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News

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

3

Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily

Floor fellows clash with new boss Proposed changes to alcohol policy will limit drinking in common areas Alison Withers The McGill Daily

U

ntil recently, McGill had one of the strictest student residence alcohol policies in Canada, but only loosely enforced the guidelines. Now, the new Executive Director of Residences, Michael Porritt, is determined to close the gap between policy and practice – just one example of a changing philosophy that’s hitting McGill Residences.

Hired in November 2008, Porritt – a seasoned administrator with over ten years of experience at Trent and Winona State University – has been accused by several of his staff of bringing sweeping changes to the culture of residences, failing to communicate effectively, and trying to fix a system that some McGill floor fellows claim isn’t broken.

“We’re open to changes that we feel will improve the community for our first-year students, but we also hold core values – like respect – that are non-negotiable,” said Graham Smith, a MORE House floor-fellow, explaining that residence life has followed a harm reduction strategy and established close-knit communities of trust. “That is what McGill Residences are based on, and that’s why we’re so concerned about what might change.”

In his capacity as Director, Porritt oversees a $27-million budget, with 2,600 students housed in 30 buildings, served by over 215 employees -– including 70 floor fellows.

“Right now, a lot of the house

rules are kind of ambiguous and vague,” he said, explaining that students needed a clear understanding of their rights and responsibilities.

“You can’t have gaps between policies and procedures.”

According to Morton Mendelson, Deputy Provost (Student Life & Learning) – to whom Porritt reports directly – the administration wants to see a more consistent application of respect and responsibility.

“We have found that the understanding of how respect translates into action varies considerably across Residences,” Mendelson wrote in an email to The Daily.

“Through wide consultation, which has already begun, Mike Porritt expects to strengthen the understanding of respect and its links to action.”

One outgoing floor fellow, who expected to get fired if his name was used on record, charged that hiring Porritt was an extension of McGill’s fears of liability.

“Mendelson is trying to direct what should happen through Porritt and through Porritt’s experiences, but unfortunately it’s different from the way we work here,” he said.

“Porritt wants us to take on a more disciplinarian role [which will] hurt the ability for students to come to us and relate to us.”

He explained that the harm reduction strategy that encourages open dialogue and safe space also reduces McGill’s liability, and that Quebec liability law has covered grey issues in the past.

“We’re covered by liability laws

because they are vague and work for us. He seems to be stringent on the need for [more specific] rules, which unfortunately will result in more qualms down the road,” he said. “As stuff is driven underground, it will become more of a problem.”

W

hen he came on the job, Porritt introduced a Residence Life Advisory Group (RLAG), which he says, along with University Residence council, will keep the Residence administration from making decisions in a vacuum.

But one returning floor fellow, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of losing their job, explained that sitting on RLAG was frustrating because one third of the floor fellow’s

has followed an open listening policy from the beginning.

“If I made a bunch of changes on the rez life side in the middle of my first year without doing a lot of listening, I would have been run out of here and I would have deserved it,” he said.

B

ut the revised alcohol policy he proposed for residences – which tightens rules on serving, parties, and areas where students can drink, like certain common areas and building stairwells – was heavily criticized and amended by committee members before clearing RLAG. “We have been able to fight back on policies, but on a larger level, we can’t fight back [against] everything he says

“Porritt wants us to take on a more disciplinarian role [which will] hurt the ability for students to come to us and relate to us.”

Floor fellow, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job efforts are spent fighting Porritt’s policies, taking away from valuable time with students.

“Being on that committee is 100 per cent defensive; it’s always an issue of doing damage control to what he’s bringing in” the floor fellow said. “There’s a lot of us taking our own minutes so we can say ‘no you didn’t say that,’ and ‘no, we didn’t say that.’”

Porritt has maintained that he

all the time,” the floor fellow said.

“His inability to communicate with his staff and respect that we have opinions outside of RLAG is really troubling,” the floor fellow added, echoing statements made by other floor fellows.

Kate Wardell, a floor fellow from Gardner Hall, a residence above Pins, emphasized the unprofessional work environment she found herself in this year.

“He’s treated us like a group of kindergartners – he does that with the [residence] directors, too,” she said, adding that their positions carried large amounts of responsibility.

“I think he doesn’t understand what we do,” Wardell continued. “He thinks we have a part-time job, [but] we’re constantly on call and I don’t think he understands that.”

Another floor fellow explained that Porritt had suggested charging floor fellows rent for their rooms in residence – where they currently live for free. He proposed their rent be discounted in relation to firstyears’, or that they pay rent and receive a small stipend. Floor fellows stressed, however, that their concerns weren’t driven by money worries.

Porritt acknowledged that he faced challenges this year, but maintained that many of the residence staff were still respectful of his leadership.

“There are lots of people who are very wary of ‘the new guy,’” said Porritt in an earlier email to The Daily. “The vast majority [of staff] have been very supportive and even excited to talk about how we can put their ideas into action.”

With a genuine concern for the future of residence culture at McGill, Smith stressed that their tenuous work relationships weren’t the driving reason for their concern.

“This is not a personal vendetta.

It’s about a community that we value and cherish so much, and that thousands of people have valued as a really formative year.”

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News

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

5

Green company develops red light district Current tenants left in the dark about plans Thomas Kim News Writer

M

ontreal’s red-light district, the area east of St. Laurent and Ste. Catherine, is getting cleaned up.

Patrons of the sex shops, instachecks, and fast food joints may not be able to recognize the area after an eco-friendly mega-complex of socially responsible retail and art moves in.

A non-profit, eco-friendly development company called Technopôle Angus proposed the $110-million plan to renovate the strip.

Technopôle Angus demolished the abandoned building at 222 Ste. Catherine Est, once an erotic video theatre, and has bought several other buildings – notably the nightclub Katacombes and the building that housed the hot dog shop Frites Dorées.

Some occupants are concerned about the impact of gentrification on the historic neighbourhood.

Johnny Zoumboulakis, the owner of Café Cleopatra – who resisted an Angus buy-out – worried how his business, a strip club that stages transvestite shows on its second floor, would fit in with the new neighbourhood.

“Restoration shouldn’t change the look or mentality of the [area],” he said.

While Zoumboulakis was uneasy about the developers’ plan, he recognized that the neighbourhood could benefit from a fresh coat of paint.

“Run-down and boarded-up buildings [need to be] restored,” he said, stressing the importance of “restoration not demolition.”

Jacques-Alain Lavalle, spokesperson for the Ville-Marie borough, said that while the borough supports redevelopment, it values the preservation of Montreal’s history in urban design. His support for the demolition of 222 Ste. Catherine was in accordance with a February 2008 press release from Mayor Tremblay’s office, which deemed the building

Rachel Wine / The McGill Daily

The lower main has long been prime real estate for sex workers. unsafe and insecure according to an outside engineering consulting firm.

“The building that was torn down at 222 [Ste. Catherine Est] had little value,” Lavalle said.

For its part, Angus has remained tight-lipped on the details of their plan: Ville Marie has only seen prelim-

inary sketches of the project. Susan Methot, press liaison for Technopole Angus, said plans for the redevelopment of the neighbourhood would be revealed in a public assembly at the end of April.

Edson Teixeira, whose family owns the soon-to-be-evicted Frites Dorées, knew few details of Angus’s

plan except that, “[the developers] don’t want [any] chain stores or hot dog joints.”

The City’s plans to redevelop the neighbourhood, a project coined Quartier des Spectacles, dates back to the eighties. The project focuses on the square kilometre bounded

by City Councillors Street, Berri

Street, Sherbrooke Street, and RenéLévesque Boulevard.

The City hopes the Quartier des Spectacles can “enhance existing heritage buildings that are next to modern buildings, while restoring commercial continuity,” according to the development objectives stated on their web site.

Westmount still won’t pick-up commercial recycling Businesses get creative as city ponders plans Laura Mojonnier The McGill Daily

I

n spite of having the second highest recycling rate of all the municipalities on the Island of Montreal, Westmount still doesn’t pick up commercial recycling – something locals say is problematic.

With only 41 per cent of all house-

hold waste being diverted from landfills, Westmount remains far from achieving the provincial objective of recycling 60 per cent of its total refuse.

Evan Hughes, an employee at the accessories shop Benn & Tournesol on Sherbrooke, said his store was recently provided with an individual blue bin that allows them to recycle junk mail and various office items – but it does not cover the large volume of cardboard boxes, paper, and plastic that the store generates.

“Retailers produce way more recycling than the average household,” said Hughes.

But in lieu of an accessible recy-

cling system, Hughes has managed to find ways to cut down on the waste produced by his business.

“We switched our plastic bags to biodegradable and our wrapping paper and ribbon are made from recycled materials,” he said.

Westmount recycling coordinator Marina Peter said that the City has neglected to create a pick-up recycling program because of the logistical problems it presents.

“A lot of the time [trucks] are limited [in what they can pick up] because the laneways are narrow.

Putting the recycling out in front of the stores – [is] not something that can be easily done. I don’t know if

you’ve ever walked down St. Denis on recycling day, but you see tons of cardboard just sitting on the curb,” she said.

Peter said that in the meantime, Westmount is focussing on educating business owners about other ways to recycle – including informing them about a drop-off point for recycling, and providing them with names of private pick-up services.

Evelyn Couture, owner of the Westmount dog boutique Bark & Fitz, said it was difficult to independently take the initiative to recycle.

“At the end of the day, to get the recycling out [to a drop-off point] is a hassle to coordinate,” she said. “I

know it’s better for the environment, but I don’t think it should be put on us to go to a drop sight when we are paying what we are paying to be in business here.”

Paying for private recycling is also not a feasible alternative, according to Tony Russo, who has owned Cavallero Fine Foods on Sherbrooke for 11 years – especially after paying Westmount taxes.

Russo also said he has not received any information from the City about recycling.

“You can educate all you want, but if you are not going to pick it up, well – you know, we’re busy here,” he said.

News

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

7

Aleksiina Chapman / The McGill Daily

Undergrad projects stuck on paper Communication gaps block student research from real-world implementation Henry Gass The McGill Daily

T

he McGill Office of Sustainability wants the University and the community at large to benefit from undergraduate research, the results of which are too often wasted within the current academic system.

The Sustainability Office aims to serve as a nexus for campus sustainability projects by cataloguing student research. Director Dennis Fortune hopes the office will bridge the communication gap between students and the people who can actually implement their plans.

“We’re looking for ways to integrate ideas. We want people to come with ideas; we’re ready to encourage opportunities,” said Fortune. He maintains that the student body is buzzing with ideas about how to make their school more sustainable, but students encounter logistical obstacles when implementing their ideas.

“The problem is, how can we communicate to students in a better way?” Fortune said.

While the projects of many McGill faculties involve professional analysis of real-world subjects, the results and conclusions of these intensive projects regularly go unnoticed by their subjects, said Amelie Dinh, U3 Arts.

“Projects, and specifically group

projects, are a huge part of the management faculty,” wrote Dinh.

“Students are not often asked to make additional presentations [to the subjects of their projects].”

Despite the generally short lifespan of student projects at McGill, Dinh, a management minor, said that certain classes and professors do encourage students to submit projects to their subject. For her Marketing 438 Brand Management class, Dinh participated in a “brand audit” of the Green Party that she later presented to the Green Party at a conference.

“Bronfman professors...work extremely hard to connect their projects and assignments to the world

outside of McGill,” said Dinh.

Dinh was confident that channeling results from undergraduate work toward the community in question would benefit students in the long run.

“The [MRKT 438] professor [Robert Mackalski] has had past students submit their projects to the companies that were the group’s focus. He encouraged students to use the project as an opportunity to develop a portfolio of sorts, something that students could show to companies during job interviews.”

“It is definitely beneficial if students are asked to apply their work to the ‘real world’ upon completing a project.”

Fortune said there have already been some instances of student ideas being implemented on campus to increase sustainability. He said students have come to him with ideas about converting trucks to the use of vegetable oil fuel, and also to alter the mufflers on the Macdonald Campus buses to make them more sustainable.

Fortune said that the Office of Sustainability has made contact with the architecture and management schools, but admits that communication with students is a significant problem for the Office of Sustainability.

“Individual actions do make a difference,” said Fortune.

Concordia overtakes McGill in the waste race Montreal’s other anglo university hopes to compost 100 tonnes of organic refuse by 2012 Tomas Urbina News Writer

C

anadian universities have embraced sustainability projects, and amid a whirlwind of new offices, composters, and recycling bins, they are in a frenzy to be the greenest.

Sustainable Concordia recently completed their fifth annual waste audit, initiated in 2005. The results show that 65 per cent of waste was diverted from landfills through recycling and composting programs, which means Concordia will soon be re-certified at the highest level of Ici On Recycle! – Recyc-Québec’s waste

diversion certification program.

Composting has been Sustainable Concordia’s greatest success, with the installation of an industrial composter on Loyola campus in September 2008. They are already well on the way to hitting their target of 20 tonnes of garbage for the year, and hope to reach 100 tonnes by 2012.

McGill is lagging behind Concordia’s success with greening initiatives in many areas, but the University is planning a similar composting program – proposed for the downtown campus – and this year welcomed an Office of Sustainability.

Though a sustainability policy is still being developed, the Office has begun a number of other projects, including Reboot McGill, a recent

initiative from the Engineering Undergraduate Society to refurbish used McGill computers and monitors, and provide them to student groups who express a need.

The Office hopes to demonstrate how making sustainable purchasing choices at McGill can encourage community waste diversion by using carpet and tiles made of recycled and post-consumer material in their building. According to Dennis Fortune, director of sustainability at McGill, the space was designed to be inclusive, cooperative, and accessible, qualities that underline the Office’s role.

McGill’s Lab Waste Reduction Group, which began as a graduate student project, has also tackled sustainable purchasing. The group orga-

nized an event last week that evaluated options for waste reduction and other eco-friendly possibilities in labs.

Three of McGill’s major laboratory suppliers discussed how to reduce waste from packaging and implement takeback programs for recyclable supplies.

According to Priyanka Sundram, the Group’s co-chair, they created a onemonth pilot project that seeks to establish indicators that could figure into a larger scale waste audit in the future.

Both universities, though, can still improve in a number of ways.

Louise Hénault-Éthier, Concordia’s environment coordinator, pointed to the University of Winnipeg, which last week became the first university in Canada to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on campus.

“They beat us to it,” Hénault-Éthier said, bringing up the student group Tap Drinkers Against Privatization, which is working towards similar bans at Concordia and McGill.

McGill undergraduates voted to ban the sale of water bottles in the Shatner Building at this semester’s General Assembly.

For Hénault-Éthier, the key to success is cutting garbage at the source. She cites the plethora of plastic water bottles and coffee cups in Concordia’s garbage as a disgrace, and wants to encourage discounts for re-usable cups to have a greater impact on people’s habits, and also encourages her university to only use compostable coffee cups, like the University of Sherbrooke.

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News

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

9

National Post judges freedom of expression at McGill Students booted by associate dean for silent protest

Jennifer Markowitz The McGill Daily

P

Dominic Popowich / The McGill Daily

Participants discuss the legacy of Canada’s largest student riot.

Concordia remembers sit-in, riots Remembered 40 years after the fact for the destruction of computers, speakers recall forgotten racial tension Niko Block The McGill Daily

F

orty years after the largest student riot in Canadian history, members of Concordia’s Rad School and the Alfie Roberts Institute led a discussion Thursday afternoon at Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs on the legacy of the Anderson Affair, a series of events which took place at Sir George Williams University (SGWU) – today part of Concordia – in early 1969.

During the Anderson Affair, hundreds of students occupied the ninth floor computer lab of the Henry F. Hall Building in protest of a professor who consistently gave lower marks to black students.

However, by the end of the sitin on February 11, students had destroyed much of SGWU’s computer lab, set fires to the building, rioted in the streets, and caused over two million dollars worth of damage.

David Austin – a trustee of the Alfie Roberts Institute and the event’s coordinator – commented that the civil rights movement of the sixties is too often associated exclusively with the United States. He felt the Anderson Affair speaks to the parallels between Canadian and American society at the time.

“The [Anderson Affair] generally gets reduced to the smashing of computers, the fire and the rioting, and it’s [important to] situate it in the broader historical context of the sixties,” he said.

Austin added that the sit-in set an important precedent for activism within Montreal’s black community, but was also seen as a source of inspiration for other political movements.

“It made the wider Quebecois society more aware of the status of blacks in Quebec – especially the separatist left, which was drawing a lot of inspiration from the Black Power movement in the States at that time…so it had ripple effects way beyond the black community in Montreal,” he said.

Tensions between the university’s administration and students began heating up in April 1968, when four Caribbean students filed a complaint that one of their professors, Perry Anderson, was racist and that their marks were being adversely affected as a result.

The administration exonerated Anderson of the accusations, but after several months of unrest on the university’s campus, a hearing committee was established to address the students’ concerns.

Student leaders eventually rejected the hearings as a kangaroo court, and in January 1969, 400 students

occupied the university’s computer lab. Others later took control of the faculty lounge on the building’s seventh floor. Two weeks later, violence erupted when the police moved into the building to end the sit-in. Ninetyseven students were arrested, 47 of whom were black.

Yvonne Greer, who was living in Montreal at the time, knew a number of people involved in the sit-in. She said that the Anderson Affair represents a major watershed in the history of black Canadians.

“There are a lot of people who now are black and they’re proud, whereas beforehand they would have been black and afraid,” Greer said.

“People perceived black activism as a purely American thing, even in the sixties, because we were so very invisible…and I think our faces became visible after that,” Greer added. “There is a very distinct preand post-1969, and a lot of the black groups in Montreal were formed directly or indirectly as a result of [the Anderson Affair].”

Austin stated that Concordia still has not reconciled with the history of racism at the university, and pointed to the fact that Anderson continued teaching after the Affair, eventually gaining tenure.

He also pointed to the story of Rosie Douglas, a Dominican student who was studying at McGill in the sixties and was one of the central leaders of the sit-in at SGWU. Douglas went on to become the Prime Minister of Dominica in 2000, but when he visited Concordia later that year for a dinner being held in his honour, the administration refused to attend.

eaceful pro-Israel protesters were expelled from the Law Building on March 17 by Associate Dean at McGill’s Faculty of Law David Lametti for silently campaigning against a photo exhibit meant to evoke sympathy for the violence faced by the Palestinians.

Following the demonstration, a distraught law student sent a letter to National Post commentator Jonathan Kay. The letter sparked claims of human rights violations at the University and a heated debate about the statements posted.

That a group of non-law students peacefully demonstrating in the atrium of the law building alongside a display hosted by the organizers of Palestinian Human Rights Week (PHRW) were kicked out of the building was troubling and a violation of freedom of expression, the letter stated.

“They did not attempt to obscure the visibility of these exhibits,” wrote the first letter writer. “Rather, by standing between them and holding their own posters, they were offering a visual rebuttal to the official facultyapproved message.”

Arieh Bloom, U3 Commerce, and President of Republicans Abroad at McGill, organized the counter demonstration, which was intended to present a balanced and alternative, yet peaceful perspective to the proPalestinian display.

“We were kicked out on [the] ground that the demonstration would prevent freedom of dialogue,” Bloom said. “That should have meant that we were doing something egregious and terribly unacceptable.”

Halfway through the planned two-hour demonstration Lametti requested that the 14 undergraduates leave on the basis that they were creating a hostile environment and were not law students, among other offences.

The first letter Kay posted

describes one photo as depicting two dead Palestinian children killed in an Israeli Defense Forces operation, with excerpts from the Geneva Convention and short articles deploring the plight of Palestinians hung next to many of the photos.

The display was one of many campus events that contributed to an unbalanced treatment of Gaza, Bloom said. He said that there has been a failure in dialogue and that some groups – he cited those with both Arab and Jewish affiliations – were attacking Israel.

Bloom, who had consulted a lawyer before the counter demonstration, was certain that none of the signs he was showing were hateful. While he described the signs as teaching peace, love and toleration, some did portray violence.

One placard depicted a child dressed in green Hamas gear holding a machine gun. Beside the baby sat the slogan: “Teach love, peace, and toleration – not war.”

The idea, he stressed, was that passersby would see the pictures from both causes and be able to make an informed and balanced judgment.

“It would have taken away all legitimacy of our protest if we were trying to censor. We would have been hypocrites and it was totally against what we stand for,” Bloom said.

Bloom is now seeking amicable remedy with the dean on the account that their right to assemble was violated.

“I don’t think [Associate Dean Lametti] did what he did because of anti-Semitism. I think it was just poor judgment,” said Bloom.

“What I most don’t understand is how does a law school – meant to be the paradigm of human rights – how do they not even respect the free rights of students who want to foster dialogue of human rights on campus?

“The contradiction of human rights is appalling.”

The associate dean and organizers of PHRW were unavailable for comment.

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10 News

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

Speakers recall a protest for change in participation of francophones at McGill Nicholas Smith The McGill Daily

S

aturday marked the 40th anniversary of the McGill français movement – a march 5,000 strong along Sherbrooke that demanded the University community become more inclusive of francophone students.

This march was commemorated last Wednesday evening at Thomson House, with three speakers who described their experiences in a movement that changed McGill, a still-majority anglophone university.

“I’ve never been part of a demonstration so large, so electric,” said Mark Wilson, who held the position of editor-in-chief of The Daily for three days in 1969 before being fired by the Students’ Council, the precursor of SSMU Council. At the time, The Daily was not yet independent.

Wilson said that the purpose of the movement at the time was much more radical than allowing students to submit their work in French, now McGill policy.

“The goal was not to make McGill more bilingual,” said Wilson. “It was

to expropriate it.”

The gathering, organized by the Commission on Francophone Affairs (CAF) and attended by about 30 people, also included Daniel-Pierre Vézina, who recalled marching in front of the University during his studies.

“A lot of politicians didn’t think it was serious,” said Vézina, but “the protestors really believed what they wanted.

“It was very coherent,” he added, referring to the demonstrators’ remarkable organization. “It’s not the case anymore [with protests these days].”

McGill français, then Opération McGill, currently represents about 18 per cent of students – just under 6,000 – who declare their mother tongue as French. According to McGill enrolment services, 52 per cent of McGill students list English and 30 per cent list another language.

CAF, the current driving force behind McGill français, is less idealistic and more practical in its goals compared to its past incarnation, and has focused this year on increasing bilingualism in student associations.

This year, they successfully lobbied

for all course syllabi to state that students have the right to submit all assignments in French. CAF also organizes the popular Francofête.

“Now [being at McGill] is easy for francophones,” said Vézina.

But Lucien Lapierre, a former Canadian Senator and host of the influential but short-lived sixties public affairs program This Hour Has Seven Days, said that the movement needs to focus on the University’s place in the province.

“I didn’t want McGill français,” said Lapierre. “I want McGill aux français,” describing how McGill had to recognize it was part of a francophone province and serve the workers of the province.

Lapierre gave an impassioned and almost tearful speech recounting his life in a large, Catholic, rural family with parents who had no love in the world except bettering their children’s lives. McGill, as a gateway to the rest of Canada and the world, needs to be open to francophones, to contribute to the betterment of the life of Quebeckers, and transform Canada into a country that respects the equality of Quebec.

“McGill is the only university in

Canada that has to represent Quebec,” he said. “If you leave Canada the way you have found it, I will come back and haunt the hell out of you.”

SSMU VP Internal Julia Webster thought the event was a wake-up call for the lack of francophone representation on campus.

“I think this was a potent reminder of the marginalization of francophone students on campus,” Webster said.

Carman Miller, a former dean of the Faculty of Arts and a current history professor, hired a few years before the protest, pointed to the 1969 Principal’s actions, which framed the protest as a war.

“McGill has rights and will protect its rights,” quoted Miller, recalling Principal Harold Rocke Robertson’s address to faculty and staff at the time, before he then announced that police would surround the large auditorium in Leacock and force people to obey the University’s will.

“McGill represented, rightly or wrongly, what was wrong,” recalled Miller, “and the notion that I was on the wrong side only fed [my will for change].”

Policy crisis conference questions media’s influence

Environmental Crisis, Solutions?

Monday, March 30, 6 p.m.

Bronfman 151, 1001 Sherbrooke O. Tired of hearing about environmental problems?

Discuss solutions to the environmental crisis with a panel that includes environment and economics professors, and Al Gore’s climate change representative in Canada.

Islam and Evolution Tuesday, March 31, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Redpath Museum, 859 Sherbrooke O. Learn about how evolution is understood in Islamic societies and how Muslims understand evolutionary science in relation to their religious beliefs. Admission to the symposium is free, and follows an introduction to the panel the preceeding day at 4 p.m., but seating is limited.

Productive Living and the Maison Productive House Tuesday, March 31, 5 p.m.

Thomson House, 3650 McTavish Join the PGSS environment committee for a Green Drinks Montreal event featuring speaker Erin Watson, coordinator of Montreal’s ecologically responsible housing initiative Design 1 Habitat.

Organic Campus Film Screening Tuesday, March 31, 7 p.m.

Organic Corner, 2nd floor Shatner, 3480 McTavish Come watch The Real Dirt on Farmer John and enjoy some of the Organic Campus’s famous sweet potato-cinnamon bread and tea at this free film screening.

Nicholas Smith The McGill Daily

T

he influence of national media’s rhetoric on Canadian public policy was called into question during a panel as part of a two-day Public Policy in Crisis conference, organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, which attracted major players involved with public policy, including politicians, consultants, public servants, journalists, and pollsters.

Held Thursday and Friday at the Faculty Club, the conference featured an opening keynote address from Jim Flaherty, the current Finance Minister, and four panels throughout the day Friday.

In a panel titled “Do Media and Public Opinion Really Matter?” Nik Nanos, President and CEO of Nanos Research, one of the top polling companies in Canada, noted a decline in the quality of political discourse in Canada, remarking that national media should shoulder the blame.

“Good politics does not necessarily reflect good public policy,” said Nanos, describing a media sensationalization of simplistic polling questions, eventually causing a political reaction. “Good research presents tradeoffs,” he continued. “If you ask people if they want to lower the GST, of course they will say yes.” “[Newspapers are] where policy makers test their proposals,” said La Presse editorial writer Alain Dubuc.

“We know media can derail a project,” he added, pointg to newspapers’ framing and selection of stories, editorials, and letters to the editor – all of which affect public consciousness.

WHAT’S THE HAPS

Forty years of McGill français

The Future of Composting at McGill Thursday, April 2, 5:30 p.m.

Organic Corner 2nd Floor Shatner, 3480 McTavish Want to find out where you can bring your compostables? Join Gorilla Composting to discuss the future of composting at McGill. Visit gorilla.mcgill.ca for more info.

Stephen Davis / The McGill Daily

Christopher Waddell (from left), Nik Nanos, Sandra Buckler, and Alain Dubuc discuss media problems.

Moving news to an online medium is also dangerous, according to Dubuc, because it’s incredibly easy for commercial media to track what people are reading about, and shifting their coverage accordingly.

“The topics that are most popular on the Internet are not the most noble,” said Dubuc. “Newspaper newsrooms are the largest producers of news; TV and radio steal our news, and people go on the Internet.”

While Sandra Buckler, the former communications director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper who presently works as a private-sector consultant, agreed that newspapers are

much more reliable as factual sources than blogs. But she also expressed her general disdain for the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery (CPPG) – a group of national press reporters covering federal politics – and instead praised local journalists, akin to the Conservative government’s media strategy over the past three years.

“Maybe there are too many of them [in the CPPG] and not enough news to cover,” Buckler said of the CPPG, arguing that local media tend to editorialize less. She added that the CPPG often focuses on trivial stories and gaffes, rather than more consequential policy issues.

“In this new environment, you’re always on. There’s no room for errors,” she said.

Buckler also spoke to students, lamenting their lack of involvement in campus politics and youth wings of the party, noting that her party did not have a youth wing – something the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Québécois all have. Since youth are the most likely to follow current events from new media sources, such as the Internet, it is paramount that public policy discussions permeate the web.

“It makes me a little depressed when students feel they don’t connect with politicians,” Buckler said.

Entrepreneurship and Recession: How to Win Amidst Hard Times Friday, April 3, 2:30 p.m.

Old McGill Room, Faculty Club, 3450 McTavish The Junior Hong KongCanada Business Association presents its conference on effective business strategies for overcoming economic hardship. Tickets are $15. For information or ticket reservations, email info@jhkcbamontreal.com.

Send your not-for-profit event details to news@ mcgilldaily.com with “haps” in the subject line. Include a brief description of the event, as well as the time, date, and location. The deadline for our last issue of the year is April 3 at 4 p.m.

News

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

11

Bureaucracy bars children’s access to meds Large pharmaceutical companies expected to oppose reforms to flawed legislation The McGill Daily

A

fter nearly five years of calling for reform of Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) – legislation intended to facilitate access to affordable, essential medicines in developing countries – Canadian civil society organizations may have reason to believe change is near.

Speaking on Parliament Hill last Thursday at a panel to launch the reform campaign, Senator Yoine Goldstein indicated that amendments to the legislation had already been drafted, and that plans to table the initiative in Senate by the end of April were underway.

CAMR was originally meant to allow generic Canadian drug manufacturers to approach the Commissioner of Patents and request a compulsory license – a scheme which permits the manufacturer to bypass the patent holder’s rights under exceptional circumstances.

In so-called developed countries like Canada, HIV/AIDS has become a difficult, chronic condition. Yet, in developing countries with high rates of HIV/AIDS and low access to essential medicines, millions are in need, and the conditions are certainly exceptional. However, only one shipment of drugs has left the country thus far, and the legislation is widely recognized as flawed. “[The regime] has not put lives before patents – precisely what this groundbreaking legislation was intended to do,” said Marek Krasula, counsel for Senator Goldstein. “No generic manufacturer is willing to go through the CAMR process in its current form.”

Under the current system, manufacturers are required to apply for a separate compulsory license for each country it wants to export to, and for

each quantity of medication it wants to export.

According to Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the main aim of the proposed reform implementing what he terms a “one-license solution” – a system that would allow generic manufacturers to apply for a single license authorizing the export of a lower-cost drug to any of the eligible countries without predetermining the quantity, and with the requirement that the generic manufacturer periodically disclose the contracts that they land and pay the applicable royalty.

“I think it is not at all premature, contrary to what the government says, to actually revisit this and come up with a much better, simpler process of getting medicines at lower prices to developing countries,” Elliott said.

At the panel, Elliott highlighted the need for government to act immediately. He announced that generic drug manufacturer Apotex – the first and only company to export drugs under CAMR – has committed to making a lower-cost version of an important paediatric AIDS medication, but only once CAMR is streamlined.

Citing problems with current paediatric formulas, including unpleasant tasting syrups, the requirement for refrigeration, and the need for children to take multiple doses, Elliott said that millions of children are in need. “[A] paediatric formulation is incredibly needed to treat children with HIV around the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, when so few children have access to practicable treatment,” Elliott said, adding that the proposed formulation would only have to be taken once or twice per day.

Apotex’s Director of Public and Government Affairs, Eli Betito, also told The Daily that this would be the first and only medicine of its kind in the world.

Once the bill is tabled in the Senate, however, it is likely to face major obstacles. Though Elliott has been meeting with MPs from all political parties to discuss the proposed reform, history does not show promise: in December 2007, the government tabled a review of CAMR that recommended no changes be made.

Elliott speculates that much of the resistance will come from large pharmaceutical companies who have a stake in maintaining the status quo.

“Big pharma has always opposed compulsory licensing as a policy tool to get lower priced medicines, an opposition which is particularly obnoxious and offensive and really damaging when we’re talking about opposing the use of compulsory licensing by developing countries who are facing millions of people who need affordable medicine,” Elliott said.

The Minister of Industry, Tony Clement, did not respond to The Daily’s request for a comment.

Krasula felt that the issue of reform should move beyond partisanship, calling it “apolitical.”

“Even though it is a private member’s bill, all-party support would surely expedite the entire process and give this issue the attention it deserves,” he said.

Elliott agreed, noting that all members of Parliament and the Senate should have an interest in making the legislation work, as they voted unanimously for the original CAMR plan in 2004.

“As more time goes by it just becomes even more and more of an embarrassment that we haven’t got this right.

That’s why we’re saying: it is in your hands, Parliament,” Elliott said.

Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily

Nikki Bozinoff

Senate delays student question on military University redrafts regulations on research policy Jeff Bishku-Aykul The McGill Daily

M

cGill is looking to update its policy on military research for the first time since 1991, but senators will have to wait until May 20 before discussing changes to the Regulations on Research Policy.

In the past, McGill professors have collaborated with the American and Canadian militaries, although this may cause conflicts with the policy’s preamble, which states that “[Research] should be used to increase knowledge in ways that do not harm society.”

In the fall, Demilitarize McGill, a student group against militaryfunded research at McGill, learned

that the administration was updating the existing policy, and decided to create their own draft for consideration after reviewing two drafts from William Foster, Associate Provost (Policies and Procedures).

According to Cleve Higgins, U3 Sociology and IDS and a member of Demilitarize McGill, the last draft they received, dated on February 2, is not adequate.

“We’ve [suggested making] it mandatory for research that is funded or in collaboration with a military agency to go to [a review] committee,” Higgins explained.

McGill currently requires professors receiving grants or contracts from military organizations to evaluate the consequences of their own

research. The February 2 draft proposal stipulates that military-related projects must receive the approval of a research review committee, although the law gives the Board of Governors discretion to approve or reject all contracts, whether related to military research or not.

However, according to Higgins, professors could choose whether or not to have their work plans approved by a research review committee, something he believes does not fully guarantee the humane application of university research.

“The military is the only institution in our society that is specifically intended to cause harm to people,” Higgins argued. “If this research is for the military, [there] is a flag going

off about harm.”

The new draft of McGill’s Regulations on Research Policy also contains a revised preamble that does not address research that might result in inflicting harm.

In a 2007 letter to University of Western Ontario Vice President (Research and International Relations) Ted Hewitt, McGill Vice Principal (Research and International Relations) Denis Therien asserted that it is difficult to trace direct harm to research and explained his opinion that military research can often benefit society. He also indicated his belief that academic freedom must be respected when regulating research.

“Academic freedom demands that, so long as all existing review criteria

are met, we uphold our faculty members’ right to pursue research as they see fit and that restrictions based upon whether or not some may find particular avenues of research objectionable should be resisted,” Therien wrote.

In the letter, Therien also stated his opposition to any Canadian body that might provide guidelines for the approval of military research.

In the meantime, Higgins is hoping for increased student interest in McGill’s military research policies.

“For students in general, a research conduct policy on its own seems pretty bland, but when it’s put in the context of military research... then it’s an issue for people.”

Therien was not available for comment on McGill’s research policy.

Commentary

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

13

HYDE PARK

Questioning Canada’s ban on free speech Majd Al-Khaldi

H Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily

HYDE PARK

We’re spending $120,000 on that?

Jake Heller

A

nother year, another SSMU election. And as usual, nobody cared.

This year’s explosion of indifference saw approximately 24,000 undergraduates cast just 3,631 ballots: a whopping 15.1 per cent voter turnout.

Then again, since four out of the six exec positions up for grabs were acclaimed, a more accurate representation of how little SSMU means to undergrads is that, out of all possible votes, only 4.5 per cent were cast.

In an election marred with such evident voter apathy, new president Ivan Nielson’s impressive capture of 50.8 per cent of the vote actually translates to his winning a mere 7.7 per cent of the total undergraduate population’s endorsement. Sorry, Ivan, but the percentage of McGill undergrads who want you to be president is equivalent to the percentage of Canadians currently out of work.

How ironic, then, that the SSMU election found jobs for six people who would have likely been unemployed next year – jobs that come with a salary of over $20,000, no less. With the job market like it is, and undergraduate degrees in their rucksacks, the six U3s who presented themselves for election to the SSMU Executive would have been wandering the streets next year were it not for the thoughtfulness of a miniscule proportion of the student population. Now four of those six, along with two lucky youngsters, are going to be making three-fourths of what

the average Canadian makes in a year. That is, of Canadians who still have their jobs. Well played, SSMU, well played.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that each SSMU exec deserves $20,000 of their constituents’ ever-increasing tuition. First of all, an executive’s involvement in SSMU is no less arduous or meaningful than the extracurricular dedication of countless other McGill students to countless other organisations, charities, or sports teams. McGill students involve themselves in extra-curricular activities because they take pride in their ability to effect change in people’s lives, however small and in whatever capacity. They involve themselves beyond academics because they realise that they can learn great values and acquire tremendous skills outside of a classroom, because they see that the world doesn’t play itself out inside of a textbook. And, yes, they become involved in impressive sounding enterprises that may or may not actually do anything because they know that a well-padded résumé will make them more marketable to perspective employers. But none of these students receive $20,000 as a benefit of their extra-curricular involvement, and few get to pad their C.V. like the SSMU execs do.

Secondly, SSMU is probably less important and less consequential than many of the aforementioned organisations, charities, or sports teams. The recent voter turnout and the consistently poor attendance at General Assemblies (GAs) speak volumes to SSMU’s irrelevance among students, and suggest that

SSMU should try to do something of import. This year’s GA motion on an actual issue – sorry, No Pants Fridays doesn’t count – was a good start, but the general student indifference towards SSMU certainly does not merit a $20,000 salary for its execs.

Lastly, the current economic climate has put substantial pressure on universities to either cut back on services or increase tuition. Not wanting to do either, Principal Heather Munroe-Blum recently established the Administrative Task Force on Dealing with Economic Uncertainty, which calls on students, faculty, and staff to suggest ways for McGill to cut costs while maintaining its high academic standing.

SSMU should follow the administration’s lead and stop paying each SSMU exec a salary of over $20,000.

The $120,000 that students would save could be much better spent on innumerable things, like providing every student with a foot-long Subway sub. I can guarantee that more than 15.1 per cent of students would show up to Free Subway Day. I also urge the new SSMU execs to consider their responsibility to their constituents and to McGill, and to refuse their $20,000 salaries. In doing so, the SSMU exec board would finally be able to show real leadership, unrivalled commitment to McGill’s well-being, and true dedication to the student body’s best interests.

Jake Heller is a U2 History student and can be reached at jake.heller@ mail.mcgill.ca. To see how he came up with that 4.5 per cent marker, see mcgilldaily.com.

ere’s the deal: I do not care to know about your views on abortion, your stance on the legalization of marijuana and, no, not even which side of the Arab-Israeli conflict you are on. I do, however, care about the fact that you maintain your right to believe whatever you wish to believe and to express those beliefs, so long as hate speech isn’t involved.

For those of you who are not familiar with George Galloway, a quick Wiki-search will reveal that he has been a British Member of Parliament since the late eighties.

His outspokenness with regard to many controversial topics is what distinguishes him in the public eye from other political figures. In the past, he has defended Hezbollah’s actions against Israel (most famously while being interviewed by Fox News during the 2006 war in Lebanon), charged American politician Norm Coleman and other supporters of the Iraq War with responsibility for the billions of dollars worth of Iraqi national resources being stolen, and argued that the unfortunate London bombings of July 2005 were a result of the U.K.’s foreign policy.

Following the recent blockade and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Galloway initiated the Viva Palestina aid convoy that consisted of more than 100 vehicles, including a fire truck and a boat to be donated and used in the Strip. The 5,000-mile trip from London to Gaza took a little less than a month. Medicine, clothes, and other gifts were also donated.

Galloway was supposed to visit Canada and make speeches in some of its major cities as part of his upcoming North American tour. Concordia University was to host one of those speeches next Wednesday. But last Friday, March 20, Immigration and

Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney banned George Galloway from entering Canada in what is clearly a move to silence someone who has been critical of the Canadian government on certain issues. Galloway has argued for the withdrawal of Canadian forces from Afghanistan – a move that he believes the majority of the Canadian population supports. Kenney went on to label Galloway as a “threat to national security.”

Perhaps it is due to the key role Galloway played in the Viva Palestina convoy that brought humanitarian aid to Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, a party that the U.S. – err...

I mean Canadian government has on its list of terrorist organizations.

The verbal exchanges between the two sides have not been too friendly.

While the government here continues to use second-hand, Bush-quality rhetoric, Galloway went on to call the ban “idiotic.” My request for a comment from the latter’s representative went unanswered. George Galloway will still try to deliver his speeches in Canada, but if border officials refuse him entry then his speech will be transmitted to the various Canadian venues from a studio in New York. Kenney’s office has been flooded with angry letters from writers expressing their displeasure.

Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes the freedoms of speech and of peaceful assembly. The centrality of these concepts to Canada is unavoidable, and yet I find myself in a position where I begin to question whether all people are actually given an equal right to voice their opinion in Canada.

I never thought I would see a day when political censorship takes place in very country.

Majd Al Khaldi is a U1 Economics and Political Science student, and encourages you to send over an email to majd.khaldi@gmail.com.

LAST CALL FOR ALCOHOL WHERE ALCOHOL = YOUR OPINION commentary@ mcgilldaily.com

14 Features

Electronic

The Daily’s Max Halparin trac

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arely are we confronted with the afterlife of our electronics. From underneath layers of plastic, they initially offer speed or convenience, and when their use has expired or their value depleted, we might stash them in a garage, closet, or landfill. Or, we could opt for recycling or donation – words that can take on new, toxic connotations in the world of electronic waste.

The shift from cathode ray tube (CRT) to flatscreen computer monitors in the past couple of years is the most recent example of a technological redirection resulting in enormous amounts of discarded electronics. Instead of reaching the end of their functional lifetimes on work desks and in study spaces, the round-backed monitors are now stacked in warehouses, used as door stops in The Daily office, or, perhaps more likely, on a boat headed to Asia – along with millions of other tonnes of yesterday’s cell phones, laptops, printers, televisions, and other devices that make up electronic or e-waste. Not surprisingly, a truckload of CRTs awaiting shipment from Colorado to China adorns the cover of Giles Shades’ “Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America,” in which the freelance writer traces the roots of disposability as a marketing tool to the current e-waste problem.

Detailed reports on e-waste destinations like China, India, and Pakistan focus on the links between discarded electronics and a significant set of health and environmental repercussions. The town of Guiyu, China has become infamous for its illegal e-waste recycling operations: riverside hills turned into trash heaps, and the effects of chemical and metal leaching evident both in the brown water and the trucks that bring in barrels of clean water from elsewhere. Citizens of all ages dismantle, de-solder, and openly burn circuit boards, monitors, and printer toners to retrieve the precious metals packed deep within other plastics and glass.

With rubber boots often serving as their only protective wear, residents of Guiyu and other e-waste destinations expose themselves to other high-tech ingredients, including lead, cadmium, and mercury – part of the non-ferrous metals that make up 18 per cent of the material inside computers. First documented in a 2002 report headed by the two main activist groups working on e-waste, the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, “Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia” explains that lead, which can alone account for two kilograms of non-recyclable computer components, has long been shown to wreak havoc on child brain development, central and peripheral nervous systems, as well as kidney and reproductive systems, while exposure to mercury can also cause damage to the brain and kidneys. Despite these dangers, the shipments keep on coming – about 50 to 80 per cent of e-waste collected in North America finds its way to China, despite the country having banned the import of hazardous goods.

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onsider another oft-quoted statistic: the United Nations (via an electronics magazine) estimates that between 20 and 50 million tonnes of e-waste are generated each year. If this seems staggering, it should. Both the mag-

No one knows exactly how many millions of tonnes of discarded cell phones, computers, televisions, and other forms of electronic wa nitude and uncertainty of this figure highlight several important issues in the e-waste problem.

No one knows exactly how much or what type of e-waste each country produces, or where it goes after collection. Environment Canada estimates that Canadians dispose of around 140,000 tonnes of e-waste annually, though their media reps couldn’t dig up the figure for 2008 before press time. However, according to a report by the Quebec Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment, and Parks, this number was closer to 99,000 tonnes in 2005. It’s not long before these materials find themselves in the waste stream – the report states that electronic products have an average life span of three and a half years, with cell phones lasting only an average of two. Unlike other traded goods identified with the North American Industry Classification System, there are no internationally-agreed upon tariff codes or standards for measuring the global flows of e-waste, and researchers investigating this topic can spend over a year simply identifying and managing the variables they plan to use as proxies for their studies.

Josh Lepawski, a geography professor at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, is one such professor. He says he became interested in e-waste about five

years ago while studying the Malaysian government’s attempt to transform a predominantly agricultural landscape into a high-tech urban development modeled on Silicon Valley.

Around the same time that some academics were etching geography’s name on a tombstone, Lepawksi says, looking at material flows of waste was a good way to continue studying necessary material geographies. And materially, production of IT is incredibly intensive – Lepawski notes that while it may only weigh a few grams, a typical silicon chip weighs 600 times its primary inputs, whereas a typical automobile weighs only twice the materials and water that went into making it.

“As I’ve gotten more deeply involved, I’ve become increasingly interested in the broader questions of what is waste and for whom, and under what conditions. The flipside of that is, how does something called ‘value’ emerge from what we dispose of as waste here in Canada when it moves overseas and is worked on in particular locations with particular people and conditions,” says Lepawski. He soon refers back to the “tangly issues” over the varying definitions of waste and value, after touching on some health and economic impacts of e-waste recycling in Asia.

The current exporting habits of nations who are members of the Organization for Economic

Co-operation and Development (OECD) – such as Canada, the U.S., Japan, and several European countries – to non-OECD nations has resulted in the often informal e-waste recycling sector becoming a significant survival strategy, something Lepawski found after a trip to Bangladesh. Beyond the well-publicized toxic hazards, around which he says there is no argument, Lepawski notes that the activist literature hasn’t addressed what might happen to the livelihoods of recyclers if e-waste trade flows were to stop tomorrow. Using a CRT screen as an example, Lepawski says that buying it as scrap, breaking it down, and selling it back into production activities can result in profits of upward of 200 per cent, or about $10 per computer – potentially exceeding profit margins of the companies who originally produced it, though BAN’s estimates put that number closer to US$6.

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here have been, and continue to be, international initiatives to prohibit the export of hazardous wastes from OECD to non-OECD countries. Most significantly, a 1994 amendment to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal aims to prohibit developed countries from exporting e-waste to industrializing ones. Known as the Basel Ban, 64

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2008

15

c afterlife

ces the toxic flows of e-waste

mandated waste management policy, and complicated by imports and exports being a federal issue – in influencing actions of other major actors.

By not forcing all recyclers or e-waste collecters to participate in Alberta’s system, for instance, Lepawski says “the legislation is undermining its own intentions.” He also explains that, due to deindustrialization and the removal of necessary infrastructure, North America can’t handle the volumes of e-waste it produces. “[E-waste] is going as feed stock to the very facilities that used to be here.”

I

Noelani Eidse / The McGill Daily

aste are exported annually from OECD to non-OECD countries, but their health and environmental effects are devastating. countries have ratified the resolution, and the 1989 Basel Convention received 170 signatures – meaning 170 countries are legally bound to monitor their imports and exports of hazardous wastes. Despite being one of the world’s largest consumers, the U.S. is the only industrial nation that has yet to sign the Convention.

“It’s important to understand why there is an amendment at all,” says Sarah Westervelt, BAN’s project manager. Though nations came together with the original intention to ban OECD countries from shipping toxic materials to non-OECD countries, she explains, “the U.S. and Canada primarily succeeded in gutting [the Convention] of its purpose to completely ban the export of toxic waste.” Westervelt was firm in her response to findings over the current economic situation for those employed by e-waste recycling overseas. “We are not doing anybody a favour by giving them a highly toxic job. If we want to provide jobs to other countries, we need to give them safe and clean jobs.... Giving them our hazardous waste to break down, exposing them to [toxic contents], putting these immortal heavy metals into their environments is completely immoral, inexcusable, and should be stopped immediately.”

The need for manufacturer responsibility in resolving the e-waste problem, however, is unanimous across activist and academic circles.

“Manufacturers are the solution; governments must be a part of it. It can pass laws to hold manufacturers responsible, to not produce in first place, and if they do generate toxic products, they must be responsible for taking them back,” Westervelt says, which may be why she and other BAN members have voiced support for Canada’s industry-led system of end-product responsibility. Currently in place in B.C., Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia, with a quasigovernmental version in Alberta, the Recycling Vendor Qualification Program (RVQP) uses a strict auditing procedure on all e-waste recyclers and their downstream partners to prevent both the export of hazardous or electronic materials to non-OECD countries and the use of prison labour, and to ensure quality health and safety for workers.

“Canada is a very good example where industry has stepped up and taken responsibility for environmental stewardship seriously,” says Jay Illingworth, who began his job as Harmonization Coordinator for the three provinces in January after working as vice president for Electronic Product Stewardship Canada.

He explains that once Ontario joins the other provinces in using the RVQP on Wednesday, five provinces will cover computers, monitors, printers, and televisions. Cell phones are still handled under the Canadian Wireless

Telecommunications Association, which administers its own recycling program through recyclemycell.ca. Nova Scotia’s program goes further by collecting audiovisual and telecommunications equipment like mp3 players, headphones, and VCRs. “It’s only matter of time before it’s coast to coast,” Illingworth adds.

The varying provincial systems all depend on an environmental handling fee added to the retail price of electronic goods, all of which go directly to the domestic, ethical recycling of the goods. More than 20,000 tonnes of electronic goods have been diverted from landfills, and Illingworth says these stable revenues are important to the programs’ success, since they’re not vulnerable to fluctuations in demand for the recycled goods like market-based programs are.

“I don’t think [the handling fee is] taking pressure off manufacturers – it’s shifting responsibility form tax base and sending a strong message to consumers and producers,” he says.

Yet, in the provinces where the RVQP program is fully operational, e-waste recyclers are not forced to join. This means they don’t have access to the funds collected by retailers, but that they can continue exporting these goods overseas as long as it remains profitable. Both Illingworth and Lepawski acknowledged this pitfall, and noted the role of Canada’s small market share – made even smaller by provincially-

n 2006, RECYC-Québec estimates that of the electronics generated, five per cent was recycled, eight per cent stored, 34 per cent reused, and 53 per cent incinerated – meaning just under half of e-waste was reused, stored, or recycled inside the province. A new provincial policy over all waste materials is in the works, so the Ministry of Environment couldn’t divulge details over any possible provisions for e-waste, like the adoption of the RVQP. Through their publicly posted reports, the Ministry of Environment seems well aware of the health and environmental issues around the export of e-waste – an illegal action for Canada, considering it has signed the Basel Ban. Still, with no comprehensive system in place to monitor or audit the recyclers and any of their partners downstream, the eventual whereabouts of discarded or recycled electronics can’t be known for sure.

There are dozens of options for Montrealers looking to recycle their e-waste, and a full list is available on RECYC-Québec’s web site.

However, only one – Redemtech’s Dorval location – is currently listed as a recognized e-Steward by BAN. The consumer demand for electronics pick-up is evident. Last year on Earth Day, 1-800-GOT-JUNK held 70 separate e-waste events across the U.S. and Canada, collecting an average of one to five tons of waste, mostly computer monitors. The company, whose media rep said it holds its recyclers to e-Steward-level audits – is planning to hold it again this year, though Montreal isn’t currently listed as a location on its Earth Day web site.

The demand for a service whose sole function is to pick up unwanted goods surely indicates our relationship with waste is out of whack. For Lepawski, this comes back to the varying definition of waste and value. “In the most abstract sense, waste – like value – is not an objective thing,” he says. “In Canada, an electronic item takes on waste characteristics because Canadians think or feel they need the latest upgrade, when they’re really spending more than 90 per cent of their time using word processing and the Internet.”

Another unfortunate reality is that Canadians looking to balance the guilt of a new, unnecessary item often choose to donate their old-butfunctioning machines to people in developing nations. But shipments of computers – objects whose attributes change over time and space – soon wind up in landfills in Africa. “[Waste and value] emerge as a consequence of geographic differences of wage rates and environmental legislation, of relative wealth and poverty, and as a consequence of mobility from place to place,” Lepawski explains.

16 Features

Sustaining voices McGill delegates to Powershift, a major climate conference in Washington, D.C., relay the energy and spirit of today’s environmental movement

The 12,000 students who attended Powershift 2009 in Washington, D.C. participated in

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uring Reading Week, a delegation of 14 McGill students joined students from every Canadian province and all 50 states in Washington D.C. for Powershift 2009, the largest youth climate conference in the history of the United States. Over the course of four days at the end of February, 12,000 students gathered for the conference, 2,500 attended a demonstration at a coal plant near the Capitol, and 350 visits with elected officials were scheduled, some drawing hundreds of attendees.

The conference began on Friday, February 27, with a day-long workshop on community organizing by Marshall Ganz, a veteran activist and professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Ganz taught techniques for developing effective narratives about social change. An effective public narrative, Ganz said, “must translate into words the values that move us to act.” Narrative is of particular importance in a democracy, Ganz emphasized.

“Democracy is based on the premise that equality of voice can balance inequality of resources.”

On Saturday and Sunday, McGill students attended a range of climate-related panels and workshops, addressing subjects from mountain-top removal coal mining to media training to emissions trading systems. For Nora Hope, a U1 Psychology student, one of the most interesting sessions focused on campaign strategy. “I felt empowered to start making a difference in an informed and organized manner,” she said after the session.

During the afternoon on Saturday, breakout sessions were held for states and regions. McGill students attending the Canadian

breakout session discussed strategies for the coming months.

On Monday, hundreds of students met with elected officials to lobby for action on climate change in a day-long “Hill blitz” coordinated by the Energy Action Coalition (EAC). In the afternoon, five representatives of the EAC presented testimony at a hearing of the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence.

Following the hearing, a demonstration was organized at a coal plant near Capitol Hill. Several thousand conference attendees gathered in front of the plant. A team of demonstrators chose to commit civil disobedience by linking arms and blockading the plant’s entrances for the afternoon, but no arrests were made.

In his account of the event, environmental writer Bill McKibben noted that many demonstrators came in dress clothes. “The point was to stress that there’s nothing radical about shutting down coal-fired power. In fact, there’s everything radical about continuing to pour carbon into the air just to see what happens,” McKibben wrote.

Powershift 2009 was organized by the EAC, a coalition of environmental groups formed in 2004, that aims to press for stronger climate policies. As Jessy Tolkan, executive director of the EAC, noted, “The youth of America turned out in record numbers to elect a new president and Congress in the last election. We’re here now to take our rightful seat at the political table.”

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oming together with over 12,000 other young environmentalists reminded me why I am so passionate about environmental action and leadership. Connecting with people from across North America, within Canada, and at McGill who are united in a common purpose despite their different backgrounds, interests, and strengths, has reenergized me to help make McGill a hub of sustainability activism and a major contributor to the student sustainability movement in Canada.

I had never attended an environmental conference in the U.S. before, let alone one of such magnitude. Learning about American campus organizing strategies, many new environmental NGOs and action groups, and different perspectives on international policy made for an interesting weekend. I focused on attending skill development workshops, especially those relating to media and to campus organizing.

– Maggie Knight, U1 Environment & Economics

– Devin McDougall, MA2 Political Science

For more information on Powershift and environmental action...

Official web site of Powershift 2009 and Energy Action Coalition: powershift09.org Reports from panels attended by McGill students: greeningmcgill.org Video from Powershift 2009: youtube.com/user/energyaction Info on the demonstrations at coal-fired Capitol power plant: capitolclimateaction.org/ Training material on community organizing from Marshall Ganz: isites.harvard. edu/icb/icb do?keyword=k2139

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he idea of meeting with 12,000 students and youth concerned with climate change and environmental justice in the American capital really excited me. Working with students in the McGill School of Environment has given me a strong knowledge of the challenges and issues environment students at McGill are concerned with, and bringing these views to Powershift seemed like a great idea.

Of all the scheduled events at Powershift, I found the panel discussion on international climate policy the most interesting, especially with the United Nations Climate Change conference just nine months away. It was especially exciting being one of only about 100 Canadians attending the conference. We made sure that the American delegation and organizers were aware that Canada was present and that we are dedicated to work ing alongside our neighbours to achieve real, effective policy change.

– Andrew Lemieux, U3 Environment & Development

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2008

n workshops and panel sessions on environmental action, as well as a practical event – a demonstration against the coal-fired Capitol power plant.

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Devin McDougall / The McGill Daily

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efore arriving at Powershift, I was not quite sure what to expect. I hadn’t counted on the amount of energy and movement to action that would be instilled in me over the course of the conference’s three days.

The keynote speeches on Friday night by Van Jones and Majora Carter were particularly inspiring. Just as with the labour, civil, and women’s rights movements, we are in a situation where those with power have incentives to maintain the status quo and to convince us that there are no feasible alternatives to dirty oil, gas, coal, and depleting the earth’s resources. Clean air and access to clean water should be considered a fundamental human right – one that is accessible to all.

My attendance at this conference has inspired me to take real action and to instigate change with more urgency: to get up on a soap box and tell my family, friends, neighbours, classmates, professors, and fellow citizens that we are faced with a moral obligation to clean up our act. Our window of opportunity to take action is very small. I hope that the skills and resources we acquired at Powershift can be shared with as many students as possible through workshops or informal skill sharing meet-ups. I would love to be involved in developing a coalition among the environmental and social advocacy groups on campus to help build strength in numbers and raise our voices for environmental and social justice.

– Megan Poss, U3 Management

learned a lot at Powershift, but it was really the diversity of people that made the conference such an incredible experience. We heard amazing stories of what people are doing in their own towns and schools to improve the local environment. There were high school students raising money to put solar panels on their school’s roofs and middle-aged people who have organized mass-scaled protests against coal plants.

Before attended Power Shift, I was already very passionate about the environment; however, my passion did not translate into action, since it wasn’t focused on a particular issue. Through Powershift, I think I’ve found an issue that I care about and can also have an impact on: the tar sands situation in Alberta. I now have a more focused energy, and a stronger will to take action and change the environment for the better.

– Sarah Xu, U1 Biology & International Relations

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owershift offered an ideal opportunity to get to know environmentally active members of the McGill community, and to find out how I could contribute to the group. I was excited to learn skills and network with people at Powershift to better equip me for involvement here at McGill – as well as when I return to my home university.

From high profile keynote speakers and packed panel discussions on uranium mining, to small interactive workshops on careers in the climate change movement, Powershift provided an intensive and challenging four days that reignited my passion for environmental justice. It encouraged me to continue my fight for a sustainable human presence on this planet, and I emerged inspired and eager to harness this enthusiasm and use it in university projects, my wider community, and on a global level.

– Laura Spelbrink, University of Melbourne exchange student

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still haven’t found the “right” way to engage myself with the Montreal community that compares to the level of social engagement I had back in Mexico. That’s why I thought Powershift would be the perfect opportunity to meet people concerned about the changes our world needs, as well as to learn about the most immediate concerns for North American youth regarding the environment.

For me, Powershift was about networking and sharing experiences. I had the opportunity to do so in a workshop entitled, “How to start a bike share.” People from Los Angeles to New York City, from Seattle to Miami – and me, from Montreal – participated in the session and shared feelings, ideas, and projects.

These ideas are contagious, and now I’m planning to work with the people from The Flat, McGill’s bike collective, to develop and realize them. Two particularly exciting ideas are setting up a bike share (public bicycles on-campus and eventually off-campus), and conducting free, outdoor, tune-up sessions. I will, of course, also “export” these ideas to my cycling advocate friends in Mexico!

newcomer to the realm of environmental conferences, I joined the McGill group headed to Powershift on a whim. I was primarily motivated by the idea of so many brilliant young minds coming together for a unified purpose, and I was looking to gain insight into what I could do back in Montreal. I also hoped to gather tools for the newlyformed Greenpeace McGill chapter.

Powershift was a more powerful experience than I’d imagined it would be. The conference gave me a firm kick out of what I now recognize as the position of relative apathy that I had comfortably inhabited for too long. I’ve now begun to rethink my future career plans, as well as to re-evaluate my use of free time and how I can pursue environmental activism both on campus and beyond. The key lesson I took away from Powershift was that individuals can make a difference; the only way forward is for individuals en masse to take on an organized and active role within their communities.

– Christian Scott Martone Donde, U1 IDS and Sociology

– Nora Hope, U1 Psychology

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Science+Technology

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

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Boycotting the bottle TAPthirst unpacks bottled water waste Sci+Tech Writer

Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily

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Where do all the animal parts go?

Little waste from laboratories at McGill is recycled Pinky Langat Sci+Tech Writer

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ou’ve probably never considered what happens to petri dishes full of bacterial cultures, carcasses of dissected arthropods, or hydrochloric acid used in titrations once you leave the lab.

Surely there is some special “waste disposal” mechanism for human bodies used in anatomy labs – it is probably difficult to fit arms and legs into a bio-hazard container. As a research-intensive university and leading medical research establishment, McGill’s many laboratories use

tonne. How the waste is handled and where it ends up – recycled, sent to landfills, or incinerated – depends greatly on the nature of the material.

Currently, very little waste from labs is recycled.

According to Bouchard, this is largely due to inefficient separation of laboratory waste.

“It’s very difficult to recycle the material because you never know what infections or chemical substances are mixed in. With lab waste, you never have a clear idea of what it really is,” Bouchard said.

In Quebec, the disposal of biomedical wastes – tissues, organs, animal carcasses, viruses, and bac-

“There are no ethical requirements that dictate... handling of animal anatomical waste.” and dispose of a myriad of chemicals, animals, and even human body parts.

According to Christian Bouchard, the manager of the McGill Waste Management Program, between June 2007 and May 2008, McGill laboratories produced 40 tonnes of biomedical wastes, 30 tonnes of flammable liquids, and six tonnes of radioactive waste. To put that in perspective, one compact car is roughly equal to one

teria – is governed by the Regulation Respecting Biomedical Waste. The regulation requires all biomedical waste to be incinerated, and McGill contracts an outside company, Stericycle, to do just that.

Rene Gaunaurd, a spokesperson for Stericycle, spoke about disposing of cadavers.

“We collect and incinerate anatomical material – that means tissue and bacteria. We don’t inciner-

ate bodies; we leave that to funeral homes.”

According Farah Jetha, an anatomy lab demonstrator at McGill, cadavers are rarely disposed of, and most often recycled.

“The cadavers we reuse are up to 15 years old,” Jetha said, referring to the approximately 60 cadavers the anatomy department keeps on hand.

Animal carcasses however, do not receive the same respect in handling as human bodies. Aside from provincial safety regulations, there are no ethical requirements that dictate appropriate procedures for the handling of animal anatomical waste.

Bouchard said that the process of disposing of dead mice as opposed to dead monkeys, for example, is not very discerning.

“It’s really just a matter of the classification they fall under [that determines their disposal destination].

They just go into a box or a bin and they are sent out to get incinerated,” said Bouchard.

Some labs do make an attempt to maximize the use of their wastes.

Flammable chemicals, for example, are sent for incineration and the energy from burning these chemicals is harnessed for other uses.

Before disposing of radioactive waste, McGill Waste Management stores the material until it decays.

According to Bouchard, the process can take from a day to over two years.

The disposal of material that does not decay within three years though, is outsourced.

s part of the activities for World Water Week, TAPthirst McGill, an anti-water privatization group, organized and held a workshop entitled “Un-bottle it! Why Not Bottled Water” last Tuesday.

The workshop brought together a group of eight students to discuss the social, cultural, and monetary impacts of bottled water consumption on society. The panel was timely as students approved a motion put forward by TAPthirst to ban the sale of bottled water in the Shatner Building at the SSMU General Assembly earlier this semester. The student union at McGill is not alone in its efforts, it appears, and the movement to ban bottled water may be gaining clout. The CBC reported earlier this month that a total of 21 Canadian universities and colleges have created bottle-free zones on their campuses.

TAPthirst argues that the production of plastic water bottles has a negative impact on the environment as the raw ingredients required to make them – terephthalic acid and monoethylene glycol – are very toxic.

According to the Container Recycling Institute, a non-profit organization involved in the promotion of recycling beverage containers, more than eight out of ten plastic water bottles in the United States end up in a landfill or incinerator. The bottled water industry is also a very wasteintensive one. The Pacific Institute, a non-profit research institute working toward environmental development, estimates that twice as much water is used in production of a bottle of water than is sold in the bottle.

According to TAPthirst McGill, bottled water is 240-10,000 times more expensive than tap water.

Bottled water consumers pay $750 for the same amount of water it costs

manufacturers $1.38 to produce.

Laura Beach, a second-year Concordia student majoring in geography and anthropology, said that the consumption of bottled water ultimately prevents the declaration of water as a human right.

“Buying bottled water doesn’t seem like a large act, but it does help promote the privatization of water to a certain extent,” argued Beach.

Caytee Lush, U2 Science and Education, expressed her frustration with the stigma associated with tap water, when most bottled water comes from the same source.

“We have this weird culture where you can’t drink or eat anything if it’s not wrapped in plastic,” she said.

Something that galls activists at TAPthirst is that bottled water companies usually take the water from the municipal system. For example, Dasani water in Canada is simply processed Calgary tap water, and Aquafina is sourced from the systems of Vancouver and Mississauga.

Part of the problem in trying to encourage tap water consumption is the image that many people have of leaky, rusty pipes in the municipal water system.

“I know a lot of people who don’t drink tap water because the infrastructure is really old,” said Pawel Porowski, a third-year geography major at Concordia.

Such prejudices against the municipal water system may be unfounded.

Material distributed at the workshop pointed out that while bottled water is only subject to random inspection by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, municipal water is monitored closely and constantly.

Porowski added that there are some problems caused by the aging water infrastructure, but those are mainly the result of water losses in the system.

“Up to 40 per cent of water is lost during transportation to leaks,” he explained.

Doug Breuer for The McGill Daily

David Zuluaga Cano

Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

20

Step right up to the three-ring landfill A closer look at the history of Montreal’s greenest circus

Nicholas Boisvert-Novak The McGill Daily

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a TOHU is a circus built on a landfill. Take your worst entrepreneurial idea – the girls-ofRed-Lobster calendar, talking sneakers, the “You Were Adopted!” greetings card – publicly tie them to the mafia and set them on fire; they’d still sound marginally more marketable than a circus built on a fucking landfill. At least they don’t conjure images of clowns dancing atop hordes of used condoms and empty cereal boxes.

On the flip side, that makes it much easier for me to recommend that you go, if only to shatter those deeply unfortunate first impressions.

With the bar set that low, it’s all the more pleasing to find that La TOHU is nothing short of a global example for environmental activism and civic renewal; a ray of light within Montreal’s least valued neighbourhood – St-Michel.

For one thing, you couldn’t tell about the landfill from the sight of the place. Sticking out like a sore thumb among the area’s kitsch seventies residences, the rather imposing TOHU building stands completely isolated, halfway between the Metropolitan highway and the St-Michel Environmental Complex.

The latter, I’m told, is what’s left of that infamous landfill, which the city finished covering up in 2004. Today, a vast spread of pavement and – in summer – patches of greenery are all the eye can see.

Still, you can imagine how the awkward locale – chosen for its proximity to La TOHU’s various parent organizations – conferred the organization its environmental and civic pedigree. Born as a nonprofit expansion to Montreal’s circus industry – with the specific purpose of diffusing the circus arts across the city – La TOHU acquired the remainder of its raison d’être shortly before construction commenced on its headquarters.

Certified as a “green” building by the Canada LEED program, the structure now represents most of La TOHU’s environmental commitments, flaunting a long list of environmentally-friendly contraptions – such as the ice bank that provides its air-conditioning, or the geothermal pipes that regulate its temperature – as proof. Meanwhile, the landfill’s converted gas secretions help provide the TOHU’s heating, a heartening move reminding us how environmental blights can occasionally be converted into (limited) blessings.

But La TOHU’s activism extends further, frequently manifesting itself in its selection of expositions and performances. For instance, last summer saw the presentation of Cindy Diane Rheault’s environmentally conscious photographs, arranged into a 100 per cent recycled-carton installation. And this summer will mark the return of La TOHU’s Fête Bio-Paysane, described as Canada’s largest eco-friendly event, uniting farmers, environmental groups, and green enterprises into a medley of workshops and conferences.

Though one would hope that La TOHU’s exceptional efforts are part of a part of a broader trend, the rest of the city has yet to catch up and make landfills a thing of the past.

Just recently for instance, the city has allowed the Lachenaie landfill to continue expanding far into 2012, at its current rate of 1.2 mega-tonnes per year – a move which threatens

not only the environment, but the area’s residents.

While it may not yet represent the norm, it’s quite clear to me, after having spoken to several of La TOHU’s employees, that the organization takes its environmental mandate to heart, considering itself to be a distinct part of the St-Michel neighbourhood’s cycle of renewal. As one

public relations official was careful to note, the landfill marks but one era of the area’s history, soon to be corrected by the city’s concerted efforts to transform its remains into Montreal’s second largest park. La TOHU, then, simply seems grateful to be helping St-Michel reach its peak, one that will hopefully free it of its environmentally scarred past.

Rebecca Chapman for The McGill Daily

The art of waste San Francisco residency program brings artists to the dump Tiana Reid The McGill Daily

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hen I think of a dump, the last thing that comes to mind is art. The Artist in Residence (AIR) program at the San Francisco dump, however, has changed how I associate these words.

Located in San Francisco, AIR supplies local artists with equipment, a studio, a monthly stipend, and 24-hour access to the materials in the dump. Founded in 1990 by artist Jo Hanson, AIR enables art to be created from people’s trash, which would otherwise be sent to landfills or recycling plants. The program’s

objective is to use art to encourage people to recycle more and to preserve the world’s dwindling environmental resources. It gives new life to an old saying: one person’s trash truly is another person’s treasure.

The art and sculptures made by the 75-plus artists that have been involved in the program are composed of everything and anything: bicycles, telephones, game pieces, hair curlers, fans, metal scraps, etc.

Artist David King completed his four-month residency at the dump at the end of January, during which he sifted through heaps of refuse for 20 hours a week. When asked if he had ever made sculptures out of recycled materials before, King replies, “Never. My previous work was always

two-dimensional collage. When I got to the dump, I thought I would continue that, but a lot of books don’t come through the waste stream. I had to respond to the waste stream as it came in and let the creative process lead me.” Just as King was able to mould his artistic process by reacting to emerging changes, society can and must find new ways to respond to the current environmental crisis and ensure sustainability.

Despite near-ubiquitous recycling facilities in most Canadian urban hubs, waste awareness should be further stressed, especially at a young age. One requirement of the AIR Program is teaching students, usually between the third and sixth grades, about waste. King emphasizes the

importance of this: “Kids would be excited and have ideas of their own.

Most of them were being exposed to [the idea of] reuse for the first time.”

“I could see their brains working, thinking of what they could do with their own trash,” he explains.

Every single San Franciscan public school student comes to the dump as part of the curriculum – the city’s culture is distinctly conscious of the environment. King delves deeper into this mentality: “San Franciscans are aware of their waste stream, and good about recycling. San Francisco diverts 70 per cent of their waste stream, which is a huge amount.

The state of California is very liberal and not afraid of new things. San Francisco is that times ten.”

When asked about what a program like AIR can do for social change, artist Christine Lee, who also completed her residency at the end of January, says AIR makes positive steps both by using environmentally-friendly practices and by encouraging the reuse of materials in its art projects.

The appeal for artists to work with reused materials extends beyond a desire to be environmentally friendly. It can be a challenge working in such a medium, but as Lee explains, “there is an inherent beauty to recycled material that hasn’t been presented yet.”

To see King’s and Lee’s art, visit davidkingcollage.com and missleelee.com.

Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

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One person’s trash is another one’s dinner An introduction to dumpster diving for the frugal foodie Anna Leocha The McGill Daily

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was first introduced to the phenomenon known as “dumpster diving” at a little restaurant called The Friendly Toast in the seaside town of Portsmouth, N.H. I had just gone to a local show and was about to dig into some late-night banana pancakes when the anarchist band walked in, recognized my crew, and sat down next to us. They looked hungry, and it was clear that they were not there to order food.

I was immediately reminded of the scene in Little Women, the movie, when the four March sisters generously but reluctantly package up their own delicious Christmas breakfast to bring to the impoverished

woodland family. Uh, was I expected to offer these mohawked men some of my food? I had ordered a threestack. I was in The Friendly Toast.

Gluttonous? Maybe. But then again, Beth March contracted scarlet fever from the woodland family and died from it – not everyone is rewarded for their good deeds.

But these scavengers had other priorities. “Yo, are there any bakeries around here?” asked the drummer, who had put on a shirt since the last time I saw him. As my friend directed them to one that was just around the corner, I naïvely wondered why, seeing as it was so late at night and the shop was sure to be closed.

When the band exited in ravenous haste, my more-informed friend let me know what was up. They were dumpster divers. They scavenged for

trash in dumpsters – trash that often included, but was not limited to, discarded food. My first reaction was surprise. “Ew?” was my second.

I’m aware that we live in a “waste generation.” We waste time on Facebook, we waste natural resources, and we get wastey-faced every weekend. But do we consume waste…gastronomically? Apparently, we do. Dumpster diving has become a popular hobby for the frugal, adventurous, and environmentallyconscious in urban areas. “Dive” communities have formulated where there is food to be scavenged.

In Solin Hall, a small group of brave students gather weekly, with a mission to find edible waste that they can later cook up in a lip-smacking, celebratory meal.

Solin floor fellow Caytee Lush,

a casual dumpster diver herself, is proud of her students. “It’s free food that will otherwise go to waste,” she explains. “And it’s a way to circumvent shitty, capitalist systems that…suck.”

Every week, fruiteries, bakeries, and groceries trash food that isn’t trash. Fruit that has gone soft and dayold bread are provisions that can be consumed, rather than added to the heaps of waste we generate in such massive quantities. Our parents always tell us not to waste the food on our plate. Perhaps dumpster divers are merely the most obedient children.

There are guidelines that should be followed by any interested party.

I would suggest referring to the wikiHow web site, keyword: dumpster dive. This little guide suggests checking the local laws, wearing the appropriate clothing, cleaning up after

yourself, and finding “hot spots.”

Jean Talon is apparently a “gold mine,” says a regular diver. Bakeries are also worth creeping, especially if you’re interested in making friends.

(Translation: bread is usually trashed in bulk and can make a great college party-gift. Teenagers will enjoy eating and making funny hats with the loafs while drunk.)

Unfortunately, many businesses have started locking their dumpsters, or simply not putting their trash outside. The pickings are getting slim.

Divers are getting restless. Oscar is getting grouchier. Although I’m not an authority on the subject and am probably too prissy to ever attempt it myself, I champion those garbage grubbers, and encourage them to keep the faith. I will continue eating my banana pancakes.

Do thrift stores actually reduce waste?

Holly Dressel puts second-hand shopping doubts to rest William Burton The McGill Daily

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question’s been bothering me lately: does second-hand shopping, at used-book and thrift stores, really reduce production and waste? So I called Holly Dressel, the environmental author and activist, to discuss the issue, figuring that since she sits on the board of Sierra Club Canada and has worked extensively with David Suzuki, she might be able to give me a straight answer. And she did: “Of course it does.”

She then went on to destroy my hypothesis that the recuperation of second-hand style by such stores, for example, as Urban Outfitters, means that thrift-store fashion only increases waste. She told me that it all goes back to the tripartite mantra of the environmentalist movement: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The Suzuki-friend explained that we should reduce on two fronts: we should use what we have as much as possible, which means buying second-hand, and we should get used to living with less (clothes, possessions, travel, etc.), which will reduce production. The Earth, she told me, can’t take this anymore – we need to make fewer products and fewer babies, because our mineral resources aren’t going to grow back and our planet can’t sustain such reckless population growth.

As for recycling clothes, Dressel had some reassuring words for anyone anxious about their fashion being co-opted by manufacturers: “It’s not your fault if some capitalist fat-cat takes your style.” (Dressel did admit,

Sasha Plotnikova / The McGill Daily

however, that she has trouble getting good finds at thrift stores.) She was rather optimistic about clothing manufacturing, saying that the current financial crisis will strike that sector of the economy first, because people can more easily stop buying new clothes than they can stop buying food.

She was also enthusiastic about used-book stores; she told me she usually brings in as many books as she takes out when she shops at them. Book manufacturing, like other industries, will simply need to produce less – even if that means a certain number of jobs lost.

Dressel pointed out that a good

way to make our society waste less is to waste less ourselves, thereby decreasing demand for overproduction. She told me that it practically makes her ill to throw away anything nowadays, and that she’d rather find a new use for an old thing than put it in the trash.

The underlying message of our

conversation was that we need a steady-state economy, a situation where population growth and consumption have reached a sustainable plateau. To attain the steady state, we need to learn to live with less, she said. Other societies have done it before. We just can’t keep going like this.

Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

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A kill-joy, and loving it Sara Ahmed challenges the figure of the happy housewife Shea Sinnot Culture Writer

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ast week, the McGill community gathered to listen to international scholar Sara Ahmed’s talk, entitled “Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness.”

Hosted by Media@McGill and the McGill Centre for Research and Training on Women, Ahmed presented her paper – an excerpt from her forthcoming book The Promise of Happiness, which examines the “history of happiness through a feminist lens.” Ahmed is Professor of Race and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. As McGill’s Dr. Marc Raboy described Ahmed in his introduction, as “one of the most exciting thinkers” in the fields of feminist, postcolonial, and queer theory. Indeed, Ahmed did not disappoint, as she presented an

original and incisive take on the history of feminist struggles and offered a new way of envisioning feminist consciousness in the future.

Ahmed began by introducing the figure of the “happy housewife.”

She claimed that the genealogy of this figure – one that can be traced from the 18th century to the present day – is exemplary of the conflict between feminism and happiness: the housewife has come to embody the way happiness translates “norms” into “goods.” In other words, it is the happiness of the happy housewife that validates and then normalizes her status in society. Ahmed cited feminist denunciation of the happy housewife as a fantasy figure that conceals “signs of labour” beneath signs of happiness. Further, she claimed the image of the happy housewife erases the labour of impoverished women excluded from the possibility of attaining this happiness.

Next, Ahmed discussed the role of the queer subject. She cited Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness as a text that exemplifies the way the “queer life is constructed as an unhappy life.”

That is, in order to maintain the “hap-

unhappy with queer love that queers become unhappy.”

Similarly, Ahmed expressed her frustration with the stereotype of the “feminist kill-joy” and pointed to the “myth of the joyless feminist” in the

“It is because the world is unhappy with queer love that queers become unhappy.”

Sara Ahmed Professor of Race and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London piness of the straight world” as the norm, queer must equal unhappiness.

Ahmed argued that the happiness of the straight world is thus itself an injustice, since the supposed unhappiness of the “deviant” supports the straight world’s marginalization of the queer subject. Consequently, Ahmed believes it is “because the world is

writings of Caribbean-American feminist writer Audre Lorde. It seems this stereotype is invoked to prove the feminist’s unhappiness and then justify her dismissal; sadly, the injustice she protests will then often go unnoticed. Perhaps, as Ahmed claimed, it is our dissatisfaction with the world that leads us to a feminist ethic; we are not

unhappy because we are feminist, we are feminist because we are unhappy with the way things are. Ahmed defined feminism as the “inheritance of sadness in seeing gender as a restriction of possibility.” And yet, ultimately, she argued it is the feminist kill-joy’s refusal to “just be happy” that unveils the true character of happiness – as “loss” and “false consciousness.”

In the end, Ahmed highlighted the possibility for laughter in “swapping stories of being the kill-joy,” and the potential for “solidarity in recognizing [our] shared alienation from happiness.” Together, she says, we must reclaim the figure of the “feminist kill-joy” and, in turn, find joy in challenging patriarchal norms.

ONLINE Listen to the talk at media. mcgill.ca/en/node/1356. mcgilldaily.com

Art in the raw Erin O'Callaghan The McGill Daily

W

ith MGMT playing in the background and a glass of wine in my hand, I slowly worked through the throngs of artloving hipsters at the Fridge Door Gallery (FDG)’s vernissage last week in Leacock 111. The gallery is entirely student-run and depends on the tireless work of its eight executives, along with the numerous art history students, who volunteer to help curate and organize the show.

As one FDG executive, Alysa Batzios, explains, “there has long been a need for a venue to display the creative efforts of McGill’s students, especially in the absence of a fine arts faculty.”

“We hope to encourage and inspire students to continue to be creative,” she adds, “and help McGill shed its reputation of being a school that ignores the value of the fine arts.”

As I examined the works of the 13 participating artists, I was shocked at their artistic ability. It’s not that I thought the artists wouldn’t be talented; it’s just that at McGill, it seems we tend to favour honing our essaywriting and exam-taking skills over our creativity. However, the vernissage opened my eyes to the immense artistic talent of McGill students who find time to create art on their own, despite academic pressures.

“The fact that most of the talents are untouched by art school influences makes the variation even better. The expressions of the artist [can] ultimately [be] more raw and genuine that way,” explains first-year student and Daily staffer Aquil Virani, participating in his second FDG exhibition.

The Fridge Door Gallery strives to be open and inclusive. As a result, they don’t decide the theme for the vernissage until after they have received all the submissions. That way, no one feels as though they can’t submit to the gallery because they can’t think of a piece that fits with the theme.

The 13 artists participating come from very diverse backgrounds academically, and it’s encouraging to see that art history, international development, biology, and English students can all produce such amazing works of art.

I was particularly impressed by Lila Jiang Chen and Gillian Chang’s Urban Grass, a piece originally designed as an architecture project. The “grass” is made of brushed aluminium tubes, steel rods, and a concrete base. I love the idea of the natural world being represented by something made of concrete and metal, the very antithesis of nature itself. In the piece’s description, the artists note that the “device acknowledges the presence of people as a fundamental factor in shaping the environment around

us.” When viewers gently touched the piece, it would sway in a whimsical fashion, creating a musical sound similar to wind chimes.

Another favourite piece of mine was William Robinson’s Molasses photo series, in which a performance artist pours the viscous fluid over himself.

This was the FDG’s fifth expo, and the organizers’ experience was clear in the way the evening was successfully executed. However, it was also the last for most of the original creators of the gallery, hence the appropriate theme: Art Shift. “Art Shift is a reference primarily to our passing the torch…. The gallery is shifting into a new era, into new hands. The shift theme also refers to the organic and metamorphic feel that many of our pieces have,” says Batzios.

The reaction to the gallery has been positive, and each year more and more students submit their art and attend the expos. Even as the executives graduate, they are hopeful for the future. “We’re passing the torch to a new generation of art history students, and we hope that they not only keep the Fridge Door Gallery alive, but take the gallery to new heights,” adds Batzios.

If you’re an art history student who is interested in participating in the Fridge Door Gallery next year, please send an email to fridgedoorgallery@gmail.com.

Luke THienhaus for The McGill Daily

Fridge Door Gallery’s latest vernissage lives up to the hype

24 Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

A tough act to follow McGill festival delivers the best of student-written plays Veronica French The McGill Daily

T

here’s a light at the end of the tunnel during study season, and it comes in the form of student-run theatre. Player’s Theatre presents their 11th annual McGill Drama Festival (MDF) putting on five productions every night of the week from March 24 until April 4. This year, MDF received over 20 play submissions, giving a reading panel a difficult task in choosing their top five.

In January, both directors and actors auditioned to get their hands on the plays, with three short months to put on a spectacular show, a feat they pulled off with success.

MDF’s colourful theatre community attracts engineering students and English lit majors alike. Being a student-led production without the interference of faculty members, the richness of the festival comes partly from the diversity of the students involved, from all departments and all years. Three out of the five directors are first-year students, bringing fresh talent and dynamism to the group.

Ekphrasis, a play written by Dominic Man-Bertrand and directed by Pat Trinh, took the stage Thursday, March 26 and plays again this Tuesday and Thursday. The comedy chronicles an evening of bickering and self-discovery: two odd couples attend a modern art show. Each character is an island and has a completely different personality from the others; the show contrasts an obnoxious yet garishly sexy woman with an up-tight and prudish older woman.

The characters’ problems range from exis-

Burford, which stresses how communication can be a pain sometimes. An unlikely friendship develops between an amnesiac and a mute while the audience is unaware of his condition – unless you read the blurb on the festival’s web site – which keeps the

tential crises to petty couple-fights.

Yet they experience a hard fall off of their high horses when, during the art show, a bucket of water is splashed onto the characters, as if saying: “Get over yourself!”

Everyone needs a splash of water from time to time.

Also performing Thursday 26 was Four Quiet Mornings, a touching drama written

by Mike Lake and directed

by Joel

Loving eye contact and sweet smiles and giggles tell most of the story in ways that words usually cannot. It’s difficult not to be touched by their bittersweet relationship, as was reflected in the audience’s facial reactions.

The show goes on this Wednesday

“MDF’s colourful theatre community attracts engineering and English lit majors alike.” viewers guessing and eager to see how the story develops.

Since the characters must communicate through writings on a notepad and an awkward chalkboard around the girl’s neck, their facial expressions are key.

Lonnie Nadler for The McGill Daily

and Friday.

The effort put into organizing and coordinating MDF was impressive. Together, Arts Undergradue Theatre Society and mcgillSTAGE have brought McGill’s theatre community an enjoyable festival. Despite the challenges of sharing resources, getting kicked out of SSMU basement, and the huge time commitment involved, MDF pulled it off.

Being thrown out of your comfort zone and facing risks is what “creates good theatre,” explains MDF coordinator Meaghan Davis. Director Danielle Boudreau agrees that the “challenges and imperfect spaces force you to be creative and [get] everyone involved.” Remarkably so, MDF made students jump over high hurdles, but at the same time it helped them explore and develop their theatre community, and gave them the opportunity to share these accomplishments with the rest of us.

MDF goes on all week, every day at 8 p.m. For only six measly bucks you get two great plays. To check the full schedule of all five plays and a short synopsis of each, go to ssmu. ca/players.

Rethinking the political individual Back Off! seeks to unite activists through art

Allison Friedman The McGill Daily

F

orget “art for art’s sake.” This year’s Back Off! – an “annual feminist event” hosted by the Women’s Studies Association of Concordia and the Centre des femmes de l’UQAM – aims to explore and perpetuate the symbiotic relationship between art and social change in Montreal. “The link…is

not a clear or linear one,” explains Claudyne Chevrier, one of the event’s organizers, “but we think that if people are touched…they might listen.”

Through a day of discussion and workshops, Chevrier and her colleagues hope to “draw attention to political art being produced in Montreal and to understand how social movements use art to transmit their messages.” The focus is on “the political individual,” and the ways in which we can expand our notions of this individual by “rethinking” conventional representations of gender. The event is intended to be a meeting place for those involved in social movements to gain an artistic perspective, and for artists to explore how they might incorporate social issues into their work – Chevrier hopes that “different groups of people come together to

discuss ideas with people they don’t usually get to see.” She adds that the conference was “born of a desire to bring together the franco and anglo feminist scenes in Montreal.”

Don’t be misled by the event’s somewhat uninviting title, which Chevrier admits “can sound a little aggressive:” all the activities are entirely free, in both English and French with translation available.

Examples of workshops include “Zine Production,” “Feminist Radio,” and “Silkscreening for the Revolution.”

On-site childcare and food will also be provided, free of charge. Chevrier explains the motivation for Back Off! “comes from the idea that we see problems; we’ve seen and talked about those problems for a long time, and we now want to act…with energy and enthusiasm.”

CULTURE BRIEF Out of the library and into the theatre Though consensus certainly points to McGill hating the fine arts, that doesn’t seem to be stopping the English department from breeding a few performing artists every now and then, in between hordes of homeless baristas. Case in point: the Directors’ Projects Festival, running this year from March 25 to April 4. To the kids directing its ten professionally-written one-act plays, it’s the product of a full year’s sweat and toil, and the final grade book-ending their theatre

studies degree.

Small casts notwithstanding, these productions breezily maintain the standards we’ve all come to expect from McGill student plays.

Not to mention, of course, the value: each play runs a total of three times – twice in the evening for $5, and once in the matinee for $3.

Those interested should head over to the English department’s web site, or to the Directors’ Projects Festival’s appropriately-named Facebook page, which conveniently lists play schedules and synopses.

Or, take a chance and head over to Morrice Hall at 8 p.m., any day until Saturday. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better reason to get out of the library.

— Nicholas Boisvert-Novak

Culture

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

25

Courtesy of Owen Egan

Zak Rose (left) captures Caesar’s swagger and sway, but Spencer Malthouse (right) steals the show with his dynamic portrayal of Cassius.

Et tu, dystopia?

McGill production of Caesar is well-crafted, despite lacklustre performances William M. Burton The McGill Daily

I

n the department of English’s current production of Julius Caesar, Professor Patrick Neilson, the director and set designer, has set Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy in “a dystopic future where radical climate change and desertification [have] brought about social and economic instability,” according to the play’s press release. Uneven performances from the actors mar this visually interesting interpretation of the Bard’s tale of political ambition.

The set, as well as the costumes, designed by Jaelem Sangara, illustrate the director’s post-cataclysm aesthetic through the lens of eighties futurism. Using recycled materials to fashion clothes reminiscent at once of cyberpunk and classical dress, Sangara’s costumes call to mind the ancient and the modern, the play’s roots and the update the director has attempted to give it.

The six vertical blocks around the set reinforce this apocalyptic atmosphere. Like brutalist buildings, these structures abstract traditional forms – in this case, columns – into stark, honest shapes. The colours of the columns, various shades of decayed green, help reinforce the notion that some sort of disaster has occurred.

Together, the costume and set design give a desolate image of the future,

a world where all buildings are bare and utilitarian, and all clothes scavenged from the rubbish heap.

Using the three small staircases that also adorn the set to delineate space and emphasize certain actions, the director is able to make a small cast seem large (in the battle in Act V, for example), and small actors seem towering (the somehow imposing yet diminutive Cicero of Sean Wood).

These stairs also permit Neilson to focus attention on orators or on particular dramas, like Brutus’s suicide.

Dave Howden’s lighting works particularly well. It’s hard to imagine certain scenes having the effect they do without Howden’s skilful arrangements. The red light during Caesar’s assassination and the blue at the close of the play are especially powerful.

The music, however, by sound engineer Chris Barillaro, is distracting and trite. Most noteworthy is the cringe-worthy use of “drama piano” during Antony’s eulogy for Brutus.

Rather than heightening the pathos of the scene, the strains of piano make it seem cliché and forced. The music saps all of the emotional force from Antony’s speech.

Without a doubt, the best parts of the play are the crowd scenes. The “mutiny” in Act III deserves special mention. After Antony whips the public into a frenzy, the animalistic plebeians, shrieking, stooping and stomping, run off stage. Darkness, then a spotlight: Cinna the poet

(Jordana Weiss) walks alone. The shadows of the rabble rise on the steps in the background; several of them open lighters.

The tension mounts and mounts in a taut exchange – and breaks: the howling masses brutalize the innocent writer. In this one scene, the greatest strengths of the production – its emotional energy, Howden’s lighting, and its use of space – culminate.

the flatness of Rose’s portrayal. His body language is especially well-rendered, for example, when enthroned at the Senate, and effectively conveys a man whose hubris blinds him to the dangers that surround him.

Little saves Murteza Khan’s Brutus, however, whose depthless, monotonous performance is a great disappointment. At turns angry and yelling or bland and uninspired, Khan

Merely on the merits of its staging and lights, this play deserves to be seen.

This scene also brings out the play’s most troubling aspect: its mistrust, or scorn, of democracy.

Shakespeare presents to us a volatile, fickle crowd, swayed by whatever words Antony, Brutus, or Caesar throw their way. As Cassius and Brutus fight to save the Republic, we wonder if this lot really deserves the effort.

As for the acting itself, the performances are uneven. Zak Rose interprets Caesar somewhat shallowly.

Nevertheless, the swagger and sway, and the good-humoured arrogance of the dictator gives us a novel insight into his character and make up for

fails to deliver the multidimensional Brutus that the play calls for. His wavering over the plot to kill Caesar in the first three acts is unconvincing, as is his gushing, emotional reaction to Portia’s self-inflicted wound in Act II. Worst of all is his recourse to yelling, as when he inappropriately shouts himself hoarse during his justification to the people of Rome.

Indeed, hoarseness is a problem for several of the actors, many of whom yelled, rather than emoted.

On the subject of voices, the voice of the soothsayer (also Weiss) regrettably echoed Christian Bale’s Batman voice. Her ridiculous, raspy growl

makes her predictions of misfortunate impossible to take seriously.

Antony, played by Fraser Dickson, is a breath of fresh air after so many scenes of Brutus monologuing. His transition from grief to wrath following Caesar’s murder is moving and effective; his devious manipulation of the crowd is brilliant and entertaining. Dickson only fails during his eulogy of Brutus; his overwrought delivery exacerbates the melodramatic mood set by the fleeting piano in the background.

Spencer Malthouse’s Cassius stood out from the four other protagonists and stole the show. Gesticulating, twisting his face and bending his voice to convey Cassius’s complexity, Malthouse brings his character’s corrosive jealousy vividly to life in Act I. (His portrayal is especially strong when relating the story of Caesar’s near-drowning.) Malthouse performs Cassius’s hysterical, self-pitying theatrics with subtlety, skill and humour, and more than makes up for the flat Brutus.

Merely on the merits of its staging and lights, this play deserves to be seen. The high points of Neilson’s Julius Caesar – Malthouse, Dickson and the group scenes – make up for the flawed and flat performances of too much of the cast.

The play runs this weekend, April 2-4, at 7:30 p.m. in Moyse Hall Theatre.

26 Art Essay

M&T

Art Essay by Sally Lin

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

Compendium!

The McGill Daily, Monday, March 30, 2009

Lies, half-truths, and petty attemps to get people to pick up the paper

Sudoku debut!

It’s a numbers game!

Daily stoops to new lows Inclusion of Sudoku met with mixed results; design rules ignored Harriet Rocco The McGill Daily

A

fter including not one but two pen-to-paper attempts at increasing readership, The McGill Daily, a twice-weekly independent student newspaper in Montreal, stepped way over the fucking edge.

Special thanks to the Canadian University Press for The McGill Daily

28

“Sudoku? Is that a fucking joke?” said frequent writer Kicky Reitner.

“I don’t know, I think it’s pry’okay,” said exchange student Webecca Rithers, adding, “But I don’t know what was going on with that last page.

All the headlines were gargantuan, they used that stupid ‘WANTED’ font again, and it just looked like a bucket of filth.”

Reitner said that last comment reminded him of a particularly choice YouTube video featuring all-star American news reportage focusing on the many appearances of Jesus: on Cheetos, on a cat, in ice cream; the list goes on.

“I find it a therapeutic exercise to look into all the most recent appearances of a formerly Arab dude.”

Somali pirates seize pursued Danish

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. That means that no number is repeated in any row, column, or box.

WANTED: CONTENT FOR THE LAST COMPENDIUM OF THE YEAR COMPENDIUM@MCGILLDAILY.COM

Arnie’s last hoorah Arnie Voorman

Neera Kitely The McGill Daily MOGADISHU – Somali pirates seized the entire Danish navy yesterday.

The Danish navy was patrolling the Indian Ocean as part of a multinational anti-piracy coalition that also includes the United States, China, and Canada.

Piracy has grown considerably in the Indian Ocean over the past few years, most likely due to romanticized portrayals of pirates in the

Across 1. 36 and 51 D’s toy persona 6. Sign of spring 10. Cord fibre 14. “Tomorrow” musical 15. Pro ___ 16. “I had no ___!”

17. Motionless 18. Cupid, to the Greeks 19. Marmalade ingredient 20. Add up 21. Machine 23. Ill-tempered 25. 36 D’s ‘mature’ movie 26. Ants on a log ingredient 29. Bind together 33. Chicken ___ king 34. Alliance acronym 37. Colon cleaner 38. Life, to 36 and 51 D. 42. “La Bohême,” e.g.

43. Arabic for “commander” 44. Dorms, to McGillites 45. A rare earth element 47. Extremely tired 50. “___ alive!”

51. Coil 53. One of the wise men 57. Tibet’s capital 61. Balm ingredient 62. Beethoven’s birthplace 63. Africa’s largest country 64. Nicholas II, for one 65. Norse god

media, which have proven highly popular in Somalia.

The Danish government condemned the pirates in a press release.

However, several countries’ leaders chose instead to react to the news over Twitter.

“Heard that a whole country’s navy got captured. Relieved it wasn’t Canada,” wrote Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“Lulz @ Denmark,” wrote Chinese President Hu Jintao.

“Seine Kriegsmarine ist Scheisse!1!!,” wrote German

Chancellor Angela Merkel.

When asked why the pirates pursued the Danish navy, pirate lord Donny Jepp responded, “I just said I wanted a Danish, savvy – a flaky crust and a fruity filling.”

An anonymous source inside the Danish government has indicated that Queen Margrethe II of Denmark will be flying to Mogadishu to personally deliver Jepp a request that he return the navy, along with a pastry… on a platter.

It remains to be seen whether Jepp will be inclined to acquiesce to that request.

66. Yemeni’s neighbour 67. A long, long time 68. Sum, ___, fui 69. Jocks’ antitheses

40. “Show a little ___” 41. Kind of agreement 46. Functional 48. 36 and 51 D’s best friend, for a time 49. Dig up 51. See 36 D 52. “Sesame Street” regular 53. Diminish 54. ___-ran 55. They may be sub-prime 56. Chaotic places 58. Month before Nisan 59. Beach, basically 60. Liquorish flavor

Down 1. Garbage 2. “I’m ___ you!”

3. “Don’t bet ___!”

4. Enlarge 5. Screamer 6. Milk-Bone biscuit, e.g.

7. Greedy woman 8. Above 9. Sushi condiment 10. Style of Japanese writing 11. Cut, maybe 12. Maître d’s offering 13. Protections 22. Star in Orion 24. ‘N ___ 26. North America’s European discoverer 27. Run off to the chapel 28. Less strict 29. Centers of activity 30. Prefix with -hedron 31. Arab leader 32. Fresh-mouthed 35. “Beg pardon ...”

36. See 1, 25 36, and 38 A, nd 48 D. 39. Satellites, e.g.

Solution to ‘faculty flicks’