The McGill Daily Vol105Iss7

Volume 105, Issue 7 Thursday, October 15, 2015

An inside look at the McGill Mental Health Service Page 03

McGill THE

DAILY

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Table of Contents 03

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NEWS

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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FEATURES

McGill Mental Health Service criticized McGill’s Geography department is not doing enough to address its colonial past

Interview with Miguel Figueroa Interview with Elizabeth May Floor fellows push for a collective agreement

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Divest McGill protests the Board of Governors meeting

Tweets on STEM diversity

SCI+TECH

08 COMMENTARY

Mental health: beyond medicine

What does “the economy” mean?

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Respect for floor fellows

SPORTS

Documentary sheds light on culture surrounding 9-man

No celebrating militarism

CULTURE

Cuban soul rocks House of Jazz The Daily reviews Turn me Inside Out and Songs from the Adjacent Room

19

EDITORIAL

Bill 35, a step in the right direction

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COMPENDIUM!

SHMU, cursed?!

Letters

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News

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Students dissatisfied with McGill Mental Health Service

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New directorship transitions service to an “autonomy-based model” Saima Desai The McGill Daily

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cGill Mental Health Service (MMHS), formed fifty years ago, treated over 3,500 student patients last year. According to a 2005 review of MMHS, its primary mandate is “to provide easily accessible, high quality clinical services to the McGill student body.”

But in recent years, spikes in student use of MMHS and stagnating numbers of staff have posed a challenge to MMHS in terms of both accessibility and quality.

In August 2014, Nancy Low, a psychiatrist at MMHS, became the clinical director, working alongside associate director Giuseppe Alfonsi, a clinical psychologist.

Low and Alfonsi are moving MMHS toward an “autonomybased” model of mental health services provision. “In practice that means that the majority of the choices with regards to students should remain with the student [...] and the psychologist or psychotherapist is only there really as a facilitator, as a guide,” explained Low in an interview with The Daily.

“Once [a student is] in the clinic [...] they want to stay for a long time, because they feel like if they exit, that they won’t be able to be seen again.”

Nancy Low, clinical director of MMHS Each year, more students are accessing MMHS in greater numbers. “If our demand has seen an increase of 30 per cent in the last five years, definitely our staff and resources haven’t increased as a result of that,” Low explained.

“Even when we have funding we don’t have the space,” added Alfonsi.

During the last academic year, the University decided to eliminate a $112,000 transfer to the Student Services budget, which was already reduced from $443,905 in 2009-10.

In a Post-graduate Society of McGill University (PGSS) Council meeting on May 20, Deputy Provost

(Student Life and Learning) Ollivier Dyens had expressed that the University did not want to “create unsustainable expectations.”

“There is a limit to how much healthcare services we can provide – we are not a hospital,” Dyens had said.

Notwithstanding the apparent funding and resource problems, however, students have criticized MMHS regarding staff-student interactions.

One student began therapy at MMHS after being sexually assaulted by a fellow student. “I ended up internalizing a lot of victim blaming ideology,” they said.

“My therapist asked me what I was wearing, why I didn’t scream, why I let this person assault me.”

“I was in an intensely vulnerable position, seeking help after trauma, and not only did I not receive that help, but [MMHS] inflicted a lot of emotional harm that I am still dealing with today,” they continued.

Alfonsi explained that clinical directors cannot directly fire a staff member, but rather are asked to try to mediate relations with the client or reassign the staff member to different tasks. “Cases where we would really be talking about termination would be gross negligence, [or] inappropriate behaviour with students,” Alfonsi continued.

Out of the six students to which The Daily spoke, none had filed complaints about their negative experiences with MMHS. When asked, they all expressed that they did not know how to file a complaint. This year, Alfonsi and Low have created an online feedback form to encourage students to share their complaints or praise.

Lucie Lastinger, a U2 Women’s Studies and Anthropology student, also accessed MMHS after being sexually assaulted. They explained that, because their assailant was a man, “from the get-go, this therapist was telling me that I really should not be seeing a [therapist who is a man ...], which is pretty fifties kind of thinking,” Lastinger said.

Lastinger said that despite their insistence that they felt comfortable with the patient-therapist relationship, Lastiger’s therapist eventually insisted on referring them to another colleague, who is a woman.

“Some of the staff are older and so they didn’t get training more recently, so they’re not necessarily completely fluent and competent in the most mod-

Justine Touchon | Illustrator ern psychotherapies,” explained Low. Under Low and Alfonsi’s new model, therapists are being trained in groups alongside students with lived experience.

“It’s interesting to have a psychiatrist sitting next to a 24-yearold psych undergrad, and have an open conversation about the nature of how to treat mental health,” Alfonsi commented.

Another student, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Daily that she spent five months on the MMHS waiting list and contacted the office four times before receiving an appointment.

“I ended up internalizing a lot of victim blaming ideology. My therapist asked me what I was wearing, why I didn’t scream, why I let this person assault me.”

Anonymous student Low explained that the long waiting list leads to a catch-22.

“Once [a student is] in this clinic

[...] they want to stay for a long time, because they feel like if they exit, that they won’t be able to be seen again,” noted Low. Low and Alfonsi envision more peer support groups and group therapy to lessen the demand for one-on-one therapy. “If we change our model to have a breadth of what students will come in for, that will help us a lot,” said Low. “Because maybe one student needs sixty hours, and maybe one student needs ten, fifteen minutes.”

But some students argue that investing in more clinical staff is far more important than a breadth of wellness projects. Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP University Affairs Chloe Rourke commented on the University’s efforts. “It’s been a long time that students have been filling the gap that the University has provided, and in my opinion that’s a really great thing to see [...] but the University simultaneously can be providing more support,” Rourke said.

Low explained that the high demand “causes [staff ] to feel more hurried in their treatments of people.” As a result, students feel like their therapy is rushed, their experiences are trivialized, and their conditions are being misdiagnosed, Low explained.

Many students are shocked by the brevity and brusqueness of their initial consultation at MMHS, where a professional quickly determines the severity of their situation.

Nancy Heath, a professor in the

Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, shed light on the stresses that triage (a process by which a therapist quickly identifies the ailment of the patient) places on staff. “You’ve gone into a field in order to help students, you’re very dedicated to it, and suddenly you’re swamped,” explained Heath.

“The procedure that you follow at any university, hospital, community mental health service is triage. [... The professional] feels very stressed by this experience, so what happens then is that the interaction deteriorates in the sense that the student is astonished that this breakthrough for them is being responded to in such a cavalier manner.”

Alfonsi, however, insisted that “even with this demand, everybody should be getting a reasonably good quality of therapy.”

“The wait list is not acceptable to us. I don’t know if we’ll ever beat it, but we’re not ever going to say to ourselves ‘oh, it’s okay that we have a wait list,’” he continued.

With numerous criticisms of MMHS being inaccessible and providing sub-par care, Low and Alfonsi expressed that they are working to optimize their limited resources and change the face of MMHS. “We have a culture in place of the powerful, strong psychiatrist, and the passive student,” said Alfonsi. “The whole narrative is broken.

First of all, because we don’t have the resources to fulfil that narrative, but then on top of that it’s not the best way to be delivering mental health care,” he added.

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News

October 15, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Communist party leader talks to The Daily New socialism will be better, more capable, Miguel Figueroa says Jill Bachelder and Igor Sadikov The McGill Daily

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iguel Figueroa has been leading Canada’s Communist Party since 1992 and fighting for socialism in Canada for over 40 years. In the upcoming 2015 federal election, Figueroa is running in the Ontario riding of Davenport. The Daily interviewed Figueroa while he was in Montreal to campagin.

The McGill Daily (MD): Could you talk a bit about your party, your program, and how it’s different from other parties?

Miguel Figueroa (MF): The main point of departure is that we consider the crisis situation of capitalism, not only in Canada, but internationally. [...] The Harper Conservatives are probably the most reactionary, pro-war, misogynist, anti-Aboriginal government in Canadian history, so obviously there needs to be an alternative. But the alternatives that are being offered are really quite feeble and tepid, and all within a narrow box of neoliberal economic dogma – the primacy of the market, the idea that business is what creates employment.

We’re the only party in this election campaign that’s talking about the ‘s word,’ about socialism. [...]

Even the Greens, with respect to transitioning our economic model

toward a greener economy, are within the context of finding market-based solutions to this problem, basically upholding the status quo.

Canada’s fundamental transition to a greener economy will involve massive investments in renewable energy and transportation systems to move toward high-speed rail and other forms of massive transit. [...] All of these things can only be done, first of all, if the Canadian people own, control, and develop our energy resources socially, as opposed to [these resources] being developed by the private oil monopolies. Secondly, we’ll need that wealth [from nationalizing energy] in order to finance that kind of significant transition in our economy. [...] So we call for nationalizing energy.

MD: What is your vision for a socialist or communist Canada?

How do you envision it as different from those experiments that might not have been successful in the past?

MF: If you measure capitalism today by its early days, when there was the slave trade, child labour – well, that’s not capitalism today, that was a long time ago. [...] But for socialism, that’s [usually] the end of the debate – tried it once, didn’t work. [...] The next wave of socialism will be rather different from the earliest experiences, for no other reason than we’ve learned a lot of lessons about the importance, for instance, of working people truly having control

and a sense of ownership over the building of a new society; it shouldn’t be built on their behalf, passively.

MD: What is your party’s position on Canada’s role in colonialism, for instance, as it relates to the occupation of Palestine?

MF: In general, it’s a shameful role that Canada’s playing internationally, a very aggressive, proimperialist role. [...] We’re the only party in this election campaign that says that Canada should get out of [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)]. [...] We call for a truly independent foreign policy based on peace and disarmament.

Our party unreservedly supports and is in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for their right of self-determination, and for the right to have a viable independent state and an end to the occupation, tearing down the wall, ending the seizure of Gaza, the release of political prisoners.

MD: What about Canada’s relationship with Indigenous communities here, on whose lands it’s built?

MF: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report says that the [Canadian government’s] policy against the Aboriginal peoples constitutes cultural genocide, and yet our government won’t even recognize that, much less implement the 94 recommendations that the commission proposed. That’s outra-

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily geous, so we’re also obviously in solidarity with the struggles of Aboriginal peoples, for the just resolution of their outstanding land claims, for their right to self-determination in the sense that they should be recognized as nations within Canada in the constitution – and so should Quebec and the Acadian peoples.

MD: Earlier, you mentioned democracy, mass participation in the building of a new society and worker participation [in its building]. This is something that goes deeper than just electoral democracy; so what kind of work does your party do between elections and what can other people do to create those conditions today?

MF: We don’t believe in coups

or conspiracies, we think that socialism will only come when the majority want it to come and are prepared to act to bring it about. [...] We think it’s likely that there will be a convergence of social forces and political forces into a kind of people’s coalition, including the Communist Party, but other left forces as well.

For us, the battle of real social change is the battle of ideas, and getting working people particularly to start becoming conscious of their place in society.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. A longer version of this interview is available online at mcgilldaily.com.

Elizabeth May marches with climate justice protesters Green Party unequivocally against pipelines and tar sands

Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

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n October 10, hundreds of people marched through downtown Montreal to protest the Energy East and Line 9B pipelines.

The demonstration was organized by Étudiant(e)s contre les oléoducs (ÉCO), and as such, most of the participants were students, including a contingent from the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU).

Also present were supporters of the Green Party of Canada, including the party’s leader, Elizabeth May. The Daily spoke with May on the street as the demonstrators marched and chanted against environmental degradation and pipeline projects.

The McGill Daily (MD): Why are you here today?

Elizabeth May (EM): I am the leader of the only party in Canada that opposes every pipeline and

[that] has candidates running in every province. To show support and solidarity with the movement here in Quebec, I was thrilled that I was able to organize my schedule to be here.

MD: From what I can understand and what I can see, this is more than just about the environment. Could you talk a bit in regards to that?

EM: I don’t think there is anything more important than dealing with climate change, and every single pipeline would result in an expansion of the [tar] sands [in Alberta] and increased greenhouse gases from Canada.

MD: And there is also the matters of Indigenous rights and women’s rights.

EM: Oh, absolutely! [...] Every pipeline being proposed crosses through the unceded territory, or protected title and treaty rights of First Nations. The First Nations

have not been engaged [by the government] in this discussion. And after [the 2014 Supreme Court decision that granted land title to the Tsilhqot’in First Nation], it’s clear that First Nations don’t just require consultation, they actually have the right to make the decision about what happens on their territories.

And here I’m marching with the [Mur des femmes contre les oléoducs] – it’s an organization of the women of Quebec standing against Energy East. So I was very honoured they invited me to join to carry this banner.

MD: As the leader of the Green Party, you were saying that yours is the only mainstream party that actually takes a stance against environmental degradation.

EM: We have the strongest policies. The Liberals and the [New Democratic Party] (NDP) – either one of them are better than Harper.

But they don’t really grasp the ur-

gency or the kind of choices we have to make. [...] We’re unequivocal and we stand on the principle that we have to have policies that ensure we’re moving off fossil fuels, that we stop the growth in the oil sands.

[After the elections], Canada, I hope, will be back in [the World Climate Summit in Paris in December 2015] as a completely different country than we’ve been under Stephen Harper. Because the rest of the world in climate negotiations has grown to, well, really to hate us. We need to restore our reputation in the world by actually going into negotiations with real climate targets [...] instead of dragging the negotiations down, as we have under Stephen Harper for the past nine years.

MD: I suppose it’s really unfortunate that you won’t be able to talk about these issues in an English language national debate.

EM: I think it’s unfortunate for

all Canadians that Mr. Harper and Mr. Mulcair have managed to get the debates cancelled [as a result of their refusal to participate]. Because a lot of Canadians have not yet made up their mind, how they plan to vote. [...] In every election for more than thirty years, we’ve had an English language national debate. The last election, 11 million people watched the English language debate.

But beyond that, no one’s holding Harper to account [...] for contempt of parliament, for gagging scientists, and for passing [Bill] C-51.

These are not issues Canadians are hearing discussed because the English language debate was cancelled.

So I think it’s really an affront to democracy to have such an important part of our elections cancelled.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. A longer version of this interview is available online at mcgilldaily.com.

News

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Floor fellows continue push for collective agreement

Union works to conserve harm reduction, anti-oppression values in residences Rebecca Kahn News Writer

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oday, the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) sent an open letter to Principal Suzanne Fortier (“Respect floor fellows, support students,” October 15, Commentary, page 9) regarding the collective bargaining process between floor fellows and the University.

Speaking to The Daily, Sadie McInnes, AMUSE VP Floor Fellow and a current floor fellow at Molson Hall, said, “The first time [the idea for a union] came up was in 2012, when two floor fellows at Solin Hall were fired for their involvement in the 2012 student strikes.

So that highlighted the lack of job security that we had, and how that was linked to our housing security because we don’t have leases, and so when you lose your job, you also lose your home.”

“[Floor fellows] want to be able to take care of their students in ways that they know are effective.”

Molly Swain, AMUSE President

The main objective of negotiations include an assured conservation of the floor fellows’ current core values: harm reduction and anti-oppression.

According to McInnes, harm reduction “is a model by which we were able to be a support for students. At other schools, [Resident Assistants (RAs)] ticket people for their drug or alcohol use or there are rules for drug and alcohol use. What we see is students hiding their drug use from the main support people in the building. It puts students in danger.”

The second value, anti-oppression, supports students that are part of groups which are often marginalized and works to ensure that harmful power dynamics are not recreated.

In an email to The Daily, Cecilia

MacArthur, a floor fellow at Solin Hall, said, “As a floor fellow, I am deeply committed to our values of harm reduction and anti-oppression.

I would not have applied to this job had those values not formed the foundation of the floor fellow role.”

“These values are tried and true; they allow for the creation of a strong, supportive, respectful residence community. As floor fellows, we know this because we work with these values on a daily basis,” MacArthur continued.

MacArthur also expressed that these values are supported and appreciated by students who live in residences, as well. “I have had students in the past who have expressed that these values allowed them to feel respected and supported, and felt that these values critically shaped their rez – and McGill – experience,” she said.

The first 11 months of negotiations with McGill were about getting these core values down in writing, McInnes said. “We got a little bit written down, but there’s been this clause in this section that’s essentially [the University] saying, ‘Okay, we’ll write this down but we reserve the right to change this at any point.’’’

AMUSE then began to push for McGill to consult the floor fellows before making any changes to the core values of their job. AMUSE President Molly Swain told The Daily that the negotiations “really stalled because McGill is very reluctant to put anything in an agreement to protect those values.”

Swain noted that “McGill is generally known for driving a very, very hard bargain” in terms of negotiations with unions. Moreover, according to Swain, the type of emotional labour that floor fellows provide is fundamentally different from than that of many other employees at the university; making this is a new territory for everyone involved.

Asking for payment for floor fellows was a secondary priority for AMUSE. “Our first priority was about our values and about working conditions more generally and it was really in the process [...] that we realized that by Quebec labour law we weren’t being paid legally,” McInnes said.

The Commission des normes du

McGill residence, University Hall. travail (CNT) has already ruled in favour of backpayments from McGill for two past floor fellows, precedence that could potentially lead to McGill floor fellows getting paid for the hours they put in.

As McGill ignores the union’s plea for payment, McInnes noted that “it feels like in the wake of discussion for remuneration, there’s an emphasis on cutting down the amount that we work, and that has the potential to really get in the way of student support, which has always [been what’s] important for us.”

“At the same time, there’s a capping of Residence Life Manager (RLM) hours. RLMs have less and less support from McGill and

Sonia Ionescu | The McGill Daily

they have expressed a lot of frustration with McGill. We’re, at this point, being told more and more to rely on RLMs so much for what we do in our job; the concern there is that that’s not very feasible,” McInnes continued.

When reached out to comment on the negotiation process, Doug Sweet, McGill’s Director of Internal Communications, said that McGill would not be able to comment.

“McGill doesn’t comment on labour negotiations while they are continuing, except when issuing a joint statement of progress in the talks that has been agreed to by both parties in the negotiations,” Sweet said in an email to The Daily.

WRITE for NEWS. news@mcgilldaily.com

Swain commented that the fundamental reason for these negotiations is that “[floor fellows] want to be able to take care of their students in ways that they know are effective.”

MacArthur said that students living in residences are also in support of the floor fellows’ cause.

“I have heard surprise from my students regarding the conditions of our jobs. In particular, students have expressed shock at the fact that floor fellows do not have leases and thus lack housing security [and] at the fact that administrators are calling the shots, considering they’re so far removed from rez,’” MacArthur explained.

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News

October 15, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Students frustrated by lack of action on divestment Divest McGill demonstrates outside Board of Governors meeting

Cem Ertekin The McGill Daily

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he Board of Governors (BoG) meeting held on October 8 was marked by a protest action organized by campus climate justice organization Divest McGill. More than thirty demonstrators stood in silence in front of the James Administration building to protest the BoG’s and the Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR)’s lack of response to Divest McGill’s demands for divestment from fossil fuels.

Originally, Divest McGill had planned the action to take the form of a die-in, a form of direct action where participants simulate being dead. However, the group decided to change the nature of the protest, given that die-ins have most recently been used by Black Lives Matter activists and they did not want to appropriate the technique.

“A big issue with environmental justice movements is that they’re very white, classist, and inaccessible to other groups of people. “ Evan Berry, Divest McGill member “All of us need to recognize our position as participants in this protest. We are not the people who will be hit hardest by extraction and climate change. We have changed the nature of the demonstration to better reflect our own positionality,” announced Fiona McRaith, an organizer with Divest McGill.

Speaking to The Daily, Evan Berry, a member of Divest McGill, said, “A big issue with environmental justice movements is that they’re very white, classist, and inaccessible to other groups of people. [...]

Global warming, extraction, building of fossil fuel infrastructure – all of that happens on the lands, in the communities, of certain marginalized populations. As a result, for them to have a die-in as the people who are directly implicated in that and then bring allies into it would make most sense for that situation.”

Demonstrators outside of James Administration building.

Despite the protest action, only a few members of the BoG walked through the “human forest” set up

by Divest McGill. Berry said some members of the BoG might have used other entrances to enter the building.

“We knew that there were other entrances to the building, and we thought that it would be more important to get more people centralized in one location to send a message to the people who actually saw it,” stated Berry.

The BoG meeting saw a presentation given by Robin D. Rogers, a McGill professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair in Green Chemistry and Green Chemicals.

Rogers talked about the importance of producing “technologies that are environmentally sustainable, economically sustainable, and socially sustainable, while developing entrepreneurs, new companies, [and] new knowledge.”

“Investment in clear energy is disappearing because oil is cheap,” Rogers said. It was around this point that members of Divest McGill entered the room to observe the meeting.

Principal Suzanne Fortier announced her priorities for the 201516 academic year, including student life and learning, research, community engagement, workplace improvements, transforming the campus, demonstrating good governance and sound management,

and participating in the development of public policies and in outside boards and councils.

Speaking at the meeting, Fortier said, “I think that they’re very important priorities for our community. They help us set goals and directions for our university and, as such, I don’t think they’re likely to change from year to year.”

However, Fortier warned the BoG that the pace at which these priorities can be pursued could be affected by economic circumstances, especially under the effects of provincial budget cuts to higher education.

“I think that seeing the principal’s priorities [is] good in terms of seeing where they align with what the students think the priorities are [...], so that [we] as student executives can tailor what our students need into the priorities and frame them in terms of the priorities that the University already has,” Secretary-General of the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill (PGSS) Danielle Toccalino told The Daily.

The BoG listened to Board committee reports, at which point members of Divest McGill stood up to display picket signs, some of which said, “CAMSR: nothing to report?!”

During his report from the executive committee, Stuart “Kip” Cobett, the chair of BoG and CAMSR, said, “Some of the visitors in

Cem Ertekin | The McGill Daily the room would be interested to know that although the Board has nothing to report on Divest, CAMSR has reported to the executive committee. CAMSR had a meeting in August. CAMSR has another committee meeting scheduled for two weeks from now. So the process continues.”

“Kip’s embarrassing lack of an update from CAMSR reflects what we have been saying – the board is failing to take action.”

Julianna Duholke, Divest McGill organizer In an email to The Daily, Julianna Duholke, an organizer with Divest McGill, said, “Kip’s embarrassing lack of an update from CAMSR reflects what we have been saying – the Board is failing to take action.

All that Kip was able to report was that they’ve had one meeting since winter semester. This is shameful considering we are asking them to

take action on a very urgent issue – the climate crisis.”

In the same email, Emily Boytinck, Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) VP External and member of Divest McGill said, “Kip seemed pretty flustered when he truly had no progress to report on, other than that CAMSR had met and was going to meet again. He wouldn’t even address us directly. Perhaps he felt embarrassed, which is understandable since he is supposed to lead CAMSR as its interim chairperson.”

Speaking to The Daily, Cobbett said, “It’s very tough to give any realistic estimate. It’s a very comprehensive petition that Divest McGill submitted. It’s a lot of material in there. We’ve got to digest it. Once we’ve got the material digested, we’ve got to consider it and figure out what our recommendations are going to be.”

“I don’t think we’re late. And I’m not going to comment on anything to do with the petition until after CAMSR has considered it.”

Furthermore, when asked whether he saw the demonstration that took place outside of the James Administration building before the meeting, Cobbett responded, “No.” An earlier version of this article was published online.

On

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Commentary

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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The meaning of “the economy” Neoliberalism has rendered the word hollow

Gavin Boutroy The McGill Daily

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n “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell speaks of words that “are often used in a consciously dishonest way.

That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.”

In the midst of a federal election campaign, it is clear that “the economy” is one of these words.

“The economy” has become synonymous with gross domestic product (GDP) growth, as the actual meaning of the word becomes clouded through its ideological annexation by neoliberalism.

A paradigm now exists where people think that “the economy” is the most pressing subject in politics, a reality that is regularly reflected in polling. A CBC poll found that for 36 per cent of Canadians, the most important issue in this election is the economy – substantially ahead of the second most popular topic, the environment, at 11 per cent.

What does it mean to be concerned about the economy? In economics classes, we are told that the economy is the management of resources and scarce goods. A debate about the economy at the state level should involve talk about jobs and unemployment, deficits and surpluses, investment in public goods and social services, and taxation.

These all seem like legitimate areas of concern for the political left and right. As a subject of debate, “the economy” could produce informative and substantive discussion. Unfortunately, informative and substantive discussion is not part of the political program of capitalist ideologues.

Politicians adhering to the right-wing ideology of neoliberalism began coming to power in the late 1970s – Ronald Reagan in the U.S., Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and Brian Mulroney in Canada. They brought with them an economic program that became known as “trickle-down economics.” According to this economic theory, which underpins neoliberalism, if a country’s economic output grows as a whole – usually equated with the increase of an indicator like the GDP – then people from every income bracket will benefit. Enacted in policy, though, neoliberalism has meant the destruction of unions and social services, and the emergence of massive inequality.

Environmental lawyer James Gustave Speth, a former student at Yale and Oxford universities, is a critic of the neoliberal economic paradigm. In an October 2013 blog post, Speth wrote that “the focus on GDP growth deflects efforts from growing the many things that do need to grow. [...] We need to grow the number of good jobs and the incomes of poor and working Americans. We need growth in investment in public infrastructure and in environmental protection [...] and growth in international assistance for sustainable, people-centered development for the world’s poor.”

Somehow the “growth of the economy” has become superior in value to the growth of all those other things – which are, in fact, also part of the economy. Instead, the economy has become tantamount to GDP growth, a divine measure of the well-being of the state. But if the paradigm of the debate is that growing the economy will solve all of the public’s problems, then it is a race to the bottom: who can lower the most taxes, who can cut the most social services, and who can violate workers’ rights most violently. Debate about how to “grow the economy” replaces debate about providing essential services to the citizens; it serves to confound the public about the issues affecting them.

It comes as no surprise, then, that contemporary political debates are reminiscent of those between religious scholars of the 15th century, mocked by humanist scholar Erasmus for their vacuousness. “It affords likewise a pleasant scene of laughter to listen to these

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily 17, it appeared more like a pious celebration of contemporary capitalist orthodoxy than an appeal to the rationality of voters in deciding on the best candidate to represent their interests. The spectacle was complete with incantations,

The debate appeared more like a pious celebration of contemporary capitalist orthodoxy than an appeal to the rationality of voters in deciding on the best candidate to represent their interests. The spectacle was complete with incantations, spells, and curses. divines in their hotly managed disputations, to see how proud they are of talking such hard gibberish,” Erasmus wrote. Indeed, when the old boys of Canadian politics – Thomas Mulcair, Stephen Harper, and Justin Trudeau (not Elizabeth May, of course) – met for a debate about the economy on September

spells, and curses.

Trudeau immediately positioned himself as the most knowledgeable in the field of incantations. He repeated magical turns of phrase referring to the desired consequence of the Liberal economic plan. He claimed he would invest in the middle class, invest in Canadi-

ans, invest in your future, invest in Canada, invest in the future of our country, with an approximate total of twenty variations on metaphorical uses of “investment.”

Both Trudeau and Mulcair were guilty of using the lurid expression “kickstart the economy.” Of course, neither cared to indicate its meaning. Mulcair’s interventions did seem less vacuous because he had some policies to propose – however tepid – but he certainly indulged in the same paradigm of a vaguely defined “economy” with all its ambiguous connotations.

For example, in choir, Mulcair and Harper cast the curse of the deficit on Trudeau, implying that running a deficit is an unspeakable act of indulgence instead of a normal economic occurrence.

Harper attempted to portray the Conservative Party as the party of order in a turbulent economic environment. In a one-minute intervention toward the beginning of the debate, he managed to conjure up some great menace to the economy three times, and to mention twice that the Conservative Party would “protect the economy.”

Unfortunately, Harper provided no description of the lurking beast that could strike the economy at any moment. Here is the depth of his analysis: “We are living in a very challenged global economy.

We have enormous economic instability out there.” Somehow this is meant to justify widespread cuts to vital social services and the reduction of taxes for corporations.

The emptiness of the federal leaders’ debate on the economy is symptomatic of the neoliberal ideological hijacking of the word “economy.” This hideous political outgrowth of narrow self-interest has established a paradigm where “growing the economy” is the only accepted discourse on the subject for politicians. Formerly, “the economy” had a meaning unconnected to political sect or ideological adherence. Today, much of the meaning of the word is negated. As Orwell writes, “words and meaning have almost parted company.”

Gavin Boutroy is a U3 Philosophy and Political Science student. To contact him, email gavin. boutroy@mail.mcgill.ca.

Commentary

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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Respect floor fellows, support students An open letter from AMUSE to Principal Suzanne Fortier

AMUSE Commentary Writers

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rincipal Fortier, We write on behalf of the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE) to express serious concerns regarding how the University is proceeding with its treatment of floor fellows, who are unionized under AMUSE, during their unionization and collective agreement bargaining processes.

Floor fellows play a crucial role in supporting more than 3,000 students who live in more than ten residences on and off campus at McGill. They are the first people to welcome nearly half of new students to McGill, and provide essential contact and support to these students throughout the year.

Floor fellows, who are extensively trained, are tasked with maintaining the health and well-being of students, as well as providing emergency response, non-judgmental counselling, information and resources, and mentorship. They are also responsible for communitybuilding through workshop facilitation and events. They are integral to promoting a philosophy of respect in residences and to the work of building inclusive safe(r) spaces for students, as well as serving as positive role models for newcomers to the McGill community.

In violation of Quebec labour law, McGill does not pay floor fellows a wage for their work.

In the face of top-down decisions that have profoundly impacted their working conditions, floor fellows unionized with AMUSE in the spring of 2014. The past 11 months of negotiations with McGill have been characterized by a lack of respect for floor fellows and have indicated to us that McGill does not value the critical work that they provide.

In violation of Quebec labour law, McGill does not pay floor fellows a wage for their work. Roughly 100 floor fellows who have worked in the past two years have filed cases for backpay with the Commission des normes du travail (CNT), requesting that they be paid for the hours they performed while on the job. These cases indicate that, on average, floor fellows are working

upward of 20 hours a week supporting students during this pivotal first year at university. Cases filed in 2013 have already been reviewed by the CNT, which ruled in floor fellows’ favour, yet McGill refuses to pay floor fellows and has appealed the ruling. We are still awaiting the result of a drawn-out investigation, as well as a hearing at the Superior Court, where, to contest the CNT’s ruling, McGill lawyers have likened residences and the experiences of first-year university students to a summer camp.

At the bargaining table, McGill has proposed insultingly low figures for hours for which future floor fellows will be remunerated, refusing to explain where these figures are coming from, and ignoring the extensive calculations we have done based on the cases filed with the CNT. Floor fellows are full-time students who must pay for tuition, and by choosing to do support work at the university, they are being placed in a precarious financial position. This precarity is worsened by the fact that McGill provides floor fellows with no lease, meaning they also have no housing security. These factors put current workers in a dangerously vulnerable position, and prevent many students from even considering applying for the job.

Although issues of remuneration do highlight the administration’s lack of respect for floor fellows, money has never been floor fellows’ primary concern in negotiations with regard to their current working conditions. For years, McGill residences have operated under an antioppressive harm reduction philosophy, which floor fellows have seen to be essential in providing effective student support. The harm reduction model under which floor fellows work establishes a relationship of trust with students, and encourages them to be forthcoming and honest about their substance use without fear of disciplinary action or reprisal. This model has saved lives. It is these essential values that floor fellows agree must first and foremost be protected.

At their 2014 Annual General Meeting, floor fellows voted that maintaining this value system was most important to them in negotiations. After 11 months at the bargaining table, McGill has refused to incorporate these values in any significant way into the floor fellows’ collective agreement, continually rejecting attempts at compromise.

Rather, the administration pays lip service to the “importance” of the values with one breath, and disre-

spects their centrality to floor fellows’ working lives and the lives of their students with the next, refusing to institutionalize them. Recently, a working group was called to discuss changes to the Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS) alcohol policy, potentially threatening the harm-reduction framework in spite of the fact that floor fellows’ working conditions should, legally, have been frozen at the time of unionization. Floor fellows’ concerns regarding this working group have been brought to the attention of the administration and have not been adequately addressed.

Without securing these values in floor fellows’ collective agreement, McGill reserves the right to turn the floor fellow role into a disciplinary one, eroding the relationship of support that floor fellows have with their students and changing the nature of the job fundamentally.

Bargaining has drawn on for nearly a year, with virtually no meaningful concessions on McGill’s part. This period has been characterized by a broader trend in changes to working conditions that continue to be made despite ongoing negotiations, including cuts to floor fellow duties and previously mandatory tasks being framed as voluntary in the face of our current discussion of remuneration. Since their creation in 2013, the responsibilities of facilitating the Living-Learning Communities have belonged to the floor fellows of students who chose to be involved in the initiative. In the midst of their negotiations – during which, again, floor fellows’ working conditions should have been frozen – these responsibilities were allocated to the recently created “mentor” position, a non-unionized casual position, without any notice or union consultation.

We see a culture of cuts and a lack of appreciation for what floor fellows do.

Further, floor fellow training this August (which lasts ten days and covers extensive material, from supporting students who are survivors of sexual assault, to supporting students with eating disorders, to supporting students with suicidal ideation, and more) was characterised by a new emphasis on boundaries in the floor fellow role. Floor fellows were repeatedly trained to cut back on hours spent with students and to rely more on

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily Residence Life Managers (RLMs) – their direct supervisors and main source of support – for duties that in the past were routinely performed by floor fellows, such as accompanying a student to the hospital or providing support during a longer-term crisis.

At the same time, McGill has unilaterally made major changes to the working conditions of RLMs that have directly and negatively impacted floor fellows’ capacity to rely on them at all. RLMs have been told that they will not be compensated for overtime hours performed this year, when last year hundreds of these hours were required per RLM in order to adequately perform the job. This compromises floor fellows’ ability to receive support when they need it and promotes stress and hesitation in the floor fellow community with regards to when and whether they should seek support. It also creates a liability for both McGill and floor fellows, who are trained to rely on their RLMs, but who will be forced to handle emergency situations without them if these over-

time cuts are not repealed. Finally, and most importantly, it ultimately creates a less supportive environment for first-year students living in residence.

It was not just one issue that resulted in us writing to you. Rather, the decision to write this letter was based upon what we see as a culture of cuts and a lack of appreciation for what floor fellows do. It is essential that McGill put the wellbeing of students in residences first. McGill must formalize harm reduction and anti-oppression in the floor fellow role, and create a workplace where all McGill employees feel empowered – in line with your five priorities, Principal Fortier, which include “student life” and “strengthening our workplace” – through fair pay, housing security, job security, and respect.

This letter is co-signed by 96 current and former floor fellows, students who have lived in residences, and AMUSE members.

AMUSE VP Floor Fellow Sadie McInnes can be reached at floorfellow. amuse@gmail.com.

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Commentary

October 15, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

Demilitarize remembrance

No celebration of imperialist and colonial violence on campus Anonymous Commentary Writers

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very year, on November 11, the Royal Canadian Legion brings active and veteran members of the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), artillery, armoured vehicles, and other weapons to McGill’s downtown campus for Montreal’s annual Remembrance Day ceremony.

We respect the wish of veterans to mourn and never let the horrors of war be forgotten. Yet we doubt that their cause is served by mythologizing the exercise of military power rather than reflecting openly on its real effects, and by leaving no space to question whether Canadian society – which inflicts violence and dispossession on so many – was ever worth dying for.

Remembrance Day’s glorification of military service and uncritical celebration of the Canadian state support the agenda of the political class that wants the discretion to dispatch troops to kill and terrorize in defence of its own interests.

Regardless of any individual acts

Letters

of bravery and self-sacrifice that military personnel may have committed, the legacies of Canadian military and police institutions are imperialism, genocide, and tragedy, not the triumphant heroism that the official history proclaims. In view of McGill’s location on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, over $1 billion in unpaid loans owed to the Kanien’kehá:ka people, and continued violation of the Kaia’nere:kowa (the Great Law of Peace) through contributions to weapons development, it is necessary to remember that the RCMP has been perpetrating anti-Indigenous violence and surveillance throughout the territory claimed as Canada, ever since it was founded in 1873 to patrol Indigenous communities in the northwest and facilitate settler colonialism. Furthermore, while policing is inherently violent, the RCMP has reserved heightened brutality for Muslim Canadians: through the “Project O Canada” investigation, faulty evidence from the RCMP led to the rendition and torture of innocent men including Canadian engineer Maher Arar,

tortured in Syria.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Forces have been involved in imperialist conflicts abroad for over a century and have enforced colonial expansion on the land occupied by Canada. Twenty-five years ago this year, the Canadian Forces deployed infantry, mechanized vehicles, and reconnaissance aircraft at Ka’nehsatà:ke against Mohawk Warriors who were defending their land against a planned golf course expansion. Abroad, they have killed and tortured civilians, as in 1993, when Somali civilians were caught taking food from Canadian soldiers during a famine. In their own ranks, one sixth of full-time female members have been sexually assaulted in connection with their service in the military. These atrocities are not anomalies, but are fully in line with the Canadian Forces’ colonial, white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist project.

During last year’s Remembrance Day ceremony at McGill, in a silent protest on the steps of the Redpath Museum, a few people held signs stating facts about the Canadian

Forces that were deemed unworthy of remembrance in the official ceremony. The aggressive reaction this generated from part of the McGill community unfortunately further demonstrated that Remembrance Day as it exists is based on forcefully erasing any realities that contradict the story the Canadian state wants to tell about itself. Why else would merely asserting facts that are not otherwise discussed on the day, without interfering in any way with the planned ceremony, produce such a virulently angry response?

Because of the ongoing history of imperialist and colonialist violence caused by the Canadian military and police, and because of McGill’s ongoing colonial legacy as well, it is unacceptable for the Remembrance Day ceremony to take place on McGill’s campus. To bring the same sorts of armoured vehicles used against the Kanien’kehá:ka at Ka’nehsatà:ke onto a campus that was itself stolen from the Kanien’kehá:ka is nothing short of a spectacle celebrating colonial rule.

A ceremony uncritically supporting the Canadian Forces and the RCMP

cannot help but erase horrific violence in the name of the Canadian state toward women, toward Indigenous peoples, toward people of colour, toward nations exploited by colonialism, and toward the international working classes.

As people who desire a world without wars of domination and conquest, which means a world without militaries and police, we will not remain passive in the face of the real effects of this spectacle, which seeks to enlist every Canadian and McGill student into its revolting narrative of inalienable military honour. If the ceremony this year takes place on McGill’s campus, students and others will again form a presence dissenting with the vision of remembrance imposed by the ceremony.

The two anonymous authors are working to end military research and collaboration at McGill.

They can be reached at msv@riseup.net. In addition to this article, they have issued a call to direct action on campus available at demilitarizemcgill.com.

Submit your own: letters@mcgilldaily.com

Why I will hand back my degree

Anti-Semitism at The Daily

Exposing our democracy

Twenty-one years ago, I finished my last exam and left the McGill campus for the last time. I remember how proud I felt.

At my graduation, Elie Wiesel was the keynote speaker. I will always remember his words: “The opposite of love is not hate.

It is indifference.” This was his way of telling us that our degree came with responsibility. The responsibility not to turn away in the face of moral peril, to stand up for what is right.

Climate change is the defining issue of our times. It is a scientific fact. Acting to prevent it is not only a technological, economic, and political challenge: it has become a moral imperative. When it invests part of its endowment fund in coal, oil, and gas, McGill is betting on fossil fuels against our climate. This is an example of the indifference to human harm Wiesel so eloquently talked about at my graduation.

Dozens of universities in the world, including Stanford and Oxford, have announced that they will divest. In doing so, they are not only making an ethical decision, they are also protecting their assets by reducing exposure to what economists are now calling a carbon bubble.

The time has come for McGill University to do the right thing. Indifference is no longer an option on climate change.

As one of Canada’s greatest scientific and educational institutions, McGill University must show leadership, integrity and vision.

Unless it announces its intention to divest, I will be handing back my degree on March 30. I encourage all alumni to join me and the McGill alumni for divestment: mcgillalumnifordivestment.com/pledge-now.

I am writing to you today to express my sheer disappointment, dissatisfaction, and frank anger toward the way The McGill Daily has handled the recent surfacing of tweets from Ms. Larbi-Aissa, The Daily’s Culture section editor.

Ms. Larbi-Aissa’s tweets – specifically her March 15, 2015 post, “Found myself sitting in a section of kippas at the gen[eral] assembly. This should be interesting” – are an outright insult to journalism. I am saddened to see that someone who has been gifted with the valuable tools to educate and inform thousands of students through her writing is instead choosing to use those tools to spread hate and intolerance.

Ms. Larbi-Aissa’s September 21, 2015 tweet, “I survived four years of racial profiling at Jewish day school. Bring it,” brings to light an obvious parallel. Just as she felt that the Israeli on her Birthright trip was projecting his isolated experiences with Arabs onto her (“Birthright: Ten days in apartheid Israel,” September 8, Features, page 12), so I feel that she is projecting her isolated negative experience with Jews onto me. I was neither her teacher nor her peer at Jewish school, and yet somehow my identity and religion are being both belittled and accused.

How can you speak of racism and systemic prejudice when you are allowing a leader in your midst to pen such hurtful and intolerant things? I am frightened to see that this is who we are trusting to educate our student population.

Should anyone at The Daily be interested in speaking to an active member of our community regarding our religion, antiSemitism, or any other pertaining topic, I offer my answers and connections. I would be happy to use this as an opportunity to foster dialogue surrounding my people, culture, and religion.

Today our key party leaders still beg for the help of their volunteers in collecting donations and reaching more voters, but soon after the election they will forget about the majority of their helpers as constituents.

After winning, politicians find it more advantageous to serve the real financial rulers of our democracy, as they are so deeply manipulated by their money and influence. Unfortunately, in today’s politics we have too many typical opportunists whose only mastered skills are catchy declarations of respect for different social values during elections. Trying to correct such approaches is useless; it is more efficient to question their legitimacy by temporarily applying the alternative method of not voting.

Reaching 30 per cent turnout can efficiently expose weaknesses of the traditional electoral mechanisms, which supposedly select the best representatives for ruling the country on the federal and provincial levels, but are, in effect, exploited by the key financial forces. This will stimulate deeper and longer discussions about such fundamental issues.

What is needed is replacing politicians with professional specialists, who are socially mature and recognized as trusted authorities, with confirmed leadership skills for ruling the governmental institutions. The real specialists possess more self-confidence and self-respect in comparison to politicians, whose only strength is the ‘flexibility’ of their opinions.

At McGill, the top administrators remind us of politicians – they are focused on promotions and shielding their highest salaries and perks instead of improving students’ and staff members’ study and work conditions.

—Rayna Lew, President of Hillel McGill

—Slawomir Poplawski, former McGill staff member

—Karel Mayrand, Director General for Quebec of the David Suzuki Foundation and Chair of the Board of Directors of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project Canada

Since receiving a longer version of this letter on October 5, The Daily has issued an apology for its response to the tweets. It is printed on page 19 of this issue.

colonial legacies in geography: the undertold past of a discipline By: Lillian Fradin and Ellen Gillies Visual credit: Jason Da Silva Castanheira

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Features

October 15, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

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t was a cool Monday morning toward the end of September, and I was r unning late. Dribbles of coffee cascaded over my fingers as I gripped my grey travel mug and cursed silently to myself. I hurried down Sherbrooke, through the Roddick Gates and into Bur nside Hall, where the elevator greeted me with open doors. Only after pushing the button for the fourth floor did I slide my hair behind my ears and regain some of my composure.

My heels clicked unnecessarily as I made my way to room 426. I was about to make an embarrassingly tardy entrance to the first faculty meeting of the year of the Department of Geography, my first in my new capacity as co-president of the McGill Undergraduate Geography Society. From the doorway, I scanned the room for available seats – nothing easily accessible.

A delicate round of applause ensued, and I took the chance to sneak toward a seat in the other wise empty front row. I focused all my energy on being inconspicuous, while intermittently bumping a nearby coffee table as I crossed and uncrossed my legs. Soon after, the department chair had us – the undergraduate and graduate student representatives present at the meeting – introduce ourselves to the room full of faculty members. It was only at this point, as I stood up from the safety of my seat, that I surveyed the room and realized that I was surrounded almost exclusively by older white men.

aged and presented to authorities in colonizing countries in the form of maps and ‘guides’ to foreign areas and peoples. It was also used as the basis of the earliest courses in regional geography.

Geography proceeded in this vein until the 20th centur y, when the American Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA, started to hire geographers. It was at this time that geography carved a niche in the intelligence community. Geographers were simultaneously revising their discipline to incorporate more active research methods to counteract the supposedly passive and unengaged methods previously employed, which revolved mostly around cataloguing with minimal critical engagement.

In GEOG 201 (Introduction to Geographic In-

or potential colonial territories during the colonial period, the map that was ultimately privileged and given the highest credence in academia obtained this status because of its spatial and conceptual West centrism.

formation Systems), the only class all geography – both BA and BSc – students are required to take, the primar y focus is the creation of the conventional ‘world map’ that we are all familiar with. However, there is little critical engagement with the map. For example, while all paper maps inherently distort the shape of continents on the earth given that the earth is a spheroid – an imper fect spherelike body – the commonly used Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) projection map distorts North America and Europe specifically to take up more space on this map than they actually occupy. This map is also laid out so that North America and Europe take centre stage, minimizing the tr ue sizes of countries closer to the equator and forcing them to the peripher y. The UTM map, which many of us internalize from a young age as the absolute depiction of the world, serves little pur pose outside Europe and North America. While intense emphasis was put on obtaining data to create accurate maps of colonized

land in the p oorer part s of the world are some of many such examples. One critical sub- discipline of geography – p ostcolonial geography – concer ns it self with the questions of whether and how geography can redress it s complicity in b eing inst r umental to the colonial project, which continues today. A cent ral assertion of this school of thought is that if geography is to move b eyond it s violent origins, it is necessar y for it s colonial complicity to b e widely exp osed.

So why does this violent past remain concealed in class to the vast majority of geography students at McGill and many other Wester n universities?

The only geography course at McGill that gives students some of the tools to make educated analyses about the colonial past of their discipline is GEOG 381 (Geographic Thought and Practice). This is a small seminar-based course designed specifically for students pursuing the Honours program, which requires a minimum GPA of 3.3. It is also

The Present Situation Although colonial expansion b egan hundreds of years ago, it is still ongoing today through various means: the exploitation of Indigenous lands in Canada through resource ext raction, the expanding influence of multinational cor p orations worldwide, and their race to purchase large parcels of

So what is geography, anyway?

Geography is the st udy of p eople, physical environment s, and the relationships b et ween them that shap e our world. Some of the earliest evidence of cartography can b e found in the ancient civilizations of the Middle and Far East, but it wasn’t until the 16th cent ur y in Europ e that geography develop ed as a for mal f ield of st udy to serve the interest s of the expanding navigation indust r y. Over time, geography widened t remendously in scop e to encompass just ab out anything that can b e st udied as a spatial process – from glacial flows to global t rade patter ns, to gender p er for mativity, to climatology. It has evolved into a multidisciplinar y f ield, with no single, unif ied def inition. Some of this diversity in subject material is reflected at McGill’s Department of Geography. Courses ranging from Urban Social Geography to Advanced Fluvial Geomor phology comp el many st udent s to ta ke electives in this department and lear n more ab out the social and physical processes that shap e our world.

Many geography st udent s feel a st rong sense of pride in their department. It s st rong sense of community, the p opular Geographic Infor mation Cent re (GIC), and the homey undergraduate st udent lounge ma ke for a fairly intimate setting within the broader instit ution of McGill. In our exp erience, when we tell p eople what we st udy, we are met with enthusiastic expressions of approval.

This enthusiasm and pride, however, comes with little to no awareness of the violent histor y that the discipline is founded up on, and how this violence manifest s it self today.

The untold past The development of geography as a discipline occurred directly alongside the rise of European colonialism. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the methods and tools of map-making were combined with other descriptive techniques to facilitate the navigation, exploration, and eventual domination of many parts of the Americas, Asia, and later Africa. Explorers would compile detailed accounts of the flora, fauna, landscapes, resources, and peoples of the regions they visited. This catalogued information was pack-

Features the only geography course that exposes students to numerous critical pockets of geography: feminist geography, queer geography, postcolonial geography, and Mar xist geography are a few of many. Additionally, it is the only class that formally encourages students to critically reflect on the ways their own positionality within various power str uctures, such as race, class, gender, and other identities, impact the ways they design and carr y out their research projects.

Why is it that knowledge about the origins of geography and its potential for harm is relegated to a small class only accessible to students in a program that requires a certain level of academic attainment? And why aren’t we asking our students

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily centely, cheap labour markets and manufacturing.

Geography students have a responsibility to educate themselves about the historical context of the discipline we’re often too quick to be proud of. Beyond that, however, the histor y of geography should be incor porated into the curriculum of ever y geography major and minor program and taught in a course sequenced in a student’s first semester of the program. This could be accomplished by integrating information about colonialism in mapping into GEOG 201 (Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS)) while expanding the conversation to other parts of geography. This would also provide an alternative to establishing a totally new mandator y course to educate students on the his-

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t ween those in power in the Department of Geography at McGill and the students on the receiving end of the curricula. Ultimately, by propagating the normative geographic agenda, McGill extends the reach of colonial legacies further into the future of geography. By relegating access to alter native geographic theories to a select few students, McGill geography actively hinders students from participating in the most pressing contemporar y debates, and at what cost? Geographers naively come into the discipline without the skills to substantively impact geographic discourse, and this is a shame.

Let’s revisit the faculty meeting for a moment.

W hile the landscap e was dominated by older white men, the dialogue was largely driven by women. If you were in this meeting with your eyes closed, you may have thought that the gender representation was skewed toward women b ecause of the amount of space women carved out during p eriods of discussion. Additionally, women dominate the administ rative p ositions in the department, and the majority of st udent representatives are women.

The goal here is not to disparage the Geography department, but to ma ke legible the colonial

Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM). to incor porate this level of self-reflection into their geographies until their second semester of their third year, after over half of their program is completed? We can hardly claim to be acquainted with our past (and present) affiliation with the colonial project when the vast majority of students are uninformed about how and why their discipline was first created. Why isn’t this knowledge accessible to all of McGill’s geographers?

Perhaps it is because of the nature of geography’s emergence, originally developed to be used as a vehicle for the colonial project, that geography as a discipline suffers from intense and often unacknowledged Wester n bias and sense of superiority. In geography’s past, ideal research methods involved geographers from Europe (and later the U.S. and Canada) travelling to ‘discover’ distant places and catalogue the peoples living there, as well as their livelihoods and practices, often to later exploit them for slaver y, natural resources, and more re-

tor y and theor y of the discipline specifically (an absurd idea, right?).

Hopes for the future Where geography is currently situated on the postcolonial spectr um is a topic of much debate.

While some scholars argue that geography has broken free of its colonial past, the general mood of geographers currently reflects a more tenuous relationship with its origins that needs to be explored and made explicit. Considering that access to this knowledge is restricted in the first place, how can geography students at McGill be expected to interact with this discourse in a meaningful way? Why are radical geographies marginalized, and a normative, West centric view of geography propagated in our department?

These questions highlight the disconnect be-

Ultimately, by propagating the normative geographic agenda, McGill extends the reach of colonial legacies further into the future of geography. By relegating access to alternative geographic theories to a select few students, McGill geography actively hinders students from participating in the most pressing contemporary debates, and at what cost? complicity and the ever-present colonial legacies in geography, and sp ecif ically at McGill, and by doing so encourage you to look more critically at the origins and comp osition of your own department. Do es your area of st udy harb our a colonial past? Do you even k now what the root s of your st udy are? Do you see yourself represented in the faculty of your department? If not, why do you think that is?

These aren’t the questions we’re trained to ask as students. Instead, we’re trained to ask questions that focus on the academic debates of our discipline without invoking reflexivity toward str uctures of power. This deterioration in our ability to critically think about our discipline and its impacts has lead to the weakening of resistance to dominant values in academia.

Lillian Fradin and Ellen Gillies are both U3 Honours Geography Students.

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Sci+Tech

October 15, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

#ILookLikeSTEM

Tweets spark discussion on lack of diversity Rebecca Scarra Sci+Tech Writer

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ome people in today’s society claim that discrimination, especially sexism, is a thing of the past in the world of science and engineering. And yet, when you think of an engineer or a scientist, what image comes to mind? If we ask children to draw a scientist, what traits will be present in their sketches?

Most often, people think of a white man when they think of a “normal” engineer, and this idea is more ingrained in our society than we tend to realize – a problem that people are starting to combat, via Twitter.

The population of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, collectively known as STEM, is not made up of just white men; it consists of people of diverse genders, races, and backgrounds.

Unfortunately, certain groups are often marginalized in their own field, leaving many feeling alienated by the STEM environment. The use of hashtags has allowed people marginalized in their field to find others with similar experiences, allowing them to discuss and feel less alone.

Hashtag communities have taken on a distinct role in the realm of activism and politics, allowing people to converse and respond quickly to recent events, a report from the 2011

general conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) at the University of Reykjavik notes. As far as STEM goes, a multitude of hashtags exist – like #BLACKandSTEM, #NativeAndSTEM, #LatinAndSTEM, and #WomenInTech – all of which help create space for those who often lack representation in STEM to discuss discrimination, share successes, and exchange opportunities. Other hashtags, such as #ILookLikeAnEngineer and #DistractinglySexy, consolidate responses to instances of injustice, demonstrating the magnitude of people’s frustrations and creating a place for people to unite over a similar cause. Such hashtags provide a way to call out racism and sexism in the STEM industry and to share firsthand examples of discrimination in a way that pushes the general public to reevaluate what we consider to be the norms in STEM. #ILookLikeAnEngineer directly challenges popular perceptions of

what an engineer looks like. This hashtag rose to prominence after Isis Anchalee Wenger, a young woman who is an engineer at OneLogin, was featured in a photo for a recruitment campaign for the company.

The ad received negative comments from internet users that stated that she wasn’t even close to “what a female software engineer looks like.”

Wenger then created the hashtag as a way to break down stereotypes about engineering. Through this hashtag, women tweeted in solidarity with Wenger, sharing their own experiences of sexism and drawing attention to prejudices that exist in their fields. Another hashtag, #DistractinglySexy, was created in June in response to Nobel laureate Tim Hunt’s claim that that the problem with having girls in a lab is “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”

Stephani Page, a PhD candidate

in Biology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, started the #BLACKandSTEM tag in February 2014 in order to connect with other Black people in STEM fields. There was a resounding response, and now the hashtag is widely used. Tweets cover everything from warped representations of Black people in research papers, to cool projects that Black people in STEM are working on, racist encounters, notices of job opportunities, and general chatting and networking. This hashtag allows those who feel marginalized as Black people in STEM to find a community of people who understand what they go through on a daily basis. Scrolling through Twitter feeds, it is easy to find examples of prejudice that people experience – calling people out publicly on their racism in STEM fields is a powerful way of sending the message that this is not to be tolerated.

These hashtags give tangible evidence that a dialogue around sexism

and racism is sorely needed in order to address the way we think and talk about STEM. Not only do they allow people to connect in terms of shared experiences, but their use is also a form of activism.

However, while hashtags like these quickly go viral and occasionally make it into mainstream media, they often don’t receive as much visibility as is needed for those in STEM who are oblivious to the issue of prejudice and lack of diversity in STEM fields, to realize the degree of these issues within STEM. While things have improved, there is still an uphill battle to be fought when some continue to claim that inequalities in STEM are somehow ‘not society’s fault,’ attributing racial and gender disparities instead to ‘biological differences’ between groups of people.

Nevertheless, as Paolo Gerbaudo explains in the 2012 book Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism, Twitter has now given people a new platform for protest, and what happens in the Twitterverse has direct implications in our society. These hashtags are a reason to remain hopeful that the STEM fields will not only be increasing technological innovations in society, but will also increase the representation of groups marginalized in STEM.

Sci+Tech

October 5, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

15

More than the sum of our parts

Is medical science enough to explain mental health problems?

I

Fernanda Pérez Gay Juàrez Mind the Complexities

n January, an article titled “Redefining Mental Illness” by anthropologist Tanya Marie Luhrmann was published in the New York Times. In the article, Luhrmann explores how symptoms of mental illness are felt by a diverse range of people and are quite common. By noting that these same experiences – anxiety, depression, and even auditory hallucinations – are interpreted differently in various cultures, Luhrmann suggests that the labels psychiatry uses may not be the best approach for what patients experience, and asks the medical community to reconsider the diagnostic terms assigned by American psychiatry.

Deep down, I think we all know that unlike the functioning of a kidney or a lung, the biology and what we know of the function of the brain are still not enough to explain the mind.

Soon after, Jeffrey Lieberman, the former president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), published a response in Medscape titled “What Does the New York Times Have Against Psychiatry?” Lieberman argues that Luhrmann’s article is unscholarly, and ultimately misinformed. Although Lieberman admits that a wider perspective on mental illness is necessary, he questions the idea that an anthropologist should speak about the medical validity of psychiatric diagnosis. He claims that there is no room for an an-

thropologist’s opinions in medical specialties like cardiology or gastroenterology, and therefore asks why they should be taken to account in psychiatry.

Is Lieberman right? Has American psychiatry and its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) succeeded when it comes to characterizing mental illness? Is the biological framework enough to explain mental disorders?

Most medical schools and many psychiatric programs do not include any courses in anthropology, social psychology, or cognitive science. Nor do they try to give students a background on the ancient inquiries of various disciplines that sought an understanding of what the mind is and its relation to the brain and nervous system – the so-called mind-body problem.

When diagnosing a patient, many psychiatrists rely only on the APA guidelines, which are based only on the presence or absence of certain symptoms, ignoring the fact that that these manifestations do not only depend on biology but on the way patients interpret and understand their own symptoms, as well as on social and interpersonal processes. However, the DSM does not include remarks on the effect patients’ social and cultural contexts (such as their economic status, language, and faith) could have on their mental health.

Deep down, I think we all know that unlike the functioning of a kidney or a lung, the biology and what we know of the function of the brain are still not enough to explain the mind. A mere biological framework is often not enough to explain why cognitive processes deviate and lead to a disturbed mental life, and thus mere biological remedies cannot be enough as treatment.

In the fifties, the development of modern psychopharmacology brought the wonderful hope that people’s psychological suffering would be cured by the swallowing of a pill. Unfortunately, this has not been shown to be the case. It is true that many patients with psychosis acknowledge that their medications make these experiences less

provided an interesting framework to study these conditions, this view alone has failed to be enough to treat and define mental disease. In fact, the disease rhetoric has contributed to the stigmatization of the population of people who are diagnosed with mental health issues, as it frames these people as being biologically abnormal and inferior.

There is no doubt regarding the importance of psychiatry, and of the fact that we need doctors to treat people whose minds have somehow turned against them.

What I would like to question is the narrow vision expressed by Lieberman that argues that mental illness is merely biological and that nobody but medical specialists should authoritatively speak on it.

Sean Miyaji | The McGill Daily frequent, intense or distressing, and help them to go through the day.

However, their lives are still often shattered by their alienation from society, and their readaptation to their social environment becomes an additional struggle. Overwhelmed with the enormous amount of work they have in hospitals, psychiatrists do not treat this part of patients’ experiences – social workers, psychologists, and others will often be the ones involved in a patient’s life after the initial prescription of their medications.

We should also reconsider the arbitrary line society forges between psychiatric patients and so-called normal people. According to the World Health Organization, one in four people will suffer from an episode of mental illness during their lives. As long as these episodes do not disrupt the way a person functions in the world,

they will not be classified as “crazy” by their doctors and by society and alienated as psychiatric patients often are. Let’s also consider that, besides suffering when dealing with mental health symptoms, psychiatric patients are told that they are abnormal, permanently ill beings because they may have to take medication for the rest of their lives if they want to be able to take part in society. This is not the case in other contexts, such as in spiritual groups in India in which psychotic experiences can even be considered as “illumination” and bring respect and admiration to people who experience them.

So, while it is true that presenting mental health problems as the product of chemical disturbances has led us a long way in the development of pharmacological compounds and has

We should also reconsider the arbitrary line society forges between psychiatric patients and socalled normal people.

Humans are living beings immersed in a social and cultural context, and it is a huge mistake to disqualify what those in other disciplines may have to say about the mind. What psychologists, anthropologists, ethologists, philosophers, and even artists have to tell us about the mind and subjective experience represents a richness that will be lost if doctors remain self-righteous and unaware. As French physiologist Claude Bernard observed in the 19th century, a human being is more than just the sum of its parts.

Mind the Complexities is a column exploring how scientific knowledge can be applied to the various problems with mental health experienced in our society.

What’s the dullest element? Bohrium!

If you laughed, then Sci+Tech is for you!

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

16

Sports

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Defying stereotypes, preserving tradition 9-man a raw representation of communities built around the sport Niyousha Bastani The McGill Daily

“

This was something that was uniquely ours,” says a longtime 9-man player and coach featured in Ursula Liang’s documentary 9-man. Widely played in Chinatowns across the U.S. and Canada – with three main competitive teams in Montreal – 9-man is a streetball variant of volleyball, with nine players on each side and unique moves, including one signature move similar to a slam dunk in basketball.

“I think people don’t often see the microaggressions that Chinese Americans face and the effects of all the emasculating stereotypes.”

Ursula Liang, director Liang’s documentary, which follows several teams as they train for the yearly North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament held during Labour Day weekend, is first in giving coverage to the sport. But, as the director puts it, the game is “definitely much more than a sport.”

Liang brings to the screen a raw representation of the communities built around the game. The footage is polished but feels unedited or, at least, uncensored. Debunking stereotypes of East Asian men, the film offers no stock images to replace the ones it challenges, leaving the viewer to take in all the complexities of dynamic and diverse teams.

“When you walk into the 9-man space, all the stereotypes that come with television presentations of Asian men are totally wiped away,” Liang told The Daily. “These are guys that are tall and have swagger and sort of just defy stereotypes right and left.”

9-man was originally brought

to Canada and the U.S. by Chinese immigrants from Taishan, a coastal city in southern China.

It thrived in Chinatowns during a time when anti-Chinese sentiment was particularly prevalent in both the U.S. and Canada, following discriminatory legislation like the countries’ respective 1882 and 1923 Chinese Exclusion Acts. Liang told The Daily that the sport “served in the early times as an emotional and physical outlet for people who were faced with a lot of discrimination and really tough lives.”

But for Liang, whose brother is also a 9-man player, the surprising thing was the intense bonding in 9-man teams today and the deep relationships the sport fosters. “I think people don’t often see the microaggressions that Chinese Americans face and the effects of all the emasculating stereotypes there are of Asian Canadians and Asian Americans,” Liang explained to The Daily. “And a lot of these things still play a part in the lives of these men, so having a space that’s their own, a place where they can be free to be who they are, freed of the stereotypes of society, I think is really important.”

9-man presents exactly this – a space of their own. Liang’s representation echoes a space exclusive to men, as the game started at a time when racist legislation limited immigration from China to workers who were men and made Chinatowns almost solely populated by men, who could in turn only socialize with other Chinese workers. This history is reflected in the sport being only played by men to this day.

Another unique trait of the game is its controversial “content rule” which stipulates that twothirds of a team’s players on court at any point during a game must be “100 per cent” Chinese and the rest must have “Asian heritage.” 9-man bravely presents various perspectives on the rule, bravely delving into the topic.

“It’s flattering that other cultures want to get involved, but there’s a line and that line needs to be kept,” says Jeff Chung, captain of the Toronto Connex 9-man team. In the film, at a conversa-

Lia Elbaz | The McGill Daily tion over dinner, the older generation expresses a need to preserve cultural autonomy while younger players express concern about excluding younger generation Chinese Americans who are half Chinese, as more and more half Chinese athletes become interested in the game. There’s also plenty of horizontal racism for the viewer to take in, as stereotypes of Black men being ‘naturally’ taller and stronger are used by some as a reason for specifically excluding Black men who are interested in playing the game.

At the Labour Day tournament, a South Asian player is not permitted to play, and his friend who is allowed to play expresses frustration at how someone who is “one-fourteenth Chinese” can play while his friend cannot. “He looks fully Asian to me,” the player says, exasperated. Liang’s presentation doesn’t

seem to privilege a side between the desire to protect the game from appropriation, and the wish to render the definition of Asian American less restrictive and more fluid and nuanced, though she rightly gives very little space to privileged white men complaining about not being able to play the game.

“I can’t ask him to quit because it’d be like asking him to cut off his left arm, and I can’t ask him to cut off his left arm,” says one coach’s wife in the documentary. The same coach cries when his team loses in the semi-final round of the Labour Day tournament, and the camera doesn’t shy away from his intense pain as he admits he will no longer be coaching the team the following year. Liang’s film dives into the deep passion of the game – and it does so unflinchingly.

“I’ve worked as a sports journalist for a long time, I was in NBA

locker rooms, NFL locker rooms [...] and then I walked into a [9-man] practice in Toronto, where one of the more dominant teams play, and I had the breath taken out of me,” Liang told The Daily, commenting on the intensity of the game and the players’ commitment to it.

The players featured in the film are each distinct in their experience with the sport. From a 91-year-old first generation immigrant who grew up playing and still loves the sport, to a young player who reflects on growing up biracial in a predominantly white neighbourhood, the film highlights various complicated relationships with the cultural heritage and community of the sport. The players appear united, however, in exactly what seems to make the sport something unique – the deep devotion and commitment to 9-man and to keeping the cultural tradition going.

Dribble, dribble, Swish, swish. score! WRITE FOR SPORTS. sports@mcgilldaily.com

Culture

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

17

Sounds of Guanabacoa House of Jazz hosts a rich night of soul

Taylor Mitchell Culture Writer

F

rom the red carpeted entryway to the waitress’ feather headpieces, the House of Jazz gleams with an air of affluence. One look at the wine list prices would provide a punch to the wallet. For the jazz fanatic, being surrounded by photos of Oscar Peterson sitting in that very restaurant would provoke a similarly shocking (though more excited) reaction. For firsttimers, it’s easy to feel as if everyone – in their expensive suits and polished lips – is so far removed in their grandeur that they cannot be swayed by a swing beat, but little do they know, Giovany Arteaga and the Cuban Connexion has not yet graced the stage.

[Arteaga] spoke to the audience about his Cuban roots and the way Cuban street jazz made him reminisce about his childhood.

On the evening of October 4, Arteaga took the stage at the House of Jazz, wrangling the ritzy atmosphere down to earth with a repertoire of soulful Latin jazz.

The set opened up with a bright salsa bebop. Interpretive percussion set against smooth piano and saxophone solos woke the lulled audience. The band’s start was a bit disjointed initially, but after a few hand signals, eye contact, and encouraging claps, it managed to get into the groove. Arteaga then took the mic. His voice wavered slightly, displaying a beautiful authenticity in contrast to the pretension of the restaurant. He spoke to the audience about his Cuban roots and the way Cuban street jazz made him reminisce about his childhood.

The audience continued to sip its wine, swimming in his smooth confidence, and the Connexion’s bass player continued to chew his gum – casually, relaxed, as if he were home, jamming in Cuba. The group’s unpretentious stage presence deconstructed the fauxriche décor of the room, forcing the high-class audience to leave their opulent comfort.

Arteaga’s range showed as he switched effortlessly from saxo-

Giovany Arteaga and the Cuban Connexion, mid-set. phone to flute, to backup vocals.

The genre transformed at the same frequency at which he switched instruments. Speaking to The Daily, Arteaga said, “I guess jazz is a vocabulary, so you have to get it. Sometimes I know that I don’t have my answer, so I try to mix it with the Cuban jazz [and] the West Coast jazz.”

The predominant genres of the night were Afro-Cuban and jazz, with traces of chacha, rumba, and timba. The band also delivered a Latin-style Stromae cover, which garnered an enthusiastic reaction from the audience.

However, rarely was one style showcased on its own: the piano played in smooth classical modes underneath bright Spanish vocals, whilst the percussion adopted an improvised sound, reflective of vibrant street music. However, all diverse sounds were brought together seamlessly, always ending precisely in sync. If the technique of the musicians had wavered even in the slightest, the genremashing wouldn’t have survived, but that was no concern thanks to the immense talent on stage.

Partway through the first set, Arteaga invited a guest vocalist to join him on stage. By the second song, the effortless charm of the Connexion and Arteaga plus the new vocalist had every audience member swaying along to the music, with their heads nod-

ding to the beat.

After the second set, Arteaga told The Daily the secret behind the band’s chemistry. “[We] used to have a band group back home in Cuba. And this is part of that same band – different name.”

Arteaga was born and raised among the music and folklore of Guanabacoa, an eastern township in Havana, Cuba. His musical journey began with the flute – following the footsteps of his musician father – but he eventually switched over to the saxophone.

After leaving his hometown, Arteaga had a difficult first encounter with the music industry.

“It’s a hard and difficult world for the artist,” he said. “It was hard in the beginning. [...] I guess

Taylor Mitchell | Photographer again into the new world with the beautiful people.”

Arteaga has since gained tremendous success: he has been on a national tour with the Buena Vista Social Club, received his degree in jazz interpretation from the Université de Montréal, and performed at many prestigious jazz festivals across the country, gracing the world with his imperturbable stage presence and captivating skillset.

As the night’s set was coming to a close, people began to shuffle out, still loudly singing along with the music and calling out praise for short, improvised solos. At one point, the pianist began to sing and laughter rippled through the band. Though the audience had

“I guess jazz is a vocabulary, so you have to get it. Sometimes I know that I don’t have my answer, so I try to mix it with the Cuban jazz [and] the West Coast jazz.”

Giovany Arteaga, musician [for] anybody who has moved from one country to the next: you have to adapt, you have to speak the language, you have to live out in the country. And then you have to study like you’re born again and that’s how I see myself: born

no idea what was going on, everyone felt like they were in on the joke due to the warm atmosphere permeating through the oncestuffy upper-class bar.

For the last number, only the pianist and guest vocalist re-

By the second song, the effortless charm of the Cuban Connexion had every audience member swaying along to the music, with their heads nodding and feet swinging. mained onstage while the rest of the band took their front row seats to listen. A soft, Spanish jazz number began, and soulful tremors with classical piano runs filled the restaurant’s latenight quiet. As the bar closed and the waiter set out the next day’s cutlery, the sound of the last lingering notes never wavered. The band looked on in reverence, clearly set in a trance by their bandmates’ song. With a satisfied ease, the band eventually packed, chatting and smiling after a show well played.

Giovany Arteaga and the Cuban Connexion play every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at the House of Jazz.

18

Culture

October 15, 2015 The McGill Daily | www.mcgilldaily.com

The Daily reviews

The Hellbound Hepcats – Turn Me Inside Out Snake River - Songs from the Adjacent Room Alexander Bullis Culture Writer

T

hose familiar with the Hellbound Hepcats’ earlier work know that their high-quality, Elvis-inspired vocals and Stray Cats-infused basslines stand out in the modern rockabilly scene. In a genre as prone to tropes and catchy repetition as rockabilly, it can be refreshing to hear new approaches to the sound.

The group’s most recent album, Turn Me Inside Out, provides fans with more of the classic rockabilly swing that previous albums so deftly adopted. As always, the band steeps its sound in country Western influences, and this delivers in dividends.

The sound is full, dark, new, and immaculately performed.

Even the group’s foray into psychobilly in the opening track, “Black Cats,” bears the hallmark of a group well-versed in its product. The over-the-top, Misfitsesque lyrics are mirrored in the driving bassline’s frantic energy, and the tempo and production of the guitar tone modernize their swing sound. It’s a pulsing party of a track that both opens the album and marks its highest point, and on its own is enough to make the record worth a listen. Time and time again, this group proves that the extended world of rockabilly is right where it belongs.

Tracks diverging more dramatically from the album’s theme, however, tend to fall short of the mark. “Something Differ-

ent” attempts to infuse a country fifties ballad with a more aggressive early seventies punk sound, but the result lacks the charm of either genre. “Feeding Yourself to the Wolves” feels clean and well-rehearsed, but sterile and without the passion a song of its sombre tone deserves.

The real trouble starts near the end of the record, when the group’s sound takes on a far darker tone with the heavy track “Restless Soul.” The song dramatically diverges from its previously playful and swinging tone, adopting a not fully fleshed out attempt at nihilistic early2000s alternative rock. Moving into the final track, “Southbound Train,” the tone once again shifts wildly, this time into a sort of jazzy lounge feel in which the band sounds out of their comfort zone. The record’s conclusion is clunky and unnecessary, and leaves an unpleasant aftertaste in the listeners’ mouth, following an otherwise strong performance.

Turn Me Inside Out is without a doubt the most ambitious record yet for the Hellbound Hepcats, and while this ambition feels forced and unnatural, it certainly allows the band members to further explore themselves as musicians. If anything, it’s a promise that the group has aspirations of blurring the boundaries of rockabilly with continued refinement. The Hellbound Hepcats may just be the group to redefine rockabilly in the modern sense, but their latest record shows they haven’t quite landed it yet.

Sarah Virgini Culture Writer

S

ongs from the Adjacent Room, the new album from Regina rockers Snake River, reveals a divergence from the folksy tonality of their debut album McKruski. Even though band members Dustin Gamracy, John De Gennaro, Christopher Sleightholm, and Whistlin’ Jeff M. have shifted toward a more psychedelic corner of rock, this new album follows in the storytelling tradition of traditional folk that initially elevated McKruski to its current success. Much like McKruski, Songs from the Adjacent Room recounts the story of the fictional Reginald McKruski and his wife. The seven tracks on the album take place over the course of a single day, February 2, 1989, and draw mostly from the couple’s daily dialogue and the occasional vivid flashback, effectively painting a poignant portrait of the couple’s 16-year marriage. In this sense, Songs from the Adjacent Room offers a glimpse of the everyday, humming with thoughtful lyrics and ethereal vocals set against the backdrop of eerie guitar riffs and reverberating drums.

The album opens with “Hours III: Jeanie Says,” a spirited track where the coalescing vibrations of drums and guitar are coupled with Sleightholm’s harrowing lyrics. This song, along with the closing track on the album, “Hours IV: Don’t Want to Wake You,” is emblematic of Sleightholm’s full lyrical prowess. The delicate

lyrics aren’t as fuzzy as the other tracks’ lyrics tend to be. It seems fitting, especially considering Snake River’s penchant for grandiose storytelling, that the album’s introductory and closing tracks are pensive and inconclusive, serving to sofly lead and end the album’s narrative arc and simultaneously create the ambient vibe expected from psychedelic rock. “Resonating On” reflects this aspect perfectly, as it is brimming with meandering vocal harmonies and numbing guitar interludes.

Although Snake River began as a solo project for singer Sleightholm, the band now boasts four members, including former members of Canadian bands Despistado and Spoils, each having enjoyed their own respective musical accolades. Sleightholm is still very much at the helm of Snake River, writing and performing all the songs: in essence, he is composing the album’s fictional trajectory. Hailing from the great Canadian West, the band seeks to incorporate some aspect of homegrown folk flavour, while also capturing the listener’s interest for intricate storytelling with an undertone of hypnotic rock.

The thing about Songs from the Adjacent Room, as with any fantastic album with ambitious plot-driven lyrics, is that it evolves with each successive listen. The listener is transported time and time again as the songs replay, their mind brimming with atmospheric haze and lyrical subtleties.

Channel your inner Judith Butler: Write for Culture.

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Editorial

volume 105 number 7

editorial board 3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Bill 35, a step in the right direction

phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com

The McGill Daily is located on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. coordinating editor

Niyousha Bastani

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Arianee Wang commentary & compendium! editors

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illustrations editor

Lia Elbaz

copy editor

Chantelle Schultz design & production editor

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Marc Cataford community editor

Rosie Long Decter le délit

T

his month, Bill 35 was finally implemented in Quebec, abolishing surgical and medical requirements for trans people wishing to change their gender markers on legal documents. New regulations for implementing the bill were released on September 16, showing a vast improvement from the previous version, which had been heavily criticized by trans communities. These improvements and the bill’s implementation, though overdue, mark a success for trans rights – community groups’ calls for change are finally being acknowledged.

But this is just a first step, as both Bill 35 and Quebec society remain discriminatory against trans people. Legislators must continue to listen and pay attention to the ongoing oppression of trans people in order to fight persisting violence and discrimination.

The change in regulations is the result of a long and slow process which began in December 2013, when a law to alter requirements for changing gender markers was passed by the National Assembly. Although the law technically eliminated the need for sex reassignment surgery, the government dragged its feet in providing the necessary regulatory framework for its implementation. Only after a year did the government unveil new regulations, which stipulated that those wanting to change their gender markers need to have “lived under the appearance” of the gender they want marked on legal documents and require evaluation by a medical pro-

fessional to confirm their gender. In response to ensuing criticism, these requirements have been scrapped, marking a significant improvement.

Still, many aspects of the bill remain discriminatory toward trans people who are already marginalized in other ways. In addition to testimony under oath, the new regulations require “corroboration” of the person’s gender by someone who has known them for a year – a problem for trans people who may be isolated from their family or social circle. The change is also not available to minors. All official forms continue to allow for only two genders, erasing non-binary identities. Finally, the bill’s citizenship requirement makes Quebec the only province where permanent residents cannot change their gender marker on official documents.

Trans people, especially trans women of colour, are vulnerable to hate crimes and police violence, and face extreme rates of harassment, depression, and suicide. Legislation cannot sufficiently address these problems, but it plays an important role, and as such, it is disappointing that the new bill leaves so many legal barriers in place. Nonetheless, the improved regulations are a victory for the trans community – illustrating that change, legislative or otherwise, is most effective when informed by the concerns and priorities of directly affected communities.

—The McGill Daily editorial board

Julia Denis

rec@delitfrancais.com

cover design Lia Elbaz, Sonia Ionescu contributors AMUSE, Gavin Boutroy, Alexander Bullis, Jason Da Silva Castanheira, Saima Desai, Lillian Fradin, Ellen Gillies, Sonia Ionescu, Fernanda Pérez Gay Juárez, Rebecca Kahn, Taylor Mitchell, Sean Miyaji, Rebecca Scarra, Erika Skye Shaaf, Justine Touchon, Sarah Virgini

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dps board of directors Zapaer Alip, Niyousha Bastani, Joseph Boju, Hannah Besseau, Deeva Bowry, Julia Denis, Ralph Haddad, Igor Sadikov, Alice Shen, Tamim Sujat, Dana Wray All contents © 2015 Daily Publications Society. All rights reserved. The content of this newspaper is the responsibility of The McGill Daily and does not necessarily represent the views of McGill University. Products or companies advertised in this newspaper are not necessarily endorsed by Daily staff.

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ISSN 1192-4608.

Apology from The Daily’s editorial board

O

n September 21, an anti-Semitic tweet was brought to our attention via the official Twitter accounts of some McGill Daily sections. The tweet had been made by a current Daily editor on their personal account before becoming an editor. The Daily mishandled the situation by failing to adequately address the anti-Semitic nature of the tweet. As such, the editorial board of The McGill Daily would like to issue a public apology.

While tweets made on editors’ personal accounts do not represent the views of the editorial board, it has been brought to our attention that our failure to condemn the tweet when Daily editors were first made aware of it was an inadequate response. It should have been made immediately clear both by the editor responsible for the

tweet and the rest of the editorial board that the tweet was oppressive and not condoned by The Daily. The failure of the editorial board to do so was an act of complicity with anti-Semitism and a violation of our Statement of Principles.

Discussions of anti-Semitism have not been given enough space in our paper in recent years, which is something we hope to change. In order to further our understanding of anti-Semitism, the editorial board of The McGill Daily will undergo anti-oppression training this semester specifically focused on anti-Semitism.

We apologize for mishandling this situation.

—The McGill Daily editorial board

Errata The article “Esperanza in Canada” (October 5, News, page 5) referred to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as the political party to which threats to Bios Iguana have been linked. In fact, this party is the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

The Daily regrets the error.

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19

Compendium!

October 15, 2015 www.mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

20

Lies, half-truths, and the writing on the wall.

A curse cast on SHMU

Leaders missing, words from dark presence

Bliaz and Samim Tujat | The McGall Weekly Herald of the Dark One The McGall Weekly

T

he Student Headquarters of McGall University (SHMU) is in crisis. Its staff and executive members have started to disappear, leaving behind nothing but hastily scribbled notes that say, “because reasons.”

So far, two people seem to have disappeared: SHMU VP Partyperson Lolzy Gerard Lee, who became a SHMUrsonality during last year’s slightly uneventful elections, and SHMU Overlord Jenn Drakonia, who hails from the Lost Kingdom of R’lyeh, resting place of Cthulhu, the Dark One Who Sleeps.

Student associations across campus have been holding emergency council meetings, general assemblies, public fora, town halls, and weeks of action in order to address the issue of these missing SHMUrsonalities.

At an October 13 public forum organized by the McGall Committee Regarding Emergency Exigencies and Policy Solutions (McCREEPS), students discussed the possibility that arcane and eldritch elements were at play.

Speaking to his fellow student citizens, Howard P. Lovecraft, the recently elected president of Mc-

Gill Students for the Furthering of Eldritch Studies (SFES), recalled concerns from his constituents.

“There were tales of the strange clawprints seen around the Shtaneer building’s windows in the morning, and of occasional disappearances in regions outside the obviously haunted areas.”

Lovecraft ominously continued, “As to what the things that caused these clawprints were – explanations naturally varied. The common name applied to them was ‘those ones,’ or the ‘old ones,’ though other terms had a local and transient use.”

Just when Lovecraft finished his sentence, a cold laughter was heard, extinguishing the flames in the fireplace, the only source of light in the public forum meeting room (which was decorated with impeccable taste in a Burtonesque late-Victorian style).

After some stumbling, forum attendees realized that the room was actually equipped with fluorescent lighting. Once a particularly resourceful student had turned on the lights, forum attendees were shocked to see that a terrible message was written on the walls with red paint: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Dark One, beware!”

“That’s nonsense,” exclaimed

Hermione Watson, an exchange student from Scotland or England or something. “The Chamber of Secrets is not even here at McGall.

And besides, there’s no way the Ministry would allow magical happenings at this Muggle institute.”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” exclaimed one student, with hands coincidentally covered in some red paint, who wished to remain anonymous.

“The point is that SHMU is cursed, clearly. Those who have ignored the word of the Dark One, who spoke through the Neutral One, who preaches objectivity and political neutrality – now you shall face their wrath,” the anonymous student who was caught red-handed later explained to The Weekly.

At an October 14 general assembly (GA) organized by McGall Students for General Assemblies and Annual General Meetings (SGAAGM), student attendees expressed worry that the decreasing number of SHMUrsonalities would result in a lack of direct democracy for students.

SGAAGM Mobilizer of Students Gream Rippster expressed her absolute discontent with the fact that the SHMUrsonalities would suddenly disappear without first consulting the student body through, at the very least, an online

survey shared widely on Facebook.

“I don’t care if the Dark One is on a rampage of revenge against SHMUrsonalities. The fact that it’s acting without student input is completely unacceptable,” Rippert said at the SGAAGM GA. “You wouldn’t see our beloved administration doing this – McGall admins care about student input, they listen to everything we say, they never shut down our conversations, they never appoint people to important positions regarding student life without first consulting with students, they never hide what student services money is being spent on, and they always listen to student petitions about climate justice and respond in a timely fashion,” Rippert continued.

“None of that’s true, though,” interjected Deputy Provost (Student Gripes and Weed) Sir Lolliver Sandwichheart, who was present at the GA to crack down on unauthorized snacks.

Speaking to The Weekly after the GA, U1 Divination and Necromancy student Segué Placetenant said that the disappearance of the two SHMUrsonalities is just the beginning.

“Night falls and soon SHMU shall know the price of defying the Neutral One, heir of the the Dark One Who Sleeps. The spirits

from the past shall rise to aid the Neutral One, of the bicycle and the summer beard. As one Tory falls, another must rise,” Placetenant said in an eerie monotone voice.

The night of The Weekly’s prophetic interview with Placetenant, a most curious natural event occurred.

The stars in the night sky started to move and to realign themselves. As thousands of students flocked to Lower Field, the hidden pattern of the stars slowly became clearer.

In the end, they spelt out, “Lexus Centrikov cometh!”

Abraham Kream, first of his name, the King of SHMU, Lord of the Twelve Faculties, Protector of Social Justice, Lord Paramount of Arts, Eternal Sovereign of la Nouvelle Residence, the Advisor on Matters of Social Responsibility, and Interim Carer of the SHMU babies stepped to the front of the crowd of students and said, “Let them come! SHMU has repelled countless terrors: evil leases, treacherous student newspapers, Judicial Board cases.”

He continued, “SHMU shall not fall and I shall find my lost SHMUrsonalities, wherever they may be. With the help of my Small Council, we will withstand these troublesome times. I dare anyone to defy our collective will, which speaks through me!”