The McGill Daily Vol106Iss05

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Volume 106, Issue 5 | Monday, October 3, 2016 | mcgilldaily.com Ready to fight since 1911

POP Montreal

Highlights from Montreal’s grooviest music and arts festival Pg. 16 and 17

CONTENTS

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Get involved with student journalism at The Daily!

3 NEWS

Write, draw, or snap some photos for us!

“Defending Land Defenders”

What’s poppin’ at POP Montreal

Independent Jewish Voices at McGill

Nunavut landscapes in Canadian cinema

SSMU Council

Get pumped for RBMA’s diverse sounds

Email any section editor: contact information is on page 19 of this issue.

14 SCI+TECH

Open forums on sustainability

Climate change and smart grids

Arson at Montreal Haitian Radio Station

Romantic trauma can cause PTSD

Vigil for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

16 CULTURE

8 COMMENTARY

19 EDITORIAL

Examining the University’s response to Fossil Free Week

Exploring the meme culture that created Harambe

In response to #ThisIsNotHelping

No experience necessary.

2

20 COMPENDIUM!

Campuses continue to condone abuse of power

Satire

11 FEATURES

Your horoscope for October

Poetry by women and femmes

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NEWS

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

McGill holds sustainability forums

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Attendees suggest new initiatives, criticize Fortier

Emily McIntosh News Writer

F

riday, September 23, marked the first of three open forum meetings that invited members of the McGill community to discuss sustainability at McGill. According to the event page on Facebook, the main goal of these forums was to “[create] a ‘comprehensive climate action plan’ in order to reduce McGill’s own carbon footprint while expanding initiatives in sustainability research and education” and “[develop] concrete measures to ensure our investments comply with recognized Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles.” Friday’s meeting was held in the Moot Court at New Chancellor Day Hall.

Many members of the University’s faculty and administration, including Principal Suzanne Fortier, attended the event. As the opening remarks began, members of the student climate justice group Divest McGill arrived.

The event began with some brief remarks from Frédéric Bachand, associate professor of law at McGill and co-chair of the forum, on the context and parameters of the discussion at hand.

“McGill accepts that not only more can be done, but that more should be done, and this is why we are gathered here today,” Bachand said.

Bachand briefly reviewed the Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR) report from March 2016 which dismissed Divest McGill’s request that

the University divest from the fossil fuel industry. This report led to the Board of Governors’ decision to vote against divestment.

Notably, the release of the CAMSR report and the decision against divestment led to Divest McGill’s 72-hour sit-in from March 29 to April 1 in the reception area outside Fortier’s office in the James Administration building. During this time, the group demanded three things from McGill: public consultation on divestment, the release of the expert testimonies on which the CAMSR report had been based, and an acknowledgement from Fortier that the fossil fuel industry causes grave social injury.

Although Fortier has not acknowledged that fossil fuel industry causes grave social injury, the open forums on sustainability represented the administration’s response to Divest’s first demand. The forums were ostensibly designed to provide a space for members of the McGill community to voice their concerns and ideas regarding sustainability, and to have those statements acknowledged in an official setting.

At Friday’s forum, suggestions were made to implement sustainable practices including composting on campus, e-conferences to lower the carbon emissions incurred through travel, and to improve the efficiency of pre-existing structures such as the heating and cooling systems in university buildings.

Speakers also discussed the need for action at the institutional and individual levels, cited examples

of social injury caused by the fossil fuel industry, and expressed their disappointment in the controversial CAMSR report.

“I cannot believe that that’s the message the university wants to convey about this problem,” said Richard Janda, an associate professor in the Faculty of Law and a supporter of divestment. “I don’t think [CAMSR] fulfilled its mandate according to its terms. I don’t think the committee did the job that it was supposed to do.” This was met with a large amount of applause.

Denzel Sutherland-Wilson, a U2 Management student and member of the Gitxsan Nation, spoke to the audience about the harm inflicted on his family and community by pipeline projects, as well as the broader impact of the fossil fuel industry on Indigenous peoples.

“It’s not just a climate change issue, it is a social issue,” he said. “It’s sickening to me, the tactics that pipeline companies will use to get chiefs to sign on. All of the chiefs I know have lived in poverty. It’s tough to not take the deal, [...] to not take the money.”

“Pipelines represent a huge threat to our rivers and way of life [...] These companies have a major impact on our lives already, and it’s not some distant thing in the future,” he said. “If McGill is serious about respecting Indigenous rights, then they need to divest and take greater action against climate change.”

Julia, a member of Divest and International Development student at McGill, directed her statement

A speaker at the forum. towards Fortier. She described a conversation held between Fortier and some members of Divest during the sit-in where Fortier was asked about the legality of the actions of oil companies. According to Julia, the principal responded, “‘Well, I mean, maybe they break the law sometimes, but don’t we all break the law?’”

“I’m tired of it all being on us and there being no accountability for our leaders in the name of things like gradual change and individual action. I think we are long past that point and we need institutional action,” she continued. “I honestly want you [Fortier] to see things from our perspective, because when we are getting that message [...] that there is immunity for those people at the upper echelons of society, it is the most disheartening thing for a university student.”

Kevin Tam | The McGill Daily Principal Fortier responded by saying, “I also am a human being who knows that while all of us would like to be perfect, and would like to strive for perfection in everything we do, most of us have not succeeded in that. [...] We need to strive for doing better; perfection is very hard to achieve, and that means as human beings, sometimes we have to accept that. That’s the context in which I made that comment.”

When asked whether he believes McGill will take concrete action following the forum, Josh Spencer, a recent graduate from McGill’s International Management program, told The Daily, “If pressure stops, if pressure from Divest and the greater McGill community de-escalates or ceases – there’s no chance, in my opinion, of McGill or the administration divesting or of following through with turning these forums and these concerns into concrete action.”

Haitian radio station firebombed

Attack third of its kind in four years; racial or political motive suspected

Max Binks-Collier News Writer

A

man wearing a black hoodie splashed gasoline on the side of Haitian radio station, CPAM 1410 in the Montreal borough of Saint-Michel during the early hours of Sunday, September 18. A CPAM camera captured this moment, after which the man threw a brick–then a Molotov cocktail–through one of the station’s windows.

“It’s the third time we’ve had a fire at the station,” CPAM 1410 station manager Jean-Ernest Pierre told CTV News in French. In 2012, a similar Molotov cocktail attack damaged the building. In May of this year, a car was firebombed in the parking lot.

The motive behind the arson remains unclear. “I think that some people might have a problem with

the opinions that I express, and when I express my opinions, they’re always very clear and bold,” Pierre said in French, in a phone interview with The Daily.

Controversial opinions may have been behind the 2012 firebombing the radio station as well. That attack occurred not long after JeanClaude Duvalier, the former dictator of Haiti, made a surprise return to the country. Duvalier, nicknamed Baby Doc, ruled from 1971 until an uprising broke out in 1986 and he was forced to flee to France. He was arrested two days after his return to Haiti and charged with corruption. Prior to the 2012 firebombing, Pierre had said on-air that Duvalier should face a criminal trial.

“But apparently he had some ‘fans’ who made threats over the phone,” Pierre said in French, according to an article from La Presse.

People speaking in Haitian Creole had called the radio station and threatened to set it on fire. “Is that the cause? I don’t know. We’ve also received threats this year after criticizing president Michel Martelly.”

The 2012 firebombing caused significant damage. The studio suffered water damage from firefighters dousing the building’s flames, and was unusable. Speaking to the Toronto Sun, Pierre described the scene of people coming to the station to see the debris as “like a funeral.” Despite that, CPAM was back on-air ten hours later. Pierre had announced from a temporary studio: “the culprit has disturbed our routine, but he can’t disrupt our ideas.”

Fortunately, damage from the September 18 attack was not as serious. There was water damage from the firefighting and the toilet had been destroyed, amounting to a few

thousand dollars’ worth of damages, Pierre told The Daily in French.

The media liaison of the Montreal Fire Department, speaking to The Daily in French over the phone, provided an outline of what happened that night. “We received a call to 3990 Boulevard Crémazie [...] at 3:21 am. We sent out two fire engines and a truck [...] for a total of 15 firefighters.

We left the premises at 4:29 [a.m.].

For us, it took about an hour before we transferred the case over to the police.”

The police are considering other potential motives for the attack. CTV News quoted Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) spokesperson Manuel Couture, who said, “Is it someone who’s been fired and who wants to get revenge? What happened exactly and why is it a target?”

Couture went on to say that police were also looking into whether or not the crime was racially motivated. CPAM is the only ethnic, Francophone radio station in North America, according to the station’s website. If the attack was racially motivated, the investigation would be transferred to the SPVM’s hate crimes division. However, as of September 27, the SPVM told The Daily by phone that there had been “no new developments” in the case.

Although the arsonist is still at large, Pierre is not worried. According to CTV, he is playing music until the damage is repaired, but listeners won’t have to wait long before a return to regular programming.

“We’re going to keep having the same positions,” Pierre told The Daily. “The risks are there [but] it’s the choice that we’ve made to work for the people of our community.”

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News

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Vigil held for missing and murdered Indigenous women

Consent Week organizers highlight continuing urgency of issue

Xavier Richer Vis | The McGill Daily

A note attached to a dreamcatcher at the vigil.

Xavier Richer Vis The McGill Daily

AGM &

Call for Candidates Ca All members of the Daily Publications Society (DPS), publisher of The McGill Daily and Le Délit, are cordially invited to its Annual General Assembly:

Wednesday October 26th @ 5:30 pm SSMU Building, Madeleine Parent Room (202) The presence of candidates to the Board of Directors is strongly advised.

The DPS is currently accepting candidatures for its Board of Directors.

Positions must be filled by five McGill students, duly registered for the Fall 2016 and Winter 2017 semesters and able to sit until October 31st, 2017, as well as one Community Representative and one Professional Representative.

Board members gather at least once a month to discuss the management of the newspapers and make important administrative decisions.

To apply, please visit dailypublications.org/how-to-apply/

M

cGill’s third annual Consent Week began on Monday, September 29, with a vigil for missing and murdered Indigenous women. The event, organized collaboratively

by Consent McGill, First Peoples’ House, and Indigenous students, was held on lower field behind the Hochelaga Rock with roughly sixty people in attendance.

“I want to sincerely thank everyone here today for coming out and showing your support as we come together in honour of missing and murdered [Indigenous] women,” said Paige Isaac, the current coordinator of First People’s House. “I would like to acknowledge the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples on whose traditional territory we live, work, and learn.

We recognize and respect these nations as the traditional stewards of the lands and waters on which we meet today.”

Isaac highlighted the urgency of the issue at hand, reminding attendees of the severity of the crimes against Indigenous peoples.

“The [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] reported 1,181 cases of Indigenous women who have been murdered or who have gone missing since 1980. The numbers are likely higher than this,” she said.

“Our aim is to bring awareness, and to shed light on this very important and multifaceted issue.

This is a national crisis that has

been repeatedly denounced by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. It has been repeatedly ignored and dismissed by the Canadian government for years.” “[But] while awareness is necessary,” she continued, “we are also here to urge people to take action. While you’re here with us, I want you to think about what you would do if this happened to your sister, your daughter, your mother, your loved one.”

Around the space of the vigil, organizers showcased the art of of Monique Bedard (under the pen name AURA), a Haudenosaunee artist with Metis and FrenchCanadian heritage, much of which was displayed near the Hochelaga Rock. Her work was accompanied by a reading of one of her poems by Ashley Bach, a former coordinator of McGill’s Indigenous Student Alliance, and environmental science graduate.

“No more stolen sisters, no more stolen land, no more hate. / We hold each other’s hands as we rise / Rise for our children so they know their own strength / as we breath in and out like the tides of the waters / connecting to our grandmother,” she read.

A very large dreamcatcher was also on display at the vigil.

Vigil organizers invited attendees to write down their hopes and aspirations for those affected by the crisis. These notes were then affixed to the dreamcatcher.

Tiffany Harrington-Ashoona, one of the primary organizers of the

vigil, wrote the first note, which said, “No more stolen sisters!”

Candles were passed around and lit for a moment of silence.

Isaac and Harrington-Ashoona ended the vigil with a reminder of its importance.

“We really have to continue these vigils and these marches because women are still going missing, despite an inquiry coming up,” said Harrington-Ashoona. “Despite all of our efforts, women are still missing.”

She also reminded those in attendance that this crisis is deeply personal for many in the McGill community.

“My mother-in-law’s cousin just went missing,” she said. “She was found in [a] river last week [...] This isn’t just going to end overnight.”

In an interview with The Daily, Bach also commented on how this crisis has affected the McGill community.

“A lot of people heard about the [Provost’s] Task Force [on Indigenous Studies and Education], but I don’t know if they fully know what’s been happening [regarding] missing and murdered aboriginal women,” she said, “and I don’t know if they fully understand the extent to which that affects students at McGill. Some [students’] aunts have gone missing, and other family members as well.”

“This is something people have to learn about,” she continued, “and I’m hoping that this [vigil] will draw in more people. It also gives us a community space for us to be together, to gather in, and remember these missing and murdered women.”

News

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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“Defending Land Defenders” Activists discuss Indigenous land defense and Line 9 case

Saima Desai The McGill Daily

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t 7:30 a.m. on December 21, 2015, Vanessa Gray and two supporters, Stone Stewart and Sarah Scanlon, shut down the flow of oil through Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline near Sarnia on Anishinaabe Territory. After calling Enbridge Inc. to demand that the pipeline be turned off, they turned the handwheel themselves to shut off the pipeline, and bike-locked their necks to the valve.

Roughly 50 people gathered in McGill’s Frank Dawson Adams auditorium on Tuesday, September 27 to hear Gray speak at an event called “Defending Land Defenders.” The event consisted of three parts, including a presentation by Gray and her sister Lindsay, a discussion by panelists about direct action, and an open conversation with the audience on how students, researchers, and scholars can help support Indigenous land defenders. The event was organized by CKUT radio, Climate Justice Montreal, Economics for the Anthropocene, and Divest McGill, as part of Divest McGill’s Fossil Free Week.

Other panelists included Darin Barney, an associate professor of Art History & Communication Studies at McGill; Geoffrey Garver, who recently received a PhD from McGill’s Geography department; Bradley Por, a doctoral candidate who studies Indigenous blockades as a source of law; Nicolas Kosoy, an associate professor at McGill’s Natural Resource Sciences department, specializing in environmental economics; and Normand Beaudet, co-founder of the Centre de ressources sur la non-violence.

Life in Chemical Valley Vanessa and Lindsay Gray are women from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, just outside Sarnia, Ontario. They live in what is called “Canada’s Chemical Valley”: an area which houses over 60 oil refineries and chemical plants that produce plastics and gasoline. Recently, plans to build a new polyethelyne plant were announced.

“There’s a lot of cancer in my community. I’ve noticed there’s a lot of breast cancer in the women,” said Vanessa at a press conference prior to the event, in response to The Daily’s question. 39 per cent of women surveyed in the community of 800 have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. Many community members experience severe or chronic headaches, asthma, rashes, and thyroid and kidney problems.

“As a child, I was worried for my own sake, when I would constantly have asthma attacks,” explained Vanessa during the panel.

“This is ongoing violence on the land, and violence on our bodies.

It’s a chemical war zone that we’re dealing with.”

Then, in December 2015, a tar sands pipeline owned by Enbridge, called Line 9, began shipping diluted bitumen–a liquid form of petroleum–between Sarnia and Montreal. According to many Indigenous activists, Line 9 violates Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights.

“Line 9, Enbridge’s pipeline, is an unsafe pipeline,” said Vanessa, noting that changes to the pipeline were made without consultation with the Indigenous people living in communities along the pipeline. “And so now a lot of communities – not only Indigenous communities – are faced with their drinking water at risk, with little to no emergency plan for a tar sands spill, anywhere between here and Sarnia,” she continued.

The charges Gray, Stewart, and Scanion have been charged with counts of Mischief Over $5,000 and Mischief Endangering Life – the latter charge carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Stewart was also charged with resisting arrest. Vanessa’s preliminary hearing will take place on February 24 in Sarnia, she explained at the panel.

During the panel, Garver noted that governments don’t have the resources to prosecute every instance of civil disobedience. “Every act of enforcement is an exercise of discretion – so it’s really a political choice,” he explained.

According to the Line 9 Shutdown website, there are no other known instances of activists who have been charged for Mischief Endangering Life, “which leads us to believe it is a scare tactic to discourage land defense and resistance against the fossil fuel industry,” the site states.

“When we look at my case, you see the extreme charges that I have,” Vanessa told The Daily. “I think we should be thinking of my actions as less radical, and looking at our own government and our own justice system as more extreme. Because there’s nothing radical about Indigenous people protecting their own lands, and their own Indigenous territory.”

Why direct action?

Beaudet explained to the audience that, in a representative democracy like Canada, individual citizens rely on elected representatives to act in their best interests.

Justin Mai | Photographer

The panelists speaking at the event.

“But you start feeling that if your representative can’t do anything, then you need to go to actions that are direct,” he said.

But according to Beaudet, direct action is not acknowledged by the Canadian government as a legitimate part of the democratic process, which leads those who attempt civil disobedience to be arrested for various charges.

“You have charges of mischief, assault, obstructing police officers,” said Beaudet. “All of these rules are very vague, and permit officers to arrest anyone in almost any situation.”

Vanessa added, however, that Indigenous land defence is distinct from other acts of civil disobedience. “When it comes to Indigenous people there is a history of law enforcement escalating quickly,” she explained. She cited the 1995 Ipperwash Crisis, where the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) shot and killed an Ojibwe protester, Dudley George, as he walked towards officers with a stick in his hand during an Indigenous land dispute.

Barney believes that acts of civil disobedience by Indigenous people to protect their land are both morally and politically justifiable.

“The conditions which typically produce this kind of direct action are some kind of historical criminal injury; current conditions of ongoing material, psychological, bodily, social harm; an imperative to act to protect the future against some known and present threat or danger; and the demonstrable incapacity of existing institutions to address those first three

conditions,” he said. “I would say that it’s clear that each of those conditions is present in the case of Vanessa’s action.”

“For Indigenous people, it’s our lives that are at stake when it comes to defending the land and the water,” Vanessa continued. “Indigenous people had to resist in order to survive up until this moment – and that’s who we are as a people now.

We are nothing but survival.”

“Indigenous peopple had to resist in order to survive up until this moment – and that’s who we are as a people now. We are nothing but survival.”

—Vanessa Gray Indigenous Activist In defense of disobedience Those who would seek to delegitimize direct action argue that’s it’s ‘undemocratic,’ Barney explained. “But [...] that democratic ideal, under certain conditions, is thwarted by organized power and by agents who seek to undermine it – which are the conditions that pertain around resource extraction and petrochemical development.”

“When those conditions of thwarting of the democratic process and ideal are present, actions which seek to expose that, and to enforce the possibility of autonomous collective decision-making by the people who are most affected by the kinds of conditions that we’ve been discussing, those actions don’t undermine democracy – they serve it,” Barney concluded.

Por argued that recognition of Indigenous legal systems would legitimize the actions of Indigenous activists in the eyes of the Canadian government. “We need to recognize that [...] there’s a different legal system that actually requires people, out of a duty to the land, to protect the land,” he explained.

Vanessa encouraged audience members to consider taking direct action as a form of activism, but also stressed the importance of being an ally to Indigenous people in their defense of their own territory.

Speaking to The Daily, Andrew Stein, a U3 Environment student and member of Divest McGill, said that it’s essential for activists to recognise that climate change impacts Indigenous people more than others, in what Vanessa called “environmental racism.”

“It’s important to support people on the front lines of extraction, support people in Indigenous communities who are being underrepresented elsewhere, and recognise that they are the traditional custodians of the lands and waters,” said Stein. “They’ve been fighting this fight for a long time, and it’s time that we recognise that and support them however we can.”

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News

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Independent Jewish Voices launches at McGill

IJV will be first anti-Zionist Jewish group on campus since 2009

Gabriel Rincon News Writer

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McGill chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) is launching this year, founded by two students, Anna and Sonja. IJV describes itself on its website as a “national human rights organization whose mandate is to promote a just resolution to the conflict in Israel and Palestine through the application of international law and respect for the human rights of all parties.”

In an email to The Daily, Anna explained that IJV McGill’s main goals are to “motivate critical Jewish students to gain awareness of the Israeli occupation and to bring this awareness to the broader campus community.”

The group also aims to work with and support the McGill Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and McGill Students in Solidarity with Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) movements through political campaigns and education.

The organization will further these goals through “speak-

er events, film screenings, and popular education on differences between Judaism and political Zionism,” Anna added.

McGill BDS expressed their support for IJV in an email to The Daily, saying that IJV’s message is “especially important in terms of increasing the visibility of anti-Zionist Jewish voices and alternative perspectives in the debate surrounding BDS.” However, the pro-Palestine movement on campus may be hampered by the recent Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) justice board ruling concerning BDS. In June, the justice board ruled that the BDS motion brought before SSMU’s Winter 2016 general assembly was unconstitutional, as it would require SSMU to adopt a platform against a specific country. This would allegedly violate SSMU’s equity policy.

When asked about the impact this ruling might have on IJV McGill, Anna cited the fact that the decision has not been ratified

by SSMU, which makes it nonbinding. She added the group will play a unique role at McGill as the

first “anti-Zionist Jewish group” on campus since 2009. It will provide space for Jewish students to encounter a set of perspectives which are often marginalized in Jewish communities.

Anna explained that she believes IJV is important at McGill because “it remains a taboo for Jewish students to engage openly in pro-Palestinian solidarity work, [and] IJV seeks to challenge this. [...] Many [non/anti-Zionist Jews in North America] find themselves unable to be open about their views with parents, communities or even their best friends.”

Anna hopes to “demystify,” in her words, the conflation between Jewishness and support for Israel.

“IJV McGill will strive to celebrate diasporic Judaism and Jewish culture separately from Zionism.”

This message is fully supported by the McGill-based Jewish political discussion podcast TREYF. TREYF’s hosts, Sam Bick and David Zinman, advocate for the celebration of the rich Jewish culture that exists beyond Israel.

They believe that many young

Jewish people in North America are searching for a voice as they articulate their views on Zionism, and that McGill’s IJV chapter will provide them with a crucial space to discuss anti-colonial ideas.

“It remains a taboo for Jewish students to engage openly in proPalestinian solidarity work [...]”

—Anna IJV McGill co-founder A spokesperson for the Jewish student centre Chabad for McGill said that they were “glad that McGill affords students the opportunity to form clubs and have a voice,” espe-

cially if that view reflects the pluralism of a free society. The spokesperson declined to comment directly on IJV, since they were unfamiliar with the organization, but stated that Chabad had no issue with any student club, “as long as it respectfully follows [McGill’s] rules for clubs.”

A spokesperson for Israel on Campus echoed Chabad’s views on student diversity but voiced concerns over another club pushing for BDS. Israel on Campus feels BDS has “ostracized and led to the harassment of Jewish, Israeli, and proIsrael students.”

Scott Weinstein, a member of IJV’s Montreal chapter, told The Daily in an email that “we are excited about working with the IJV chapter at McGill, which will serve an important role in educating McGill students about the realities on the ground in Israel-Palestine.”

“Jewish groups on campus have typically offered blind support for Israel’s behaviour,” he continued. “It will be refreshing to have a Jewish group on campus that promotes an honest and ethical discussion about what’s occurring in Israel-Palestine.”

SSMU Council discusses budget Xavier Richer Vis The McGill Daily

T

he Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council met for the second time this academic year on Thursday, September 29. Council members heard committee reports, executive reports, two presentations, and one notice of motion.

Amendment of the Internal Regulations of Governance Council approved a notice of motion regarding the amendment of the internal regulations of governance.

The notice mentioned a Legislative Council meeting on October 20, but as there is no scheduled meeting that day, Council will have to meet earlier to approve the amendment motion.

2016-2017 SSMU Budget VP Finance Niall Carolan gave an extended presentation on SSMU’s 2016-2017 budget to SSMU council members. The presentation focused on SSMU’s sources of revenue, with an emphasis on SSMU’s operations.

Carolan didn’t go into the details of SSMU’s investment portfolio, which he himself described as “extremely boring.” He did detail SSMU operations, however, like the Student Run Cafe (SRC), Gerts, and Mini Courses. For each of SSMU’s

Student Run Cafe’s deficit causes concern

operations, Carolan highlighted its respective profitabilities, challenges, risks, and opportunities.

the Society’s overall deficit. Carolan also expressed a desire to make the sponsorship more student-centered.

SSMU’s Corporatization During a discussion of corporate sponsorship, Carolan acknowledged the contentious nature of the topic, as SSMU’s corporatization of student spaces has faced widespread criticism from the McGill community.

Despite this, he explained that the revenue from advertising contracts has helped fund SSMU’s operations.

The Student-Run Cafe Several questions about Carolan’s presentation centered around the Student-Run Cafe (SRC) in the Shatner building. Carolan explained that total revenue from commercial tenants dropped from approximately $214,000 in the 2015 fiscal year to $154,000 in the 2016 fiscal year, mainly as a result of losing two commercial tenants in the Shatner building with the opening of the SRC. This was a step toward putting a larger focus on student-run initiatives within SSMU, said Carolan, albeit “at a financial cost, which is lost commercial revenue.”

Concerns were raised regarding the SRC’s deficit, which was nearly $70,000 in 2015. In 2016, it was near $120,000. According to Carolan, this was primarily because, while the number of daily transactions has risen substantially over the past year, the amount of labour and food required to run the cafe has, as a result, also increased. Furthermore, the SRC is required to use locally sourced and produced ingredients, while also assuring that the sources of food have fair labour practices. [...]These are good mandates, but it does restrict our ability to be profitable,” said Carolan.

Carolan acknolwedged the contentious nature of [...] SSMU’s corporatization.

“The revenue generated from that sponsorship goes directly into offsetting the costs of running this building,” explained Carolan.

He argued that SSMU must strike a productive balance which would allow them to limit the negative impact that corporatization might have on the student body while securing the revenues necessary to hold events and reduce

SSMU Council discusses budget. Kevin Tam | The McGill Daily

“These are good mandates but it does restrict our ability to be profitable.”

–Niall Carolan SSMU VP Finance Carolan also addressed the fact that SSMU’s Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) prevents the SRC from adver-

tising anywhere on campus except inside the Shatner building, which limits its profitability even more. Overall, he said, SRC now stands as the single biggest contributor to past SSMU deficits. However, he assured councillors that the cafe has been investigating new streams of revenue. This includes expanded catering services.

In light of this discussion, Senate Caucus representative Joshua Chin asked at what point one should start asking “existential questions” about the SRC, since it appears that the SRC has little alternative but to run a deficit.

News

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Consent Week panel addresses abuse of power on campus

Niyousha Bastani The McGill Daily

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Panelists decry “climate of secrecy” at McGill

panel entitled “Sexual Violence and Power Dynamics in a University Setting” was held at McGill on Thursday, September 29, to discuss sexual violence and the abuse of power, including in student-professor and staff-employer relationships. The panel was part of Consent Week, an event series run by Consent McGill, and was organized in collaboration with Students’ Society for McGill University (SSMU) Equity and Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) Community Engagement Day. Roughly 50 students attended the event.

Sexual violence has been a particularly prevalent topic on campus in recent months, as a result of the ongoing controversy surrounding McGill’s proposed Sexual Violence Policy, which is currently in development. However, the topic of abuse of power in the university context is rarely discussed publicly.

The topic was briefly discussed at Senate last September with reference to an article published in The Daily, “Let’s Talk about Teacher.” Principal Suzanne Fortier was also asked about allegations of intimate relationships between professors and research assistants in a meeting of the Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) council last November, where she said “We have to […] be careful in respecting [professors’] private lives.”

The University’s Draft Policy against Sexual Violence (DPSV), which was released on September 12 and will be brought to Senate

for information this month, does refer to power dynamics in its definition of consent, but does not mention specific types of power dynamics, such as those between students and professors.

During the discussion period, two graduate students asked questions about the DPSV and expressed concerns about the focus of the conversation around sexual assault being solely based on supporting survivors. They said that they would want to see a greater focus on punitive measures against perpetrators in the policy, which currently focuses on “ensuring support for survivors of sexual violence.”

The panelists on Thursday included Nina Hermes, a student who has worked as a floor fellow in McGill residences for the past two years and has been involved with the Sexual Assault Policy Working Group; Claire Michela, the president of the Association of McGill University Support Employees (AMUSE); Jason Opal, an associate professor in the department of history; and Adrienne Piggott, a harassment assessor and chair of the subcommittee of the Joint BoardSenate Committee on Equity for Racialized and Ethnic Persons.

The panelists explained that abuse of power is a pervasive issue because it is extremely difficult to take action against a perpetrator of sexual violence who holds a position of power.

For example, Michela said that AMUSE members who are casual employees face particularly challenging obstacles because “their employers are often their professor or their sports coach,” and because they have short term contracts, “they can easily be let go

without actually being fired. The employer can simply wait until their contract is up and then not renew it.”

Speaking specifically about barriers to addressing allegations against professors, Opal explained that, amongst professors, there is a pervasive “fear about a false rumour destroying [a] reputation,” which is often used to shut down other professors who raise concerns about allegations.

“They can easily be let go without actually being fired. The employer can simply wait until their contract is up and then not renew it.”

—Claire Michela President of AMUSE

He added that when a professor is accused of sexual harassment, this is often seen by other professors “as a threat to the department,” which, he stressed, “is itself unacceptable behaviour.”

Hermes spoke of her personal experience of being sexually assaulted by a floor fellow while living in residence. She explained that she was very disappointed with how her case was dealt with in residence, as the perpetrator was “quietly let go.”

“As someone who has just survived this trauma, I really felt like it was swept under the rug,” she told the audience.

Piggott also mentioned that there is still “a climate of secrecy on campus surrounding sexual harassment complaints,” and the panelists discussed the role of “rumours” and informal channels such as student media and social media in this climate.

Michela suggested that rumours about such abuses of power “have become so difficult for the University to ignore that they’ve become politically powerful.”

Piggott added that the University has been aware that sexual assault is a problem on campus for decades, but it was the discussion of the topic publicly in media that has finally pushed them to respond now. “It really did have to be a public shaming for the University to respond, and I think that’s really sad,” she said.

Hermes agreed that informal channels are important as “one of the few avenues that survivors can access.” However, she added, “rarely does that [informal channel] result in any sort of justice, because I can write as many articles as I want, but that’s not going to get someone out of their tenured position.”

Opal also spoke about how professors must become “informed and visible allies” who are “educated in how to respond in the immediate sense” when someone confides in them about having faced sexual harassment.

He suggested that having a physical sign on allied professors’ office doors to indicate that “the person occupying this office is an informed

and sympathetic voice” could give students somewhere to turn to when they need help, while also “visibly disrupting a landscape of hostility.”

“As someone who has just survived this trauma, I really felt like it was swept under the rug.”

—Nina Hermes SAP working group member

Speaking to The Daily, Esther, a U4 student in Education who attended the event, said, “It was very interesting to have such different panelists [...] because it really gives us a different point of view of all the different people who are trying to act against sexual violence, especially about power dynamics on campus – it’s something that we don’t really talk about.”

In an interview with The Daily, SSMU VP University Affairs and student senator Erin Sobat, who had also attended the panel, explained the key point which he would like to bring before Senate from the discussion.

“I think there’s a real desire expressed both by panelists and by audience members for there to be a real recognition that the issue does exist,” Sobat said, “and I don’t think that has happened in a substantial way, even in the language of the policy. There’s not really a trust in the administration and their ability to take meaningful action.”

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Commentary

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

8

Climate change apathy at McGill Divest McGill reflects on their relationship with the University

Kristen Perry & Eva Morel Commentary Writers

F

or nearly four years, Divest McGill has been campaigning for McGill University to withdraw the over $70 million it has invested in the fossil fuel industry. This initiative, led by student activists on campus, has been part of an international student movement aimed at removing the social license of the fossil fuel industry.

With over 2500 signatories on the petition for fossil fuel divestment, over 160 professors and nearly 400 alumni signing letters of support, endorsements from several student groups and unions, and overwhelming majorities in favour of divestment from every formal McGill body that has voted on the question --from student associations to departments to entire faculties--, it is clear that Divest McGill has tremendous support from almost every part of the university. Yet we still have to ask ourselves: when will the McGill administration start supporting the community? They tell us that they are listening, but that means very little until they begin aligning their actions with their empty claims.

After years of engagement with administration, campaigning, and creating a space for the sometimes difficult dialogue on the issue of climate justice across campus, we, as members of Divest McGill, would have hoped that the Board would at least bring divestment to the table for a vote.

However, in March of this year, the Board’s Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility (CAMSR) instead circumvented the entire question of divestment by claiming that fossil fuel corporations do not cause “grave injurious impact,” and thus no remedial action is warranted.

They claimed incorrectly that climate change is not “grave” enough to merit action until we have hit 2°C of global warming, even though the U.N. recognizes that concerted action must be taken now to aim for 1.5°C of warm-

ing, if we want to avoid devastating impacts such as the complete submersion of the Pacific Islands and coastal areas. The University has also completely ignored every point regarding the rights of communities and Indigenous peoples, that was covered in the over 150 page research brief on social injury that we submitted to the Board.

This result shows that the Board is not only ignoring community cawwwlls for divestment, but also basic scientific consensus and common knowledge on the serious negative impacts of fossil fuel extraction and climate change that we are already seeing across the world. It shows us that our Board of Governors endorses environmental destruction and the violation of human rights to the point where they feel justified in continuing to invest over $70 million of our university’s money into companies perpetrating these very crimes, even while their lack of fiscal and social responsibility has lost the university over $43 million since Divest began campaigning.

Last week, during Fossil Free Week, Divest McGill hosted a variety of events aiming to propel and aggregate conversations around the issues of climate change and divestment. Several events were specifically based around social injury, with frontline activists and Indigenous land defenders addressing the ways in which they are currently experiencing social injury as a result of the activities of fossil fuel companies.

Fossil Free Week was a set of events that resonate with our aspirations for our prestigious university. Positive change is constantly driven by students at McGill, because we want to be part of an institution that is helping to create the future we want to live in.

We aren’t afraid of identifying McGill’s failings. That’s why Divest McGill has continued to persevere in reaching out to the administration and pushing them to stand up for justice.

During our sit-in at Principal Fortier’s office in the spring, the administration bafflingly refused

Divest McGill protests on campus. to make a statement affirming that fossil fuels do indeed cause social injury. However, they did commit to holding open forums regarding climate action and ethical investing at McGill. Although this commitment is a small step in the right direction, words are not enough to counter the global ecological and social threats that we are collectively facing.

The three forums empowered the community to speak out and share their personal experiences and thoughts about sustainability at McGill. Despite the broad scope of the forums, it was encouraging and energizing to see nearly every speaker expressing their passion for divestment as a central and necessary part of any legitimate climate action plan. While certain administrators, including Principal Fortier and Board Chairperson Kip Cobbett, have tried to shift the responsibility for climate change onto individuals in order to absolve McGill of moral culpability, many community members spoke out about the need to go beyond indi-

vidual actions in addressing the climate crisis. As a respected international institution, McGill has a great deal of power and leverage, which it could use to catalyze positive changes that we cannot accomplish alone.

Another common theme of the forums was the rejection of CAMSR’s verdict that fossil fuel companies do not cause grave social injury. Students spoke out about how intimidation, coercion, and projects of pipeline and fossil fuel companies are directly affecting their livelihoods, communities, and the land. They stated that if McGill truly seeks to strive for reconciliation, it must cease its investment in this destructive industry.

Professors spoke about the millions of lives already lost to climate change, and staff addressed the role of the CAMSR decision in deepening the lack of trust in the McGill Board and administration.

For these forums to have been worth anything, the few McGill administrators who were present should have not only been actively

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Kevin Tam | The McGill Daily listening to the initiatives being brought forward by the community, but must now follow through with active support for them. We cannot afford to continue with business as usual in the face of the climate crisis. Community members will continue to come together to have our voices heard and to take action for climate justice at McGill and beyond.

Ultimately, building a school that we can be proud of will require us to come together to craft solutions and to push for more accountability from the people who are supposed to govern this institution. Whatever results from these forums, one thing is certain: Divest won’t rest. Join us.

Kristen Perry recently graduated with a B.Sc in Environmental Science. Eva Morel is a U3 B.A student studying Political Science and Environment. Both are members of Divest McGill. To contact the authors, email kristen.perry@ mail.mcgill.ca or eva.morel@mail. mcgill.ca.

Commentary

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

9

In support of consent workshops A survivor and Rez Project facilitator speaks in defense

Kevin Tam | The McGill Daily Anonymous Commentary Writer CW: rape

I

’m writing this in response to the article “#ThisIsNotHelping” published in The Dailyon September 19. While its premise was largely fair, and stood by the principles of feminism, I do not think it is effective to disparage consent workshops such as Rez Project. I have great admiration for the Rez Project coordinators, who themselves are extremely attentive to current political issues, and are not naïvely putting in the hours towards something that is “pointless.” They play key roles in our anti-oppressive movements, and are making a difference, and I would like to commend them for their hard work and activism.

One of the most impactful lectures I have attended at McGill was one where my professor, describing the global contexts of chaos and strife that have existed throughout time, said: “But what else can you expect from this world? Don’t expect it to be just. Do your part, not because justice will be achieved in your lifetime, but to achieve the most peace that you can. Don’t withdraw, but engage, even if engaging can feel like it’s full of problems.”

That’s what I’m going to do. As a Rez Project facilitator, I want to take action in the ways I’m capable.

My rape did not follow the usual narrative of the malicious, brutal man, cornering me in an alley or drugging me at a party. The man who repeatedly raped me approached it in the same way our consent workshops are trying to tackle and dismantle. That is, he

didn’t think what he was doing was rape, because of the inaccurate notions of consent he had spent his whole life learning. One of the main things I emphasize in my workshops is that someone can still hurt another without malicious intentions. This is not excusing the character of the rapist, but carrying out the analysis to a systemic level, with regards to how people are shaped by their environments, namely BY rape culture, which the author acknowledges. Consent workshops are an attempt at picking apart these nuances in ways that don’t bite off more than one can chew.

My rape did not follow the usual narrative of the malicious, brutal man, cornering me in an alley or drugging me at a party. I am heartbroken by the author’s account of her rape. If she doesn’t think the consent workshop would have prevented it, I believe that. But, as I have emphasized, consent workshops are not supposed to directly correlate with the acts of rapists.

They are supposed to have a much broader, cultural impact that takes some time to manifest.

I consider Rez Project to be what I call ‘positive affect.’ We go into the workshop without hostility and without condemnation. Of course I have had many urges to say “fuck rapists, fuck this system” because I, too, am frustrated. But Rez Project is a time to sit with those who have not had as much exposure to antioppressive frameworks as we have had. We discuss heavy material and theoretical frameworks for sure, but also move people towards empathy.

The author critiques consent education as misinforming students on the true nature of sexual vio-

lence. Unfortunately, I don’t think one can truly understand sexual violence without experiencing it, and the pain of it is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But I don’t find the scenarios presented in the workshop to be “unrealistic” or “ridiculous.” Our Rez Project coordinators, like I have mentioned, are not naïve. The coordinators require dedication and hard work to create the workshop and manual, which is rooted in political and academic anti-oppression resources.

Consent workshops are not supposed to directly correlate with the acts of rapists. They are supposed to have a much broader, cultural impact that takes some time to manifest.

I think healing looks different for every survivor. Yes, justice and accountability are important, but the importance of justice and accountability cannot be prioritized over the importance of education.

We can and should care about preventing rape despite the bureaucratic obstacles we face. It isn’t really possible to say what can and can’t prevent sexual assault, because they are all different. As a survivor,

I don’t believe consent workshops have been created for me. They are trying to address something much bigger than me, and that’s okay. Not every effort made to combat rape culture can serve as a chance for me to heal.

Additionally, by broadening the definitions of rape, we are not simplifying rape to mean “any sexual activity gone bad, by anyone.” What we are trying to do is center the survivor in their experience and allow them to define it in their own terms. Defining rape to only encompass a limited degree of trauma and violence subscribes to harmful cultural notions of rape that we are trying to avoid to begin with. Furthermore, I want to note the author’s concern regarding the depoliticization of rape, where allegedly “hugs without asking” is comparable to the trauma of rape.

I don’t think anyone is saying that, and we are certainly not trained to make that false equivalence, either. The point of talking about hugs without consent, or any sort of touching without consent, is the opposite of depoliticization. It is making the point that we live in a society which has problems with consent, and in attempting to integrate consent into all factors of our social interactions, we can target rape culture at its roots. In doing this, no one is denying that sexual consent is more complex than other physical consent.

I also share the author’s skepticism of feel-good awareness campaigns, but these shouldn’t be conflated with the consent workshops that we hold at McGill. I hold similar critiques of the institutions associated with rape culture, such

as frats, Frosh, and Athletics. But I think that Rez Project and the videos they show before the events associated with these institutions are false equivalencies.

Yes, justice and accountability are important. But the importance of justice and accountability cannot be prioritized over the importance of education.

Social activism on institutional and administrative levels should work to produce laws and regulations that punish rapists and perpetrators of sexual assault. But we also need to approach anti-rape and anti-sexual assault campaigns in empathetic ways, which is what we aim to do at Rez Project. Survivors are of course in no way obligated to put in the emotional energy to be the educators, but that doesn’t mean that consent education is not necessary.

I was pleasantly surprised as a survivor and facilitator to be in the company of young students who were making a genuine effort to empathize and understand. In the end, this is all about doing our part in isolating the harmful aspects of our society, one by one.

To contact the author, email commentary@mcgilldaily.com.

10

Commentary

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

The legacy of Joe Paterno

When sports idolatry overrides the aftermath of trauma Molly Lu Commentary Writer CW: child sexual assault

I

n September, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) paid tribute to the man who harboured a serial child rapist on campus, prioritizing sports legacy over the legacy of trauma that one white man allowed another to inflict. September 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the late former head football coach Joe Paterno’s first game at Pennsylvania State University, the first of a record 409 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) victories. However, 2016 also marks forty years since Paterno was made aware of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of young boys via the Penn State football program, and forty years since he decided that, “I don’t want to hear about any of that stuff, I have a football season to worry about.”

The University, which fired Paterno in 2011 and tore down a statue dedicated to him shortly thereafter, was still in legal battle due to Sandusky’s actions and the Paterno’s inaction five years after the abuse was revealed to the public. The school sued its insurer for the coverage of the $93 million it paid out to 32 survivors of Sandusky’s abuse, while the insurer maintained that Penn State, and Paterno in particular, could have taken greater action once they were aware of the abuse taking place. Despite the ongoing legal issues, the school bent to the league of alumni and football fans who, led by Penn State board trustee Anthony Lubrano and Paterno’s widow, continue to deny Paterno’s role in covering up Sandusky’s crimes.

Paying tribute to Joe Paterno isn’t a matter of just prioritizing ‘the game’ above politics.

It’s a decision to uphold a legacy of sports triumph over a legacy of abuse and corruption.

“Paterno Day” took place during a football game between Penn State and Temple University, and included videos memorializing

Rahma Wiryomartono | The McGill Daily Paterno’s football achievements, as well as fan tributes preceding and following the event. These included a shrine to Paterno where his statue once stood, and where the Penn State Nittany Lions and Pittsburg Steelers legend Franco Harris read a speech that included the lines “the powers that be can destroy our wall, but they will never destroy our bond and our love […] for our coaches and our fellow players,” and “we will stand up to the lies.” A nearby billboard was plastered with the Martin Luther King quote “‘the time is always right to do the right thing’, please return the statue”.

This collective memory loss, or in the case of Paterno’s most ardent supporters, straight up denial, begs the question: what is it about the legacy of a white man that makes it unalienable?

The answer lies outside just sport idolatry – we see memorials to white male abusers on our own campus, most recently this year in the form of the Le James bookstore. McGill’s history page about James McGill mentions how his “hard work and French fluency served him well” in the fur trade through which he made his fortune, but mentions nothing of the six Black and Indigenous slaves he owned who must have reduced the “hard work” required of him. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, Canada’s false belief that we are the Northern haven –

the good end of the Underground Railroad – we gloss over the most deplorable of legacies in favour of the one where James McGill endowed ten thousand euros and the Burnside Place estate for the building of McGill University. It becomes easier to understand this selective memory when examining the racial demographics at McGill ­–in 2009, only 2.7 per cent of McGill’s population was Black and 0.8 per cent was aboriginal, while 71.3 per cent identified as white. Men, like James McGill and Joe Paterno, have more than one legacy – that which they leave upon their survivors, and that which benefits the 71 per cent, never mind the toll on Black and Indigenous lives.

Sports idolatry works in the same way – the sins of the gods of sport are overlooked, until they threaten the power of the elite.

Such is the case of Black 49’ers player Colin Kaepernick, who has been under heated controversy for his decision not to stand during the U.S. national anthem due to the continued oppression of Black Americans and other marginalised groups. This decision has earned him slurs, internet vitriol, and comments, such as this one by hall of fame National Footbal League (NFL) coach and sports commentator Mike Dikta: “If they don’t like the country, if they don’t like our flag, get the hell out. That’s what I think.”

Football, as Colin Kaepernick has demonstrated, isn’t just a game. Like everything else, a football game operates in a political world. If football were apolitical, there would be no flag and no anthem during the game.

Standing for the anthem, which Colin Kaepernick did not do, is merely upholding the status quo of the country – politically complacent, but a political act nonetheless. When a white man like Joe Paterno dies, he receives fervent tribute, and the white masses riot to uphold his status. Like James McGill, his name is plastered on campus, faults forgotten.

Yet when a Black man dies, his every transgression is dug up, his legacy smeared. Such is the case of Black men shot by police in the U.S. and Canada. Such is the hypocrisy of the white man football fan, that a riot to protect a white man’s privileged position is greeted with support, but a Black football player’s peaceful protest for the very lives of Black men in America is met with vehement opposition. Joe Paterno’s supporters quote Martin Luther King Jr., yet fail to see the irony when they crucify a man who carries Martin Luther King Jr.’s intended legacy.

Paying tribute to Joe Paterno isn’t a matter of just prioritizing ‘the game’ above politics. It’s a decision to uphold a legacy of sports triumph over a legacy of abuse and corruption. A Black man

who dares to stand (or kneel) for justice is told to leave the country, as if he somehow dishonours it by attempting to better it. But how do Joe Paterno’s actions better the country, that he does not receive the same condemnation from those within his sport?

Paying tribute to Joe Paterno and James McGill is choosing to forget the legacies of trauma and victimization that those young men and those who were enslaved faced.

Prioritizing the fact that you can go to this university today thanks to a white slave owner, or the fact that a football team was able to add a few more wins thanks to the enabler of a child rapist, is honouring the legacy that really matters to men like Mike Ditka: a legacy of upholding white men’s power.

On September 23, Penn State came to a settlement with its insurer. The settlement was reached in private, and there will likely be no answers to the question of whether Joe Paterno could have done more to prevent the crimes that took place under his leadership. The tribute that took place on September 17, however, answered the question of whether Penn State thought Joe Paterno failed those boys, or whether Penn State cared about those boys at all.

Molly Lu is a U1 History and Religious Studies student. To contact the author, email molly.lu@ mail.mcgill.ca.

FEATURES

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

11

Poetry by women and femmes

Lying to your mother is something you knew instinctively at 13, and remembered with hell in your head at 21.

The moon pale as a rib. Houseful of adults and their languages.

Where were they when you pondered bleach at 14?

At the counselor’s you smiled hard with half of your face. Tea leaves swirl then settle. One time when you were eight your mother picked you up from school.

In the car your tears hot enough to brew tea with. If you behave this way again, I will – You felt your shoulders turn in, and in, and in.

Cute. Compact. You are the girl-child your mother never wanted.

Visuals by sonia ionescu

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FEATURES

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

My belly Is swollen with the pain I hold for you It sits, bloated, between the wet raw flesh of my organs And it expands between my ribs with every breath that I take.

I cater to it deftly Careful not to burst its taut skin With the soft strokes of My straying thoughts.

On days where the pain Sits neatly Amongst my other organs, I hold my breath Careful not to move too quickly.

At home in the body Of a soul rubbed raw The pain has started to feel Like my natural landscape.

On other days it begins to bloat Seeping out into the dark, Damp folds of my flesh And as the storm begins to rage, My skin Serves only as a boundary That contains the violent thoughts That seek to contort My muscles And Rip through the flesh That used to sustain me.

That flesh is now a part Of the pain What once was my body Is left, deserted, on my bedroom floor.

in black holes it’s easy to pretend that she is just a hoax that you are just human but fantasy deliquesces and the truth can be so easily unleashed [you created me] she coats her cracked lips with copper (you wanted to be unearthed) you taste the metal she is forged venom and you know so little about the antidote but more often you know her wiring slipping between your ribcage you are galvanized and malleable and her toxins are excellent sophistry she wears ordinary clothes but she wears them differently velvet soft razors, silky buttered knives and you relish the vitriolic cuts but when she unwraps, her bronze flesh sets you on edge (your thigh her knife her tongue) sometime you wonder what beast she is and then you know serpent, ophidian skin shimmering, gaze matte, eyes devouring alluring yet deadly [i think sometimes that you misunderstand me] legs cross and lace falls [or that you understand me too well] you stare at the scar on her shoulder her lesions make a filigree on your skin as she places you in a crucible and marinates in your company [indulge me] (consume me) you churn and growl the silent alleys are ageing but still nails clash but still skin mingles like an alloy with blood dripping through the spaces of your teeth you are gilded and raw

If I could write this ruddy mountain As thinly as I see it I would loll my arm into The intimacies of people weaved Ghost threads, cobwebs stretched Frail across this sea I would name each Ligonberry and pretty meek boulder With all the blunt spread Of a colonial, or a tourist My irreverence dulling the bloody Colours of sugar my lips can’t define But now the skies are swollen With myself, I’m piercing This land, my words Clumsy raindrops.

when she welds crevices into you with tempered phrases her words are verdigris and all you can ever breathe is her

FEATURES I ask my grandmother where she comes from she says I stem from suitcases I ask her who she comes from she says I come from nomads I take her hands into my own And ask what the journey was like

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

13

Dusk, a lake: where Girl was last seen.

A Girl with brains of beryl, lung of wool.

How did she get here. Whose.

It was the year children learned to swim.

A litter of them, by the lake. Find her at the edge of slumber. Brains & lung.

Washed out & stretched. Every fish that swims by throws away its voice.

She says the road is toughest when you’re on borrowed time I ask her if she wants to rest She says she’s never had the time I wake up at dawn and sit next to her while she prays She says God hears you better when the rest of the world is sleeping So I ask, where does God come from she says, God comes from women who spill their bodies to make room for us I ask her of these women She says soon I’ll be one of them She rests her hand on the side of my cheek and says Your mother was your first home And now you pray to the East Every time you bow your head Heaven grows under her feet

I am three years old and my skyline is a soft blue with your head a halo against the sun I shut one eye and gaze at you through the other a cloud of hair on top of a man Who tethers his love to balloons You bent down to lift me And I thought to myself how foolish is the sky to leave you all to me

I ask her if she enjoys poetry she says I am her favourite poem I ask if it’s because she helped write me into existence she says I am the light in her eyes I ask who she got her eyes from She says she stole them from the boy next door I ask her about her first love She says she left it where she found it so I trace her footsteps and follow her back to the village where she was conceived and i marvel at her conception She was made of her father’s hopes and her mother’s worries They dreamed of a boy and she harboured that insecurity she laced it with shortcomings and tied a perfect a bow on what could’ve been her But she taught what it means to keeping moving on Her life was not effortless and neither was her love So I ask her if she loves me And she says, enough to step out onto the road again

girl meets Girl girl trips over the moon for Girl, but Girl leaps through stars for another and, they somehow don’t collide but girl imagines their universe when she trips and spins back down sees their own world of soft yellow light, even as she sinks in damp earth and salt down down further down where girl tastes the sick sweet white light of Girl on honeymoon with another and their universe drifts without sparks somewhere far far, so, so, very very far.

SCI+TECH

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Climate change on the grid Louis Warnock Sci+Tech Writer

T

here is no question that one of the greatest challenges of this generation is solving problems associated with global warming.

Periods of increased atmospheric temperature have occurred naturally over the course of the Earth’s history, but the most recent spike is believed to be caused by human activity. Certain gases trap solar radiation in the atmosphere and redirect it back towards the Earth’s surface. It just so happens that our way of life since the Industrial Revolution has relied on forms of energy which create these types of gases as byproducts.

Michael Mann, a leading figure in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggested earlier this year that a global warming of two degrees Celsius could be reached as soon as 2036. The expectation is that, as this threshold is surpassed, Earth’s climate destabilizes to a point where phenomena such as tsunamis, cyclones and other extreme weather events, as well as rising sea levels from melting glaciers, become a threat to human life.

The smart grid lays the foundation for emerging technologies to develop symbiotically and make the most of each other’s potential.

In the new world of the smart grid, no longer does the electricity flow in a single direction. Instead, the energy exchange is bidirectional, which means, for instance, that homeowners with rooftop solar panels can sell power back to utilities companies during periods of peak demand and help flatten out energy demand in general. While the pricing scheme could be different depending on the utilities company, the idea of having this extra revenue stream will surely be an incentive for sustainable energy technologies to be installed in unexpected places.

A little known fact is the part played by electricity production on greenhouse gas emissions: according to the American Environmental Protection Agency, electricity alone contributed to nearly a third of emissions in the U.S. in 2014. This is a higher figure than that of transportation or industrial energy use.

Technologies such as solar cells and electrical transportation offer great potential for the future, but an important piece of the puzzle – the infrastructure that supports these innovations – often gets lost in the conversation: the electrical grid. It is the network that connects electricity suppliers to consumers, and without it, it is unimaginable that we could power our electronic devices, light our homes, and distribute energy to our industries all at once.

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Smartening our Electrical Grid

The grid is involved in so many aspects of our lives, yet it rarely enters our consciousness. With world energy consumption predicted to increase by at least 50 per cent within the next twenty five years, the modernization of this network is inevitable if we are to meet the needs and aspirations of the 21st century.

A traditional grid begins at the power plant station, located close to an energy source such as a dam, a coal bed or a windmill. When electrical power enters the transmission network, it can travel along large distances at high voltages via overhead power lines. These lines are typically suspended on towers and in an aerial view; they stand out as wire lines through forests and fields.

A substation receives its power from the transmission network, and a transformer steps the power down to a lower voltage. At this point, electricity is circulating through the distribution network.

With the exception of customers requiring large amounts of power, the voltage is then lowered again to the ‘utilization’ voltage of home appliances. The reason the voltage is downsized is mainly economical: the average consumer, in contrast to his industrial counterpart, simply does not require large amounts of power to fulfill his energy needs.

The golden rule of the grid is that the demand for electricity at a given time must never surpass its production, or else a power outage ensues. When the grid is at peak demand – when power consumption is at a substantially higher level than the average supply level – additional electricity must be generated. The Ontario Energy Board (the OEB) states that 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. is the on-peak time range on weekdays because it coincides with business hours. During the winter, the demand shifts to mornings (7 to 11 a.m.) and evenings (5 to 7 p.m.) for heating needs.

The additional power is usually provided by ‘peakers’ – power stations that are only active at these moments, and produce electricity more rapidly. The catch is that these emergency stations do not operate as efficiently, and impart a higher price per kilowatt hour onto the consumer’s bill. Efficient power plants are expensive to design, and since ‘peakers’ are only active occasionally, they are built cheaply and less efficiently.

The integration and distribution of new sources of power such as the sun and the wind help address this conundrum of varying demand. However, most forms of renewable energy are intermittent, forcing us to rethink the electrical grid in ways that optimize the functionality of renewables.

Moreover, the fact remains that the power generation efficiency – how

Sonia Ionescu | The McGill Daily well raw energy is converted into electricity – of some clean energy technologies has yet to surpass traditional modes of production. Oil fired plants and gas turbines can, on average, yield ten to twenty per cent more output than devices such as solar cells or wind turbines.

Michael Mann, a leading figure in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggested earlier this year that a global warming of two degrees Celsius could be reached as soon as 2036.

The pace of development in information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been a profound force in reshaping the grid’s network and its connectedness.

Our use of ICTs is providing us with an unprecedented understanding of energy consumption patterns.

Demand response programs are already in place for industrial activity, but with the advent of smart meters and smart appliance that can precisely record energy consumption patterns, and affordable sensors that can monitor the con-

dition of electrical equipment, a transformation is now occurring in residential sectors. To illustrate this, think of your neighborhood.

Sensors could be collecting energy consumption data throughout the area, enabling real-time pricing – meaning that the price would continuously adjust to the demand for energy, rather than following a common two or three tier pricing scheme. Consumers could automatically have some of their electricity usage diverted to ‘off-peak’ hours by having their dishwasher and their laundry machine programmed to run at such times.

The Italian utilities company Enel was arguably the first to implement smart grid technology in 2005. Since then, several other initiatives have followed. Southern California Edison’s “Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration”, has undertaken “volt/VAR control using distributed energy resources (DER), coordinated operations of several DERs to manage circuit loading and advanced distribution circuit reconfiguration,” in effect improving demand response. The project was leveraged at 790 millions dollars in 2013, according to the OEB. Another example is the Electrical Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, which found that “the outages were cut by at least half due to smart grid investments [...] saving local businesses and homeowners at least $35 million a year.”

Ontario’s Hydro One laid out its own smart grid vision in 2010 and has been referring back to this success story.

Challenges still lay as we modernize our grid. Among these is our capacity to store energy. Improved storage is important both in over-

coming the intermittence of renewable energy harvesting and in increasing the operating efficiency of power production from nonrenewable sources. Electricity generated by renewables is less attractive to consumers if its access is limited by large periods of inactivity.

The progresses of battery technology and of hydrogen fuel cells represent strides in the right direction.

Lucia Gauchia, assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Technological University states in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Smart Grid Newsletter that “the flexibility of energy storage in supporting renewable energy, avoiding curtailment by storing energy and using it later for peak shaving, among other capabilities, give consumers the combination of increased energy resiliency, efficiency and economic benefit”.

As our electrical grid continues to evolve, we should expect more parties to be involved in power generation and distribution.

This may have the effect of decentralizing the grid away from central power stations such as the ‘peakers,’ and relying more on local power generators. Finally, remember how frequently the words “our” or “we” appears in this topic: smartening the grid is a societal project that has the potential to connect people, technology and nature together in a significant way. While the ‘clean technology’ industry continues to grow in Canada and elsewhere, the government could play a pivotal role in accelerating its development by investing in grid modernization and creating programs that incentivize consumers to make the switch to green energy.

SCI+TECH

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Rethinking our memories

Sereena Pigeon Sci+Tech Writer

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uman beings crave love.

We want to feel like we are a part of a caring and supportive relationship. At a time when we desperately need to know that our significant other is there for us, if the support we expect from them is missing, we risk developing an ‘attachment injury.’

In 2001, based on observations of impasses in couples therapy, Sue Johnson, a psychologist and researcher specializing in Emotion Focused Couples Therapy at the University of Ottawa, defined attachment injury as an event involving a betrayal of trust or emotional abandonment by a romantic partner. This can take the form of infidelity, actual abandonment, or emotional abandonment during a time of need. Johnson draws a parallel between attachment injuries and trauma, suggesting that relationship betrayals can be traumatic for the injured partner, in that they shatter once held positive assumptions about the self, the partner, and the future.

We can all imagine how such an event can leave emotional scars.

“Generally, emotional memories are advantageous, as they allow us to remember the most significant parts of life. However, for certain people exposed to emotional trauma, the memories can become pathological, and lead to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other psychiatric disorders,” said Michelle Lonergan, a PhD student in the department of psychiatry at McGill University, who is currently working on a project examining new treatment for relationship trauma, in an interview with Sereena Pigeon.

When an individual experiences an attachment injury, they may develop symptoms that resemble those of PTSD such as anxiety, feelings of depression or hopelessness, insomnia, nightmares, inability to function, increased substance use, flashbacks, and intrusive memories, among others.

Clinical experts in Emotion Focused Couples Therapy observed that the presence of infidelity or other types of injuries to the romantic bond in a couple presenting for counseling is an important barrier to recovery.

New trial underway studying emotional attachment Lonergan is conducting a study to test the effectiveness of an exposure based treatment which involves the medication propranolol

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New trial aims to mitigate pain and suffering in helping individuals suffering from the aftermath of betrayal. The day that someone finds out their partner was unfaithful, or stole from them, or called them names, or emotionally abandoned them during a time of need can be very traumatizing, and memories of the event can be haunting. Exposing oneself to the memories can be difficult, but if done in a safe and therapeutic environment, it can be greatly beneficial. Adding the medication propranolol should, at least in theory, enhance the therapeutic effects of exposure.

Propranolol is a medication typically used to treat hypertension and migraines: it blocks the release of certain neurochemicals that are involved in the stressful or unpleasant feelings we experience when we remember a traumatic memory. The act of remembering, or “memory reactivation”, destabilizes long-term memories and triggers a process called memory reconsolidation, allowing us to incorporate new information into an old memory. If propranolol is taken during that time, it blocks neurotransmitters such as epinephrine and norepinephrine and therefore reduces the psychological distress which accompanies the traumatic memory.

Lonergan is conducting a study to test the effectiveness of an exposurebased treatment that involves the medication propranolol to help individuals suffering from the aftermath of betrayal.

That being said, propranolol must be taken in conjunction with memory reactivation in order for it to be effective. To reactivate the memory, participants either write or read out loud the story of the event in as much detail as possible. Lonergan states “propranolol given by itself will have no therapeutic effects, aside from maybe making you a feel a bit calmer and tired.” However, the pairing of memory reactivation and propranolol together re-

Cindy Lao | Illustrator duces the distressing symptoms.

This treatment has demonstrated success among individuals with PTSD, specific phobias, and substance addiction.

What will this trial involve?

With regards to her current study, Lonergan hypothesizes that individuals will show improvement in symptoms related to anxiety, depression and trauma – such as persistent crying and sadness, nightmares and insomnia, flashbacks and intrusive thoughts, avoidance of reminders, or emotional numbness – after six weeks of the treatment, and that this improvement should endure at a 3-month follow-up.

The trial therefore involves six sessions and two follow-ups (at one week and then three months

after the clinical trial). The trials take place about an hour after the consumption of propranolol.

The first session involves writing about the betrayal in detail and the other five sessions involve reading about it aloud.

What are the risks?

The trial poses very few risks and is expected to have long-term benefits for participants. Side effects associated with propranolol are minimal and typically involve some fatigue on treatment days. Of course, reading and writing about a traumatic event can be difficult; participants may be surprised by the feelings that the exposure exercise brings up. But this reaction is temporary and not much different from what would be observed in a regular individual or couples

psychotherapy session.

Lonergan states that “the research, from our lab and that of others, demonstrates that people still remember what happened to them, and how they felt when it happened.” She explains that propranolol only dims the emotions associated with the memory, not the memory itself. “The difference is that they do not have the same debilitating emotional response toward memory,” she asserts. Participants are able to function again in their day to day life; they can sleep better, eat better, and generally feel better.

They may no longer break down every time they hear or see something that reminds them of what happened, or avoiding people or situations that are reminders; they can finally have peace.

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culture

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Keep on poppin’ The Daily reviews highlights from

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Stay a while with Eskimeaux

sespite Eskimeaux being a solo recording project, Gabrielle Smith exudes a sense of welcoming collaboration through her indie-pop music. The singer/songwriter played at Bar Le Ritz on September 21. Eskimeaux began in 2007, and in nine years has seen many members come and go, but has always been Smith’s creation. The current ensemble is made up of Gabrielle Smith, Felix Walworth, Jack Greenleaf, and Oliver Kalb. Smith’s musical stylings are comparable to a cross between early Tegan and Sarah and Beach House; she captivates audiences with her angelic voice, and delicate synth melodies to match, balanced out by a full robust drumbeat and a steady simple guitar to pull it all together. The evening unexpectedly evolved into a sort of instrumental musical chairs as all the collective members played the supporting instruments for each other. First Kalb lead, then a change of arrangement brought Smith to centre stage, and finally hauling his massive bass drum to the front, Walworth closed the show.

When Smith performs, she moves carefree with a certain childlike sincerity, tapping her feet and knocking her knees as though everything is fresh and new, making the stage feel like home. She is not jaded. Perhaps it’s a combination of her youthful familiarity and respectful structure of the collective which leads music review websites such as Pitchfork to remark, “somehow it feels as if Smith is lending her ear to you, rather than the other way around.” When I approached her after the show, this opinion was validated. My introduction was immediately met with a variety of enthusiastic questions that came from Smith rather than myself. Despite her melancholic melodies, off-stage Smith radiates excitement giving the impression that she is exactly where she should be. Her music features a unique synth/folk crossover, matched with piercing lyrics that articulate the pains of heartbreak and growing up, which, given Smith’s childlike demeanor, creates a new level of believability. It is no surprise Smith’s lyricism is so poignant. When asked about her musical inspiration, she told The Daily, “I feel like I’m influenced by everything, as a lot of my music is made up of reactions to tiny moments that I can’t let go of from my day.”

In terms of her writing process, Smith begins with poetry. “Usually I write poems that then get turned into songs,” she told The Daily, “the music usually has to fit around what’s being said in the poem. Then the poem gets edited to fit into the music.” This is when her creative supports come in; while she retains songwriting as a completely independent aspect of her music, calling it “super private.” However, the instrumental is a group effort. She “bring[s] the band in for arrangements, a stage at which the song tends to change a lot. I rely on my band to help me trim the fat, both arrangement-wise and structurally, and hopefully to record the next record together.” The mutual respect and understanding between Smith, Walworth, Greenleaf, and Kalb undoubtedly comes through in their recorded music, but even more so in their collective performance. Together, they effortlessly establish an atmosphere of welcoming comfort, which invites audiences to come listen and stay a while.

—Anya Kowalchuk

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Groovy Groenland

s Groenland’s concert begins, Sabrina Halde proves her enthusiasm by bouncing across the stage, with her long blonde hair flyng behind her. Simon Gosselin, the bassist, is bouncing too. In fact, we’re all bouncing. Club Soda is springing from its foundation to happily bump into the sky. Montreal indie band Groenland is just that groovy.

After having launched their second album, A Wider Space, on September 16, Groenland presented a concert on September 22. Led by Sabrina Halde and Jean-Vivier Levesque, the band weaves electronic elements with stringed instruments and vocals to create a cheerful pop sound with a lot of rhythm and a great deal of heart.

“With all of this space that we’re not using, I thought we could make something out of it,” sings Halde in “Distractions”. Like children building improvised blanket forts in the corners of a room, Groenland builds spontaneous, fantastical songs with instruments that are less often used in the pop genre. For example, Vivier plays a mouth accordion – think a miniature keyboard connected to a saxophone-like mouthpiece with a long springy tube. Then there’s the violin, the cello, and the horn section, which are not often seen in pop but really shine in Groenland.

Groenland appeals to a wide range of ages – from small children, to twenty-somethings, to middle-aged adults – because they make indie pop that combines the best of both worlds: the creativity and experimental nature of indie, and the catchy energy of pop music. But don’t assume that pop implies simplicity; these are complex, masterfully woven pieces. Most songs are a perfect balanced triangle of sound. There are the plinky electronic rhythms, then the smoothly soaring strings section, and it’s all brought together by Halde’s velvety powerful voice. Compared to Groenland’s previous album, The Chase, it’s easy to see how the band has matured. Songs on The Chase are much more electronic, with less integration of the different instruments. In A Wider Space, it seems like the songs have a more complex narrative structure, with an introduction, middle, and conclusion.

—Maya Keshav

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The Kills stay loyal

lison Mosshart’s voice soared over Montreal’s Metropolis on September 21, making forays with scruffy-sounding old hits and hypnotic fresh ones. Playing from their new album Ash & Ice, The Kills rocked the stage alongside 60’s garage-band L.A. Witch. The POP Montreal website describes The Kills as “bluesy-punk,” though they are often referred to as “indie rock.”

However, their delivery on the Metropolis stage transcended genre. From explosive garage-rock beats and intense visuals, the unceasing energy in the room promised to turn the inebriated audience into at least one half of the record’s premise by the end of the night: Ash. To set the stage for the night, an image of a volcano was revealed. This motif represented one half of Ash & Ice’s enigmatic album cover, and accurately depicted the electrifying nature of the show. A crowd of teenagers and adults gathered by the bar, eager to grab drinks before the drums kicked in. Red lights signaled the volcano’s eruption, alerting the crowd. They sprang to the main floor, while Mosshart was ushered on-stage by the beginning guitar riffs of “Heart of a Dog,” played by Jamie Hince. During the opener, the duo professed their devotion to the night’s audience as they sang “I’m loyal, I’ve got the heart of a dog.”

When the punk song “Hard Habit to Break” commenced, band and audience alike clapped along rapturously. Two minutes in, however, the yellow glow of the stage and the initially playful tone of the song were gone, replaced by an extended version of the hard instrumental bridge. Lights pulsated to reveal the indie rock star’s slicing body movements and hair flips. The audience followed her every move, a testament to Mosshat’s hypnotic ability.

The dynamism of this first set was created by the duo’s fiery presence and theatrics. Mosshart jumped and prowled through the stage, and was in full control. At one point, she commanded the crowd to stretch their hands toward the ceiling with a theatrical swish of her own, leading to a full-on wave. The contrasting voices of the duo worked their magic best when Mosshart rose with force and a certain huskiness above Hince, whose deep-toned vocals in turn added softness and texture to the songs. The two created an ambiance that rests comfortably in the indie corners of rock between knockout garage and a soothing blues.

The energy at Metropolis came to a lull when a few analog ballads ensued, which reset the ambience as if to evoke Ice, the second component of the show. Accordingly, the backdrop changed colour to a cold, apathetic blue as Mosshart murmured the lyrics to “That Love” into the microphone, concluding that “it’s over now [...] that love you are in is all fucked up.” This set integrated some older tracks like “Pots and Pans” and “Baby Says,” the drowsiness of which precluded Mosshart’s propensity for theatrics.

The Kills shared sentimental moments with the audience. If anything, their performance seemed tailored to a group of friends nostalgic for the past, creating an intimate atmosphere that allowed for a deeper understanding of the musicians. As Hince played a solo interlude, Mosshart leaned in for a kiss with a blissful smile, bobbing her head in gratitude.

The concert was a concoction of versatility and familiarity. The Kills venture off into new sonic avenues with Ash & Ice, introducing fresh electronic sounds to their established sledgehammering rock. This played off exceedingly well live, demonstrated by the intoxicating way the audience grooved along to the elating ‘O-Ohs’ of “Doing It To Death,” the album’s lead single. The Kills concluded the narrative they constructed throughout the concert by finishing the way they started – with a volcano exploding behind their backs. The band had lived up to their name: they killed it.

—Panayot Gaidov

Culture

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

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with POP Montreal the annual music and art festival

Smoky Leif Vollebekk

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small group of devoted fans climbed the narrow staircase to the Rialto Theatre’s rooftop on September 24th to hear Leif Vollebekk’s last performance of a sold-out concert series, featuring respectfulchild. With a balcony stage framed with edison bulb string lights and vintage lamps and only the Outremont streets and sunset sky as a backdrop, the rooftop was converted into a quirky and easygoing concert venue that suited the performances that it would hold.

The opening act, respectfulchild, started off the evening on a contemplative note. A mysterious figure in a hooded cape, the solo artist seemed to cast a spell over the audience, using unusual violin pieces that innovated beyond traditional violin techniques and whispering vocals layered together in an interesting fusion of live instrumentals and on-the-spot sound editing and live looping. The resulting effect hovered at the border of hypnotic tranquility and unnerving eeriness. The Treaty 6, Saskatoon artist who rightly describes their sound as “ambient underwater fairy music” on their website, is a musician to check out for fans of experimental instrumental artists like Hungry Ghosts.

The second performer was one of my favorite artists, Montreal-based singer Leif Vollebekk.

Leif’s style is so evocative that it can be difficult to express it properly, except to say that it is a wandering style. This is the kind of music that belongs on misty-morning road trips or hazy railroad station platforms – it expresses the bittersweet sentiment of watching travellers pass and feeling that you can go anywhere in the world, but knowing that the price of being a wanderer is living with “could-have-beens” whenever you leave.

In a show composed of mostly new songs, his signature style was still in full force. He is one of those rare artists who sound better live, as the extent of his emotional connectivity cannot be contained on a record and his vocal talent is not one that needs the recording studio to refine or enhance its sound. When he started playing, he seemed to lose himself in the song. The resulting performance was full of energy and enthusiasm for the nomadic stories his songs held. His new lyrics, filled with a sense of wanderlust, love, joy and regret, found a perfect dynamic with his sound that alternates from smoky to clear, and from intense to soothing and dreamy seamlessly.

Unassuming and honest in his interactions and banter with his fans between sets, he created an intimate and homey atmosphere, even offering sweaters to shivering audience members in between acts.

What impressed me most about POP is how, despite the fact that this is a quickly growing event, still manages to create an intimate, friendly setting. At their events, musicians relax and watch the performances of the other musicians of the evening in the crowd and hang around after the show, chatting with fans in an unrushed ambiance and models and designers mingle with fans and Instabloggers. The boundaries between artist and audience become blurred as a new understanding of these diverse, enigmatic artists is discovered.

—Octavia M. Dancu

Vollebekk owns the keys

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Courtesy of dominick mastrangelo

Florals and fur at Fashion Pop

onfession time: despite being a lifelong Montrealer, I have never been to POP Montreal. In honour of their 15th edition, however, I was able to make up for it by attending the POP Fashion show, held at the Rialto Theatre. While many view POP as primarily a music festival, it offers a variety of events for everyone to enjoy – including record fairs, art workshops and exhibits, film screenings, and fashion events.

The evening air buzzed with camera flashes and anticipation as Montreal’s fashion set gathered for what was sure to be an interesting and inspiring night. People from all strata of the fashion world could be seen at the pre-show cocktail party: first-time fashion show attendees trying to take discreet Snapchat shots of impossibly tall models lounging by the bar, fashion photographers and high-profile local Instabloggers flitting through the crowd to catch the perfect candid shots and designers explaining their inspirations and fashion muses. It was a kaleidoscopic visual treat, even before the show began. Wherever you would turn, a new intriguing choice would present itself; a flash of sequin, an intricate lace design, a bold hair color or lipstick shade.

Fashion POP showcased pieces from up-and-coming designers A MAN x Cholo 58, Laugh, Markantoine, Onlookers, S3ttl3r47 and Whitewalls Worldwide, exploring the struggle between different ideas on the direction of fashion: should high fashion be wearable or aspirational? Should clothes seamlessly reflect our lives, or aspire to be art?

The first designers, A MAN x Cholo 58 and Laugh, worked primarily in Yeezy-esque neutrals, showing oversized coats in beige and grey which gave the model dramatic, bulky, largerthan-life silhouettes and comfortable-looking textures. This set the tone for the rest of the evening, with oversized looks appearing in almost all of the other collections.

One standout piece was a distressed denim dress paired with a chunky gold chain necklace and a brazen pink fur slouched across designed by Markantoine. The look combined luxury with grunge in a bold yet jarring statement. Markantoine continued this study in contrasts by pairing a brown fur coat with a black hoodie underneath, continuing the theme of exaggerated opulance juxtaposing street-style staples. This collection came across almost as social commentary on the conflicted ideals of this New Americana vision that is still struggling to define itself: a covetousness for status and a desire for true authenticity and experience. The collection closed with a statement coat and dress that departed from the previous juxtaposition with their matching scarlet colour, ending off on a cohesive note.

The next collection was designed by Onlookers; their pieces were minimalist and streamlined, with sleek blue and grey dresses, and tailored coats. The elegant shapes, subtle colors and lines of the garments created a thoughtful palate-cleanser from the busier and sometimes jarring collections that preceded it. This collection seemed one of the most versatile in the whole show —I could easily see one of those dresses being a good choice for a cocktail hour or a networking event.

The winner of Fashion POP 2016 was S3ttl3r47’s dreamy romantic collection, where soft, flowing florals and lace met whimsical tailoring in an aesthetic that could be described as Wes Anderson meets dark urban fairytale. This collection spoke to me as haute couture more than the rest because some of the outfits blurred the boundary of art and clothing.

Crowd-favorite Whitewalls Worldwide closed the show in a roar of applause with accessible urban streetwear, channeling the current athleisure and 90s revival trends into a collection that seemed current yet approachable. With these last two collections, the struggle between the two fashion ideals is thrown into sharp relief – should haute couture remain engaged in the pursuit of art, or should it seek to please the general public that experiences it and work towards enhancing wearability instead?

—Octavia M. Dancu

CULTURE

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

Scathing cold cinema

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Two Lovers and a Bear fails to centre Inuit narratives Caroline Macari Culture Writer

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ontreal director Kim Nguyen’s fourth feature film, Two Lovers and a Bear, portrays an all-or-nothing relationship between two white Nunavut dwellers, Lucy (Tatiana Maslany) and Roman (Dane DeHaan). They travel on snowmobiles, live in mobile homes tightly packed into a small icy community, and ice fish and shoot for fun. In one scene, Roman buys bullets at a general store with no questions asked, and later, he shoots his gun outside of a warehouse to relieve stress. The police only come because he is making noise too late in the evening.

The Daily spoke with Nguyen, who said it was important for him when writing the script to “rely on the people who had lived there […] Even spending a year there does not allow you to grasp the sense of what it’s like to live in the Arctic or the idiosyncrasies that are there.” Such idiosyncrasies include the tight-knit community, scathing cold, and regularly seeing the Aurora Borealis, like Lucy does in the film.

Two Lovers and a Bear was not the only film about Nunavut screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year. Zacharias Kunuk, Inuk director and producer, premiered his latest work, Maliglutit, at TIFF. Kunuk is perhaps best known for directing Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which holds an honour-

able place in the canon of Canadian cinema as the first full-length film to feature an Indigenous cast, who spoke completely in Inuktitut.

As a film that relies heavily on the visuality of its setting for storytelling – its plot revolves around its setting, not the other way around – Two Lovers and a Bear needs to be examined for the ways in which it engages with the conventions of representing Nunavut and Canadian landscapes in general. Representations of landscapes in Canadian art and cinema have a history of taking on nationalistic undertones, exemplified by the Group of Seven – a group of Canadian artists most famous for producing paintings of vast and empty landscapes. These romanticized depictions not only helped to justify the colonialist project – by representing the land as uninhabited and therefore ready to be conquered – but also proved essential to building a visual definition of the Canadian state, which is marked by its glorious, undisturbed forests, mountains, and glaciers. In other words, Canada has come to be defined through artistic depictions of its land.

Nunavut, in turn, occupies a special place in this visual vocabulary of state-building. A decade after the release of Atanarjuat, a growing fascination with Nunavut has encouraged filmmakers to produce more stories about the Arctic.

Two Lovers and a Bear participates in this legacy of articulating Nunavut as both foreign and unique

to Canada, its landscapes at once dangerous and beautiful. Whereas Atanarjuat disrupts this paradigm of representation by employing an Inuit cast, who have a personal stake in telling a traditional Inuk legend set in Nunavut, Two Lovers and a Bear unfortunately falls short.

In hiring a primarily white cast and employing Inuit actors merely as extras, Nguyen’s film fails to acknowledge the original and rightful owners of the this land, who still very much exist, and refuses them an opportunity to reclaim their land and the narratives surrounding it.

Though regrettable in its production choices, Two Lovers and a Bear makes effective use of the setting to reflect the inner state of the characters. The film shows shots of stark, vast, snowy landscapes to create a dismal and isolated mood that illustrates Roman and Lucy’s emotional suffering. They are shown several times throughout the film having dispassionate sex, implying a growing emotional distance which may be due to the increasing psychological turmoil caused by painful pasts filled with domestic abuse, from which Lucy and Roman had fled as they settled in Nunavut.

Lucy regularly sees visions of her late abusive father, while Roman turns to drinking. Both of these realities are consistently referenced, but not fully dealt with, deflating these heavy life experiences into mere plot devices.

Two Lovers and a Bear uses its Nunavut setting to emphasize that while life can seem stark,

Taylor Mitchell | The McGill Daily impossible, and haunting, one only needs to keep their ground through hardship, attempt to live freely, and cross their river when spring comes. It does a convincing job of letting the sublimity of the land speak for itself and effectively supplement the plot. Had it embraced its setting as an opportunity to represent Nunavut’s Indigenous communities, it would come off as less exploitative: Nunavut and its Indigenous inhabitants are neither a spectacle nor a backdrop to a tragic love story of the colonizers,

however well-structured and moving it may be.

Vinnie Karetak, one of the few Indigenous actors in the film, expressed at the TIFF, “we are tired of watching fake Inuit actors.”

Hopefully in the future, directors participating in the burgeoning film industry in Nunavut can actively centre the Indigenous communities that reside there and allow them agency in representation.

Catch Two Lovers and a Bear in theatres starting October 7.

Metal, disco, and futuristic electro Lucas Snaije Culture Writer

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he upcoming month is to be one of sleep deprivation, tough financial choices, cultural digestion, and sonic appreciation – even more so than during typical periods of Montreal’s vibrant and diverse music scene. October marks the return of the annual Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA). This year’s festival is headquartered in Phi Centre, the city’s Old Port cultural hub. From now until October 28, RBMA will be throwing down a dense and continuous set of eclectic events including workshops, conferences, concerts, club events, art shows and afterhour parties.

RBMA is a self-defined global music institution committed to fostering creativity in music that celebrates various cultures and the transformative minds behind them – principles that the institution has upheld for the past 18 years.

Red Bull Music Academy sets foot in Montreal

This year’s lineup is as impressive as it is diverse and meticulously curated. In close collaboration with local cultural organisers such as Mutek, Never Apart, Turbo Crunk and Piknic Electronik, RBMA has shown that it seeks to integrate the Montreal art and music scene within its high-budget line-up of international artists. One can thus expect an interesting mix of local and international artists in this year’s events.

RBMA is [...] committed to fostering creativity in music that celebrates various cultures.

The opening party at Mile-Ex venue Espace Reunion went on blissfully into the early hours of the morning with Aurora Halal, DJ Richard, and other great artists supplying the night with melodic techno and percussive sounds. The night was well organized, hopefully setting a precedent for the upcoming events.

On September 30, the Canadian ambient sound artist Tim Hecker played alongside the experimental, sample heavy Venetian Snares and a collection of Quebecois artists from the metal, noise, and drone scenes.

Chicago house legend Theo Parrish will close the last Piknic Electronik event on October 6, supported by two members of the pioneering Detroit Techno collective Underground Resistance, who will play a set that afternoon.

Vancouver-based label 1080p will have a takeover night at ArtGang Montreal on October

7, with locals Riohv, Adam Feingold, and Project Pablo playing their finest records. New York representative Max McFerren, Vancouver producer Ramzi, and rising Japanese talent Keita Sano will also be performing.

RBMA [...] seeks to integrate the [local] music scene within its high-budget lineup of international artists.

More notable dates include Björk, who will be performing DJ sets for two sold out shows

on top of a virtual reality exhibit at the DHC/ART gallery; the Olympic pool being transformed into a futuristic electro party where Detroit’s Dopplereffekt will play a live set alongside DJ Stingray, who will be playing original productions by afro-futurist electronic group Drexciya; and an all-disco night in memory of Montreal’s golden 70s.

The list of interesting artists is endless, and interspersed between these shows are a series of educational talks and workshops, taking place at beautiful venues around the city.

One can only look hopefully toward the month to come. Red Bull Music Academy is staging an interesting retrospective for many genres while consistently showcasing a wide variety of talents.

Check out the full list of events at www.mtl.redbullmusicacademy. com/events.

EDITORIAL

Volume 106 Issue 5

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

19

editorial board

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-24 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6784 fax 514.398.8318 mcgilldaily.com

We’re “not interested” in the Harambe vigil

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

Sonia Ionescu

coordinating@mcgilldaily.com

managing editor

Ralph Haddad coordinating news editor

Ellen Cools news editors

Xavier Richer Vis Marina Cupido commentary & compendium! editors

Inori Roy

culture editor

Coco Zhou features editor

Saima Desai science+technology editor

Igor Zlobine sports editor

Vacant

multimedia editor

Chantelle Schultz photos editor

Kevin Tam

illustrations editor

Marina Djurdjevic copy editor

Anne-Cécile Favory design & production editor

I

f you’ve been on Facebook recently, you’ve probably noticed an event titled “Harambe Candlelight Vigil McGill.” The event stems from the Harambe meme, which ironically memorializes a gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo who was shot and killed by a zoo worker in April 2016 after a child fell into the enclosure. The Harambe meme has been used countless times to perpetrate antiBlack microaggressions and reinforce stereotypes, and by allowing and encouraging this event to occur on campus, the student body is making McGill a more hostile environment for Black students.

It may not immediately be clear why the Harambe meme is anti-Black. The meme decentres and trivializes anti-Black police violence, and perpetuates the idea of Black people as subhuman. The child that fell into the enclosure was Black, and the exaggerated outrage over killing Harambe implies that the life of a gorilla is more important than that of a Black child – this is happening while mainstream media barely covers Black people being murdered in the U.S.. Additionally, the media and public blamed the parents and scrutinized the father’s criminal record, in a way that would not have occurred had the parents been white. Further, the implicit comparison between Black people and gorillas is significant due to both its historical and contemporary uses; for example, the meme was recently used in racist attacks against Black actress Leslie Jones on Twitter.

People may argue that memes are harmless, but they don’t exist in a vacuum. Popular culture and media cannot be separated from the political and social environments in which they are created, and sharing something

that has been explicitly used in an anti-Black way is harmful. Some students argue that they’re attending the vigil because they’re sincerely upset over the death of an animal, and point out that the merchandise profits will go to the Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund.

However, there are ways to donate and express sadness over an animal’s death that don’t involve decentering anti-Black violence and racism.

It is disheartening that, at the time of writing, there are over 2,200 people going to the vigil – almost four times the number attending the Facebook event for the October 4 Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Indigenous women. McGill students should examine why they prioritize an ironic tribute to a dead animal over sincere events that address the violence that Black, Indigenous, and racialized people face. But McGill students are only part of the problem; Gerts – the campus bar owned by SSMU – will be hosting an official after party to the event. Racial microaggressions that are implicitly endorsed by our student union only continue to make McGill less welcoming to Black and racialized students.

The event should be deleted, and both SSMU and the organizers of the event should acknowledge the meme’s racist overtones. But whether or not that happens, nonBlack students have a duty to withdraw their support for the event, and inform their friends of the meme’s implications. Students have a responsibility to make McGill a more welcoming environment for racialized people, and in this case, that includes clicking “not interested.”

—The McGill Daily editorial board

Rahma Wiryomartono

web editor

Marc Cataford

le délit

Ikram Mecheri

rec@delitfrancais.com

cover design Marina Djurdjevic contributors Niyousha Bastani, Max Binks-Collier, Octavia M. Dancu, Panayot Gaidov, Fiona Glen, Maddie Gnam, Cindy Lao, Maya Keshav, Anya Kowalchuk, Molly Lu, Justin Mai, Caroline Macari, Emily McIntosh, Eva Morel, Kristen Perry, Sereena Pigeon, Gabriel Rincon, Lucas Snaije, Louis Warnock

3480 McTavish St., Rm. B-26 Montreal, QC H3A 1X9 phone 514.398.6790 fax 514.398.8318 advertising & general manager Boris Shedov sales representative Letty Matteo ad layout & design Geneviève Robert

Mathieu Ménard

dps board of directors

Zapaer Alip, Niyousha Bastani, Yves Boju, Julia Denis, Sonia Ionescu, Ikram Mecheri, Igor Sadikov, Boris Shedov, Alice Shen, Tamim Sujat All contents © 2016 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.

Printed by Imprimerie Transcontinental Transmag. Anjou, Quebec.

ISSN 1192-4608.

Errata “First Senate meeting focuses on equity” September 26th, News, page 6, stated that Natalie Oswin is a Geology professor. In fact, she is a Geography professor. The Daily regrets the error.

CONTACT US Coordinating NEWS COMMENTARY CULTURE FEATURES SCI+TECH SPORTS

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Compendium!

October 3, 2016 mcgilldaily.com | The McGill Daily

20

Lies, half-truths, and the evil capitalist shitshow vortex of doom.

[satire goes here]

Misty Monthlies

Your horoscope guide to October Supernatural Sue The McGall Weekly Aquarius You value your independent thought and individualism, plus your solar and lunar trajectories are super fly together this month. It’s time for a dynamic shake-up. So ask yourself this — are you looking after your money, or is it looking after you?

Pisces Rigid by Piscean nature, you decide that the only way to make sure there isn’t a living creature inside your shower head is to take it apart. Now. You apply this methodology to all household items with gaps, holes or cracks in them.

Aries Your sister becomes a keeper

Last week’s answers

for Real Madrid. Within a week, people somehow adapting the movie ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ into a witty pun frustrate you so much that you stage a public display of rage, which goes viral and earns you a further lifetime of torment.

Classic Aries move.

Taurus You go to a traffic light party dressed as a fully working traffic light, keeping your green bulb glaring in a desperate appeal for love. Walking home with a mate you have lured, you also attract a speeding car, which crushes them. As your heart breaks, your hopeful green light goes out, leaving you to stumble home in the darkness.

Gemini As Venus passes Mars in the hallway in a huge, sexually-tense

warp of the universe this week, you find that you are incapable of sitting on a public bus without intensely erotic thoughts occupying your mind. Stay strong – this too shall pass.

Cancer In an attempt to appear more important, you paint helicopter pad markings on the roof of your building and pretend to be expecting Russian business associates. It is very awkward when they actually arrive.

Leo You value your independent thought and individualism, plus your solar and lunar trajectories are super fly together this month. It’s time for a dynamic shake-up. So ask yourself this — are you watching your weight, or is it watching you?

Virgo Your reflective and considerate nature paves a bright path. This month, you find out what chemtrails actually are. It turns out to be worthwhile, so you keep the secret. Humankind is so easily intimidated by strange shapes in the sky…

Libra Every dream you have this month includes you opportunistically purchasing a loofah.

You decide that this item must be a Freudian phallic symbol, although such intense deadness and dryness is concerning. Joy may be found in open spaces this month. You will have enough energy to be propelled towards temporary success, before you are catapulted into the Void by the collapse of your overzealous sense of achievement. Enjoy!

Scorpio Very soon, the revenge of absentmindedly chewed stationary will come. Hardworking students and administrative staff will be the victims of vicious mauling by daydreaming pens and pencils the world over, leaving lifelong scarring and moistness at one end.

Sagittarius Mars is bright tonight.

Capricorn This month, you discover a special talent. Every time you put your headphones in without looking, the ‘L’ and ‘R’ buds end up in the wrong ears. Your faultless ability to always get this wrong wins you several drinking bets at Gerts, before this success triggers an existential crisis about what ‘getting it wrong’ really means.

Across 1. obama 6. mcs 9. motto 14. login 15. alp 16.email 17. anise 18. tao 19. eared 20. food network 23. pre 24. edd 25. neet 27. dire 30. glass shard 36. road 37. atv 38. tenor 39. and 40. react 43. im a 44. giant 47. ipr 48. a man 49. screenplay 52. rank 53. zeal 54. nam 56. gal 59. that was hard 65. abuse 67. neo 68. polio 69. alter 70. arm 71.elect 72. peers 73. rnb 74. neck Down 1. olaf 2. bono 3. agio 4. misdeed 5. an end 6. matt 7. claw 8. spoons 9. meekest 10. oma 11. tarp 12. tier 13. olde 21. edgar 22. res 26. the 27. drags 28. ionic 29. radar 31. lte 32. avail 33. anima 34. roman 35. drank 41. cpa 42. tryna 45. nez 46. teeters 48. armhole 50. nah 51. planar 55. aspen 56. gaap 57. able 58. lute 60. tern 61. womb 62. alec 63. rick 64. dots 66. ser