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The articles marked “Things that Mattered” are retrospective, reflective pieces. While some mix elements of news style with analysis, they are not hard news, but the writer’s assessment of events or themes that have made an impact this year.
The McGill Daily Monday, April 12, 2010 NEWS FEATURES Judicial Board reviews Newburgh’s GA performance 5 Incoming president threatens legal action against campus group for defamation of character
Ideas are imperishable 6 The Daily talks to Salman Rushdie about some of his major influences and political views
The niqab in perspective 9
24 Owen’s spider colour A short story
26 Teaching unemployment in Cameroon The disconnect between European ideals and training relevant to a rural economy
28 The year in review Your Daily editors run down some of the year’s most important stories and events
Niqab-wearing women speak out about Islam, accommodation, and the niqab ban
University will not regulate military-related research 12 Demilitarize McGill’s proposals and amendments dismissed by Senate
Kenney to expedite refugee claim process 14 Critics say changes might endanger lives, restrict right of appeal
COMMENTARY Radical, schmadical 16 Labels aren’t as important as content
Why The Daily is worth supporting 18
SCI + TECH 33 Science courses can be kind of a mind-fuck Reflections on postsecondary education and the cost of your undergrad soul
34 10345664th floor, please McGill students compete in elevator race to space for $1-million prize
SPORTS 35 An ode to Mike Babcock Puttin’ on the foil
Asia rising; McGill doesn’t rise to the challenge 19 Eastern philosophers and thinkers should be studied with their Western counterparts
The Thomas Friedman paradigm 21 Flaw and failure in current Middle East coverage
Editorial: Why student politics matter 47
CULTURE 36 Backstreet bike shops Cycling nuts in Montreal offer a more personalized option than big stores
37 The little village beneath the freeway Tour de Montréal
COMPENDIUM!
39 Kurelek’s Canadiana
Fuck Shatner’s toilet paper 44
Looking back to a Canadian master for a vision of national identity
The final installment of our weekly anonymous therapeutic rant column
Campus rids itself of liability 45 McGill University to become “University at McGill”
40 Entering life’s doldrums Richard Greene’s latest collection finds the Canadian poet coming to terms with mid-life
41 We’re losing our lit mags Recent cuts to the Canadian Periodical Fund threaten the future of our nation’s literature
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News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
5
Judicial Board reviews Newburgh’s GA performance SPHR accused of defamation of character Henry Gass The McGill Daily
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ncoming SSMU president Zach Newburgh threatened to take legal action against McGill’s chapter of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) on April 3 if the group refused to drop their Judicial Board hearing within 48 hours, according to two sources. SPHR allowed the deadline to expire, and the Judicial Board meeting went ahead as scheduled Friday night. As the Daily went to press, a lawsuit had not been filed. SPHR called for a Judicial Board hearing on March 17, accusing Newburgh of bias while chairing the February 10 General Assembly (GA). The Judicial Board heard the case on Friday evening, but has not made a ruling. One of the motions voted on at the GA was submitted by SPHR, and called for SSMU to establish a committee that “will thoroughly investigate McGill University’s involvement with companies on the basis of negative ethnical practices.” The preamble of the motion mentioned the Israel-Palestine conflict within the context of ethical investments and boycotts, drawing ire from pro-Israel campus groups. SPHR holds that there was a conflict of interest, given that Newburgh is the president of Hillel Montreal, the umbrella organization that links the various anglophone Hillel student groups on Montreal campuses, including Hillel McGill. When the motion was brought to the floor of the GA, the clauses referencing Israel-Palestine were struck by popular vote. SPHR cited a January 28 meeting between SPHR and Hillel McGill members, attended by Newburgh. According to Nafay Choudhury, lead counsel for SPHR, the two parties adjourned for five minutes, and
Newburgh spent the break in private with the members of Hillel McGill. “The conversation Hillel McGill [had in private] points to what we don’t know,” said Choudhury. “No equivalent meeting was held with SPHR.” However, both Newburgh and Hillel McGill president Mookie Kideckel claimed that Newburgh refused to voice an opinion for the entire duration of the meeting, including the private meetings. “Zach refused to say anything. We wanted him to say something, but he didn’t,” said Kideckel. One key issue from the January meeting involved GA procedure, specifically whether a preamble clause could be amended. Newburgh confirmed that he told both parties at the meeting that such clauses could not be amended. The night before the GA, Newburgh received a call from Corey Omer, the clubs and services representative to SSMU and VP (External) of Hillel McGill, who directed him to a passage in Robert’s Rules – the legislative procedure for General Assemblies – stating that preamble clauses could be amended after certain motions had been passed. SPHR said they were not made aware of the change until Newburgh brought it up in the assembly. “It took everyone somewhat aback,” said Choudhury. Newburgh’s lead counsel, Max Reed, said that it was unrealistic to expect the speaker of council to know every rule in the 600-page Robert’s Rules book. SPHR countered that, as speaker, it was his job to know all of Robert’s Rules. SPHR claimed they had begun to review Robert’s Rules before the GA, but that their meeting was disrupted when they discovered SPHR member Alexa Romanelli’s Facebook account had been hacked, cancelling the GA event she was administrating. McGill security was
unable to trace the hack. SPHR also contended that Newburgh’s bias was revealed during the GA when he threatened vocal members of the assembly with ejection, but failed to act on these claims. Reed said that Newburgh followed all of Robert’s Rules to the letter, including the speaker’s ability to eject members of the GA. “A motion must come from the floor [to eject members of the Assembly],” said Reed, implying that Newburgh was not legally allowed to follow up on his threats. “If the motion passed without incident, if everyone was perfectly happy, Mr. Newburgh would still be biased – which in my opinion makes no sense,” concluded Reed. Newburgh confirmed during the hearing that he made SSMU aware that there could be a perceived conflict of interest if he chaired the Winter GA. Newburgh said SSMU president Ivan Neilson told him he would chair the GA anyway. Newburgh said that these facts undermine the SPHR allegation of a conflict of interest. “Their arguments don’t seem to hold,” said Newburgh. “I myself knew that there was potential conflict of interest. I had given full disclosure to the executive and they gave me full support. They told me that as an employee, I would be doing my job chairing the meeting.” Max Silverman, a member of SPHR and former SSMU VP (External), thought Newburgh had performed well at the GA, given that it was a highly-charged, divisive event. “I think Zach actually did a pretty good job, all things considered,” he said. Silverman sent a Facebook message to Newburgh expressing a similar sentiment after the GA. Newburgh cited the message in his respondent factum before the hearing, but when Silverman learned of it, he issued Newburgh a cease and desist order, and the mes-
Stephen Davis | The McGill Daily archives
sage was pulled from the factum. Despite Newburgh’s performance at the GA, Silverman said that even the appearance of a conflict of interest undermines the process. “Regardless of how highly one thinks of Zach, the optics of it make it appear as if there would be a conflict of interest and the mere appearance of a conflict of interest can delegitimize the process,” said Silverman. Neilson said that Newburgh was in danger of having this rift with SPHR define his presidency, but was confident in Newburgh’s ability to reconcile with SPHR, as well as all other student groups. “Regardless of the outcome, he’s just going to have to work a little bit harder to demonstrate not only to the
members of SPHR, but really to everyone, that that’s not what defines his presidency, that he really brings something more to the table, that he won’t allow this to be a distraction, and really not to try to ignore the past, but just to try to move on and proactively engage student groups,” said Neilson “I don’t think he’s trying to bring an overly aggressive attitude, despite whatever facts are floating around,” said Neilson. “I think that...he’s seeking mediation, that he’s trying to find a solution, and that next year he will bring that sort of attitude to any other conflict.” SPHR’s factum calls for a public reprimand of Newburgh by the Judicial Board or an official apology from him. —with files from Stephen Davis
PGSS votes to leave the Canadian Federation of Students Litigation on vote’s validity likely to follow Niko Block The McGill Daily
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cGill graduate students moved to leave the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) last week, following a four-day referendum that ended Thursday, April 1, with 86 per cent voting to terminate membership in the student lobby. The McGill Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) follows the Concordia Student Union as the second CFS member in Quebec to vote to leave the federation this term. All of the province’s four members are expected to vote on
continued membership by next year. However, the results will likely be followed by further discussion – and potential litigation – as CFS has not yet recognized the plebiscite as legitimate. The referendum follows a lengthy round of unresolved negotiations between CFS and PGSS on the process toward defederation. PGSS filed a petition to hold the referendum earlier in the year. However, CFS failed to respond to the request by its mandated deadline for doing so. PGSS subsequently filed for an injunction that would ratify the request at the Quebec Superior Court, but the
judge deferred a final decision on the matter. PGSS VP (Finance) Eric Pollanen said that another court date on the referendum’s validity is slated for late May. “Now the question is whether they’ll recognize this referendum after the fact,” said Pollanen. He added that in the preliminary negotiations on the referendum bylaws, CFS had pushed for the voting period to be no longer than two days, while PGSS pushed for four. “Two days is very unlikely to reach quorum,” said Pollanen. “It’s very difficult to agree to a referendum with little possibility of reaching quorum.” During the four day referendum,
12 per cent of PGSS students voted, thereby surpassing the five per cent quorum required by CFS exit bylaws. Just prior to the referendum, Pollanen and Eric Reed – both representatives to the PGSS referendum oversight committee – received an email from CFS staffer Lucy Watson indicating that CFS might run a parallel two-day referendum. In response, PGSS president Daniel Simeone sent an email to all members of PGSS warning them that the federation may make an attempt to undermine the referendum. Alex Anderson, a member of
the three-person pro-CFS “Yes” Committee, argued that the email on the PGSS listserv was premature, and cast the CFS in a negative light without giving them to opportunity to publicly respond. “Given that students didn’t have the chance to understand the benefits of remaining in CFS, it’s unsurprising that they voted against sustaining PGSS’s membership,” said Anderson. PGSS has accused CFS of being litigious, corrupt, and undemocratic throughout the year – notably, making headlines at the federation’s annual general meeting in November with a 43-motion reform package.
6 News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
Ideas are imperishable The Daily talks to Salman Rushdie about the Devil, Islam, and “the naughty bits” of literature
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ritish-Indian writer Salman Rushdie spoke about the role of literature in the public and private sphere, and several other topics at a free event hosted by SSMU on Friday evening. Rushdie is the author of several novels, which tackle themes from the partition of India to the immigrant experience in Britain. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was knighted for his literary achievements in 2008, but may be best known for receiving a fatwa ordering his death from Ayatollah Khomeinei of Iran in 1989 for his novel The Satanic Verses. The Daily sat down with him for a few minutes after his talk. The McGill Daily: The Master and Margarita is said to have a large influence on you. One of the quotes associated with you from the novel is the idea that “manuscripts don’t burn.” Salman Rushdie: It’s very strange, I think, in retrospect, the way in which the story of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel has come to echo what happened to The Satanic Verses. That novel was also banned and ridiculed, and really didn’t even exist in a full Russian version until more or less the fall of communism. It’s really quite extraordinary that the books should have those parallel lives. And then of course [The Master and Margarita] contains the question of destroying the text. In that case, of course, the text [in the book] is destroyed by the author, the Master himself. He doesn’t like his creation, and the Devil is the one who is shocked by the idea that he should try to destroy the book. It’s the Devil that says “Manuscripts don’t burn.” I’ve always thought it’s a very beautiful line, because what it means, of course, is that ideas are imperishable. There’s a line like it in a great play by Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, a play called The Physicist, in which one of the characters says, “What has once been thought cannot be un-thought.” I think that’s true and I think Bulgakov knew that was true. MD: Another Bulgakov quip associated with you is that “Books survive, writers don’t.” Clearly you’ve survived, but 38 people associated with The Satanic Verses did not, or received death threats. SR: There were all kinds of people who were attacked. It was a terrible time and I think that the courage with which publishers and booksellers withstood these threats has never been given enough credit. Really, this was a battle fought by ordinary people. It was not fought by great public figures.... [There were] other attacks of bookstores around the world, and attacks on people connected with the publication – at least one of whom was sadly
murdered, which was the book’s Japanese translator. MD: A major theme in The Satanic Verses is a “critique of the closed, and absolute belief system.” In your 20 years since writing it, how have you seen “closed and absolute systems” change or evolve, either politically or religiously? SR: Well, I think there is more now about that than there was then. It’s easy to say that that’s something that’s been happening in the Islamic world, and it has. But it’s also been happening in the extremes of North American Christianity. And more depressing, I’ve just come back from India, and it’s quite clear there’s a growth of sectarian extremism in India. It’s not just in Islam but in Hinduism as well: a kind of intolerance and censoriousness which was never characteristic of Hinduism. MD: Why do you think that is? SR: Everybody wants to get in on the act. What happens is people see it working for one community and they think they want some of that too. I’ve always thought one of the things about extremism, of which the extreme form is terrorism, is that there is a kind of glamour about it. It makes otherwise unimportant lives feel momentarily important. MD: In your talk, you discussed a tendency in Britain to “define yourself by your rage” in identity politics. Have you found that to be true in North America? SR: Well, I think it’s true worldwide, actually. People seem to be defining themselves by what they are against, whereas, I come from [another] generation. There is much to be said about the ’60s which is critical, because it was a kind of non-sensical time. But the one thing that was true about it is that people tended to define themselves by what they were for, and not what they were against. And that seems like a much more constructive way to lead a life. This kind of definition by negatives... damages the soul. MD: You said the way we relate to narratives, or who has control of them, determines the level of freedom in the world. Conversely, you talked about the disintegration of journalism. Do you see those things as related? SR: Yes, absolutely. I think that what journalists do is one of the most valuable things in a free society. And it’s dangerous. If you look at the Iraq war, this is a war where more journalists have been killed than in any war ever before. It’s getting more dangerous to do this job properly.... And it will enormously diminish the quality of life in any society if that job can’t be done properly. I think there is very good reason to think that’s going to happen. Because what happens in a moment of great change is that there are interregnums. I’m sure
Students waited in line for several hours to hear Rushdie speak. that at another point in the future there will be electronic news media that will be able to fulfill the role that the print media have done. The problem is what happens if there is 20 years in between. MD: In 2006 you signed a manifesto with several other writers against religious extremism, and have spoken about the need to reform Islam. Can you discuss that? SR: I think there’s no need to reform Islam itself [but a] need to reform Islamic society, because religion is religion. If religion is a private matter, then it’s nobody’s business but the person’s whose feelings are like that. It’s when reli-
gion becomes the basis for social and political organization – then that’s when you have to look at it. I think almost always, almost everywhere that that has happened, it has been, to put it mildly, a very conservative force, and often an oppressive force. It’s that aspect of it that needs reform. I do think it’s very regrettable that within Muslim culture it is very difficult to historicize the study of Islam. I think a great deal would result from being able to look at the birth of this religion as an event inside history rather than some kind of supernatural event. I think it’s very important that attitudes toward women change, that attitudes toward sexual minorities
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
change. I think it’s very important that people be allowed to speak more freely. I think I’m right in saying that there is no Arabic-speaking country now in which The Arabian Nights can be published in an unexplicated edition. The greatest, greatest work of fiction to be generated by the Arab world has to be censored to have all the naughty bits taken out. The Arabian Nights is an interesting book in that it’s really very low on religion and very high on sexual shenanigans, and that means that this great book is in very bowdlerized editions. And that seems indicative of a problem. —compiled by Erin Hale
News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
7
Women protest cuts to aboriginal community fund Ottawa sit-in ends in arrests, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada cites security concerns Amelia Schonbek The McGill Daily
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ix non-native women protesting the recent discontinuation of federal funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) were arrested in Ottawa on March 29, approximately one hour into a sit-in at Indian Affairs minister Chuck Strahl’s office. The protest was organized to express solidarity with the AHF, which funds the work of 134 community-based aboriginal support services that aid survivors of Canada’s residential school system. The organization began in 1998 with a $350-million grant from the federal government. However, the 2010 federal budget did not renew funding. According to protester Maya Rolbin-Ghanie, once the police arrived, the women were given 30 seconds to either leave or be arrested. “I asked them if we could have 60 seconds, if we could have a minute to discuss this, and they said, ‘No – 30 seconds,’” she said. “What was surprising was how quickly it escalated. Normally, at least as far as I know, the police have protocols where they escalate fairly slowly, and it usually lasts several hours,” Rolbin-Ghanie continued. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) spokesperson Margot Geduld said that the women were arrested because of a “security consideration.”
But Marc Menard, spokesperson for the national capital division of the RCMP, would not comment on whether or not security had been a concern. He said, however, that the women were ticketed for trespassing. The decision to cut AHF’s funding has been met with widespread “disbelief and shock,” according to AHF communications director Wayne Spear. “We had no guarantee that we’d get additional funding beyond March, but since there aren’t many services available in aboriginal communities people were quite upset that these services would be disappearing,” he added. Funding was not renewed despite an INAC-commissioned evaluation of the organization that was overwhelmingly positive. The evaluation found that “the healing is gaining momentum, but that in relation to the existing and growing need the healing ‘has just begun;’ project reports and interview results indicate a high level of continued need for healing according to an array of negative social indicators attributed to [residential school] trauma.” The evaluation went on to say that “that there are few if any viable alternatives to achieve the positive healing outcomes the AHF has been able to achieve with such a degree of success.” According to Geduld, the 2010 allocated budget $199 million over two years “to ensure that survivors
[of residential schools] continue their important path to healing.” “Certainly Health Canada will continue to work closely with the aboriginal communities,” she continued. Health Canada will receive $65.9 million over two years for the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support program, an existing Health Canada program, according to Paul Duchesne, director of Health Canada’s Media Monitoring Unit. The remaining $133.2 million will go toward the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) and the Common Experience Payment (CEP). Both the IAP and CEP programs award money to residential school survivors as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. But critics worry that operating programs through government agencies rather than community-based groups will have detrimental effects on residential school survivors. “There’s been a history in Canada of aboriginal people having solutions brought in from outside, depending on government, being dependent on these resources,” said Spear. “[With the AHF] we had examples of people being self-sufficient and taking control of their own well-being. It was successful, all the research said it was doing good work, but [the government] is not going to encourage that any longer. It should be clear to anyone who’s looked into it that this is a step backward,” he continued.
Sally Lin | The McGill Daily
The loss of AHF funding is just one in a recent series of federal funding cuts to aboriginal organizations. Federal funding of $7.2 million was withdrawn from First Nations University of Canada earlier this year. Sisters in Spirit, a national project that addressed violence against indigenous women and raised awareness about the issue, also lost its funding in the 2010 budget. “It seems to me that there’s a
broader phenomenon going on here,” said Rolbin-Ghanie. “The people who are actually doing the on-the-ground work are no longer being funded.” Geduld, however, refused to draw a connection between the recent funding cuts. “[These are issues] that have been in the media recently, but there’s really not a link between them at all. I don’t even see how you can link them,” she said.
Quebec budget implements new health care fees Activists critical of Ministry of Finance’s proposed “user fee” Erin Hudson News Writer
T
he provincial budget presented two weeks ago by the governing Parti Libéral du Québec (PLQ) is being criticized by proponents of public health care for the new fees it proposes. The budget calls for two new fees to cover the increasing costs of the province’s health care system: a “health deductible,” criticized for resembling a user fee, and a “health contribution,” – a flat-rate fee that will be added to Quebeckers’ annual income tax bills and take effect on July 1. The budget projects a $4.5-billion deficit for the 2010–2011 fiscal year, making Quebec the most debt-ridden province in Canada. The health sector accounts for over 12 per cent of Quebec’s GDP. It is the most important sector of the economy and, with 80 per cent of the population receiving health care each year, the most widely used provincial service. Considering the debt crisis facing Quebec, and the large role of health care, minister of finance Raymond Bachand’s announcement of the
Liberal government’s intention to balance the province’s budget by 201314 has big implications for the health care system. First proposed in 2008, health deductibles have a dual purpose: to finance institutional growth, productivity, and efficiency within health care initiatives, and to reorient public behaviour regarding health care. The deductibles would charge a fee for health services consumed over the course of a year. The cost would be determined based on the number of visits made to a health care provider, the monetary value of services consumed, and the income of the patient. The deductible would be capped at one per cent of household income. “Everybody benefits from health care; everybody should pay,” Bachand said to the Globe and Mail. Françoise David, a member of left-wing provincial party Québec solidaire, questions that reasoning on her blog: “How can you can talk seriously about equality and justice while developing a two-tiered health-care system?” Marie-Claude Goulet, president of Médecins Québécois pour le régime public, agreed, saying, “[One cannot]
apply this principle of services. [It is] completely against all thinking of public health care.” Bachand and others in the PLQ have asserted that the health deductible will encourage Quebeckers to make fewer unnecessary visits to their doctors – a notion Goulet rejects. “There is a false idea that people are seeing doctors too often, as if they have a choice,” said Goulet. “[Sick] people have no choice to come; they need to come.” Goulet’s stance reflects the view of many that the future health contribution and health deductible policies are not socially just and are in violation of the Canada Health Act of 1984. Goulet stated that the health contribution and deductible are “forbidden under the Canada Health Act, and we hope that they will continue to be forbidden.” The federal government has yet to comment on the new fees. If the policies are deemed incompatible with the act, however, the revenue generated from the policies will be deducted from Quebec’s federal funding. “Charging user fees in any way, shape, or form, no matter how you dress them up, accounts to a levy
placed on people who are ill,” said Irfan Dhalla, co-chair of the Canadian Doctors for Medicare, to the Globe and Mail. “There’s no doubt that user fees violate the spirit of the Canada Health Act.” The PLQ maintains, however, that due to the deductible nature of the new fees, as well as exemptions for low-income households, Quebec’s health system will remain progressive, public, and in accordance to the Canada Health Act. “Maybe it’s time Canadians sit down and examine that legislation,” Bachand said to the Globe and Mail. “The goal here is to serve our citizens and to have health services for all our citizens.” The health contribution, much like health premiums that exist in British Columbia and Ontario, is a gradually increasing flat-rate tax that will be added into annual income taxes: $25 in 2010, $100 in 2011, and $200 in 2012. Québec solidaire has criticized health contributions in addition to the health deductible, saying that it is a regressive policy that will result in an increased financial burden for middle-income households. Though health contributions are fixed, the government is emphasizing
the policy’s deductible nature by stating that the new fee will not be borne by lower-income households. Responses in the media to the implementation of health contributions have been varied. Jaques Menard, writing for the Montreal Gazette, called the budget provisions “a crucial turning point in our modern history.” He also pointed out that the new health care funding is in line with a slew of reports on the matter written over the past decade. Sophie Cousineau, a blogger for La Presse, wrote, “The Liberal government has finally decided to act. Bravo.” But she continued to note, “That doesn’t mean that the long-awaited decisions are the most just ones.” While Cousineau indicates that the new health contributions are projected to generate much-needed revenue for Quebec in the amount of $945 million by 2012-13, she casts doubt on the likelihood that the policy will succeed. “Even if the increase is ‘gradual,’ adult Quebeckers will quickly be paying $200 a year,” she commented. “Just to maintain their health care at their current, very unequal, level.”
8 News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
THINGS THAT MATTERED
How students stopped the governance bills Bills 38 and 44 caused a ruckus in the fall, but were abandoned after widespread protest Henry Gass The McGill Daily
O
Miranda Whist | The McGill Daily
ne of the biggest issues for Quebec students this year has been the debate surrounding Bills 38 and 44 and the matter of university governance. The bills – which deal with university and CEGEP governance respectively – would have required Boards of Governors (BoG) in Quebec’s postsecondary institutions to maintain 60 per cent external representation for universities, and 65 per cent for CEGEPs. External representation would be at the expense of internal, locally elected governors like professors, administrators, and students. Presented in spring 2009, the bills were met with widespread opposition from all levels of the postsecondary education system. Last summer, the ministry of education held a series of public hearings to gauge public enthusiasm for the bills. “Everyone was against it,” said SSMU legal and political affairs coordinator Boris Savoie-Doyer. “They took a shellacking. We challenged them to produce anything that supported [their theories]. They got destroyed.” Opponents of the bills argue that the logic supporting them is a naive perception of the values of external BoG members. “It was a very ideological point
of view on how [external] governors would act,” said SSMU VP (External) Sebastian RonderosMorgan. “The logic is that external governors have more interest in the financial well-being of an organization. [Often] they don’t really care.” In October, roughly 500 students from universities and CEGEPs all over Quebec took to the streets of Montreal to voice their anger about what they saw as the privatization of university governance. The protest was organized by Association pour un solidarité syndicale étudiante, and drew support from the Fédération québécoise des professeures et professeurs d’université, Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec, and the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec. Savoie-Doyer said that the government didn’t expect such an immediate and widespread outcry. “They thought it would be technical, that no one would pay attention [to the bills]. It was the opposite,” said Savoie-Doyer. Bills 38 and 44 were derived from the earlier Bill 107, written in the fall of 2008. That bill resulted from a provincial audit of the finances of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) in what came to be known as the UQAM real estate fiasco. In 2005, the university was faced with a massive space deficit and former rector Roch Denis’s solution was to embark on a risky and ambitious public/private development project
to build two new buildings. The project left the university $400 million in debt, enough to significantly weaken UQAM’s reputation and merit a huge government bailout. Ronderos-Morgan criticized the provincial government’s response to the real estate fiasco. “[The auditor general] really stepped out of bounds of what an auditor should do,” said Ronderos-Morgan, who instead emphasized the specific rector’s role in the fiasco. “Denis managed to manipulate the Board of Governors.” Despite the outcry earlier this year from student groups across the province, the bills could still be revived. Earlier amendments proposed by minister of education Michelle Courchesne were dismissed by the opposition, but it is possible that further amendments could be made. Revised versions of Bills 38 and 44 could be presented as early as the next parliamentary session in September. “As far as we know now [the bills] aren’t dead in the water,” said Ronderos-Morgan. “But the bills are fundamentally flawed; no amount of amendments could make them worthwhile.” Savoie-Doyer said that nothing substantial was likely to be amended; at least nothing that would sway the coalition of protesters against the bills. He did not rule out their return, however. “I’m sure it will rear its usual ugly head,” said Savoie-Doyer.
When picket lines go online Journal de Montréal employees start up new publication Rana Encol The McGill Daily
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earch 4545 Rue Frontenac on Google Street View and you will see picketing workers on the sidewalk outside of the Journal de Montréal head office. Although the image is from last October, 253 unionized employees – journalists, photographers, editors, and office workers – have been on the pavement since January 2009. But it’s not picket lines or protests that have garnered media attention for the union – it’s ruefrontenac.com, the online newspaper that the locked out journalists started in 2009 in order to continue covering local news. The Quebec Superior court recently overturned a labour board ruling criticizing the paper’s parent company, Quebecor Media, for the illegal use of replacement workers during the lockout. The Syndicat des travailleurs de l’information du Journal de Montréal (STIJM) and the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) are currently appealing the decision. The Quebec Labour Code
stipulates that companies cannot hire new employees to work in the establishment during a strike, though the law – dating from the 1970s – does not clearly elucidate what the “establishment” is. Newspapers use this ambiguity to continue to produce content through remotely performed labour, which undermines the spirit of the Labour Code, according to Darin Barney, an associate professor in the department of art history and communication studies at McGill who also serves as the Canada Research Chair in Technology and Citizenship. “The Labour Code exists to protect workers and their work, not workplaces. That the employer in this case would claim that work performed remotely, and submitted or gathered online, does not violate anti-strikebreaking provisions of the Labour Code is disingenuous at best,” said Barney in an email to The Daily.
Going home The lockout began with a failure to reach a new collective agreement when the Journal de Montréal workers’ contract expired on
December 31, 2008. The STIJM and CSN have launched a campaign involving a web petition denouncing Quebecor’s behaviour, asking the provincial government to use all available means to bring parties to the negotiating table. “The more the public knows about the issues, the more they are outraged,” said Pascal Filotto, secretary general of the STIJM. “The average [Journal de Montréal] reader doesn’t get the full picture. We have seen massive support from students and others who are getting their news online.” Media conglomerates have been restructuring in response to new media sources, real-time information, and declining revenue from classifieds and advertising. Quebecor has claimed that they have offered union employees “the best [pay] in the industry” and generous severance packages. The union, however, refuses to accept Quebecor’s deal, which includes the layoffs of 75 employees, a 20 per cent reduction in benefits, a 25 per cent pay cut for classified workers, fewer rights for new hires, and the employer’s freedom
to reassign employees to produce online or multimedia content without pay. Quebecor also wants to expand the 30-hour work week to a 37.5hour week. With a four-day work week being typical for most francophone dailies, this would mean an unpaid fifth workday. Filotto said that more than just pay is at stake. “This is a fight worth having – not only for us, but also for the public and the integrity and quality of journalism as a profession,” he said.
Going independent Filotto expressed fears about Quebecor’s new business model, which has seen the newsroom and publicity department uncomfortably close. The first edition of a new Quebecor weekly, L’Écho de la Rive Nord, ran an article positing the health benefits of tanning beds. The only source cited was the owner of four tanning salons, who had also bought an ad on the first page. Rue Frontenac has enjoyed considerable investigative and editorial freedom. In September 2009, the web site broke a corruption scan-
dal involving municipal politician Benoît Labonté, which led to his resignation as leader of the official opposition party, Vision Montréal. “It’s been a very interesting journalism laboratory. We’re able to do things we weren’t able to before,” said Filotto. Rue Frontenac isn’t the first union in Quebec to publish independently. After being locked out in April 2007, Journal de Québec workers launched Média Matin Québec (MMQ), a print daily they distributed for free during the 15-month labour dispute. The venture cost their union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, $5 million. Despite having considerably more editorial and investigative latitude than at the Quebecor-owned papers, independent models like MMQ or Rue Frontenac lack reliable streams of revenue, and are not viable in the long term. “I think what the [Journal de Montréal] workers are facing is an economic and technological situation in which it is becoming easier than ever to be a journalist, but also increasingly more difficult to make a living as one,” said Barney.
News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
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The niqab in perspective Women wearing the niqab speak out about Islam, accommodation, and the proposed ban
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ill 94 was tabled at the National Assembly last Thursday. If passed, the law would bar Muslim women wearing the niqab from accessing public services – including all government offices, universities, hospitals, community health care centres, schools, and daycares. Premier Jean Charest has said that the proposed law will advance the value of equality and secularism in the province, and that uncovered faces will improve security, identification, and communication in Quebec’s public sector. The bill’s opponents say that the legislation would impede religious freedoms and shut Quebecker Muslim women out from the public services to which they are entitled. Others have called it a hasty response to political pressure following the expulsion of a niqabwearing student from a CEGEP in Montreal. The Daily sat down with two women from the Montreal area to discuss their views on the niqab, the ban, and reasonable accommodation in the province. Though the bill has garnered international attention, local women wearing the niqab have yet to weigh in on the debate and the bill’s implications.
Sheeba Shukoor, 25 Brossard The McGill Daily: When did you start wearing the niqab? Why? Sheeba Shukoor: I started wearing the hijab when I was 15. [The] niqab wasn’t something I really understood at first, and the same goes for hijab as well. Upon doing research, I found the niqab to be a manifestation of hijab. From what I have learned it is more of a concept [of modesty]. I did research, and I went back and decided to wear it. MD: What difficulties have you encountered while wearing the niqab? SS: Right now I am not wearing it, but I really miss it, and I want to wear it again. But with the niqab I found that my relatives at home were more skeptical about it than third parties. Many Muslim people are not understanding of the hijab. They don’t understand the niqab, which is even harder to grasp. It helps to have support from family members. In the West and in the media you get scrutinized for it. Someone asked me in [the] grocery, “Ma’am, did you pay for everything in your bag?” and they think I am trying to hide something...so a challenge is that I have to be more articulate and outspoken, and I have to be nice to people. I want them to know that I don’t want to be intolerant, and I wish to be tolerant of others, and that I don’t want to impose anything on anyone, but I would respect this tolerance in return.
Olivia Messer and Sally Lin | The McGill Daily
MD: Why did you stop wearing it? SS: Mostly I guess because my husband wasn’t very much for it. I was the one who said I wanted to wear it, but people would say that he forced me to wear it. He felt conscious of the fact that perhaps they would think that he is blameworthy, when in fact it was my conscious choice and decision so I decided that maybe, not now, I won’t wear it for awhile to see… But inshallah [God willing] when things settle down, and I have time...I would like to wear it again. It is a sacrifice, it is not easy to do, but you feel like you are doing it for a noble purpose. Then it doesn’t matter so much what people think or say because you know that you are doing it for God. MD: What are your thoughts on the bill? Why do you think this ban is being considered? SS: It is something strange, this whole effort of reasonable accommodation in Quebec. People from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, could come together and be part of this society, and in many ways, by passing this bill, not only are people being marginalized, but they are being deterred from being part of society just because they have a different view on things. In the case of the lady wear-
ing the niqab [who] was expelled from college, I don’t think it should have gone to higher levels. It could have been resolved at the college, or an intermediary coming in could have come in and resolved it without it becoming something applicable to the entire province. Education is a right for everyone in this country, and I can’t understand why a different manner of dressing should not allow someone from seeking knowledge.
Dayna Ahmed, 28 Parc Extension The McGill Daily: Why did you start wearing the niqab? Dayna Ahmed: I started when I was in Concordia, and I thought I would never wear it, but alhamdulillah [thank God] I read more about it, and the more I grew in spirituality, I realized that this is part of my religion and this is what my creator wants me to do. After awhile I met a sister who wears the niqab in Concordia and I started asking questions: what is the stance? Is niqab in Islam? And as I read more I realized it is the right thing to do. The sister who was wearing the niqab, and the way she was, really con-
vinced me. She was covered and she was doing her Master’s. That is what compelled me to wear the niqab. You need more confidence to do it...and that really attracted me to it. MD: Were you surprised by the proposed ban? DA: When the bill came, I was kind of shocked. How come they didn’t ask anyone who is wearing the hijab or niqab? How come they didn’t consult us? They presented a bill without asking us, but it will affect us. We live in a democracy; they should ask us, they should ask most of the public opinion and the people who are going to be affected by it. We are citizens living in this society, we should have a say too. MD: What are your thoughts on the bill? DA: I think it is the negative sentiment toward Muslims, which is also the fault of Muslims. We haven’t given good dawah [education] about Islam, because most of the people who oppose it know very little about Islam. It is also the feminist movement.... For so long they have fought against male dominance and when they see a women covering they feel like they are going back in time, so it shows that they don’t know what the hijab and
niqab are – it’s nothing about malefemale equality. I think that not allowing me to wear a niqab; that I have to choose between my religious identity and my Canadian identity, my nationality.... Why should I have to make this compromise? It is my right of freedom, my religious right. It is my religion, and it’s not something made up either, and by wearing it I am practicing my religion, I am practicing my faith. You aren’t making an accommodation for something that is baseless, and something that is there for a good reason. I always grew up in Canada. I came here when I was two years old. This is the only country I know. I am a Muslim and a Canadian. I am both, and I would be very sad that this country would condemn people for practicing their faith in that way, a country that is known for justice. And I hope people can be more tolerant. In a country that is so multicultural, why should we not tolerate that someone wants to practice their faith? —compiled by Humera Jabir T he f u l l-leng t h ver sion of these inter views can be found at mcgilldaily.com.
10News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
THINGS THAT MATTERED
The abortion debate in context After a year of controversy, Choose Life will re-chart its course for the coming year. The Daily’s Stephen Davis reflects on what we have learned from the club, the debate, and dialogue.
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n 1987, Harper’s published an article by a writer named Sally Tisdale, who had worked as a nurse in an abortion clinic. Tisdale explained how, “In abortion, the absolute must always be tempered by the contextual.” There are no absolute answers to the moral question of abortion, she argued, because our values should always be contingent on context. For the large part of this year, McGill’s fledgling pro-life group, Choose Life, has opted to deal in moral absolutes, rather than acknowledging the lived experiences of the students around them. And this might be why they haven’t accomplished much of what they set out to do. Their moral absolutes led them to pursue shock tactics – forget the individual women, they seem to be saying, there is a greater truth here: abortion is killing, killing is wrong, and we will do whatever it takes to spread these truths. After a year clouded in controversy, they’ve re-plotted their course. But it remains to be seen where next year will lead.
The club’s history: digest version Choose Life gained interim club status in October 2008. And after holding some successful events and jumping through a few administrative hoops, they gained official club status at a Council meeting in February 2009. Official club status comes with certain privileges, including the ability to book rooms and set up displays on campus. Students were anxious and frustrated. At the October Council meeting, a student called the pro-life perspective “inherently violent against women and against human rights.” The February meeting was the most well-attended Council session in almost a year. The anxieties expressed at Council did not go unaddressed. The group was subject to certain restrictions, including a prohibition on the use of graphic imagery. In the lead-up to gaining official status, the group had proven itself to be a polarizing force on campus. Despite the restrictions on imagery, they tabled at the crossroads with pictures of fetal development in November 2008. Then they invited Mary Meehan, a speaker who compared abortion to eugenics. The audience in the room was literally divided, with pro-lifers on one side and Choose Life’s opponents on the other. In September 2009, the club hosted the Silent No More Awareness campaign. Demonstrators stood on campus with signs reading “I Regret My Abortion” – actions which some criticized as intentionally targeting women who’ve had abortions to make them feel ashamed. Fliers
handed out at the event made the dubious assertion that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer. Things became tense on campus, but Choose Life pushed forward. In October, they invited a speaker who compares the language used to justify abortion to the language that has been used to justify genocide. The Students’ Society censured the event, fearing it would create a hostile environment on campus. Choose Life went ahead with the event. Student protesters shut it down. Police escorted two protesters out in handcuffs. At a Senate meeting, Principal Heather Munroe-Blum said the protests had cast a “dark cloud” over campus by trying to censor the group. Soon after, SSMU Council voted to suspend Choose Life’s club status. Over the coming months, members of the club’s executive met with the Society’s Equity Committee to discuss how Choose Life could conform to the Society’s Equity Policy. This document binds the Society to “Creating, promoting, and engaging its membership in an environment that fosters respect.” After a few meetings and agreements on new restrictions for the group, a vote at Council in early April reinstated Choose Life as an official SSMU club.
The promise of dialogue When you speak with Choose Life president Natalie Fohl, she talks about a lot of things – women’s rights, Canadian law, and freedom of speech. But more than anything else, Fohl’s preferred topic is dialogue. I’ve interviewed her several times this year – after the group’s first event of the year, in the lead-up to their suspension, and following Choose Life’s reinstatement. At the Silent No More event, three speakers – two women and one man – shared stories of how abortion affected their lives. Afterward, when protesters had packed up their signs and guitars and left, Fohl told me that the event was “a great opportunity for dialogue.” In January, Fohl was tabling at the crossroads and speaking with students about abortion. Her club was still suspended, so she wasn’t allowed to be tabling under the name Choose Life. But she contacted Conservative McGill, and they booked a table under their name. Late in the day, someone came along and flipped over Fohl’s table. But she was optimistic, and said that Choose Life, as always, was “here to raise awareness but also to promote discussion.” And recently, with her club’s status reinstated, she said “We do try and have a variety of events to make sure that a lot of different people are engaged in...dialogue.”
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Rebecca Dooley at SSMU Council, where Choose Life’s status was reinstated in April. Fohl’s professed love for dialogue is bizarre, since for a brief period this year, it seemed that Choose Life’s tactics had destroyed any hope of a meaningful discussion of reproductive rights on campus. When you confront a woman with a sign reading, “I regret my abortion,” for instance, you cannot expect students to eagerly engage in dialogue. Fohl seems to have realized this. Her plans for the club have shifted away from inviting incendiary speakers and toward research and activism. She explained that future initiatives would include a research group that will assess the resources available for parents and pregnant students at McGill. “We’re going to compile that information, [first] to make it available, but also to assess the situation, see if it’s adequate, and, if it’s not, advocate for changes,” Fohl said. After a rocky year, she seems more aware than ever that pregnancy is a particularly weighty issue for students, one that the administration fails to address. “If I were to get pregnant, randomly, unexpectedly...that would be my school career, all of my plans, out the window. And I don’t think that needs to be the case.... The University structure should be set up to accommodate that and make it so that women don’t have to choose between their studies and their child’s life,” Fohl said. She didn’t mention any concrete plans Choose Life has to accomplish these goals – and they have their reputation working against them. Their rhetoric earlier this year was divisive – not the kind of talk that encourages
students to get involved with any sort of grassroots initiative advocating for pregnant students. Through their actions – their signs, their underhanded tactics, their shock tactics – Choose Life has alienated the very people they want to advocate for.
A look ahead I recently read a Maisonneuve article in which the pseudonymous author wrote about her own abortion. She mentions Tisdale’s piece, and toward the end, she quotes British writer Fay Weldon: “Abortion is sometimes necessary, sometimes not, always sad. It is to the woman as war is to the man – a living sacrifice in a cause justified or not justified, as the observer may decide. It is the making of hard decisions – that this one must die so that one can live in honor and decency and comfort. Women have no leaders, of course; a woman’s conscience must be her General. There are no stirring songs to make the task of killing easier, no victory marches and medals handed around afterwards, merely a sense of loss.” The Maisonneuve writer goes on to say that women who choose to obtain abortions open up an aftermath that they must face alone. So far, Choose Life has only made the situation worse, reinforcing the view that abortion is absolutely wrong, but the factors that compel women to make that choice aren’t worth challenging. After Council voted to impose new restrictions on Choose Life, Fohl accused the Society of applying a double standard. Choose Life is the only club on campus that
must abide by such stringent guidelines, she said. This is true. But no other club on campus deals with issues with as much potential to alienate students as abortion. As VP (University Affairs) Rebecca Dooley said after the vote, “You can’t talk about this issue and not talk about women’s bodies. You can’t talk about this issue and not talk about a difficult experience.” Choose Life VP (Internal) Paul Cernek told me that, “We have the best interests of everyone at heart, including women.” If this is true, Choose Life should acknowledge that women who choose to end their pregnancies do so for reasons that a campus club could actively combat. They must focus less on the how of abortion – the surgical procedures, the gory details – and more on the why: those factors that compel a woman to seek an abortion. If women are ending pregnancies because they must choose between a child and paying rent, the group could campaign for improved access to social housing. Or they could advocate for McGill post-doctoral students to receive benefits like subsidized child-care or paid maternity leave. Currently, maternity leave is negotiated with the post-doc’s supervisor. And then there’s contraception and sex education, both of which are lacking across the country and around the world. As a SSMU club, they stand to benefit from the funds that the Society collects from its members (all undergrads and law students). Choose Life owes students more. If they are as concerned about women’s welfare as they claim to be, they need to prove it next year.
News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
11
Engineering up for re-accreditation Nine programs to be reviewed by federal body Braden Goyette The McGill Daily
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ine programs in the McGill Faculty of Engineering are going up for accreditation renewal next year. In order to be accredited, the programs have to meet new standards set by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB), a process that will involve some restructuring. It’s created a lot of work for the faculty’s academic committee, whose last meeting had 83 items on the agenda. The academic committee has reviewed every program to make sure it meets all the requirements and has an adequate num-
NEWS BULLETIN Gorilla Composting to acquire new machine In the next several weeks, as the majority of students settle down to study for exams, members of McGill’s Gorilla Composting will have cause to celebrate. The student-run organization, founded in 2005, has successfully financed the purchase of a Big Hanna T240 composting machine, which will arrive on campus this month. “It was all made possible by the initial contribution from the Students’ Society [of McGill University] and the Generations Pact of the government of Quebec,” said David Gray-Donald, coordinator of Gorilla Composting. “We had the plans before that, but it was really that funding that gave the whole thing legitimacy,” he said. Other sponsors of the project include Environment Canada, the TD Friends of the Environment Fund, and McGill University Services. A major challenge was convincing sponsors that the composter is hygienic.“Composting in general does not have a great reputation,
ber of contact hours, or academic units. Associate dean James Clark, who chairs the engineering academic committee and the committee on teaching and learning, said that there’s a 100 per cent chance that McGill’s engineering programs will pass accreditation, and that it’s more a matter of doing well enough in the review process that each program earns the maximum accreditation period of six years before another review has to take place. Jonathan Lipsitz, Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) VP (Academic) and student representative on both committees, has sensed some skepticism about the new requirements over the past year.
“The professors don’t really like changing around their whole thing, because we’ve been putting out perfectly good engineers for the past 50 years,” he said. “However, they do realize we need to do this to keep being an engineering program.” “It seems like a lot of work that needs to be done that might not necessarily justify the efforts put into it,” Lipsitz said. “A lot of people are working really hard to satisfy these new requirements, [and] once we’ve satisfied the new requirements, I don’t see us being that much improved from what we were beforehand.” Lipsitz added that the process stands to affect CEGEP students the most, as their transfer credits
may no longer be counted the same way. Clark said that the restriction on transfer credits is nothing new and isn’t going to change with the new requirements, though McGill is constantly pushing the CEAB to count more CEGEP transfer credits. According to EUS president Andrew Doyle, there was serious concern earlier in the year about passing the accreditation process. “There’s a certain minimum number of professors that have to be in each program – and a [minimum number] who have to be professional engineers,” said Doyle. “The dean of engineering [Christophe Pierre] is a junior engineer, not a professional engineer. There was
a worry that we were going to lose accreditation…. Other schools have failed, and it’s serious.” According to Clark, Pierre was not certified because he was coming from the U.S., where professors are not required to be licensed in the same way. Now, Doyle said, with accreditation pending, Pierre will be taking the exam to become a professional engineer. “It looks like we’re on track,” Doyle said. “I have total confidence that he’ll be able to pass.” Though some of the new CEAB requirements deal with the numbers of instructors with specific credentials each program should have, Clark said that the regulations should not affect personnel changes within the faculty.
especially in a downtown setting like this” explained Gray-Donald. “People associate it with garbage and rotting material.” Several years ago, Gorilla Composting and McGill Food Services experienced difficulty when compost near Douglas Hall Residence became infested with raccoons and rodents. Although this was a different form of composting, Gray-Donald explained that it is the word “compost” that University Services associates with these problems. “We spent a lot of time reassuring them that this is a different approach. It is better maintained by the coordinator of the project,” he said. Gray-Donald indicated that Gorilla Composting is eagerly anticipating the positive effects of the T240. Food waste from Bishop Mountain Hall, Royal Victoria College, and Douglas Hall will soon be composted. “Students in their first year will be exposed to this system where they learn that food waste is not garbage, that it’s a resource that can be used,” he said. The machine’s arrival is a milestone in what Gray-Donald described as Gorilla Composting’s original aim: “to get composting into the institutions and have fun doing it.” — Portia Crowe
Environment year-end review: COP15 and Sustainability at McGill
night of the negotiations; Canada was not among them. At a recent conference at l’Institut d’études politiques in Paris, a member of the French negotiating team said Canada was not a big player in the negotiations, adding that the country’s hands seem to be tied by the Canadian government. Immediately after COP15 concluded, Evo Morales announced an alternative conference, Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre el Cambio Climático y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra (Global Conference of Peoples on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth) to be held this month. Morales was critical of the UN climate change negotiations, arguing for an examination of the structural causes of climate change and the necessity of a UN Declaration on the Rights of Mother Nature. 7,500 people have registered for the conference taking place from April 19-22 in Cochabamba, Bolivia. COP16 will take place in Cancun, Mexico. Activists hope that a COP taking place in Latin America will result in more representatives from developing countries, resulting in a fair international agreement. McGill principal Heather Munroe-Blum attended COP15 as an official member of the Canadian
delegation, as did Andrew Cuddy, U3 Political Science and Environment. From April 9-11, Conference of the Parties 6 (COP 6 Bis) was held in Bonn, Germany – the location of the offices of the UN Secretariat charged with the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. McGill student Amara Possian, U2 Joint Honours Political Science and Middle East Studies, attended COP 6 Bis as a blogger for the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. She was there to forge links between the Canadian youth movement and the international youth movement, otherwise known as YOUNGO ( YOUth Non-Government Organizations), which gained accredited group status at the negotiations. Last fall, McGill students voted in favour of a Sustainability Fee ($0.50 per credit) which will inaugurate a Sustainability projects fund. The University has agreed to match the funds raised by SSMU, resulting in a total of $840,000 available for initiatives that promote environmental sustainability on campus. The Environment Commission of SSMU will be accepting applications throughout the year. — Devon Willis
The Conference of the Parties 15 (COP15) was held in Copenhagen in December. 40,000 attendees convened from around the world, 15,000 of whom were civil society observers. Activists rallied, demanding that COP15 be the COP to achieve a binding international accord that would set concrete goals to address climate change. The result was the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, highly criticized for being an inadequate successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Although the conference wrapped up in December, many negotiators, activists, and journalists have already started planning for the next COP to obtain improved climate change policies. Canada’s role at COP15 was peripheral. Prime minister Stephen Harper confirmed his attendance only after U.S. president Barack Obama decided to attend. Harper did not personally address the United Nations, choosing instead to have minister of the environment Jim Prentice make a twominute speech. Twenty-eight nations were invited to draft the Copenhagen Accord on the last
See you in the fall! News. news@mcgilldaily.com
12News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
That’ll do, SSMU, that’ll do A
t the end of each year, the News editors often find themselves writing lukewarm to scathing reviews of each member of the SSMU executive. This year, however, the executive has done a pretty great job. They’ve been accessible and personable to news writers, and have accomplished projects beyond their election promises. Overall, we’ve had a better relationship with SSMU president Ivan Neilson than his counterparts in years past – perhaps because of his willingness to sit down with The Daily. One of the reasons the executive was successful is the fact that they all seemed to work well together, even during times of SSMU crisis and controversy. We were fairly apprehensive about Neilson when he won last year, but overall he seems to have helped run a tight ship this year. We wonder whether he could have been more proactive in preventing the events that led to the J-Board case against incoming president Zach Newburgh, but overall, he seemed dedicated to representing all SSMU members fairly. Jose Diaz has more notches on his belt than any past VP (Finance) we can remember: the SSMU budget is on the ball, a Gerts renaissance this year put the long-ignored bar back in the black, Haven Books was euthanized, and a new speakers and event fund was cre-
ated. To top it all off, SSMU is no longer investing in the tar sands. Diaz’s emphasis on transparency in SSMU’s finances was also admirable, and when we asked difficult questions about SSMU investments, he was both forthcoming and sincere. Our midterm review of VP (Clubs and Services) Sarah Olle was glowing, and our praise can only continue. She achieved her promises of ushering the Tribune toward independence and making SSMU more user-friendly by advocating for student grievances in Council. She also worked hard to bring the McGill Yearbook back to life, and personally promoted the Winter General Assembly. One of the best parts of Rebecca Dooley’s time as VP (University Affairs) was her desire to represent student concerns at Senate. She fought for more transparency of harmful research at McGill, greater access for the media, and improved timeliness of coursepack availability. She also steered the Equity Committee through the Choose Life suspension, one of its most challenging tasks in recent SSMU history, worked to create the Sustainability Project Fund, and pushed for the self-reporting H1N1 red button on myMcGill. The year started a little rough for VP (Internal) Alex Brown with some Frosh debacles, but things only got better for her. We’ve
Photos by Dominic Popowich | The McGill Daily archives
Clockwise from the top: Dooley, Ronderos-Morgan, Diaz, Olle, Neilson, Brown already praised her for cancelling SnowAP and replacing it with Week101, but she also did a good job improving advertising for the General Assembly. SSMU events also diversified as the year went on, ending with a spectacular bang with a Girl Talk concert and a talk by Salman Rushdie. Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan,
the VP (External) oversaw a year of transition for SSMU external relations by working on the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec with several other student unions. He also fulfilled his promise to work with the MiltonParc community, for which past VPs (External) was little more than a campaign slogan. He
got the gears rolling on SSMU involvement in the provincial tuition debate, though some of his events were more successful than others. The SSMU executive has worked well together, through thick and thin, and their level of commitment to each other has shown through. We may even miss them.
THINGS THAT MATTERED
McGill will not regulate military research After a year-long battle in Senate, harmful research disclosure left out Stephanie Law The McGill Daily
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esearch with potentially harmful applications will see few regulatory restrictions at McGill, following a decision made at Senate on March 24. This year, McGill has seen a long and arduous debate over its newly passed Regulations on Conduct of Research policy, which has ultimately omitted the ethical regulations sought by the campus group Demilitarize McGill. The debate over the new policy has focused mainly on the removal of regulations on research funded by the military, and the need for a reporting system established within the policy to monitor any research that is funded by nonpeer-reviewed sources, as well as research with potentially harmful applications. “Just as we have ethical reviews of research on human subjects…I think that we can ask those kinds of questions [for any research],”
said law professor and Senator, Richard Janda. “Particularly, I believe we should ask those kinds of questions when the sources of money that are being given for research are not peer-reviewed granting councils.” Students from Demilitarize McGill started working with the administration in 2008 to tighten regulations on military-funded research that were in the old policy, and to extend those regulations to any research that could have potentially harmful applications. In February 2009, Associate Provost (Policies and Procedures) William Foster presented a draft of the new research policy to Demilitarize McGill and the then SSMU VP (University Affairs) Nadya Wilkinson. The draft contained a new section that required researchers to obtain approval from the VP (Research and International Relations) to undertake research which has significant potential for direct harmful applications or adverse effects.
This section was removed from the new policy at its first reading in November, however, along with some of the policy’s pre-existing regulations. After the November Senate meeting, Demilitarize McGill submitted another proposal of amendments, but they were not included or addressed in the second reading in February. The policy was finally reviewed by the Academic Policy Committee, which was deeply divided on the issue and ultimately struck the regulations on research with military purposes or any potentially harmful applications. The document went to a vote in Senate in March, where it passed almost unanimously. Throughout the entire debate, the administration was reluctant to consider any regulatory obligation to disclose harmful applications that could stem from research. The administration reiterated at each meeting, in and outside the Senate, that there was an urgency to push this policy forward as is.
“The policy is ready to be adopted right now, and every month that goes by without having a document like this is dangerous [and] is not good for the University. We need this to come in force as soon as possible,” Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) Denis Thérien said at the February Senate meeting. The administration consistently argued that McGill must stay in line with other large research universities in Canada, which do not have such policies in place. Many researchers – students and professors alike – were concerned that these policies would add an unnecessary burden on researchers, and that it would be impossible for researchers to identify all possible applications of their research once it is in the public domain. “We’ve been hearing that it’s too cumbersome,” said Janda on a CKUT live broadcast in early March, “but the fact is our social responsibilities require us to think about things that are not entirely certain. All that we’re
asking researchers to do is think about the problem, report about it, and have the University keep track of this.... Seems to me it’s entirely consistent with the role of the University.” Nikki Bozinoff, member of Demilitarize McGill and former editor at The Daily, said that she was not shocked by the decision made by Senate in March. “Demilitarize McGill has always maintained that ethical review of research with harmful applications will become the norm one day. The question here is whether McGill wanted to lead that movement, and it’s clear that they weren’t up to the task,” said Bozinoff. “We urge students to engage in creative direct action to oppose harmful research.” Demilatirize McGill is currently undertaking a project to archive potentially harmful research done at McGill, including research conducted during the ’80s, when weapons research at McGill was first exposed by a group of students and professors.
News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
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Mining company squelches critical book Talonbooks, publisher of book revealing Canada’s pro-mining policies, threatened by Barrick Gold Kallee Lins The McGill Daily
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arrick Gold, the world’s largest gold mining company, has successfully pressured Talonbooks into cancelling its plans to publish Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries. The book focuses on the economic, social, and environmental repercussions of the Canadian mining industry internationally. “This has the potential to develop into serious legal action,” said a representative of Talon who asked to remain anonymous. Written collectively by Alain Deneault and the members of the Collectif resources d’Afrique, Imperial Canada Inc. critically examined the factors that have led Canada to become home to the majority of the world’s mining companies. It focuses on four themes: the mining codes of Quebec and Ontario, the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada’s involvement in Caribbean tax havens, and Canada’s official diplomatic approach toward international institutions that govern worldwide mining, all of these factors perpetuate what the book calls the extension of Canada’s “imperial heritage” into today’s extractive sector. The authors examine the extent to which Canada supports mineral speculation, grants subsidies to mining companies, and most importantly, provides a legal sanctuary for companies facing lawsuits from communities that are experiencing adverse effects due to their extraction operations.
Montreal-based journalist Tim McSorely has reported that the book “outlines alleged human rights abuses carried out by Barrick Gold in various African countries, including the deaths of more than 50 Tanzanians in 1996 and fuelling the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Imperial Canada Inc. also examines Canada’s judicial practices of giving legal preference to one’s right to reputation over freedom of expression and the public right to information. The authors assert this legal tradition as the reason that many academics have been reluctant to present their mining-related work in Canada for fear of libel charges. This is not the first time that Canadian mining companies have tried to silence their critics. Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption, et criminalité en Afrique, also co-written by Deneault, presented a collection of documents detailing the impact of Canadian mining companies in Africa, and credited the continuation of these questionable operations to the “unfailing help of the Canadian government.” It was successfully published by Édition écosociété in 2008, though Barrick Gold successfully cancelled the book launch in April of that year by serving the editors and publisher with a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation based on claims of inaccuracies. In a press release that followed the cancellation of the book launch, the Collectif Resources d’Afrique said “It is understood that the financial means of a powerful mining company, compared to that of the researchers who
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
This is not the first time Barrick Gold has censored critical books. prepared the book, permits the company to proceed by intimidation.” The original intent of Talonbooks was to produce a direct translation of Noir Canada. However, after mining companies Barrick and Banro filed lawsuits against all who were involved in the production of the book, Talon was advised to develop a new approach in light of legal considerations. Imperial Canada Inc. focused on Canada’s economic policy and other cultural and institutional factors in order to ask one question: why are 70 per cent of the world’s mining companies registered in Canada through the Toronto Stock
Exchange? Given that the book’s intent was mainly scholarly, Talonbooks said they were shocked to receive a threatening letter from Barrick’s lawyers demanding the complete handover of all pieces of the manuscript that either directly or indirectly reference Barrick Gold, any subsidiary company, an affiliated company, or any former or current company administrator. The representative from Talon said there is no known explanation for what prompted the company to demand access to the manuscripts last month. Also in the letter from Barrick Gold to Talonbooks Publishing, the company warned that if Talon
failed to provide such documents, to rigorously check their facts, and to refrain from republishing any “defamatory contents” that were included in Noir Canada, Barrick would not hesitate to take legal procedures against the authors, or “any other person who will have played a part in the drafting, the translation, the publication, the diffusion or the promotion,” of Imperial Canada Inc. As manuscripts prior to release are considered private property, Talonbooks – perceiving the letter as seriously threatening – saw Barrick’s actions as a deep violation of privacy, according to the representative of the publishing company.
Public sector employees keep up demands for pay raise Quebec’s provincial employees march in Montreal for new contract Laurin Liu The McGill Daily
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he contracts of public and semi-public workers across the province expired April 1 while negotiations between the province and union are still ongoing. On March 20, 75,000 workers had taken to the streets demanding that a collective agreement be reached by March 31, and marched again on April 8. Louis Roy, first vice president of the Confédération des syndica nationats (CSN), said that the goal of the demonstration was to force the government to negotiate without resorting to a general strike. “When we decided to do this demonstration, it was because we
told the government last year... if you want to negotiate with us and we are not on strike, they have the opportunity to do that before March 31. The possibility of a strike will come after April 1,” said Roy. “If we don’t settle the agreement for March 31, we will fall in the usual way of negotiations with maybe a strike in the autumn. If [so], the government will have missed an opportunity to do something new – to settle without a strike and without a decree,” he added. Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, treasury board president of the Quebec Liberal Party, said union leaders had set March 31 as a symbolic deadline for a collective agreement – the same day that labour contracts for public sector employees, imposed
by the Quebec government in 2005, expire. As the union’s symbolic deadline came and went, they decided to continue negotiations until April 20. “At the latest, on April 20, if sector agreements are still not on the horizon, we’ll depose requests for mediation in view of bringing the two parties together for a final regulation,” Michel Arseneault, president of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ), said in an April 8 CSN press release. Through labour contracts, the Quebec government imposed a two-year pay freeze, followed by four two per cent increases in wages, on public service employees. The Front commun syndical was
created in May last year in order to represent public sector employees in negotiations with the Quebec government. It consists of the Secrétariat intersyndical des services publics (SISP), the CSN, and the FTQ, and represents 475,000 public and semi-public workers. In a press release responding to the protests, Gagnon-Tremblay said that Quebec is offering a global raise of seven per cent in five years, which corresponds to $2.3 million. The Front commun syndical is demanding a 11.25 per cent pay raise over three years. Roy said that the wages of public sector workers, when measured in terms of purchasing power, are decreasing. “[Public service employees] had two years of frozen wages, in 2004
and 2005, and we are just trying to get back to the level [of purchasing power parity] we were at [before these years].” Gagnon-Tremblay called union demands unrealistic, predicting that granting an 11.25 per cent pay raise over three years would cost $8 billion. “I know that these billions of dollars look [like a large amount], but we are working for 500,000 people, and these people are paid less than the equivalent job in the private sector,” said Roy. Roy said that negotiations will be difficult. “Until now, the government is asking for concessions – and they don’t offer a lot of money for wages. We are still working hard…. This government is not really close to people working in [public] services.”
14News
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
Kenney to expedite refugee claim process Critics say changes might endanger lives, restrict right of appeal
Daniel Smith The McGill Daily
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anadian minister of citizenship and immigration Jason Kenney announced an overhaul of the government’s system for determining refugee status last week. The proposed changes focus on expediting the asylum claims process, deporting failed claimants as quickly as possible, and reducing the costs of processing claims. The changes reflect Kenney’s statement in an interview with CTV to “give faster protection to real refugees while sending the message to bogus claimants that you’re not going to be able to use the system in Canada anymore.� The overhaul would significantly shorten the decision-making period for refugee claimants. Government appointees would screen initial asylum claims before their claims reach the independent Immigration and Refugee Board. The minister would also have the legislative authority to categorize countries as safe or unsafe countries of origin. This designation would restrict the ability of claimants from “safe� countries to appeal a rejection. The current system involves a 19-month wait with about 60,000 backlogged claims. Overall, the ministry has said the reforms would reduce the cost per failed claim from $50,000 to $29,000. Critics have taken issue with Kenney’s priorities for reform. A press release from the advocacy group Canadian Council for Refugees criticized Kenney’s continuing use of terms like “bogus� with regard to claims as “extremely damaging,� and went on to add that “not everyone who makes a claim needs protection but that doesn’t make them ‘abusers’.� Janet Dench, executive director of the Council, characterized the
bill as overly reductionist. “The bill is based on the assumption that it’s clear and easy to tell between those who need protection and those who don’t. Our position is that refugee determination is quite difficult.� Dench said the government is trying to group claimants on the basis of nationality and other characteristics, while refugee status should be determined on a case-bycase basis, especially to account for discrimination in countries otherwise deemed respectful of human rights. “The minister is giving himself the power to declare some places safe. In the case of gays and lesbians in places like the Caribbean, these are often claims that are successful although they come from countries that are considered safe and peaceful. They won’t get the opportunity to appeal that claim,� said Dench. Melanie Carkner, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said in an email that Canada’s current asylum system was “crippled by long delays� and a “cumbersome process� that resulted in claims taking years to resolve. “The proposed reforms are balanced and fair and would increase support for those in need of protection while discouraging many of the unfounded claims that now burden the system,� said Carkner. Moreover, claimants would be restricted from filing an appeals case for one year after receiving the decision on their application. The proposal to enforce timely removals, however, would see most failed claimants deported before that time is up. Stephen Green, chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Citizenship and Immigration Law Section, acknowledged that under these time restrictions, claimants would not have adequate time to file humanitarian claims. The government has also pro-
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Miranda Whist | The McGill Daily Archives
Kenney, second from right, was met by protesters when he visited McGill in October. posed a pilot program to offer financial assistance and incentives to those about to be deported, and $54 million for a resettlement assistance program that helps refugees from camps and urban areas throughout the world settle in Canada. NDP MP and citizenship and immigration critic Olivia Chow echoed many of the concerns. “The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has stated that even in democracies there are still grounds for persecution based on gender or sexual identity,� said a statement on Chow’s web site. “For example, Mali may be a democratic country, but they still practice genital mutilation. We simply can’t assume a country is free from all forms of persecution.� Even under the current system, there have been cases where those not granted refugee status have
returned to their country of origin only to face the threats they had originally fled. In 2007, Enrique Villegas, a gay Mexican citizen whose application for refugee status had been denied four years before, was found dead in his Mexico City apartment. Last year a deported 24-year-old anonymous Mexican woman known only as “Grise� was murdered after having twice been denied refugee status in Canada. Previous efforts to expedite the refugee claims process included visa requirements for Mexican and Czech citizens starting July 2009, in a bid to keep potential refugee claimants from entering Canada for economic reasons. Canada’s refugee acceptance rate typically hovers between 40 and 50 per cent, while the U.K. and France, whose immigration mod-
els these reforms resemble, both have accepted about 30 per cent in recent years. “It should be noted that only certain provisions in the proposed bill would take immediate effect if the bill is passed,� said Carkner. “Most changes would occur 12 to 18 months after the bill receives Royal Assent.� Green noted that while the reforms do address current problems, he was concerned that power will be in the hands of ministers and not open to legal scrutiny. “The word ‘safe’ is not in the legislation, so we don’t know how a country will get on that list. Will it be political reasons that get a country on that list?� asked Green. “The government has recently passed laws that are bare bones and the meat is in the regulations. We just saw a skeleton and we don’t know how things will really operate.�
Fuck it, News writers. We’ve done solid shit. Thanks.
Letters
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
15
Re: “Tampering with the genetic code” | Sci + Tech | March 29
Kunev’s assertion shows he has bought the bio-technocrat’s sales pitch of a hunger-free dreamworld hook, line, and sinker. Jesse Pratt U2 Agricultural Economics
Ditch the GMOs – they’re unsafe
Norman Cornett, gatekeeper
Re: “Tampering with the genetic code” | Sci + Tech | March 29
Re: “Paging Doctor Cornett” | Commentary | October 8
Alexander Kunev appears to want to have his bioengineered cake and eat it too when he supports the prospect of a GMO future while concluding that nature’s genetic diversity is our common heritage. The goal of the biotech industry is the commodification and privatization of our genetic diversity. Kunev claims that with GMOs we can now “enhance desired traits of crops” such as disease and pest resistance and nutritional value. Were farmers selecting for undesirable traits before we had biotech? I think not. And the evidence to support increased yields and nutrition from GMO is debatable, to say the least. Communities were breeding plants suited to local conditions and resistant to pests, diseases, and climatic conditions long before the biotech companies appropriated this right (and they did it without artificial fertilizers). Kunev acknowledges humans have “domesticated numerous species” but this statement does not reflect the incredible diversity of crop varieties and animal breeds once commonly raised. Biotech companies sit ready to privatize these varieties’ genetics, repackage them with other genes, and sell them back to farmers along with the appropriate chemicals and technology. Kunev’s assertion that GMOs can be incorporated into “highly sustainable practices” shows he has bought the bio-technocrat’s sales pitch of a hunger-free, environmentallyfriendly dreamworld hook, line, and sinker. How an agricultural system divorced from the natural processes of seed reproduction and married to a biotech industry lab technician can be called sustainable I do not know. Kunev asks for “unbiased, multinational testing” of GM products. This experiment is already underway in the bodies of just about every citizen of the GM countries and those that accept their exports. Rather than more inconclusive lab work, let’s call it quits on GMOs until we see how our current experiment turns out 20 years from now.
I am sincerely disappointed with McGill’s actions toward Norman Cornett. I cannot understand why McGill would feel the need to fire such a wonderful professor. He made such a huge difference in so many students’ lives. He has such a passion for teaching, which he eagerly communicated to his students. His classes required attendance in order to succeed and, aside from several students who left the class after the first lesson, almost 100 per cent of his students attended all of the time. They did so voluntarily and because they were interested in what he would teach during those 90 minutes. I personally took three classes with Cornett and I have learned more from him during those classes than I did throughout the rest of my Bachelor of Arts. What he taught was not only relevant in the classroom, but outside of it as well. Years later I can still remember and connect with what he taught. Isn’t that one of the most important parts of university? To prepare people for the world beyond the gates?
Jesse Pratt U2 Agricultural Economics
Erica Rudick U4 Education
Weak signal in televising the Republic Re: “The Republic will not be televised” | Culture | April 1 There were three major errors in my review of Philopolis. First, Philopolis is in its first year, not its second, which makes its success all the more impressive. Second, it never “became clear that the discussions taking place were almost as important as the lectures themselves,” since there were no lectures nor discussions: there were presentations, in which the audience participated by asking questions and offering their own ideas. Third, philosophy is not “in step” with science. That is not even possible, since science and philosophy take vastly different approaches and follow dissimilar paths. The sentence should have read, “philosophy certainly does not trail behind science.” In many ways, philosophy is ahead of science, and does things that science, by its nature, cannot do. Gavin Thomson U1 Philosophy
Don’t desecrate Good Friday Recently on Facebook, I was invited to an event called “Good Friday Gone Bad.” The featuring photo for this function, which promises “naughty bunnies,” is a blonde woman wearing hardly more than the string aspect of a string bikini, looking seductively over her shoulder. The following is a justification for my reaction. First off, I would like to say that the combination of Easter and Good Friday is ignorantly disrespectful. The whole Easter bunnies and eggs idea comes from a fertility-god cult which is in exact opposition to this Holy Week celebration. More importantly, Good Friday commemorates the death of Jesus of Nazareth, arguably the most influential moral teacher who has ever existed. After a mere 33 years of life, he was betrayed by one of his closest
followers, flogged to a bloody pulp, forced to carry a wooden cross to a hill, and then nailed to it and kept there until his excruciating death. This naturally is in stark contrast to the hyper-sexualized party promoter. My point here is the extreme lack of respect to this admirable man who deserves our veneration. Lastly, I would like to point out that if this were about another system of beliefs, the concept of such a brazen title would be so repulsive that the poster would NEVER have been allowed. Can you imagine an ad featuring a scantily clad pirate-girl for “Rum-adan kareem” or another with a paintsplattered beauty teasingly announcing “Diwali my folly”? I hope you would be just as outraged as I. Alison Splett U2 Psychology
Shame! Shame! Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!
Transnational abortion? How about no abortion
Re: “Paging Doctor Cornett” | Commentary | October 8
Re: “Transnational abortion” | Commentary | March 29
Learning of the troubles regarding Norman Cornett versus McGill University was not so much of a surprise as it was another disappointment, adding to the degradation of academia. I know this transition only too well, as I myself lived through it. I was a professor for 27 years and experienced and witnessed the erosion in all fields of study. Passionate investigations have been turned into prescriptionbased service. Intellect has been replaced by information. Refining questions has been replaced by accepting prescribed answers. Critical thinking as well as cultural voice has been usurped by bottom line entertainment. Cornett is old-school, from a time when it was of value to inspire minds and when universities were a gathering place for intellectuals. The “bell weathers” have become the “bell curves,” and the “bell tolls” for our humanity. Shame on McGill and shame on us as a society for letting this happen!
Hannah Freeman argues that “helping women around the world have safe, legal abortions...is a necessary step to reducing maternal and child mortality.” According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is defined as any human being under the age of 18 years. And as any doctor and medical textbook can confirm, induced abortion, no matter how safe it may be for the mother, necessarily ends the life of a human being. It would, therefore, be far more logical to conclude that reducing abortion is a necessary step in reducing child mortality. As for alleviating poverty, advocating for access to contraceptive family planning is one thing. Improving women’s financial situations by killing children is another. We can do better than abortion in finding solutions that truly respect both mothers and their children, both at home and abroad.
John Greer West Dublin, NS
Natalie Fohl U3 Biology & Political Science
Relying on conventional medicine alone is whack Re: “Naturopathic medicine is whack” | Commentary | March 15 Riva Gold’s portrayal of naturopathic medicine in North America is skewed, uninformed, and unfairly extreme. Currently, in order to become a naturopathic doctor (ND), one must undergo four years of rigorous instruction and clinical practice at an accredited school; this includes a study of biomedical science, physiology, and anatomy, in addition to alternative healing techniques. There are only two accredited institutions in Canada which offer this program and only six in all of North America. Not just anyone can call themselves an ND. Secondly, many of the drugs that are produced and sold by pharmaceutical companies come from natural sources themselves, and are only synthetically created in the lab so that they can be patented (because no one can patent a plant or herb). An example of this is tetrahydrocannabinol, the medical ingredient in cannabis, which is synthetically produced and sold as “Dronabinol” by pharmaceutical companies. I am arguing that naturopathic medicine should not necessarily be used as the sole form of medical treatment, but should be combined with conventional medicine to form a more complete system. I would venture to say that the majority of naturopathic physicians would agree with me on this (I have spoken to a few reputable NDs about this very topic). Likewise, I do not believe that the average person should depend solely on conventional drugs to temporarily rid them of symptoms, without addressing the underlying causes of the illness. Instead, naturopathic medicine should be understood as a complementary approach to healing that can bring many benefits to the overall, long-term health of the Canadian population, largely through prevention and a focus on addressing diet and lifestyle (which, I might add, are an underlying cause of the biggest killer in North America – cardiovascular disease). Alison Bruni BSc ’09 Biomedical Sciences
THE POST OFFICE IS CLOSED FOR THE SUMMER. Send your letters to letters@mcgilldaily.com from your McGill email address, and keep them to 300 words or less. We’ll try to publish them in September. The Daily does not print letters that are lesbophobic, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic or otherwise hateful.
16Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
Radical, schmadical Labels aren’t as important as content
Binary is for computers Quinn Albaugh
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’ve been reflecting on some comments people have made about my column. A friend of mine mentioned that her women’s studies class discussed my column. A Daily colleague mentioned sharing my column on suicide with family members. I’m immensely grateful for these comments. They have kept me motivated to write. But what really interests me is that some of the reactions to my column contradict each other. The No Committee on the Daily Publications Society fee referendum this year used my piece on black market hormones as an example of content that didn’t resonate with many students, in the context of arguing that The Daily was too “radical” – but I have also heard people at McGill critique my column for not being “radical” enough. I can see why people might think my column wasn’t “radical.” For example, when I discussed trans people in prisons, I didn’t mention the arguments in favour of reducing the number of people in prisons, let alone abolishing prisons. I’ve also kept away from queer politics’ third rail – how much of gender and sexuality is biological and how much is socially constructed – which could
play a part in “radical” analyses. And I’ve argued against the idea that religion is inherently anti-queer; in the present left/right division of attitudes, being positive about religion seems to push people further right, not left, but that’s not necessarily the case. In large part, my column has rested on a few basic ideas. First, all human beings should be equal, even though society doesn’t treat them equally. Second, society systemically treats people of different genders and sexualities differently – and it’s women, queer people, trans people, intersex people, and others who pay for these inequalities. Third, issues that supposedly only affect one discrete class of people often affect other groups as well – for example, full-body scanners affect a number of different groups of people, such as members of religious minorities and people with disabilities, even though society doesn’t usually see them as facing the same issues. Fourth, society should listen to members of marginalized communities and recognize their experiences in developing its policies and sense of equality. To people in queer circles, though, these ideas often
Our society should be equal – but it’s not. aren’t “radical.” Instead, they’re the starting points. What’s “radical,” then, are even broader critiques of how we structure society, including arguments against the existence of marriage or even the state itself, or arguments over what methods we should use to change society, including both civil disobedience and violence. Many of us dismiss these ideas out of hand.
But the principles behind my column are still outside the mainstream. What’s mainstream is the idea that being trans is abnormal, and that trans people should be ashamed of themselves. And, for those who wouldn’t go that far, there’s always the notion that trans issues aren’t really worth hearing. In that context, writing any kind of column as an openly trans person
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
could be “radical.” Really, though, the label “radical” is unimportant to me. I’m sure that whoever reads this column can make up their own mind. What does matter to me is that I have been open and spoken my conscience. Quinn Albaugh’s outta here. It’s been real, do you feel me? Write her at quinn.albaugh@gmail.com.
Be the change you want to see Dissatisfied? Do somethin’.
Little bitter Riva Gold
I
guess you could say I was something of a “super-dork” in my freshman year at McGill. I read three campus papers every week, article for article. I took my vote seriously in student elections, and tried to follow the chaos they called “General Assemblies.” So it wasn’t until I stepped out of my postmodern philosophy classes and into ordinary student life that I realized I wasn’t alone in a sea of well-intentioned but hopelessly misguided ideologues, out to save the planet one organic-fair-trade step at a time.
I soon realized that, like me, the average McGill student didn’t really believe that we had a right to access free recycled vegan food. And while a handful of ideologically-driven SSMU execs thought it would be clever to lose $200,000 on Haven Books (despite the warnings of its financial auditors), a substantial portion of the student body seemed to be either opposed to the purchase or unaware of the whole fiasco. I’ve come to the conclusion that most centrists and reasonable students at McGill just don’t give a damn. Political and social moder-
ates seem to stay out of the spotlight at McGill most of the time. When is the last time someone ran for student government without promising to achieve free education and solve the crisis in the Middle East? When did more than a third of McGill students bother to vote in a student election? When’s the last time The Daily published something relevant to more than four people? I guess it’s not entirely surprising that a majority of students seem unwilling to engage with student government and media. Inertia and apathy might simply be the fruits of long-term alienation from these institutions. Or perhaps, many normal students are busy with an even more radical project: schoolwork. Still, the actions of our student government and media directly impact the student experience, from our ability to participate in clubs and services, to the image we have in that tiny place called “the world outside McGill.” It’s time we took just a little bit of responsibility
for them. I found the Vote No campaign during the DPS fee increase referendum last month infuriating. Not because its proponents weren’t raising valid concerns about the paper, but because no one bothered to publicly criticize it until there was a question of funding. The Daily fee increase passed by an incredibly slim margin. Almost 50 per cent of students voting stood behind a campaign that claimed The Daily did not speak to most of the student body and represented the views and interests of a very small minority of students. Why did it take a fee levy for them to voice this concern? Where were these moderates when it came to submitting articles to Commentary, writing letters, or running for editorial positions? If you want to keep campus moderate, it’s not enough to withdraw from public life. Sometimes it’s necessary to vote in student referenda, if only to vote down the preposterous and polarizing motions.
Without vocal opposition, radicals will continue to derive legitimacy from the claim that they represent student interests. To ensure that student newspapers are relevant and adequately reflect your interests, you have to actually write to them. Apply to have a column in The Daily next fall. Believe me, the standards are not that high (see everything I’ve published in The Daily this year for proof of this point). For all that I’ve criticized the radicals, I admire their tenacity and energy. While I disagree with almost all of their substantive positions, at least they’re willing to act on them. I’ve yet to see a sign plastered around campus that reads “Let’s establish a reasonable dialogue about a problem we actually have the means to resolve.” I guess that might lack a certain cachet. Riva Gold’s a goner, but not forgotten. Keep in touch: little.bitter@ mcgilldaily.com.
Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
17
COMMENT
Why your hate is hard to stomach Stephen Davis
T
Sally Lin | The McGill Daily
Is the use of the word “pig” to describe a cop oppressive?
Lisa OUT When writers and editors collide
Radically reread Lisa Miatello
M
y article last week, “Fight for violence,” went to the printers stained with contention. Although my editor and I have had minor disagreements on the content and wording of my articles in the past, they were rectified through discussion. This time though, our dispute was heated and narrowly focused on a single word. After consultation with one editor, attempted mediation by another, and a whole lot of anger, I finally consented to the proposed word change. Buckling had less to do with political consensus and more to do with the knowledge that I was powerless at that moment. I opposed the excision of the word then, and I continue to oppose it now. The word in question is “pig.” The replacement was “cop.” The sentence at issue refers to police impunity. And the paragraph under discussion concerns the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence. One of the main criticisms hurled at the word was that it doesn’t comply with The McGill Daily’s Statement of Principles (SoP). The SoP is essentially an outline of the beliefs that govern and the intentions that direct the content of The Daily. It’s akin to a Radical Politics 101, wherein power – its uneven distribution, the way it shapes social
relations, and how it’s reproduced – is fundamental to the way the world gets conceptualized. Now, no one is claiming that “pig” is an innocuous term. Offensive? Big shock! Hateful? Hell yeah. Derogatory? You bet your ass. Oppressive? I don’t think so. “Pig” has wide circulation among those who are most vulnerable to police repression, harassment, surveillance, brutality, and social and racial profiling. It also has currency in overlapping as well as more distinct groups of anarchists and antiauthoritarians. In other words, it comes from folks who have an acute understanding of the concrete ways that oppression plays out in the day-to-day. The meanings attached to terms like “cop” generally imbue the police with respect, morality, and innocence. This connotative web reflects the interests of the elite, whose maintenance of the current order depends on the public legitimation of their institutions. The meanings attached to “pig” speak more accurately of the reality of state violence as experienced by “disposable” sections of society. One of the most potent starting points in struggling against systems of power is to create words
and deploy language in ways that validate otherwise erased and discredited thoughts, experiences, and histories. Creating knowledge – through language – that reflects the “underside” can be a key part of survival and a giant leap toward eroding the logic of subordination. As one insightful incoming Daily editor said, “Our discursive practices bespeak our ideologies.” The SoP takes “empowering and giving a voice to individuals and communities marginalized on the basis of [systems of oppression]” to be The Daily’s beating heart. Fear of being inflammatory, alienating, or offending the liberal sensibilities of McGillians needs to be checked at the door. Choosing to silence language that stems from oppressed groups to speak about their lives is a giant fail on the “empowering people” front. We need to re-evaluate whose exclusion concerns us. When I started reading The Daily a few years ago, it was a force to be reckoned with. The newspaper stirred shit up and the conservative trolls demolished it – as it should be. That means the paper’s doing its job. Strident and uncompromising in its politics, the paper was inspiring and in many ways incited my own radicalization. What happened? The Daily shouldn’t just hang out on the left. It should slam itself to the left so as to give others more room to breath. Oink, oink. Hear that sound? That’s the sound of Lisa Miatello closing The Daily’s office door. She’s going, going, gone. Write her at radicallyreread@mcgilldaily.com.
he Daily is an idealistic project. I’ve met with editors of other student papers from across the country, and they spoke about firing co-workers and banning sloppy writers from their offices. One spoke about putting writers on “probation,” and then wondered out loud why more students weren’t interested in contributing to the paper. The Daily doesn’t fire writers. We don’t hire them either. Our application process consists of interested students sending us emails or walking into our office after classes. I know of no paper as democratic as The Daily. Behind most idealists, there’s a pragmatist – for us, that’s Boris Shedov. He’s been selling The Daily’s ads for over 20 years and he’s loved the paper for even longer. And I’m glad, because it’s Boris’s
scary. This year, we felt the tension between The Daily and its student stakeholders more than ever. When Drew Nelles, the coordinating editor in 2007-2008, began his final comment piece with “Some of you hate The Daily,” I thought he was being melodramatic. I was wrong – some of you really fucking hate us. What makes this hate hard to stomach is that most of the shortcomings people point out are things we struggle with on a regular basis: we argue over whether our reporting is as accurate and clear as it could be, if we’re covering everything we should, and if we’re reaching a diverse enough base of readers. We care as much as our critics do, and we work constantly to change things for the better. Some of the criticisms levied at The Daily this year are valid. Some are not. Queer rights are not “obscure human rights issues.” Neither are the rights of McGill’s workers or people
Behind most idealists, there’s a pragmatist – for us, that’s Boris Shedov work that keeps our paper alive and kicking. Along with his co-workers Geneviève Robert and Letty Matteo, Boris sells the advertisements that have sustained a paper that’s offered generations of students an education in journalism. He slogs away at the business end of things so that students can slog away producing copy and photography and illustrations. He’s proud to support a paper that’s truly a critical alternative to other news media. He respects our boycott of advertisements from big oil and the military and the pharmaceutical industry. Boris shares a lot of our ideals, and his willingness to incorporate them into his work is the reason that the paper you’re holding doesn’t look like The Mirror or The Hour. And his work ethic is a big part of the reason that the paper exists at all, with advertising revenues the way they are. This kind of relationship between editors and advertising folks is uncommon. But I’m confident that whoever thought up The Daily’s structure was equal parts brilliant and near-insane. Because half of our funding comes from student fees, the paper is driven by students’ interests. McGill students elect editors, make up the editorial board, and staff the Board of Directors of our non-profit parent corporation, the Daily Publications Society. Major changes to our organization have been run by the student body via referendum for the past few decades. And every five years, we go to referendum where students can affirm or deny their support for the continued existence of The Daily and Le Délit. But sometimes that can be
fighting for equal access to abortion. These are issues that students care about. We know this because it’s students who write the stories. Past editors have pointed out that there is a distinction between being mainstream and being accessible. And while accessibility remains our goal, we choose not to restrict ourselves to writing only about the things almost every other newspaper devotes its pulp and ink to. But people are right when they say our writing doesn’t always engage students. We need to do a better job of covering stories in faculties underrepresented on The Daily’s staff, and of making the relevancy of each issue to the McGill community immediately clear. You can help us by getting in touch and telling us what you want to see. What newsworthy things are going on in your faculty? What’s affecting your campus group? What kind of issues are we missing? But, at the end of the day, there’s something that won’t change. We’re always going to maintain our grounding in a conception of social justice – the idea that in the society we occupy, some people are up, others are down, and that’s not right. The Daily is yours, and it’s your tool for challenging what you see as unfair or wrong or unjust. We want you to get involved, because it’s your paper, and people are still fighting to keep it alive. Stephen Davis is The Daily’s coordinating editor and soon to be dropout from the Faculty of Religious Studies. The words here are his own. Write him at sspencerdavis@ gmail.com.
18Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
COMMENT
Why The Daily is worth supporting Amelia Schonbek
I
n March, the Daily Publications Society (DPS), which prints The McGill Daily and Le Délit, held a referendum asking students to agree to a slight increase in the fee they pay to support the DPS. Though the referendum question was in reference to the DPS as a whole, The Daily itself became the target of a lot of negative rhetoric over the course of the campaign. Some of what was said was hateful, and those comments do not even merit a response. But other criticisms – many of which accused the paper of being elitist, insular, and irrelevant to McGill students – are worth addressing. It’s probably easy to pick up a copy of The Daily, scan its pages, and come away without really understanding why the paper is the way it is. It’s true that The Daily doesn’t look like most other publications. The stories in our paper regularly shine a light on inequality, marginalization, and skewed power relations. When we do cover issues that appear in the mainstream media, we try to take a critical perspective, not merely rehashing what others have already said, but looking at issues analytically. This approach stems from The Daily’s Statement of Principles (SoP), a document that sets out the paper’s goals and guides our coverage. The SoP (available in full at mcgilldaily.com/sop) mandates that the paper be a “critical and constructive forum for the exchange of ideas and information.” It asks us to recognize that “all events and issues are inherently political, involving relations of social and economic power,” and that “power is unevenly distributed.” It further requires that the paper aim to “depict and analyze power relations accurately in its coverage.” It also notes that “The Daily can best serve its purposes by examining issues and events most media ignore,” and asks us to be critical of “the role postsecondary education plays in constructing and maintaining the current order.” Many say that The Daily blindly follows the SoP, pitching stories that are needlessly out of touch with students, in some sort of frenzied effort to be as politically correct as possible. But that’s not the case. The Daily’s news section reports on the issues affecting Canada’s native population, for instance, because we believe that it’s time for years of neglect and mistreatment of aboriginal people to end. And when we cover an exhibit in the culture section by an artist you’ve never
Bridget Sprouls | The McGill Daily
The Daily shines a light on issues most news outlets don’t. heard of, it’s because we believe in the importance of the work they’re doing and we think they deserve support, not because we want to look cool. Walk into The Daily office (it’s Shatner B-24), and you’ll find an assortment of people who are really passionate about things. There will probably be a lot of big ideas flying around, and people arguing about them. That’s one of the most exciting things about the paper. But in spite of this, there are some who say that what we do at The Daily is, at the end of the day, irrelevant to students. Issues surrounding the faculty strike at Université de Montréal, the work of an up-and-coming Canadian choreographer, or the discourse about banning the niqab in Quebec don’t affect students, because they aren’t happening within the University gates – or so the argument goes.
What bullshit. That students are not affected by each of these issues is an absurd notion and a falsehood. You may not wear the niqab, but the woman sitting next to you in class may have an aunt who does – or may choose to wear one in the future (which would bar her from campus under Law 94). Make no mistake – our time at McGill will have been useless if we learn that the only issues that matter are the ones taking place on our doorstep. We live in an ultraconnected age where it’s no longer possible to insulate ourselves from the issues and debates taking place across Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and the world. Daily writers and editors believe that the best service we can do students is to provide them with a critical look at the issues in their campus paper – no matter where they’re happening. And the
SoP facilitates these kinds of discussions. Moreover, it actually reminds us to remain relevant to the student body, which is why we often try to connect larger issues back to our campus, through reporting on a professor’s research, perhaps, or the discussion of a McGill student band in a wider conversation about Montreal music. One last thing: please don’t forget that the “we” here refers to students. It is, after all, students who write, edit, design, and govern this newspaper. Students elect the editorial board, write letters, and pitch every single story that appears in The Daily’s pages. We think that means that the paper is actually very relevant to students. Those who disagree say that the Tribune is the newspaper that students can identify with. Well, in the last few weeks, the Tribune published,
among other things, a column entitled “Know thyself: How hot are you really?” (Opinion, March 16), a full-page colour “photo essay” featuring images of green-clad revellers downing beers on St. Patrick’s Day (March 23), and a review of the latest Miley Cyrus flick (“Newest Sparks adaptation fails to ignite,” Arts & Entertainment, March 30). Perhaps some think that’s what the students want to read, but at The Daily, we disagree. We think there’s something deeper than that, and I’m exceptionally proud of the paper that results from this belief. Amelia Schonbek (BA English ’09) is a special student and The Daily’s coordinating Culture editor, but the views expressed here are her own. Write her at amelia.schonbek@ mail.mcgill.ca.
Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
19
HYDE PARK
Asia rising; McGill doesn’t rise to the challenge Eastern philosophers and thinkers should be studied with their Western counterparts Tyler Cohen
E
ducational institutions are often fond of referring to themselves as both steeped in tradition and highly modern. McGill is no exception to this rule; students are frequently exposed to quotations from University administrators applauding new steps toward our school’s future or revelling in the glory of its tradition. One area in which I believe it is past time for McGill to firmly shut the door on tradition and step into modernity is East Asian studies. McGill students are surely aware of the many good arguments in favour of paying attention to East and Southeast Asia. The enormous population of the region, its growing role in international economics and politics, and the so-called “China model” for development are all areas of intense interest for many burgeoning social scientists. Despite our shared acknowledgement of the relevance of Asia, we remain, in general, willfully ignorant of the area. While a number of readers will be familiar with the names Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, few Westerners will be able to tell you that Li Changchun is the “propaganda chief,” or that Wu Bangguo is the nation’s top legislator. Despite constant bombardment about China’s growing importance, it seems a safe bet that only a select few McGill students could tell you who is most likely to succeed Hu as president of the world’s most populous nation. Likewise, Japan’s most recent election was in some sense revolutionary, not unlike that of Barack Obama, yet I doubt many people on campus could tell you anything about Yukio Hatoyama. Japanese students, on the other hand, would be likely to know something about the American president, while my former students in China could easily tell you the functions of the secretary of state and that Hillary Clinton currently holds that position. Our ignorance of their world, in contrast to their relatively impressive knowledge of ours, extends well beyond politics. Few Asian students would have trouble telling you about at least a couple of Western literature’s heroes, yet unless you’ve taken a 20th-century Chinese history class, you’re less likely to know of Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Ding Ling, Li Ao, and Yu Hua. And even if you’ve studied Mandarin Chinese at our University for four years, McGill will not provide you with the opportunity to read these authors in their native language – nearly all Asian literature courses are taught in English.
The problem of lack of access to Asian-language based courses is largely one of funding and attention at McGill. Grace Fong, the chair of the East Asian studies department, commented that it is simply impossible to offer advanced language or literature courses with the current amount of funding. “Ideally, we would have at least one person who could teach pre-modern fiction and one who could teach modern fiction as well,” Fong commented, “but as it stands we’re required to have one teacher who can cover over 2,000 years of literature [before the 20th century].” With Chinese offered by a greater number of high schools, McGill’s language program may soon face difficulties catering to students with an interest in Asia, argued Robin Yates, the East Asian studies graduate program director. “It’s the third most spoken language in Canada, and there is a serious problem of us not having enough language teachers to really offer it,” he said. Perhaps more troubling than our lack of cultural knowledge is our self-imposed blindness to East Asian political thought. Neither in the philosophy nor the political science departments do we see a class devoted to the teachings of Confucius, Zhu Xi, or their followers. Fully one-third of the world’s people are governed under systems that evolved out of their teachings and yet the McGill departments representing the two areas they most greatly affected – politics and philosophy – consider them to be utterly unimportant. While Yates noted that Asia scholars at McGill offer courses that teach Confucian thought in a religious or historical context, he added that “there is ample reason to look at the great Chinese philosophers as philosophers.” One has to wonder how McGill could possibly foster an image of modernity when it overlooks the works most cherished by and influential to over two billion people. I spoke to Philip Buckley, a former chair of McGill’s philosophy department, about this gap in the philosophy program. Buckley is involved with the development of higher education in Indonesia as the director of the McGill IAIN Indonesia Social Equity Project. He noted that a number of the professors at McGill have expressed interest in early Asian philosophy, but that it would be “disingenuous” to add just one position in the field if it’s not linked to overall commitment to develop that area. “We recognize we don’t have that strength,”
Buckley said, adding that when hiring, departments tend to “build on strengths.” However, if the department insists on not hiring one Asian philosophy professor out of fear of being “disingenuous,” while continuing to focus on elaborating existing programs, Western students – the majority of McGill’s students – will remain unable to study a tradition other than their own. I would suggest to the philosophy department that hiring one professor with an Asian background might not be “disingenuous,” but rather the first step toward modernization and internationalization. Of course, our primary concern ought not to be the state of McGill’s reputation or the legitimacy of its image. Rather, our concern should be that McGill has elected to not provide its students with the option of learning from or about Asia. If our philosophy department chooses to ignore the most important thinker outside of the Western tradition – and Confucius and Zhu Xi have arguably had a greater impact than any two Western philosophers – then let’s at least be honest and call the department “Western Philosophy.” On the other hand, if we’d like to prepare students to interact with the fastest growing region on earth, or if we’d like them to at least know in what way it differs from their own backyard, we ought to open venues within the school for greater attention to East Asian studies. Xi Jinping, by the way, is Hu Jintao’s most likely successor. Tyler Cohen is a U2 East Asian Studies and Philosophy student. Write him at tyler.cohen@mail. mcgill.ca.
Photos by Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Top: A student walks by the East Asian Studies department. Bottom: While Western philosophers are studied widely at McGill, Asian thought remains segregated in East Asian studies.
20Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
HYDE PARK
Tucker Max? More like Fucker Max Humour does not excuse hatred Olivia Messer
T
ucker Max is a bestselling author, self-proclaimed asshole, the spearhead of the “fratire” genre, and a film producer. His movie I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell grossed over $1,400,000 in the U.S. He has been published in Esquire, the Huffington Post, and several other major publications. He’s known for many things, but has achieved most fame as an Internet personality. Among his notable practices are the objectification of women and the delegitimizing of serious issues like rape and violence through comedy. Many feminists have criticized him without reading his books or seeing his movie – unfortunately, I am not one of them. In fact, to my embarrassment, a ninth-grade version of myself found some his stories quite funny. Fascinated by Max, I’ve voraciously read his articles, frequently referenced his drunk rating scale, and spent hours on his web site. Clearly a smart man, this graduate of the University of Chicago and Duke’s law school is not just some random blogger. In fact, he spent two weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list. I’m not disputing his intelligence, or even necessarily his intentions; I’m saying that what he puts forth is not constructive. It’s harmful: it perpetuates violence against women and invalidates criticism of that violence by playing the
humour card. As a guideline for my deconstruction of his arguments, I will use the quotes that Max used as advertisement for his movie. These quotes, all related to at least one of his stories, are intended to be satirical.
“Fat girls are not real people.” “The best thing about fat girls is heart disease.” “Every woman has her price.” The cover of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (the book – not the film of the same title) is a photo of Max with his arm around a blond woman in a little red dress. Her face is replaced with a cut-out that says “your face here.” Even before you open the book, women are reduced to a lower standard than men: they have no individual identity or personality. Worse, his web site has a rating scale for women that goes from zero stars (“Wildebeests”) to 5 stars (“Super-hotties”). The in-between gradations are labelled things like “common-stock pig,” “respectable pig,” and “girlfriend material.” “Wildebeests” are ugly, fat, and boring – like common-stock pigs – but they’re also annoying. According to Max, women like this “should all be put to sleep” and are generally so pervasive that when you see a “wildebeest,” “you have to actively restrain yourself from kicking her in the crotch and stomping on her throat until she drowns in her own blood.” He adds that “basic human
rights do not apply.” Obviously basic human rights do apply to everyone, not just the physically attractive, as deemed by Tucker Max. But it’s more than that – Max avoids responsibility for spreading such repugnant views by arguing that humour cannot be censored. Call me a turgid feminist devoid of a sense of humour, but I don’t find violence, objectification, or disrespect particularly hilarious.
“Deaf girls never hear you coming.” “Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife. But not in a funny way.” “AIDS isn’t funny. Until it happens to someone you hate.” I don’t know how many times anyone has to explain this: rape is not funny. Coat these jokes in fatal illnesses and disability, and you get something so reprehensible I find it difficult to believe anyone laughs at them. But they do. These quotes were part of a national ad campaign that appeared in multiple locations: textsfromlastnight.com ran them, and the Chicago Transit Authority was going to, before they pulled out of their contract at the last minute. People aren’t dismissing these jokes as offensive, either. Max is getting praise for being devilishly humorous, pushing the envelope, and saying things others aren’t willing to. Many think Max
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
Tucker Max is an asshole. is funny because he’s edgy. But what Max might be failing to consider is that there’s a reason people don’t joke about AIDS, murder, and rape. Not because they’re afraid to or because they’re being controlled by feminist bitches, but because these things are actually not humorous. Real people encounter these situations, suffer, and die in ways that Max probably couldn’t imagine if he tried. Tucker Max is problematic not just because of his claims, but because of whom they inspire. Fratire, as the genre he works in is so appropriately named, is supposed to represent what “real men” think. His argument is then that “real men,” whatever that may mean, should objectify women to the point that they are deprived of their humanity (provided they
don’t fit his standards). If you’re not thin, attractive, and a little passive, you aren’t worthy of equal treatment. I’ve seen countless friends eat this ideology up, using his rating scales and his famous euphemisms to degrade women while praising Max for providing the entertainment they were so desperately deprived of before. But what is he really providing? He claims that he’s giving a voice to the voiceless middle-class men emasculated by society. Thank goodness. We know how little privilege and volume the middle-class, heterosexual white man had before Max came along. Olivia Messer is a U1 Humanistic Studies and Women’s Studies student. Write her at olivia.messer@ mail.mcgill.ca.
The Daily’s 2009-2010 Editorial Board
From left to right. Back row: Humera Jabir, William M. Burton, Diane Salema, Sam Neylon, Stephen Davis, Whitney Mallett, Michael Lee-Murphy. Second Row: Sally Lin, Erin Hale, Braden Goyette, Will Vanderbilt, Hannah Freeman, Emilio Comay del Junco. Front Row: Nicolas Boivert-Novak, Niko Block, Amelia Schonbek, Ian Beattie, Kady Paterson. Not pictured: Dominic Popowich, Sasha Plotnikova, Aaron Vansintjan.
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
21
HYDE PARK
The Thomas Friedman paradigm Flaw and failure in current Middle East coverage Robert Bell
“B
ut, you know what I think about that mess?” The mess my friend referred to is, of course, the Middle East: that “exotic, Oriental” place where nothing can go the right way. I label such an attitude “the Thomas Friedman paradigm,” or Westerners’ tendency to formulate a general political discourse regarding the affairs of the Middle East, one that is subjective and unqualified. Friedman has compared the war in Afghanistan to adopting “a special needs baby” countless times, including on CNN and Hardball in December, and in a September column in the New York Times. Not only is it despicable to use mental disability as a pejorative, but this is also an inaccurate generalization about the thousands killed and displaced by this ill thought-out war. Friedman’s gross assumptions are destructive. Glenn Greenwald noted in the online magazine Salon, “Friedman single-handedly did more than anyone else to convince liberals and Democrats to support the invasion in Iraq.” Friedman is a model by which the majority of North American correspondents and pundits conduct their affairs on the Middle East. General public discourse regarding the Middle East is shaped by a generally overlapping set of fallacies and non-sequiturs, prompted by those who have never been to the Middle East, let alone learned its
languages and cultures. The fallacy that one can do quality journalism based entirely off of second-hand sources, hearsay, and political pronouncements is a standard that reputable newspapers and other media sources would not dare apply to covering China, India, or Russia. Why then must it be the case for the Middle East? While the Spanish paper El País can find a way to station a Tehran bureau chief in Iran’s repressive journalistic scene, the New York Times’s Nazila Fathi has relocated to Toronto to cover Iran. European papers in general have a much larger body of correspondents stationed full time in the Middle East. Both Le Monde and Der Spiegel have a dedicated team of reporters and researchers, who have a presence on the ground in most Middle Eastern nations. Le Monde’s reporters Alain Gresh and Eric Rouleau both have a command of the Arabic language and conduct an intelligent debate. Perhaps the most notable, respectable journalist to North American audiences is Robert Fisk, who I spoke with in Lebanon this January. Speaking directly on the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Fisk stated that previously, reporters had direct contact with warfare. The distance that has been created between the visceral horror of open fire, scattered limbs, of children left bleeding, and the view of the embedded journalist deadens any attempt to understand the pain and humiliation of a people under occupation.
Sally Lin | The McGill Daily
Western media often talk about the Middle East without knowing quite what they’re saying. Contemporary journalism, according to Fisk, is too concerned with readership figures and decorum while “asking why” is portrayed as “anti-American, pro-terrorist, and anti-Semitic” – perhaps due to the close relationship modern journalists often have to the institutions and powers they cover. Fisk echoed Malcolm X, stating that coverage of the Middle East must be more than just 50/50: “We should be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer.” Yet, despite the admirable efforts of these European journalists, the Friedman paradigm still domi-
nates North American discourse. Not once have I read Friedman mention the Lebanese dailies of Al-Akhbar, As-Safir, and An-Nahar as sources. I have yet to see CNN, NBC, or CBS interview one figure from Al-Jazeera, Al Arabiya, or other visual media sources covering the Middle East, despite the wealth of knowledge and insight these sources can provide. The solution to the problem is utilizing the translation services that are offered for Middle Eastern media sources. Mideastwire is an Internet-based, fee-driven translation service based out of Lebanon.
Independent blogs can provide similar access. Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan, offers choice academic and journalistic documents interspersed with analysis readily translated on his home page, the Informed Comment blog. On his blog The Angry Arab, UC Stanislaus professor As’ad AbuKhalil explores Arab sentiments and critiques Western media follies. Robert Bell is a U1 Middle Eastern Studies student. Write him at robert.bell2@mail.mcgill.ca.
HYDE PARK
Workers, keep the administration’s feet to the fire Ted Sprague
T
he news is in. Ninety-four per cent of voting invigilators have just approved of forming a union. This is another blow to the McGill administration, which has done everything in its power to prevent workers from organizing. Just four months ago, more than 1,000 non-academic casual workers won their union. Now we have more than 200 invigilators unionized. And the wave of unionization is not stopping here. Word on the ground is that research assistants and course lecturers (or sessional lecturers) are now moving to form their own unions. After 18 years of inactivity on the union front, McGill has now has two new ones – formed
within a year – and two more on the way. This trend is evidence, the kind that abounds in history, that events do not always move in a straight line – that they can move in leaps and bounds. The rapidity of unionization at McGill does not mean that the process itself was easy. It was a long, arduous process that took countless hours. However, without playing down the sacrifice made by volunteers, the main factor in this rapid unionization was the pent-up anger and dissatisfaction of McGill workers over their working conditions. Invigilators, for example, have been making $10 an hour for the past nine years. McGill course lecturers only make $5,500 per course, while their counterparts at UQAM and Laval earn $7,500. This doesn’t
even include the benefits the McGill course lecturers lack. Therefore it is no wonder that the workers want to form unions. It is not a communist conspiracy. The reason is simple: McGill’s administration, like any other employer, has failed to take care of its workers. And it is not due to some oversight on their part, where all we need to do is to sit down with the employers, notify them of their mistakes, and cross our fingers that they will listen to us. The conduct of the employers, in the last analysis, is governed by one and only force: the profit motive. To make greater profits, the employers have to keep the workers’ wages down. This is the ABC of capitalist economy. Formation of unions, in and of
itself, is not enough. The union, once formed, has to be strengthened by the active participation of its members. At the end of the day, the union is only as good as its members. The union is not an end: it is a means to an end. It is a tool for the workers to fight for their interests and realize their own strength. Thus, the next step is clear: strengthen the union and move forward to collective bargaining with full force. As for the administration, their pants – and skirts – are on fire now. They are restless and desperate. They will try to pit the students against the workers with the same old argument: better working conditions for the workers mean tuition fee increases for the students. We should reject this argument by say-
ing: the wealth is there; show it to us! In 2008, the Canadian government handed out $75 billion to bail the banks and credit market out. In that same year, it gave $50 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations. This is what has created the chronic underfunding in our education. Heather Munroe-Blum and Tony Masi seem to be quiet about this. So workers of McGill, don’t sulk over your working condition. You have an individual responsibility to take collective action with your fellow workers. Look around you! You are not alone. Ted Sprague is a Master’s I Chemical Engineering student’s pseudonym. Write him at ted_sprague@yahoo. com.
Readers’ what-vocate? See page 22 for more information on applying to be The Daily’s readers’ advocate.
22Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
HYDE PARK
Politics is not biology Social sciences must not be beholden to physical sciences Kira Josefsson
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n March 26, the Political Science Students’ Association, together with McGill’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship, held a symposium on biopolitics – a relatively new field in political science focusing on the biological underpinnings of political behaviour. Under the heading “Politics: Is It In Your Genes?”, three researchers talked about studies showing, for example, that women are less aggressive than men, or that Republicans tend to focus more on the negative aspects of life than liberals. This research has implications for political science, but is grounded in disciplines like biology, psychology, or evolutionary theory, and their intersections. The assumption is that the workings of different biological systems, coded in our genes, lead to certain cognitive or processing biases, which then inform our stance on issues of the day, explained John Hibbings, a political science professor at University of Pittsburgh. Politics, the researchers argued in line with the title of the talk, is in fact in our genes. At the same time, the presenters emphasized that genetics is not determinism, and that environment is crucial in determining the actual outcome of a person’s genetic makeup. One may ask then: why, if nurture has the last say, do we need to study biology at all to understand political behaviour? For a while now, it has been a trend in the social sciences and humanities to shore up research by pointing to natural sciences or economics. Doing so seems to be a way for these disciplines to gain a legitimacy they appear to have increasing difficulty obtaining on their own. In a world that values quick and easily quantifiable results, it is not
surprising that “mathandscience” (as Earl Shorris puts it in an article on the demise of the humanities in Harper’s magazine) gets all the attention and the money. Not only is there a clear profit to be made from
social science research is grounded in biology, therefore, could give a researcher an edge in competing for funding and publishing: their findings seem closer to objective truth than, say, the mostly thought-
tive truth. How you frame the question of study, what method you use – there are always subjective choices to make, and they naturally affect your results. This is also true in the purportedly objective natural scienc-
Whitney Mallett | The McGill Daily
Humanities rely too much on other disciplines. something like engineering, but in addition, “science” has also since the Enlightenment been shorthand for objective truth, an unbiased account of the state of things as they really are. Claiming that one’s
based work of a political theorist. This way of acquiring legitimacy is a dangerous path to take. One of the most important tenets of the social sciences, and especially the humanities, is that there is no objec-
es. Using natural science to bolster social science research is a shortcut that undermines much of the work that has previously been done in the same discipline; at the same time, it makes it even more difficult for the
The Daily is looking for a readers’ advocate.
social sciences to gain merit on their own terms. Interdisciplinarity is great and should be more common, but not when it’s at the expense of one of the disciplines involved. Sadly, this trend seems to be the rule when natural sciences and social sciences are combined, probably because of the aforementioned air of objective truth that the former still has: by virtue of it, the natural sciences are allowed to overrule everything else. The panel discussion during the symposium evidenced this devaluation of the humanities. It included one economist, one professor of medicine, and one journalist, as well as the presenters – but not a single theorist. Had, say, a philosopher or a historian partaken, perhaps the problem of presenting social research findings as biological facts would have been discussed in more depth. As it was, the symposium not only failed to examine this question properly, but did not even manage to explain why this type of research is useful in the first place, especially since, as was conceded, genetics is not determinism. There are too many benefits of the social sciences to cite them all here. But one important aspect of these disciplines, related to the matter immediately at hand, is their preoccupation with critical thinking. Not only is the questioning of dominant ideas and understandings necessary for the existence of free minds (to the extent that that is at all possible), but skepticism is also a prerequisite for the advancement of new knowledge. The fact that social sciences are increasingly delegitimized is a disturbing tendency, and the disciplines themselves should not aid the trend by contributing to their own marginalization. Kira Josefsson is a U2 Honours Cultural Studies and Political Theory student. She’s also a Daily staffer. Write her at kira.josefsson@ mail.mcgill.ca.
What? » The readers’ advocate will write a biweekly column that weighs student concerns against their own assessment of the paper’s performance. Who? » Any member of the Daily Publications Society who will not concurrently be a member of The Daily’s editorial board can apply. Tell me more. » The ideal candidate will be passionate about The Daily and reader response. They will have an understanding of and/or willingness to learn about The Daily and its Statement of Principles (SoP). Some possible tasks of the readers’s advocate could include: reader surveys and interviews; thematic columns on events covered in The Daily; critique of how The Daily lives up to its principles; judging of the relevance of the SoP and The Daily to the student body. How do I become the readers’ advocate? » The readers’ advocate will be chosen before May by the board of directors and the editorial board. Send an email to coordinating@mcgilldaily.com for more information.
Commentary
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
23
HYDE PARK
Why yesterday’s Left is “right” today Will Johnston
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s I waited to get back into the Great White North (for 45 f’in minutes) after a BBQ at my American history professor’s house in upstate New York, I was desperately trying to pass the time. So naturally freedom of speech and the recent University of Ottawa – Ann Coulter debacle crossed my mind as I crossed the border between two nations with increasingly divergent views on the matter. That day I had challenged one of my fellow students to define and explain the process of “spreading hate,” an almost ethereal concept and one that I have been unable to find someone to define. Opposition to “hate speech” has seemingly become the Left’s raison d’être. In any case, my friend admitted that he couldn’t really explain how spreading hate worked, though he proceeded to explain how much of a bitch Ann Coulter is – which is absolutely true,
but beside the point. This is a new era for freedom of speech in this country. In the glory days of the ’60s, it was “student radicals” who fought against the oppressors of free speech on the Right. While researching a paper recently, I read an article discussing how Ivy League student groups invited George Wallace, a far more incendiary figure than Coulter, to come speak during an election year. The Left then had it right: you grant these people their right to expression and let them make fools of themselves. Today in Canada, we’ve inverted the equation. Almost half a century after Wallace’s failed 1964 presidential election campaign, we have conservative commentators in Canada à la Margaret Wente on one side and “student radicals” on the other. If you don’t agree with my conception of the divide, I suggest reading Wente’s enlightening and entertaining debate with University of Ottawa professor Paul Saurette on the Globe and Mail’s web site.
Or, for the other side, just read Max Silverman’s column in the Tribune’s March 30 issue (“Crazy like a fox,” Opinion). They both speak to the same divide. Have the human rights tribunals spiked the water in Ottawa? How does “spreading hate” actually work
ing them the microphone. I’m with those ’60s Ivy League student radicals who have aged to become the conservative commentators of 2010. They knew how it worked. Give Wallace a platform and let him fall off. Today, freedom of expression and speech are losing
Will [Ann] Coulter’s words magically hurl the average student across the political spectrum to the far right? and how does it make campuses or any part of Canada unsafe? Will Coulter’s words magically hurl the average student across the political spectrum to the far right to drink tea and incite hatred? I don’t understand why these students try to suppress the likes of Coulter. As Wente points out, all you’re accomplishing is the complete opposite and hand-
ground in this country, specifically at universities. McGill is not the University of Ottawa (our administrators, to give them due credit, are much savvier and would never have invited such a public relations fiasco upon themselves), but we are hardly immune. In fact, the recent Choose Life controversy makes us an exemplification of, not exception
to, the rule. Perhaps it is an offshoot of what another “conservative commentator,” the Tribune’s own Ricky Kreitner, has identified as the average McGillian’s need to have an opinion on everything – apparently including the opinions of others. While our student representatives and both student newspapers condemned Choose Life, it was our, ahem, older administrators defending the group. Freedom of expression should be extended even to people we find deeply unsavoury. In the oft-quoted words of American writer H. L. Mencken, “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” Will Johnston is a U2 Honours History student. Write him at william.johnston2@mail.mcgill.ca.
HYDE PARK
The ups and downs of oil How the credit crisis has impacted the tar sands Wahaj Aslam
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ver the last two years, the Canadian oil sands have been hit hard by the financial crisis and collapse of global oil prices. Massive layoffs, budget and dividend cuts, and disappearing profits have plagued the industry, with major players including Suncor (now merged with PetroCanada) and Syncrude downsizing their budgets by almost 35 per cent. Balance sheet preservation has been a top priority across the sector. Subsequently, the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) reported that $200 billion of planned investments have been deferred, delayed, or cancelled altogether. How quickly will the oil heaven recover? The outcome largely depends on the oil prices and access to inexpensive capital. With the worst of the turmoil passed, various analysts predicted a multiple-year recovery phase. CERI forecasted a stall in any growth of the oil sands developmnt until 2013, with no major growth until 2015. Yet against all odds, the sector has demonstrated surprisingly
tremendous resilience. In the last five months, development has picked up again. The $900-million resumption of the Firebag 3 in situ project has received the green light from the bigwigs at Syncrude. ConocoPhillips and Total Canada have decided to undertake the multi-billion expansion of Surmount project, followed in short order by the $2.5-billion Sunrise in situ joint venture by Husky Energy and British Petroleum. This sudden surge is primarily a result of the recovery of oil prices to the $75-80 per barrel mark. However, the new projects pale in significance compared to the capital might of the projects being undertaken at the helm of the prerecession oil boom. At the moment, companies seem hesitant to commit upfront to mega projects like the $20.6-billion Voyager Upgrader by Suncor Energy. The credit crisis has been singled out as the reason behind Alberta’s oil bubble bursting. However, a closer analysis would bring to your attention the rapid pace of development, which was to the detriment of the very sector. The collapse proved correct the fears of a small minority,
including but not limited to former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, who actively supported an artificial slow down of the development to allow time for proper infrastructure and workforce planning. The unending chain of projects being undertaken before the bust had made labour and raw material costs plummet. In some years from now, major oil companies may consider the financial crunch to be a blessing in disguise for the oil sands. It has provided them with an opportunity to re-evaluate their expansion strategies, as witnessed by ConocoPhillips’ president Matt Fox’s recent confession that he plans to implement the Surmount expansion in multiple stages – an approach that is less likely to strain the resources at the disposal of his company and industry in general. In the post-credit crisis era, oil sands face multi-faceted challenges with a minimal margin for error. Projects are under heavy scrutiny by environmental watchdogs and government agencies like Alberta’s Energy Resources and Conservation Board. Investors
are increasingly aware of the financial and social risks associated with the oil sands, the extent of which is evident from investors’ recent uproar over Shell and British Petroleum, causing both companies to seriously reconsider investments in the Canadian oil sands. Subsequently, Shell has rolled back new projects, whereas British Petroleum is under stern pressure to concede as well. To add to the misery, the U.S. government has been considering a carbon tax for some time. One has to take into account that the United States is the prime importer of Canadian crude and any attempts to model carbon legislation on the Californian model would be a blatant discrimination against the Canadian oil sands. Similarly, a carbon tax legislation targeting oil sands was recently brought forward by the European Union. However, with the prospect of souring trade relations with Canada, the discriminatory scheme was shelved for the time being. Industry leaders like Clive Mather (former Shell CEO) believe the industry has collectively failed to deliver on the environmental front and has called for enhanced
engagement with environmental organizations to improve the situation. Yet all is not gloom and doom for the industry. ConocoPhillips plans to use saline water at the Surmount expansion and, with the help of an evaporator, hopes to reduce the amount of water channeled from the resource. Additionally, it plans to invest $300 million in heavy oil research to optimize economic and environmental performance. I would like to reiterate that industries tend to go through ups and downs. Geopolitical and market considerations aside, it is the vision of the leaders at the helm that define the stability and long term success of companies. Greed is intrinsic human nature, but I hope the bigwigs on Alberta’s oil patch will act with caution and prudence this time around, as the bread and butter of many depend on their decisions! Wahaj Aslam is an engineering student who is currently interning with Nexen Inc. on the Long Lake oil sands project. Write Wahaj at wahaj.aslam@mail.mcgill.ca.
Thanks to everyone who’s written for Commentary this year! We’re nothing without you. Literally.
24Features
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
Owen’s spider colour A short story by The Daily’s Gavin Thomson
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drienne was the first girl Owen ever loved. He knew because all the little things, like making a cup of tea or riding his bike to campus, felt like the best things. She had round blue eyes and a nose that curved like a raindrop. Her hair was brown and her cheeks turned pale in the cold. Sometimes her eyes would turn sharp as if she were narrating her life to a voice inside her head that kept laughing and saying, “The world is so wonderful!” Before they met each other, Owen had been caught looking at Adrienne so many times in the library that he began sitting in the back corner where he could face the wall. The first time he saw her at a party, when he
was drunk, he pretended he was Gatsby in order to say “Hi.” At first he decided not to do anything, but then his Older Self appeared in his head and told him that not doing anything was the worst possible thing to do. “Pretend you’re in a book,” his Older Owen said; so Owen walked over in Gatsby’s suit, feeling very clean and sturdy, and forgetting he was real. Adrienne said she’d seen him in the library many times, and she was glad to finally meet him. She said she hoped someone would turn on some music. What she said seemed true to what she thought. Owen told her he was pretending to be Gatsby. Two weeks after the party Adrienne met him on a bike path and invited him to her apartment for dinner. After the meal she
made tea and Owen looked at her paintings in her room. Some of them were very good and to convince her that this was true he only said it once before he left. He spent the whole walk home thinking I should have kissed her, damn. The next time they met he did. She came to his apartment to watch a movie but they ended up talking and making dinner instead. Adrienne hummed like a cello as they cooked. She hummed every song like a cello. When it was late she put her coat on and Owen tried to kiss her. He bent down to her lips but she tilted her head down and he kissed her dark brown, almost black hair. He felt sick thinking that she did not want him to kiss her. Then in his defeat he tried again, and she kissed him back.
After that, they began spending a lot of time together. At first Owen knew he was falling in love but acted otherwise to feel normal. One night while they were walking home from dinner in Chinatown, when he was tired and not paying much attention to himself, he said it. Then everything was all right. Around them the snow was bronze in the street lamps and the lighted windows looked on the verge of sleep.
“L
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et’s go home,” Adrienne said. “You can stay with me.” “Okay,” Owen said. “Let’s be Russians.” “Okay.” The weather was cold and feeling Russian
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
made it warmer. In their dream Adrienne wore a fur coat with an evening dress and a large feathered hat. Owen wore a highcollared shirt and creased fly-front trousers, smoking a pipe. Their house sat in the middle of the country where a small square had been cleared in the forest and a shed outside had been built to store chickens and firewood. They would drink vodka until they fell asleep. “I must wake by sunrise,” Adrienne said, “so I can feed the chickens.” “Yes,” Owen said, “the chickens.” “And you must make the fire,” she said. “Else we shall freeze.” When they arrived at Adrienne’s apartment Owen removed his gloves and his fingers burned. Adrienne lived with two other girls on the top floor of an armoire-shaped complex. The window in her room overlooked an alleyway filled with snow and cats in the winter and bikes and cats in the spring. The sun would set behind the houses on the other side of the alleyway and fill her room with red. Then all the dust would appear. Her room was small and shaped like a body in a coffin. The bed sat where an arm would be, the desk at the knee, and the window by the feet. The radiator beneath her desk hummed and the lilies on her dresser shook along with it. The only light came from the streetlights outside. “Music,” Adrienne said. “But we’ll wake them.” “Shh.” Adrienne bent over her laptop on the desk. She kept the lights off. Owen heard movement in the kitchen but said nothing. Adrienne smiled and played “Get Ideas” by Louis Armstrong. She pulled the curtains back until the window was empty and started swaying her hips and moving her hands like fins, bending her right knee from side to side. Owen did the same. Her room smelled like winter. It was the Jazz Age. “Have my flower, darling,” Adrienne said, giving him a lily. Her eyes looked bigger in the dark. “Swell,” Owen said. He held it in his hand. “It sure is a fine night,” Adrienne said. Owen snapped the fingers on his other hand. “Sure is.” They kept dancing. “Oh say,” Adrienne said. “Smoke with me.” She took two cigarettes from the dresser’s top drawer and lit a match. “It’s a fine night.” “Sure is.” Now they were dancing to “La vie en rose.” Owen took a fake fur coat from Adrienne’s closet and wrapped it around her shoulders. They kept dancing until their cigarettes were done. Then Adrienne brought Owen close to her and kissed his neck. He brought her to the bed while she was still in the fur coat, and she took off his shirt. The dark bronze colour of the hard streetlamps came through the window, and the light bronze and red colour of the soft music joined together with it, and Owen felt as though he belonged to a painting of two lovers beneath the moon.
On one of the last days of school Owen’s friend told him that Adrienne had slept with someone else, twice. His friend became small until Owen could not see him anymore and Owen wanted to be a little boy setting the table with his mother while his little brother finished cardboard puzzles on the floor and played with his toes like piano keys. He vomited when got home. Over the next few weeks he had a poor sense of time. He avoided Adrienne completely until exams ended and she left for home. Then he enjoyed drawing pictures of dinosaurs and spending time in his room alone. It had a white bed with white sheets beneath a window with white curtains, and all the walls were white with nothing but a few photos and a poster of Chagall, and for two hours a day the sun would come through the alleyway outside the window and everything would turn bright white and the dust would look like tiny pearls underwater. When everything was white and clear, it was easy for Owen to feel happy. But most of the time he was not happy.
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ne day, in May, as Owen was doing the dishes, he saw a new colour. He could see it in his head. It was like black, but mixed with spiders, and the sound of cellos. He was bewildered. There are only so many colours in the world, he thought. Really, only the primary colours: red, yellow, and blue. There are black and white but there can’t be much else. Still he could see this new colour in his mind. “I see a new colour!” he yelled. His hands sliced the air like a maestro. “I see a new colour!” He called to his roommate, running into his room. “I see a new colour! I see a new colour!” But words were not enough. “It’s like spiders!” he said, pumping his forearms. “Like spiders! It’s a new colour, and it’s like spiders!” He thrust his fists and head downward, and his roommate stared at him blankly. It was the first time his expression was sincere in a long time. “Dammit!” Owen said, and went outside. The sun was setting behind the hills near campus. The clouds moved as if underwater and they were pink like a furnace burned inside. All the worldly colours looked like hand-me-downs now. The spider-colour was the opposite. It was vivid with life. “Phenomenologically speaking,” Owen said to himself, “the spider-colour is real.” Its edges were sharp. It did not curve at the edges like blue, or stay in its own middle like yellow, or move back and forth like pink, or look out shyly like purple; it dove forward violently, leaving everything else. It was moving and gripping itself. Owen’s head hunched forward and he walked fast with no place to go. Even after he stared at the sun the spider-colour stayed. He walked frantically until he came to a friend’s house and decided to walk back. Maybe any minute it would pour forward on the pavement. The colour was wrapped up and tangled inside his stomach like spider legs lunging at the walls of his insides. Maybe
it would escape. It didn’t, though. It only appeared in Owen’s head as a wall with no edges, or in the background of his thoughts. It attached onto words and images and feelings, too. It attached most strongly to music, specifically the kind that bursts forward like sobbing but cannot reach an end. Owen became desperate for it to escape. He talked obsessively about the colour to his friends and played piano in the afternoons and wrote a great deal about it in his journal before bed. He could not tell his family, and he did not talk to Adrienne. They met only once in the summer and it was by accident. She came to visit her friend in the city and they met at the same party. Everything was different because people were drinking and when Adrienne got a chance she pulled Owen to a bedroom. Her grip was rigid and so was the way she stood. She closed the door and he stood by it. “Owen,” she said. But he was listening to the voices in the hall outside and convincing himself that he was interested. The room was dark and cluttered. Adrienne sat on the bed and put her hands on her lap. Her eyes were not sharp. He knew she wanted to look at him but he did not let her. Then for a moment he remembered what she had been before. She had reminded him of Bach’s “Prelude in C.” They had talked about many things that he had never talked about with anyone before and they had shared many secrets. They were the same two people, Owen thought, the one on the bed now and the one who hummed like a cello, and the spider-colour started bursting inside him until he felt that he himself was the hardest sobbing music he had ever heard. “I don’t really know what to say,” he said. Adrienne put a hand to her cheek. She was still for a long time. “Well,” she said, at length. “I like the way you stand. You stand so straight, but not because you’re scared.” “I’m pretty scared,” Owen said. He didn’t really know what he meant. “I like that you’re scared but still stand straight as if you weren’t.” Owen kept standing straight. “You look very strong standing like that,” Adrienne said. “Even though I know you’re scared.” “Why are you sitting?” Owen asked. Adrienne pressed her hands flat against her knees. She looked at the bit of wall beneath the window, scowling slightly. “I’m sitting because I’m scared. I can’t imagine how you’re not sitting.” Owen looked at the door. “She’s right there!” his Older Self said. “There is more you could do, you know.” His Older Self was exceptionally tall. “I know I know,” Owen said in reply. But his Older Self was very far away and Adrienne was too, and by standing still he kept it that way. “No,” he said, and Adrienne put her hands back in her lap. He breathed loudly. Then he opened the door to see if she would say anything, but she didn’t, and he left the house.
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wen’s Older Self was furious. “Right there!” he kept saying, with his arms thrusting in the direction of the party. “And you know what you’re doing? Nothing! The worst thing!” Owen knew he was right. “But I can’t,” he said. He turned onto the main road that led to his apartment. The street was busy. Older Owen sat down somewhere in the back part of Owen’s head where it was dark and quiet. “You’ve given up,” he said. But there was a violent thrill in walking home. He began walking faster and his fists were clenched. He was breaking the spider-colour into pieces that burst among the edges of his head into grey and dusty ashes of colour. They looked like the sound of distorted drums and chords. They were sucking inward and then exploding forward, and when they moved forward they turned red and burned and blurred at the tips. In the background they sucked inward and settled like dusty shards of metal on top of the purple and black pool which was the sound of his footsteps. The pool pounded up and down beneath the sucking and exploding of the dusty above-colours, which started turning into strings that dove forward, toward the back of Owen’s eyes. Then everything turned into a long beam of distorted silver, and it kept moving forward and growing wider until Owen could see nothing but grey. But the spider-colour wouldn’t leave him. When he got home he slammed the front door. The next morning, Older Owen began to take a prominent role in Owen’s life. Older Owen was a wonderful painter and he painted all kinds of things with the spider-colour. He even took spiders and dipped them in spider-paint and pressed them against the canvas. And after completing each new painting the spider-colour would weaken. Then Owen would thank his Older Self but he would just say, “Stop being so vain.” Owen didn’t care, though, if he was vain. He would bike along the path where the canal met the railroad track, and the buildings were old and rusted, because there he would think of all kinds of great things to say, and all the things he could do, and everything he was good at. He grew very accustomed to Older Owen. He kept painting the colour away until it stopped appearing in Owen’s head at all, save for when he wanted it to. And from then on he stopped talking about it completely and kept all his entries in a folder in his closet; and his life became normal again. He started following old routines. When he went home he acted as if everything was fine, and the more he acted like everything was fine the more everything really became fine. When school started again in the fall everyone thought he was fine, too. Eventually he managed to convince his friends that he had been confused about the colour the whole time. He had really just meant a number of other things, which he couldn’t find the right words for. The spider-colour would always be his secret with Older Owen.
26Features
Teaching unemployment in Came The disconnect between the curriculum’s European ideals and the training relevant to a rural economy
Courtesy of Jason Hirsch
Jason Hirsch Features Writer
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n my estimation, the people of Kumbo, Cameroon are not generally poor. But for those on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, adding school fees to the budget means something has to give – especially in the surrounding villages, hardly integrated into the cash economy. For some struggling families I’ve visited, basic nutrition is sacrificed – in others, health care, clothing, or fixing a leaky roof. I have been administering a program providing school fees for AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children. During the six months I have lived in Kumbo, I have heard stories of the sacrifices made for school fees over and over again. For all of this hardship, I expected to see some evidence to support the nearlyuniversal conviction that education would provide a good life.
But that wasn’t the case at all. It’s not because of a lack of government support. For example, in 2007, the Cameroonian government devoted 17 per cent of its budget to education. In 2006, Canada spent roughly 12 per cent. The government is committed to putting a school in every village. While they don’t always provide enough teachers, or any funds at all for construction, a casual trip through the villages in various regions of the country suggests that the promise has at least partially been fulfilled. That education is not improving quality of life is even more baffling in light of the students’ enthusiasm to learn. Feeling worlds away from my hometown of Toronto, I was hard-pressed to find a single student who said he or she didn’t like school. This, despite the fact that school is no picnic in Kumbo. Public primary school classes often have 40 to 60 pupils; secondary classes can range from 70 to 180. In the local high school, an offence as grievous as leaving school property before
the end of the day can land you spending your week digging up a tree. That education does not transfer to success is not due to a lack of willingness of parents to pay fees, of government funding, or of dedication on the part of the students. I am quite certain that education is creating poverty in Kumbo. The culprit is the school system itself.
I
sat down with Fuekang Cyprian, veteran headmaster of a government primary school. “The educational system is nonfunctional,” he boldly declares. “Children will graduate from secondary school and expect a job from the government. And when the job does not come, they will roam the streets.” Mme Elizabeth, who runs a local church program that sponsors AIDS orphans’ education, found that school wasn’t really helping these youth. Even those who completed primary school, she found, were “just roaming around. Some were becoming thieves,
armed robbers, even.” The biggest problem facing the youth of Kumbo is unemployment, affirmed Claitus, the divisional delegate for the Ministry of Youth Affairs. Unemployment is not the product of a lack of education. According to Claitus, most of the unemployed youth have completed secondary school, and some even have primary degrees. “They are selling used clothes or driving taxis,” he explained, despite their education. Echoing Mme Elizabeth’s phrasing, he added, “some just roam the streets.” The problem is a disconnect between the educational curriculum and the needs of the local economy. In rural Bui Division, the economy is primarily agricultural. There is little need for office workers. Yet the school curriculum looks strikingly like that in Canada, emphasizing English-language proficiency, academic analysis, and hierarchical discipline. Students graduate utterly unable to make something of the resources available to
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
27
eroon them in their environment, and thus unable to make something of themselves. “The youth are trained in general education, but they cannot fit into the society,” explains Claitus. He adds, “[The school system] doesn’t train job-creators, but it trains job-seekers…. It doesn’t train them to be selfemployed.” Local government officials blame pervasive unemployment on the economic crisis – the one Cameroon has been battling since the crash in world coffee prices in 1986. But at root, the two problems are one and the same. Were the school curriculum relevant to local needs, the local economy might have been sufficiently diversified to weather the coffee price shock.
T
he curriculum in use is identical to the one designed by German, and later British, colonial authorities. Even within the colonial administrations critics noted that the system wasn’t practical. German colonial authorities made repeated recommendations for school instruction in local languages rather than in German. In 1925, the British Advisory Committee on Native Education in Africa recommended study in indigenous languages, technical and vocational training, and generally, education adapted to the needs of the local population. According to John Mukum Mbaku, professor at the University of Texas, Cameroonian nationalists in the struggle for independence vowed “to bring school curricula in line with local needs, aspirations, and interests.” Yet somehow, after independence, changes fell by the wayside. Sixty years later, nothing has changed. At head teachers’ meetings, says Cyprian, “the cry is we need to change our school system.” If the system is such an abject failure, why does it persist? In these sorts of situations, Stanford anthropologist James Ferguson advises to look not at what the system is failing to do, but what, despite itself, it succeeds in doing. A system that fails to achieve its stated goals may be maintained if it helps a powerful actor achieve an unstated one. To see this at work, all you need to do is follow the students. Those who graduate from secondary school in Kumbo tend not to stick around very long. They quietly stick up their noses at agriculture and rural trades as they head off in droves for the urban universities. From there, they troll the Internet looking for full scholarships at schools in Europe or North America. The ones who really make it are those who find good enough jobs overseas to stay there. The path is clear. Every student knows it. It leads directly from Kumbo to the gilded city streets of the West. To the detriment of Cameroonian society, it is walked by some of the best and brightest. But to the great disappointment of the masses of students, it is walked by precious few. This inequality demonstrates how the school system in Bui Division creates unemployment. The system is highly successful in training students to desire office work. Year after year students graduate qualified to do
nothing else. At that point, write Kenyan sociologists Diane Kayongo-Male and Philista Onyango, “they may for a very long time reject any employment that may be available as they consider themselves suitable for superior jobs.” Only a select few qualify for full-ride scholarships in Europe; only a further few can find office jobs domestically. The rest fall confused into the chasm between the expectations given to them by their school system and the economic reality of their state. Kumbo’s economy rewards self-starting hairdressers, shoemakers, shop-owners, tailors, and restaurateurs. The most meagre premises and equipment suffice at the start. Its rich soil rewards attention to agriculture. However, graduates shun Cameroon’s rural economy because their education has trained them for a Western urban economy. This leads to unemployment for most. Measured against the substantial investments families make in schooling, it seems clear that education provides a net loss. Seeing how the school system creates poverty, it is possible to see why. Over more than 150 years, the various stewards of Cameroon’s school system have differed in their goals. Yet each regime had reason to turn students toward Europe, sacrificing social relevance at the altar of socialization. The first schools were opened by European Christian missionaries. According to Cameroonian scholar Jacob A. Ihims, the process was initiated by Jamaican Baptist Christians who felt that “something ought to be done to emancipate Africa from its sin and ignorance.” In the words of renowned German mission educator Gustav Warneck, “it is impossible to Christianize a people without schools.” Cultural conversion was a prime goal of Cameroon’s education system from the very start. And on the eve of independence, in 1961, 95 per cent of Cameroon’s schools were still run by European Christian missionaries. When the German colonial government took over control of the school system in 1884, they left daily operations of most schools in the hands of the missionaries, but added their own spin. According to Ihims, “all mission schools, besides their Christian mission, became institutes for the propagation of German culture and language.” Some years later, renowned German Africanist Martin Schlunk sought to justify the use of indigenous languages in schools on the grounds that “it is possible to give the natives a feeling of patriotism toward the Fatherland without the teaching of the German language.” The British colonial administration adopted much the same perspective to education. Throughout the colonial period, and continuing through independence, orientating students toward Europe has been a prime educational goal. Hopes for change upon independence have gone unfulfilled. In his 1986 work of political theory, Cameroonian president Paul Biya wrote that “from mere anonymous elements in a shapeless and passive mass, Cameroonians have to be upgraded to mature and responsible individuals. In short, they
have to become citizens like others and, like them, enjoy their basic rights.” That is, they must shake off the collectivist, responsibilitycentred culture of the Cameroonian village and don the individualistic, rights-focused moral ethos of the citizen of the nation-state – a distinctly European ideal. His personal opinion is highly relevant to political reality; he has been president since 1982. Biya talks the talk of African solutions to African problems. In the end, his success on the world stage depends on his ability to generate economic returns from a unified nationstate. That nation-state is a European model, and the people who will buy Cameroon’s exports are, in today’s economic reality, mostly North Americans and Europeans. Despite its shortcomings, an education system schooling pupils in European values serves him well.
F
ollowing the 1884-85 Colonial Conference in Berlin, a group of African educators asserted that only when education is relevant to the needs of the people “will the schools educate useful members of the society and only then will the schools be able to prevent the problem of rural-urban migration among educated youths.” Yet from its very inception, the education system in this area of Cameroon was designed to inculcate its students with European values. For at least a century, the school system has borne a crippling set of weaknesses – a dearth of trained teachers, instruction in foreign languages, teaching irrelevant to rural life, and high fees. Today, all of these problems endure. The result is that an institution capable of bringing immeasurable benefit to society is instead creating poverty. I do know of an educational system in which there are enough teachers: the teachers speak local languages, they teach skills relevant to life, and they teach for free. Parents teach their children. It was once surely practiced in Cameroon, and in a hundred other countries. It is still practiced in many parts of the world where no well-meaning missionaries or aid workers have arrived to wax eloquent on how the poor people need schools. Everyday, I see this system still working successfully. The eight children who live next door to me are expert in cooking, cleaning, farming, and childcare. They even teach one another. It would be absurd to argue that these skills should be taught in formal institutions. Yet, this is exactly what the first educators in Cameroon argued. If all of the problems in education seem to be intrinsic to the school system itself, one has to wonder whether anything of consequence has been accomplished by schools except the socialization of Cameroonian children out of their traditional mores. There is a wild folly inherent in the assertion that one way of life is better than another. Yet this is precisely what is taught, albeit indirectly, in Bui’s schools. It is evident to me in the glazed eyes and slack jaws I see each time I reveal the damning truth that there is poverty and social strife in white countries too. Meanwhile, the beauty, inventiveness, and social benefit of local values are increas-
ingly swept under the rug. There is a simple and practical way forward. It involves setting aside our urge to “develop” struggling communities in our own country and abroad. In its place, we can adopt an approach of solidarity, supporting and working alongside members of those communities with ideas for change.
I
was fortunate to come across a few education initiatives in Cameroon that address the enduring problems. When Mme Elizabeth noticed that the school system was not helping the children that her church program sponsors, she decided to act. With the support of the same church, she runs a vocational training school. Her seven-classroom centre bustles with future hairdressers, barbers, shoemakers, and both traditional and modern dressmakers. Through the week, students cycle through the one academic classroom, where they gain foundations in English literacy, mathematics, and practical economics. She hopes to expand into carpentry and computer training. Students pay low fees, and payment in food crops is acceptable. Teachers sell the students’ work to supplement their incomes. The energy in the centre is palpable, and Mme Elizabeth is filled with hope. “Not every child is a scholar,” said my friend Gerard. He is filing his papers to open an alternative school. He plans to supplement classroom lessons in English and arithmetic with extensive training in agriculture – organic agriculture, he insists, will ensure a lifelong income. They will sell their produce to help fund the program, and their agro-forestry training will include plenty of tree-planting to aid in the fight against climate change. Riba Farm focuses on training farmers in organic agriculture. But director George Riba sees the connections with education – when youth get only a cursory education in farming, they find themselves out of work, or pouring pesticides on their fields just to grow enough to eat. Somewhere amid his busy schedule of agriculture seminars, he finds time to take on one or two pupils in agro-forestry. The scale is small, but the satisfaction he receives is great when he sees formal pupils making an independent living from their trees. Claitus is administering two Ministry of Youth Affairs programs training youth in agriculture and trades. “The ministry comes in with a fire extinguisher [on] these programs,” he claims. Still, he notes that they are doing the best they can to keep these programs alive. The mere existence of a school system does not guarantee any benefit to students or society. We can build school walls, but what matters more are the lessons that fill them. An education system can exist to teach skills that give life to pupils and their own communities. It can also churn out automatons who will put their shoulders to the grind to reinforce existing inequalities of power. The decision hinges on this: whether we are willing to honour others enough to permit them whatever way of life they choose.
28Year in Review
the
The Daily takes a look at what mattered this past year. But we want your opinion: what events mattered to you?
in SEPTEMBER
a closer look at...
McGill moves to self-funded MBAs The University opted for a self-funded tuition model for its MBA program, increasing fees for Quebec students by over 600 per cent.
Canadian Federation of Students Members of 13 student societies across Canada started petitions to leave the Canadian Federation of Students, including Concordia University, the Society of Graduate Students at the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Windsor.
OCTOBER
Miranda Whist | The McGill Daily archives
A campus-wide discussion of abortion and free speech ignited early this year when Choose Life invited the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform to McGill. SSMU Council voted to censure the event, “Echoes of the Holocaust,” leading to accusations of censorship on one side and infringement of the McGill Charter, SSMU’s Equity Policy, and Canada’s Charter of Rights on the other. The University did not interfere with the event – which compared abortion to the Serbian, Armenian, Cambodian, and Jewish genocides – though they did not hesitate to call the cops on protesters. SSMU Council later suspended the club’s status on November 12, though Choose Life teamed up with Conservative McGill to table at the crossroads in January. On April 1, Choose Life saw its club status reinstated and its suspension ended after agreeing to include an appendix in its constitution outlining its accordance with the SSMU Equity Policy. Among other measures, the appendix forbids the public display of images depicting private medical procedures.
Bill Clinton’s honorary degree
Sarah Traore | The McGill Daily archives
On October 16, former United States president Bill Clinton spoke to a crowd of approximately 800 people as he accepted his honorary doctorate from McGill for a lifetime of outstanding leadership.
Dalai Lama speaks On October 3, the Dalai Lama made two presentations in Montreal, one to a 500-person, invite-only event hosted by McGill’s Faculty of Education, and a second to a crowd of 14,000 at the Bell Centre.
word on the street
“I
’m glad [Anushay Khan is] in the position she’s in because I know she’ll do great and bigger things for SSMU and the greater student community.” Kyle Dorsett President of the Caribbean Students’ Society and education coordinator for the Black Students’ Network
Canadian Federation of Students Seven student unions (including McGill’s Post-Graduate Students’ Society) collaborated to submit an extensive reform proposal to the Canadian Federation of Students. A list of grievances was included, which accused CFS of being tyrannical, anti-democratic, litigious, overly corporate and bureaucratic, and run by “out-of-touch ex-student politicos.”
ASSÉ tuition protest
On October 1,500 demonstrators took to the streets to protest Provincial Bills 38 and 44 – legislation that would change how Quebec universities and CEGEPs are governed. The demonstration is the largest to date on the issue.
Choose Life Choose Life hosted controversial pro-life speaker Jose Ruba on the McGill campus. As the event began, approximately 15 counter-protesters interrupted Ruba, and began singing songs while demanding that Ruba leave. Two students were detained, and at least 10 Montreal police officers were called to the scene.
Fall General Assembly
The Fall GA, on October 21, lost quorum after only three motions had been heard. The final motion debated before quorum was lost demanded that SSMU install reading tables in Shatner’s washroom stalls.
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
NOVEMBER
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word on the street guess the General Assembly. I thought the motion about corporate responsibility was really interesting. I actually read the articles in The Daily and Trib and I really liked how you guys gave a perspective on both sides – I’m sort of in between.”
“I
Anonymous U1 Immunology
a closer look at...
Dominic Popowich | The McGill Daily archives Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily archives
Turcot protests On November 8, activists and residents in St. Henri protested an upcoming plan to rebuild the Turcot interchange. The implementation of the City’s plan would see 200 buildings razed to increase traffic capacity by 18 per cent.
Montreal city elections The atmosphere that surrounded the November 1 election soured in the weeks leading up as numerous corruption scandals came to light. Recent news reports on the sordid dealings of municipal officials, construction firms, and even the mafia prompted Montrealers to question whether their City’s government had their best interests at heart.
McGill’s military research policy The proposed addition of an anonymity clause and the removal of regulations on militaryfunded research in McGill’s new Regulations on Conduct of Research policy sparked debate at the Senate meeting on November 4.
The McGill Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) led a controversial national debate on the status of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). PGSS was one of almost a dozen schools to submit petitions for a referendums on continued membership in CFS and led a reform movement of the federation at its annual general meeting. While their antics horrified some graduate students with positive experiences with the CFS in other provinces, they made headlines across the country. After lengthy legal battles with CFS, votes on continued membership were finally held at Concordia and McGill – though they might not be over yet since they violated CFS bylaws. Both unions voted overwhelmingly to leave CFS, and the rest of the province is expected to do so after investigations of corruption and scandal made by the student press at Concordia.
a closer look at... Military research has been dangerous topic this year. After a requirement stating that professors conducting research sponsored by the military must report potentially harmful applications was stricken from the University’s policy, senators – notably student senators – attempted to enact new measures to make research more accountable. Though the issue was discussed three times at Senate, motions to either reinstate the old safeguard or create new ones were all rejected. Senator Richard Janda, of the Faculty of Law, who introduced an amendment to McGill’s research policy at the last Senate meeting in March, said that “our social responsibilities require us to think about things that are not entirely certain and all that we’re asking researchers to do is think about the problem, report about it, and have the University keep track of this.” Arts senator Sarah Woolf failed to have the old policy re-adopted by Senate and explained that “We hadn’t actually had a reason [for why] the clause was removed in the first place. It has the teeth and the action guidelines that were so useful over the last 20 years.”
word on the street
“I
chuckled when I saw [Choose Life had] been reinstated by SSMU. I thought [their suspension] was silly. I think that the best thing to do with those groups is to ignore them.” Jack Deming U1 German Studies
30Year in Review a closer look at...
JANUARY
Miranda Whist | The McGill Daily archives
Unlike the fall’s General Assembly (GA), which petered out due to low attendance, this winter’s GA sparked debate across campus over investment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, pro-life groups on campus, and the tar sands. Over the course of more than five hours, the often-raucous assembly managed to pass five motions. A motion by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights – McGill calling for SSMU to create a “social responsibility committee” to oversee McGill’s investments was adopted after the removal of whereas-clauses referencing “the unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” During the debate, decorum was mostly abandoned as the Shatner cafeteria reached its maximum capacity, with over 600 students in attendance. Along with some un-controversial motions – like reinstating $5 bills to campus ATMs and mandating that SSMU take a strong stand against tuition increases – the GA saw the adoption of a policy against SSMU investment in the Alberta tar sands. Finally, a motion proposing a ban on pro-life groups at McGill failed, despite an amendment removing direct references to such groups from the resolution. After the GA, SSMU VP (Clubs&Services) Sarah Olle commented that she was “upset by the lack of constructive dialogue.... I think our community, as demonstrated today, is just incredibly divided about issues outside the University.”
Conference on Haiti
Dominic Popowich | The McGill Daily archives
On January 25, Montreal hosted the Ministerial Preparatory Conference on the reconstruction of Haiti. The meeting was attended by high-ranking delegates who set out to establish a framework for the delivery of aid and the long-term reconstruction effort.
Choose Life revived On January 31, Conservative McGill helped Choose Life defy their suspension, which was declared by SSMU Council on November 12. Since the suspension entailed the loss of Choose Life’s tabling privileges, Conservative McGill booked a table for the pro-life group to feature their display at the Y-intersection.
Canadian Federation of Students Debate continued within McGill’s Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) on the question of leaving the national student federation after 17 years. CFS has been charged by its detractors with a lack of transparency, antidemocratic internal proceedings, and the use of legal threats to intimidate its critics. For many of these reasons, PGSS filed a petition to defederate from CFS in late October.
FEBRUARY word on the street
“O
AP, for sure.... At the beginning of the year we had fairly terrible relations with everyone. It really allowed engineering to come out as the people who are helpful and on top of things.... The $50,000 profit helped, too. Now, unfortunately, we’ve slipped back into the same situation as before. But OAP lite is coming up soon: April 29-30.”
Andrew Doyle Engineering Undergraduate Society president, U4 Electrical, Computer & Software Engineering. Biomedical Engineering
a closer look at... After the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January, Montreal played host to an international conference on the country’s reconstruction, attended by high profile international figures like Stephen Harper, U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive. Though Western countries pledged military and humanitarian aid, and the International Monetary Fund promised a $100-million interest-free loan, the relief effort came under heavy criticism for perpetuating poverty in Haiti as well as for the prominent role played by the U.S. military. Activists from Haiti Action Montreal held a small demonstration outside the conference’s building. Patrique Volny, who attended the rally, said that “We don’t need an army – 20,000 soldiers, 16,000 soldiers – coming again to break the population’s back.” Meanwhile, Clinton encouraged Western nations to present themselves as “partners, not patrons, of Haiti.”
Miranda Whist | The McGill Daily archives
ASSÉ tuition protests Faced with a predicted deficit of almost $5 billion, Quebec premier Jean Charest had only two months to determine how he would deal with the looming budget crisis within the province.
TaCEQ protests grow with education minister’s threats Fledgling student organization Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ) responded angrily to intimations from minister of education Michelle Courchesne in early February that the province may raise tuition again. The Roddick Gates were flanked by 10 or 12 protesters on February 17 handing out flyers and carrying signs, warning passersby, “Tuition hikes are coming.” The demonstration was organized in part by SSMU VP (External) Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan, who was instrumental in creating TaCEQ.
Winter General Assembly The Winter 2010 General Assembly approved five motions, mandating that SSMU divest from the tar sands, support a cap on ancillary fees at McGill, restore $5 ATMs, create a corporate social responsibility committee to oversee McGill investments, and take an active policy against the self-funded tuition model. A motion originally banning pro-life groups from campus failed, in spite of numerous proposed amendments.
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
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a closer look at...
MARCH
Community activists, local citizens, and black-clad anarchists assembled in Montreal’s east end this March to protest police brutality. The 14th annual demonstration ended in dozens of arrests, while protesters cited racial profiling and the displacement of residents from the downtown area. “Not content with chasing the homeless, street youth, and sex workers from downtown, the police have also increased their operations in those neighbourhoods where the marginalized have been displaced,” said a statement from the Collective Against Police Brutality (COPB). The shooting of Fredy Villanueva by Montreal police in the summer of 2008 was also a major issue raised by demonstrators. Around 20 minutes into the march, police declared the assembly illegal after black bloc demonstrators threw fireworks at police and their horses. Soon after, the main body of the protest was broken up and police arrested demonstrators, bystanders, and journalists (including three Tribune photographers), filling three city buses.
APRIL
Stephen Davis | The McGill Daily archives
Police brutality protest The 14th annual march marking the International Day Against Police Brutality culminated in the arrests of dozens of protesters, journalists, and bystanders in the east-end HochelagaMaisonneuve neighbourhood on March 15.
SSMU elections After a contentious election period, Zach Newburgh was elected SSMU president for the 2010-2011 year. The results were as follows: Joshua Abaki, VP (University Affairs); Myriam Zaidi, VP (External); Tom Fabian, VP (Internal); Nick Drew, VP (Finance); Anushay Khan, VP (Clubs and Services).
Stephen Davis | The McGill Daily archives
Quebec budget disapproval Daily Publications Society Referendum Following a tense campaign, the Daily Publications Society, which publishes The McGill Daily and Le Délit, was successful in its bid to increase student fees by $1 per semester.
Ban on the niqab
Julius Grey, Françoise David, and Gaétan Barette criticized Quebec’s most recent response to the fiscal crisis, addressing university underfunding in a panel discussion on March 31 at McGill.
Choose Life reinstated
Naema Ahmed, a Quebec permanent resident, complained to the province’s human rights commission after being expelled from CEGEP for wearing a niqab while attending class.
McGill’s controversial pro-life group survived its suspension with club status intact. On April 1, SSMU Council voted to add an appendix to Choose Life’s constitution, ending the suspension while placing restrictions on the group’s activities.
Turcot plans move forward
McGill Post-Grad Society to leave CFS
An alternative to the province’s plan for the reconstruction of the Turcot interchange was unveiled at Montreal’s public health department on March 25. The Turcot375 project – developed by urban planners Pierre Gautier and Pierre Brisset – involves a major downsize of the highway superstructure and a city-wide shift toward a stronger public transit system.
Military research policy decided Senate voted down an amendment to McGill’s regulation on the conduct of research policy on March 26 that would mandate researchers to reflect on the potential harmful impacts of their work.
CFS referendums across the country Concordia students voted to secede from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) on March 26, with 2,312 members of the Concordia Student Union (CSU) voting for defederation and 855 against. Nine known student unions in four provinces will vote on continued membership with CFS in the upcoming months, which will affect 20 per cent of all CFS members.
word on the street
“T
he SSMU elections [mattered] because it’s something that has consequences on people.” Benoit Mayer Law graduate program
McGill graduate students moved to leave the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) last week, following a four-day referendum that ended April 1, with 86 per cent voting to terminate their membership in the student lobby.
word on the street
“T
he Choose Life issue was definitely the biggest scandal, the biggest deal we had to deal with this year. I tried not to get too involved…. I do agree to some extent with some of the positions they were taking, and I don’t think it was very well-handled.” Lauren Barkley U2 Arts
a closer look at... After the immigration ministry expelled her from CEGEP St.Laurent last year for wearing a niqab, permanent resident Naema Ahmed lodged a complaint with Quebec’s human rights board, the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse. Law 94, passed at the end of March, bans the niqab – and all garments covering the face – for civil servants and citizens receiving government services. The reignition of the question of reasonable accommodation has led to discussion on the issue of the secularization of society and whether xenophobia is at play in the province. The Daily editorial board wrote an editorial on the subject on March 11.
Science+Technology
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
33
THINGS THAT MATTERED
Science courses can be kind of a mind-fuck Reflections on postsecondary education and the cost of your undergrad soul
Plus or minus sigma Shannon Palus
W
hen I interviewed Denis Rancourt back in August, the school year was so young that the Internet in my apartment hadn’t even been set up yet. I chatted with Rancourt over Skype from my friend Anne’s place, my Boréale buzz from that morning’s Lower Field Frosh festivities barely worn off. I was incredibly excited to start my second year at McGill – my first as a physics major – and I told Rancourt so at the start of the interview. I didn’t realize that the feeling would soon wear off. In the fall of 2008, Rancourt, a then-tenured physics professor at the University of Ottawa, gave each of his fourth-year physics students an A+. Rancourt believed that rankordering his students with letter grades would prevent them from doing what they were at university to do: learn physics. On March 31, 2009, Rancourt was fired. Rancourt views the current GPAcentric pedagogy of post-secondary science education as a nightmare – an ineffective nightmare. Rancourt discussed his mistakes in bringing students into his lab based on their high marks. “It was gut-wrenching to realize that they had never made [the learning process] on their own.... It had always been just regurgitation.” While talking to Rancourt, I found myself sounding more surprised than one hopes to when conducting an interview. I was aware that, as Russell Crowe’s John Forbes Nash Jr. said in A Beautiful Mind, “classes will dull your mind.” But saying that undergrad physics is a “mind-fuck,” involving metaphorical “bashing on the head” and making “deals with the Devil?” Accusing the teaching system of shaping students to a standardized professional-scientist mold and leaving their minds malleable enough to work for different employers? That GPAs merely represent a student’s level of obedience? Wasn’t Rancourt being a bit dramatic? The interview lasted 48 minutes, and was printed in The Daily on September 14 – edited for lack of space. I emailed the piece to my parents, urged my friends to take a look at it, and then, for just a few weeks, forgot about it. Among my course load for the semester was Experimental Methods 1, a class to which I had been particularly looking forward. Three hours a week of physics lab time? Sign me up. But it became clear the
moment that I got my first lab mark back – a 40 per cent on what I had considered a solid effort for a lab requiring the sole skill of reading an oscilloscope display – that this year was not going to be the utopia of tinkering with Kater’s pendulums that I had envisioned. Yes, I had expected to spend late nights working on lab reports, but ones that involved tricky MATLAB code or intricate diagrams. Not reports that made me cower in fear thinking I had missed so much as a single page number. I had unwittingly stumbled into a university-level arts and crafts class, and was being, as Rancourt said, rank-ordered on a set of arbitrary technical requirements. Getting a good mark means setting aside creativity and just trying to read the professor’s mind. After a particularly large number of hours spent on a lab that earned a particularly low mark, and faced with the immediate task of surviving another Monday afternoon lab period in the windowless basement of Rutherford, I forked over the 50 cents that it costs to send an international text message to a friend from high school: “I don’t care about grades anymore, I want to make it out of here with my soul.” I spent the evening searching the course catalogue: would it be too late to switch to computer science? Arts? A different school? My friend replied later via iChat, and after the requisite display of sympathy, commented, “Aren’t you being a bit dramatic?” There was a problem set due last Tuesday for PHYS232, Heat and Waves. Heat and Waves is a course in which the midterm average was 46 per cent with no promise of a curve, a course in which the material has been concentrated into lecture slides to be read by the professor verbatim during class, a course which I do not like. I took one look at the problem set, and decided that the hours that it would take to complete it did not exist between that moment and the due date. I would be better off trying to understand the material – actually learn the material – for the final. I spent most of the 25-degree-andsunny Easter weekend holed up in my bedroom watching the MIT OpenCourseWare lectures for a Vibrations and Waves course similar to the McGill one. I was infected by MIT professor Walter Lewin’s
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
Rigid formatting requirements can make you lose sight of the fun in learning. affection for demonstrations, for “seeing through the equations.” I found myself waving my arms in prediction of how a coupled oscillator might swing, pausing the video to draw little graphs and diagrams in my notes. On Monday morning, I unearthed the problem set from the corner of the desk that I had exiled it to, and started working. Just for fun, I promised myself. I won’t even hand it in. The rest of the morning, and then the whole afternoon, disappeared as I chipped away at the differential equations. By 10 p.m., the better half was complete. I put on a light sweater and headed to Starbucks, where my classmate and friend Victoria was finishing up her shift. Music blasted over the speakers, the windows were open, and the fresh air, the glow of Crescent poured in. I munched on a stack of raisin cookies, my textbook open on my lap. After Victoria finished closing the store, we went back to her dining room table and continued through the
chapter on Fourier transforms, debating equation structure, and picturing the motions of masses and springs. It hit me that there was a reason why I chose to be a physics major: I like physics. “When I look at the things that I’ve achieved, it wasn’t in a classroom because I had to do an assignment.... It was because I was able to create a space for myself where I could think about these things, where I could find solutions and invent,” Rancourt had explained to me back in August. This too resonates with me more now than it did then. I’ve spent the past semester on pieces of mindless lab work, on impossible problem sets – but out of all those bad things have come study groups, solidarity and camaraderie, and rushing home after a long day at school to forget about homework for a little and console myself with old recordings of Feynman lectures. I know I’m not in my chosen major for the good grades or the good teachers, because those
things just aren’t there anymore. Back in August, I didn’t entirely share Rancourt’s view that the current post-secondary science pedagogy is a mind-fuck. I do now. But I also didn’t share his positive outlook, that in spite of the fact that the pedagogy is this way and isn’t getting any better: “It’s not depressing; it’s reality.” I agree now – not completely, not entirely. Not yet. In the meantime, I’m not letting my grades tell me how intelligent I am, not letting exams rob me of having fun sitting around with a pile of scrap paper and a copy of something from the MIT introductory series open to the back-of-the-chapter problems. I’m getting there. Read the original interview with Rancourt, “On physics, 4.0s, and undergrad souls” (September 14, 2009), at mcgilldaily.com. And write to Shannon Palus – it’s your last chance! plusorminussigma@ mcgilldaily.com.
34 Science+Technology
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
THINGS THAT MATTERED
10345664th floor, please McGill students compete in elevator race to space for $1-million prize Pinky Langat Sci+Tech Writer
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figment of ’70s science fiction may soon become a 21st century reality – and McGill students are taking part in the research to make that happen. Taking an elevator straight from the Earth’s surface directly to outer space just might be the next way to travel. The elevator would climb along a long, paper-thin cable that connects a base station on Earth to a counterweight in space, such as a satellite or space station. Like whipping a ball around on a string, the Earth’s gravitational pull would keep the cable taut enough for an elevator car to climb it. If realized, the space elevator has the potential to carry people and goods to space more cheaply and safely than conventional rocket ships. In the depths of the McConnell Engineering design laboratories, the McGill Space Elevator Team (MSET) is updating their elevator climber design and thinks they might have what it takes to win the $1.1-million prize offered by NASA for building and testing a prototype elevator. The 2010 Space Elevator Games, run by the Spaceward Foundation, challenges teams to build a climber using wireless power that then climbs a one-kilometre cable at a minimum speed of five metres per second. According to the Spaceward Foundation web site, “this is about the height a jetliner is at when the cabin crew asks you to put away your laptop.”
“That’s why we’re using a laser,” says Alex Gravenstein, current team captain and member since 2006, when MSET was founded. According to Gravenstein, the team now owns the most powerful laser on campus, which is only one component of their device. The McGill design uses a laser to aim light to a solar panel on a mobile climber, which then turns the light into electricity to power a simple motor for the device to climb. Other components include tracking software to target the laser beams accurately, and automatic “kill switches,” should anything go wrong. The MSET is currently building and testing each component individually. Once they put the parts together, the team plans to test the system on campus next month, using a strong theatre spotlight and a steel cable just outside of the MacDonald-Harrington building. With 18 current members on the team – ranging from a diversity of faculties that includes engineering, science, arts, education, and management – MSET is also currently recruiting more students, to help especially with finances, approaching sponsors, promotions, and recruitment. So when can we expect to punch the “Moon” destination button in an elevator? Predictions for a full space elevator vary. Some proponents claim within the next 70 years, with companies already beginning serious projects. Arun Misra, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, runs a computation-
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Working meticulously on each individual component, the team will put it all together next month. al lab that simulates some of the dynamics involved with the space elevator. The major issues with the technology, according to Misra, are finding the right material for a strong and long enough cable and protecting the elevator from space debris that severs the fibres. Gravenstein agreed. “The biggest issue to overcome is what tether they’re going to use,” he said. “But technology is increasing exponentially.” There is hope with the advent of
carbon nanotubes, with a string the thickness of a single thread 50 times stronger than steel. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make continuous chains of these nanotubes – recent achievements have been less than five centimetres. Despite the engineering obstacles, there seems to be long-term hope for the technology. “A lot of people still think the idea is pretty crazy, but anything we can do and the more we work on it, the more feasible these ideas become,” said
Andrew Higgins, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and faculty sponsor for the team. “Something like that may exist in your children’s lifetime or my grandchildren’s lifetime,” Misra predicts. “Lots of things we now have used to be only science fiction.”
profit organization whose mission is to recognize sustainable fishing practices; Atlantic cod, meanwhile, is listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Much has changed in the way that sustainable fishing is promoted at McGill since the start of the school year. At the Fall 2009 General Assembly (GA), Greenpeace McGill introduced a motion banning the sale of fish listed on the red list within the Shatner building. Although the GA lost quorum before the motion could be debated, the measure resurfaced at SSMU Council on November 12, 2009, where it was successfully passed. Implementing the motion will require Greenpeace McGill to determine first the identity of all the fish sold by the cafeterias in Shatner, explains Sariné WillisO’Connor, one of the students leading the campaign. Once that
has been established, the club is responsible for providing SSMU with a list of suitable fish alternatives and specific vendors that could supply them. “We should have the research done by the end of the summer, and then meet with the cafeteria managers sometime in September,” reports Willis-O’Connor. While international governmental action appears to have stalled in the short term, consumers retain a good measure of control on the demand for red list fish. Avoiding the purchase of endangered species sends a market signal to fish suppliers and helps industries that have moved to sustainable fishing practices. The McGill community has taken a stand on this issue. Whether enough people will join to make a difference in the long-term health of the oceans will be the crucial test for the survival of fish like bluefin tuna.
Interested in joining the team or learning more about the technology? Check out the McGill Space Elevator Team web site: mset.ca.
One fish, two fish, red fish, SSMU fish Where we’ve come in the fight against overfishing David Zuluaga Cano The McGill Daily
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eonardo DiCaprio has never appeared on the cover of GQ hugging a bluefin tuna, but the magazine might want to start getting in touch with his agent. Like polar bears for global warming, bluefin tuna are quickly becoming a symbol of the environmental crisis developing in some major world fisheries. A high-priced commercial fish, bluefin populations around the world – particularly those in the Atlantic Ocean – are dropping to alarmingly low levels under the strain caused by overly generous fishing quotas. Greenpeace McGill is taking steps to make sure that sustainable fish options are provided on campus. Atlantic bluefin tuna is divided into two major stocks – one based out of North American waters and the other one out of
the Mediterranean Sea. A study sponsored by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) found that the population of Mediterranean fish of spawning-size (those capable of reproducing) had declined by 74.2 per cent since 1958. The situation was grimmer in the western stock, where an 82.4 per cent decline was observed since 1970. “Even considering uncertainties in the assessment, continuing fishing at the 2007 fishing mortality rates is expected to drive the spawning stock biomass (SSB) to very low levels; i.e. to about 18 per cent of the SSB in 1970 and 6 per cent of the unfished SSB,” warned an ICCAT report on the state of the Mediterranean fishery in 2008. At a summit of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last month, the government of Monaco proposed a ban on the trade of bluefin tuna.
The motion was defeated, 68 to 20, with 30 other countries abstaining. Canada was among those opposing the ban. CITES will meet again in three years’ time, where a fresh attempt may be put to a vote. Bluefin may be far too expensive to be on the diet of your average university student, but everyone comes across a variety of endangered fish in everyday life. Atlantic salmon, prawns, Chinese tilapia – these are just some of the species found on the red list of endangered fishes compiled by SeaChoice, a Canadian nongovernmental organization dedicated to promoting sustainable seafood programs. Making sustainable choices requires paying attention, not only to the species of fish but also to its country of origin and the method used in its capture. The Pacific cod fishery along the coast of Alaska has been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a non-
Sports
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
35
An ode to Mike Babcock Puttin’ on the foil Ben Foldy
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hen Mike Babcock donned his McGill tie, the world watched. The tie has nothing to do with anything, but he only wore it in the Big Game: the game with the packed house, the one the entire hockey world watched. The game that even America turned on. It was no surprise that the tie was there on the last day in 2010’s, just as it was no surprise that it was there on the last day of the NHL season last summer. I wouldn’t bet against it being there again this summer, when all is said and done. The ’86 McGill grad, coach of the NHL’s Red Wings and Vancouver’s incarnation of Team Canada, is the Johan Cruyff of hockey. Cruyff is widely considered to be both one of the greatest players and managers in soccer history. He was the best practitioner of “total football” – in which players are not tethered to a rigid system but rather are encouraged to match the calculated responsibility of puck possesion to daring creativity. Anyone who watched the second leg of Barcelona and Arsenal this past Tuesday saw a testament to the style’s continued influence on the game. And just like Cruyff learned from the originator of total football, Rinus Michels, Babcock’s ascension to being the NHL’s new Scotty Bowman was guided by the man himself. While Babcock may not have ever made it like Cruyff as a player, he will go down in history as a similarly successful coach. Babcock’s teams play total hockey. His first line is just as physical as his fourth line. Mobile defensemen pinch and
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flow through spaces opened on the half boards, rarely caught out of position. Jonathan Toews is perfect for a Babcock team, and will build on his best-of-the-tournament performance at the Olympics to become Canada’s most complete threat. Likewise for Drew Doughty on defense, whom the Kings will rely on heavily in their first playoff appearance of their new generation. Babcock’s style almost worked against him in Vancouver. Brian Rafalski, his regular season charge with the Red Wings, brought some Babcock to Team USA. He finished the tournament third overall in scoring, including two crucial goals in the American opening round victory over Babcock’s Canadians, and was voted the best defenseman of the Games. Rafalski is a consummate Babcock defenseman – speedy, skilled, and savvy. While playing with Niklas Lidstrom never hurt anyone’s numbers, the fact that his best statistical seasons have been with the Red Wings – at an age that most offensive defensemen come to be over-the-hill onetrick-ponies – hints at Babcock’s abilities. As an American, I tip my hat to Babcock. Because if America had to lose the final, I’m glad it was to Babcock. Not to Sidney Crosby, who was invisible for most of the tournament. Not to Luongo or Brodeur, who seemed to have an innate ability to choke in the face of danger. Not to Chris Pronger, who found his plodding cheap shot style pretty ineffective on the bench. No. America lost to the Babcock players. On defense, America lost to
Lukas Theinhaus | The McGill Daily
Doughty, the dynamic duo of Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith, the tower of power that is Shea Weber, and the elder statesman of smart and total hockey, Scott Niedermayer. On offense, the States were really stymied by Toews, Philadelphia’s jack-of-all-skills Mike Richards, and Anaheim’s two-way team of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. In running off these names, Babcock sounds like the admiral given the finest ships in the navy. His success in Detroit would be impossible without Ken Holland and Hakan Andersson. The team put together by the formerly Babcockcoached Steve Yzerman proved just
enough to win gold in Vancouver this year. Still, there is something special about Babcock. Players that buy into his system always seem better for it. This year’s Red Wings, all but cooked just a few weeks ago, are now the scariest team in the West. They are creative but consistent, driven yet disciplined. They always seem to know what they’re doing and where they’re going. And that is the sign of a great coach. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with McGill. Babcock certainly seems to think so. But with fellow McGill grad (and former Redmen
assistant coach) Guy Boucher just winning AHL Coach of the Year in his first season with the Hamilton Bulldogs, I’m starting to be convinced. McGill may not give hockey its best players, but I’m starting to believe that we produce some of hockey’s best minds. And if the Canadiens hand the reins over to Boucher sometime in the next few years, a Detroit-Montreal finals may not be too far behind it. And then there will be two ties on television. Ben Foldy has been benched for the season. He’s currently on the playoff bubble. Email him at puttinonthefoil@mcgilldaily.com.
Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
36
Backstreet bike shops Cycling nuts in Montreal offer a more personal option than big stores
Jerry Gu | The McGill Daily
Eric Wen The McGill Daily
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tell-tale sign of spring and summer in Montreal occurs when the bikes emerge from hibernation. Cyclists speed down the sides of roads and bike paths, every vacant space on campus is occupied by a chained-up bike, and BIXI stands return to the city’s streets. Montreal’s friendliness to cycling is unrivaled by most North American cities, and promotes a strong cycling culture. This community has given rise to a number of underground bike shops that allow closer contact between the bike seller and buyer. I talked to Wesley McCoy and Tom Watt, who have both used their passion for and knowledge of bikes to found small, word-of-mouth shops in their neighbourhoods. McCoy operates Retro Vintage out of his basement in St. Henri , and specializes in vintage bikes. “I try to look for anything that’s kind of out of the usual,” said McCoy. “I won’t go looking for standard mountain bikes. Anything from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, or older when I can find them.” Originally just a hobby, Retro Vintage now offers a wide array of vintage bicycles and other vintage craftworks on its web site.
Vélo Dervish, run by Watt, is situated in the basement of a North African café in Mile End. The alley entrance down a flight of stairs into a claustrophobic workshop full of bicycle frames emphasizes the underground nature of Watt’s shop. Watt began three years ago when a friend gave him an old bike that he fixed and sold for $60. He used the money to buy more old bikes, which he subsequently fixed and sold until it snowballed into his current overflowing operation. Recent trends have made vintage goods more popular and chic, but the demand for vintage bikes is as much about utility as it is their aesthetic appeal. “I think it’s a question of durability and a question of style,” explains McCoy. “Vintage bikes have been around forever and I find that all bikes now look exactly the same, and the old ones have so much style and so much personality…. There is a lot of demand for the retro kind of stuff and I think it’s going to last a while for the bikes because they’re so indestructible.” Watt agreed. “Parts have gotten better…but old steel frames are so beautiful and so well made and they don’t make them like that anymore,” he said. A typical Vélo Dervish bike may be a hybrid of modern parts on a vintage frame,
to make a high quality bike at an affordable price. While they are able to sell more affordable bikes by purchasing and fixing older ones, both Watt and McCoy hold to a high standard of ethics when it comes to the widespread problem of bike theft in Montreal. “I make sure that I get them from trustworthy sources,” said McCoy, who always checks the serial numbers with the police before accepting a bike. “A couple of times I’ve gone to get bikes and it just didn’t feel right.... It wouldn’t do well for my reputation and for my business and for anything to be in possession of a stolen bike, or worse, selling one.” “Someone’s bike is very personal for them,” acknowledges Watt, who once witnessed a bike theft in front of his house and chased the thief down the street with a wooden Kendo stick. “I make sure, as much as I can, that they’re not stolen. There’s such a thing called karma, or ‘bike-ma.’ Even if someone gave [stolen bikes] to me for 5 bucks, I wouldn’t take them.” Both McCoy and Watt have a strong desire to serve the Montreal cycling community. Operating mostly through word of mouth and web sites – with the occasional Craigslist advertisement – Retro Vintage and Vélo Dervish offer a
more affordable alternative to new bikes found at a retail store, often at a higher quality, and with the ability to provide more personalized service. “It’s really small. I’m the only person there so basically when I have a customer and they buy something they’ll always be dealing directly with me,” explains McCoy. Echoing McCoy’s sentiment about personal service, Watt values a more ethical business model than larger stores. “I don’t care so much about money, I care that the person is happy,” claims Watt. “The current business model is the anti-model. If you want to look at [a big corporation], look at what their business plan is and mine is the opposite. It’s really people first and to go person by person and not to treat someone like a client because that is the biggest bullshit.” Neither McCoy’s and Watts’ motivation is monetary. It arose instead out of a passion for cycling and their craft. “For me cycling is and was a major passion, and I started the bike business just to help people to get good bikes, and to be able to do something that I love,” said Watt. With bikes packed to the low roof in Watt’s dimly lit warehouse, he plans to move to the larger basement space next door, and has just received a license to make his business more legitimate.
He recently quit his job to focus primarily on his bike business, though he wants to maintain the underground ethic. “People are sick of being considered consumers, so when they come to something that’s underground, they have so much love for you because it’s laid back,” said Watt. “I will close Vélo Dervish’s door as soon as it becomes not laid back and it becomes something for money.” The decision for Watt to start the underground bike shop was a natural choice in line with his personal ideology. “It’s free market capitalism, but not capitalism in the predatory sense, which they have now,” said Watt. “It means they don’t want to crush people and they don’t want to get things for greed. They have a product they want to sell and they want to help people.” For McCoy and Watt, the spirit of their underground bike shops reflects the broader culture of Montreal cycling. “[In Montreal] there’s this spontaneous feeling and I think that’s part of the bike scene,” said Watt. “Cyclists want to be free. If anything, they love the bike because it gives them freedom.” To get in contact with the shops in this article, visit velodervish.blogspot.com or retrovintage.ca.
38Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
The Internet eats itself “The Betweeners” locates the hidden links of online networking
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rtist and self-proclaimed “cultural hacker” Ian Wojtowicz approaches digital art from the perspective of art history, creating works that go from gallery space to cyberspace. His projects have included “Nation.1” – a conceptual, online-only country governed by children – and “Whispers of Electronic You,” an art piece that uses a downloadable computer program to amalgamate fragments of sent emails into sound collages. “The Betweeners,” his newest piece, recreates select MySpace pictures of individuals with “strong viral potential.” The McGill Daily: Could you talk about “The Betweeners”? Ian Wojtowicz: I wrote a piece of software, which…connects to MySpace [and] downloads all the data about people in Montreal who are on the [city’s] network, and records the friendships between them into a network graph. It highlights particular individuals who have particular characteristics on the network...[and] records their user IDs and their friendships. Then, I ran an algorithm…called “Between the Centrality.” It measures how central someone is to the network. Say there’s two clusters, two cliques of friendships, and one person has friends in both – that person is highly central to the whole. They connect these two disparate groups on the network. So it’s a measure not of someone’s popularity but how diversely they’re connected. From that point on the process was very analog and traditional, contacting these people and setting up appointments and going to photograph them.... When I met them, we worked collaboratively to select some of their photos from MySpace to re-enact. [There’s a meaning to] photography on MySpace, which you can extend to online photography in general, where people are representing themselves in particular ways online to create a persona, to feed into this notion that...on the Internet, everyone’s a celebrity. There’s a whole question about friendship.... What it boils down to is people have connections online that are called friends, but what they’re really doing is a kind of microcelebrity culture. MD: How much artistic authority did you take with these subjects? Was it totally their self-representations or did you determine how they would look? IW: It was a back-and-forth. We picked out a couple of photos to re-
Courtesy of SKOL gallery
Cultural hacker and artist Ian Wojtowicz uses homemade software to map Internet social networks. enact together. I made sure that it was similar enough to the original photo, but I might have added some changes to the clothing they were wearing, or fixed their hair a little bit differently. MD: Can you talk about why you chose MySpace as a medium? IW: Well it started off with me wanting to use Facebook, but Facebook recently changed their system so that they didn’t have city networks anymore. It turned out to be a very productive switch because it turns out MySpace is still very much a dominant network for anyone interested in live music. Once you have a look at the people that I actually found through this software, it’ll [become evident] there are a lot of artists. I sort of got two performance artists, one graphic designer, a jewelry designer, a fashion designer, and a writer. That’s what the software found. In that sense, it all worked out for the best.
MD: I’ve never considered MySpace as an artistic space. IW: Totally. There are other networks that are more focused on visual art. I don’t know any visual artist that doesn’t love music. It’s a logical connection I think. A lot [of MySpace] pages are really chaotic and ugly, but there’s a really customized look to [some of the pages].... [Whereas Facebook] is very much focused on usability, MySpace is much more focused on personality and expression – to its detriment to some degree. There’s definitely a lot more personality that comes through on people’s [MySpace] pages. MD: I’m really curious about the thematic role of the individual within your work. IW: The final work is going to be a group portrait; I’m hoping not to focus too much on the individual, [although] each person will have a bio for [visitors] who are interested
in learning about them. [The show] is both interested in who these people are as well as the group as a whole. I’m really interested in this idea of synecdoche...where a group of Montrealers can stand in for the city as a whole. The photo montage that I’m in the process of creating... will depict all of them in one room together, despite the fact that I took all of the photos separately in different locations. So, it’s about a group – a virtual group. MD: What do you think is the role of the artist within the society of hyper-connected social networks? IW: I don’t think the role of the artist changes all that much, they still do the same thing they’ve been doing for hundreds of years, which is producing meaning in society. They’re very often involved in critiquing society and re-constructing it through visual representation. The artistic process is very inter-
ested in comment, critique, and satire to [challenge] society when one sees certain problems affecting it. Artists are very quick to identify these and create their own solutions. To a certain extent everything that we see and experience that’s built by people is mediated through an artistic process. MD: Going along those lines, can you agree that these networks are artistic? IW: All of these networks ask individuals to represent themselves in certain ways. I think creativity certainly enters into it. These networks kind of blend the artist and the gallery together. I think artistic expression and artistic production is very core to how these networks work. —compiled by Joseph Henry “The Betweeners” runs from April 16 to May 22 at the Centres des arts actuels Skol (372 Ste. Catherine O.)
A spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre of Culture. YEAH.
Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
39
CULTURE ESSAY
Kurelek’s Canadiana Looking back to a Manitoban master for a vision of national identity Eric Andrew-Gee The McGill Daily
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nything I could ever hope to say about Canada, my native and newly beloved country, is expressed a thousand times better by William Kurelek’s paintings. I don’t know of any Canadian painter who has created as intelligent and nuanced a vision of that subtlest of notions – a Canadian national identity. I discovered this odd prairie sage, fatefully, when the perennial anxiety about what makes our country worthwhile pressed the hardest: in the early afternoon before the Olympic gold medal hockey game. I was in the Art Gallery of Ontario, wandering around nervously in the Canadian painting section on the second floor, looking to Tom Thompson and Lawren Harris for moral support. I knew about Kurelek from some visits to the gallery the previous summer, and found him charming, if nothing else. His expressively childlike images of rural life reminded me of the illustrations in The Hockey Sweater, the children’s book by Roch Carrier featured on our $5 bill. This time I walked into the room devoted to Kurelek, which holds 20 or so of his works, and found a number of his pieces electrifying. The first thing that strikes you about a Kurelek is the colours – the blues verge on turquoise, the oranges are like clementine skins, the pinks are lipstick. The lines, too, are simple and vivid. There is the odd flourish – some scratching with the handle of the paintbrush or a pencil, some mushy shading – but his figures reveal how little formal training Kurelek had. Brought up during the Depression by Ukrainian immigrant farmers in Alberta and Manitoba, the young artist often bristled at the gruelling work his father demanded of him. When Kurelek told his parents he wanted to paint for a living, they were furious. He studied art briefly in Toronto and San Miguel, Mexico, in spite of their anger. At the age of 25 he went to London and checked himself into a psychiatric hospital for depression, a stay which led him to convert to Catholicism and paint series of works devoted to Christ’s Passion and the virgin birth. I think one picture from Kurelek’s book on European immigrants to Canada, They Sought a New World, is as emblematic of his vision of Canada as any other. It depicts a small settlement in northern Quebec, comfortably civilized with a horse and buggy, smoking chimneys, and a dirt road. A large family, or maybe the whole village, is sitting down for Sunday lunch – a priest presides at the end of the table. Surrounding the vision of pacified domesticity remains a sea of trees, darkly extending again to the edges of the picture, making an island of the otherwise cheerful settlement. This is Kurelek’s thesis, con-
Sally Lin | The McGill Daily
densed with a magical sense of narrative and drama into a couple of small paintings: in Canada, nature was never conquered. There was, and remains, a negotiated peace. Kurelek was also fascinated by the emptiness of the prairies and the hardness of the Canadian winter. The prairie paintings almost always have much more prairie in them than they have people. Thunder Driven is among these. A wide black sky stretches over the empty wheat field below, both of which are painted with what, for Kurelek, is a manic, expressionistic hand. The picture is cracked in half by a shock of lightning, lemon yellow. The light and sound have scared a horse, which is being pursued by a farmer. Two other farmers continue their work in the foreground, undisturbed. They are grudgingly going about their tasks despite the storm, as all Canadians do in Kurelek’s world. In their diffidence, the farmers embody the quiet coexistence with nature that the Canadian wild forces on those who live among it. Winter heaps the elements on this arctic country with an unnerving ferocity. It dares anyone who braves it to fold. Kurelek points out, in painting after painting, that rather than capitulate, Canadians
have adapted to winter in ways that define our national character. Many of the pieces from his book A Prairie Boy’s Winter express this battle against the odds – why labour on through the blizzard with your bucket of seed or your sled full of firewood? Why try and make a life in such impossible conditions? Canada is not a piece of land that easily yields to human machinations. But the central reality of postpioneer Canadian life, as Kurelek sees it, is the determination to farm and build and play regardless of nature’s hardness. To see how this uneasy truce between humanity and nature has shaped the Canadian character, you only have to train your eyes south to the American pioneer experience. The idea behind the American push west was then to master nature, to dominate the continent – sometimes including Canada – and make it submit to the will of man. This fantasy was in fact state policy, beginning at the latest in 1823 with James Monroe’s declaration of American protectorship over the entire Western hemisphere. The historian Fredrick Jackson Turner famously declared that the West was won, and the frontier closed, in a speech delivered in 1893: not only did Americans think they should try to conquer
the West, they claimed to have actually succeeded more than 100 years ago. The arrogant, swaggering, triumphalist strain in the American national character can plausibly be traced to this very attitude toward the land they inhabit. The idea that Canadians could ever declare our frontier closed is completely absurd. The North looms heavy in the Canadian imagination, a frozen bulwark against dreams of Canadian hubris. The arctic is not Oregon, or California; we would have a much harder time getting that distinctly Canadian frontier to submit to the human will. Nuclear weapons might do the trick, or global warming. Wagon trains fall short. A distinctly Canadian character now emerges more easily. We are humble people, by and large, never having had an overwhelming, historic victory over nature such as America has always claimed. The vastness of the prairies, and the density of the forests, and the length of the winters have kept our pride sensibly in check. If Canadians are more communitarian than Americans, and I think we are, it is not because Canadians were forced into sympathy with one another by the wilderness. There is plenty of me-time available to the prairie farm hands in Kurelek’s
work. And the tight family unit facing the wild in solidarity is as much a trope of the American frontier as Clint Eastwood’s roaming, lonesome cowboy. But Canadians’ heightened awareness of our surroundings, and our greater humility, make us more malleable to a communal will and the common good. The overweening pride of an ultimate victory is notably absent from our fibre. Skating, as depicted in Kurelek’s painting, is the perfect Canadian activity. It’s November; the world begins to freeze. The Canadian solution is to adapt. Strap on a couple of blades to your feet and make do. Eventually skating became an incredibly refined athletic, sometimes balletic, activity. It became a cornerstone of Canadian culture. The cover of May Ebbitt Cutler’s short biography of Kurelek, Breaking Free, is a painting by the artist himself. It shows four boys skating along a frozen river that stretches to the horizon. The vast fields flanking the river are covered in snow. Two boys have sped on ahead, but in the middle ground a boy in a green jacket has fallen hard. His feet are clean above his head; his hat has lifted off his head. In the foreground, behind the scene of the wipeout, another boy with yellow socks and mittens is skating gracefully to his friend’s aid.
40Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
Entering life’s doldrums Richard Greene’s latest collection finds the established Canadian poet coming to terms with mid-life.
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Housing Sarah Mortimer The McGill Daily
F
rom Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” to Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, 20th-century British literature has been rich with comparisons between life and the changing rhythms of the sea. These metaphors – which present life as a force that undulates unexpectedly between calm and chaos – have left clear impressions on the mind of Canadian poet and literature professor Richard Greene. In his newest collection of poems, Boxing the Compass, Greene describes the challenges of middle age within the metaphorical framework of sea travel. Described by Montreal’s Signal Editions as a “collection of midlife reassessments,” Greene’s book surpasses the expectations laid down by its publishers with the bits of universal wisdom it has to offer. The book’s poems, which were culled from the past 25 years of Greene’s career, aspire to more than the meditations on toupées and fast cars suggested by the term “midlife.” Taking William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot as inspiration (both of whom, incidentally, wrote past the age of 50), Greene broadly adopts the human experience as his muse, addressing such timeless themes as
love, death, and spiritual rebirth. Though Greene is perpetually towed back to the original site of his investigations – his home province, Newfoundland – his poems deliberate the problems of existence in places all across the continent. Writing from his home on Sherbourne Street in Toronto, or the back seat of a cab in Massachusetts, Greene vividly situates his poems in their environments, encountering in each location the extensions of his inner self. Sitting on Newfoundland’s vast “acreage of solitude” in “Utopia,” Greene finds himself worrying about a life “drifting endlessly apart.” He then echoes this concern in “Over the Border,” where he desperately attempts to outrun the “heaviness of shapeless time” in the streets of Austin. Repeating these sentiments across various geographies, Greene’s remark in “Utopia” that “There is nowhere as strange as now,” seems of an elevated wisdom. Death figures prominently in Greene’s collection. In several elegiac poems, he reticently recounts the glory days of now-deceased family members and friends, as well as the “shipwreck” of their final hours. In a poem dedicated to poet Peter Levi (1931-2000), Greene contrasts the writer’s impressive career with the rather mundane unfolding of his death. He writes, “I saw
him staggering in a lane beside the Bodleian, the finest poet/I will ever know, lost in a place/where he had spent half his life” – and abruptly concludes – “I did not see him again.” That death occurs quite blandly and unexpectedly is one message Greene offers in his work. His collection ends, however, on a much more redemptive final note. In the last poem of the collection, Greene writes admiringly about a family of ducks swimming in a pool by the Washington Monument: “They paddle crazily among the remnants/of winter, the mud and the rotted leaves/casually insisting on what comes next.” Greene’s appreciation of the sight of these unassuming creatures charging “casually” toward life is the final optimistic affirmation of his book. Greene’s apprehension of mid-life as a metaphor for a journey at sea lucidly perceives the connection between life’s experience of being in medias res and being suspended in a body of water. Both are characterized by a floating feeling – by a sense of being neither here nor there, but on the way to somewhere. Greene’s courage is his hopefulness in the face of this ambiguous motion. As the years chase him down, Boxing the Compass certainly lets us know Greene will still be found insisting on what comes next.
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when he goes, he’s going hungry. tired of the interminable chore of choosing what to eat, tired of the neverending necessity of self-maintenance, he’ll fade into thinness like the famished Buddha; the tight skin like an Indian drum stretched over ribs will snap, the ruptured veins will sway like loose hoses, and all vacuumed up into the black space between bones—pop! all gone.
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Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
41
THINGS THAT MATTERED
We’re losing our lit mags Recent cuts to the Canadian Periodical Fund threaten the future of our nation’s literature Amelia Schonbek The McGill Daily
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t’s hard to think of a Canadian writer who didn’t get his or her start in a small literary magazine. Up-and-coming writers from P.K. Page to Yann Martel found a venue for their early works in lit mags alongside established voices of all stripes. That these small publications have played an influential role in the development of Canadian literature is difficult to dispute. Take Moment magazine, founded by Al Purdy and Milton Acorn in the ’60s, which published Raymond Souster, Louis Dudek, and Irving Layton, among others. More recently, Matrix has featured work by Sina Queyras and Pasha Malla; the Malahat Review published new poems from Tim Lilburn; and Prairie Fire printed a story, “My Three Girls,” by thenunknown writer Saleema Nawaz, that would go on to win the Journey Prize. The list could go on, and on, and on some more. This past year, small literary and arts publications in Canada have experienced significant cuts to their Department of Canadian Heritage funding. In January, heritage minister James Moore announced new guidelines that would govern the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF), a program that has replaced the Canada Magazine Fund (CMF) and the Periodical Assistance Program (PAP). The shift to the CPF involved the complete elimination of the Support for Arts and Literary Magazines (SALM) component of the CMF. It also established a rule mandating that periodicals must have paid subscription rates of at least 5,000 copies per year in order to qualify for the Aid to Publishers program, which funds editorial content. As most Canadian arts and literary magazines have subscription rates of 300 to 4,500 paid copies, this will render the vast majority of them ineligible for content-focused CPF funding. It’s a reality that will threaten the existence of a number of Canadian lit mags, negatively impacting the country’s literary landscape. “It’s like taking a small but very essential element out of an ecosystem,” says Jon Paul Fiorentino, editor-in-chief of Matrix, about the loss of CMF/PAP funding. “Small literary journals really do allow literary practitioners to cut their teeth, to start the lifelong project of improving their writing in public. There may be some literary periodical that won’t get funding and that needed funding in order to survive. Obviously it means that there [will be] less venues for writers to start their careers.” Without a doubt, small literary magazines are unique in their ability to foster the work of Canadian writers and to offer opportunities to
Bridget Sprouls | The McGill Daily
young artists. “Where else are writers supposed to start?” asks Mike Thompson, business administrator at Grain Magazine. “Writers need opportunities, they need somebody at some point to give them a paycheque, and [literary magazines] offer that. We give them chances to work with editors before they launch into larger projects, and it builds up a [writer’s] fan base as well.” Amid this reality, the new CPF guidelines demonstrate not only Canadian Heritage’s disregard for small literary and arts magazines,
zines operate, in terms of turning more into businesses and less into artist-driven projects.” Indeed, the only CPF funding that most small magazines will be eligible for will come from the business development component, which is meant to finance managerial projects – not editorial ones. “Everyone always talks about, ‘are you a circulation-driven magazine, are you an ad-driven magazine,’ they always talk about the ways to generate revenue,” Fiorentino explains. “No one ever talks about the content-driven magazine, the idea-driv-
profit-oriented metrics to this kind of journal. It just doesn’t fit.” Most of the magazines that do fit the government-sanctioned profile are large, corporate-owned glossies that have the circulation numbers necessary to benefit from CPF money. But as Melissa Krone, circulation manager at the New Quarterly, wrote on the magazine’s blog, “do the magazines of large publishing companies that contain a huge ratio of advertising really deserve Canadian Heritage support?” After all, the DHC says that one of their goals
“I think it’s quite clear that this particular government and this particular heritage minister are really not all that interested in supporting arts and heritage” Jon Paul Fiorentino, editor, Matrix but also its deep lack of understanding of the purposes and goals of these publications. “In every way that I can think of, the government has tried to graft the corporate model on to the literary magazine,” Fiorentino says. This is certainly evident in the circulation requirements, which Fiorentino guesses may have been set at a level “[the government] thought was a fair number because they wanted us to be more competitive in the marketplace. It’s an attainable number for many magazines,” he continues, “but it changes the way these maga-
en magazine. [Literary magazines] are about poetry; we’re about short stories; we’re about ideas. I don’t think it’s fair or necessarily healthy to graft the corporate model onto everything. I don’t think that’s the solution for the arts.” Gerald Trites, co-editor of the Antigonish Review, agrees. “[The government] is really treating literary journals as commercial enterprises,” he says. “They’re not. They’re not that at all. None of us are in it for profit; we don’t make any money; we never will make any. The government should not be applying
is “increased Canadian content in periodicals.” What’s more, “If you look at the guidelines for the periodical fund, there’s absolutely no mention of qualitative criteria,” says John Barton, editor of the Malahat Review. “The only criteria there besides circulation is Canadian ownership and Canadian content. And both are quantifiable. You can count the number of pages of Canadian content. There’s no recognition of contribution [to culture]. There’s no recognition that literary magazines, all arts maga-
zines, are incubators for the culture of tomorrow.” This leaves many wondering why Canadian Heritage is not fighting for literary and arts magazines, rather than against them. “This [funding] comes through Canadian Heritage,” Thompson says. “Small print run magazines, that’s what safeguards culture. It seems really funny that Canadian Heritage is not wanting to continue that investment, to [support] Canadian culture, in magazine form, anyway.” Fiorentino is less surprised. “I think it’s quite clear that this particular government and this particular heritage minister are really not all that interested in supporting arts and heritage,” he states. The consequence will be that small magazines will have to revert to what Trites calls “survival mode.” The Antigonish Review may adjust the honorariums they pay writers, small sums to begin with. At Grain, which lost nearly 10 per cent of its annual budget with the new CPF regulations, the change will mean “less pages, which means less [writing], which means less pay for writers,” according to Thompson. “We really don’t have any fat to trim,” he acknowledges, “but we’ll keep doing it somehow.” And though the risk of magazine closures is real, comments like Thompson’s indicate that those involved are digging in their heels to prevent a worst-case scenario. “I think the literary community, and literary magazines in particular are like cockroaches – we’ll survive nuclear attack,” Barton says. “Grassroots culture is like that.”
42Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
An ear to the past “Text in Textile” weaves a holistic portrait of the immigrant experience Ian Sandler Culture Writer
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ou probably have a lonely VHS cassette dwelling in your dresser drawer, abandoned along with other artifacts of the past. Once the mightiest transmitter of entertainment, the cassette tape now seems all but obsolete. But in her most recent exhibition, “Text in Textile,” on display at Montréal arts interculturels (MAI), artist Anna Biró creates a new use for old audio and video tape. She has woven the material into several large-scale textile pieces, and then embedded sensors into the fabric. As viewers move through the exhibition space, different sensors will activate the playing of small audio clips taken from a series of interviews with recent immigrants to Quebec. On entering the gallery, one can immediately see a gleaming carpet of audio tape and copper wire that lines the floor, welcoming those willing to tread on its surface. As one walks atop it, a girl’s voice emanates from within, startling the listener as she asks in Hungarian, “És melyik ajtót?”, or “Which door are you going to open?” The voices of various immigrants emerge from different parts of the gallery, including that of the Hungarian girl, who also happens to be Biró’s daughter. “My pieces have a very personal, but clear message,” says Biró. “I try to counter popular misconceptions and put immigration in a positive light.” By using audio tape, which Biró described as “having obsidian-like qualities,” and placing lights beneath the carpet,
Carly Shenfeld | The McGill Daily
the tapestry appears illuminated from within, and expresses a multifaceted view of immigration through light and voice. The utterances projected within the piece were borrowed from an anthropologist friend’s field work, but held meaning in Biró’s own thoughts as well. “I try to translate from existential stories to inspirational art,” she noted. Although the immigrant experience may seem bleak to some, Biró has sought to incite feelings of joy in immigrants’ stories, and also to “give a voice back to textile.”
Due to her own experiences as an immigrant, Biró possesses a wealth of memories and emotions to pour into her work. Upon immigrating to Montreal in 1988, she began a new life with her family, but fondly preserved her memories of her homeland. “I still feel like an immigrant,” Biró added, “but I consider that a good thing.” Above one of her works, Web, a spider-like creation of wire and tape, the description reads “Our lives and energies are intricately inter-woven in life’s innumerable webs,” implying that our present selves cannot be extri-
cated from our pasts and futures. Nothing retains its singularity, according to Biró, as everyone and everything is connected through the communication and experiences exhibited daily. Through an exploration of immigration, the power of reminiscence emerges as the defining concept of “Text in Textile.” Biró describes her work as a “metaphorical triggering of memory.” Shone through a positive light, using materials themselves forgotten, the pieces subject viewers to recollections of their own.
Struggling through the hardships of life in a new environment, a new immigrant may feel isolated. Starting one’s life in a new locale requires a rare fortitude. But what seems unique to immigrants from afar is in fact present in humanity as a whole. Quoting a taxi driver she once conversed with in Montreal, Biró told me, “Everyone’s an immigrant on this planet; they just don’t know it yet.” “Text in Textile” is on display at MAI (3680 Jeanne-Mance) through May 1.
The myth of the movie red man Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond’s Reel Injun takes an incisive look at 100 years of misrepresentation Madeleine Cummings The McGill Daily
“I
am an Injun, a Cree filmmaker who grew up in one of the most isolated native communities on earth.” These are the opening words from the Reel Injun, Neil Diamond’s documentary film about the portrayal of native peoples in Hollywood cinema. To make the film, Diamond headed south and travelled across America to take a closer look at some of the movies he watched as a kid. “Raised on cowboys and Indians, we cheered for the cowboys,” he says in the film, noting that the movies of the time led him to adopt a skewed sense of his own identity. Using interviews and plenty of archival footage, Reel Injun compiles and comments on films from the past 100 years that feature native people. In the early days of cinema,
Hollywood portrayals of native people tended to be noble, peaceful, and free-spirited. But in the ’30s, native characters were transformed into brutal savages. Diamond argues that the sudden reversal of native representations permanently affected how the rest of the world would view native people. Dozens of Westerns play on the same stereotypical battle of American heroes fighting bloodthirsty Indians. It is these images, shot on the American plains and popularized by directors like John Ford, which solidified peoples’ impressions of native people. Of the 4,000 movies Hollywood produced about native people, Diamond chooses to concentrate on Stagecoach – the film he believes started it all. Its star, John Wayne, is considered to be one of the greatest action heroes of all time. He’s outlandishly violent, but in Stagecoach his actions are justified. He’s fighting Indians.
Even more problematic is that many films had actors imitate native people and their languages, instead of trying to understand them. Directors would cast white actors to play native roles, creating a thin illusion through red face. And occasionally, rather than having actors speak in native languages, they would simply run English backward. Inspired by these Hollywood portrayals, young children continue to engage in the same imitation process at summer camps across the continent. Native people find such portrayals laughable. “White people playing native roles?” asks filmmaker Chris Eyre. “I love it. Because it’s funny.” John Trudell, who is a celebrated poet, actor, and artist of Sioux origin, agrees, saying, “What has kept us alive is humour.” When the Western went out of style in the ’60s, native people began to fight back against the federal gov-
ernment and the filmmakers who continued to spread negative stereotypes. At the Academy Awards in 1973, Marlon Brando famously declined his Oscar for Best Actor – earned for his performance in The Godfather – offering the podium to native activist Sasheen Littlefeather instead. Littlefeather announced that Brando “very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award… the reason for this being the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.” This event, which attracted a lot of media attention, helped raise awareness not only for the negative representations of native people in film, but also the native peoples’ movement as a whole. Throughout the film, Diamond argues that the best depictions of native people or Inuit come straight from native communities. “The answers were here all along,” he affirms. Ending his journey in the Canadian North, he points to
Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) as a sign of progress. Released in 2001, the film was the first of its kind – a feature written, directed, acted, and produced by Inuit, about Inuit. Diamond talks with director Zacharias Kunuk, who says of the film, “I see it as taking back the stories that we used to hear when we were children.” Reel Injun aims to not only expose the native stereotypes present in the past 100 years of film history, but convince viewers that a new age of cinema is emerging. “The movies made in the North are incredibly special. They’re finally an aboriginal cinema that isn’t someone else’s.” Reel Injun educates while it entertains, scoping a century of film, and analyzing the presence of native people in Hollywood films.
Reel Injun is playing at Cinéma du Parc (3575 Parc).
Culture
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
43
THINGS THAT MATTERED
Looking back at a year in McGill theatre The McGill Daily
Y
our first memories of student theatre might involve handcrafted costumes and some dated, grainy home videos you’d rather not share. At McGill, though, you can be thankful you’ve got student theatre at a more advanced production level. Though there may be a little bit less papier-mâché, McGill theatre will certainly spur your appreciation for and expand your point of reference in the realm of the dramatic arts. Student theatre has always been surrounded by a mystical air for me. In this twilight zone lies a balance between high school performances’ keen enthusiasm and full-blown, independent, professional productions. It offers an energy unique to student theatre, and usually results in some very special performances. In an email that looked back on the 2009-2010 year in student-run McGill theatre, Laura Freitag, a U2 Honours English Literature and Jewish Studies student, recounted the past year’s heft of productions. Freitag held the position of art director at Tuesday Night Café (TNC) Theatre, where she directed The Caretaker. She will be their finance director next year, in addition to directing two more shows. TNC, located in Morrice Hall, is student-run but affiliated with McGill’s English department. This year, they produced four studentperformed and directed plays, beginning with Miss Julie, which Freitag described as “a classic piece of realist theatre,” followed by The Caretaker, “a post-WWII modernist” comedy. Players’ Theatre, the black box space you’ve probably visited if you’ve seen any production in the SSMU Building, also offers opportunities to aspiring thespians. This year’s share of drama at Players’ began with the trans-glam musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, followed by a theatrical version of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, which, according to Freitag, “gave a wonderfully balls-out [pardon the pun] view of drug addiction.” Next came a “touching production” of Eurydice, “which used the myth as a locus to explore the contemporary experience of loss and relationships between husband and wives, daughters and fathers.” For Freitag, this production was among this year’s highlights, offering “some of the most truthful and powerful performances I have ever seen out of student actors.” Relations between the two campus theatre companies are genial. Julian Silverman, the executive director of Players’ Theatre, offered praise for TNC’s productions, lauding this year’s The Secretaries as “funny, dark, interactive, and most of all, so well-suited for that intimate space that is TNC theatre.” The
McGill theatre community is a tightknit group, and the two companies, along with other campus theatre groups like the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS), Savoy, and the Theatre Laboratory, often share members that direct, act, and help out with productions. Both executives agree that McGill theatre is changing. According to Silverman, “This year we have moved laterally. It’s difficult to say we’ve moved forward because things shift year-to-year. I think a lateral shift is a good way to think of it visually, because there is not necessarily an ‘ahead’ we’re striving for. This year was incredibly successful in terms of production quality and cohesion between theatre executives.” Freitag pointed to TNC’s final production, The Bald Soprano, a “very postmodern production of Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist gem,” as being especially strong at making classic theatre relatable to the McGill audience. “It presented a dated, absurdist text made completely relevant and necessary for a contemporary audience member. The director, Julien Naggar, walked a fine line between antagonizing and entertaining his audience and, in the process, completely exposed the banalities of assigning anything meaning, conceptualizing time, and the idea that communication is even possible in the post-W WII world.” And, as one would expect from a campus active in promoting equal rights for its students, Freitag agreed that “if there has been any notable trend in theatre this year at McGill, it has been a move towards tackling important gender- and sexuality-related issues, as well as the trend toward gender-neutral casting.” She cited Hedwig and the Angry Inch, AUTS’s Cabaret, and TNC’s The Secretaries as representative of “a move to explore sexual identity,” describing The Secretaries as a “hilarious feminist script that exposed and mocked contemporary society’s interest in sexuality and violence.” Freitag also noted that “the openness to gender-neutral casting…has been showcased this year more so than any other year I can think of at McGill and I think it marks an important move on the part of the theatre community and the audience they are performing to. It also marks a kind of flexibility on the part of the actors because of their ability to perform sometimes multiple genders in one play.” TNC’s The Caretaker, The Secretaries, The Bald Soprano, Players’ Henry VI: The Rise of York, and the Theatre Laboratory’s The Good Person of Sichuan all employed gender-neutral casting. Silverman voiced a concern, however, in relation to the year’s productions. “Recently,” he explained, “I’ve begun to feel like the theatre community here is a lot about presenta-
Actors in Player’s Theatre’s Henry VI: The Rise of York staged a funeral on the Arts steps.
Aniessa Antar | The McGill Daily Archives
Zoë Robertson
Sarah Traore | The McGill Daily Archives
Players’ and TNC execs reminisce and talk about the future
Things got hot and heavy in Tuesday Night Café’s The Bald Soprano. tion of talent, and not about the craft itself. I think the next stride is to host opportunities in which actors, technicians, thespians, and the like can hone their talent and grow as artists. Players’ is looking into holding acting classes, and other workshops in which we can learn, not only show, what we know.” He is optimistic for next year, though, citing that the community has “set up a good group of people this year to run next year’s administrative tasks...allowing for the wide breadth of opportunities” that McGill students “love to take part in.” Both Players’ and TNC offer
annual theatre festivals in addition to the year’s worth of productions – there’s TNC’s ARTifact Festival, a week-long celebration of student-written plays; Players’ event is called the McGill Drama Festival (MDF). “MDF has become a kind of go-to for student-written plays and provides an exception outlet for students to explore all aspects of theatre,” explained Freitag. Student productions don’t only benefit performers and producers. Most plays, which set ticket prices around the $6 mark for students, offer a budget-friendly activity for those who want to fill
their culture quota without paying higher prices for professional productions. McGill theatre provides a testimony to what students can accomplish outside of grades and textbooks. As Freitag explained, “The McGill theatre community is flourishing because of the hours of work that students and professors put into these productions and their hard work is commended and recognized” by fellow students. Whatever directions the McGill theatre community takes in coming years, this extended group will remain a central and unifying force in the McGill arts scene.
Compendium!!!
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
Nicolas Boisvert-Novak, Naomi Endicott, Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
Lies, half-truths, and that’s all folks!
Fuck hetero fantasies Fuck threesome jokes. Really, fuck that. They make what I’m saying feel illegitimate. They take a serious moment and turn it into a joke. Perhaps more importantly, they take my idea of intimacy and morph it into something completely uncomfortable. I’m sharing something, opening up, feeling vulnerable, and nervous, and shit. JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE MALE doesn’t give you ANY RIGHT to turn it into your own little fantasy. AND I know you KNOW you shouldn’t say it. HEAR THIS: if a friend is coming out to you, don’t make jokes that make them feel illegitimate or like they’re supposed to be your entertainment. BECAUSE IT’S NOT OKAY. Maybe the first time, fine. BUT NOT AFTER YOU’RE THE FOURTH PERSON WHO HAS DONE IT. NO MORE. And while we’re on the subject, please STOP coming up to us on the street or cat-calling. Don’t say “I approve,” don’t proposition us for a threesome, and please STOP MAKING OBSCENE GESTURES IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME. BECAUSE THE ANSWER IS NO.
44
The Future.
Sally Lin & Sam Neylon.
Fuck anti-intellectualism Fuck the “Fuck this!” from last week (“Well, didn’t you just spring out of Jupiter’s head!”). Just at the end of the semester, when everyone is finally beginning to get comfortable in their own skin and talk more in class, you bring back this fucking idea that “anyone who dares speak in class must think they are better than everyone else.” Maybe you should leave university once in a while and see that, for the rest of the world, taking notes and silently judging people is not the peak of human behaviour, and that some people engage with and reach out to ideas by actually talking about them.
Fuck Shatner’s toilet paper Fuck the fucking toilet paper in the Shatner basement. After eight months working in this building, my b-hole will never be the same. Fuck exams! Fuck this is getting the fuck out of here for fucking finals and then fucking summer vacation. Got a complaint? Send it to us over the summer – maybe it’ll show up in the first issue next year. Keep in fucking touch: fuckthis@mcgilldaily.com.
“John the Revelator.”
Canadian Girl Dolls
By Daniel Rubenstein & Anna Leocha
Francine Laval, Quebec Accessories: Plastic poutine, leather initialed purse, hair dye Francine’s accompanying book, Francine Works at Aldo, is about Francine’s fight to step up her game on the sales floor to secure a managerial position. Francine spends her samedis at Carrefour Laval. She loves her boyfriend, Bertrand, a tattoo artist on the Lower Main. She hates bratty McGill students who speak no French.
Tina North Van, BC Accessories: Oversized headphones with tape deck, skateboard, bong, moccasins Tina’s accompanying book, Tina’s Trip, covers her adventures in the American Southwest where she experimented with peyote and got her nose pierced. Tina loves “chilling” and skinny dipping in the Pacific. She hates corporations and is hella stoked to go to Sasquatch this summer.
Lanna Forest Hill, Toronto, Ontario Accessories: Blackberry with headset, Starbucks cup, Longchamp bag, sunglasses Lanna’s accompanying book, Lanna Leads the Way, covers her trials and tribulations as a Frosh leader in August, 2009. Along the way, she takes a froshie to the hospital and dumps her boyfriend, whom she catches hooking up with a hostess on the pub crawl. Lanna loves predrinks, puppies, summer, and Metric, the band. She hates drama and tends not to get along with other girls.
Compendium!
The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
Apple releases cum shield
Campus rids itself of liability McGill University to become “University at McGill” Harriet Rocco The McGill Daily
I
n a press release heard around the downtown campus world Friday morning, senior administrators announced that they had solved every liability issue ever by removing all official ties to the now amoeba-like institution formerly known as “McGill University.” “It’s genius! If everyone – students, staff, administrators – is just ‘at’ McGill, then no one’s liable for anything, because no one is really a part of this single-celled organism that catches food and moves about by extending finger-like projections of its protoplasm in damp environments!” said one assistant to the Deputy Provost (Liability & Neocolonialism), quoting the MacBook Dashboard Dictionary app.
“Now everyone can get back to what they’ve been missing over the past few years, like learning, researching, and doing stuff that actually avoids shitting on the people around you.” The decision comes after years of making it clear to students that they aren’t really a part of the University. “I mean it’s tough because it’s like...yeah, like, you’re kinda important, and we do need stuff like your achievements and tuition and stuff... but like, at the same time, you’re not, y’know? Anyway in the end we just decided it was time to apply the logic that we’d been applying on other University constituents onto ourselves,” said the same exuberant staff member, recalling lessons learned in pre-school. In the past, when anyone brought up the fact that the University wouldn’t exist without students, the administration had offered
arguments based on extreme hypothetical examples with as much relevance to real life as Meather Blunroe-Hlum has on campus life. “No one would want the ‘McGill Killing People Club’,” one administrator would say at Town Halls – turning the otherwise calm meetings into blistering rap battles reminiscent of Curtis Hanson’s 2002 film 8 Mile – adding, “Now take THAT mothafucka!” Based on that totally bullet-proof logic, they got bent on snatchin’ up the McGill name like Easter eggs, throwin’ “At”s in fronnovit like you addressin’ mail electronic. Always being on the cutting edge of stuff that’s happening, the Media@McGill office long ago took the plunge into the “stylized at” world, wanting to be more plugged in with students who then turn into alumni in no time. “We wanted to see how it felt
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to be a student – to pour yourself into an institution that really just wants you to hurry up and cycle on through to the other side...the ‘potential donors’ side,” an original ‘Atter’ explained. “Like, people think they’re gonna make all these changes and stuff, so it’s nice to just sit back, relax, and wait for the next batch of idealism to come a-knockin’,” said one staffer who requested to remain anonymous in this fake news story, adding, “It just kinda sucks for those McGill staffers and administrators who actually do work that improves campus and academic life.” But not everyone on campus is so happy about the change. O’Ria McRean, U4 Physics, said he actually likes the idea of the admin joining students in the act of being a part of nothing. “Now everyone will know what it’s like to be me.”
Development addresses concerns with iPad Télésphore Sansouci The McGill Daily
A
pple unveiled its patented semen shield today in order to address the concerns of worried consumers who found themselves mainly using their new iPads to masturbate to Internet pornography. “When I go to boobs.com,” commented pre-purchaser Vill Wanderbilt, “I don’t want cum clogging up the gears and wires of my new-fangled hyperlocal superreal ultraconnected space-tablet.” Apple is also planning on releasing two add-ons: an application that allows you to lay your junk on the screen and simulate intercourse, and a dildo that hooks into the USB port of the MACHINE.
NE-HUNDRED WORD STORY...ONE-HUNDRED WORD STORY...ONE-HUNDRED WORD STORY...ONE-HUNDRED WORD STORY...ONE-HUN
H
ere she is Al, sitting on a bench halfway up Mont Royal, panting from the climb and staring out at the world. Through the knobby, naked branches of the forest, she can just see the sprawl of the city stretch out before her, tree limbs cutting up the view into jagged fragments. Two minutes later, a crash: one squirrel in hot pursuit of another. She gets up and begins walking again, narrowly darting to the side out of the way of a cyclist careening downhill. Other than him, she is the only one on the path. She gains speed, climbing higher. Five minutes later she will have enough momentum, she will notice everything going quiet, the world passing in a blur though she’s still at a walk, whole body full of feeling from the clar ity of it all. Amelia Schonbek
Sally Lin | The McGill Daily
These two gentleman are wanted in connection with a string of vending machine robberies totalling over $5,000, and lotto ticket forgery.
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The McGill Daily, Monday, April 12, 2010
EDITORIAL
Why student politics matter McGill says that it’s a student-centred university. But the more that you talk to SSMU execs, attend Senate, or deal with administrators in any way, the more you start to realize that this isn’t really how administrators view the University, its goals, or their job. McGill has a lot of priorities that come before students. Administrators have to make sure there is enough funding and resources to foster research. They have to protect the University’s reputation, and highlight lucrative endeavours in which they’re involved in. Students – undergraduates in particular – can easily become seen more like boarders to whom the University rents its rooms to pay the bills, rather than the people the University exists to foster and serve. And it’s easy for the administration to view us more as a liability than as people at the core of this institution. You can argue that this is a problem; you can argue that it’s understandable for an institution as massive as McGill to operate in this way. Whether or not you think the administration has bad intentions, this means that in order to put our interests forward, we have to be active, loud, and as united as possible. If we expect more from our University, we need to make them listen to us. You might believe, like we do, that the word “McGill” refers first and foremost to the students that make up the University, and that students should be entitled to the McGill name by virtue of that fact. But the administration’s memoranda of agreement (MoAs) with the five independent student groups on campus make it particularly clear that they view students as a liability. MoAs outline the formal relationships between independent student groups and the administration. SSMU, the McGill Legal Information Clinic, CKUT, QPIRG-McGill, the Daily Publications Society, and now the Tribune all have or will soon have such contracts. In addition to uncontroversial stipulations, an MoA contains restrictions on things like where student newspapers can be distributed and prohibitions on use of the McGill name. The stakes involved in an MoA are clear. If a student group violates the terms of its MoA, the administration can withhold its funding – which comes from student fees. In 2007, McGill denied CKUT funding until the station dropped “McGill” from its name. And Haven Books’ massive financial losses and closure can be partially attributed to SSMU’s MoA, which prevented the Society from advertising for the bookstore on campus. The strict confidentiality of these documents prevents students from fully understanding many of the changes taking place on campus. MoAs are just one indicator of a general trend: the
administration worrying about their image and brand at the expense of the parts of student life that make McGill more than a revolving-door degree-granting factory: student governance, student advocacy and activism, and independent media are just a few examples. This view of students is the logic behind McGill’s pioneering of deregulation – as witnessed by the massive increases in MBA tuition. And with the recent announcement of the Quebec budget and upcoming tuition hikes, there’s been a lot more talk about shifting a greater portion of the burden of paying for school onto students. The administration – and Heather Munroe-Blum in particular – have been behind “re-regulating” tuition for a long time. That means, essentially, receiving less money from the provincial government and keeping more of the money that McGill students spend on tuition for McGill. This benefits the administration and its long list of priorities, while students have to bear a larger financial burden. Munroe-Blum’s Capital Campaign is another example of how the admin puts its brand ahead of students and focuses on raising revenue – largely a result of the province’s unwillingness to supplement the costs of postsecondary education with public funds. In order to make sure that what benefits McGill benefits students, too, we need to make our voices heard. SSMU president Ivan Neilson wrote earlier this year that it’s hard to advocate for student life to the administration when we’re tearing each other down. From our point of view, tearing each other down this year has included, but was not limited to, aggressive opt-out campaigns, forcefully shouting down student-driven initiatives, and threatening fellow students with legal action. Student representation on Senate was hard-won in the ’60s and ’70s, largely through student protest. We can’t take these gains for granted. We need to be constantly vigilant to ensure that our interests are represented to the administration. The opacity of MoAs threatens students’ ability to define their own experience at McGill. With SSMU’s MoA coming up for renegotiation next year, we need to keep the pressure for transparency on. The presidents of SSMU and PGSS are the only student representatives at the Board of Governors – the only body privy to MoA negotiations other than the student groups involved. So we need to make sure they know that we want more information on these deals. Going into next year, we need to put our differences aside, stand united, and remember that no one will fight for our interests if we don’t, and we’re a stronger force when we have each other’s backs.
Sally Lin | The McGill Daily