam – the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project – tremendously diminished the flow of the Churchill River, altered caribou migration patterns, and dramatically increased the levels of mercury found in the river’s fish. Towsley said the government has coerced the Innu into living in small, sedentary communities in
order “to exploit the resources that were found in Natassinan territory.” Towsley cited the establishment of large-scale mining operations in the sixties, an ongoing process that has only accelerated since the midnineties when one of the world’s largest nickel reserves was found in the area. “The process the government uses to allow settlers to establish mining sites in Natassinan really explains their relationship with the Innu,” said Towsley, adding that tracts of Crown land there can be obtained by prospectors simply by placing a pin on a map, filling out some forms, and paying a refundable $240 deposit. In the past, said Chirchikova, Innu activists have resorted to such nonviolent strategies of protest as occupying foreign embassies, staging a lock-in at a local school, roadblocks, and forming human blockades on the Canadian air force’s runways. “I think it’s important for us, as settlers, to approach this from the perspective of solidarity and not charity,” Chirchikova said. —Niko Block
In a talk entitled “Colonial Canada 101,” members of Defenders of the Land, a cross-Canada network fighting for the rights of indigenous peoples, exposed the audience to the origins and manifestations of the injustice faced by indigenous peoples in Canada today. Former Daily editor Martin Lukacs and Courtney Kirkby, activists who work in the Barriere Lake community five hours northwest of Montreal, led the workshop. They spoke on the existence of an alternate Canadian history to the one taught in schools, a history of malicious imperial agendas, and of repression of Native people by the Canadian government. “One of the aims of the workshop is to help people to understand what the government’s role has been in propagating problems and not creating solutions,” explained Lukacs A pattern brought up by Lukacs and Kirby during the
workshop was the Canadian government’s systematic attempts to either repress Natives or assimilate them. They described how the Indian Act of 1876, which remains a part of the Constitution today, was designed to transform individual Natives into “wards of the state” with no Native-specific rights. Lukacs referred to the Indian Act as “assimilation 2.0” and referred to the reservations it designated for Natives as “little factories for their demise.” Kirkby and Lukacs explained how these patterns of oppression have continued into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. “Pierre Trudeau is supposed to have been a good prime minister,” said Lukacs, describing Trudeau’s reservations toward the 1969 White Paper that proposed the abolition of the Indian Act. “But he believed that since Natives faced discrimination, they should be assimilated.”
Kirkby brought the discussion back to Montreal when she announced the Barriere Lake community had received that morning notice that it would lose its right to internal governance and would be forced to hold monitored elections. One of the most striking points during the workshop was that Canada continues to violate Native rights even though they are firmly established under Section 35 of the Constitution. “The Canadian government is in violation of its own laws,” said Lukacs. “Section 35 is talked about as being a treasure chest or an empty box. The Canadian government wants it to be an empty box.” Canada remains one of three countries, with the U.S. and New Zealand, which have not signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. —Timothy Lem-Smith
Residents of Natassinan territory fight settlers Members of No One Is Illegal spoke Wednesday afternoon at a session on First Nations solidarity activism, to discuss how the struggle of Native peoples can be supported from a noborders perspective. In their presentations, Jaggi Singh, Robyn Maynard, and Sareta Ahooja all discussed aspects of anti-capitalist resistance, decolonization, and anti-racism. Singh began the presentation by explaining No One Is Illegal’s belief that the institution of national border protection represents an inherent system of violence and racism. He discussed various examples of border protection policies that result in the death or imprisonment of thousands of would-be immigrants all over the world, and asserted that all people deserve the right to migrate, resist displacement, and
return to their lands of origin. “Migration today is not just some arbitrary phenomenon; it’s the result of hundreds of years of colonialism and imperialism,” said Singh. Maynard then focused the discussion more narrowly on Canada’s history of displacing, subjugating, and disenfranchising First Nations peoples. “It’s important that we see Canada as a settler state that came about as a result of genocide, theft, and warfare,” she said. Maynard explained that status Indians were barred from voting in federal elections until 1960, and briefly discussed the federal government’s residential schools, which operated under a largely pro-assimilation mandate and were notoriously abusive toward their students. “Colonialism isn’t over in
Canada,” she said. “There’s still land being taken on a day-to-day basis.” Ahooja expanded upon Maynard’s presentation by discussing the conditions faced by Mohawks living near the Canada-U.S. border, including the loss of their traditional lands, and a history of working as migrant laborers and steelworkers in urban centres across North America. She then launched into a discussion of the border dispute stemming from the arming of customs agents at the Mohawk reserve of Akwesasne. “We have to get beyond the legalese of these struggles and focus instead on principles of humanity, as a part of the larger point of resisting global apartheid,” Ahooja said. —N.B.
Canadian-Indigenous relations A conference was held Tuesday at McGill as part of Indigenous Solidarity Week, dealing with “Overcoming Canada’s colonial agenda.” Russell Diabo, a Mohawk policy analyst and editor of the First Nations Strategic Bulletin, spoke along with Kenneth Deer, activist and editor/publisher of the Eastern Door, an independent newspaper serving the Mohawk community of Kahnawake. Deer replaced Arthur Manuel, a spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade (INET), who couldn’t attend because of a family emergency. The speakers described the history of indigenous relations with the Canadian government and the international political community. Reading from his newsletter “Canada’s War on First Nations,” Diabo discussed various legislation concerning indigenous people, amendments, and a list of treaties and agreements broken by the Canadian government. He described Canadian policies as “a legal, political, and
fiscal war on First Nations,” and stated that First Nations need to unite and organize in order to overcome their legal and economic disadvantages. “First Nations need commitment, organization, and discipline,” said Diabo. “The situation is not new. It has been an ongoing problem.” Deer opened by describing the history of First Nations in international politics, from Iroqouis relations with the League of Nations in 1923 and 1924 to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People adopted in 2007. He also described the solidarity and shared difficulties of indigenous communities around the world. “All indigenous people have been dispossessed,” said Deer. “We [don’t] speak the same language, but we have the same problems.” Deer then articulated his personal feelings on Cornwall Island, a part of the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne located on the border of the U.S. and Canada, which was recently
vacated by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) after residents protested the arming of CBSA agents at the customs checkpoint located on the island. “In my opinion, Cornwall [Island] should be an independent Mohawk state,” said Deer. “[But Canada] won’t allow a single square inch of land to return back to the original owners.” The panel briefly digressed as members of the Kahnawake community attending the conference questioned the panelists on whether they would join the community in blocking the passage of the Olympic Torch through Mohawk land. “I would support the [Olympic] Torch coming through Kahnawake if it was on Mohawk terms, not Canada’s. If it was on Mohawk terms, it would be an exercise of our sovereignty,” Deer said. —Henry Gass
Science+Technology
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
10
Controversy clouds opinion Why it’s impossible to have a reasoned debate about abortion
The Split Brain Daniel Lametti
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couple of weeks ago, Natalie Fohl, the president of Choose Life McGill, stood up in front of a small crowd in Leacock 232 to introduce her club and the guest speaker she had invited to give a talk that night, anti-abortion activist Jose Ruba. “Our goal is to promote respect for human life,” she began, before adding that she hoped the event would “encourage discussion and thoughtful consideration of abortion.” It was a reasoned introduction, but 30 seconds after Ruba took the stage, he was suddenly interrupted by a group of protesters. Shouts of “Please go” echoed through the room in sync
with the pounding of fists on desks. Ruba’s supporters began to get upset; a man in the audience compared the disrupters to the Hitler Youth. Campus security was called first, followed by the police. In the end, the talk was cancelled, two protestors were arrested, and McGill came off looking like a black hole for free speech. What the hell happened? Admittedly, the title of Ruba’s talk – “Echoes of the Holocaust” – sounded a little crazy, if not offensive. But even if Ruba had been giving a less controversial anti-abortion talk, does debating such a controversial topic in an environment of opinionated students
actually lead to “thoughtful consideration” as Fohl and others had hoped? In 1978, Mark Lepper, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, ran an experiment to see if he could change the opinions that Stanford students held on the death penalty. Lepper surveyed a random sample of undergraduates and chose 24 that were strongly in favour of capital punishment and 24 that were strongly opposed to it. He then presented each of the 48 students with two written statements. The first detailed a study showing that murder rates were lower in states that had the death penalty; the second detailed a different study showing that murder rates were actually higher in states that had the death penalty. Given such conflicting information, one might predict that the students’ extreme views on the death penalty would be moderated, but this is not what Lepper found. After reading the statements, those that favoured the death penalty before were now more in favour of it, and
those that opposed the death penalty before were now even more opposed to it: views had become more extreme, not less. Lepper concluded that the students simply believed information that confirmed what they already thought and ignored everything else. A 2004 study used brain imaging to examine Lepper’s finding, dubbed “motivated reasoning,” in more detail. Scientists at Emory University in Georgia put committed Republicans and Democrats in a brain scanner and presented them with information that showed then-Republican president George W. Bush and Democratic senator John Kerry committing acts of hypocrisy – a Bush quote, for instance, extolling America’s troops, followed by the revelation that on the same day he cut health benefits to thousands of war veterans. While still running the brain scanner, the scientists then asked each subject what they thought about the two politicians. Surprise, surprise – the Democrats labelled
George Bush a hypocrite while excusing John Kerry’s actions, and the Republicans labelled John Kerry a hypocrite while excusing George Bush’s actions. What the brain scanner found, though, was more interesting. When the subjects were calling the politician they disliked a hypocrite, brain regions associated with normal reasoning lit up. But when they were excusing the hypocritical actions of the politician they favoured, brain regions associated with both reasoning and strong emotions lit up. The scanner had caught them in the act: when it came time to thoughtfully consider information that went against what they believed in, the subjects simply couldn’t – their reasoning was coloured by emotion.
Daniel Lametti’s column will be back again in two weeks. In the meantime, send extremely emotionally-invested opinions only to thesplitbrain@mcgilldaily.com.
Sustainable species only Motion aims to limit types of seafood sold on campus Stephanie Law Sci+Tech Writer
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ill salmon and tuna sandwiches be banned from McGill cafeterias and vendors indefinitely? This is a question students have been asking themselves since the SSMU motion regarding seafood on campus was brought to General Assembly on October 21. Before the motion could be discussed, however, the GA lost quorum. Voting will now take place in SSMU Council on November 12. If the motion passes, it will call upon SSMU to “put their best effort into working with campus groups to pressure McGill administration to replace all of the ‘Red List’ fish species from the menus of all cafeterias and food vendors on the McGill Campus, as well as in McGill Residences.” Compiled by SeaChoice, a seafood markets program that supports sustainable fisheries in Canada and abroad, the Red List details which aquatic species are unsustainably fished and whose consumption should therefore be avoided. Specific fish on the Red List include, but are not limited to: haddock, lobster, scallops, albacore tuna, bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna, Atlantic salmon, orange roughy, rockfish, Chilean sea bass, clams (arctic surf and quahog), Atlantic cod, king crab, sole, Greenland halibut, shark, tropical
shrimp, swordfish, and tilapia. According to Sariné WillisO’Connor, organization coordinator and co-founder of Greenpeace McGill, unsustainable fishing has consequences that are often overlooked. “A lot of people don’t know about overfishing in general, and also how important fish are to the ecosystem and how it affects us. There are better ways to catch fish,” Willis-O’Connor said. “Most of the species listed on the Red List are either endangered, overfished, rapidly depleting, or are fished using unsustainable methods [like] bottom trawling and ghost fishing. “Bottom trawling essentially scrapes across the ocean floor, causing permanent damage to the seabed and catching many other species that the fishers were not targeting. These untargeted fish become by-catch and are thrown back into the ocean, dead.” Willis-O’Connor explained that ghost fishing occurs when fishermen lose or abandon their gill nets, entangling netting and other passive traps in the ocean. These leftbehind nets and traps continue to swallow up fish and other sea creatures. Willis-O’Connor argued that McGill can make a difference if SSMU passes this motion. “We are a very large community at McGill. Once we evict all the seafood products that are on the Red List from our community, our total
consumption of these unsustainable products will dramatically decrease – we will have a huge influence. We will know exactly where our fish is coming from, and whether they are sustainable,” she said. When asked whether this would have a large financial impact on SSMU and McGill students, Jose Diaz, SSMU VP Finance and Operations, answered no, saying they would definitely be able to work out the details with the various vendors like Cultures and Café Suprême. Diaz is confident that if the motion passes, SSMU will be very efficient and successful in ousting unsustainable fish from campus. “If it passes, we will definitely be very proactive – you can see that happening with our water bottles. I can see this as being just like that,” Diaz said. “I cannot foresee whether there would be any opposition or not from our tenants. For Café Suprême, we usually review their menu prior to each school year. And with Cultures, I don’t think there’ll be any problems.” As to whether or not salmon and tuna sandwiches will be removed from all McGill menus, WillisO’Connor’s short answer was “No,” pointing out that there are still some species of salmon and tuna that are not on the list. “We will definitely be able to find sustainable alternatives and replacements for the products that are on the Red List,” she said.
Miranda Whist / The McGill Daily
Fish like salmon are sold in large quantities all over Montreal.
Science+Technology
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
11
Cosmic oversights and migrant moons Colossal new ring around Saturn sheds light on planetary origins Rhea Pavan Sci+Tech Writer
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ow did we miss it? A giant ring measuring around six million kilometres in width is no small oversight, especially when it’s surrounding a celestial body whose iconic planetary hula hoops are its defining trademark. Saturn is always associated with its beautiful bands, which have an unmatched prominence in our solar system. The planet’s main rings are positioned relatively close to each other, and what was thought to be the outermost ring, the E ring, orbits at a distance of about 240,000 kilometres from Saturn. This new ring lies about 13 million kilometres from Saturn, 50 times more distant than the E ring, and is tilted 27 degrees so that it lies on a different plane from the rest of Saturn’s rings. It turns out, however, that this ring behaves in peculiar ways, so it has strategically kept itself hidden from our view up until October of this year. In fact, if we were to try and see it again now, we wouldn’t be able to. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003, was the instrument used to catch the first glimpse of the ring. Picking up on the infrared light radiating from the dust and snowflake particles, the telescope was able to take a picture of the ring
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under very specific circumstances. Olivia Jensen, a professor in McGill’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, sheds some light on the recent development. “The infrared telescope requires that the instrument you’re measuring with is colder than what you’re trying to detect,” Jensen said. When the rings are “warmed” by sunlight, up to the toasty temperature of about negative 200 degrees Celsius, they reflect infrared radiation, which is picked up by the detectors on board the Spitzer as a brownish coloured light. “This [ring] wasn’t seen earlier simply because it is so cold,” said Jensen. “The Spitzer telescope couldn’t see it again now – you actually couldn’t make the same measurement again.” Scientists also discovered that the giant ring follows the same orbit as Phoebe, Saturn’s most distant moon. Tilted 27 degrees from the main ring plane, Phoebe orbits Saturn from over 12.9-million kilometres away and travels in a direction that is counter to the planet’s, which suggests that Phoebe is actually a migrant moon. Unlike our own moon, which was formed by being “splashed” off the surface of our earth, Phoebe is almost certainly a body from another part of the outer solar system, which has been captured by Saturn’s gravitational force. And
the ring itself is also made out of migrant material. “Phoebe might be the source of this ring,” said Jensen. “The theory is that material is being driven off Phoebe’s surface because it’s hitting things like little micrometeorites, some as small as a grain of sand.” These small collisions result in dust being knocked off the surface of the moon, and because Phoebe is a tiny moon, the dust is escaping from its weak gravitational field and getting trapped in Phoebe’s orbital path, distributing itself into a ring over time. This explanation of the ring’s formation may explain why Iapetus, another of Saturn’s moons, has a uniquely two-toned appearance. Iapetus orbits in such a way that it is always travelling with the same side facing forward, the leading edge covered in blackness. Saturn’s gravity is most likely causing the new ring’s articles to fall into the moon’s path, covering Iapetus’s face in black dust. While the discovery of this new ring clears up some of the mysteries associated with Saturn, it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, as Saturn keeps its mysteries shrouded around itself like its innermost D ring. But is this discovery really so earth shattering? Jensen thinks not. “The last really big story in the press about the solar system was
Conférence publique
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The Daily’s next special issue is...
URBAN FORM on the stands November 9
Olivia Messer / The McGill Daily
Saturn’s outermost ring is 50 times further than previously thought. the discovery of Pluto in the thirties,” she said. “And now we’ve downgraded Pluto from even being called a planet!” These new “developments” in our solar system, including this enormous dust band surrounding Saturn, don’t match up to that large discovery of a tiny planet. Although the cultural model of having nine planets has changed, it’s still just a social construction. As Jensen put it, “It’s strange that astronomy should be at all political,
but it was a political decision to downgrade Pluto from a planet to dwarf planet.” As technology continues to improve, it will produce instruments more capable of competently measuring space and our solar system. While there are surely infinite discoveries waiting in an infinitelysized universe, we will continue to form each of these advances in our understanding just like Phoebe formed this colossal new ring: one grain at a time.
Daily,
new works are published. Novels, odes, sonnets, poems and limericks are all forms of literary pieces. Often, authors will place descriptions of their works or compilations at the beginning of the volume as a form of supplement. Many writers look for outside sources for their inspiration, as they need new ideas after producing so many previous issues. Therefore,
they seek con-
tent from others, which subsequently is beneficial for both the contributor and producer. Writers of literature may draw from life experiences, dreams, stories or random thoughts. They submit to the mercy of their minds and creative thought, waiting for their new idea to come forward.
Lit Supplement, submissions due November 13 at midnight on stands November 23 litsup@mcgilldaily.com
12Features
When their voices are gone Kortney Shapiro commits to keeping memories of Holocaust survivors alive
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illions of innocent people were annihilated between 1939-1945 under the Nazi regime as a cloud of black smoke sat atop Eastern Europe. The world turned a blind eye while the sky filled with human ash. The proverbial saying in our human constitution, “never again,” means nothing to most of us today as we have become desensitized to the current debilitated state of our world. Through retelling the personal accounts of survivors, we can ensure that the Holocaust lives on in our speech, rather than fading from our memories. It is our responsibility to promote education, remembrance, and discourse between generations. Thirty years ago, a New York Times editorial affirmed that the “annihilation of European Jewry should be a mandatory subject” within the public school curriculum. Today, the Holocaust is not as secure in national curriculums as we might expect. In 2007, Alexandra Frean reported in the Times Online that teachers in the U.K. were “dropping controversial subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades from history lessons because they do not want to cause offense to children from certain races or religions.” The Holocaust is a crucial and major historical event, weighted with moral and sociological meaning. However, the subject’s teaching presents many pedagogical obstacles, including the lack of factual knowledge among elementary level teachers. Despite the inherent difficulties, the Holocaust cannot be abandoned. Students must learn to understand the past in order to explain the present, embrace the future with more tolerance, and adopt civil virtue and morality. The Holocaust’s removal from the curriculum is unacceptable. Students need to be exposed to genocide and intolerance so that they can prevent these horrors from repeating themselves.
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s a member of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando, Filip Müller’s job entailed assisting in the killing of the death camp’s prisoners. After the burden of guilt had plagued Müller for some time, he decided to end his life by joining a crowd of Jewish inmates. “Now, when I watched my fellow countrymen walk into the gas cham-
Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily
ber, brave and proud and determined, I asked myself what sort of life it would be for me in the unlikely event of my getting out of the camp alive,” wrote Müller after the war. Upon entering the obscurely lit “shower” house, Müller recounts: “Death had come menacingly close. It was only minutes away…. Suddenly a few girls naked and in the full bloom of youth came up to me…. One plucked up the courage and spoke to me: ‘We understand that you have chosen to die with us of your own free will, and we have come to tell you that we think your decision pointless: for it helps no one. We must die but you still have a chance to save your life. You have to return to the camp, and tell everybody about our last hours. You have to explain to them that they must free themselves from any illusions,’ she went on, ‘you can do me one last favor: this gold chain around my neck: when I’m dead, take it off and give it to my boyfriend Sasha.’” Müller survived the war, and did not die along with the hundreds of others who were packed into the gas chamber that day. He has since written a book on his time spent at Auschwitz, and still today speaks about his experiences, proving that personal testimonials carry with them the weight of millions who went up in smoke.
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he media has turned these stories into corporate and commodified popular culture. Various films and other media outlets have watered down the seriousness of the Holocaust. In “Towards a Methodology of Teaching about the Holocaust,” Henry Friedhandler warns educators against the popularization of the Holocaust as a subject, for “unfortunately, it can also mean sensationalism and exploitation.... The Holocaust demands treatment with taste and sensitivity; it is not likely to receive this if it becomes a media fad.” One needs to draw the line between truth and entertainment (Quentin Tarantino, I’m talking to you). However, films like Defiance, Schindler’s List, and The Pianist have been essential in documenting and preserving true historical accounts of survival. Other popular cultural representations may lack the sentimentality of these films, but they do function to check our perspective. An episode from Larry David’s mockumentary sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm entitled
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
“The Survivor” works to question the meaning of the term survivor. Larry and his (now ex-) wife Cheryl Hines renew their marriage vows. Larry’s rabbi asks him if he may bring a “survivor” to the rehearsal dinner, and of course, Larry assents. Larry then invites his father’s friend Solly, a Holocaust survivor, to the meal. On the eve of the rehearsal dinner, to Larry’s surprise, the rabbi has brought Colby Donaldson, from the popular reality TV show Survivor, leading to a stomach-churning argument at the dinner table about who is the “true” survivor. The show ends as per usual, with Larry in a complete funk, everyone yelling across the table, begging audiences to ask, through curdled humour, what the hell has the media done to our reality? The episode, though writhing with Larry David’s dark humour, made me realize that as a granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, I, along with so many others, must foster a greater dissemination of Holocaust and genocide awareness in any capacity that I can. The episode may be offensive to some, but it shows us how easily we as a population have become completely desensitized to critical events in our history, and the only way we know how to deal with these events is through entertainment provided by the media. The episode mocks our generation and reveals how impatient we are to hear the stories that we pass off as unimportant. We are a spoiled generation, and we need to remember that in time, we will no longer have the privilege of first-hand survivor accounts. We will need to be the storytellers. It is hard enough for survivors themselves to speak of the horrific nightmare they lived through not that long ago, and so we must help spread their experiences. We must listen and retell them. Their voices will soon be gone.
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y grandmother Vera is a survivor of the Holocaust. Soon after her family’s arrival at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, her mother was transported to another camp, Bergen-Belsen. In a lecture she delivered, she recalled: “One day my mother and aunt came to tell us that they were being taken to another labour camp, but will return soon. They kissed us good-
bye and that was the last time I saw my mother.” Author Kathy Kacer writes novels centred on the Holocaust and is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors – their personal memories and stories have inevitably impacted her appreciation of personal survivor testimonies, and the significance she grants them is evident in her writing: “The thought that those firsthand accounts of survivors could in fact be gone in a few years to me is so startling.” Who then, must keep their voices alive? It is the students, young community leaders, authors, and determined, passionate youth who are the ambassadors of these stories and memories; they must soak in all the information they can so that they can one day relay the testimonies to the next generation of listeners. I have heard my grandmother’s story from the moment I could comprehend what the Holocaust was. In my teenage years, I began to understand the gravity of “genocide.” I had been asking my grandmother Vera questions about her childhood: when her family went into hiding in a cave in the mountains, and she spent time behind barbed wire in a German concentration camp surrounded by the smell of lingering death. Her father, who survived the war, was a prisoner at Sachsenhausen, one of many camps whose entranceway read: “Arbeit macht frei” (work shall set you free). Rarely is she brought to tears, and due to her positive outlook, she finds sheer pleasure and happiness each day that she spends with her husband and family. “Life is very precious to me, and I try very hard to make the most of every day,” my grandmother Vera continues, “and to somehow, always look to a good tomorrow.”
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our mind is a sponge. Soak up all the knowledge that you can before it is too late. We must accept responsibility for keeping the future full of these memories. As the mountain of human ash at Majdanek death camp’s memorial site sits atop a mass grave, one can recall the nightmare that happened there; one can retell the nightmare that happened there; and one can pass on the legacy to forever seal our promise that “never again” will become a commitment of a new generation of storytellers, educators, and youth. If no one is left to speak for them, how can we know that anyone will speak for us?
Holocaust Education Week calendar of events Monday, November 2 from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Lower Field Reading of the names of those who perished in the Holocaust.
Tuesday, November 3 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Come by Bronfman Lobby to join in raising awareness about the Holocaust.
Wednesday November 4 at 4 p.m. Free trip to the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre. Transportation offered from Roddick Gates. RSVP at ihearthillel@gmail.com.
Thursday November 5 at 6 p.m. in Arts 150 Exclusive screening of Healing Voices – a film by Riva Finklestein with question period and light snacks to follow.
Friday November 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Shatner Ballroom (3rd floor) Dinner with Holocaust survivors: optional prayers at 6:45 p.m. RSVP to Rachel at office@hillel.ca. Cost: $10
Remembering Roselle Lauren Wyman
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y late paternal grandmother Roselle, or “Sabta’”as I called her, never really talked to me about her life. I would see her once a year when she came to visit my family in Toronto from Cardiff, Whales and she would bring me a giant Galaxy chocolate bar (much to my mother’s chagrin). We’d go on day trips, or just sit together and read, but we never discussed her past. She wasn’t the stereotypically warm and bubbly Jewish “Bubbie.” There were no Yiddish exclamations of “oy vey!” or “kanayna hora!” There was no face pinching, or chicken soup, but even though she had a subdued way of showing it, my siblings and I knew she loved us. I didn’t question my Sabta’s sternness and introversion, or think about what may have led her to be this way. I never thought about her childhood; grandparents are the oldest people you know, so it’s not always obvious to us that they were once young. In January of 2007 my Sabta died of a heart attack. It wasn’t until several months later, when the Globe and Mail published her obituary written by my dad, that I actually
took time to think about my Sabta as Roselle, a woman with a history of displacement, loss, and struggle. Born in 1923, Roselle grew up in Nazi Germany in Dusseldorf. At the age of 14, she was kicked out of her public school and forced to attend a Jewish one, and at 19, her father was killed in the nation-wide pogrom Kristalnacht. After the loss of her father, she decided that her time in Germany was through. She led a group of Jewish children to find refuge at a Polish kibbutz (a communal farm settlement). On the journey to Poland she was struck in the face with a rifle butt by a Nazi officer leaving her with a permanent scar on her jaw. After spending extensive time with Roselle’s younger sister Dvora and her family while attending Tel Aviv University in Israel, I discovered more and more about my Sabta’s past. By 1939, she had been separated from her remaining family, but somehow found her way to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine on her own. By 1941, she had helped found two kibbutzs, and in 1942, Corporal
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Roselle Moritz wore two stripes as a volunteer for the British army – all of this before she was even 20. Because she had married my grandfather and moved to Whales, my Sabta didn’t see Israel’s creation in 1948. But, she was very much a part of the struggle to create a homeland for the 7-million Jews who live there today. My Sabta’s story may not be unique among the millions of Jews displaced during the Holocaust. She didn’t suffer the hell of the concentration camps, and she could have been considered lucky to have her mother, brother, and sister alive by the time it was all over. But for me, writing this article isn’t only about her survival. It’s about the need to learn about our families’ pasts and to remember what they endured. I didn’t know about Roselle’s life until she was dead. Though the well-known cliché “better late than never” undoubtedly holds true, I know there was much more to discover about her life – if only I had asked. It is crucial to ask questions about the past to ensure that heroes and heroines like my Sabta are never forgotten.
All photos courtesy of Ian Maclellan
14 Features
Freedom of the press Qaabata Boru illuminates the struggle for an autonomous refugee news source
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ince October 2008, refugee journalists in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, have been involved in an arduous struggle to create the first fully independent, refugee-run news source with international reach through an online news blog. Kakuma is a very small city located in the rift valley province of Lodwar district , 95 kilometres from Lokichoggio. Situated near the Sudanese border, the city houses refugees from many countries and its population is constantly fluctuating. The founding journalists launched the publication with the intention that it would be owned by refugees – not edited by humanitarian staff – and that it would reach an international audience. The goal of the news forum was not merely to inform, but also to counter the monopoly of information enjoyed by humanitarian organizations that largely control access to and information about refugee camps. As an alternative news source authored by the intended beneficiaries of humanitarian aid, the journalists believed a refugee free press could potentially open new spaces for public debate and action at Kakuma Refugee Camp, where there had been no media coverage since its establishment in 1991-92. In collaboration with a U.S. Fulbright scholar, journalists developed an online news blog (kakuma.wordpress.com) titled the Kakuma News Reflector (KANERE). While only one KANERE journalist has experience
as a professional reporter, several writers hold advanced university degrees in related fields, and others were studying journalism in their home countries before their degrees were interrupted by refugee flight. Together, the journalists established a monthly system, pooling their skills to investigate and report on events around the camp. In April 2009, KANERE held elections for a new editor and an executive director, enabling a smooth transition of editorial duties. At the moment, I am serving as editor – I am an Ethiopian refugee and former second-year journalism student at Addis Ababa University. Jerome Sebwadaga – a Rwandan refugee, school teacher, and distance-learning university student – is serving as executive director.
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he maiden issue of the Kakuma News Reflector was published online on December 22, 2008. The news blog soon attracted international attention and received thousands of hits from viewers around the globe. The unique venture was profiled in a number of reports by human rights organizations and news media, and was highlighted at the International Council of Voluntary Agencies conference in January 2009. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants hailed the free press an “invaluable resource” that “follows in the footsteps of many other civil and human rights efforts
and empowers refugees to shape their own story and inform and organize their community.” The Currion named it an “unfiltered refugee voice,” and the Humanitarian Futures Programme called it “an absolutely fantastic example of citizen journalism, empowered by the web, completely changing the game of humanitarian business.” Despite the positive feedback from the international community, the local United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an agency mandated to protect and support refugees, has hindered KANERE’s operational activities. The local UNHCR influenced local government authorities to block KANERE’s registration as a community-based organization because they feared the publication would expose the realities of the refugee camps – the prolonged suffering of the residents and the status of their human rights.
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oon after online publication of the first KANERE issue, it became clear that local humanitarian agencies did not fully support the refugee free press. Local UNHCR officials cited concerns over confidentiality of information, protection of refugee identities, and ethical standards of reporting. In response to these concerns, KANERE deleted two sensitive articles from their first issue and ceased to use refugees’ real names or journalist bylines in their publication – though KANERE journalists wish
to freely identity themselves. It is clear that all international laws, including the Kenyan constitutional law, allow for the freedom of press, and for the realization and promotion of a refugee free press. Tensions grew between the UNHCR and KANERE when the latter’s attempt to register as a community-based organization was halted by local government officials. The district officer confiscated KANERE’s registration forms and refused to release them until KANERE brought a letter of support from UNHCR. The turning point in KANERE’s struggle for independence was marked by the arrival of a human rights lawyer, who, at the time, was the director of the Kenyan legal aid group Kituo Cha Sheria. At a joint meeting with KANERE and humanitarian agencies in February 2009, the lawyer affirmed that refugees have the right to a free press and cannot be prevented from exercising this right for any reason except those under law. He later summarized this position in an article for KANERE’s news blog. At this meeting, humanitarian agencies resolved to support registration as a community-based organization while reaffirming their desire that KANERE be held to the highest standards of ethical reporting. At a subsequent meeting, a UNHCR official invited KANERE to submit a proposal for material assistance from UNHCR and NonGovernmental Organisations.
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
On the opposite page: KANERE editor Qaabata Boru at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya; above: the wires and satellite providing Internet access to the camp.
On August 7, I met briefly with UNHCR Director of the African Bureau George Obbo. A meeting followed with local UNHCR officials on August 13. At this meeting, it was made clear that humanitarian agencies will only offer support to KANERE if they are allowed to play a role in the news publication. In a letter written on behalf of Kakuma humanitarian agencies, the UNHCR Head of Sub-Office stated that it “cannot support the pure independence” of a free press that receives the support of “relief funds.” This means that KANERE will not be funded until there is some level of agreement between the two parties on the grounds of independence. In accordance with typical international standards of freedom of the press, KANERE’s constitution states that it will not compromise its independence through “undue interference from authorities.” In refugee camps, humanitarian agencies, such as UNHCR, are the most influential and powerful authorities. According to the current KANERE editorial board, “We see that UNHCR will want to control our publication and cannot support KANERE’s independence.” Although UNHCR officials have not stated in writing exactly how they intend to be “involved” in KANERE’s publications, in verbal discussions UNHCR officials have mentioned “editing our work” or “going through the articles” before making print copies
available for distribution to the inhabitants of the Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kakuma town. I am worried about the UNHCR’s desired involvement in KANERE’s publications. I would not like at any point to collaborate with a UNHCR that is going to restrict my work. I wish to work with a free mind, with a full consciousness, without restrictions of what to do and what not to do. However, there have been written documents from UNHCR but only verbal alerts. The two parties have not had any subsequent meetings as per the previous schedule. KANERE is striving to maintain the highest integrity in continuing its operations. KANERE has faced many challenges; journalists have faced threats when reporting and several have ceased reporting due to the strong opposition from the local authorities, especially the UNHCR. These former journalists left on the grounds of attempted arrests and the authorities’ lack of human compassion. The UNHCR provides protection and a durable solution for refugees. Refugee journalists fear opposing the UNHCR, but their desire to struggle for a free press, under the laws, is stronger. KANERE is bound by the global laws that support the freedom of the refugees: international laws, humanitarian laws, international human rights law, Kenyan constitutional law. The Kenyan constitution says, “Except
with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of assembly and association, that is to say, that his right to assembly freely and association with other persons and in particular to form or belong to trade union or other association for the protection of his interest.” The Refugee Act, 2006 also indicates this freedom at section 16, and it is incorporated in all the human rights treaties to which Kenya is a signatory to or which it has ratified. “So we do not, from any angle, understand where laws [oppose the] freedom of the refugees to speak out,” said a KANERE journalist. KANERE cannot be shut down because it is an avenue through which we refugees of Kakuma camp can express our freedom, our feelings and experiences, our suffering, through which we can seek justice, and can move toward enjoying the rights inherent to all human beings.
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t this point, KANERE hovers in uncertainty. The publication has not been registered as a community-based organization with the Kenyan government. It appears that collaboration with local humanitarian agencies will not be possible unless KANERE agrees to their editorial interventions; at the same time, KANERE will not compromise its publication by allowing influence from parties that wish to censor its publications. KANERE continues to operate indepen-
dently with minimal resources and without material support from local agencies. This situation is rapidly becoming untenable. Journalists supply their own materials for writing and reporting. KANERE currently owns one laptop and one digital camera, but must rely on the refugee camp cybercafé for Internet access to maintain its blog. The journalists and I must pay for Internet use out of pocket, which severely limits our online activities. One digital camera means that journalists must juggle schedules to photograph events. Print publication of the newsletter is nearly nonexistent due to lack of financial and material support from local humanitarian agencies. A few copies of the first issues have been printed and are available in tea rooms, the local refugee library, Kakuma town, and around the refugee camp, but access to resources for similar printing is now difficult. Although local humanitarian agencies have refused to support the initiative, refugee communities strongly support the heart of the project. KANERE has met with the refugee community leaders on several occasions, and refugees appreciate that coverage of their situation is being exposed to the rest of the world. While the operating costs of KANERE are low, KANERE has not yet received funding, making it very difficult to continue the publication.
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16Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
Traversing the border as a trans person How “counter-terrorism” denies trans people freedom of movement
Binary is for computers
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t’s uncontroversial to argue that everyone should have freedom of mobility. However, at present, American trans people have their freedom of movement restricted compared to other Americans. The recent focus on “counterterrorism” in law enforcement and government agencies has severely limited trans people’s freedom. In the name of the War on Terror, the U.S. government has increased restrictions on identity documents, which are necessary for trans and cis people to drive, fly, cross borders, or engage in many kinds of movement. Following September 11, the Bush administration asked all states to tighten laws about changing one’s gender marker on driver’s licenses. Additionally, according to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, “in local jurisdictions, procedures for changing your name have been made more difficult.” Whether or not identity documents are as important for “national security” as the U.S. government has suggested, these policies unduly deny trans people access to various modes of transportation, since many trans people’s gender presentation will be in flux at one moment or another. Perhaps the most terrifying new policy regarding identity documents has been the Real ID Act, which essentially creates a de facto
national ID card out of state driver’s licenses. This act entails massive and particularly threatening violations of trans people’s privacy. For example, the National Center for Transgender Equality states that in 2008, the Real ID’s guidelines mandated that all state driver’s licenses contain a bar-code that would hold information on gender and name changes – information which would out trans people against their will. Thankfully, this provision was removed, and several states have passed laws stating that they will not comply with the Real ID Act. However, even under the more recent version – or under a proposed alternative bill called PASS ID – states would have to store birth certificates and other identification digitally, which could still out trans people at borders, airports, and even during routine traffic stops. The fact that this remains an issue under the Obama administration shows that we can’t just blame Bush for this policy – this requirement is part of a wider social perspective on what’s “necessary” or “acceptable” in counter-terrorism tactics. Additionally, in 2003, the U.S. government advised airports to be suspicious of “men dressed in women’s clothing.” This directive limits the ability of many kinds of trans people to present themselves as they choose while travelling.
Olivia Messer / The McGill Daily
Quinn Albaugh
Where is this mysterious, cross-dressing terrorist? They are forced to decide between their freedom of movement or their authentic gender presentation. As far as I can tell, a case involving a cross-dressing terrorist has yet to materialize; if it had, the news coverage of such a momentous occasion would have been inescapable. This argument parallels the rightwing strategy of countering trans non-discrimination laws by arguing that, if we pass such laws, we’ll see (male) sexual predators “invading” women’s bathrooms. In both cases, the justification for policies that allow discrimination against trans people is “protecting” people against an invented bogeyman. Unfortunately, these strategies have proven to be effective. The “no-fly” lists that U.S. gov-
ernment agencies have developed are the most recent attempt to reduce freedom of mobility for trans people. In August, the Transportation Security Agency enacted new policies requiring airlines to check whether people are on these “no-fly” lists. The new policies also require all passengers to provide their gender and date of birth to whomever is booking their ticket. These restrictions come on the heels of regulations put in place in May that require passengers to use their legal name exactly as it appears on their ID. There is no oversight of how these private individuals use information about a passenger’s gender; it’s entirely possible that airlines and travel agencies may store this information in a
database, which could make it difficult for trans people to determine on their own if they want to out themselves while travelling – someone else will have power over that information. The U.S. needs to re-examine all of these policies and evaluate them on their privacy-protection and gendering implications, and then scrap any one of them that prevents innocent people from moving around freely. This war on an abstract noun is no excuse for denying anyone their freedom of mobility. Quinn Albaugh writes in this space every week. Tell ’em about your cross-dressing terrorist sightings at binaryforcomputers@mcgilldaily. com.
Give permanent residents the right to vote
Little bitter Riva Gold
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isenfranchisement is so passé. In the last century, we’ve seen considerable expansion of the vote-carrying population. The gradual inclusion of women, Asians, Inuit, the mentally disabled, and prisoners in Canadian elections speaks to a growing awareness that voting is a fundamental right that ought never be denied to persons, regardless of ethnicity, perceived capacity, or any other arbitrary and unjust standard. Today, there remains no greater injustice in public policy than the disenfranchisement of over 200,000
permanent residents in Canadian elections. Voting is not a privilege. It is an absolute right and the means by which all of our other rights are negotiated. A vote constitutes the most fundamental and powerful check on the power of the state over the individual. Every time the state legislates, it is necessarily limiting the autonomy of its people in some way. From minor things like traffic laws to more severe limits upon free religious expression, these policies have tangible impacts on the way individuals are able to live
their lives. The only way to ensure that this coercive limitation on individual liberties can be justified is with consent. In Canadian society, this consent comes in the form of a vote. As such, we really ought to reconsider our criteria for enfranchisement. To become a permanent resident, you have to demonstrate some form of long-term commitment to Canada. You gen-
socio-economic needs of the permanent population. There is no reason for their preferences to be considered, no legitimate forum for their voices to be heard – unless they are given the power of a vote. Permanent residents often have shared, urgent group interests, such as the language of education of their children or special types of religious accommodation. Without a vote, they can’t meaningfully
Voting is a fundamental right that ought never be denied to persons erally live and work here, and are both subject to the state’s laws and forced to pay taxes. What more is needed? Without a vote, politicians have no incentive to cater to the diverse but unique cultural, linguistic, and
push for anti-discrimination legislation, and they have no reason to feel like they are part of Canadian society. Opponents argue that if permanent residents want to vote, they should “simply become citizens of
Canada.” As though the process of acquiring Canadian citizenship is ever that “simple” or universally plausible. For one thing, many permanent residents will never qualify for citizenship as a result of linguistic, educational, or demographic criteria that serve as barriers to their inclusion. For another, even those who do wish to become citizens will still retain the status of permanent resident for at least three years, and deserve a voice in the meantime. Living without a vote is akin to living in a state of slavery, where the coercive use of state power influences your every act and you have no choice but to live with it or to flee. In Canada, we don’t think individuals can consent to slavery. We shouldn’t think permanent residents can consent to it either. Riva Gold writes in this space every week. Send her your ballots at littlebitter@mcgilldaily.com.
Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
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Save your pity Migrants don’t need your pity, or their own
Aristotle’s lackey Sana Saeed Matthew Milne / The McGill Daily
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ehearsal came to its unfortunate close. Laughing and joking, we wrapped up our first “Greased Lightening” performance. We were doing a tribute to Broadway that year, creating a grand mixture of some of the greatest songs and dances to have graced the coveted stage. It had taken me a while, but I finally felt as though I had found my niche during my first year at the all-American Carrie Palmer Weber Middle School, located in the bustling and quaint town of Port Washington on Long Island. My once-foreign features were made familiar when I joined a more diverse crowd. I was Latino, Italian, Persian, or Greek; I wasn’t the new Pakistani girl in a primarily Jewish elementary school anymore. Middle school, Grades 6-8, allowed for an automatic maturation. There were more opportunities for me to create my American dream: chorus, drama, chess club, student council, yearbook. I delved into any student club for which I could find time and interest. While unaware of my subconscious intentions at the time, this was how I was going to be finally accepted as the American I had always believed I was. The Babysitters Club books and Nickelodeon had taught me well: I was going to be a mixture between Mary Anne and Clarissa. Exhausted but combusting with energy, I said my goodbyes and acknowledged friends with reassuring nods to indicate that late eve-
ning phone dates that would have to follow. I grabbed my belongings and left to look for my father’s silver Ford Taurus, most likely waiting outside the western exit of the school. I jumped into the car, answering his unspoken questions about my day and rehearsal. He just smiled, nodded and murmured occasionally to show me he wasn’t completely annoyed by the irrelevance of my unending blabber. He seemed more subdued than usual. Must have been a tough day at the bakery, I figured. My father ran a successful business making well-known goods across New York City. Things got tough at times, but after 10 years of an entrepreneurial struggle, he had established a good business. When I arrived home, I found my mom sitting on the floor of the main bedroom, with all her personal papers loose-leafed across the floor. She was frantically searching, ripping and throwing away things of no importance and collecting whatever seemed valuable. She looked up at me as my father joined her to look through the sea of endless papers. There was a brief silence as my dad, through his eyes, seemed to provoke my mother to speak. “We’re moving to Canada.” My initial reaction is not something I’d like on the record, but let’s just say a fit of epic proportions was thrown. Thrown all over the place. I was completely aghast – why on
earth had my family decided to move, without any sort of consultation with me, to a frozen tundra with igloos and an ugly head-ofstate matriarch? But my and my young brother’s cries of disgust meant nothing in the face of my parents’ determination. The 11-year-long American citizenship process didn’t really pan out and we had been offered access to Canada on the basis of my mother’s medical qualifications. She hadn’t been able to practice in the United States, given that she committed the grave sin of becoming a doctor at one of the best schools in a developing country. To be offered a position in her field with that sort of pay, and really with no other choice, my parents packed up everything and we were on our way to Canada within two weeks. And we were not impressed. Not only was life completely different in Vancouver, where we moved after a brief and yawn-inducing stint in Toronto, but none of the promises of the new promised land seemed to hold. My mother was told that she forgot to read the verbal small print on her immigration conditions: not only did she have to take about four years of Canadian medical school classes and residency, she had to take Grade 12 English. Just to make sure. The hit was immediate and spread quickly. My parents found themselves completely lost, finan-
cially and emotionally weakened. The most basic of things, to my 12-year-old mind, became beyond luxurious. We slept without mattresses for a year, with virtually no furniture in our house, while my parents looked for ways to regain financial security without tapping into their savings. My mother trained to become a midwife while my father worked security. Both of my parents come from upper-middle class strata and both are highly educated with years of unmatchable experience under their respective belts. But pride must be swallowed in order to keep the family fed. Eventually both made their ways to calling centres, where they found themselves in the company of other medical doctors, former professors, accountants, civil engineers, economists; you name the career and it was there amongst a sea of headsets. They slowly moved up, got better positions, and started becoming more comfortable in our new lives. We all did. My brother and I had our American-ness stripped of us, and we were hesitant to accept a country which had torn us away from what we loved based on what we saw as deceit. The consciousness of our new immigrant identity forced us to wake up. Everything we did, said, wore, felt was spoken, worn, felt in the context of being essentially “legal aliens.” It was hard for me to see myself as Canadian for many years, even
when I took the oath of citizenship in 2004. I had my occasional bouts of patriotism, but they were always superficial and brief. I was angry; I was upset. My father’s business had been destroyed, my mother’s dream slaughtered, and I never got to do the tribute to Broadway: I never got to live my all-American dream. The only solace I ever found was in hockey – and even that was usually depressing, thank you very much, Vancouver Canucks. But this sort of self-pity is nothing more than self-fulfilling. Pity gets you nothing, whether it’s from yourself or others. And I’m not asking for your pity either, as you read this brief account of my family’s migration story. No immigrant or migrant wants pity. And they don’t need it either. Instead of pitying, as members of a country built on the backs of immigrants we ought to rethink how we as a society engage with our immigrant population. And I don’t mean through the shoddy multiculturalist façade we’ve thrown up in an attempt to simultaneously appease and liberalize. It’s time for serious and practical immigration reform both at the structural and societal levels. But I’ll save that discussion for another time. I have a hockey game to catch. Sana Saeed normally writes every other Wednesday. Write her at aristotleslackey@mcgilldaily.com.
Ni banal ni normal: l’expérience canadienne The French connection Joël Thibeault Every other week, Joël Thibeault writes a column for French learners, as a way of encouraging them to practice their French. ’ai fait une très grande partie de ma scolarité à Laval, une ville au nord de Montréal. Je n’ai donc pas eu l’occasion lors de ma jeunesse d’être exposé à la diversité culturelle qu’on retrouve dans la métropole québécoise. Lorsque j’ai terminé mon secondaire, j’ai décidé de poursuivre mes études dans un CÉGEP anglophone. Je me suis toutefois rendu
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compte que rares étaient ceux qui se considéraient anglophones. Ce fut un très grand choc pour l’homme blanc de peau et d’esprit que j’étais. J’ai rapidement appris le mot «allophone». Au Québec, il s’agit d’une personne dont la langue maternelle n’est ni le français ni l’anglais. Dès mon premier jour, j’ai rencontré des personnes qui venaient de pays dont je n’avais jamais entendu le nom: «I’m from Sri Lanka»; «I was born in Moldavia, but I grew up in Romania»; «I was
raised in Malawi». Très souvent, lorsque je leur demandais quelles étaient leurs origines et qu’ils me donnaient la réponse, ils me posaient ensuite la même question: «You must be from Russia»; «Aren’t you German?»; «You look like you’re from Eastern Europe». J’ai toujours été fier de mes origines franco-canadiennes. Cependant, en entendant ces commentaires, je me sentais normal. Horriblement normal. À chaque fois que je faisais part de cette horrible normalité à mes nouveaux amis qui venaient de partout dans le monde, ils me répondaient, pour la plupart, qu’ils ne comprenaient pas pourquoi je voyais mes origines d’une telle manière. Le Canada semblait leur avoir apporté une stabilité et une qualité de vie rares qu’on ne retrouve malheureusement pas dans plusieurs autres pays du monde. Ils me faisaient même
souvent remarquer la haute qualité du cinéma québécois contemporain ou encore la richesse évidente de la littérature canadienne. Malgré tout, en leur compagnie, je me sentais banal. Horriblement banal. Il fallut plusieurs années afin que je me rende compte de ce que je sais aujourd’hui. À 21 ans, j’ai eu le plaisir de voyager et de visiter quelques-uns des plus beaux pays du monde. Quand on me demandait d’où je venais, je répondais fièrement que j’étais canadien. En voyageant, jamais je n’ai eu cette impression de banalité qui me hantait autrefois. Lors de mon séjour à Bologne en Italie, un garçon du nom de Francesco qui suivait un cours d’introduction à la culture canadienne m’a posé une question très pertinente: pourquoi es-tu fier d’être canadien? J’ai d’abord pensé au fait que je parlais les deux
langues officielles. Puis j’ai visité plusieurs des plus importantes villes canadiennes. Au final, par contre, c’est la diversité culturelle qui m’a rendu le plus fier de mon pays. De nos jours, être canadien, c’est partager la culture et l’héritage de tous ceux et celles qui se considèrent canadiens. Autrement dit, c’est représenter un mélange de couleurs, de genres, de religions, de points de vue et, somme toute, de différences. La diversité et la différence des autres m’ont fait grandir. Maintenant, je sais que je ne suis ni normal ni banal. To listen to Joël read this article, surf to mcgilldaily.com/blogs. You can also write to him at thefrenchconnection@mcgilldaily.com. Like reading in French? Why not read Le Délit? Find it on stands tomorrow.
18 Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009 HYDE PARK
JE CHOISIS PIERRE-BOUCHER Un climat de travail chaleureux et des équipes passionnées ? J’aime ça ! En plus d’un environnement exceptionnel, je sais que je trouverai au CSSS Pierre-Boucher le partage des connaissances, les pratiques d’avant-garde, les techniques de pointe et le soutien nécessaires à mon épanouissement professionnel.
jechoisis.qc.ca
Climate justice now! Climate change will force the migration of marginalized groups Trevor Chow-Fraser
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ast Monday, over 100 young people observing Parliament’s Question Period took the unprecedented action of standing up and speaking out against climate change. Ordinary Canadians understand why we spoke out: climate change is happening now and our society requires immediate, transformative action. But members of Parliament (MPs) and the mainstream media have been unable to comprehend this outburst. Accusations of conspiracy immediately began to fly: Was it an NDP ploy? Were injuries faked? In fact, the action was spontaneous, but it was effective nevertheless. For a few moments, MPs were forced to listen to reason. Many McGill students were there, and we will tell you about the frustra-
that climate change will have as profound an effect on societies as on ecologies. Billions of people over the next century are faced with mass migration, the result of rising seawaters and deforestation. Changes in rainfall and temperature will alter the range of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, which already claim millions of lives every year. Drought and flash flooding bring the threat of starvation to all areas of the world. We’re looking at increases in the frequency and impact of natural disasters, threats to the food system, and conflicts over scarce natural resources. For populations already on the margins, life during a time of climate change is only getting harder. Ecological and social crises will erode already precarious human rights protections in many areas, increasing the likeli-
Canada became powerful by polluting the atmosphere. As polluters, we must pay tion of seeing our decision-makers bickering and lallygagging when they were supposed to be making important decisions. Meanwhile, Canadians nationwide are ready and willing to take action on climate change. Industrial workers are ready to start building wind turbines and solar panels. Indigenous people are ready to start responsible forest management on their traditional lands. Rural communities are ready for an agricultural system that puts human and ecological health first. And Canada’s youth are ready to give voice to these concerns, having attended Power Shift Canada. A global phenomenon, Power Shift assembled 1000 Canadians, and gave us the skills and knowledge to act on climate change in our own communities. It’s no wonder that the nation’s youth, inspired by success stories and distress signals alike, could not keep quiet in the face of Parliament’s negligence. Our leaders in government and the media have also missed the substance of our concerns. While we urge Parliament to pass Bill C-311 (the Climate Change Accountability Act), we also call on Canada to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Our rallying cry of “climate justice” is a cause beyond environmentalism. We recognize
Got an opinion? Send us a Hyde Park! commentary@mcgilldaily.com
hood of inequitable impacts. We are not all on equal footing when it comes to adapting to climate change. In Canada, Inuit and First Nations have been the first to feel the impacts of a warmer Arctic, as hunting patterns change and habitable lands shrink. But melting ice has also brought an increase of military activity and natural resource exploitation in their territories. Meanwhile, the tar sands are fuelling global warming at the expense of downstream First Nations and the boreal forest they depend upon to live. Canada faces major internal migration if the marginal populations of tomorrow are made landless by the mainstream choices of today. Can we avoid this injustice? Canada became powerful by polluting the atmosphere with carbon. As polluters, we must pay. We cannot take the carbon out of the atmosphere, but we can invest in the enrichment and empowerment of marginal communities around the world, and especially at home, while developing a carbon-zero economy. That’s why, for more and more youth, the answer to climate change is climate justice! Trevor Chow-Fraser holds a BA (2008) in East Asian studies and English literature. Send him justice-grams at trevor.fraser@mail. mcgill.ca.
What’s a Hyde Park? 500-600 words on any subject Opinion pieces or personal narratives Constructive, critical discussion of an issue Should be submitted a week before you’d like to see it in print
Letters
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
19
We want Canada to demonstrate a commitment to environmental justice and a sustainable, clean economy Amara Possian U2 Political Science and Middle East Studies
Listen to us, damn it! The media response to the youth protest that disrupted Question Period in the House of Commons on Monday completely missed the mark. As participants of Power Shift Canada, last weekend’s climate change summit that brought together over 1,000 young Canadians to engage legitimately with our democratic institutions, we feel obligated to respond. It would be easy to discredit the media’s representation of our fellow youth as an unfair caricature, but that would be beside the point. What’s striking is not that there was an eruption of overt civil disobedience. What’s striking is why. A short 48 hours before this much-maligned protest, a decidedly more peaceful demonstration took place on Parliament Hill. On Saturday afternoon, a crowd 3,000-
strong added their voices to the chorus of discontent rising from coast to coast over government inaction concerning the climate crisis. And yet, both our elected leaders and our national media outlets simply did not listen. Even as the uproar rose to a fever pitch, it fell on deaf ears. For the Canadians who tuned into their morning news, there was barely a whisper. A silent vacuum of media and government neglect echoes throughout the country. It is a silence that speaks volumes more about the current state of environmental dialogue in Canada than the stifled cries of Monday’s protesters. Two days ago, we would have been among those writing off the parliamentary disturbances as brash grandstanding. But the present reality of this great silence has made it abundantly clear that without such outbursts of collec-
tive frustration, no one will listen. Now that we finally have the national ear, what do we want? We want Canada to demonstrate a commitment to environmental justice and a sustainable, clean economy. We want an immediate reduction in carbon emissions. We want real investments in clean and renewable energy. We want the creation of effective green jobs. Most of all, we want real leadership. We want Canada to participate this December in the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen as a positive global force for a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty. Don’t ignore us any longer. It’s time to listen. (This letter was co-written with Chris Connolly, BSc ‘09 Microbiology and Immunology.)
You can’t have it both ways
The return of Doctor Cornett
Re: “You have the right to remain stupid” | Letters | October 5
Re: “Yet more about Doctor Cornett” | Letters | October 21
To the much-used Voltaire quote (if you Wikipedia it, you’ll discover that it actually originated from a biographer named Evelyn Hall), I’m going to add another: “Any publicity is good publicity.” As the Compendium! statistics from the October 15 issue truthfully show, news about Choose Life has taken up about half of The Daily’s reportage, and I think the club execs are particularly pleased about this. This anticipated large backlash might have had something to do with the keeping of their particularly inflammatory event title. They’re certainly getting their name and the services they offer out there. I agree with the right to choose. And I also agree that some people will never give up the chance for a good rowdy protest that is entirely counter-productive to their cause (see quote). This is less about free speech or anti-hate speech than about showing some fellow students some respect. Protesters, if you feel that constitutional rights have been broken then argue so through the system, not through a protest of dubious legal legitimacy – this event was allowed to happen by the administration. You can’t choose to uphold certain aspects of the system while ignoring others.
I would like to contribute to the conversation about Norman Cornett that has recently been seen in the pages of The McGill Daily. I was fortunate to have taken two classes taught by Cornett while I was completing my undergraduate degree at McGill. He is an unparalleled pedagogue always willing to help students find their voice by engaging them with his unique dialogical method. By bringing guests from all fields into the classroom for open conversation, Cornett created a nonjudgmental, nurturing space within which students were validated as individuals and given free reign to voice, explore, and make tangible the world of ideas.
While my time at McGill taught me many things, without Cornett, I would certainly not have had the well-rounded education that his classes ensured. It is lamentable that McGill did not recognize the value of his approach, something none of his students would hesitate to affirm. His departure from the University is certainly a loss for the student body, if not the administration. I encourage everyone interested in what the spirit of education looks like when it finds a classroom to seek out Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary Professor Norman Cornett: “Since when do we divorce the right answer from an honest answer?”.
Michael Garfinkle Medicine II
Yes, it’s the optimist in you The optimist in me would like to believe that the General Assembly aims to attract as large a crosssection of the student population as possible. The realist in me wonders why SSMU would schedule the GA early on a Wednesday afternoon, during class hours, when many students (surprise surprise) are attending class. Sure, I would love to attend the GA, make my voice heard, and do all the things the advocates of “student democracy” tell me I should be doing; but I am here at McGill as a student, so attending classes is sort of my job. I
Amara Possian U2 Political Science and Middle East Studies
Mary Haberle B.A. 2003 Joint Honours, History and Religious Studies M.L.I.S. Archival Studies
understand that SSMU probably tries to schedule the GAs in an efficient manner, but do they truly think it’s a coincidence that the most well-attended GA in recent history was held in the evening last winter semester? Maybe it’s still the optimist in me that thinks this, but I sincerely hope that this decision is simply a lack of thought on the part of SSMU, and not an attempt to keep the decisionmaking ability (as limited as it is) in the hands of those who can afford to sacrifice part of class time to participate in a glorified argument. Zach Margolis U2 Arts & Science Environment
We smell a Pulitzer... Re: “SSMU dropped the ball” | Editorial | October 23 We wanted to clear up several factual inaccuracies in the editorial of October 23. Listservs – We sent out announcements about the GA over the SSMU general listserv on October 7, 19, and 20, the SSMU Clubs and Services listserv on October 7 and 15, and the First Year listserv October 20. Web site – The General Assemblies link is under the “About SSMU” section. We made the GA a feature box of the SSMU front page from October 3-22 and the front page post October 13-16, and 19-22. Facebook – We created the Facebook event, invited 1,247 people (240 replied “yes”, and an additional 265 replied “maybe”), and posted the event at least 30 times. We also bought Facebook ads, which had 241,000 impressions (views) and 116 direct clicks. Posters – We posted 60 posters in high-traffic areas all around campus. In person – We held a GA motion writing session, made classroom announcements at over a dozen classes, tabled at Leacock and the SSMU kiosk on Monday, and made announcements all over campus in “TODAY IS THE GA” T-shirts the day of the General Assembly. Word-of-mouth – Targeting specific influential people to spread the word is indeed a “legitimate publicity campaign” tool, called influencer marketing. Targeted advertisements – The targeted advertising technique described both advertisements to the entire student community with specific buzzwords (“environment,” “pornography”), as well as sending out general announcements about the GA to specific student groups. In brief, the campaign designed by the GA Committee was much more extensive than described in the editorial. That being said, we take The Daily’s criticisms and suggestions to heart. We will revaluate the successes and failures of the fall GA to improve our strategies for the winter GA. A successful winter GA is a top priority for us.
Actually, many of our editors are from outside the ROC Re: “Why don’t you just do it inside?” | Letters | February 12 While The McGill Daily constantly congratulates itself for its role (vis-à-vis SSMU, the McGill administration, et cetera) in promoting social consciousness and a sense of community, its coverage of upcoming municipal elections reveals the extent to which it is trapped within the “ghetto bubble” it so passionately denounces. Simply put, not a word has been spent on elections that directly concern all McGill students. This contrasts with local papers such as La Presse and the Gazette, in addition to campus papers from Montreal’s other universities, which all feature election content in every issue. As The Daily correctly reminds us during SSMU and federal elections, voter participation among university students, and young people more generally, has hit rock bottom. It is shocking and disappointing to see The Daily contribute to this epidemic, despite the fact that many of the issues at the heart of the current municipal debate are regularly featured in the newspaper’s pages (sustainability, housing, ethics, et cetera). It is unbecoming of a newspaper of repute to be so detached from the everyday concerns of so many of its readers. It directly contradicts The Daily’s Statement of Principles, which state that its fundamental goal is to “serve as a critical and constructive forum for the exchange of ideas and information about McGill University and related communities.” More importantly, it is extremely irresponsible. The coterie from the ROC (also known as the Daily Editorial Board) ought to take notice and adjust accordingly. Farid Muttalib U4 Honours History EDITOR’S NOTE: This letter was received on October 22, before The Daily had offered some coverage of the municipal elections.
Sarah Olle Vice-President Clubs and Services (SSMU)
The Daily received more letters than it could print this issue. The rest will appear next issue, if you send us enough. Address your letters to letters@ mcgilldaily.com from your McGill email address, and keep them to 300 words or less. The Daily does not print letters that are racist, serophobic, or otherwise hateful.
Mind&Body
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
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Pen pals for prisoners Queer-positive, anti-prison activists speak out at the 2110 Centre Erin O'Callaghan The McGill Daily
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ast Saturday, October 24, I spent the afternoon at a panel titled, Beyond Prisons, Toward Community Strategies: Supporting Work within and against Prisons, hosted by the Prisoner Correspondence Project, Action santé travesti(e)s et transsexuel(le)s du Québec (ASTTeQ), and the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy. Before attending this panel, I had honestly never really thought about the incredible difficulties that queer and trans people face in the prison system. The five panellists shed light on the ongoing abuse queer and trans people suffer both from police and fellow prisoners. Farah Abdill, a local community organizer and previous trans sex worker, gave an emotional account of her personal experience in prison, describing the ridicule and humiliation she suffered as prisoners forced her to take off her wig, bra, and high heels. Prison guards refused to respond to her complaints; the only solution the prison system has come up with to “protect” queer and trans prisoners is to isolate them. Speakers also raised the issue of HIV/Hep C transmission and the difficulty of having safe sex in prison. The aim of the panel was to highlight the work already being done inside prisons to protect and help gay, lesbian, and trans people, outline the concrete conditions of people living in prison today and develop broader connections with outside groups and projects. To emphasize the fact that there are activists both inside and outside the prison system, two panellists were not physically present, because they are both still in prison. Peter Collins is incarcerated
in the Bath Institution in Ontario, and Amazon Contreraz is a prisoner at Corcoran, California. Collins contributed a taped interview, and Contreraz wrote letters because the project was unable to get an audio interview, due to a month-long prison lockdown. This also served to demonstrate the difficulties the Prisoner Correspondence Project comes up against in terms of generating discussion with prisoners on the inside; mail censorship and lockdowns are a constant reality. Liam Michaud and Kristin Li, two of the organizers for the panel from the Prisoner Correspondence Project, explained why such a project and talks such as the one on Saturday, are important. “The collective core of the project is comprised of people that identify as queer or trans. Since gay and trans folks are affected disproportionately by criminalization and the prison system, we as a community must seriously challenge these structures in the same ways that gay communities came together at the outset of the AIDS crises,” wrote Michaud and Li in an email. Gisele Dias of the Prisoner HIV/ AIDS Support Action Network from Toronto and Sadie Ryanne from the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) in Washington, D.C. were both speakers at the panel, and both supported this collaborative and collective idea of activism. Many of the speakers hold the belief that activists need to broaden their discussion around prison abolition strategies to include stopping people from going into prison in the first place. This means addressing homelessness, criminalization of drugs and sex work, immigration issues, et cetera. As Dias said, many groups are solely focused on harm-reduction strategies for when people are
Sasha Plotnikova and Dominic Popowich / The McGill Daily
already incarcerated, but she wanted to look past this and “stretch the way people think about reforming prisons.” Dias also advocated creating relationships with prisoners; she believes activists need to know whom they are fighting for, and prisoners need to know that they have a support group on the outside. “Prisoners need our support. [We] can’t ask them for help and then not support them if repercussions of [our] advocacy work affects them,” explained Dias. Dias is working right now on updating a document regarding HIV in prison, written first in 1992. She works collaboratively with Peter Collins on the update, and has found that the transmission of HIV is 10 times more likely in prison, and the transmission of Hep C is 40 times more likely. Health is one of the main issues that the
the gains the DCTC has made in gaining rights for trans people in D.C. jails, Ryanne echoed the sentiment that the bigger issue is fighting to prevent trans people from being arrested. As Michaud and Li expressed, “If we’re serious about defending our communities and we’re serious about trans/queer safety, then we need to start working toward movements that don’t just ask for bigger cages and longer chains, but work to destroy the source of that harm and violence itself.”
Prisoner Correspondence Project focuses on, along with the issue of isolation, both structural and emotional, which directly results from incarceration. “We understand isolation and health as urgent because they are at the core of the daily struggle to survive, as experienced by the 200+ inside pen pals and participants in the project,” wrote Michaud and Li. They are currently working to expand their pen pal program that helps prisoners to deal with isolation. They are also working on a resource series, Fucking Without Fear, which is built from information, tips, strategies, and experiences shared by their contacts inside prisons. Sadie Ryanne from DCTC brought up the issue of hormone access for trans people, which was something the DCTC fought for and won the right to in 2007. Despite
The Prisoner Correspondence Project will be co-presenting a film, Criminal Queers, at the H-110 Cinema at Concordia on November 13. If you are interested in getting involved with the project or have further questions, you can email them at info@prisonercorrespondenceproject.com.
bountiful amount of honey, which has been crucial for satiating my sweet tooth. My friend even tracked down local flour that is grown and ground within 100 miles. Balancing this with a full academic, extra-curricular, and work schedule is admittedly tricky, but is completely doable with a little thought. It’s true, I have to wake up 10 minutes earlier to make breakfast, but the veggie egg scramble with the cheese I found just outside of Oka is worth it. So is the Swiss chard, collard greens, onion, carrot, leek, and pepper stir-fry over a
bed of garlic roasted potatoes. Not to mention the baked squash with honey apple filling or potato-leek soup. Mmmm and baked pears for dessert. Next on the to-do list is honey ice cream and pizza...somehow. Come November 15, yes, I will race to Provigo and guzzle down the chocolate coated confectionary that is Bridge Mix. I will also, however, continue eating as locally as possible, especially now that I know the wide range of food this area has to offer. And just maybe I’ll feel like a little less of a phony.
A look into the 100-Mile challenge Elizabeth McNamee The McGill Daily
“I
felt like a phony.” This was my friend’s answer when asked why he became a vegan. This basic sentiment is the real reason I chose to do the 100-Mile challenge two weeks ago. There are many motivations to embark on the “100-Mile challenge,” a diet consisting only of food grown and produced within 100 miles of when you live. One main reason is
to reduce your carbon footprint by not participating in the consumption of food that has travelled thousands of miles from crop to plate. Apart from other environmental impacts, eating local supports local business, gives a name and a face to the grower or producer of your food, and tastes better. These are all reason enough to take on the diet, and I finally tried it because I felt like a fake, preaching the benefits and never committing, like a nonexclusive relationship. And I also got an email from Greening McGill.
I’m now at the halfway point of the diet, and as it turns out, it is the last thing I expected: EASY. Most of my groceries come from Organic Campus or the McGill Farmers’ Market. In-season vegetables not found there are undoubtedly at Jean Talon, as well as meat and eggs. Local sunflower oil from Frigo Vert can substitute for olive oil, and basically all of the dairy products in Quebec are local. You can find local wine and hard cider at a standard SAQ, and there is a buckwheat beer produced locally with local ingredients. Most importantly, there is a
Art Essay
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
21
The Marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Ciric Rebecca Chapman
Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
22
Olivia Messer / The McGill Daily
Breaking the silence of immigration Musicians of the World Symphony Orchestra helps performers to regain their careers in a new country Frances Kim Culture Writer
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dds are, your doorman has a secret. So does the next pizza delivery guy to come to your doorstep, the taxi cab driver who takes you home after a weekend rendez-vous, and the owner of the next depanneur or Couche-Tard you will visit. These people weren’t always doormen or delivery people. In actual fact, many are talented professors, brilliant doctors, or – in some cases – nationally recognized musicians of renowned symphony orchestras, who have given up their careers in their home countries to relocate to Canada. A great number of performers who have sacrificed their lives in music can be found throughout Montreal, struggling to make ends meet while facing systemic racism as immigrants. As Allison Cross of the Montreal Gazette recently wrote, “Religious and ethnic minorities in Canada feel discriminated against, neglected, and alienated…. [Although Canada is] open to minorities and well-intentioned in its federal and provincial policies, [it] often falls short in its efforts to ensure minorities have equal access to housing, education, justice, and political participation.” The classical musicians of Montreal, however, may have found a means to revitalize their musical careers with the Musicians of the World Symphony Orchestra (MWSO). The MWSO is a musical ensemble mainly consisting of immigrant musicians, culling the rest from the established Montreal
music scene. Founded by conductor Joseph Milo and his wife Lucy Ravinsky in late 2005, the MWSO has opened a gateway for these performers to return to the musical origins they left behind in their home countries. It started when Milo – himself an Israeli immigrant – walked through the front door of his apartment building. There, he struck up a conversation with his doorman, only to discover that he had once been a cellist for a major Russian symphony orchestra. This occurred again with Milo’s pizza deliveryman, who left behind his career as a violinist in a reputable Romanian orchestra to come to Canada. Since then, the MWSO has grown to an ensemble of over 50 musicians, given over 20 concert performances in the last four years, and earned much praise in various cities throughout Quebec, including Montreal. Upon entrance to Canada, the MWSO’s members were faced with numerous obstacles, and many had to adapt to a life without music. Very often, their reason for emigrating was tied to their families, and their need to maintain immediate familial support left them with little choice but to take lowincome jobs. For a city known for its fine arts and culture, Montreal holds few opportunities for classical musicians to find professional work, containing only one major symphony orchestra. Milo partially attributes the relative lack of symphony orchestras to its costliness, calling the symphonic orchestra “the most expensive instrument in the world.” Running a full ensemble requires that musicians be paid
per performance, on top of other basic needs, such as rehearsal space and concert hall rentals. He also attributes this lack of interest to the underdevelopment of school music programs. Venus Fu, the MWSO’s concertmaster, immigrated to Montreal nearly 10 years ago, and has been a part of the symphony orchestra for three. Her first three years in Montreal, however, were spent as a full-time mother. “It’s so hard to face the quiet. There’s nothing to do and suddenly you have absolutely no music, no career…. Your life is like a clock but with no batteries.” MWSO’s biggest hurdle remains in finding reliable sources of funding. When asked how the symphony orchestra manages to get by, Milo chuckled and said “with great difficulty” – a reference to the lack of government support. The MWSO depends on grants that are provided at all three levels of the government, many of which do not come through. The MWSO has previously received grants from the Canada Council of the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec but as Milo points out, the MWSO is just one applicant out of many. Moreover, when funding is granted for symphony orchestras, major ensembles tend to be favoured. Fu adds that it is unfortunate how more money is put toward sports, such as hockey, rather than toward the arts and culture. Especially for groups such as the MWSO – whose international members depend on the symphony orchestra as their connection back to the musical
world – such grants are particularly crucial. The MWSO has thus turned to corporate sponsors, including Hydro-Québec, for alternative sources of support. Yet even corporate sponsorship has been difficult, due to companies’ unwillingness to commit. And with the recent economic recession, financial support has further diminished. Ticket sales, contrary to belief, are very small sources of money, says Milo. The MWSO, affectionately called “The People’s Orchestra,” aims to bring music to everyone, without financial discrimination. In adherence to this aim, ticket sales for formal concerts are kept relatively low. This year, the MWSO has only been able to hold two concerts, which is significantly low in comparison to the 18 performances they played in their first two years. Both Milo and Fu expressed disappointment with this but add that they are not discouraged, as they have overcome larger hardships. Their twenty-first concert was recently held on the evening of October 19, at the Salle Pierre Mercure of the Centre Pierre Péladeau. Aptly themed as “East Meets West,” Milo and his symphony orchestra collaborated with several of Montreal’s ethnic music groups – such as Ragleela (a sitar-led quartet) and Samajam (an African percussion group) – in addition to a solo piece by Fu, combining Eastern music with traditional Western classical pieces. Following these collaborative performances was an impressive
interpretation of Antonín Dvo ák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” (commonly known as Dvo ák’s New World Symphony). Milo attributes the MWSO’s appeal to its choice of program, incorporating themed concerts, which aim to appeal to a wider scope of audiences. Previous concert themes have included “From Bach to Broadway” and “Disney’s Fantasia.” Milo hopes that one day, the MWSO will be able to tour the countries from which their musicians originate. “If you don’t dream, it’s never going to happen.” But in the meantime, Milo is pacing the symphony orchestra’s progress. His goal for the next several years is to cement the MWSO’s presence as a major Montreal symphony orchestra, and to develop its audience. Milo hopes to eventually bring performances to neighbourhoods, schools, parks, and community centres for those who are unable to attend the regular concerts. “We really feel very strongly that… part of our mission is to bring the music to everyone wherever we can. If they can’t come to the concert hall because it’s more expensive at a concert hall, travelling, et cetera. we try to bring them music to their communities as much as we can. I mean, technically, it’s more difficult, but everything’s possible.” With such dreams in mind, audiences can expect much more from the MWSO. The Musicians of the World Symphony Orchestra’s next concert will be on December 12, at the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Church (5375 Notre-Dame-de-Grâce).
Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
23
Silken movements QuebeAsia uses dance to explore the heritage of the Silk Road
Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite Culture Writer
T
he first QuebeAsia Series, a weekend of dance performances that reflected the fluidity, pervasiveness, and power of Asian dance forms, came to a close Saturday night at Art Neuf. QuebeAsia was organized by the Silken Dance Company, a group that focuses on dance styles from the Silk Road in Central Asia, which stretched from China to the Middle East. The mission of Silken Dance, according to the company’s web site, is to “nurture an artistic reflection that contributes to an informed political and cultural dialogue in the contemporary context.” The group incorporates classical training and contemporary expression to create a new, dynamic interpretation of Silk Road dance styles. Manijeh Ali, the founder and artistic director of Silken Dance, and organizer of the QuebeAsia series, participated in the event along with five other Quebec-based choreographers. Each of the series’ three evenings examined a different theme, from Asian history to culture to politics, through a combination of dance forms. The final night of the series, dedicated to an “exploration of historical and social themes through diverse Asian dance aesthetics,” included work by six participating artists: Ali, Reena Almoneda-Chang, Anne-Marie Lanthier, Catherine Cédilot, Justine Ricard, and Roger Sinha. The four pieces presented on the festival’s final evening encompassed a range of creative styles,
including dance, speech, and theatre, to delve into a common theme – nomadic identity and the search for cultural and historical roots. “La Mariée”, the opening piece, interpreted this theme with the lightest touch; the work was described as an expression of “the deeper…and lighter sides of a travel through our interior.” Choreographers AnneMarie Lanthier, Catherine Célidot, and Justine Ricard made the work for a single performer – Célidot performed the part – and created a moving canvas by projecting video footage of birds onto the dancer’s white wedding dress. Ali’s own choreographic contribution, a work titled “Under the Blue Sky of Genghis Khan”, approached the concept of migration much more literally. The piece traced the life story of the historical figure of Genghis Khan through four tableaus, and was executed in a more classical South Asian style. Final performer Roger Sinha used mixed media to enhance his piece, “P-DJ #2”. He closed the show with a multidisciplinary work that used speech to convey the feelings of alienation and overt racism that he confronted upon immigrating to Canada in 1968. Throughout P-DJ#2, Sinha fused movement and spoken word; he often sang lyrics that centred on the “cultural collision” he experienced as a person of colour immigrating to the Canadian prairies, and his struggle to reclaim his identity as a South Asian. This explicit exploration of identity, literally vocalized through the song, was a unique addition to the piece, but left little room for individual interpretation of Sinha’s
message. In contrast to Sinha’s more explicit approach to issues facing immigrants to Canada, choreographer Reena Almoneda-Chang’s “L’arbre Nomade” offered a subtle exploration and understanding of the struggles facing immigrants and first-generation Canadians. Almoneda-Chang, a Canadian dance-maker of Filipino and Chinese descent, often takes issues of immigration and cultural identity as inspiration for her work; in this case, she used the metaphor of a nomadic tree to explore the idea of reclaiming her cultural roots while retaining her identity as a Canadian. She found inspiration for the piece through dealing with her grief following the death of her Chinese grandfather. “There are all these customs around funerals that are so close to you and yet so far,” AlmonedaChang said. Coming to terms with these customs and their effect on her identity as a Canadian, she explained, was an important part of the creation of the piece. Almoneda-Chang employed a combination of African, Indian, and Asian dance forms in “L’arbre Nomade.” “The fusion of styles connects to feelings about my identity,” she remarked. However, her exploration of these themes is often “not literal,” but rather an exploration through the juxtaposition of dance styles. The more abstract nature of her work provided space for the
Sally Lin / The McGill Daily
QuebeAsia uses various media to explore nomadic identity. viewer’s individual interpretation of the movements, rather than spelling out each of the choreographer’s intentions, feelings, and inspirations fully. The QuebeAsia performance series, under the umbrella of the Silken Dance company, offers a unique opportunity for choreographers and dancers who specialize
in Asian styles of dance to showcase their work in a program specifically for Quebec-based performers. The intimate nature of the event allowed performers to interact with the audience on and off the stage and provided exposure for new artists with a contemporary spin on classical dance styles and cultural themes.
Putting the story back in history Montreal Life Stories Research Project sheds light on global tragedy, one life story at a time Kamran Aryah Culture Writer
T
he Montreal Life Stories Research Project, based in Concordia University’s history department, hopes to give members of displaced communities a voice by encouraging them to share their personal stories in recorded interviews. The project enlists the aid of 175 researchers – counting professors and students – as well as 180 volunteer community partners to compile an archive of spoken histories, in the hopes of re-inserting personal insight into our accounts of the tragedies that have scarred these past two centuries. The project, currently in its third year, prioritizes its interviewees, who retain authority over their personal accounts. The group is
also mandated to preserve its personal approach, a principle that has informed the project since its inception. Indeed, the group makes ties to individual communities, listening to those who wish to contribute their stories rather than posing prying questions. The interviewing style is honed to that end, using few simple, open questions – “Tell me about your grandmother,” for instance – meant to give interviewees the chance to drive the dialogue. Though aiming to compile 500 testimonials – each ranging from five to 20 hours – by the end of their planned five-year lifespan, the group devoted their whole first year to training their staff on interviewing techniques, as well as developing advisory councils with immigrant communities. The project coordinator, Eve-Lyne Cayouette Ashby, accented the research project’s
emphasis away from the journalistic approach. “These testimonials serve to capture unique moments in the context of a life history, which is part of our larger global history. Where a scientific perspective usually aims to obtain distance and objectivity, this project diverges and wishes to start with the subjective experience of members of the communities who have suffered social injustice.” Currently the project is still in the research stage, conducting outreach to communities and looking for people willing to tell their stories. One major goal – once the testimonials have been compiled – is accessibility, opening the interviews to all those who wish to consult them. Of course not all participants are willing to have their stories archived for public use, a reservation the research group
respects, as part of their mandate for proper handling of the participants’ testimonials. Researchers work closely with interviewees to edit and choose what they want to share or omit from the recordings. What is important is that – for those who choose to make their testimonials – the medium of oral history provides a good means to foster understanding and insight into the lives of those displaced populations who are a part of the larger Montreal community. The project is part of the Conseils de recherche des sciences humain du Canada (CRSH), one of many federally funded research grant programs. The project is being directly supervised by Community University Research Alliance (CURA), and has identified seven “working groups” helping to divide the project into smaller
sub-communities within Montreal and allow researchers to connect on a deeper level to individuals within them. These groups include Cambodian, Haitian, and African refugees, Holocaust survivors, and First Nations populations that have been displaced from their larger communities. The three remaining working groups aim to connect with youth refugee groups, through performance pieces conceived in cooperation with the Life Stories Project team. The Montreal Life Stories Research Project is actively seeking volunteers and participants both in a research capacity and as community and student affiliates; take this as an opportunity to get involved with the organization.
For more information, visit lifestoriesmontreal.ca
24Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
Nate Mosseau for the McGill Daily
Where the government has failed to provide essential services, the Street Patrol steps in to help.
Going somewhere The Ka’ wàhse Street Patrol helps homeless build futures for themselves Michael Lee-Murphy The McGill Daily
W
hen I sat down to interview Joey Saganash, our conversation had to be cut short because two people with scabies, a highly contagious skin infection, had entered the premises and needed to be removed. Saganash is the director of the Ka’ wàhse Street Patrol, a mobile homeless support unit based out of the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal (NFCM). Taking its name from the Mohawk word for “where are you going?” Ka’ wàhse operates three to four patrols per week, providing four basic core services to Montreal’s homeless aboriginal people: meals, toiletries, clothing, and active listening – the concept of meeting expressions of need with empathy and suggestions for help. Saganash, Cree himself, described the Patrol’s clientele, saying, “There are some people from [reserve] communities, for sure, but they have many years on the streets, many years in Montreal, many years migrating all over Canada. We get at least 1,000 clients in a month. In addition to the four core services, we also do intervention, transport, bringing them to detox, and that adds up to at least 6,000 services in a month.” The client’s mental health is also a large concern for the Patrol; Saganash explained that “you get cases of mental illness that slip through the cracks and wind up in Montreal, no support whatso-
ever, no diagnoses, no pills.” As our brief interview was ending, I asked Saganash if myself and my photographer and roommate Nate could accompany him on the evening’s patrol and speak with some of the clients. As long as we both signed release of liability forms, I was told. “Talk to them at your discretion, you know? If you get attacked, it’s not my problem,” he laughed. We returned to the Centre at 5 o’clock, release forms signed, to find Saganash loading the van with juice, hot coffee, dozens of sandwiches, and various assorted blankets and clothing. A line-up quickly formed at the open doors of the van. When one client asked for sugar and milk, his friend jokingly replied “It’s not Tim Horton’s, man.” The drinks and food were distributed by two other NFCM workers, Arlene Cross and Curtis. Cross is a non-native women originally from Cape Breton who has been with the Centre for 13 years. Though she’s roughly five feet tall, Cross exerts a massive maternal presence and created a sense of safety throughout the evening. Curtis is 19 years old and told me he’d been “on the van” for the past four weeks. When the van was fully packed, we all jumped in and departed. We were joined by Véronique Mireault, a “travailleuse de rue,” (outreach worker) from CACTUS Montréal, a community needle-exchange program. Through my broken French and her broken English, I learned that she had been with CACTUS for two years, but had worked as a social
worker for the past five. Saganash drove, Cross rode shotgun. “I can’t even see over the dashboard,” she hollered, laughing. Driving to the area around lower St. Laurent, Saganash spoke of his difficulties in acquiring funding. About three years ago, Ka’ wàhse’s funding from Service Canada was drastically cut, leaving the Patrol with about 45 dollars monthly for food. “I started to work on our social economy,” Saganash said. “We signed an agreement with Justice Québec for interpreters and translators. We also signed an agreement a year ago with Securité Publique, [with a mandate] to reduce criminality in the Ville Marie sector. So we got two more workers under that funding.” Because homelessness is, by its very definition, a state of existence devoid of a fixed personal space, the urban homeless are constantly required to migrate from place to place within the city. When we arrived at a small square on St. Laurent just south of Ste. Catherine, Saganash and Cross began spotting clients that they recognized from various places around lower St. Laurent. At the square, known as “Peace Park,” more sandwiches and coffee were served, and a dozen or so homeless people approached the van. A woman with a tear tattooed under her right eye asked Cross if she could have some gloves. “Of course not, honey!” Cross teased, as she got the gloves out of the van. “Joey, is this blanket for someone in particular?”
“No, it’s for anybody,” Saganash replied, as the heavy blanket was thrust into eager arms. It wasn’t long before a police squad car arrived. An officer jumped on top of a bench, searching for drug paraphernalia next to people eating their sandwiches. Nate snapped a few shots as, noticing us, the officers approached the van to investigate our presence. Saganash spoke to them and they shortly left, satisfied that we weren’t doing anything illegal. “We’re here several times a week, and still they don’t know us,” Saganash brooded. After the cops left, I spoke to Kim, a homeless aboriginal woman of roughly 40 originally from New Brunswick and living in Montreal for four years. Kim paints a fairly bleak portrait of life. “The weekends are the hardest for the homeless. The homelessness does not end when the week ends. Maybe you guys work from nine to five, but the homeless continue,” she said, struggling to get the words out. Kim also alluded to the importance of the Street Patrol and the gaps it fills, saying, “If you guys don’t help us, the homeless have to do really bad things to survive. And with all the things that are going on right now, [homelessness] is increasing.” She continued, “We see people on the street we’ve never seen before, we’re seeing some shit we’ve never seen before. Look, I was on the street since I was 11, and I’m seeing people that shouldn’t be here. I mean I shouldn’t be here either, but I’m used to it. But the new ones,
they can’t hack it, ‘cause they really don’t belong here. They disappear and they die.” Once back inside the van, Saganash vented his frustration at the officers’ behaviour. “[The police chief] has gotta talk to his freakin’ workers… ‘cause their intervention is so aggressive. They never take any time when they’re doing an intervention. Time is the key element to an intervention. They got their big guns and everything…. They tell me ‘Assis-toi! Assis-toi!’ (‘[Sit down! Sit down!]’) and they’re giving me orders. Just that gives me a negative vibe of them. They’re so cocky.” We returned to the Centre to make more sandwiches and eat some food ourselves. Saganash talked of his upbringing, splitting his time between Montreal and the Cree communities of northern Quebec, where he got in fights with other Cree because he’s part white. We talked about skateboarding (he was at one time semi-professional), tattoos (he has a large buffalo skull on his right bicep), and his plans for prisoner reintegration services at the centre. To say that the Ka’ wàhse Street Patrol is a labour of love would be a gross understatement. People like Saganash and Cross build bridges where a lack of government funding burned them in the first place. The cycle of homelessness must be broken, and groups like the Street Patrol, by humanizing rather than ignoring the homeless, are helping them get back on their feet – one cup of coffee at a time.
Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, November 2, 2009
25
Sifting treasure from contemporary trash A look at the Musée d’art contemporain’s fall season Thomas Large Culture Writer
H
e might not have known at the time, but when Marcel Duchamp stuck a urinal to a plinth, signed it, and called it a “readymade,” he stretched the limits of art far beyond what anyone would have imagined. And though this has allowed for unprecedented experimentation and discovery, and resulted in some very stimulating and revelatory artworks, the lack of constraints has also meant that mediocrity can easily sneak in the door. Today, faced with a barrage of new art and no criteria for judging any of it – besides curators telling us what’s good – it becomes increasingly difficult for audiences to distinguish the gems from the duds. It seems the best we can do is let our subjective tastes breathe. I was confronted with such a task on my recent visit to the Musée d’art contemporain (MAC). The museum’s fall season, which opened on October 10, showcases
the work of artists Tricia Middleton, Tacita Dean, and Francine Savard. Middleton’s Dark Souls is a multi-media installation that brings together a hodgepodge of found objects, sculpture, painting, video projection, and sound bites into a dim, cave-like setting. The installation addresses “the transformation and destruction of materials” involved in the industrial production cycle. The title – alluding to Nikolai Gogol’s socially charged novel, Dead Souls – hints at an attempt at social criticism. Directed toward both the over-consumption and materialobsession that form the culture of twenty-first century capitalism, Dark Souls’ piles of found objects and oozing metallic substances embody the waste and decay of our society. Remnants of nature seem to gasp for air under the suffocation of the waste, signalled by vines peeking through cracks in the wall, or a large projection of a forest scene in a back room. While there’s no accounting for taste, this struck me as the kind of thing that makes people view art as
pretentious, elitist, and meaningless. There’s nothing aesthetically pleasing about Dark Souls’ garish colours and piles of junk. And absent the MAC’s elaborate curatorial blurb, it’d be hard to discern any intelligible message. The second exhibition, a film installation by Tacita Dean, uses John Cage’s infamous 4’33” – a composition consisting of musicians not playing anything – as a jumping -off point. For the film, Dean asked Merce Cunningham (Cage’s longtime collaborator and life partner) to perform a dance to Cage’s piece. The result is a gallery space filled with six screens, each displaying a different version of Cunningham’s choreography. Cunningham’s contribution, titled STILLNESS, depicts him sitting, immobile before a wall of mirrors. The film could easily be mistaken for freeze-frames, if not for those fleeting moments between each of 4’33”’s movements where Cunningham adjusts his position very slightly. Though Cunningham’s participation lends a degree of legitimacy
to the project, one may nevertheless wonder whether Dean is simply riding on the back of 4’33”’s notoriety. Though Dean’s mixedmedia approach succeeds in casting 4’33” in a new light, the underlying idea nevertheless felt stale. The beauty of 4’33” lay in its ability to shock, outrage, and incite people to question their general assumptions about the nature of music and sound. Devoid of that force and vitality, Dean’s installation is confined to arousing interest, and nothing more. Finally reaching the third exhibition, I was relieved to step into a well-lit, white-walled gallery space with colourful paintings hanging on the wall. The mid-career retrospective of Montreal artist Francine Savard – collecting some 60 works produced between 1992 and 2009 – is the undoubted highlight of the MAC’s fall season. Savard’s oddly shaped, bright monochromatic canvases address the nature of painting through the use of art historical, literary, and geographical references. In one series of paintings,
Savard depicts fragments of found epigraphs on variously shaped canvases. The typographical presentation of the words resembles an e.e. cummings poem: each word is isolated on its own different plane, and rendered in soft pastel colours. The result is a powerful demonstration of the emotional force words can have when observed individually. The artist is able to transform theoretical texts into concrete poetry, while simultaneously transforming the textual source into the visual realm. The exhibit’s dramatic conclusion is a large, awe-inspiring sculptural rendition of the colour chart, entitled “Tu m’, un dernier tableau.” The title references Duchamp’s work “Tu m’”, which similarly addresses the limits of visual art. The subtitle – “a final painting” – gets at the ongoing debate about painting as a dying art, nicely summing up Savard’s oeuvre. If for no other reason, the intellectually sophisticated and visually beautiful works of Francine Savard should bring you down to the MAC this fall.
Not so mellow cello Erin O'Callaghan The McGill Daily
A
small-scale cello orchestra that collaborates with independent musicians, covers Guns ‘N’ Roses, and has been known to bust out the occasional heavy metal tune sounds pretty… well, pretty awesome actually. The Portland Cello Project, or PCP, is such a group. Comprised of 11 classically trained cellists, PCP started out as a bit of an experiment in 2007. “There’s a bunch of cellists in Portland, all classically trained, but we all play different music like jazz and rock. Eventually we were like, why don’t we get together to read some classical repertoire, [perform] at a rock club, and see what happens,” explained Doug Jenkins, one of the cellists and PCP’s primary composer. With PCP, you can hear a serious classical piece, a cover of “Toxic,” by Britney Spears, and a collaboration with indie rocker Thao Nguyen, all on one album. As Jenkins described, “[PCP] just kind of evolved into this group that plays funny covers and collaborations with other musicians and with a little bit of classical music thrown in.” As a genre, classical music is often seen as inaccessible and highbrow. But PCP defies that notion; their unique combination of musical forms ensures that one of their albums or live shows has a little something for everyone.
“If there’s a goal…it’s to bridge the two [musical] communities, to make classical music more accessible to people who wouldn’t normally listen to it, and make indie rock music more accessible to people who listen to classical music,” said Jenkins. “Our audiences are very diverse – [it’s] a nice feeling to have this room full of completely different people listening to classical music and something like the Dandy Warhols.” If you listen to PCP at all, you will notice that they’re big fans of collaborations. To begin with, the band was formed by throwing together 11 different musicians, who then worked together to produce different arrangements for their first show. “I think that [collaborations] are kind of the future of the music world,” Jenkins explained. “[You] can’t go wrong with a community, as opposed to a world that is very competitive.” PCP encourages a sense of community in the music world, even when they go on tour. “Whenever we’re in a town, we try to bring on extra cellists with us from that town,” Jenkins said. PCP is currently on tour with Nguyen with The Get Down Stay Down. They’re making their way from Oregon to Montreal and back to California. PCP loves to be unique, and for every Portland performance they prepare entirely new arrangements. Because their current tour is two months long and consists of 26 shows, it was impossible for them to write new
Sally Lin / The McGill Daily
Portland Cello Project builds bridges between musical communities
PCP alternates between Mussorgsky and Michael Jackson. material for each show, said Jenkins. Instead, they learned about two hours of music that they can change up depending on the audience and venue. As a result, a live PCP performance is very different from the CDs they produce. “We record most of our live shows, [and] online you can subscribe and you can get recordings from the live shows, because we’ll play a song once and we may never
play it again,” Jenkins explained. This originality encourages people to come out to hear the band live, because they know that they will be guaranteed something new and exciting. PCP’s approach to music is rare. Jenkins, however, believes that their collaborative style, if nothing else, will stick and expand into other aspects of the music world. “[PCP] is something that at its
base [is] admittedly [a] gimmick, but it’s something that we’ve given real life to,” Jenkins stated. If cellists, indie rockers, and pop covers sounds like your cup of tea, be sure to check them out; this group won’t stay a West Coast secret for long.
The Portland Cello Project plays Il Motore (179 rue Jean-Talon O.) on November 2.