The McGill Daily: Vol. 112, Issue 14

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Trans Rights Are Not Up for Debate

On January 10, a large crowd gathered in front of McGill’s Chancellor Day Hall to protest an event held by the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP). The CHRLP had invited Robert Wintemute, a professor of human rights law, to give a talk called “The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate in the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T.” Wintemute, once an advocate for trans rights, now holds gender-critical beliefs – that is, he believes sex is biological and immutable – condemned by queer and trans advocates. Although the protest caused the event to be cancelled, the speaker never should have been welcomed in the first place. Gender-critical ideology has caused tangible harm to trans people around the world, and it is deplorable that the CHRLP is platforming these ideas under the guise of academic freedom. Wintemute was among the experts who drafted the 2006 Yogyakarta Principles, which outlined a set of principles related to gender identity and sexual orientation, including the need to recognize gender identity without a medical transition. However, his beliefs have changed since then, supposedly as a result of “listening to women.” He is currently a trustee of the LGB Alliance, a British charity that lobbies against progressive gender legislation, particularly the right of trans people to selfidentify without going through a medical transition. The charity has also lobbied in favour of conversion therapy, pressuring leaders to exclude trans people from a proposed ban on conversion therapy in the UK and Canada. Trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF), or gender-critical, ideology has recently become widespread in the UK and elsewhere. Although their ideas have a foundation in far-right Christian groups, TERFs frame their transphobic rhetoric as a progressive and feminist position, claiming that trans people – especially trans women – pose a threat to LGB people, cis women, and “women’s only spaces.” They also define women purely by biological sex assigned at birth. Gender-critical ideology has clearly contributed to a rise in transphobic policies in both the UK and the United States. In 2022, more than 150 anti-transgender bills were introduced across the US. In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has threatened to block Scotland’s progressive Gender Recognition Act, citing ill-founded concerns for the safety of cis women. Although gender-critical ideology may not be as widespread in Canada, Canada is “definitely starting to feel some of those waves of anti-trans activism that have really taken hold in the United Kingdom and in the United States in recent years,” says Travers, a professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University, in an interview with CBC. This can blatantly be seen in the initial drafts of Quebec’s Bill 2, which would have forced trans people to undergo surgery to be legally identified as their affirmed gender.

mentioned Wintemute, giving the impression that the “debate” would be one-sided. Although the CHRLP argues that Wintemute wasn’t invited as a trustee of the LGB Alliance, almost half of the event description was dedicated to the LGB Alliance and its beliefs. It was later amended to explain that commentary on the event would be provided by Professor Darren Rosenblum, but it was unclear to what capacity Rosenblum would be challenging Wintemute’s ideas. Regardless of Rosenblum’s involvement, this event legitimizes transphobic rhetoric by presenting it as an acceptable topic for debate rather than a hateful ideology that has material consequences for trans people. As an open letter penned by the Trans Patients Union argues, “the debate sends the message that rejecting trans protections in law is a position worth considering.”

“One’s rights end where another’s begin,” Celeste Trianon from the Centre for Gender Advocacy told CBC. Although the right to free speech is an essential component of democracy, it cannot come at the expense of the safety of marginalized people. Unfortunately, the McGill administration seems to have trouble understanding this. In 2020, amid nationwide controversy surrounding a University of Ottawa professor’s use of a racial slur, then-Principal Suzanne Fortier identified “a tension between academic freedom on one hand, and equity and inclusiveness on the other.” The Black Students Network responded that “Principal Fortier’s understanding of ‘academic freedom’ permits denying Black students the right to learn in a safe environment.” There need not exist a tension between academic freedom and equity and inclusiveness. It is possible to exercise academic freedom with dignity, accountability, and respect. McGill’s Statement of Academic Freedom, however, places “no limitations” on academic freedom, and it fails to address the obligation of scholars to use their freedom responsibly.

Trans rights are not a rhetorical debate that exist only in an academic vacuum. Platforming gender critical rhetoric, especially at a world-renowned institution such as McGill, sends a message that it’s a legitimate topic to debate, further propagating this harmful ideology. In reality, trans rights do not infringe upon the rights of other women or LGB people, and trans people are an integral part of the LGBTQ community and its history. Without the activism of trans people, especially trans women, many advances in LGBTQ rights would not have been achieved.

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In response to concerns about the event, the CHRLP stated that these ideas “can be productively and robustly discussed in an academic setting and could, in fact, be an opportunity to push back against certain views.” However, the original event description – which has since been deleted from the CHRLP website – only

Gender-critical ideology is becoming increasingly widespread in society, and it is important to challenge these beliefs wherever they appear. Support or get involved with organizations at McGill and in Montreal that provide resources to and advocate for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people such as Queer McGill, the Centre for Gender Advocacy, the Trans Patients Union, ASTT(e) Q, and the Union for Gender Empowerment. Show up to future protests for trans rights to show that TERFs have no place at McGill – or anywhere else.

Published by the Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University. The views and opinions expressed in the Daily are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of McGill University.The McGill Daily is not affiliated with McGill University.

McGill’s Faculty of Law Hosts Anti-Trans Speaker Protest organized by queer student body cancels debate

facilitating the process by removing the requirement of gender dysphoria diagnosis, which can take years to obtain. Human rights activists and commissions welcome this reform whereas the UK government refuses to acknowledge this bill and may attempt to block it. In the United States, transgender individuals brace for another year of legislative assaults: since the new year began, 14 states have already filed 23 bills restricting both transgender children and adults’ access to healthcare and facilities, criminalizing unconventional forms of gender expression, and rolling back anti-discrimination rulings based on gender identity.

an inherent conflict between transaffirming policies and women’s rights, but did not acknowledge that this viewpoint may harm or incite violence against transgender individuals.

Anonymous

News Contributor

McGill’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) faced heavy criticism since it announced a debate challenging transgender rights and membership within the larger LGBTQ community. The January 10 event, titled The Sex vs. Gender (Identity) Debate in the United Kingdom and the Divorce of LGB from T, spotlighted the guest speaker Robert Wintemute, Professor of Human Rights at King’s College in London.

The event sparked backlash over the weekend after observers from Trans Patient Union and RadLaw McGill noted that the title echoes anti-trans sentiments expressed by alt-right politicians, specifically the “Drop the T’’ campaign, aimed to estrange the Transgender community from the larger Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual community. They decried Wintemute’s formal ties with LGB Alliance, a UK-based organization with a history of lobbying for transexclusionary legislation. In Canada, the LGB Alliance opposed the federal criminalization of conversion therapy in 2020 and argued that gender identity should not be included within the protective scope of the ban. The non-profit is identified as a hate group and is accused of rubbing shoulders with anti-LGBTQ actors, including the US religious right and the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank. Wintemute is registered as a trustee of the non-

profit and has previously published opinion pieces in line with the views espoused by this organization.

In response to the backlash, the two event organizers, Law professors Frédéric Mégret and Nandini Ramanujam expressed in a statement obtained by the Daily that the event was originally suggested by Wintemute and faculty members subsequently determined that “this would be a conversation worth having at the Centre, especially in light of the disagreement such views may provoke.” The response further explains that Wintemute does not come as a spokesperson of the LGB Alliance and hosting this event does not mean that the Centre endorses the speaker’s views on the issue. Robert Leckey, Dean of the Faculty of Law, also expressed that the CHRLP is an “inclusive place where people of many identities and experiences can learn together and flourish as well as one where we can hear and criticize views with which we disagree,” according to an email obtained by the Daily Protesters have since submitted an open letter to denounce lending McGill’s institutional and academic platform to a deceitful organization and giving a voice to harmful views.

The letter calls out the University’s neutral position as an attempt to “absolve itself from blame by claiming its right to academic liberty,” and it was signed by over 500 individuals as well as multiple organizations, including RadLaw McGill and Queer McGill.

“The tolerance of intolerance ultimately results in the wiping out of tolerance,” writes Celeste Trianon, a trans rights activist and organizer of the protest, in the open letter. “As antitrans violence becomes increasingly prevalent across the world, and legal gender recognition is threatened in the UK, in the US, and here in Quebec itself, every extra minute of airtime given to an anti-trans activist may result in further rollback. Every such minute will contribute to the premature deaths of trans people worldwide.”

This struggle happens in the midst of a vehement debate in the United Kingdom after Scotland passed a bill allowing youth aged 16 and above to obtain legal recognition for their self-identified gender and

On Tuesday, protesters began assembling before noon, before the debate was scheduled to take place at 12:40. Flying an assortment of Pride flags, the crowd fully occupied the first floor of the Chancellor Day Hall and welcomed Wintemute with hostility as he entered the debate room. Loud chanting ensued to disrupt the talk and to demand that the speaker leave. The pressure mounted until the crowd forced the door open; the faculty then surrendered and staff accompanied Wintemute away from the facility as the talk was aborted. Protest organizers then celebrated by opening a free drop-in legal name/ gender marker change clinic to assist people in transition with the very process that Wintemute attempted to debate.

Wintemute has expressed in a separate interview that he believes this protest occurred because “this

Other Montreal-based LGBTQ+ organizations have condemned the Law faculty’s lack of wisdom in managing the event and its lukewarm response to multiple warnings. FEMTL, a signatory organization that supports the trans women community in Montreal, writes in an email obtained by the Daily to the event’s organizers: “What message is McGill sending to the trans community and larger queer community by hosting such a person? […] When you platform a speaker such as Robert Wintemute, you invite fresh questions on what McGill really stands for.”

generation has a tendency to confuse disagreement with hatred, that the person who disagrees with you, I don’t know, is hostile towards you, and that we should not hear this person out. This is not how I grew up.” He further reiterated his belief that there exists

In a written statement to the Daily, Jacob Williams from Trans Patient Union, one of the student organizations responsible for organizing the protest, notes that “it is not an easy time to be trans or non-binary, but all hope is not lost. Despite all our differences, [...] trans and NB people have so much powerful love for each other.” Giving advice on how to navigate anti-trans hostility, he encourages transgender and non-binary individuals to seek out support and friendship from fellow LGBTQ members. “This community has learned that we must provide for each other”, he says. “If you are a trans or NB person and you don’t have trans and NB loved ones you deeply trust to care about you, you should consider doing everything you can to get some. It may save your life.” The student association offers one-on-one consultations with transgender and non-binary individuals to navigate transition-related issues in Montreal.

“What message is McGill sending to the trans community and larger queer community by hosting such a person??”

- FEMTL

Frida Sofia Morales Mora | Social Media Editor

“As anti-trans violence becomes increasingly prevalent across the world, and legal gender recognition is threatened in the UK, in the US, and here in Quebec itself, every extra minute of airtime given to an anti-trans activist may result in further rollback.”

- Celeste Trianon

Canada Welcomed a Record Number of Immigrants in 2022

What are the implications of this

Auriane Journet News Contributor

In 2022, Canada experienced its most rapid yearly population growth since Confederation in 1867. Statistics Canada notes that the country’s population grew by 362,453 people (0.9 per cent) between July and October alone. What’s behind this recent population boom? About 75 per cent of Canada’s population growth comes from immigration. The country welcomed a record number of 432,645 new permanent residents throughout the year, hitting its yearly target and exceeding 2021 numbers (401,000). If considering temporary residents in immigration estimates, this number balloons to 698,222.

The number of permanent residents welcomed in Canada each year is based on the annual immigration levels plan tabled in Parliament. According to the 2023-2025 Immigration Levels

Plan tabled on November 1, 2022, we should expect these targets to increase to 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 residents in 2024, and 500,000 residents in 2025. This intended long-term growth reflects the federal government’s plan to increase immigration numbers each year to grow its post-pandemic economy, counter an aging workforce, and address labour shortages in construction and factories.

As labour jobs are in need of workers, immigrants have mostly filled the spots, and now account for almost 100 per cent of Canada’s labor force growth. Worldwide geopolitical challenges have also accelerated immigration to Canada; in March, the federal government

number?

the country to work additional hours, and added that “this temporary change reflects the important role international students can play in addressing our labour needs while continuing to pursue their studies.” Although international students have generally welcomed this change, some have approached it with skepticism and suggest that more could be done to address the complex school-work-life balance that many students already struggle with.

launched a new, fast-tracked, temporary residence pathway to welcome those fleeing the war in Ukraine. As reported by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), providing support to Ukraine is Similar to the federal level, each province sets its immigration targets. Caps on permanent residency granted to immigrants have been debated among Quebec’s political parties. During the buildup to the 2022 Quebec provincial election campaign, the incumbent CAQ promised to maintain the current immigration policies, limiting the number of permanent newcomers to 50,000 per year; the Liberals defended a limit set to 70,000, and Quebec Solidaire hoped to increase this capacité

d’accueil to 80,000. Behind those targets, francophone immigration has also been a crucial element in establishing Quebec Immigration Plan for 2023, as one of the CAQ’s main concerns is to preserve and protect the French language in Quebec. The report shows that the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration aims for up to 66 percent of French-speaking immigrants in 2023, as part of the CAQ’s promise to have 100 per cent of francophone newcomers to the province by 2026. Nevertheless, Quebec’s permanent immigration numbers have remained relatively stable throughout the years. They are expected to continue as the plan for 2023 reports that the province could properly admit up to 52,500 new permanent residents in 2023. However, the reality of immigration in the province is harder to estimate. Official statistics show that the 62,798 newly permanent residents in Quebec already exceed the initial target of 50,000 in an attempt to make up for a loss in immigration during the pandemic. Moreover, temporary immigrants also constitute a significant part of Quebec and Canada’s population and heavily contribute to the labour market and the country’s economy. While increasing the

Statistics Canada

number of permanent newcomers sought to address labour shortages, other measures have been implemented to further integrate temporary workers in the market. As a pilot project, the 20 hours limit on the number of hours worked for international students was lifted from November 15 to December 31, 2022. The government notes that this would allow 640,000 international students throughout

In its Fall Economic Statement, Ottawa has thus committed to increasing funding to the IRCC by an additional $50 million in 2022-2023, to “address ongoing application backlogs, speed up processing, and allow skilled newcomers to fill critical labour gaps faster.”

Statistics Canada

The government notes “this temporary change reflects the important role international students can play in addressing our labour needs while continuing to pursue their studies.”

Something May Be Broken in Canada, But It Isn’t Our Safe Supply Programs

Just before Christmas, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Canadian Conservative Party released an ad titled “Everything feels broken.” In this dramatic video, Poilievre is positioned in front of a tent city in Vancouver, British Columbia. As of January 13, the video has 139,000 views on YouTube and is remarkably popular among Poilievre’s online admirers. Although the video has clearly resonated with millions, Poilievre’s critics accuse him of manipulating the facts and misleading the public.

Pierre Poilievre has displayed that he is a master of utilizing social media as a means of promotion, and this video is no exception. In it, he is dressed casually, his posture is relaxed and his tone is concerned. He opens by explaining that the community of unhoused people that occupy the video’s background have lost their homes as the result of addiction. He continues to say that rampant substance use has threatened the

lives of unhoused people while separating them from their friends and family. Addiction, he claims, is the driving force behind Canada’s devastating rates of overdose.

He goes on to say that these taxpayer-funded drugs, supplied by the Canadian government, are to be blamed for major increases in overdoses and violent crime, a practice he insists must be halted immediately. Poilievre claims that we need only to look to Alberta to see an example of how a focus on sobriety-based recovery programs, not harm reduction, can successfully stem the tide of overdoses. He says that if we are serious about saving lives we need to tighten border control and create harsher penalties for drug dealers. Therefore, it only makes sense that the rest of the country should follow suit and put their focus on border control, criminalization, and recovery, not harm reduction. To Poilievre, we need to put an end to safe supply.

That would make sense, if any of what he was claiming was true. The reality is that

Poilievre’s video is a creative mashup of artfully presented half-truths and blatant lies. The brief video contains so many falsehoods that it is difficult to address without dissecting it line by line. Vancouver-based opioid expert Garth Mullins describes Poilievre’s video as a “firehose of bullshit,” and he is not alone. Experts and politicians from both sides of the political divide have come forward to decry Poilievre’s approach.

Canada has indeed seen an escalation in the rate of fatal overdoses in the past 15 years. These are not, however, attributable to safe supply programs which are limited in size and a fairly recent arrival on the scene. If anything, they can be attributed to exactly the sort of misguided drug policy that Poilievre is advocating for in this video.

In recent years, Canada’s heroin market has increasingly become tainted with an increasingly unpredictable supply of fentanyl. The result is that even if an individual sticks with their

usual dose, they have limited information about the actual content of the substance they’re consuming. Imagine buying a drink at a bar and not knowing whether the liquid you’re offered is beer or vodka - it would become difficult to predict the level of your intoxication. Thus, it is this unpredictability, more so than consumption per se, that is responsible for skyrocketing rates of overdose. In British Columbia, where Poilievre’s video

was filmed, the number of drugrelated deaths per year has risen from 330 in 1993, (which at the time the chief coroner described as an “inordinately high number.”) to over 2000 in 2022. Safe supply programs were specifically developed as a response to the increased prevalence of fentanyl. Safe supply is a harm reduction term that describes programs that distribute pharmaceutical grade substances to people with an established history of substance

Liz Singh Features Contributor

Genevieve Quinn| Photos Editor

Canada has indeed seen an escalation in the rate of fatal overdoses in the past 15 years

[...] If anything, they can be attributed to exactly the sort of misguided drug policy that Poilievre is advocating for in this video.

Pierre Poilievre promotes misguided drug policy with half-truths

dependence disorder. Their aim is to protect the lives of people who use substances from the toxic drug supply. In order to slow these staggering losses, Canadian activists and healthcare professionals organized a handful of safe supply pilot programs.

How is this related to Canada’s drug laws? The Iron Law of Prohibition, a term coined by Richard Cowan in 1986 to explain the emergence of crack cocaine, describes a phenomenon through which prohibition policies and increased law enforcement result in an illicit substance becoming more potent and therefore more dangerous over time. Simply put, “the harder the enforcement, the harder the drugs.” Heightened law enforcement puts pressure on suppliers to innovate, pushing

penalties associated with the sale and possession of heroin, suppliers turned instead to the sale of fentanyl which is both far more potent (and like a flask of moonshine, easier to transport) and synthetic, meaning it can be conveniently produced in a lab.

It was this progression – and not safe supply programs –which created the toxic supply crisis which has claimed the lives of over 20,000 Canadians since 2016. Safe supply programs are extremely limited in their reach and capacity. Ontario’s longest running safe supply program has only 82 participants. Furthermore, the majority of safe supply programs in Canada were launched between 2020 and 2022.

It is therefore unreasonable - and in fact, dishonest - to assert that

that addressing the extreme stress and instability caused by poverty and homelessness is a prerequisite to curtailing dependence. This is to say that if someone passes away due to having consumed a toxic illicit substance, then sobriety ceases to be an option altogether. This is why harm reduction advocates focus on the creation of services that extend life and improve health outcomes and contribute to stability, creating the opportunity for an individual to live long enough to choose either sobriety or to achieve a more stable relationship to substance use in the future. These programs therefore measure their success not in terms of how many people have stopped using substances, but how many deaths they have prevented.

them towards products that are more potent (and therefore smaller in volume and easier to transport) that evade current detection methods. An increase in drug potency can mean an accompanying increase in risk upon consumption. An example of this occurred during early 20th century attempts to ban the sale of alcohol. Beer and wine were quickly replaced with the far more dangerous home brewed moonshine. A flask of moonshine that can be hidden in a coat pocket or under the seat of a car might produce the same level of intoxication as a much larger and harder to smuggle bottle of wine. This pattern repeats itself regardless of the substance in question and is what has shifted the opioid market in Canada from being composed primarily of opium to heroin, and from heroin to fentanyl. When opium was made illegal, some smugglers shifted to selling heroin which was both far more powerful than opium and had the added advantage of being odorless and therefore harder to detect.

As law enforcement tightened border regulations and increased

safe supply programs, mostly created in the last eighteen months and permitting such limited enrollment, could be to blame for the meteoric rise of overdose deaths, now numbering in the tens of thousands, which began nearly two decades ago.

Not only are safe supply programs not the source of the problem, they are also successful. A study conducted on the aforementioned program in Ontario showed that it reduced both ER visits and healthcare costs. Most of Canada’s programs are too new to have produced extensive data, but the Ontario study is consistent with a study conducted in Halifax as well as with research done in Switzerland in demonstrating that safe supply programs are effective in reducing the risk of fatal overdose and in promoting the overall health of people who use drugs.

Harm reductionists often repeat the phrase: “you can’t get a dead body into rehab.” By this, they mean that the primary focus of harm reduction is not to use the threat of death to scare people into sobriety, but to mitigate the health impacts of substance use. Advocates argue

Former senator and ex-Ottawa police chief Vernon White is a passionate advocate for safe supply that proposed that all supervised consumption sites in Canada should also be allowed to provide safe supply programs. Supervised consumption sites (SCS), a form of harm reduction more familiar to the general public than safe supply, are spaces where individuals can come consume substances under the supervision of healthcare professionals and/or community workers who can intervene in case the individual experiences adverse effects. SCS first became legal in Canada after a long battle led by the founders of Insite, the continent’s first supervised consumption site, that, in 2011, ultimately went all the way to the Supreme Court. Harper’s Conservative government had no choice but to allow SCSs to exist, although they severely limited their reach. Under the Trudeau government, consumption sites have been opened across the country and have since been responsible for reversing over 40 000 overdoses. To date, not a single person has died at a supervised consumption site in Canada. Those 40,000 reversed overdoses represent 40,000 lives saved that would not have been without the existence of harm reduction services.

The most obvious lie in Poilievre’s video is the claim that Alberta has reduced overdose deaths by half without relying on harm reduction services. Neither of those things are true. Alberta has been successful in reducing overdose deaths, though not by half. In addition, that 50 per cent reduction is directly attributable to the sorts of programs that Poilievre opposes.

Poilievre has the facts backwards; it is not addiction that is causing people to be unhoused, but rather a lack of affordable housing driving up rates of addiction. Community organizer and harm reduction

advocate Karen Ward explains, “You’ve got this backwards. Homelessness leads to mental illness and compulsive use of unregulated substances.” The solution, she adds, is “homes for all,” not law enforcement. A growing number of Canadians are losing their housing amidst a cost of living crisis. Poilievre himself in other media acknowledges the crisis and its impact on “working Canadians.” However, he does not acknowledge that nearly a quarter of homeless people in Vancouver are, in fact, employed and therefore should be counted amongst “working Canadians.” Why then, in this video, does he attribute homelessness to addiction, when he is clearly aware of the role that the lack of affordable housing plays? It is also worth noting that more than half of all fatal overdoses in Canada happen indoors in private residences - yet another reason why homelessness and overdoses need to be addressed separately.

Given their different causes, conflating the toxic supply crisis and rising rates of homelessness is not likely to result in effective policy. The Conservative approach to reducing the overdose rate ignores the role of poverty altogether. It relies on the idea that the specter of overdose might be enough to scare people into sobriety via rehab programs. It further assumes that such programs are effective and accessible when there is little evidence that either are true.

Conservatives also assume that sobriety alone would be enough to ensure that rehab alumni were able to afford housing. Even if it were true that replacing harm reduction programs with rehabs would result in universal sobriety, said sobriety would do nothing to reduce the cost of rent in Vancouver. Furthermore, while a minority of substance users consume their drug of choice to a self-destructive degree, research has demonstrated that the vast majority of people are able to consume substances stably for years when they have access to a regulated supply. Returning to the example of Prohibition, the legalization of alcohol has not led to the unchecked destruction predicted by temperance advocates. What it has done is create opportunities for people who are concerned about their consumption levels to communicate about them openly without the fear of legal reprisal. Concurrently, the vast majority of the population is able to consume recreationally without encountering major problems. Does the consumption of any substance come with risks to health? Of course. But the government should not

exacerbate these risks through prohibition. Instead, support and education must be offered to mitigate the risks in the same way it is with alcohol. If Poilievre were to become the next Prime Minister and follow through on his threat to replace evidence based practice with ideologically motivated policies, he would be putting thousands of lives unnecessarily at risk.

Poilievre has a history of leveraging controversy in order to boost his popularity. This video is merely the latest example of Poilievre playing fast and loose with the truth. He first came to the attention of the general public as an advocate for the so-called “freedom convoy”. By the time said convoy turned out to be less of a popular uprising and to have been funded by outside interests, Poilievre had moved on and was nowhere to be seen.

Poilievre’s popularity comes at a time when conservative governments are taking power across the Western world often by leveraging the same themes and tactics: culture war and a fear of outsiders.

It is important that Canadian health policy be built on a foundation of evidence, not ideology. Regardless of anyone’s personal stance on the question of sobriety, until there is evidence that rehab is a universally effective and accessible solution, it is absurd to propose replacing functional programs that are saving lives based on dubious evidence.

To once again quote Karen Ward, “If we’re going to turn this around, we need to replace the entire illicit drug supply and replace it with regulated substances that are available to all.”

Poilievre has the facts backwards; it is not addiction that is causing people to be unhoused, but rather a lack of affordable housing driving up rates of addiction.

Heightened law enforcement puts pressure on suppliers to innovate, pushing them towards products that are more potent (and therefore smaller in volume and easier to transport) that evade current detection methods. An increase in drug potency can mean an accompanying increase in risk upon consumption.

Justin Trudeau’s PseudoEnvironmentalist Agenda

Canada

Robert Muroni News Editor

December 20, 2022, marked the first day of Canada’s highly anticipated federal ban on single-use plastics, which outlaws a plethora of plastic consumer goods ranging from checkout bags and cutlery to takeout containers. A nationwide mandate in the name of protecting the environment isn’t new for Canadians. The country’s plastic ban follows a tone set by a 2019 federal carbon tax, and it is just a small part of an ambitious agenda created by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to show the world that Canada is determined to become a leader in the fight against climate change. Yet despite all the chatter, Canadians should not buy the notion that their country is becoming a climate change leader. In fact, this could not be further from the truth.

Canada continues to fall short of its climate commitments. Despite pledging to “tackle climate” when signing onto the Paris Climate Agreement (PCA) back in 2016, Trudeau is only fractionally closer to honouring such commitments as Canada continues to be graded “highly insufficient” by all PCA metrics. All the while, the Prime Minister’s actions suggest that Canada might actually be moving further backwards, rather than

forwards, on meeting its legally binding goals.

For Trudeau’s climate policy, the devil is truly in the details. Eager to reduce personal consumption, the Liberals have consistently tightened regulations surrounding individual usage either via regulations, such as a federal carbon tax, or through various incentives, like electric car tax rebates. And while such initiatives are certainly steps in the right direction, it seems rather strange that the Prime Minister is choosing not to crack down on industrial consumption in a similarly forceful fashion.

Back in February, some Canadians might have been shocked to learn that much of the country’s waste intended for recycling wasn’t actually being recycled at all. A report conducted by Enquête, a series that airs on Radio Canada, revealed that tonnes of recyclable trash were secretly being sold and shipped to India, where they were ultimately burned. But for many, stories like this play out much like a broken record, repeating every two years or so. Indeed, Canadian firms secretly burning goods intended for recycling seems to be an all too common occurrence in recent years. Canadian recycling companies were first caught doing so in the Philippines back in 2013, and since then instances have only increased. A Politico report

found that since 2017, Canadian recycling firms have illegally shipped more than 2,300 metric tonnes of garbage to a plethora of Asian countries, including Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, and Vietnam.

You would imagine that any Canadian firm that breaks the country’s environmental regulations would most certainly face the most severe repercussions at the government’s disposal, especially given our repeated verbal commitment to “tackle climate change.” But that simply has not been the case. As firms illegally shipped tonnes of garbage to various countries around the world, the federal government mostly chose to officiate by the sidelines, offering mere warnings as a primary remedy to try and resolve the crisis. Even in the rare instances when the federal government chose to actually issue

fines – which they did in just 21 “exceptional” cases – these fines averaged a measly $400 or $2,000, a negligible number for essentially all firms involved.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister’s environmental oversight doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon. In March, Canadian officials met with Indian representatives with the purpose of potentially negotiating a free trade deal. While such a move would undoubtedly benefit both parties economically, it is nonetheless surprising to see Canada engaging in such talks given our lofty environmental goals. After all, India’s environmental laws have historically been dodgy at best; reports of mass pollution and stories of mass dumping have long tainted the country’s environmental reputation. With this in mind, one

cannot help but ponder the global environmental ramifications of a deal that would likely only further increase India’s exports, and thus its carbon footprint. One cannot help but wonder why Justin Trudeau suddenly feels the need to reward a country whose notoriously bad environmental behaviour has frequently been the epitome of what not to do with a free trade deal.

Too often it feels like the prime minister is implementing policy not to strengthen Canada’s position on climate change but merely to give off an illusion that he is working for change. Since taking office back in 2015, Trudeau’s Liberals have taken repeated shots at trying to limit Canadian oil and gas output. From a pledge to “cap [local] oil and gas sector emissions” in an effort to reach net zero emissions by 2050, to legislation that has restricted oil tankers’ export capacity in northern British Columbia, the Prime Minister’s efforts have unsurprisingly received praise from around the world.

However, these efforts mean absolutely nothing if the country continues to operate in its current economic framework. A reduction in local production does not mean that Canada is simultaneously seeing a similar fall in demand. Quite the contrary. But rather than force Canadian firms to seek greener ways to export oil, the Prime Minister has simply met demand by swapping Canadian oil for foreign imports.

In 2021, Reuters reported that Canadian oil imports from Nigeria increased to nearly 40,000 barrels per day, signalling the largest yearon-year change of imports from any country. As of 2022, Canada now imports over 110,000 barrels of oil per day – nearly 25 per cent of all Canadian production – from Saudi Arabia and Nigeria alone.

Ultimately, swapping Canadian oil for foreign oil cannot be the plan climate activists envisioned when they championed Justin Trudeau’s desire to implement real environmental change. And yet that’s exactly what we’ve gotten. Too often the prime minister has voiced a desire to implement change, but too little has he been willing to go the lengths required to create a tangible difference.

Back in 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau promised that he would help transform Canada into a leader in fighting climate change. Six years on from that promise and with Canada falling behind, the only leader that Justin Trudeau’s pseudo-environmentalist agenda has turned Canada into is one defined by hypocrisy.

a leader in hypocrisy, not climate action

Genevieve Quinn | Photos Editor

Since 2017, Canadian recyling firms have illegally shipped more than 2,300 metric tonnes of garbage to a plethora of Asian countries including Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, and Vietnam

Running Up That Chart How nostalgia fuelled the music of 2022

Ariane Fournier Culture Contributor

Picture this. You are driving around and listening to the radio. A song whose first few chords sound familiar to you comes on. You proceed to confidently belt its opening lyrics, only to realize mere seconds later that the station is playing a different song entirely.

This likely won’t be the last time you make a fool of yourself; imitation has always played an integral part in music production. The process of emulation is as old as written music itself – Western classical composers studied the old masters by quite literally copying their work. By mirroring the sounds of accomplished artists, the Beatles were able to perfect their craft and develop their own style of composition. In our current era of streaming, referencing musical touchpoints is more prominent than ever. In fact, many of the songs that defined 2022 relied on sampling, the process of incorporating a section of audio from a previously recorded song into a new song. References to the past were featured on singles from well-established artists like Beyoncé, but they also aided the ascension of newcomers such as Tate McRae, revealing the role comfort and nostalgia play in generating and sustaining stardom in the modern age.

As we entered a post-pandemic era, Beyoncé unveiled Renaissance , a dance music album that sought “to inspire joy and escapism in listeners who had experienced isolation.” Released in July, the record is a tribute to the post-1970s club culture that encouraged outsiders and people from marginalized groups to let loose on the dance floor. Nearly every song on the album samples preexisting rhythms, beats, and vocals created by disco, house, and dance music’s Black and queer pioneers. The album comes with an extensive list of production and songwriting credits because the singer wanted to give centre stage to the creatives who helped pave the way for her success.

Many creators have expressed gratitude to Beyoncé for featuring their work on this project. Ts Madison, a reality television personality whose YouTube video “B**ch, I’m Black” is sampled on the track “Cozy,” said she felt thankful for being given the opportunity “to use her voice” in front of such a “global audience.” On the flip side, conversations have arisen surrounding music ownership and the legality of songwriting credits. Singersongwriter Kelis, whose 2003 hit single “Milkshake” was sampled on “Energy,” did not feel as grateful – her track was used without her consent. Beyoncé turned to Pharrell Williams and Chad

Hugo, the production duo behind the song and the sole rights owners of “Milkshake,” to gain permission to use the interpolation. Kelis called out the misdeed on social media, claiming that she should have been notified of the song’s use in advance. The sample was ultimately removed from “Energy.”

Beyoncé utilized sampling to celebrate the work of artists that came before her. As one of the most potent pop stars in the world, she knew how much visibility Renaissance could bring to the music of the past. Yet sampling can also be used in a reverse scenario. Artists who may already have a bit of momentum but who wish to solidify their position on the music scene can use track referencing to implicitly associate themselves with more established stars. Jack Harlow incorporated this technique in Come Home the Kids Miss You , an album released this past May. His song “First Class,” which hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, used a sample of Fergie’s 2007 classic “Glamorous.” Newcomer Tate McRae put herself in a similar position by sampling “Ride Wit Me,” a track by Nelly featuring City Spud from 2000, on her song “Don’t Come Back.”

Harlow and McRae were at a similar crossroads. Both had solid fan bases but needed to deliver strong projects in order to truly make a name for

themselves. In a conversation with Complex, Angel Lopez, an executive producer on Harlow’s album, claimed there were discussions early on “about finding something obvious that’ll connect with people instantly.” He mentioned that the American rapper had sent him “a playlist of about 12 songs” to choose from, which led to the sampling of the multiple tracks from the early 2000s heard on Come Home theKidsMissYou . In both Harlow and McRae’s cases, channelling the energy of their predecessors came with big rewards – the former was nominated for three Grammy Awards, while the latter used her success to embark on a tour across North America, Europe, and Australia.

The act of borrowing sounds from yesterday’s successes was a hallmark of last year’s music production, to say the least. But what happens when our obsession with nostalgia brings back an entire hit altogether? In late May, Netflix released the fourth season of its massively popular series Stranger Things . Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill” played a vital role in the show’s plot, which led to the song’s resurgence in popular culture. The track could be heard everywhere for the better part of the summer and introduced many of the show’s young viewers to the ’80s icon. In turn, the song’s edgy synthesizers served as inspiration for artists working today.

When Taylor Swift released Midnights in October, music critics pointed out that the album’s lead single “Anti-Hero” relied on synth-based instrumentation similar to the one heard on “Running Up That Hill.”

Swift, who is known for delving into themes of reminiscence and yearning in her songwriting, is certainly one to understand the power of nostalgia. She went so far as to sample one of her own songs, “Out of the Woods” from her 2014 album 1989, on “Question...?,” one of Midnights’ thirteen tracks. It is also worth mentioning that the country singer-turned-pop star, who is in the midst of re-recording her early albums following a dispute concerning the legal ownership of her masters (yet another exercise in nostalgia), was nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award in the Song of the Year category for the ten-minute version of “All Too Well,” a song released in its original format more than ten years ago.

Elton John is another artist from a bygone era that had a big moment this year. In August, he re-released “Tiny Dancer” as a single featuring Britney Spears to huge commercial success. The song combines elements from John’s original 1971 version of “Tiny Dancer,” “The One” (1992), and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (1976). This is not the first time the British icon has collaborated with a pop sensation in

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recent years. In 2021, his duet with Dua Lipa, “Cold Heart,” which references his 1972 hit “Rocket Man” as well as “Sacrifice” (1989) and “Kiss the Bride” (1983), became John’s first number one single in 16 years.

So what does our infatuation with nostalgia say about us? Has the pandemic condemned us to constantly seek comfort? Has streaming made old and new sounds indistinguishable? More importantly, how can new voices find success in such a context? Maybe the answers to these questions are not so profound. As long as artists have wanted to gain a foothold in popular culture, they have sampled, borrowed, and copied from other musicians. And is that really so bad? A case in point: 2022’s Grammy Award for Best New Artist went to Olivia Rodrigo, a youngster who is praised for her moxie but whose music is a pastiche of punk-pop sounds we have heard before. Yet this may be the very reason for her success. Rodrigo’s demographic is young, but by making use of sonic touchpoints that recall artists such as Paramore and Alanis Morissette, the 19-year-old can make her music legible to a wider audience. In fact, Rodrigo appeals to a lot of older millennials because her songs bring them back to their own adolescence. Truth is, it’s brutal out here. Sometimes we just need to indulge in a little nostalgia to get through, and in 2022, it seems we did just that.

Sport’s “White Elephants”

The economic, environmental, and human cost of mega-tournament infrastructure

Legacy of the 2022 World Cup in a report on the tournament’s stadiums and sustainability. “We canvassed local communities to find out what facilities they needed – and implemented their ideas and suggestions into stadium developments and precincts.” Indeed, the majority of Qatar’s World Cup stadiums will be reduced to halfcapacity; half the seats will be offered to other countries in need of sporting infrastructure. Other stadiums – specifically the Lusail stadium and the Al Bayt stadium – will be repurposed, the former becoming a community hub and the latter incorporating a five-star hotel, a shopping center, and a sports medicine hospital. Notably, Ras Abu Aboud stadium was constructed with 974 shipping containers, which will be demounted and can be shipped and reconstructed elsewhere that needs a stadium.

standards, and authority dispersed and parcelled between domestic and local governments, organizations and corporate entities. With the Olympics, for example, many different entities sign a ‘Host City Contract,’ including the Host City itself, the Host National Olympic Committee, an Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, national governments, public and private financiers, contractors, and so on. Responsibility is diffused through this intricate, layered structure, allowing the organizing bodies to avoid repercussion for harms. World Cups are organized with a similarly structured process under the Organizing Association Agreement signed by FIFA and the host country’s football association.

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For four short weeks between November 20, 2022 and December 18, 2022, billions tuned in to watch the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, with an average of 26 million viewers for the final games on Fox, Telemundo, and streaming services in the US alone. The games were set in new, refurbished stadiums constructed for the event; shots of the intricatelydetailed Al Janoub Stadium, the strikingly tent-shaped Al Bayt stadium, and the glistening Lusail stadium were spliced with shots of game footage as viewers watched from around the world. The culmination of this 12year development project inaugurated since Qatar first won the World Cup bid in 2010 ended on December 18. As Gonzalo Montiel secured Argentina’s victory in a nail-biting round of penalty kicks, the question arose regarding the now empty stadiums – what now?

The short term costly infrastructure projects that precede mega-sporting events like the World Cup or the Olympics have been described as “white elephants” – that is, structures like stadiums that put financial strain on a city and become largely unused after the event. These investments and infrastructure projects (and mega-sporting events in general) not only put stress on

local economies, but can also have adverse effects on the environment due to increased carbon emissions, human development, consumption, and waste. These stadiums are rarely used to their full capacity after the one-time tournament event, and often incur millions more in costs for annual maintenance over time. For example, South Africa spent $1.1 billion USD to build 10 stadiums for the 2010 World Cup, many of which are now unused or underused. After the 2014 World Cup, four cities in Brazil were left with underused stadiums despite the country spending $4 billion USD on building and renovation, such as the 46,000 seat Arena Pernambuco in Recife, a city that does not even have a team. Of the 12 stadiums constructed for the Russia 2018 World Cup – on which Russia spent $10.8 billion USD – only eight host top-tier matches that are generally scantily attended as the stadiums continue to incur high annual maintenance costs.

One of the most notorious of these white elephant structures is the Olympic Stadium here in Montreal, constructed for the 1976 summer games. In 1970, Montreal won the bid to host the Olympics, with the promise of being modest in design and inexpensive to stage. Mayor JeanDrapeau famously said that “The Olympics can no more run a deficit than a man can have a baby.” What ensued for the following six years was a

string of corruption, mismanagement, fraud, security concerns, and bad weather, leaving organizers in a frenzied push to complete the stadium on time. In the final months before the games, 3,000 workers had worked in teams for 24 hours a day to make the Olympics even possible at all. At the opening ceremony, the promised retractable roof had yet to even be constructed, and in typical Montreal style, the Greek athletes who traditionally open the Parade of Nations reportedly found their way up to the stadium to be almost blocked by construction workers. The 1970 cost estimate when Montreal won the bid was $120 million CAD; in reality, the games cost 13 times as much, coming in at $1.6 billion CAD and taking the city a whopping 30 years to pay off. Upkeep of the stadium continued to incur millions for the city; for example, a fixed roof was finally installed in 1998 for another $37 million CAD, only to partially collapse under a heavy load of snow in the following year.

Notably, organizers of the Qatar World Cup have made special efforts to prevent the tournament’s stadiums from becoming white elephants. “We have used materials from sustainable sources and implemented innovative legacy plans to ensure our tournament doesn’t leave any ‘white elephants,’” writes Hassan Al Thawadi, Secretary General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and

Despite these considerations, the question remains whether the infrastructure’s lasting effects on the economy are truly sustainable. Qatar reportedly has spent $220 billion USD on the tournament since it won the bid to host the World Cup. While this exact number is unclear due to a lack of official reports, it is clear that a record amount of money was spent on this mega-sporting event. The cost of construction extended past the seven stadiums constructed, and included infrastructure developments across areas such as transportation, telecommunications and security, hospitality, and hotels, among others. The planned dismantling of the stadiums will additionally incur further costs. While there are indeed other non-monetary advantages for Qatar to being the host country, including the phenomena of sports washing, many are even still skeptical whether the country will see their massive investment returned.

Furthermore, Qatar’s sustainability considerations failed to take into account workers’ welfare. Many mega-sporting events generate high “human costs,” that is, negative impacts and even casualties associated with construction and relocation. A pattern of labour abuses has been highlighted in the infrastructure projects of the 2008 Olympics, the 2014 Olympics, the 2014 World Cup, the 2018 World Cup, and most recently, in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The structure of labour when it comes to mega-sporting events is often embedded in a convoluted system, involving the internationalization of labour, national versus international

And indeed, for years since Qatar won the World Cup bid, evidence has pointed to poor physical and contractual conditions for migrant workers employed to build adequate infrastructure for the athletes and crowds of the tournament, including but not limited to stadiums, metro lines, roads, and hotels. A 2016 report from Amnesty International identified eight ways that workers building the Khalifa Stadium and the Aspire Zone were being exploited, including but not limited to expensive recruitment fees, appalling living conditions, lies about and delayed salaries, being threatened, and being subjected to forced labour. All of the workers interviewed for the report had had their passports confiscated, and many were denied ID cards required by Qatari law, therefore they were unable to leave the construction site, much less leave the country or change jobs. In 2017, Qatar introduced labour reforms, covering working conditions and a minimum wage to address the global widespread concern. Yet a report published by Human Rights Watch in 2021 revealed that migrant workers were still suffering “punitive and illegal wage deductions, and [...] months of unpaid wages for long hours of gruelling work,” ultimately pointing towards evidence of forced labour. Furthermore, thousands of these workers have died over the past decade of construction, due to poor working conditions worsened by Qatar’s extreme heat.

On an economic, environmental, and most importantly human level, the impacts of mega-sporting events like the World Cup far outlive the four-week long tournaments that necessitate such infrastructure projects. While Qatar’s World Cup may not leave behind many, if any, obvious white elephants, the huge loss of human life is what remains to scar the nation and the future of the tournament itself.

Saylor Catlin Coordinating News Editor

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Letter to the Editor: McGill Doesn’t Care About Us

Yara Coussa Commentary Contributor

This letter was written to the Daily December 4, 2022, and reflects the state of OSVRSE at that time. Since the letter was initially written, its services have partially reopened.

OSVRSE, a McGill service, supposedly “provides support for members of the McGill community who have been impacted by sexual violence,” only, for months now, the office has been staffless, which means that no survivors have been supported by the so-called “survivor-friendly” McGill.

The administration has made their apathy for women and survivors clear by 1) not immediately acting on this and 2) not being transparent with people seeking support that OSVRSE was non-functional.

To maintain their image as a “survivor-friendly” university, they tried to hide the fact that OSVRSE was not functional, keeping the website and the booking system open. They did not make the McGill community aware of OSVRSE’s status until today’s vague email. Further, they did not make stakeholders like the Union for Gender Empowerment, Queer McGill, or the Legal Clinic that cater to gender minorities and women who are more likely to experience sexual violence that OSVRSE was closed. This means that we wrongfully directed numerous survivors seeking mental health support to OSVRSE. I found out the service was not functional by directing a student who needed support to it, which is devastating and unacceptable.

While they kept the reporting system open through the Office for Mediation and Reporting and delegated it to the dean of students office (who, to their

Compendium!

ACROSS

credit, did a good job at dealing with cases), for months, survivors were left with no psychological support from their university, which left many feeling hopeless and resourceless. Their handling of OSVRSE is not an exception in services provided by McGill but an established pattern by the administration which underfunds OSD, the Wellness Hub, and services that offer psychological and physical support to McGill students. In fact, Grassroots initiatives like

the Trans Patient Union, which advocates for better treatment at the wellness hub for Trans and Non-Binary patients or the McGill Neurodivergent Self-Advocacy Collective, which advocates for a more Neurodivergentaccessible university, were created because of the enormous gap in the care and support that is offered by McGill’s Wellness Hub and Student Accessibility and Achievement. We are tired of fighting for our rights and dealing with an administration

desensitized to its students’ needs. The administration should be ashamed that students need to rally and advocate for better standards of care for themselves. The administration’s neglect of McGill Offices signals that they do not care about us. While they refuse to invest in our future and wellness, McGill is eager to invest 65.7 million dollars in fossil fuel industries and millions in corporations violating humanitarian rights, making it clear that McGill is a corporation that does not care about its students but rather cares for its stakeholders and its public image. McGill needs to be held accountable. The student body, survivors, women, and gender minorities deserve answers. How did this happen, and what will they do to prevent it from happening again? Prove that we are wrong and invest in robust services supporting the students you claim to want to help.

5 . “This crisis has created a she-cession and has threatened to roll back the hard-fought social and economic progress of all women.”

6 . “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag.”

7 . “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.”

9 . “I can’t go to Germany! I got homework.”

11 . “Kim, there’s people that are dying.”

14 . “Please! These gays... they’re trying to murder me!”

16 . “Sorry! My Prada’s at the cleaners! Along with my hoodie and my ‘fuck you’ flip-flops, you pretentious douchebag!”

DOWN

1. “WHERE ARE THE TURTLES??!!!”

2. “It matters not what you’ve done, but what you do with what you’ve done for others.”

3. “I don’t know why they call it a cam-pain. Up until now, it’s been a cam-pleasure.”

4. “Yeah Mr. White! You really do have a plan! Yeah science!”

5. “Man! I feel like a woman!”

8. “They got money for wars but can’t feed the poor.”

9. “We did it Joe!!”

10. “Speak white and loud”

12. The Black feminist scholar who coined the term “intersectionality.”

13. “My recipe for life is not being afraid of myself.”

15. “You have a regurgitative reaction to mistruths.”

*Crossword answers contain last names only. If the person goes by a pseudonym, the answer contains the entire pseudonym. Answers are not fictional characters.

We are tired of fighting for our rights and dealing with an administration desensitized to its students’ needs. The administration should be ashamed that students need to rally and advocate for better standards of care for themselves.

“WHO SAID IT?” CROSSWORD

HOROSCOPES

Aries

(Mar 21 - Apr 19)

In: calling your sibling(s) OUT: knee injuries

Cancer (Jun 21 - JUL 22)

IN: burts bees cucumber mint OUT: redpath cafe

Libra (Sept 23 - Oct 22)

IN: cheesecake OUT: dilly-dallying

Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 19)

In: SYntax & chinese food OUT: FINLAND

Taurus (Apr 20 - May)

Gemini (May 21 - Jun 20)

IN: the realreal OUT: crushing on your coworkers abbott elementary OUT: permanent markers

Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 22)

IN: packing a lunch OUT: mice roommates

Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 21)

iN: sledding & Jazz OUT: manifesting

Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18)

IN: saying “eh?” OUT: being interesting for others

Virgo (Aug 23 - Sept 22)

In: orvillle peck OUT: leather jackets

Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21)

IN: corduroy pants OUT: edith piaf

Pisces (Feb 19 - Mar 20)

IN: macadamia nut milk OUT: taking 5 courses

Randa Mohamed | Staff Cartoonist