The McGill Daily Vol105Iss4

Volume 105, Issue 4 Monday, September 21, 2015

McGill THE

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DAILY

Publishing newspapers since 1911 mcgilldaily.com

Published by The Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.

LIVE WORK. LIVE. WORK PLAY. PLAY LEARN. LEARN CONSTRUCTION CO S UC O ISS NOW O WELL UNDERWAY U

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The McGill University Library and Archives is launching digitized editions of historic McGill University newspapers with a Trivia Night!

The launch will take place on Monday, Sept. 21, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Faculty Club Ballroom (3450 McTavish St.).

Space is limited, so please RSVP at rsvp.libraries@mcgill.ca This exciting digitization project spans from the late 1870s to 2001 and includes past and current McGill newspapers such as The McGill Daily, Le Délit, The Outlook and The Martlet, as well as Macdonald Campus newspapers. To view the digitized publications, please visit https://archive.org/details/mcgilluniversitystudentpublications and https://archive.org/details/mcgilluniversitymacdonaldcampushistory The McGill University Library and Archives wishes to thank the Harold Crabtree Family Foundation for their generous support of this initiative.

Please contact (514) 398-5710 for more information.

News

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

McGill kickstarts Medieval Studies minor

03 NEWS Medieval Studies minor launched SSMU Council talks antiausterity, mental health, finances Post-grads to ask for fee increase La Citadelle acquisition, a bad investment SSMU anti-austerity week

07

COMMENTARY

Why Divest McGill is camping out Textbooks are too expensive Syrian refugees are not a burden Letters

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FEATURES

13

SCI+TECH

Why liberal feminism was not enough for me

Harmfulness of pesticides Get ready for Soup and Science

15

SPORTS

Migrant workers and the World Cup Backyard Zumba

16

CULTURE

Hearing colours at Arsenal Filters in social media; pseudo censorship?

Reviewing Montreal’s newest outdoor gallery Feminist theatre is dying in Quebec

19

EDITORIAL

Coderre’s hypocrisy on refugees

20 COMPENDIUM! A federal dance-off

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New minor to span departments, geographical regions Rebecca Kahn News Writer

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all 2015 marks the first semester that McGill is offering an interdisciplinary Medieval Studies minor. This new minor concentration consolidates courses pertaining to the medieval millennium (approximately 500 to 1500 C.E.), including history, literature, art history, religion, philosophy, Islamic studies, and Jewish studies.

About two years ago, associate professor of English Literature Michael Van Dussen, associate professor of Art History Cecily Hilsdale, and Faith Wallis, a history professor, began the discussion of creating a minor in Medieval Studies. According to Hilsdale, this “brain child” was conceived from the pre-existing abundance of resources and interest in medieval studies at McGill. She said, “All of our classes are always full and we just thought we should combine forces and make a minor program that would be comparable to some programs in places like [the University of Toronto].”

Hilsdale added, “Because [Wallis] and [Van Dussen] and I work with manuscripts themselves very closely, we were envisioning the minor as a way of really kind of building the specialization and teaching students how to work with manuscripts, because it’s really specialized language to describe and read manuscripts. [It’s] not just something you pick up on.”

One such student is Kyung-Seo Min, a U3 English Literature and Art History student who intends to study medieval art in graduate school. In an interview with The Daily, Min said, “I would have loved to have seen the Medieval Studies minor when I was in my first year here.”

Unfortunately, this minor is materializing too late for Min. “[The development of the minor] is important to me because I’d [have liked] to have that background in medieval studies in my undergraduate career, [...] have that foundation at least as a minor before I go on to pursue either a masters or PhD,” Min continued.

Indeed, according to Hilsdale, the minor concentration is “a way of lending an official status” to the transcripts of students who pursue an interest in the medieval period during their undergraduate degrees.

Van Dussen added, “One of the things we’re also hoping this minor will do is give students who do want to go on to graduate school –which

Stephanie Ngo | Illustrator isn’t everyone – in this area, a credential on their transcript. [...] And that can be a real asset for students who do want to go to medieval studies on the graduate level.”

For Van Dussen, who is also the director of the program, the interdisciplinary aspect of the new minor is vital, particularly due to the temporal distance of the medieval period from the modern perspective. “To even get your bearings [in the medieval period] you have to have an interdisciplinary approach. [...] That becomes less crucial the more recent you get,” he said.

Min, whose passion for medieval studies stems from its unique mixture of work with manuscripts, architecture, and art, also spoke highly of the program’s interdisciplinary nature. “I think it’s really

awesome [because] you don’t have to be an English [Literature] major to fill all of the requirements or anything. So it’s very inclusive.”

“I think the most exciting thing about the minor is that it’s global,” said Hilsdale. “[When] a lot of people think about medieval studies, at least art historically, [...] they think Gothic cathedrals,” she said, adding, “It is not that. It is classes in Islamic studies [as well]. I teach a class on Constantinople right now.

It is Jewish studies. It really is [...] the global Middle Ages.”

Throughout the process of getting the minor approved, Van Dussen found that as with many humanities concentrations, there was skepticism as to whether a Medieval Studies program was warranted. “You just have to explain yourself a lot more and do a lot of

justification if you’re going to try to get a program – passed through the channels – that doesn’t make money, that doesn’t have a very clear through line to a profession, and that doesn’t align obviously with wider public interest. That’s disappointing,” said Van Dussen.

According to Van Dussen, the minor simply synthesizes pre-existing courses, with only the addition of one new capstone course, Interdisciplinary Seminar in Medieval Studies (MDST 400). This means no additional resources had to be budgeted for the minor, eliminating at least one roadblock from the path of these medievalists.

The minor isn’t the end of the path, however. “I would like [the minor] to mature over many years, and then we’ll start the long process of establishing a major,” Van Dussen said.

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News

September 21, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

SSMU Council talks anti-austerity Student mental health, finances discussed

Rayleigh Lee News Writer

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n September 17, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council held its first meeting of the academic year. Executive members, committees, and senators updated Council on their work over the summer and their involvement in upcoming projects, including anti-austerity mobilization, student mental health, finances, and provincial student federation affiliation.

Council also adopted the interim provisions for committee membership and the standing rules for the 2015-16 Legislative Council. A motion regarding the creation of adhoc committees was also adopted after the nominations for the Board of Directors.

Anti-austerity week Council discussed the antiausterity week that took place last week. “Anti austerity is going to be huge [...] this fall,” said VP External Affairs Emily Boytinck at Council.

Speaking to The Daily, Boytinck said, “Anti-austerity week is incredibly important because of the momentum that the anti-austerity movement is gaining in Quebec.”

“This fall, public sector unions are entering negotiations and some are mobilizing toward a strike.

Other student associations, notably those who are members of [Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ)], are also mobilizing toward an unlimited general strike,” she continued.

Boytinck also emphasized the importance of McGill students’ involvement. “Countless demonstrations have already been called and more are anticipated to be coming. McGill students have historically participated less in Quebec social movements, so it is essential that our students are given the opportunities to learn and resources to better develop campaigns so that we can more fully participate in the anti-austerity movement this fall.”

Student mental health In her report, VP University Affairs Chloe Rourke reported on SSMU’s progress on creating a student mental health and wellbeing program.

Rourke proposed to develop and implement a cohesive model among support services and student groups. Speaking to Council, she said, “There has been a lot of changes [...] in terms of student services and student provisions to meet increasing demands.”

Rourke also commented that in order to have an efficient system, Council must “ensure that [mental health and well-being

SSMU President Kareem Ibrahim speaking at Council. programs] are student driven, and focus on the students.”

“We can focus on more proactive preventative health promotion to the number of students that have to go seeking interventions that are highly intensive because they are in crisis mode,” said Rourke.

Rourke also talked about the Mental Health Awareness Week, which will take place between Oc-

Sonia Ionescu | Photographer

tober 15 and 25, and is organized by the SSMU Mental Health Committee. It will concentrate on raising awareness about mental health and illnesses and on advocating student consultation to propose changes to existing McGill policies and practices.

SSMU finances According to VP Finance & Operations Zacheriah Houston, SSMU’s

current financial outlook is optimistic, as Frosh registration numbers are estimated to give approximately $2,000 above the projected revenues. In addition, Houston stated that SSMU is “on track” to meet its target of $21,000 in profit from minicourses, and is satisfied with SSMU’s revenues from its investment portfolio for the 2014-15 academic year, with the entire portfolio now worth approximately $3.5 million.

Post-grads to hold fee increase referendum

Council adopts traditional territory acknowledgment, rejects bee party funding Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

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he Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) Council held its first meeting of the academic year on September 16. Council discussed ten motions, including the adoption of an Indigenous territory acknowledgement statement and the approval of two referendum questions asking for fee increases.

Other motions passed included bylaw changes, equity amendments to the Society Activities Manual, and the establishment of an intellectual property working group.

Motion for Indigenous territory acknowledgment Council discussed two motions, both of which passed, regarding the acknowledgement of McGill’s location on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. One of the motions mandated PGSS to support “the efforts of students and groups at McGill University seeking the adoption of a traditional territory acknowledgement by the

university administration,” and the other concerned the adoption of such an acknowledgment by PGSS itself.

Explaining the motion, External Affairs Officer Bradley Por said, “For quite some time, Indigenous students on campus have been working to get the University to acknowledge that it is on traditional territories and [they] have received quite a bit of resistance.”

Por said that one of the reasons why the University was hesitant to adopt an acknowledgment was due to a fear of land claims. The acknowledgment has been edited over time to mitigate these concerns.

“There’s not a chance of that happening. There are two legal memos that the First Peoples’ House has got written saying that there isn’t a real fear of that,” Por said.

The two motions were adopted without debate.

Questions on the subject of fee increase referendum Council passed a set of motions regarding two questions to be asked in the upcoming PGSS referendum,

which will take place from October 19 to 23. One is to increase PGSS’s membership fee from $32.59 per term to $35.85 per term, and one is to increase the Special Projects Fund (SPF) fee from $4.60 per term to $6.60 per term.

According to Financial Affairs Officer Behrang Sharif, PGSS is facing a deficit of around $611,000.

He explained that in May 2012, PGSS decreased its membership fee by nearly $20 as part of an overall budget restructuring aimed at making the budget less complex.

Speaking to The Daily, Sharif said, “I think that they [had] good intentions, and they did good for the Society in the long run. There [were] just [a] few miscalculations.”

However, a subsequent longwinded disaffiliation battle with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) led to substantial legal expenses and the payment of around $300,000 in membership fees to CFS under protest. PGSS is currently trying to reclaim these fees in court.

The SPF was created in 2013 as an additional funding source for

special projects that could not otherwise get funding under the PGSS budget constraints.

Both referendum questions were approved by Council. If the referendum questions pass, Sharif expects the deficit to be recuperated in five or six years. If the questions fail, it could take PGSS approximately 15 years to overcome the deficit if the association’s expenditure rates stay the same.

Motion to fund bee housewarming rejected One motion requested that “$600 be allocated from the Events category of the 2015-16 budget to be spent on providing food for Green Drinks events and a housewarming party for the Thomson House bees during the Fall 2015 academic term.” PGSS introduced a bee hive last year as part of its sustainability mandate.

Explaining the motion, PGSS Environment Commissioner Amir Nosrat said, “As you know, we’ve been having a lot of budget cutbacks. [...] Discussing this with other commissioners and execs, I think

there is a consensus that there is a problem with the way the budget is created, which does not reflect the mandate that is given to the commissioner.” Nosrat also pointed out the difficulties of maneuvering through the budget for people who may not be familiar with it.

In response, Sharif brought up the fact that commissioners have access to a fund for discretionary spending, and that the $600 could be procured from it.

“The discretionary fund is something less than $3,000 that, somehow, has to be jointly negotiated between the execs and commissioners – that’s a lot of people. Whereas, the events category, from what I can see, is about $115,000, and I don’t have a lot of [understanding] as to how that money gets allocated,” Nosrat responded.

Sharif, however, said that the funds mentioned in the budget had already been allocated, and procuring the $600 would mean reallocating a portion of the budget.

In the end, Council voted against the motion.

News

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

La Citadelle ATI files reveal questionable investment

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Students complain about unsatisfactory renovation efforts Saima Desai The McGill Daily

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hen its doors opened in August 2012, La Citadelle was McGill’s priciest residence, and remains so – over the past three years, the rent costs have increased by almost $200, reaching an all time high. Documents acquired through an access to information (ATI) request by former McGill student Christopher Bangs, who delegated the rights to review the documents to The Daily, show that the hotel-turned-residence cost McGill over $20 million more than anticipated, and it is alleged that students are bearing the brunt of the cost.

The steady increase in the size of the undergraduate class has left McGill scrambling to fulfill its guarantee to provide housing for all first-year students under the age of 22. For instance, in 2008, a shortage of residence space forced McGill to rent an entire apartment building for students lacking housing.

Between 2003 and 2010, in order to address these pressing housing issues, McGill bought three hotel properties and converted them into Carrefour Sherbrooke, New Residence Hall, and La Citadelle.

“McGill was not the first university that bought hotels – a great example is the University of Toronto, they have also hotels at the downtown campus,” said Mathieu Laperle, Senior Director of Student Housing and Hospitality Services.

In 2009, the Globe and Mail reported that the prices of hotel

“The only reason Rez rents should be raised, in my opinion, would be inflation, or the Rez is getting significantly better or nicer – not because the building is falling apart because McGill messed up.”

Emily Stanford, U3 student

properties had hit an all-time low since the 1990s, and that it had become commonplace in Canada for universities and colleges to convert hotels into residences to alleviate housing shortages.

“We’ve been able, with the three hotels, to add more than a thousand beds,” Laperle continued. “The occupancies have been close to 100 per cent, so the fact that we have the hotels is an asset for McGill University.”

But some students feel that there is a steep price to pay for McGill’s adherence to its housing mandate. “Living in that sort of a residence is not the same as living in a first year dorm at any other university,” said Olivia Cantwell, who lived in La Citadelle during the residence’s first year of occupancy. Cantwell said that living in a converted hotel meant students sacrificed the sense of community with the “classic dorm experience.”

In addition, the actual costs of living in residence is quite high. In August 2012, at the time of its opening, a double room at La Citadelle cost students $1,059 per month, and a single room cost $1,194 per month. In 2015, the rent costs have increased to $1,260 per month for a double room, and $1,442 per month for a single room. “[This] just means so many people can’t afford to do the residence experience,” said Cantwell.

Emily Stanford, a U3 student who also lived in La Citadelle in 2012, argued that the increase in rent costs might have to do with the unexpected costs associated with the renovation of the building.

“The only reason Rez rents should be raised, in my opinion, would be inflation, or the Rez is getting significantly better or nicer – not because the building is falling apart because McGill messed up.

That’s not fair,” Stanford said.

Stanford also pointed out that it is possible that students may find La Citadelle prohibitively expensive, which may lead to a stratification among residences, based on students’ financial situations.

“People with more money would obviously go to Citadelle over Upper Rez, and for that reason, you kind of just get a completely different feeling,” said Stanford.

Problems with acquisition of La Citadelle building According to an estimation document dated October 28, 2010, the initial total cost of transforming the hotel into a residence was estimated at $16,717,000. By the completion of

Alexandra Villalobos | The McGill Daily the project in March 2013, as stated in another accounting document, the final cost was $37,166,125 – more than double the initial estimation.

A memorandum to the McGill Board of Governors, dated March 11, 2013, justified overshooting the estimate, stating that “this was to cover the cost of additional work associated with site conditions which, as the work progressed, were revealed to be worse than anticipated.”

In the environmental evaluation of the building preceding its acquisition, traces of asbestos were found in the mechanical insulation, drywall compound, textured finish, plaster, and vinyl floor tiles. The evaluation also noted the presence of mercury vapour in lamps, lead in some paint and wiring connectors, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) – a carcinogen linked to developmental issues – in light ballasts. Moreover, “heavy growths” of mould and concrete “deteriorated to the point that one could crumble it with the fingers” were found.

Robert Couvrette, Associate Vice-Principal of University Services, assured The Daily in an email that the hazardous materials have since been removed, the building is currently up to code, and “all materials are safe and actually have a very low VOC [volatile organic compound] content.”

Laperle asserted that the building was a “good investment,” in part due to the difficulty of finding reason-

ably-priced land to purchase close to the downtown campus. “It’s not a new property, it’s not a new building; but for today, for us, it’s like we were able to build from scratch,” he said.

Student complaints from the past Students who lived in La Citadelle in the first year following the renovation tell a different story.

“They hadn’t finished construction for the first six months that I was in there,” said Stanford. “Floors two and three also were definitely not done […] the [cafeteria] wasn’t done, also the first floor little sitting area was not done. The only thing that was done was the rooms.”

Stanford also stated that work on the parking level hadn’t even started. In the due diligence final report acquired through the ATI request, structural consultants noted that “the underground parking garage levels require the most immediate and important structural attention,” noting extensive concrete damages, leaks, and presence of lead-based paint.

Cantwell explained that the La Citadelle Residence Council, of which she was VP Finance, had applied for compensation for students in late September 2012 on the grounds that study areas and the kitchen were still under construction.

“It just took a really long time to get any compensation and [the University was] really not very helpful, nor did they want to give us any-

thing – it was like, ‘here, here’s some money, be quiet,’” Cantwell said.

Laperle dismissed the six months of overlap between renovation and student habitation, saying “it’s normal to see some repairs maintenance, but [that’s] not something major to impact the student life or to impact the safety or security of the students.”

Relating another story, Stanford said, “One time I was taking a shower [...] and the spout that the water comes out of when you take a bath flew off the wall and just hit me in the shin. And then it took them, like, two weeks to fix that.”

The administration insists that La Citadelle was worth the renovation costs and is one of the most popular residence choices. “The students appear to be voting with the occupancy rates, and they’re voting in favour of the hotel experience,” said Doug Sweet, McGill’s Director of Internal Communications.

While some students may not mind the expense, others think that the prospect of maintenance construction, rising rents, and the lack of community-feel in hotel-style living makes La Citadelle unattractive.

“I know it’s very poorly constructed. [...] I’d say it’s pretty common knowledge,” said Stanford. “I would definitely not live there if it was $1,200 a month.”

—With files from Christopher Bangs

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News

September 21, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

SSMU organizes anti-austerity week Skillshare workshops aim to mobilize and organize Daniel Huang, Vincent Simboli, and Anna Vail News Writers Between September 21 and 24, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) organized an anti-austerity week, holding various workshops and skillsharing events. In addition to the ones covered here, the events included various discussions on the history of mobilization in Quebec, a bike-powered film screening, and a presentation by CKUT on the importance of community radios.

“

How to organize a strike

So You Want to Go on Strike: A Skillshare for Departmental Student Strikes at McGill,” was held on September 16. The workshop discussed the different skills required to stage a successful departmental strike, covering a variety of topics from organizing a general assembly, to dealing with unsympathetic professors.

In order to have a successful departmental strike, the facilitators explained, organizers must set up accessible general assemblies, deal with possible opposition from student executives or faculty, and effectively communicate with other students in the department.

This means coordinating the distribution of flyers, posters, and other forms of communication to reach as many sympathetic students as possible.

The facilitators stressed the importance of solidarity throughout a strike, which includes having well-defined roles for every student during the strike, so no one feels overwhelmed. For instance, if planning to picket, organizers should know which students are comfortable with physical aggression when confronting other students or police officers.

The facilitators also pointed out that a successful strike needs to provide material and emotional support to the protesters. For example, during the Women’s and Sexual Diversity Studies Student Association (WSSA) strike in April of 2015, this meant booking a room with food and couches, where students could go to recover, calm down, and talk to a counsellor if necessary.

At the end of the discussion, the facilitators noted that ultimately the only way to gain these skills is to take part in a strike.

–Daniel Huang

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Street medic training

Intro to Street Medic Training,” a first-aid workshop on medic training for demo safety, took place on September 16. The workshop gave an introduction to the basic skills necessary for dealing with first-aid situations specific to the context of demonstrations, such as washing out pepper spray from eyes, minimizing damage from tear gas, and treating shock and panic.

This workshop targeted those involved in demonstrations, but many of the skills and much of the information presented were broadly applicable to anybody who lives in downtown Montreal, where many politically charged events take place and where police employ tear gas to control demonstrations. For example, as tear gas is a volatile chemical weapon that does not discriminate between demonstrator, journalist, police, or civilian, it could be useful for all residents to know to wash themselves thoroughly after exposure, as oils in the skin can make the burning sensation worse.

The workshop also highlighted the distinctions in dealing with different chemical compounds.

Pepper spray, unlike tear gas, is an oil – water will cause the chemical to spread and lead to intense pain. According to the workshop, the most effective way to treat pepper spray is to immediately rinse with Maalox (milk of magnesia, available in pharmacies), especially if eyes were exposed.

A central theme was the idea of consent in a medical context. The workshop emphasized that many of those needing medical attention at a demonstration may find themselves unable to receive help at hospitals for legal reasons, making it critical for street medics to respect the decision of a wounded person if they do not wish to seek medical attention at a hospital.

The workshop also discussed post-demonstration care, especially after a traumatic or violent incident, and stressed the long-term commitment involved. It was emphasized that many of those involved in demonstrations are from marginalized communities, often unable to seek formal health services for legal reasons. As such, it was said that giving protesters access to the care and support networks they need from their peers remains crucial.

–Vincent Simboli

Anti-austerity banner hanging in Shatner Building.

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Marie Labrosse | The McGill Daily

Organizing against casualization

Working from the Roots: Student/Worker Solidarity Against Casualization on Campus,” was held on September 15 and was facilitated by Molly Swain, president of the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE), and Tyler Lawson, Collective Agreement Coordinator of the Association of McGill University Research Employees (AMURE).

Lawson defined casualization as “the process wherein full-time workers” – those who receive benefits such as long-term contracts with higher wages, healthcare, and pension – “are replaced by part-time, casual workers who do the same work for less.” As a result, Lawson said, “constant anxiety [over job security] induces passivity.”

Swain argued that casualization is driven largely by austerity, saying that “all of the proponents of austerity are profiting from the confusion of household debt with governmental debt.” Swain also depicted government debt as an “entirely necessary” aspect of capitalist economy, unlike household debt, arguing that “the emphasis on paying back [government debt] is purely ideological.”

“Capitalism binds people through indebtedness,” Swain said, especially students who, as job opportunities appear more scarce, go into thousands of dollars of debt, working unpaid internships.

Through strikes and organized movements, students attempt to resist austerity and the debt it incurs. However, students are not considered workers under Quebec law, and are therefore excluded from unions. Groups who may refer to themselves as unions representing the interests of students – like SSMU – are not, in fact, classified as such, and have little to no collective agreement or bargaining power. Lawson proposed that “undergraduate work should be valorized in the economy,” and that students are workers and deserve pay and unionizing power as such.

“Not only are [undergraduates] crucial to the university just by being here, [they] are also actively producing labour in [the] classrooms,” stated Lawson. The workshop also explored the intersectional history of unionization. Both Swain and Lawson proposed that it is and has always been in the best interest of the capitalist state to exclude certain groups in the history of labour and unionization. Although pivotal to the history of labour in Canada, Black and Indigenous people are often discounted and ignored in history as the first unionizing labour forces. Swain said, “Discounting the work of oppressed peoples perpetuates a white supremacist and patriarchal society.”

As the workshop drew to a close, facilitators and participants discussed ways to disengage from such a system, suggesting potential alternatives where both the exploitation of workers and the resulting labour unions would be non-existent. Swain emphasized that “collective mobilizing is the most powerful source of social change.” In a direct challenge to the assumption that millennials cannot stand up against the rise of austerity and casualization, she stated, “We are told precarious work is the work of the future. I am not saying we should be looking to the [pre-industrial] past. [...] I am suggesting this rhetoric is a lie.”

—Anna Vail

Commentary

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

7

Demanding action for climate justice Why we set up camp at Community Square

Divest McGill Commentary Writers

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f you haven’t already, you will probably notice the cluster of tents pitched in front of the James Administration building this week – a sea of colourful banners, orange t-shirts, and energetic community members. Allow us to introduce ourselves.

We are members of Divest McGill, and we’re here as part of our Fossil Free Week. We are students and faculty from departments across the university; we come from different backgrounds, have varied fields of study, and range widely in our experiences with activism.

What has brought us together is a common recognition of the serious threat posed by climate change, and of our collective responsibility to act. As members of the McGill community and individuals living in an era of unprecedented environmental and social challenges, we are united in demanding that this institution act boldly in the face of the climate crisis.

Students, faculty, and alumni at McGill University have been campaigning for fossil fuel divestment for nearly three years. In February of this year, we submitted a second petition and research brief to the Board of Governors, signed by more than 1,700 McGill community members and endorsed by an open letter from over 120 McGill faculty and librarians. By withdrawing investments from fossil fuel companies, McGill would join over 400 other institutions worldwide in helping to stigmatize the industry’s immoral business plan and its corrupting influence on public policy.

Six months after our second submission, the Board has provided no indication of how it plans to proceed, despite repeated calls for transparency and timeliness in addressing this issue. It is in light of these delays that we are spending our nights sleeping in Community Square, in front of the James Administration building, calling on the Board to immediately freeze all new investments in fossil fuels while its members deliberate on full divestment. The McGill community needs

The 2014 People’s Climate March in Montreal. more than just words from Board members to demonstrate that they are acting in good faith and considering the question of divestment with the seriousness it deserves.

Today, September 21, marks the one-year anniversary of the People’s Climate March. In 2014, we saw countless people taking part in over 5,000 different events in 190 coun-

By acknowledging the climate science, but refusing to accept its clear implications, the Board is displaying a dangerous type of wilful ignorance that calls the efficacy of its governance seriously into question.

Following in the footsteps of a long history of social movements, we are pushing the bounds of our comfort zones, and respectfully but firmly showing the Board that the climate movement is here to stay, and only getting stronger. We are doing so to challenge the decisionmakers to act – to make a decision that will place McGill on the right side of history. We know that the climate crisis cannot wait for the kind of delay that the Board is epitomizing with almost three years of deliberation. And we know that to overcome the status quo at McGill, and in society at large, we need to continue building a strong movement for climate justice.

tries around the world. The largest, in New York City, brought out over 400,000 people to march to demand action on climate change, and here in Montreal, thousands came out despite the rain. Perhaps the most notable and resounding success of these marches was their explicit effort to highlight the intersectionality of environmental, social, and economic justice. Frontline communities, faith-based organizations, labour unions, youth, working people, and marginalized peoples across the planet are building strong and resilient movements that can join together to overcome the many challenges faced by our communities, and many groups and

Deboleena Mazumdar | Photographer individuals are working to do the same at McGill.

Here, we are taking action together because we care about keeping our communities and our environment safe – but it’s about so much more than that. We are camping out because we have seen fossil fuel companies violate Indigenous rights for decades. We are camping out because international climate negotiations have failed to produce meaningful outcomes for longer than some of us have been alive. We are camping out because we have seen poor and marginalized communities suffer the most from climate catastrophes while contributing least to the problem.

We are camping out because we know that fossil fuel emissions are detrimental to our health. Ultimately, we are camping out because we, as members of the McGill community, know that McGill can do so much better.

McGill might be ranked as the best university in Canada, but does that alone make it an educational institution that we should be proud of? By not divesting, McGill is ignoring its own scientists and researchers who have highlighted the dire nature of the climate crisis and the need to freeze

This week’s web-only Commentary content:

Why AGSEM teaching assistants should strike

tar sand expansion. It is clear that our university’s Board of Governors is not acting in line with the urgency that this crisis merits, nor the transparency that the community deserves. By acknowledging the climate science, but refusing to accept its clear implications, the Board is displaying a dangerous type of willful ignorance that calls the efficacy of its governance seriously into question. The scientific analysis and the moral imperative are both resoundingly clear: full fossil fuel divestment is the bare minimum of what must be done.

So, we are camping out, and we invite you to join us. It’s time that the McGill administration stood with the community, instead of with fossil fuel corporations.

The following members of Divest McGill signed on to this article: Emily Boytinck, Joey Broda, Julianna Duholke, Ellen Gillies, Victor Frankel, Sarah Mitchell, Chloé Laflamme, Kristen Perry, Sam Quigley.

To contact Divest McGill, email divestmcgill@gmail.com.

Fossil Free Week events will be held in Community Square from September 21 to 25. See fossilfreeweek.com for the full schedule.

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Commentary

September 21, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Textbook prices are too damn high Inaccessible materials make for inaccessible education

Geneva Gleason Commentary Writer

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he beauty of my public high school, if there was any, was that it was largely all-inclusive. If you couldn’t afford a calculator, there was a way to borrow one. You could print from the school’s library at no cost. If you lived too far from school, the district provided a bus service or a public transit subsidy. Textbooks were provided, even if they were a little torn at the edges, and you only had to pay if you misplaced the book at the end of the year.

When I came to McGill this year and found myself gawking at the prices in the bookstore, I felt like I had been living in a bubble – how could textbook costs be so high?

Textbook prices have become a disproportionate part of the student budget, and McGill has done little to mitigate this problem.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, the average U.S. student will spend over $1,000 on textbooks in 2015 – that’s an 812 per cent increase since our parents went to school, and almost half of the cost of tuition for a Quebec resident. This problem is compounded for students at Canadian universities, thanks to regulations under the Copyright Act, under which Canadian publishers (including Canadian branches of foreign-owned multinational brands) have exclusive rights to import and distribute titles published abroad.

This means they are allowed to charge a 10 per cent premium for American titles and a 15 per cent premium for titles from outside North America, usually from the UK, making a $100 book cost $110, and your five $100 books cost $550 – not to mention the profits bookstores make on top of this, the burden of which is then passed on to us students, in addition to our four- or five-figure tuitions.

Even more disturbing is that according to the National Association of College Stores, 77 cents on every dollar spent in the U.S. on

textbooks go straight to publishers (which helps to explain the phenomenon of professors assigning textbooks they wrote, since authors only get about 12 cents on the dollar on average). However, while these professors may be getting ripped off by publishers, professors can also be part of the problem for students. A study by the University of Iowa found that the constant revisions to textbooks, one of the main drivers for increasing prices, are largely unnecessary despite the fact that many professors insist on assigning the most recent versions of a text.

If McGill really cares about equitable access to its supposedly prestigious educational experience, it must prioritize guidelines for professors and initiatives to lower the hurdle of exorbitant textbook prices.

Students attempt to mitigate the high cost of textbooks in various ways, though a solution isn’t always easy to find. Some point to rental books as an option, but this isn’t available for all textbooks.

For example, my Arabic textbooks, which I won’t need once I move to upper levels, would be great texts to rent and return at the end of the semester, but instead I was directed to the Paragraphe bookstore to purchase new copies. Further, rentals are only slightly less expensive than buying the new version – I suspect the steep rental fee is really just a monopoly issue.

There are coursepacks, which, to be fair, release us from some of the monopoly held by the five major textbook publishers in the world. Some coursepacks are available online, which are also available at a cheaper price, but this doesn’t help students who learn best from using paper materials and taking handwritten notes.

This also doesn’t allow for students to resell the online coursepack to a student taking the class in the future – which is also hard with paper coursepacks when there are different professors for a class each year.

Online versions of textbooks in general can’t always be the answer, either. In my Russian literature class, for example, there are certain books that really can’t be easily found online, particularly as specific translations are required due to the nature of the course.

So I understand, in this case, why these editions were chosen.

Textbooks are also available on reserve in the library, but if everyone relied on that service, there would have to be at least 500 copies of every book for every course taught in Leacock 132. There are interlibrary loans, but this can take time, and again, there are not enough copies to go around for everyone. The viability of these loans also relies on the idea that a book you need will be less in-demand at another university; and for courses with the most expensive books, like biology and psychology, what are the chances that Concordia and UQAM will have extra copies lying around? For students who learn best through active reading (writing and taking notes directly on what they are reading), library loans seriously restrict the quality of learning. Due to the unreliability of many of the above options, many student turn to illegal downloading for popular books, and I don’t blame them.

I know I’m lucky to be from a background that makes these prices an inconvenience rather than a total roadblock. But there

Cassandra Ryan | Illustrator are students at McGill and other universities across Canada, as well as other countries with huge price tags on education (I’m looking at you, America), for whom textbooks are the one extra cost that makes education inaccessible, if it wasn’t already. When professors assign specific editions of books, this restricts students from buying used copies. When online textbooks or coursepacks are your only affordable option, you can’t always resell them or buy them used from other students. This can lead to students struggling through courses for which they cannot afford the materials, or avoiding those altogether.

There needs to be an open dialogue between students, professors, and the University about what causes high textbook prices, and what can be done to mitigate them. Professors do have control over what they assign – if specific editions are truly necessary, then assign them, but when they aren’t (and please, professors, be realistic here), recommend multiple books or editions instead of just one. Professors should also try to take advantage of public domains

and publicly accessible texts. The University should also prioritize the availability of shared resources in libraries on campus. Textbooks and coursepacks should be available on reserve when classes start, not several weeks later, and having more than a few copies would make the process easier for students and professors alike.

McGill states in its mission statement that it aims to advance learning by “offering the best possible education [...] and by providing service to society.” McGill also lists its principles as responsibility, equity, and inclusiveness. As such, our University is failing to uphold its own principles by not doing its part to make basic academic materials financially accessible. If McGill really cares about equitable access to its supposedly prestigious educational experience, it must prioritize guidelines for professors who assign course materials and initiatives to lower the hurdle of exorbitant textbook prices for students.

Geneva Gleason is a U0 Arts student. To contact her, email geneva.gleason@mail.mcgill.ca.

Keep us accountable.

The Daily is looking for a Readers’ Advocate columnist. The RA writes a bi-weekly column that critically examines the quality of The Daily’s coverage and adherence to its Statement of Principles.

Interested? Know someone who might be? Get in touch with us at commentary@mcgilldaily.com.

Commentary

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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No excuse for exclusion

Why Europe should embrace the Syrian refugees Constantinos Yanniris Commentary Writer

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any of us realize, with some discomfort, that there is no place unaffected by the global socio-economic crisis. Today, Europe experiences an influx of war refugees coming from Syria and entering Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea to the Greek islands and mainland.

Of course, European countries should accept Syrian refugees on humanitarian grounds. What’s more, many Western governments have directly contributed to the crisis in the Middle East.

For this reason, the welcoming of Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan refugees of war is not only about humanitarianism – it is a minimum act of war reparation. But even those who do not prioritize these moral concerns ought to welcome the Syrian refugees, as they are not a burden for their receiving coun-

tries – and reactionary claims to the contrary are nothing more than veiled racism.

Historical examples show that refugees largely make positive contributions to their host countries. Between 1922 and 1923, one and a half million Anatolian Greek refugees followed the same path as the Syrians now follow to migrate from Turkey to Greece as a result of the 1919-22 war between the two countries; half a million Turks followed the reverse route into

Turkey. The 1922-23 Greek refugees did not receive a particularly warm reception in Greece. Financially destitute, they were initially sheltered in tents. However, contemporary Greek historians agree that these migrants helped the country develop socially and economically, and contributed to the modernization of Greece’s political system. Many of them were highly educated and brought new ideas to the newly founded Greek republic.

Europe also saw a current of emi-

Western governments have directly contributed to the crisis in the Middle East. For this reason, the welcoming of Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan refugees of war is not only about humanitarianism – it is a minimum act of war reparation.

gration when more than 100,000 Jews fled Germany for Canada and the U.S. to escape the rise of Nazism. They made powerful contributions to the post-war cultural, academic, and economic development of their new countries. Despite having been uprooted and having lost everything, refugees managed to rebuild their lives and have a remarkable impact on the communities that they joined.

Let’s return to the Syrians.

Having liquidated their properties, they struggle their way into Europe illegally, on rubber boats, since the legal way is effectively blocked by the European governments. Ostensibly, the 250,000 Syrian refugees who made it into Europe belong to a relatively exclusive group. They represent only 2 per cent of the total population of displaced persons in Syria – the only ones who had the financial resources and physical and mental health to make the ex-

pensive and exhausting journey.

Even if they’ve spent the last of their savings on their way to Europe, they are left with something they can never lose – their education. In their baggage, these people carry the social resources and courage necessary to restore their livelihoods. Many of them young, they also represent a promising demographic of potential citizens for the aging European countries.

Both socially and economically, Europeans only stand to gain from opening their doors to Syrian refugees. European governments should look past the bigotry of their racist and xenophobic constituents, and embrace migrants and the life experience they bring with them.

Constantinos Yanniris is a PhD candidate at the Department of Integrated Studies in Education. To contact him, email constantinos. yanniris@mcgill.ca.

Letters

Submit your own: letters@mcgilldaily.com

McGill nurses for an effective refugee policy Recent media coverage of the refugee crisis in Syria and surrounding areas has placed a spotlight on the refugee and asylum policies of Canada and its allies. Forced from their homes due to conflict, refugees face untold peril on their journey to safer lands, with no guarantee of acceptance by their host countries.

The photo of Alan Kurdi, who died as his family tried to escape the violence in Syria, has put a face to Canada’s complacency in refugee affairs.

With the reforms to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in 2002 and subsequent bills including the controversial C-31 in 2012, Canada has been backtracking on its international obligation to refugees by making the application and appeals process more exclusionary. For the refugees who are accepted into Canada, sweeping cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program have threatened their access to healthcare.

As healthcare professionals, it is imperative that nurses join the debate on health policy, including on refugees’ access to healthcare. Our voices also need to be heard regarding immigration policy, which can have tragic impacts on the mental and physical health of refugees.

We request that Canada take responsibility for its role in the air strikes over Syria and Iraq. Refugees fleeing the violence from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

(ISIS), the government of Bashar alAssad, and international bombing campaigns must be ensured equal and safe access to resettlement and healthcare within Canada. We also demand that our government urge other countries to do the same.

McGill Nurses for Healthy Policy is calling for Canada to: open its borders to refugees; fast-track the refugee screening process; eliminate the “designated countries of origin” restrictions for asylum

seekers; and ensure that refugees have access to fair and equitable healthcare. We believe that access to safe and effective healthcare is a fundamental right, and that guaranteed healthcare is part and parcel to effective refugee policy. Canada can no longer rest on its laurels; the time to act is now.

society as a whole are ubiquitous throughout the text, and seething between each line is a tacit indictment of Israeli culture. The author selectively underscores every detail that can possibly be used to bolster the narrative she so rigidly believes in, and somehow manages to warp and transmogrify every experience she had on the trip into some conspiratorial, Zionist machination that she then uses as an all-encompassing condemna-

tion of Israel. A prime instance of this is her oblique allegation that Yad Vashem has been hijacked by the State and is now used to promulgate propaganda. There is also the instance in which she retells some pointless and irrelevant anecdote about the belief system of Orthodox Jews and, once again, uses this to reinforce her racist preconceptions.

In the words of the Black South African parliamentarian Ken-

neth Meshoe, “Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa. Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is. [...] This ridiculous accusation trivializes the word ‘apartheid,’ minimizing and belittling the magnitude of the racism and suffering endured by South Africans of colour.”

—McGill Nurses for Healthy Policy, mcgillnursesforhealthypolicy@gmail.com

Misrepresenting Israel It becomes flagrantly manifest very early on in Sonia Larbi-Aissa’s article (“Birthright: Ten days in apartheid Israel,” September 8, Features, page 12) that the State of Israel will be depicted solely in a pejorative fashion and that there will be no effort whatsoever made on the author’s part to assume an equivocal and objective approach. Larbi-Aissa, who clearly held deeply entrenched presuppositions about Israel prior to her

arrival, set out not to expand her horizons and transcend the parochial scope through which she viewed the land and its people, but rather to substantiate her own skewed beliefs.

Thus, every single incident that she invokes is recounted through a politically motivated lens. The article is rife with slanted interpretations of even the most basic encounters. Pernicious insinuations about Israeli

Contribute to Commentary! commentary@mcgilldaily.com letters@mcgilldaily.com

—Eton Ziner-Cohen, U0 Arts student

On the tyranny of wishy-washy white liberal feminism And why I switched sides

By Paniz Khosroshahy Visual by Yasmine Mosimann & Jasreet Kaur

Features

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ne October night of my first year at McGill, I sat sipping tea in my dingy Molson room, applying for Women in House, a program that gives selected women students the opportunity to shadow women politicians in the Canadian Parliament. I was excited to be a part of an organization with a mandate

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily was. After taking Introduction to Feminist Theory at McGill, I started realizing how other systems of oppression, such as racism, cissexism, abilism, and classism, affect the experiences of women. This year, after another year of learning and reflection, I identify as a radical, intersectional feminist, and I have no interest in

Coming to terms with various intersections of my identity, I have come to realize that gendered oppression cannot be separated from heteronormativity, racism, imperialism, or colonialism. The colour of my skin, the religion of my family, the country of my birth, and the people I love all lead me to cringe when I set foot in another room packed with white women discussing my supposed oppression. to increase women’s representation in politics. I had recently read Anne-Marie Slaughter’s “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and came to the realization that I wanted to embody the feminism that they did. These books resonated with me deeply. Having always enjoyed class privilege in a family with many female doctors, I mistakenly operated under the assumption that if you try, you will succeed, and those who don’t succeed, don’t try hard enough. Later that year, a professor in a political science class divided feminism into radical feminism and liberal feminism, while discussing women’s representation in politics.

The professor defined radical feminism by stating, “Radical feminists say that the current social order is patriarchal, and that we need to change the way we think in its entirety. This is in contrast to liberal feminists and their belief that laws and institutions need to change.” Condescending smiles and laughter filled the room at the idea of completely uprooting patriarchal thought from the existing social order. I’m a liberal feminist, I decided at that moment, and subsequently spent the summer reading Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton-supporting feminist. By the time Emma Watson’s UN speech on feminism popped up on my newsfeed last year, I knew something wasn’t right, but I wasn’t equipped with the knowledge and awareness to articulate what the problem

applying for Women in House.

Liberal feminists, at McGill and beyond, are obsessed with ‘rights’, ‘choice’ and ‘freedom,’ terms narrowly defined within a white western liberal paradigm.

From this perspective, feminism seeks to make women ‘equal’ to men, so women can function within the dominant political, economic, and cultural systems as they are defined by men. “It is my choice, therefore it is a feminist choice,” cry liberal feminists, individualizing feminism as opposed to understanding the collective movement and situating themselves within it. “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people,” is a popular feminist quote, but I beg to differ. I have no interest in gaining recognition as a ‘person’ that aspires to values defined by upper class white men.

In this system, internalizing ‘masculine’ traits is applauded and necessary for women’s supposed empowerment. Being affectionate, showing emotions, taking time off work to care for children, and performing labour at home is vilified. While it is unjust that these activities have previously determined the role of women in society, it is equally unjust that these activities are stigmatized for being ‘too feminine’. In order for women to achieve equality on men’s terms, they must change their lifestyle to fit into the patriarchal idealization of what that equality looks like.

Don’t get me wrong, my critique of ‘rights’ does not mean that I’m against all

the rights that I have within the patriarchy. I’m not, for example, going to give up my right to vote simply because it means participating in the system. While working on radical change, it is excusable to operate within the system and vote for the lesser evil to make living conditions smoother. In addition, historically the suffragist movement was a radical act.

White women didn’t get the right to vote by being sweet wives injecting little doses of feminism into their husbands’ heads so maybe one day they would gain the right to vote, they won it by rioting. White American suffragist Emily Davidson threw herself in front of a horse in protest of her disenfranchisement.

Liberal feminism is obsessed with placing women in visible leadership positions. However, simply having women occupying positions of power does not guarantee that women’s rights are preserved in those institutions. For example, McGill’s Principal, Suzanne Fortier, is a woman, but she did not confront Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens about his unilateral decision to shut down negotiations regarding women-only gym hours. Also, McGill has a Senate Subcommittee on Women, but at one of their meetings that I attended, two of the members had never heard the term “intersectionality” and asked what it was. Last year, a woman was the Interest Group Coordinator at the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), but the student association refused to give club status to McGill Students for Feminisms, a group I am a part of, due to “too many” feminist clubs on campus. There are also many examples of women’s leadership improving women’s conditions, but the point is that having women in leadership does not necessarily lead to that, and emphasis on placing women in positions of power instead of working toward women’s collective liberation is not effective.

Liberal feminism is equally obsessed with discussing women’s achievements while in leadership. The theme of this year’s TEDxMontrealWomen was “Daring Greatly.” The speakers were mostly white middle-aged women discussing their businesses. Any mention of women who could not afford to ‘dare greatly’ because of their race, sexuality, class, or ethnicity were discussed in a flagrantly blatant white saviourist lens. One woman’s project to “develop women’s confidence and advocacy skills” in “the developing world”

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showed images of women of colour without naming or introducing them. Instead, the women were objectified as oppressed, poor women who needed saving by the affluent white women on the stage.

What I remember most clearly from the conference was my frustration while watching a particular white woman talking about how we, the undefined homogenous group of women, have a huge purchasing power and need to use this power by being “conscious consumers” to shift market patterns. Whole Foods was given as an example of a “conscious” place to shop, completely ignoring the fact that only a few products are affordable to most people

Having always enjoyed class privilege in a family with many female doctors, I mistakenly operated under the assumption that if you try, you will succeed, and those who don’t succeed, don’t try hard enough. and the company remains anti-union. In addition, talking about women’s purchasing power without discussing the politics behind it, including the cosmetics and fashion industries, standards of beauty, or discussing the exploitations of capitalism is shallow analysis. At the end of the event, all participants were reminded that everything is possible if we dare greatly, as if all women are privleged enough to sail through life without obstacles that arise from aspects of their identity other than gender, as if the current system is worth sailing through in the first place.

A movement is deemed successful when it gains momentum by going mainstream, but what has happened with feminism is that by going mainstream and appealing to a wider and wider audience, its

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Features

September 21, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

core tenets have been co-opted so much that it has lost its substance. The “I Need Feminism” photo campaign organized

by Rez Life highlights the individualization of feminism and also brings up the question of allyship, with men taking up space in the project. “My feminism is…” and “Feminism to me means…” both reduce feminism to a customizable sentence without asking participants to understand their positionality within the movement and in society as a whole. Activism is to help improve people’s conditions, but as individuals in a society, we are not independent units, we are very much attached to a wider system.

“We want to know, what feminism means to you,” the New Rez photo campaign event page says. To one man, feminism means that he could play field hockey, a “girls’ sport,” without being laughed at. While gender constructions are part of the patriarchy, this is not a two-way street.

Women are not privileged at the expense of masculinity, instead the patriarchy, by definition, privileges men, always.

Men’s role in feminism is a debate of its own, but what is clear to me is that feminism is not about men and is in no way intended to benefit them. Men need to stop finding reasons that benefit them personally in order to support the cause.

It is clear that anti-racism is not here for the benefit of white people, so how is this narrative okay when it comes to feminism?

Liberal feminists are so afraid of making feminism sound like misandry that their demands fall short on dismantling the patriarchal structure in place. Always trying to be inclusive to men, liberal feminists have given up crucial ground in order to be ‘inviting enough’ to attract men. Feminism aims to make the world inclusive to women, and if men feel too threatened by that, then they need to check their privilege. As Twitter user @kelley_temple aptly put it in 2012, “Men who want to be feminists do not need to be given a space in feminism. They need [to] take the space they have in society & make it feminist.”

Men who support feminism need to listen to women’s experiences and unlearn harmful patriarchal practices, not wait for a polite invitation.

Contrary to the common conception of radicalism, radical simply means “from the root” – someone who subscribes to an ideology in its fundamental sense is a radical. Being a radical feminist has gained such a negative connotation that too many self-identifying feminists constantly at-

tach the caveat of “but, I’m not a radical feminist” because they believe they’re too nice to be associated with what they see as a “man-hating” movement. This repu-

Being a radical feminist has gained such a negative connotation that too many self-identifying feminists constantly attach the caveat of “but, I’m not a radical feminist” because they believe they’re too nice to be associated with what they see as a “manhating” movement. tation is partially due to how radical feminism is portrayed in popular news. Femen most recently made the news for protesting topless at a French Muslim conference, and was subsequently categorized

as radical. Nothing is wrong with being militant, and nothing is wrong with being topless, but as a Muslim I cannot endorse a group of Western white women that apply liberal ideals to our reality as Muslim women and aim to liberate us by writing “fuck your morals” on their chests. After this stunt, radical feminism took a hit, as it is now associated with Femen and other groups and individuals that ignore the diversity of women’s circumstances and values around the world.

Black feminisms, Muslim feminisms, Indigenous feminisms, eco-feminisms and other feminisms have all arisen from collective organizing. The “I Need Feminism” campaign prides itself on making feminism accessible, which is incredibly important, but accusing radical feminisms of being inaccessible is often used to delegitimize them.

During last year’s SSMU elections, the presidential candidates’ Facebook pages were full of attacks on what became known as “Rad McGill”, or the activist community at McGill, and our jargon-y vocabulary that excludes and alienates.

While I do understand that education is a privilege and in some instances it is necessary to use more accessible language, I also think that a certain vocabulary is necessary to express certain feminist ideas, and if someone is actually interested at McGill where there are literally hundreds of social justice events happening every year, there is no excuse to not have a basic familiarity with the vocabalary. Just as you can’t talk about physics without an understanding of centre of mass, acceleration or torque, it is impossible to articulate ideas

about feminism without using words like rape culture, intersectionality or cisgender. I doubt that the reluctance to learn this vocabulary is because it’s difficult, but more because people feel too uncomfortable to face their own privilege.

To quote a friend’s comment the day the Marriage Equality Act passed in the U.S. Congress, “Now they can all go and celebrate, but we are still being killed in the streets, we still can’t breathe.” She is Black and queer. Liberal feminists can celebrate Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton all they want, but at the end of the day they are still exercising a feminism at the expense of the the 99 percent, and Black and Brown bodies – including those belonging to women.

At McGill, I hear “radical feminist” used mainly as a slur. Throughout my activism work, educating myself, and coming to terms with various intersections of my identity, I have come to realize that gendered oppression cannot be separated from heteronormativity, racism, imperialism, or colonialism. The colour of my skin, the religion of my family, the country of my birth, and the people I love all lead me to cringe when I set foot in another room packed with white women discussing my supposed oppression. The stereotype that I encounter most often in my activism is of the “hairy-legged manhating bra-burning lesbian radical feminist” variety, and while some of these adjectives are accurate descriptions of me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of them. And not listening to what I have to say because someone doesn’t like the word radical is inexcusable.

Sci+Tech

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Pesticides and personality McGill study shows how pesticides affect individual behaviour in spiders Rafia Bosan Sci+Tech Writer

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he topic of pesticide use is a controversial subject that has been getting a lot of attention lately.

Several recent studies have shown that the residue of neonicotinoids, a type of pesticide, causes damage to a farm’s ecosystem, and has been linked to the death of bees. There have also been reports on the long-term effects these insecticides can have on humans, such as being a major cause of male erectile dysfunction and infertility, according to a recent study by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences in India.

Yes, evidence shows the same chemicals meant to protect our food can degrade the environment, leave residue on crops, and eventually show their dangerous nature.

“To help our environment thrive, it is crucial that knowledge be changed into practices and policies.”

Raphaël Royauté, former McGill PhD student But how do pesticides affect individual organisms? This is what Raphaël Royauté, a former PhD student at McGill, attempted to find out by studying organophosphates, which serve as the basis for a number of both household and industrially-used insecticides and herbicides.

Organophosphates are known to be harmful to humans. These chemicals are neurotoxic – interfering with the

nervous system – and exposure can lead to memory and attention deficits, anxiety, and depression. Organophosphate-derived products are also commonly used in poorer countries, as they are cheaper than newer alternatives. Two years ago in India, the compounds were blamed for causing the deaths of at least 25 children who ingested the pesticides through a contaminated lunch. However, before now, little evidence had been found of the effects of organophosphates on the individual behaviours of organisms that are beneficial to crop growth, such as bees and spiders.

Until, that is, Royauté researched the effects of these pesticides on Eris militaris, the Bronze jumping spider.

These spiders are generally found in apple orchards, where organophosphates are commonly used. “Along with playing a major pest control role in the fields, spiders display an interesting biology,” explains Royauté. This is what drew him toward the species for his experiment. Royauté found the spiders in various sites in Quebec and realized they were the easiest to capture and to test for behavioural change.

After being exposed to the pesticide, the spiders not only experienced changes in physiology, but also in their behaviour. The spiders had on average 23 per cent lower repeatability capacity, meaning their actions became more “unpredictable.” Each individual demonstrated varying effects based on factors like size and sex. For example, females experienced greater difficulty in catching their prey. The results also highlighted personality differences between spiders, as each specimen coped differently with the toxic chemicals. Royauté reached the conclusion that while the toxicity of insecticides puts a strain on the spider community, it also triggers individual changes, signifying the unique personality of each individual spider. However, the specif-

Marie Labrosse | The McGill Daily ic ways in which various personalities are affected by pesticides in different ways is still not fully understood.

This finding is perhaps the most fascinating and important part of the project — the results revealed the distinctive individual responses of specific specimens upon contact with the pesticide. The consequences of these personality changes could be crucial in determining the future of crop production. All insects have a role in the diverse life forms in an agroecosystem, but some become more aggressive due to the toxicity of the pesticide.

They may confront other organisms

differently, consequently disturbing the balance of the ecosystem.

Altering agricultural practices “To help our environment thrive, it is crucial that knowledge be changed into practices and policies,” says Royauté. Examples of alterations in operating companies and farms could include the ban of pesticides when lots of harmless insects are most active. If not, it is important that alternate habitats be created with organisms such as wasps, spiders, or beetles that are specific in their pest control activity. Such programs main-

tain a diverse landscape and help the organisms thrive, ultimately sustaining species diversity. Another way of dealing with pesticides would be to utilize them only in the case of pest outbreaks, since each usage of pesticides affects the entire agroecosystem. Testing has shown that certain moth and ant species can work just as well as pesticides, if not better, due to their concentrated approach of only eliminating the pest in question.

The implications of the results obtained by Royauté deepen our previous understanding about the harmful nature of pesticides. The findings add to the complexity of known insecticide effects by introducing a component of individual behaviour patterns affected by these chemicals along with the population decrease. This joins the vast majority of research on pesticides that interconnect with a final conclusion pertaining to their harmful effects on the entire ecosystem due to an unfocused undertaking of eliminating pests.

As university students, we may feel that there is little we can do to help with this problem. The truth is, even understanding and spreading knowledge can help create the needed impact. Mitigating the damaging effects of pesticides is a hard societal challenge but one that we all have to face; scientists should not be the only ones busy finding ways to maintain biodiversity in an agroecosystem. Since pest control plays a crucial role in the process of crop production, and ultimately our daily lives as crop consumers, it is crucial that we support alternative solutions and try to understand the problem. “Don’t freak out about technology and agro-business,” says Royauté. It is vital that we consider the consequences of pesticides, question their use in agriculture, and work with growers to spread awareness and come up with solutions.

You should write for Sci+Tech if...

You have a passion for science You want to explore how science and tech affect our society and culture

Email scitech@mcgilldaily.com for more information on how you can get involved.

Jason Da Silva Castanheira | The McGill Daily

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Sci+Tech

September 21, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Slurp up some science

Week-long event introduces students to research at McGill Jill Bachelder The McGill Daily

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f you’re looking to get involved in the research scene here at McGill, grab your spoons, put on your thinking caps, and listen up. The 20th edition of Soup and Science, a week-long lunch event aimed at introducing students to professors, will be taking place from September 21 to 25. Lunches will be held daily at 11:30 a.m. in the Redpath Museum and will feature five to six three-minute pre-

sentations from professors introducing their areas of research.

The event will exhibit the work of professors from the Faculty of Science as well as affiliated interdisciplinary departments. This year’s tentative lineup of professors includes Joelle Pineau, a computer science professor who will discuss her research on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Edward Ruthazer of the Montreal Neurological Institute, whose lab explores how one’s experiences early in life affect brain

Ways for new students to try out research Here are some options available to you for getting involved in research.

Keep these in mind as you wander over to Soup and Science.

1. Undergraduate research (science classes with course code 396): These courses offer students a chance to gain experience in a variety of possible areas. Since you’re not limited to doing these courses through your department, you can explore other areas of interest you might have.

Worth three credits, the projects are most often assigned by a supervisor, whom you must find and contact in advance of the Add/Drop deadline.

2. Volunteering in a laboratory: If you like a professor’s research, you can always contact them and ask to casually help out with a project.

3. Emailing profs for research assistant positions: Taking initiative works! It’s often necessary to reach out to professors in order to find interesting research opportunities. Look at what is available on McGill Career Planning Services’ research opportunities database and take note of the professor’s preferred mode of contact, and you might just find some golden projects to work on.

4. Research awards: Of course, you can always apply for research awards in order to take on a project. Awards such as Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Awards (NSERC USRA) and Science Undergraduate Research Awards (SURA) are quite competitive, so this will require you to take time on your application and to find a supervisor well in advance. Most such projects are done at McGill over the summer.

Soup and Science, 2010. activity, will also explain his work.

Victor Chisholm, the undergraduate research officer for the Faculty of Science, has been involved with organizing Soup and Science since its inception in 2006. Chisholm told The Daily the event is important because it offers people the chance to learn about the broad range of research happening at McGill. “It allows us to showcase who we are and introduce students to the opportunities that are available to them during their degree,” Chisholm said.

Soup and Science also attempts to create a space where students can network with professors. In the past, Chisholm noted, several students told him they “made connections at Soup and Science that have translated into research opportunities.”

At last fall’s edition of Soup and Science, undergraduate students gave positive feedback about the event, saying it breaks down the stu-

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily dent-professor barrier felt so strongly in introductory courses. However, students have often noted the difficulty of procuring a spot; it is usually necessary to arrive at the event early to guarantee admission.

Sofia Lin, a U3 Psychology student, also noted that when she went to Soup and Science in her first year, the research discussed was a bit too technical for her to understand, and as a result she did not feel like she knew enough to start a conversation with the professors. “Maybe because it was my first year, I guess, so I didn’t know what kind of question I should ask,” Lin said.

“It’s a good experience, but in terms of actually talking to [professors] I remember there were so many people, I didn’t actually get to talk to someone,” she added.

Janine Mauzeroll, a chemistry professor at McGill who does research on electrochemistry and the

corrosion of various materials, spoke positively about Soup and Science, but noted it could do a better job of introducing undergraduates to research opportunities. The event doesn’t really give students an idea of “how to better get a job in research for the summer or during the semester or something like that,” Mauzeroll said.

“I see [Soup and Science] more as a nice meet-and-greet [with] networking capabilities,” Mauzeroll told The Daily.

However, the event did allow Mauzeroll to meet students from a variety of faculties, whom she would never otherwise have met, outside of introductory-level classes, which have hundreds of students and tend to be impersonal.

“It’s one of the rare occasions that I had to interact with people that were truly outside of my department and were undergraduates,” said Mauzeroll.

Here’s a selection of some of the research to be presented over the course of the week!

Monday, September 21

Tuesday, September 22

Wednesday, September 23

Thursday, September 24

Friday, September 25

Christopher Pack, Neurology and Neurosurgery

Nada Jabado, Pediatrics

Simon Gravel, Human Genetics

Anna Weinberg, Psychology

Khanh Huy Bui, Anatomy and Cell Biology

Pack’s research is all about conversations: tiny conversations between neurons, which communicate information about the visual world and allow us to see. Pack studies how neurons respond to various visual stimula.

Jabado studies the causes of brain tumors in children. The aim of her research is to develop therapies that can interfere with this process and ultimately prevent children from developing brain tumors.

Gravel’s research is interesting in its consideration of how history is connected to genetic diversity and diseases. Using mathematical models, this lab group tries to outline the genetic impact of various historical events.

Weinberg looks at anxiety and depression, and the biological pathways that lead to these conditions.

She also studies the types of brain activity associated with various disorders, such as anxiety.

Bui studies cilia, small hairs sticking out of cells, and aid in their development and function. Through understanding cilia, Bui aims to help combat the many cilia-related diseases, such as kidney disease and blindness.

Sabrina Leslie, Physics

Jens Pruessner, Psychiatry

Bastien Castagner, Pharmacology and Therapeutics

Renee Sieber, Geography and School of Environment

Ian Watson, Biochemistry

Leslie’s lab group looks at biological processes from a physics point of view. Under the motto “new tools create new discoveries,” Leslie’s group creates tools that can measure microscopic interactions between molecules, including DNA, as well as between DNA and proteins.

Pruessner, well-known for teaching the popular first-year course PSYC 100, will be presenting his research on the different ways individuals respond to stress. His studies look at how physical and chemical differences in the ways people process stress translate to behavioural differences.

Castagner does research on how to use natural alternatives, and other small molecules to replace the typical drugs currently sold on the market. His group is working on combating infections of Clostridium difficile, a bacteria which contributes to damage and inflamation of the colon.

Sieber’s group studies how computers can be used by marginalized groups to help social causes, such as urban community organizing and environmental activism.

Her research comprises five subareas including “virtual activism” and “tools for urban and sustainable development.”

Watson’s research centres around melanoma, a form of skin cancer.

Watson has done copius work to characterize the genome of melanoma. Through various collaborations, Watson has, in the past, determined how gene mutations lead to melanoma and classified these mutations.

Sports

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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A case of blood sport

The World Cup’s mistreatment of migrant workers Sarah Shahid Sports Writer

F

IFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) has long been infamous for its layered bureaucratic corruption; the association recently came into the spotlight again this summer when several senior FIFA officials were arrested for bribery, racketeering, fraud, and other charges, a lot of which were linked to the 2022 Qatar World Cup bid. The bid, which will require nine new stadiums to be built and three others to be renovated by 2020, is attracting a rapid inflow of migrant workers to support Qatar’s heavily criticized, labour-intensive, construction industry. A country which has never qualified to play in the international soccer tournament will now be hosting, and by default, qualifying, for the tournament in 2022.

Qatar’s unskilled labour force, mainly comprising individuals from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, resides in labour camps and has to work long hours in extreme desert weather. These expatriate construction workers are bound to their Qatari sponsors under the kafala system, which is an unfair contract that does not allow workers to change jobs or take vacation days to go back home. Foreign workers are not permitted to work in Qatar without a local sponsor, or kaf-

eel, who then holds a considerable amount of power over the worker.

The regulations are restrictive to the extent that migrant workers cannot get a driver’s license, open bank accounts, or even rent a home without the permission of their sponsor. On top of that, a lot of these workers are heavily indebted to their recruitment agencies – many have to pay up to $3,000 in fees just to land a labour job. These workers, many of whom are illiterate, do not anticipate any of these situations since they cannot read the terms of the kafala system when they sign up for it. Trapped overseas, the workers are not given the choice to return home, as their passports are seized and kept by the employer upon arrival.

An investigation by The Guardian conducted in 2014 revealed that 964 workers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh had died while working and living in the Gulf state in 2012 and 2013. While this number is not solely linked to Qatar’s World Cup preparations, it is alarming enough to call for an investigation into the working conditions of a high-risk industry mostly supported by labour-intensive migrant workers preparing for the biggest consumer sport event of the world.

The issue of the work hours and living conditions of foreign workers in Qatar has been previously condemned multiple times, and in light of the recent scandal, the Gulf state appears unfazed by public pressure.

Qatar previously rejected a recommendation from DLA Piper – a global law firm that provides human rights advice to multinational companies and governments – to investigate the deaths of construction workers and abolish the kafala system. The Qatari government has even denied that any migrant deaths have occurred in connection to the World Cup stadium.

Despite the fact that Qatar has offered in the past to change its labour laws, history has shown that it takes scant effort toward progress.

Even FIFA sponsors Visa, CocaCola and Adidas, some of who have previously had their own issues with labour rights, have expressed concern about the poor working conditions involved in building World Cup venues in Qatar. FIFA statutes do not currently require the host country to provide legal security to construction workers or any other workers involved in the preparation of the World Cup. Despite being an organization whose objective is supposedly to promote “unifying, educational, cultural and humanitarian values,” FIFA does not have regulations in place that necessitate for host countries to impose ethical labour practices and standards of living.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of Qatar has recently established a Wage Protection System (WPS) that forces all employers to register with a bank to pay their employees or face penalties otherwise. While it goes without

Kevin Da Silva Castanheira | Illustrator saying that ensuring timely payments to migrant workers and providing them with security is a matter of utmost urgency, the reform’s implementation date was pushed back from August 18 to November to allow companies more time to make the transition. Although a step in the right direction, this reform fails to address the discriminatory kafala system.

The 2022 World Cup has shed

light on an alarming issue that plagues Qatar’s labour system and if FIFA will not take active measures to address the problems, then consumers and supporters of the event should. As fans of a sport which promotes unity and fairness, we have the responsibility to make conscious choices by not supporting organizations that perpetuate systems of oppression, social injustice, and corruption of the humanitarian spirit.

Dancing with the neighbours

Love playing on courts?

Come write for sports! sports@ mcgilldaily. com

Shariff talks about her summer community Zumba project Niyousha Bastani The McGill Daily

I

f you lived in the Lower Plateau this summer, you may have had a stranger knock on your door asking if you’d like to take Zumba classes in her backyard. This stranger would have been Shazia Shariff, a U4 International Management and Political Science student at McGill who created Karibuni Zumba, providing fivedollar classes over the summer to neighbours looking to get active while getting to know each other.

Classes were held three to four times per week, first in Shariff’s backyard, and later in Square St. Louis.

There was also an option to pay more than five dollars, with the extra cash being donated to Pour 3 Points (To 3 Points), a Quebec initiative that trains sports coaches to be life mentors for young athletes. The McGill Daily sat down with Shariff to look back at the

summer project, giving those who missed it a taste of what happens when neighbours come together from all walks of life to dance.

The McGill Daily (MD): Why did you start Karibuni Zumba?

Shazia Shariff (SS): I always wanted to be a dancer, it was one of those beautiful things that I thought I would be. [...] When it came to this summer, I thought of doing something more creative [...] so I decided to become a Zumba instructor.

One of the key motivations behind that was the idea of getting to know your neighbours, something that I thought really lacked, that I had not known my neighbours despite living here [in the Plateau] for almost a year.

And I realized that people generally don’t know each other even though the Plateau is extremely warm, friendly, has a beautiful community feel.

MD: Did you feel like bringing people together through dance fit-

ness was different than if it had been another kind of community initiative?

SS: The thing with dance is that it just pumps those endorphins. It allows you to get loose. [...] And there is nothing better than bonding over embarrassing moments. So I guess that’s what makes it different.

MD: Why did you choose the name Karibuni Zumba?

SS: Karibuni means welcome in a very warm sense of the word in Kiswahili. I’m Kenyan, so it was just natural. [...] Actually, my grandparents suggested it. [...] They said, ‘call it Karibuni, welcome people to your home.’ And before I knew it, I was welcoming people to my backyard.

MD: That’s sweet. Was it mostly students who came?

SS: Actually no, not really. It was all over. I’d say maybe [...] 50 per cent students.

MD: Was there anything else you wanted to say about Karibuni Zumba?

SS: From my heart, I absolutely adored the experience. [...] Because you just find time to come [to the class] in your daily life, and because you’re so different and you have very different backgrounds and very different problems, day to day, it’s just something [that] connected us deeper than who [we] were as people, it’s just the experience and the sharing the moment, the idea of just living the moment. [...] It was also a great way for me personally to express myself in dance. I really enjoyed the idea that I could just play any different kind of reggae music one day, and Indian music, and I could express any different part of my culture.

MD: Sounds beautiful, I’m sad I missed this.

SS: Yeah, and it was really fun in that sense, you know? It was raining once, [but] we danced in the rain nonetheless, and you just share those moments.

Culture

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Filtering the truth

16

Sean Snyder explores consumerism, propaganda, and the image Victoria Lessard Culture Writer

A

rtist Sean Snyder sits, microphone clutched in one hand, listening to an audience member ask him about hacking in relation to his art installation, Aleatoric Collision (Sony Hacking Scandal) (2015) which addresses the data breach preceding the release of The Interview, a movie depicting the assassination of Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of North Korea. He is frowning in concentration, and when the audience member finishes, he pauses before answering the question and plunging the room into a discussion surrounding different forms of hacking and the moral codes surrounding such an activity. Snyder is participating in the gallery talk, along with artists Anne Goldenberg and Matt Pagett, after the opening of his new solo exhibition, “Algorithmic Archaeology,” at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery in Montreal. The exhibition runs in collaboration with the 14th edition of Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal (MPM), titled “The PostPhotographic Condition.”

“I didn’t intend to create an art project – it was my own inter-

est, in a way. [...] Initially I just started tracing what transpired around Christmas time,” Snyder said, when talking about his installation Aleatoric Collision (Sony Hacking Scandal) (2015).

The Sony Hacking Scandal is one of the central pieces of the show, comprising a mixture of objects, prints, and video, including a framed quote by U.S. President Barack Obama answering a question regarding the Sony hack and a copy of the DVD on its own pedestal, elevating it to an object of high art. Though the piece has a sense of humour, the collection of artwork has a more serious tone, and examines the relationships between the image, propaganda, and the consumer.

The prevalence of the image in social media and its dominant role in society are also key themes within Snyder’s work, as well as topics of discussion during the artist talk. Fellow panelist and artist Pagett said, “One of the things that we see in social media now is the power of filters, so instead of something being censored directly, it is filtered. Facebook has filters that control what you see on your newsfeed, Twitter has filters, Google has filters; so, I think any

Sean Snyder’s exhibit. time we talk about social media now, that is the new development – to talk about how these filters work, and [Snyder’s] process is the work of examining that filter.”

The idea of the filter, or how something can be framed to suit the needs of its producer, is prominent in Snyder’s Casio, Seiko, Sheraton, Toyota, Mars (2004-05), a video that combines different clips of media coverage surrounding a single conflict. The most compelling part of the video arises from Snyder’s comparison

Marie Labrosse | The McGill Daily of media coverages of the abandoned home of a former leader of a ‘terrorist’ organization. The specific person is not named, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions about context.

The manipulation of the narrative using the detritus of someone’s deserted residence is highlighted through the items each news organization focuses on: rotten bananas; a Mars bar; random kitchen items; books.

After a visit to “Algorithmic Archaeology,” each choice on so-

cial media becomes a reflexive act – how much am I filtering my life to craft a specific narrative about myself? How much of what I consume is filtered for me to suit the ideals of the producer? Snyder’s work demands that the viewer contemplate what is happening just outside the frame of the image, in both local and global contexts.

“Sean Snyder: Algorithmic Archaeology” runs until October 24, 2015 at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery.

Painting the sound of music

Technology meets art in Philippe Van Eetvelt’s performance piece Nina Chabelnik Culture Writer

M

Van Eetvelt’s art.

Marie Labrosse | The McGill Daily

ontreal-born artist Philippe Van Eetvelt presented The Colour of the Music at Griffintown’s Arsenal Gallery last Tuesday, accompanied by Claudio Pinto on an upright piano. Van Eetvelt’s art piece was inspired

by Montreal artist Patrick Bernatchez’s 2011 video art from his Lost In Time collection, in which Bernatchez disoriented the public with inverted shots of pianoplaying. Van Eetvelt and Pinto have widened the boundaries of musical perception by incorporating the technique of piano-playing into painting a canvas. Throughout the performance, Bernatchez’s short film quietly played on a screen in the back of the room.

As Pinto performed an Argentinian piece, Van Eetvelt guided the mobile structure composed of 88 syringes full of paint. Each colourful tube was connected to a different piano key and was sliding over the canvas. As the pianist went through the piece, the

multi-shade paint would splatter out of different syringes, leaving discordant spots on the white cloth in time with the melody. Before the performance, Pinto told The Daily that he tried to make his music sound as “funky as possible” in order to create a beautifully erratic design.

The different colours were associated with different tonalities, and so it happened that the piece performed by Pinto produced a mostly green trail of paint.

Right after the performance, Van Eetwelt went on to explain that a specific colour palette is usually chosen before each performance, carefully associating colour and piano key, but on Tuesday, he decided to go about it at random and see what happened.

Arsenal provided a vast space for the event, exhibiting some of Van Eetvelt’s other pieces alongside the main show. Just before the show started, the room slowly filled up with people, among them friends and family of Van Eetvelt and Pinto.

The artists slowly walked around, greeting people and shaking hands,

dressed in all black, with black Converse shoes to match. Most people attending the gallery wore black, creating a severe minimalist backdrop to the aesthetically saturated event.

Pinto led the floor, presenting the piece and commenting on the performance. Van Eetvelt, very silent and reserved, gave the occasional shy smile. He did end up sharing with the audience that he enjoyed collaborating with Pinto because each pianist interprets things differently, and he found that Pinto’s rhythmic pieces create unique patterns.

The Colour of the Music was an innovative performance which enmeshed two somewhat disparate components of artistic expression in a novel way. Painting, music, engineering, and design came together to create an unrepeatable moment of innovation.

In one evening, The Colour of the Music perfectly revolutionized the disciplines of visual art and music, proving that it is possible to paint through sound, with both Van Eetvelt and Pinto delivering a colourful performance.

Culture

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

From decay, splendor

Come Open air gallery brings life to a forgotten place out for The Daily’s J-DAY! Hear from our editors as they hold workshops to teach you the basics of journalism – from how to conduct interviews to how to write an article, we’ve got you covered!

Shalak’s mural for the open air gallery.

Catherine Jeffery Culture Writer

I

t’s just an alley in the Plateau – at least that’s what some passersby would think if they were rushing along. Le Majestique oyster restaurant backs into it, a few cars are parked inside, and littering the ground is an array of cardboard boxes, empty buckets, and other oddities. The walls, however, are a different story.

This is an open air street art gallery, a space that several street artists have used to house their huge, beautiful murals. A project in the works since Mural Fest this July, the gallery came together under the direction of Tertl Caaps, a street artist from Queens now based in Montreal. In an interview with The Daily, Caaps said, “The management [of the restaurant] was dragging its feet for months [...]. [When I] approached Le Majestique for the fifth time, [the] new manager [reached] out to the building owner who gave instant permission, which allowed me to start organizing the project.” Comprising “the best people who fit that location,” according to Caaps, the project was entirely uncompensated. “I received no pay for this, nor did the artists that followed me into there. We did it [out of ] love.”

An oversized image of a boy lying on seemingly tumultuous ground immediately greets you walking into the space. A house erupts through his stomach in a psychedelic twist – the whole scene surreal. Painted by street artist Bruno Smoky, the mural pops with

Sonia Larbi-Aissa | The McGill Daily

“I had a vision to revamp that spot. It was one of those places here in the city that wasn’t being utilized properly, and I had to do something about it. [...] It worked out and ultimately contributes to the growth of Montreal’s street art scene.”

Tertl Caaps, street artist

bright blues and greens that keep your eyes hovering, captivated.

Next to Bruno Smoky’s piece, Tertl Caaps has painted a mural of one of his trademark turtle shells. The shells he frequently depicts are a play on the turtle shells that characters throw at each other in Mario Kart. However, with remarkable creativity, he adds a new dimension, that transforms the cartoons from resurrected video game culture to pure artwork. Surrounded by mountains and bright red birds, the gigantic turtle shell on the wall is a dark forest green with the texture of a thick bush. Two miniscule workers care for it: one prun-

ing, the other watering from a ladder leaning across a fresh, blue sky.

In the darkest corner of the alley is a portrait painted by street artist Shalak Attack of three animals. What at first glance looks like the head of a bear expands laterally into a fox and an owl. The three animal heads make up one hypnotic form and somehow distract the viewer from the restaurant dumpster nearby. The colours are distinguishable but the curves of the lines cause them to move into one another with ease, creating one cohesive portrait from a multitude of shades and forms.

Altogether, the gallery leaves a lasting impression as a testament to the power of street art.

Stepping into it is immersive. “It was really beautiful to witness the creation of it […]where you have no idea where [the creativity is] coming from,” a community member living nearby said.

As Phil Derville, another community member, put it, “That spot needed to be beautified because it smells really bad[…]and just having beautiful art makes the smell disappear.”

“That spot was so [...] disgusting, it needed to be brought to life” added Caaps. “I had a vision to revamp that spot. It was one of those places here in the city that wasn’t being utilized properly, and I had to do something about it. [...] It worked out and ultimately contributes to the growth of Montreal’s street art scene, so mission accomplished.”

Saint-Dominique’s open air street art gallery is located around 4119 Saint-Dominique.

Date: Tuesday, October 6 Time: 6:00p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Where: The SSMU building Check out our Facebook event for more details!

like to bewitch others with your words?

Contribute to The McGill Daily’s Literary Supplement!

Deadline for submissions is Sunday, September 27 at 11:59 pm.

Send your contributions (no more than 1000 words) to litsup@ mcgilldaily.com!

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Culture

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Je suis une révolution

Pol Pelletier and the state of Quebec’s feminist theatre Connor Spencer Culture Writer

I

enter a small room in the Centre humaniste du Québec and take my seat in one of the fifty chairs set around a makeshift stage. Although I am not the only person in the room under thirty – a rarity in theatre these days – it feels like I am the only anglophone here to see La Robe Blanche, Pol Pelletier’s disturbing autobiographical piece about being a Québecoise woman and feminist artist in Montreal. I am already uncomfortably aware of the difference between the lived experience of a Canadian who speaks French, and a French Canadian – and the show hasn’t even started yet. The lights dim and Pol “Je suis une révolution!”

Pelletier walks toward us from a side door at the end of the room, white gloved in all black clothes with red high heels – La Robe Blanche begins.

I first heard of the great feminist actor/director/writer/pedagogue (and self-proclaimed neoclown) Pol Pelletier in a McGill

course on Quebec literature, where her name was inextricably linked to the fierce creativity of the feminist theatre scene in Montreal in the 1980s, before the movement disappeared completely after ten short years.

This disappearance was never explained, and no matter whom I asked, no one really seemed to have an answer as to why all of a sudden this great movement ended. Then, through happenstance, I ran into Pelletier.

McGill hosted the annual Women and Theatre Program (WTP) conference over the summer, which I was very excited for and ultimately very disappointed by. It was yet another room of mostly white women talking about their research on feminist theatre undertaken in the nineties. To add insult to injury, the majority of the panelists were American and had little to no knowledge of Montreal’s theater scene, past or present. Not once was the feminist theatre of today – in Canada or elsewhere – ever discussed.

Enter Pelletier. Invited to speak at a roundtable on feminism and Canadian theatre

(the only French-speaking artist invited), she swept into the room, dramatically opened all of the curtains covering the windows, patiently waited for her turn as each of the women introduced themselves, and launched into a twenty-minute speech

Montreal’s new religion is its art, its church, its theatre, its priests, its famous Robert Lepages. It continues to repress the voices and bodies of women just like its Catholic predecessor. The patriarchy still rules, and Pelletier has been trying her entire artistic career to fight it. about the disappearance of feminist theatre in Quebec and why roundtables on the subject are meaningless. It was one of the most powerful and impassioned performances I had ever seen.

And the most impressive part?

After her speech, she sat back

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down and participated in the rest of the discussion.

Her goal was to shake up the palpable complacency and sense of a ‘job well done’ in the room in order to stimulate some dialogue.

She succeeded – what followed was by far the most stimulating

VOICES FROM THE LAKE November 6

Square-Victoria—OACI

dialogue of the entire conference.

At the Centre Humaniste, I had the pleasure of seeing La Robe Blanche, the autobiographical play Pelletier wrote in 2012 after a major bout of burnout – something that has plagued her throughout her career. La Robe Blanche follows Pelletier’s life, starting with the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of her town’s priest, Father Desjardins.

Pelletier utilizes her personal experience with abuse in order to highlight the clergical oppression entrenched within the history and life of Quebec. Forty-five years after the Quiet Revolution, this point might seem irrelevant to the contemporary Quebecois experience. However, Pelletier reminded the audience with her piece that the aims of this revolution are far from achieved.

The audience watched as Nicole Pelletier, the victimized three-year-old and then troubled teen, grows up to become Pol Pelletier, the formidable force we know today. Pelletier tells us that the figure of le curé, the priest, has not disappeared in Quebec – he is now simply taking on different forms. Montreal has in fact created a new kind of church, one where the same patriarchal values of the Catholic Church still reign.

Montreal’s new religion is its art, its church, its theatre, its priests, its famous Robert Lepages. It continues to repress the voices and bodies of women just like its Catholic predecessor. The patriarchy still rules, and Pelletier has been trying for her entire artistic career to fight it.

What’s the mother of the Montreal feminist theatre movement’s take on why it ended so suddenly? Her view, expressed both at the panel and in La Robe Blanche, is that Quebec’s feminist awakening of the eighties died

an abrupt and violent death on December 6, 1989, along with the 14 women at École Polytechnique.

That same year, the Quebec government engaged in a battle with the its most celebrated archetype of the woman: its nurses (examples include Jeanne Mance, Marguerite Bourgeoys, et cetera).

When the nurses went on strike over wages, the government responded by fining them for every day of work they missed.

All of a sudden, women’s voices were being violently silenced – something that affected the créatrices in Montreal profoundly.

According to Pelletier, they all moved away or stopped making art out of fear: fear of the backlash, of the message being sent that if you were a woman who took up too much space, you would be punished.

By 1995, the Théâtre Expérimental des Femmes, a theatre Pelletier founded with two other women in 1985, decided to broaden its scope, rename itself Théâtre Espace Go, and move away from its mandate of strictly feminist creation that Pelletier had been directing. When it moved to its new home on St. Laurent, Espace Go decorated its facade with 12 quotes – all by men.

The administration later added six quotes from women, but none from its founder Pelletier.

One of the things Pelletier speaks about is the shame attached to the radical feminist Quebecois creations of the eighties. In Pelletier’s own theatre theory titled “Théâtre des Sauvages,” she focuses on centralizing the woman’s marginalized voice and body in order to combat sexist stereotypes. To Pelletier, the theatre is a house that can heal through the linking of the collective unconscious and facilitating the voice of the woman.

La Robe Blanche leads us through all of this and more, leaving the audience blinking in the light as Pelletier takes her bows.

One thing is certain: Pelletier not only is one of the most powerful performers I have ever seen, but has also perfected the skill of weaving art and politics into the fabric of performance. At 67, she continues to be one of the loudest and most energetic voices in the Montreal theatre scene, even as fewer and fewer people turn to listen and write her off as eccentric and militantly feminist.

Pelletier’s aim is to tell us that the battle is far from over; there is no time to rest on our collective laurels. We are still fighting against a patriarchal society, and Pelletier will say this as loud and as long as she can in little rooms around the city until people start to listen and invite her to perform in bigger ones.

Editorial

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Coderre should take his own advice on refugees

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com coordinating editor

Niyousha Bastani

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On September 4, Montreal mayor Denis Coderre declared that the city was prepared to welcome more refugees from Syria. He also called on the federal government to establish a special program for the 4.5 million people fleeing the crisis, saying, “We have not done enough.” On the same day, he ignored activist group Solidarity Across Borders (SAB), which held a rally outside his office in City Hall, demanding that he take a position on the October 2014 arrest and deportation of 17-year-old Daniel*, a hearing-impaired student who fled Mexico City in 2008 with his mother. Federal action to accept more refugees is indeed sorely needed, but Coderre’s call for such action is disingenuous at best when Montreal fails to support refugees and displaced people who are already here.

Quebec, unlike any other Canadian province or the U.S., charges undocumented children to attend public schools, with the Ministry of Education requiring them to pay $5,000 to $6,000 per year. Daniel, who had lived in Montreal for over six years, changed high schools when school administrators found out about his undocumented status and demanded this discriminatory fee. He was later arrested by Montreal police while visiting his former high school on his 17th birthday, and was put in solitary confinement for one week at the Laval immigration detention centre. Despite multiple protests and a pending claim for him to stay in the country on humanitarian and compas-

sionate grounds, Daniel, a minor, was separated from his family and deported back to Mexico in October 2014.

While Daniel’s case is specific to Montreal, it is also a symptom of Canada’s unjust immigration system. According to Canada Border Services Agency statistics from 2013, Canadian immigration officials accepted only 5,790 people that year, while deporting over 10,000 people, most of whom were refused as refugees. According to a SAB press release, the number of accepted refugees dropped by 30 per cent between 2006 and 2012. Not only is Canada failing to accommodate enough Syrian refugees, but it is becoming increasingly hostile to people already here seeking refugee status – a fact that Coderre refuses to acknowledge.

If Coderre wants to support refugees in the city, he should be using his platform to call attention to the fact that Montreal is the largest city in Canada where undocumented children do not have free access to public education. In addition, he must act to prevent institutions under municipal jurisdiction, such as the police, from exacerbating these migrants’ already precarious situations. As Coderre says, Canada has not done enough – but neither has he. *Name has been changed.

—The McGill Daily editorial board

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19

Compendium!

September 21, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

20

Lies, half-truths, and things are fracked up.

Cabinet Cabaret shakes up the nation Burlesque-punk dance-off will determine the fate of millions

Amanda Kultscha The McGall Weekly

A

s the heat of September makes way for the cold of October, thousands of people flock to Ottawa in anticipation of what could possibly be the friskiest art show in all of known history. It’s even spicier than the Spice Girls and more punk rock than her Majesty Queen Lizzy herself – I am of course talking about the grandest stage-art festival of the century: the Cabinet Cabaret.

In case you have been living in a bubble somewhere, focusing only on your studies and oblivious to the community you live in, the Cabinet Cabaret is the heart and soul of all Canadians. Taking place every four or five years, the performances at the Cabinet Cabaret define the very way of life in Canada.

Still, if you have to ask, “What the frack is the Cabinet Cabaret?” here’s the short answer from Wikipedia: “The Cabinet Cabaret is a play-it-yourself-dance-ityourself burlesque-punk danceoff, broadcasted live even in the furthest reaches of Canada (including Quebec), through which the Canadian federal government is chosen.”

This year – as always, really – three acts are competing for everyone’s attention. At the forefront are everybody’s sweethearts, the industrial metal Britpop dubstep tap dancing group Ministers from Hell.

Led by a whimsical, lipless man known as Stefon Arpeur, the Ministers from Hell are masters of dance, environmental degradation, social manipulation, and Beatles covers. Their performances over the past four years have been controversial, despite being definite crowd-pleasers, including such performances as the “Barbaric Cultural Practice,” the “Anti-terror Burlesque Bonanza,” and the “I’m

gonna frack you up.”

In an interview with The Weekly, Arpeur explained that he thinks the charm of the Ministers stems from their very approachable aesthetic and the fact that they’re “mostly rich white folks.”

“I am a [rich white person who has more power than he should have been given. I mean, I have been the top dancer in Canada] for the past nine years and I have [done some fracked up shit. Still, people have let me remain the top dancer. Honestly folks. Why? Why on earth would you let me remain in power for so long? Have you no respect] for yourselves?” Arpeur said.

“My troupe is my priority, and I’d do everything for it. How far would I go? Just watch me.”

Jaytrudes Mydadwasapm, Leader of the Middle Class The Ministers’ lead rabblerouser and choreographer JayJay Kendy, also a member of a fringe nationalist right-wing organization colloquially known as ‘the State,’ said, “I don’t really like it when strangers watch our performances. Really, the Ministers only want to be watched by Canadians, true Canadians. That’s the kind of stuff we want to emphasize in our performances.”

Next up is the right-of-centre folk-punk contemporary dance troupe known as the Middle Class.

Led by the charismatic Jaytrudes Mydadwasapm, whose hairdresser makes more money than he does, the Middle Class pretty much is the exact same as the

Ministers from Hell. The one difference, however, is that they do not hide the fact that they smoke weed. They also claim that they are queer-friendly, but that’s probably just a marketing gimmick.

“Our priority is to entertain everyone,” a dreamy Mydadwasapm told The Weekly. “In that regard, we watch a lot of the things other people are doing.”

Indeed, if you have ever watched a performance by the Middle Class, you’ll recognize patterns of movement that may have been stolen from the “Anti-terror Burlesque Bonanza.” Mydadwasapm does not deny this, and in fact seems to be very proud of it.

“You know what? I’m sick and tired of people telling us that we’re rip-offs,” Mydadwasapm said without provocation. “My troupe is my priority, and I’d do everything for it. How far would I go? Just watch me.”

Last, but definitely not least, is the anarcho-liberal-indie-countryalternative-hip hop dance collective known as the Nu Dance Party.

Speaking to The Weekly, the Nu Dance Party’s leader, the bearded beast that is Tom Mullé Claire, explained that his troupe is the best troupe and all the other troupes can go “dance somewhere else.”

The Party’s dance moves are inspired by an ancient traditional European dance known as the Marxian Hustle. At least, that’s what Claire told The Weekly. In reality, the Party’s routine has nothing to do with the Marxian Hustle.

Their pirouettes are nowhere near as revolutionary as described in the old manuscripts, their somersaults are alienating, and their music really sounds very dull. Really, they’re just like any other anarcholiberal-indie-country-alternativehip hop dance collective you’d see across the Atlantic.

Truly, until four years ago, no

Pre-performance stretches. one would have even bothered to see a show by the Nu Dance Party, and if it weren’t for Jacques “Orange Wave” Lead’em, the collective’s renegade and sadly deceased ex-leader, that would have remained the case.

In an astral message sent through the weaves of time and space, Lead’em told The Weekly that he was “somewhat” disappointed with the most recent performances of the Nu Dance Party.

“Yeah, they’re different from everyone else. Yeah, they have some rad grooves that make ‘em stand out from the Middle Class and the Ministers from Hell. But is that enough?”

The real question is, however, when will I be finally able to see all these kickass dancers on stage? The answer is: very soon – October I think? Already, teasers for the performances are popping up on YouTube and distracting

Bliaz | The McGall Weekly you from your WatchMojo marathons. So hold on to your seats, because the next few weeks are going to be a blast. Expect surprise performances all around Canada. Rumour has it that the Nu Dance Party will be doing a 15-minute routine at Club Soda.

Don’t miss out.

The Cabinet Cabaret is held once every four or five years at the heart of the nation in Ottawa, Ontario. To get tickets, spend (approximately) five years trying to get permanent residency, and then another (approximately) five years to get citizenship. If you are already a Canadian citizen, check to make sure you don’t actually have revokable second-class citizenship as per recent Arpeur legislation. If you feel like the Cabinet Cabaret is a horrible way to choose how a country is governed – tough luck!

Just try harder for a revolution.

Make us laugh, we’re dead inside. compendium@mcgilldaily.com