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News

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

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Masi directs removal of union posters McGill served with legal notice of Quebec Labour Code violation Michael Lee-Murphy The McGill Daily

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rovost Anthony Masi ordered building directors to tear down posters of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) from notice boards across campus in late September, The Daily has learned. In response, AGSEM’s parent union has served McGill with a formal legal notice charging that the University violated Quebec’s Labour Code.

The posters in question were part of a drive to add McGill’s course lecturers to AGSEM’s ranks.

The campus union recently compiled data that shows McGill’s course lecturers are among the lowest paid in Quebec, although their minimum salaries for three-credit courses were increased by $2,000, to be phased in over two years, as announced on October 6. Course lecturers are currently paid $4,000 per three credit course.

AEGSEM represents McGill’s Teaching Assistants and is seeking to unionize course lecturers, who are without organization.

Stanley Glavac, Space Data Administrator for Campus and Space Planning, sent an email to all building directors September 21, reading: “Please look at the attached PDF file that shows a poster that has recently appeared in several McGill buildings. At the request of the Provost, Prof. T. Masi, this poster must be removed.” The email was also sent to the offices of Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson and Associate Vice-Principal (University Services) Jim Nicell.

Glavac told The Daily that he was instructed to send the email from

someone higher in the administration, though not by Masi. Glavac declinined to identify the source of the directive. He maintained that “lots of posters are removed all the time,” adding that he “didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

Gerald Pollack, Building Director of the Stewart Biology building, said that he was “quite surprised” to see such a request.

“It’s not clear to me what the justification for that request was,” he said. “My attitude is that this is a university, and that there should be free expression of ideas.”

Pollack made clear that there were no AGSEM posters in his building, but if there had been, he would have requested justification from the administration.

Michal Rozworski, AGSEM VP External, said that the directive “is undermining everything from the basic rights of freedom of expression all the way down to the collective agreement that we signed. This is offensive on all levels.”

Lawyers from AGSEM’s parent union, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), served McGill with a “formal legal notice that it has violated Article 3 of the Quebec Labour Code” on October 5, according to an AGSEM press release. Article 3 of the Quebec Labour Code states that every employee of an institution has the right to belong to an association of employees of their choice and participate in the “activities and management of such association.”

The next day, Wendy Thomson, director of McGill’s School of Social Work, sent a letter to all course lecturers announcing the $2,000 pay increase. The announcement said that the “University had planned to publicize these increases dur-

ing the summer of 2010 but a request for union certification was filed in July and consequent to the Quebec Labour Code the University was prevented from announcing substantive changes in working conditions.”

Rozworski said that, despite the pay increase, McGill’s course lecturer salaries remain “far behind other universities in the province, and it still leaves course lecturers without all the other protections that only a collective agreement can guarantee them.”

Posters were said to be disappearing as recently as last week.

Derek Nystrom, a professor in the English department, commented on an AGSEM-connected Facebook page that a poster had been removed from the door of his personal office at some point last weekend. Nystrom’s post goes on to say that the removal of the poster from his door “says something about McGill’s commitment (or lack thereof) to free speech if profs are not allowed to put materials on their office door without clearing it with the administration first.”

While a number of administration officials involved were unavailable for comment due to a senior administration meeting on Friday, Lynne Gervais, the Associate Vice-Principal (Human Resources) acknowledged that posters “were taken down” in an email sent to The Daily through the Media Relations department.

The email went on to say “[t]here are rules that apply to what a union can or cannot do during a certification campaign and putting up these posters was a violation of these rules.”

The email failed to specify which rules. Gervais also wrote that a slogan beneath AGSEM’s logo on the poster, referring to the union as “McGill’s teaching union,” was “misleading.”

This poster was removed by the administration Rozworski said that the Administration’s description of AGSEM’s slogan as misleading was “hurtful.”

“The message that they’re sending is that we’re not part of the teaching community at McGill.”

Courtesy of AGSEM

Rozworski said that the removal of posters has only strengthened organizers’ resolve.

“It’s sad to see something like this from a university that markets itself as a world class educational institution,” he said.

FEUQ accuses Quebec of hiding millions in student aid Provincial and federal accounts differ by $30 million Eric Andrew-Gee The McGill Daily

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he provincial government is withholding $30 million in student aid transferred from the federal government, according to the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ).

In a press release dated October 15, FEUQ and the Fédération étudiante collegiale du Québec pointed to a gap between the amount of money earmarked for student aid in federal transfer payments – $235 million – and the amount the provincial government claims it received – $205 million.

The payments will take effect in January 2011 and will cover expenses for the fiscal year 2009-2010.

“We’ve got the confirmation

from the federal government that [they have] written the cheque, that this will transfer $235 million to the Quebec government,” said FEUQ president Louis-Phillips Savoie.

The transfer payments are administered under two federal programs: $120 million will come from the Canada Student Loan Program (CSLP) and $115 million from the newly created Canada Student Grant Program (CSGP). This amounts to a 14.5 per cent increase from last year’s total transfer. The CSGP is replacing the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, from which Quebec received $80 million last year.

A chart posted on the federal Treasury Board’s website says $229 million was transferred to The province, although FEUQ political attaché Mathias Boulianne said that Barbara Glover, Director General

of the Canada Student Loans Directorate, pegged the number at $235 million when he met with her.

The province’s significantly lower number appeared in Quebec’s 20102011 budget, released March 30.

“The provincial government pretends that the student loans program was cut by an amount of approximately $30 million,” Savoie said. “That’s how they arrived at $205 million.”

Provincial Education minister Line Beauchamp’s office could not be reached for comment as The Daily went to press.

Asked whether he thought the provincial government was being deliberately misleading in the figures they presented, Savoie said, “that’s our best guess.”

“You’ve got confirmation from the federal government that $235

million has been transferred. And you’ve got Quebec on the other side that says 205 [million dollars].”

He said he believed the missing $30 million was “out there somewhere,” and that Quebec might be using it for “building roads, constructing hospitals…anything really.”

“The money comes from the federal government to cover bursaries,” he continued. “It should be used to solve some of the problems that are pressing the student financial aid program in Quebec.”

SSMU VP External Myriam Zaidi told The Daily she believes the current student aid regime needs an overhaul.

“The current calculation system is not reflective of today’s realities,” she said.

She said the $30 given to students for internet bills and the seven dol-

lar a day food stipend were unfair to students on financial aid.

She also stated that she would like to “decrease or even remove the loans part” of the system, saying she would prefer a system in which all students in need would receive a bursary that would not have to be paid back.

Zaidi said the issue of the discrepancy in the provincial and federal governments’ figures will be put on the agenda of the meeting of the Quebec Students Roundtable (QSR), the provincial student lobbying group of which SSMU is a founding member.

She added that she wanted to speak with other QSR member organizations and other provincial student groups before commenting on the issue.

QSR’s meeting was held on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Shatner Break-Out room, before The Daily went to press.

4 News

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Lobby groups come together for panel talk Anna Norris The McGill Daily

R We will be leaving the Shag Shop (3600 McTavish, just beside the student health clinic) at 2pm and 4pm on Friday October 22nd. If you can’t make it for those times, feel free to walk up yourself and meet us at the top any time between 12pm and 5pm. Bring your student ID for a free goodie and to enter a draw for a free prize. Take advantage of this beautiful season and come enjoy the beautiful colours on the mountain. See you at the top!

Dryden lectures Liberal MP, Habs legend comes to McGill Zach Lewsen News Writer

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en Dryden, Liberal MP for York Centre in Toronto and a Stanley Cupwinning goalie with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s, spoke at Tanna Schulich Hall for McGill’s 2010 Hugh MacLennan Memorial Lecture on Thursday.

During the talk, Dryden spoke about his recently published book Becoming Canada: Our Story, Our Politics, Our Future, which deals with Canadian identity.

He argued that Canadians have the wrong idea of themselves, because they feel that the lack of a homogenous national identity is harmful. Dryden argued that Canada’s diversity benefits the country and is ahead of the global curve.

In an interview with The Daily after the talk, Dryden railed against the federal government’s removal of the long-form census this summer.

“I would have never guessed that we would even have a debate about the census. Power comes from money and information. You don’t limit information; information needs to be there for people to use in lots of different ways.

When you start dealing more with rhetoric and less with information, then everybody’s in trouble and that’s what happens when you cut back access to sources of information like the census,” said Dryden.

The former NHL star listed climate change, human rights, and poverty as important political issues, but lamented the lack of Canadian political participation.

The root of the problem, according to Dryden, is that many people don’t see the link between issues and politics. Dryden talked about the times he spent speaking to university students, describing how they are concerned by global issues but don’t see politics as a way of tackling them. Dryden blamed this lack of faith on the partisanship and polarization of Canadian politics.

“When I’ve been travelling from campus to campus in different provinces, people are saying the same thing and that’s for good reason, because climate change puts futures in jeopardy and it gets at the fundamental question of how no person has the right to limit the life of anyone else in any fashion whether it’s in conflict or as a result of climate change,” said Dryden.

Dryden also described what the Canadian government could be doing to make post-secondary education more accessible, while also solving the problem of underfunding in universities.

“I think that the way in which we fund post-secondary education is that it comes out of four or five different pockets,” he said. “It’s out of parents’ pockets, out of students’ pockets through part-time jobs and summer jobs, from schools’ funding through scholarships and bursaries, and from government programs set up mainly by provincial governments, yet sometimes federal in terms of basic support. Chances are, that’s going to continue; I think the question is how you can make it less of a stretch for each party. …I think it’s everybody’s job to do a little bit better in order to decrease the stress for all parties involved.”

epresentatives of four provincial student lobbying groups met Wednesday to lead a panel discussion about the future of funding for Quebec universities and the unity, or lack of unity, of the student movement in Quebec. The four groups present were the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), the Quebec Student Roundtable (QSR), the Federation étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), and Free Education Montreal (FEM).

The main issue up for discussion was the upcoming Quebec tuition defreeze, which will take place in 2012. All four groups expressed strong opposition to raising Quebec tuititon, and drew a connection between education and freedom. “Most countries know that education is the basis of their social contract and their society,” said Robert Sonin, the representative from FEM. “The more education you have, the better the country. The more education you have, the lower your crime rates.

The better education you have, the higher your incomes. So to put a block in the way of that impedes people’s freedoms.”

Louis-Philippe Savoie, the president of FEUQ, agreed. “Universities are a very smart public investment . ... it would be shooting ourselves in the foot, as a society, to reduce access to universities.”

Although all groups were in agreement over key points regarding tuition increases, the discussion also centred around the groups’ differences, and whether Quebec’s student movement is, or even ought to be, united. “If there is a unity to be built, it has to be built on a common basis which has to be either material, ideological, or both,” said ASSÉ representative Martin Robert. “What we can see right now is that that basis is not quite there.”

The issue of a unified student activist movement is particular-

ly relevant for McGill students, as SSMU is affiliated with QSR and PGSS is a member of FEUQ. However, Sonin is confident that, with regards to tuition at least, the groups will be working together in the future. “In times when there isn’t such a big issue, student associations should disagree...when we have to fight a battle like this, it’s time to put those things aside.”

The groups are also confident of the support of the student body in Quebec. QSR vice-secretary general Joël Pedneault drew a parallel between the support he expects for the fight against tuition increases and the support shown recently at McGill for the Architecture Café.

“To me, that shows that people do care about issues related to universities and university settings. It’s just a question of informing people enough that they can link different issues together,” he said.

Moderator Erik Chevrier linked the issues of university funding in Quebec to other situations in Canada. “If we look at the financing of two major events that have happened – the G20 and the Olympics – had close to three billion dollars of security costs,” he said. “So when you talk about not being able to fund public services, maybe we’re just putting it in the wrong place.”

All of the panelists were called upon to explain their organizations’ policy proposals for funding universies without raising tuition; the solutions ranged from philanthropy to payroll taxes but ultimately, said Sonin, the question is one of priorities.

“The question here is not only one of where the money is going to come from. We have the money. Look around you. We are living in a very rich country, and we have the money to fund what we want to fund. So the question is, are you going to fund...things that contribute to an individualization of people...or are you going to fund things that we can do together?”

sometimes you have to kill the things you love.

WHAT’S THE HAPS

Student unity?

Big Hanna Compost Launch Tuesday, October 19, 12 p.m.

Outside Wong building Gorilla Composting is launching the Big Hanna, McGill’s industrial composting machine, on Tuesday. There will be speeches detailing the work that’s gone into obtaining the machine and a brief demo of how the machine works. Free food and drinks will be served.

Boycott Rally Blitz October 18-20, 12:30 p.m.

Outside McLennan Library From Monday to Wednesday Midnight Kitchen and Mobilization McGill are teaming up to formally boycott Aramarkrun food services on campus. Midnight Kitchen will be giving out free food outside McLennan from 12:30 on. Students will also be handing out flyers outside cafeterias on campus advertising the boycott and the next rally.

Arch Café rally Wednesday, October 20, 2 p.m.

Outside Leacock Another rally to protest the closure of the popular student cafe will be taking place Wednesday afternoon outside Leacock.

SSMU President Zach Newburgh will be presenting a motion at Senate to form an ad hoc committee to discuss reopening the Café.

Montréal: BDS Conference 2010 Friday, October 22-24 UQAM, Salle Marie-Gérin-Lajoie, 405 St. Catherine E. A weekend long event discussing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel will be taking place this weekend at UQAM. The opening panel – Friday at 7 p.m. – will feature Omar Barghouti of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, and Areej Ja’afari of the Palestine Freedom Project. For more information on the weekends events visit www. bdsquebec.org.

Fall General Assembly

be an angel. write for news. news@mcgilldaily.com

Thursday, October 21, 6 p.m.

James Square The first SSMU General Assembly of the year is taking place Thursday at James Square. Motions will include scheduling an Arts Fundraiser, Gert’s renovations, and supporting student-run printing services.

News

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

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Kieran Mak | The McGill Daily

Stimulus projects face hard deadline Local theatre has yet to begin construction Henry Gass The McGill Daily

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ith winter setting in, municipalities across Quebec are rushing to finish numerous construction and renovation projects before funding from a 2009 federal stimulus package expires on March 31, 2011.

The projects are being financed by the federal Economic Action Plan (EAP), a two-year stimulus package launched at the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2009-2010.

Problems have arisen as the funding’s deadline approaches, however, as many projects have only just begun due to extensive provincial and municipal rules that govern their development.

Les Deux Mondes theatre is one such example. The company entered a partnership with the Théâtre Aux Écuries – a cooperative of seven artistic companies – to renovate the theatre’s existing space at 7285 Chabot. The partnership received $970,000 from the federal government and $2.4 million from the provincial government – about ninety per cent of the $4-million project – to bankroll the project, but due to legal requirements construction is yet to begin, with the deadline to use the EAP money just months away. The project will add one studio, three rehearsal rooms, and necessary utilities, as well as developing an existing building renovated in 1996.

“We officially got the support from the Quebec and Canada governments last November, [and] we rushed to be able to respect the deadline call,” wrote David Lavoie, General Administrator for Aux Écuries, in an email to The Daily.

“But an architectural project is a complex thing…[with] the backs and forths needed to get the municipal agreements.”

“We finally got ready for the submission calls [from construction companies] three weeks ago. … That’s the fastest track we could make.”

Lavoie explained that many of the municipal rules around construction are designed to protect the public

from rapidly approved projects that could affect their neighbourhoods, allowing residents to campaign against projects they may not want to see developed. For example, developers are obligated to inform the public of a given project and get feedback, a process that often takes three months to achieve.

“The information gets to us drop by drop,” said Lavoie.

Lavoie was confident that eighty to ninety per cent of the project could be completed by March 31, but also noted the danger of enforcing such a strict deadline on construction projects.

“We hope that the Canadian government will get conscious of the danger they balance on the companies like us,” he wrote. “But it’s also crazy to maintain that deadline: if we rush the construction companies to that deadline, our project will cost way more than we planned! Who wants it that way?”

The federal Department of Finance said they are working closely with their provincial and municipal counterparts to ensure that all projects are completed by the deadline.

“While some recipients have reported delays in construction starts in progress reports submitted to the Government, the forecasted completion dates provided, and attested to, by the recipients indicate that projects will be completed by the program end date,” wrote a Department of Finance official in an email to The Daily.

“The Minister of Finance [Jim Flaherty] has stated that [the] federal government will be just and reasonable for projects virtually completed by the deadline, but…it is still our expectation that the vast majority of these projects will be completed by the deadline,” said the official.

For FY2010-11 the EAP is funnelling almost $3.2 billion into the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund to develop provincial, territorial, municipal, and community infrastructure. $330 million has been earmarked for “shortterm support for key sectors,” which includes the culture and tourism sectors of municipal government.

Lavoie said that if the theatre prvoject is not completed by March

31, and loses its federal funding, it will be shelved indefinitely until the necessary funding could be collected.

“We cannot build a theater venue dedicated to emerging artists without public support. No theatre has been built in Montreal for the past two decades, in the French community at least. And that’s not because there was not a need for it!” said Lavoie.

He also said that the hard deadline could have a significant impact on the Montreal art scene, which relies heavily on public funding for support. The cultural sector is receiving $158 million in EAP funds this year.

“During the last ten years (at least), the new generations of artists have found it harder and harder to get support from the governments, because the public investments are not increasing. Our artists are now producing at an exhilarating rate.

So we’d like to facilitate their access to the tools they need to get to the next step,” said Lavoie.

Ottawa giving McGill $81 million EAP also established the Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP) – money intended to improve infrastructure throughout Canadian universities – and are committing $1 billion for FY2010-11.

Provincial governments across the country have collectively matched the $1 billion. According to the Department of Finance, Quebec has received $458.4 million through the KIP, to support 295 projects throughout the province. McGill has received $81 million from the program for FY2010-11.

According to Jim Nicell, Associate VP (University Services), the University’s prioritized projects for the money include renovations to the Macdonald Engineering, McIntyre Medical, and Otto Maass Chemistry buildings.

Every level of EAP is designed to stimulate the economy by providing new jobs for Canadians, who are in turn expected to contribute to the economy as consumers. “[KIP is] meant to have a rolling effect. Workers get salaries… [and] spend money,” said Nicell. “It stimulates and stimulates.”

The Department of Finance estimates that EAP is expected to create or maintain 220,000 jobs across the country by the end of 2010.

“Since July 2009, nearly 423,000 jobs have been created in Canada. That is more than were lost in the recession,” said the Department of Finance official.

6 News

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Council prepares for GA SSMU will pose SACOMSS fee renewal at fall referendum Queen Arsem-O'Malley The McGill Daily

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hursday’s SSMU Council prepared for the General Assembly (GA) next week, reviewed the success of Homecoming, and voted to create a referendum on the renewal of the fee for the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students Society (SACOMSS).

Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan, a QPIRG board member and former SSMU VP external, addressed Council as a guest speaker, and urged councillors to remember their responsibility to “be open to dialogue [and] open to meeting with students.”

He expressed disappointment that QPIRG’s Board of Directors had not been included in talks surrounding the motion to reconsider QPIRG’s fee, which was ruled out of order and removed from Council’s agenda before the meeting.

The Board of Directors is looking to be on the agenda at the next Council meeting, and hopes to converse with councillors about the relationship and history between QPIRG and SSMU. In his executive report, President Zach Newburgh discussed a plan, in conjunction with Mobilization McGill, for a three-day boycott leading up to a rally outside Wednesday’s Senate meeting, where “we want to make as much noise as possible.”

Newburgh also explained that SSMU has been waiting since June for McGill Legal Services to pro-

vide the lease for the University Centre (Shatner Building) and SSMU’s Memorandum of Agreement with the University, but that the documents should be available soon.

Arts Councillor Todd Plummer raised the possibility of an equity complaint against one of the proposed GA motions, which calls for the construction of a stripper’s pole in the Gert’s bar renovation plans.

Other GA approved motions called a SSMU-organized fundraiser to help alleviate the Arts Undergraduate Society’s recent financial losses, the institution of a seven-member Board of Directors in order to help SSMU maintain its liquor license, turn down the volume in Gert’s, and mandate that SSMU use Copi-EUS for large batch printing jobs.

In the latest in a long tradition of satirical GA motions, one calls on SSMU to change its name to the “Student’s Society of The Educational Institute Roughly Bounded by Peel, Penfield, University, Sherbrooke, and Mac Campus” for the duration of 2010.

A notice of motion regarding the addition of a Council representative for interfaculty Arts and Science students, after extensive debate, was not approved for the GA. A motion regarding the renewal of SACOMSS’s $0.75 fee, endorsed by Anushay Khan, VP Clubs and Services, passed easily, and will be brought forth to students as a referendum question during the fall referendum period.

VP Clubs and Services Anushay Khan endorsed renewing the SACOMSS fee.

Andra Cernavskis | The McGill Daily

New party in town?

Former PQ minister forms coalition; wants to put aside Quebec sovereignty debate Alexia Jablonski The McGill Daily

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apitalizing on record-high rates of public dissatisfaction with the Charest government and frustration over the polarization of parties in the National Assembly, a political movement to put aside the Quebec sovereignty issue is gaining steam.

Led by former Parti Québécois (PQ) minister François Legault, the new informal centre-right coalition – tentatively named Forces Québec – is aiming to put aside the federalist-sovereigntist debate, in order to focus the province on tackling economic and social problems in Quebec.

Legault is joined by roughly twenty other associates, including another former PQ minister, Joseph Facal. Legault quit the PQ in June 2009, saying he worried

that Quebec was facing a period of “quiet decline.”

This fall, this movement intends to publish a series of manifestos on a variety of issues, including healthcare, the education system, and the economy. The coalition’s current status and future aims, however, remain ambiguous.

“It is not for tomorrow,” Legault told Le Devoir in French on October 6. “We are not ready to launch this publicly, and we are even less ready to create a new political party...

I met friends, people I know – maybe about twenty in the last few months. I talked with these people about the possibility of contributing to the public debate. I am not talking of a political party. We have not reached a conclusion, meaning that we don’t know which form this might take and if we will contribute to the public debate.”

Although not a real political party, the movement has gained

massive public support. In a Léger marketing-QMI poll published on October 12, a hypothetical party led by Legault would win thirty per cent of votes, compared to 27 per cent for the PQ and 25 per cent for the incumbent Liberal Party.

“I think it mostly has to do with the Charest government being highly unpopular right now and with the main opposition, the PQ, not drawing much support either,” said McGill Political Science professor and specialist in provincial politics Éric Bélanger. “There’s sort of a void right now in Quebec, with people tired of the two old-line parties.”

Bélanger speculated that Legault’s defection from the PQ might reflect poorly on his former party’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Moreover, he believes that Legault’s intention to set aside the separatist issue has been welcomed

by the public: “Quebeckers are ready to discuss something else,” he said.

“Many people in this movement are unsatisfied with the reforms in the education system of the past ten years or so,” Bélanger continued. “Many also are very much in favour of allowing more private healthcare, and maybe consider that we should try to have more control over Quebec’s debt.”

Whether Legault will form a party to achieve these objectives remains to be seen. One obstacle he faces is a lack of federalist support.

“They have tried to attract some federalists, but it’s not like they’ve been able to reach a balance within the movement,” said Bélanger. “As long as they cannot really attract more federalists, I don’t think the movement will take off and become a party. ...

They need to have people from

both sides saying that ‘we don’t want to deal with this issue [of sovereignty] anymore; we have other things to think about and to work toward.’ Otherwise it looks like an offshoot party from the Parti Québécois.”

Another, more fundamental, barrier towards shifting the political discourse away from the traditional federalist-sovereigntist debate might have to do with the nature of Quebec politics itself.

“I think [the sovereignty question] can be put aside for a while, but it will always come back...the reason being that there’s nothing that really has been done since the mid-1980s to actually tackle the issue,” said Bélanger.

“Nothing has really been done concretely to address the Quebec grievances within Canada. For that reason, as long as nobody does anything, it might come back in a cyclical manner.”

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

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A clear-eyed Quebec? Hardly Lucien Bouchard’s ideas of the province’s future are whack The character of community Adrian Kaats adrian.kaats@mcgilldaily.com

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just got back from a brief crossCanada tour. Upon my return, something struck me about Montreal, which I believe applies generally to Quebec: people here are shamelessly preoccupied with enjoying life. It’s amazing how many families are out and about all day long. There’s an unmistakeable vibrancy to life in this province and it is derived from something special: we’re inefficient, and hooray for that!

Recently, Quebec has experienced “activism” by a coalition called Pour un Québec lucide, led

by Lucien Bouchard. Although Quebeckers mostly think of Bouchard as the Bloc Québécois’s founder, this fossil should be remembered as Brian Mulroney’s righthand man and a pillar of the Progressive Conservative party.

In response to Quebec’s perceived financing problems, impending “rapid demographic decline,” rising health care costs, and Asian industrial competition, it’s no surprise that Lucien “the Booby” Bouchard proposes the following measures: increasing sales tax while reducing income tax, jacking up electricity rates, and unfreezing Quebec tuition.

All this, of course, favours the common man, and paves the way to a bright, prosperous future for all. Right?

Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily

The Pour un Québec lucide movement threatens Montrealers’ – and Quebeckers’ – way of life.

Little is lucid about these proposals. Let’s start with the idea of further diminishing our progressive income taxation model in favour of an increased sales tax.

Everybody, rich and poor, purchases staples: food, clothing, shelter, and utilities. Whereas the rich, after satisfying their basic needs, have the liquidity to move on to additional, perhaps luxury, consumption, the poor do not.

Consequently, low-income earners, currently paying lower income tax, would necessarily see their overall contribution increase. High earners would receive an income tax break, only seeing tax disadvantages commensurate with consumption above the basics.

Clearly, a shift from progressive income taxation to increased sales tax is effectively an inversion of progressive income taxation. The same

principle applies to increasing electricity costs. An increase in HydroQuébec’s rates, although virtually unnoticeable to the wealthy, would, percentage-wise, constitute a disproportionally large burden for low income earners. The same applies to tuition fees: no problem for the rich, big problem for the poor.

This isn’t just wrong headed: it is antithetical to the basic principles of wealth redistribution which we

have fought, for ages, to embody in our taxation and social systems.

However, in face of the economic predicaments we now face, which Booby and his cronies rightly point out, we must answer the question, “Where will the money come from?”

According to Booby and co., we plebeians are “oblivious to the dangers that today threaten [our] future.”

Is that so? Or are we increasingly aware (even if only in our guts) of the accelerating process of wealth sequestration?

It’s obvious where the real money is, and it’s not in the “average Marie-Josée’s” pocket. This March, for instance, the Royal Bank of Canada reported a $1.5-billion first-quarter profit. To contextualize, RBC could pay for almost every Canadian post-secondary student’s tuition with its first-quarter profits alone. In 2009, ninety per cent of RBC’s CEO’s $10.4-million salary could have paid for nearly fifty Quebec general practitioners, and he’d still have earned $1.04 million – not too shabby.

It’s almost four years ago to the day that Booby began his foray back into the Quebec political scene with the following statement: “We need to work more. We don’t work enough. We work less than Ontarians and infinitely less than the Americans.” Here he’s actually got it right. We’re lazy and inefficient – and good on us! When you propose to further screw me, the least I can do is play hooky when the sun’s shining. I’m proud to be part of Quebec’s obstinance. Sorry if that hurts your bottom line. o

What’s solid melts into air From campus to Asia, transformation is on the way Red star over Asia Ted Sprague ted.sprague@mcgilldaily.com

P

lease allow me to dedicate this first piece to introducing my new column, “Red star over Asia.” At first glance, one might think that this is a column about Asia, moreover, one about communism in Asia.

Well, you’re not too far from the truth, yet you’re not close to it either. “Red star over Asia” will be a column about things in the process of becoming, rather than things in a state of being. This column will tell of the endless transformations of history, not in a cyclical, but a spiral motion moving ever higher, in a line punctuated by leaps and bounds.

Empires rise and fall.

Revolutions and counter-revolutions take turns in a never-ending tug of war, pushing our civilization into uncharted waters. Asia abounds with such stories: the 1949 Chinese Revolution, the bloody India-Pakistan-Bangladesh partition, the 1965 Indonesian anti-communist massacres, the Vietnam war, the Korean war, the Khmer Rouge’s madness, and so on. Asia’s story is a tale of human struggles of epic proportion, of sudden lurches and setbacks as it impatiently seeks to break through the hold of its ancient past.

This is why I choose Asia as a point of reference for my column, because it’s a land that never rests and it’s still changing quickly as we speak. China, once “the sick man of Asia,” is now a major power

poised to overtake U.S. economy in around 2025. With India and Indonesia, these three countries carried the weight of the world during the recent recession. The centre

This axiom applies just as well in the small microcosm we call McGill.

Heather Munroe-Blum paraphrased this axiom vividly in her May 2010 budget letter: “Let me be clear: we

Indeed, McGill cannot continue to do business as usual. of the world is shifting to Asia. Just like the sun finally set on the British Empire, the time has come too for the Western powers to step down from their pedestal.

All that is solid melts into air.

This is the underlying theme of this column. It is an all-embracing axiom that runs throughout our history.

cannot continue business as usual.”

Indeed, McGill cannot continue to do business as usual any longer. It is not immune to the worldwide epidemic of deficit and the resulting austerity measures.

The first blow has been struck with the closure of the Arch Café.

Mendelson will not back down on

this, since in 2007, he was embarrassingly forced to backtrack on the first closure. Shutting down the Arch Café is a political statement from the administration that they can, and will, execute their plans regardless of the opposition they face, because they have a whole slew of hard-to-swallow changes to push through – all of which revolve around McGill’s 2010-2011 budget.

The world is a-changin’. Asia is a-changin’. McGill is a-changin’.

Sarkozy, Charest, Harper, Cameron, Merkel, Wen Jiabao, and MunroeBlum have readied themselves for this change and are well-armed to impose it on us. The status quo is no longer tenable. We can no longer just resist the changes forced upon us. We need to define – and fight for – the changes we want to see. o

8 Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Let’s fight for our rights Alex Briggs Hyde Park

C Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily

We need to act substantively to address the anti-gay structures of our society.

Purple shirt, empty gesture On (not) making a difference Kevin Paul Hyde Park

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ecently, hundreds of thousands of students across North American campuses have expressed their intention to wear purple this Wednesday in response to the rise in visibility of gay teen suicide. Although this article does not necessarily reflect the views of the Queer McGill (QM) executive, of which I am member, as a whole we have declined to endorse this campaign.

While the sheer number of people, at McGill and elsewhere, showing their support for this cause is gratifying, I fear the movement (at least outside of high schools) is an essentially hollow gesture.

In a recent Hyde Park (“No more

the precipice of suicide.

The confused array of different meanings attached to the gesture points to its inherent emptiness.

On some of many Facebook event pages, it is in memory of the “six” killed. One explains that purple “represents spirit” on the pride flag. On others, it is in support of the entire “LGBTQ community” or “against homophobia.” People are uncertain what wearing purple should mean because on a fundamental level, it means (and does) nothing.

Meaningful anti-homophobic action is a constant imperative in queer communities, but the use of the internet as an organizing tool has lowered our standards for real change. Last Thursday, Queer McGill facilitated a candlelight vigil, in the belief that our constituents needed

“Wear Purple” threatens to lessen the urgency with which we pursue concrete responses to the crisis of queer teen suicide. queer suicides,” October 7), QM co-administrator Ryan Thom wrote that “[we] need to make life better than death for queer youth.” We share a belief in the importance of actions that actually make a difference in the lives of those hardest hit by homophobia, actions that actually fight homophobia. I fail to see how dispersed masses wearing a shirt of a certain colour for one day could pull a depressed teenager in a Midwestern high school accustomed to being thrown into lockers and called “faggot” at all away from

a space for shared grieving and to honour the lives lost. The “wear purple” campaign, by contrast, is not about grief or honouring the dead.

Will these thousands not merely put a purple shirt on in the morning, momentarily feel connected to a mass movement, and go about their routine, forgetting the shirt and whatever meaning they ascribe to it?

Oh, and sacrifice nothing?

The notion that wearing purple will “raise awareness” is equally false: these suicides have been on front pages, all over the internet,

“seen” again and again. Awareness has been raised. Those touched by the tragedies have had chances to grieve.

It is time to move to meaningful action that makes suicide a less appealing option for more queer youth. There are many ways of doing so, more effective than wearing purple for a day, including local initiatives like Project 10, Allies, AlterHéros, and the Montreal Youth Coalition Against Homophobia.

Contributing to one of these groups will mean sacrificing time and/ or money, but will also allow for a direct impact on the lives of youth confronted by discrimination on the basis of (perceived) sexuality or gender performance. The “Wear Purple” campaign would be merely ineffectual yet harmless if it did not threaten to lessen the urgency with which we pursue concrete responses to the crisis of queer teen suicide.

Of course, people are free to wear what they want on October 20.

But I hope that those who decide to wear purple will not do so in unreflective compliance with something they saw on Facebook or consider their action an adequate response to the fact that kids around the world continue to kill themselves because homophobic peers made them feel life was not worth living. As students, we need to move beyond proclamations of solidarity and fleeting symbolic gestures, and toward concrete action against homophobia.

Kevin Paul is a U2 Cultural Studies and Philosophy student and Queer McGill’s treasurer. The views expressed here are his own. Write him at treasurer.qm@gmail.com.

The debate continues online! »Farid Rener on Arch Café » bit.ly/frener »Daniel Meltzer responds to Carol Fraser » bit.ly/dmeltzer

losing the Architecture Café was easy for the administration – a matter of subtracting the small profit from the studentrun service from Aramark’s massive bid. But for students, the calculation is not so clear.

The Café was a sun-lit escape from looming masses of unfinished homework and unpreparedfor exams, a place to enjoy some healthy food and warm company before stepping back out into the dark and stressful winter.

But somehow McGill does not hear our side, even though we pay thousands of dollars every semester. The last rally demonstrated this: the Café was taken off the table – without discussion – amid the cries of a large and diverse protest. We were shown we have no control over the place to which we devote so much of our lives. Unfortunately, it is Mendelson’s right to make such unilateral decisions over our objections.

It’s time for change.

A motion put to Senate will create an accountable and transparent committee to assess the Architecture Café closure, and will reassert our rights as students in a democratic institution – nullifying the closure until the committee has submitted its report. For the full motion, visit sites.google.com/site/ mobilizationmcgill.

This motion must pass. Although its scope is limited to the closure of this single café, it will set an important precedent for the student body: that we will stand for what is right for us, and not be crammed

into cost-effective boxes for the University’s bureaucracy to stack.

Next Monday, the boycott will begin in earnest. We hope that the student body will realize that this issue is far larger than tasty brownies and cheap food: it is about respect. We pay enough as is to attend this university. And the Aramark contract, which appears to give them exclusivity rights on campus, is an underhanded measure to make us pay even more – more money for worse food provided without accountability.

More information will be available on the picket lines. They will be set in front of the major cafeterias, with stands serving wraps provided

by Midnight Kitchen as a working alternative to the corporate model.

We hope that some of the student body will be moved to stand with us on these lines, as well as to wear white arm bands demanding their right to a democratic university.

Most of all, we need another rally – bigger, better, and louder. This time we will have a focus, we will know our purpose – and we will not stand to be ignored. We will gather outside of the Senate meeting at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 20 October, and we will be heard. Whether or not you have ever stepped inside Architecture Café, we hope you will raise your voices and raise your fists to give us back some say in our lives.

Bring your lunch, bring your voices, and take back your rights.

Alex Briggs is a U2 Mechanical Engineering student and a member of Mobilization McGill. Write him at ajhbriggs@gmail.com. Want to help out? Email mobMcGill@gmail. com.

C O M M E N TA RY

Not actually macabre.

Unless you want it to be. commentary@mcgilldaily.com

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

9

The name is a justification Using “Judea and Samaria” masks a land-grab Marie-Jeanne Berger Hyde Park

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n response to “Revisionism Hurts” (Commentary, October 7), I would like to avoid the question of the Jews’ right to live in the land of Israel, within or without Judea and Samaria, and instead discuss the way articles like Russell Sitrit-Leibovich’s obfuscate and complicate the reality of modernday Arab-Israeli politics.

Contrary to the majority of stories we read in the newspapers that focus on the use of religious propaganda, historical narrative, and negative hate speech, the issue of land involves mostly one thing: land. The land, and who it’s going to belong to, is key to the question of peace in the region. Names, religion, and historical right are tools wielded by both the Palestinians and the Israelis to create better arguments for land. When we cut away the fat from the carcass of this issue, we see that Israel is usurping land, and the Palestinians are becoming further disenfranchised, and effectively caged into smaller and smaller turfs.

What might surprise the optimistic or uninitiated observer is that this is happening during the first direct peace talks in two years.

Consider Netanyahu’s desire for peace. Sitrit-Leibovich’s article blamed Palestine, as controlled by

the Palestinian Authority (PA), for a failed peace process doomed from its inception. Using the premise of Judea and Samaria, Sitrit-Leibovich says: “If there is any hope for peace in the Middle East, it will come when Arabs recognize the right and historical presence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. This refusal, not Jews building homes in Judea and Samaria, makes any peaceful coexistence impossible.”

Who, of the two sides, is making this coexistence impossible? And who within the region has the capacity to build or destroy homes?

One of the few prerequisites for peace talks imposed by the PA, a restricted political party forcibly and illegally put into power by the U.S. and Israel, was the cessation of settlement building in the Occupied Territories. Considering that the active usurpation of land would mean that the terms of peace and land allotment would need to be perpetually renegotiated, this is a reasonable request. Despite the fact that many journalists and political pundits felt that Netanyahu had been pressured into the negotiations by the Obama administration, even American pressure paled in comparison with Israeli desire for land. For this reason, Netanyahu allowed the settlement freeze to lapse, abrogating the peace talks before they really even began.

The freeze on settlement build-

Naomi Endicott | The McGill Daily

Whatever name you use for the region, continued settlement in the OPT is the main obstacle. ing meant both symbolically and physically that the Palestinians would be recognized as having a right to a “presence” in Israel. The end of the settlement freeze revokes this right, revealing the blatant contradictions of Sitrit-Leibovich’s conclusion. Netanyahu, after letting the freeze lapse, offered to resume the already-confirmed-as-a-precondition settlement freeze at an even higher cost: that the PA acknowledges Israel as a Jewish state.

Since the PA already acknowledges the state of Israel, this may appear to be a battle concerning ideology alone; however, for the Palestinians it comes with real repercussions in terms of denaturalization and expulsion. The “Jewish state” is like “Judea and Samaria” – they are all religiously-charged terms that supposedly, by virtue of the Bible or Torah, eradicate the right of a people that aren’t Jewish to live on the land. Yet, as many Jews would

point out, it isn’t “religion” that has given the right to settle or expunge, or moreover condoned it, but only those that covet the land.

Marie-Jeanne Berger is a U3 Middle Eastern Studies (Honours), Middle Eastern Studies Students’ Association co-president, and editor-in-chief of the McGill Middle Eastern Studies Journal. Write to her at marie.jeanne.berger@mail. mcgill.ca.

Capitalism with a conscience Let’s get real about microfinance Koay Keat Yang Hyde Park

W

hile I am heartened that Ted Sprague is speaking out against the exploitation of the poor (“Small loans (to the poor), big results (for the rich),” Commentary, October 7), his wellmeaning commentary nonetheless uses a straw-man fallacy. The definition of microcredit among the social enterprise community is that microcredit is a group of noncollateral, interest-bearing loans that reinvest their profits to expand the accessibility of credit among the poor. In other words, the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) is judged by their attainment of their social mission within the confines of fiscal responsibility, rather than sheer profitability.

Notably, in echoing concerns parallel to Ted Sprague’s, Muhammad

Yunus during his Beatty Memorial Lecture at McGill urged that the term “microcredit” be reserved for social enterprises alone.

Ted Sprague’s insinuation that microfinance stories “have been recounted, repackaged, and retold to convince the whole world of their success” is evidently unfounded when one factors in how MFIs organized as social enterprises define and collect data on poverty eradication. The social enterprise community does not cherry-pick the success of outliers to deceive the public. Social enterprises and various impartial academic groups subject the efficacy of microfinance to rigorous statistical tests and to a multidimensional poverty index that reflects quality of life. Therefore, when speaking on the borrowers’ graduation from poverty, it means that the borrowers and their family can now afford a more secure quality of life, freer from malnourish-

ment and financed by their incomegenerating activities. The miracle of microfinance is not the success of outliers, but a statistically significant and large sample group.

For social enterprise MFIs, the seemingly high interest rates are justified. First, it is costly to extend loans in rural areas. It is also important to note that alternative credit suppliers like loan sharks operate on these peripheral economies and charge significantly higher rates.

From a credit standpoint, then, the poor can at least benefit from the crowding out of illicit and potentially dangerous creditors.

There are also empirical data suggesting that even with high interest rates, the poor benefit from microcredit. A World Bank research paper (“Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment,” by Suresh de Mel, David McKenzie and Christopher Woodruff), the authors show that

returns to capital are higher than the market rate for loan interest, even in a randomized controlled trial where entrepreneurial ability and exogenous shocks are taken into account.

It is true that microfinance is not a magic bullet for poverty. MFIs have failed and the poor were harmed by recklessly extended loans. Postmortems of such failures have yielded significant insights in the academic literature concerning poverty and microfinance. We now recognize that governments mandating loan and capital requirements, interest-rate caps, and the integration of MFIs into the mainstream financial sector are the causes of MFIs’ failure.

Markets do fail, but no market failure is insurmountable. On the one hand, we need to provide a viable framework for the operation of MFIs that isolates risk, limits the potential systemic risks they have on the financial sector, and enhances their

efficacy and accessibility. On the other hand, we have to subject our success to healthy scepticism, driven by empirical data rather than pontification.

In an age as polarized as one that we live in now, it is easy to turn any single issue into a proxy war among contrasting economic or political ideals. True, the excessive greed of capitalism is truly repulsive and no one can reasonably support the exploitation of their fellow people.

Social enterprise (and in this case, microfinance) is the manifestation of the “thinking beyond capitalism” that Sprague asks for. This is the advent of a conscientious capitalistic system.

Koay Keat Yang is a U0 Arts student who believes that no problem in the world cannot be solved over muffins, cookies and coffee. You can write to him at keat.koay@ mail.mcgill.ca.

October 18, 2010 Dear Reader, I recognize your infinite multiplicity, and also your infinite creativity, your ability to construct as co-creator the meaning of my texts. I’m so, so desperate for you to co-create my meaning... a throbbing, hot, co-created meaning. letters@mcgilldaily.com

Science+Technology

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

10

Full-time novelist

Hickam’s PR person emailed me a PDF file of the advance copy. For a week in October, I escaped to the fictional Square C in Filmore, Montana, between classes, and in breaks from working on problem sets. The story is told from the perspective of Mike, a vegetarian detective-turnedcowboy looking back a year later on events that took place on the ranch: the arrival of a paleontologist named Pick, and the drama over bones found on the ranch.

Tensions between science and money run high. At the beginning of the book, Pick insists on using any discovered bones for finding “truth through science.”

Ranch owner Jeanette replies, “Does truth through science pay your bills?” and then asks how much dinosaur bones might be worth.

As bones are meticulously uncovered

When Hickam was an undergrad at Virginia Tech, he wrote a column for the newspaper about the cadet corp. He’s written a series of historical fiction novels, and magazine articles about scuba diving. Other claims to fame include a cannon named Skipper that he built when he was at university (Skipper 3 is still fired at Virginia Tech football games today), and going on CNN to comment on the Chilean miners. According to his Facebook page, these days he is in “full Dinosaur-Huntermarketing mode” (“A special gift idea!” says a button on his website that links to instructions on pre-ordering an autographed copy). Hickam wrote on his blog that this might be his breakout novel.

“But, you’re already famous,” I said, during a phone interview to his home in Alabama.

He laughed, and I was certain that I had outed myself as a stranger to the commercial fiction publishing world. He explained that he’s exploring two new genres: the book is both a Western and a mystery – both huge markets for selling books.

“Publishers actually hate what I do,” said Hickam, and added that if it were up to the publishers, he would just be writing different versions of the Rocket Boys story.

He hopes that the book will be a breakout in the market for mystery books, and then sell and be optioned for a movie. He’d like to write a series following the protagonist, Mike.

There are a handful of little details in The Dinosaur Hunter that are lovely. To tell if a tan pebble is a bone, Pick conducts a “field test” by placing it on his tongue to feel the texture – something that I was taught to do while interning at an archaeology lab in high school. The characters muse about

what Pick refers to as “deep time,” 65 to 300 million years ago, when dinosaurs walked the land and Square C was a figment of the distant future.

There’s question of whether or not animals have feelings; the paleontologists tell campfire-side stories about a mother T-Rex fighting for her children in the name of love.

A teenage girl on the ranch, Amelia, sees paleontology as a way out of Filmore – the same way that a young Hickam felt that rockets were a way out of Coalwood.

But Mike lacks a deeper curiosity for bones beyond what he’s directly exposed to. He quotes the facts he learned directly from the sources – like explanations of the occipital condyle of an adult triceratops, and radiogenic dating methods – instead of working them into the narrative. It’s a clumsy way to offer exposition, and poor science writing.

The Dinosaur Hunter lacks the meticulous embroidery of interesting ideas that was present in Rocket Boys such as the opening paragraph of which mentions heartbreak, thermodynamics, and the future of the children living in a small mining town.

It was hailed as one of the best openings to a memoir. The rest of the book follows in a similar suit: every page is interesting in and of itself, and the book as a whole is enough to alter a pre-teen’s path in life, or at least, my pre-teen self: after closing the final chapter of Hickam’s memoir series, a set of Estees model rockets wound up under the Christmas tree, I dreamt of, then abandoned the idea of becoming an astronaut and started studying physics.

One review of The Dinosaur Hunter, from Kirkus Book Reviews is especially positive. Hickam has copy-pasted the review to his blog, and dubbed the folks at Kirkus “true dino boys and girls.” Hickam seems eager to share his dreams – toward the end of our interview he asked me, “Are you going to go out and hunt dinosaurs?”

Hickam asked me what I thought of the book, and I explained that I thought it is a good story, and it is – the whole novel goes down easily, like a good bedtime story – but a

Wilson

T

welve years ago, in the days before Amazon, my dad came home from the grocery store with a book he had spotted on a rack near the cash registers: a paperback copy of Homer Hickam’s memoir Rocket Boys, with a “Now a Major Motion Picture” medallion on the cover, and the title changed to reflect that of the movie adaption, October Sky. The now-yellow front pages of that copy overflow with praise from newspapers.

The story has been used in middle school classrooms across America to teach new generations about the boy who built rockets and left his life in small-town 1950s West Virginia – along with his imminent future as a coal miner – to grow up and study aerospace engineering. The book, and Hickam’s two sequel memoirs, The Coalwood Way, and Sky of Stone, made their way through my bedtime reading circuit as a child.

Hickam has long since left his job as a NASA engineer, and is now a full-time writer.

For a few weeks every summer, he’s also an amateur paleontologist: eleven years ago the director of October Sky movie, Joe Johnston, was going on a dig with paleontologist John R. “Jack” Horner, to do research for Jurassic Park 3. Hickam asked to come along.

“It’s like an easter egg hunt every day, you’re out there looking for something that nobody’s seen for 65 million or more years,” said Hickam of hunting for dinosaurs.

Hickam’s latest book, a novel titled The Dinosaur Hunter, will be released on November 9.

by Pick and his two female assistants with help from Mike and a few other ranchers, their value – both monetary and scientific – becomes more apparent. One of the ranch’s cows is found murdered, and then another.

Machine guns make a short appearance in the final act.

tions b y Stace y

The McGill Daily

Illustra

Shannon Palus

| The M cGill Da ily

Cowboys, guns, engineering, and Hickam’s The Dinosaur Hunter

little light on the science for my liking.

“For a popular writer – and I fall into that category – to write a book primarily about science, you’re running a rather huge risk,” he explained.

He said he hopes that readers might gain an appreciation for paleontology, and even learn a bit about the work that goes into digging up a dinosaur. The book gives the reader a beginner’s perspective of fossils. Mike’s perspective is in many ways Hickam’s perspective when he goes on digs with Horner – ears open, and eyes wide.

Hickam explained that, especially after watching October Sky, people often view him as a scientist – which of course, as a former engineer, has never been an accurate descriptor. This isn’t a bad thing when one is releasing a book with science themes. “It’s all a matter of marketing,” he explained Hickam does not consider himself to be a science writer. My vision of picking his brain for tricks of the science writing trade, commiserating about the specific twinges of loneliness that come with balancing an existence between the likes of the physics lounge and the Daily office, fell through at this point in our interview. I suppose I should have known: aside from the Rocket Boys trilogy, outer space has shown up in just two of his other works.

Hickam stresses that, despite what the October Sky movie might indicate, he’s a writer for a living.

He chuckled, “I am the most misunderstood writer in the world.”

Science+Technology

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

11

Earthly exo-planets Digging for dinosaurs The implications of Gliese 581 g

Utahceratops, kosmoceratops, and other fossils

Malcolm Araos-Egan

Serena Yung

Science+Technology Writer

H

ollywood blockbusters and science fiction literature muse about what is beyond the boundaries of our earth, and wonder if there might be life on other planets. Empirical discoveries, like that of Gliese 581 g, a distant earth-like planet, can offer insights that go beyond mere speculation about the uniqueness of life on earth.

likelihood of alien life or human contact with the distant planet, his face twisted in dismissal. Obvious obstacles aside – the planet is over twenty light-years away – the places the role of this discovery in a more scientific light.

Human curiosity about the nature of life – the conditions for its existence, its variations, and its very beginnings – is a driving force behind the field of astrobiology.

“Every living thing on Earth is based on the same principles of DNA, and the same limited diversity of atoms. These atoms were created under specific circumstances a long, long time ago.

Would it not be fascinating then to get a glimpse of life at a different stage of development than us? It could well give us insight into how it was that life on our planet came to be,” explained Vali.

Vali proposes that, whether or not interstellar life is based on the same principles as life on earth, finding it would have important implications. “It is possible that life on Gliese 581 g has DNA based on different elements than on Earth, and if this is so, our whole understanding of what life is would be challenged. However, if life on this planet is based on the same principles as on Earth, this is interesting also!,” he burst out, his enthusiasm becoming visible. “Then we would have evidence indicating that our type of life is the only type there is, imagine that!”

Gliese 581 g was found with relatively little trouble, suggesting that there are millions other habitable planets to be discovered. For now though, Vali says “All we can do is imagine.”

“Would it not be fascinating to get a glimpse of life at a different stage of developement than us?”

Hojatollah Vali McGill Astriobiology professor The discovery is credited to a team of planet hunters led by American astronomers Steven Vogt and Paul Butler. The finding comes after almost a year of uncovering several similar earth-like planets orbiting Gliese 581, a star in the Libra constellation.

What is unique then, about “g”? “[Gliese 581 g] is within the ‘habitable zone,’ which can be defined as the physical space in a star’s orbit in which the conditions for life, namely temperature, are met,” explained Hojatollah Vali, professor of Astrobiology at McGill. “Earth, for example, is in the habitable zone of the Sun’s orbit.” This means that there might well be life on the planet.

Would the mere existence of life on Gliese 581 g imply an inevitable submission of the human race to alien overlords? Or perhaps a renewed try at colonialism? Vali certainly does not think so. When I asked about the

Science+Technology Writer

T

wo dinosaurs struck forth into the fresh light of public awareness on September 22, 2010, in the online journal PLoS One. Utahceratops and kosmoceratops were both found in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, a high desert terrain in Southern Utah. Like their closely related famous cousin, the triceratops, both bear a large horn on their nose and both have sideways projecting eyehorns. Kosmoceratops can boast of having the most elaborately ornate head of all known dinosaurs, with fifteen horns strewn over the nose, eyes, cheeks, and frill. After interviewing three of the main investigators, Scott Sampson and Mark Loewen, both researchers at the Utah Museum of Natural History, and Andrew Farke, of the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in California, I gained many insights into the actual process of discovering dinosaurs.

Before the digging begins, paleontologists work with geologists to find regions of exposed rock from the Mesozoic period, the age of dinosaurs. Rocks deposited on land tend to be more promising than those in the ocean, since dinosaurs were terrestrial creatures. Eventually, their suspicion falls on a particular chunk of sediment that may contain a dinosaur bone.

“Scientists use a variety of tools to remove the rock from above the fossil, including gas-powered rock saws and jack hammers,” explained Sampson. “They then use finer tools, like brushes and dental picks, to expose some of the bones before covering them in a protective jacket of plaster and burlap. The specimens are then carried back to a preparation lab where the rock is removed and the fossils are stabilized with glue.”

Once enough bones are dug up, experts compare their shapes to those of other dinosaurs, or even of modern animals, to help get an idea of what the dinosaur might have looked like and to fit the skeleton together.

Paleontologists also compare the unique kinds of spikes, horns, crests, and other bony accoutrements of the new dinosaur with previously discovered dinosaurs to determine if it is an entirely new species.

Scientists try to figure out the specific ages of the dinosaurs using a technique similar to carbon dating. In carbon dating, the radioactive carbon breaks down and halves its mass after a set period of time, its half-life. But carbon only has a half-life of 200,000 years – not nearly long enough to reach back into the time of dinosaurs. Fossils can be dated with elements with much longer half-lives, like argon, potassium, and uranium.

New discoveries like these often lead to some of the rich rewards of science: new hypotheses. In Farke’s work, after looking at the patterns of injuries across the skulls of certain horned dinosaurs, he and his team posited that some of them “used their horns for fighting each other, members of their own species.”

In a different case, Sampson’s team had revealed a large carnivorous dinosaur in Madagascar, which happened to be closely related to a species in Argentina. Thus it was proposed that there were once connections linking Africa and South America, via Antarctica; dinosaurs could have walked through this corridor to the other side, as there was no ice on Antarctica during their era.

Veering back to our own era, dinosaurs are now unearthed more quickly than many of us may think. Across the globe, dozens are discovered every year. Utah itself yields one or two a year, owing in particular to the new, largely unexplored region of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

non-arch-cafe content on the regular read science+technology EXCELLENCE WITHIN YOUR REACH GET TO KNOW US Admissions reps on-site to answer your questions Visit our Web site: www.mcgill.ca/medadmissions Email: admissions.med@mcgill.ca

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14Science+Technology

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

On the origin of life Jonathan Katz Science+Technology Writer

I

n the quest to understand the origins of life, scientists analyze components of the oldest known rocks on Earth to elucidate the chemical composition of the atmosphere, and thereby the biological life on primordial Earth. According to Boswell Wing, an assistant professor in the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill, the chemical composition of these rocks indicates that there was likely a thriving microbial biosphere on Earth as early as 4.3 billion years ago (Ga).

Wing spoke last week on October 8 to launch the Freaky Friday lecture series, which will continue on most Fridays for the remainder of the semester in the Redpath Museum auditorium. The objectives of the lecture series are to confront myth and clarify science.

Wing’s hypothesis, coupled with the fact that the Earth is just 4.5 Ga, is intriguing. It leaves just 200 million years for biological life to

have spontaneously generated on Earth. This limited amount of time lends credence to the panspermia hypothesis, which suggests that life exists throughout the universe and arose on Earth as well as possibly other planets by traveling on meteorites and asteroids. Furthermore, this would exponentially increase the likelihood that larger organisms could be found on other so-called Goldilocks planets – those whose temperature is neither too hot nor too cold.

In his lecture Wing mainly sought to outline scientific speculation regarding the oldest known biological life on Earth. Although disputed by many biologists and geologists, a leading candidate for the oldest tangible evidence of life is a microfossil dated to be 3.5 Ga. This evidence is contested because many scientists believe that the microfossil is really the remnant of an abiotic hydrocarbon.

The difficulty in finding microfossils, as well as the challenge in proving they are the remains of living beings, has led scientists to pursue indirect methods to demon-

strate earlier evidence of life on Earth.

Methane in the presence of oxygen reacts to form the more stable products carbon dioxide and water. It is believed that if methane and oxygen freely exist in the atmosphere, they are constantly being replenished. Primary sources of the regeneration of methane and oxygen are believed to be the result of biological processes such as anaerobic digestion and photosynthesis, respectively.

Wing presented evidence combining field geology and lab geochemistry to demonstrate that particular rock sediments and the presence of specific ratios of sulfur isotopes present in the ancient rocks can be explained by the presence of methane and oxygen in the atmosphere in 4.3 Ga. During the question and answer period of the lecture, Wing addressed the inherent constraints in researching historical

Stacey Wilson | The McGill Daily

Freaky Friday at the Redpath Museum

science.

He said studying the phenomena that led to the contemporary state of Earth is like assessing the results of “an experiment performed once by a sloppy physicist and absent-minded chemist without any controls.” By this he meant that the methodology he and his peers employ is based on corre-

Wanna write about dinosaurs? You’ve found the right place!

University of Ottawa

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lational and inferential evidence.

The impossibility of replicating the formation of the Earth means that historical scientists are limited by their inability to perform experiments demonstrating causation in the scientific sense of the word.

»

Sports

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

15

A David Suzuki at the bar Ben Makuch exposes the misogynistic culture of junior hockey in his hometown

U

ncomfortably poured into a cheaply sculpted plastic chair on some terrace of a who-cares-what-it’s-name-isbar, drinking skunked beer, and remembering why it is I escaped Ottawa (where boredom went to die), I became the choice victim of a series of old hockey compatriots; slinging arms over my chest and punching my shoulders. Yes, this was a grand old trip down memory lane. I took heavy drags of Export A greens, known affectionately in the Valley as “Green Death” wondering what was it I came back for, again?

To be fair, I was relatively welladjusted in comparison to many of these charmers. In a bizarre twist of fate, already having a useless Arts degree separated me, since many of these good time “pals” barely finished high school, developed coke addictions, and had a few or more brush-ups with the law. One former teammate went to jail twice: once as a “blow dealin’ bud” and the other for domestic battery. They did, however, play four years of junior hockey while I “write fuckin’ stories er some shit now, eh?” Stranger still, pretty young girls hovered in their general vicinity while the rest of the bar-peasants faded into the shadows to avoid some vitriolic attack or worse yet, a “fuckin’ tilly” (fight).

The whole scene got me thinking. Why is it a pack of generally unemployed malefactors of society, who would probably do horrible sexual tricks to your sister, throw up in your face, and then beat you jimmy-shitless for fun, get so much respect? Worse still, what conditioned them to such depths?

Anyone capable of this brand of self-destructive behaviour can try as they might to convince me of their own personal happiness, but fortunately for me you can’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining. I’ve disqualified innate douchebaggery or psychotic dispositions, because either one would be a sick evolutionary joke made at Canada’s expense. And how spiteful a God that would be. Alas, these aren’t terrible people, just people doing terrible things. A bit of junior hockey, as they say, kangaroo court; a sporting experience that fosters a marauding brotherhood of social deviancy – and for a long time it was an infatuation of mine. I quit playing at sixteen, bewildered by the process, a mess emotionally. It was pressure, it was alcohol, and it was them. But to live within its confines for five years chasing an NHL dream that only 600 players a year worldwide get to enjoy? What would the personal effect of it be?

And the despondence once you admitted failure...

Tom Acker | The McGill Daily

Air quality isn’t usually a problem in Ottawa, but at Cabino, the bar I was frequenting (I discovered the name at this point), it was somewhere between whiskey-throwup and chlamydia; lucky for me chainsmoking was just about the only way to stay healthy. Between cancer and a cigarette-less night with this species of douchebaga canadensis, I chose the cancer. Under my breath, lighting a stick, I exhaled, “What fucking disasters...”

“Brings them back to the glory years when they would go out as a team to the bar to pick up puck bunnies, eh,” said a hearty growl beside me. “Now it’s to get black-out drunk or to go to a friends house after and do blow with the other ex-junior hockey players who didn’t make it.” The response, lacking brevity and conveniently elaborative, came from a freakishly large bear – strangely outside of its habitat, I thought – with distinctly human features.

I squinted, who in the? Samuel?

An old friend among the famed

few sane of the junior hockey brigades. A former player and former GM of the Rockland Junior Nats, a team once helmed by Brian Murray, now executive extraordinaire for the Ottawa Senators.

“Benny how are ya?” he flung out his paw and I extended my lizard fingers to shake.

“Pretty good Sammy, just laying back having a few in the Jungle Gym... Say out of mere curiosity who are these girls?” I quizzed, pointing.

“Think like a neanderthal, Benny. They’re around to catch the next big NHLer or to snag a falling star. Either way most of them don’t know what the H in NHL stands for.”

“What a shame.”

“It’s Gongshow.”

Yes, I had forgotten. Dreaded Gongshow, or the company responsible for the overtly misogynistic and exceedingly popular Junior Hockey Bible; a manual legendary for codifying such Byronics as “lamb-roast,” “swamp-donkey,”

and “the reverse oil-rig,” and now bills itself on their official website as “Locker Room Lifestyle.” The self-appointed head-pariah of the multitudes of hockey players in Canada, or the subculture of vulgar creaturedom that helps infect it’s institution. “Why?” I asked Sam, “Why do they do this shit?”

At this point I had just witnessed two players pour beer on a helpless girl, then open palm brush the froth into her hair. In a daring act of rebellion, she proceeded to vomit on them.

“Junior hockey is a huge underground fraternity,” he chuckled.

“They challenge each other to do the most over-the-top thing, pranks between teammates, trying to steal the biggest beer signage from d.t. [dowtown], or usually by picking up the dirtiest girls in the bar.”

I guess fair is foul and foul is fair.

We shook hands once more and dear Samuel lumbered back to the bolge of a bar leaving me with “Steve” (he made it clear he wanted

nothing to do with this article, so I dub thee “Steve”). Did I mention Steve is also a former junior hockey player? Perhaps even the most well travelled of all: Granby Inouk (outside of Montreal), Nepean Raiders, South Ottawa Canadiens, Gloucester Rangers, Athens Aeros, Metcalfe Jets, Clarence Beavers, Alexandria Glens, Winchester Hawks, Cumberland Grads, Ottawa Junior Senators, Clarence Creek Beavers, Terrebonne Cobras, Smith Falls Bears, and a short peaking stint with Chicoutimi in the QMJHL. But I swear he’s loyal.

“How about you, Mr. Steveypevey, you got any salacious tales for me?”

“Not sayin’ shit to you, pal.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Think I need these guys hatin’ me for chirpin’ shit to a poet? What are ya, fuckin’ David Suzuki at a bar? Fuckin’ observin’ everythin’ y’know...”

Steve, blessed “bud” of mine, I think you’ve told me quite enough already.

16 Sports

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Ultimate keeps spinning McGill ultimate frisbee adapts to new status John Watson The McGill Daily

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hen asked to describe McGill’s ultimate frisbee team in ten words or less, Alexander Stange, who has been a member of the team for three years, responded: “[It’s] like a group of friends but we actually have a purpose. To win. This weekend.

Nationals.” Despite such a blatant disregard for word count, Stange’s remarks reflect the sentiments of any sports team’s: friendship, competition, some vague thing called “nationals.” But in spite of often being scrutinized by more established university and professional athletes and the public alike for not really being a “real sport,” what sets the McGill ultimate frisbee team apart is their status as a sports team that treat the game with the utmost dedication and effort.

Ultimate frisbee was invented at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey in 1968, and went on to become popular amongst college and university students in the United States and Canada. By 1980, the Ultimate Players Association was formed, and the sport quickly built a reputation for being a free-spirited alternative to traditional organized sports.

The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to a player in the opposing end zone, similar to an end zone in American football or rugby.

In line with its lax attitude and freespiritedness, the game has no referee and is self-officiated. Today, a number of variations to the sport exist, including indoor

the team, and you aren’t allowed to travel past a certain time of night.

When it comes down to feasibility for a team like us who doesn’t receive funding from the school, it’s really difficult.”

The loss of varsity status has been a major issue for many of McGill’s teams this year as part of the ongoing budget cuts and regulations by the administration over student life on campus. In order to be affiliated with McGill athletics, which basically affords the team field time to practice (although for the ultimate team, this is usually at 6 a.m.), the team must raise $100 to pay McGill Athletics. The team collects $500 from each player to cover fees such as the uniform and travel expenses. “Another pro is that we get to call ourselves ‘McGill.’

That’s the big thing, really,” added Buck-Moore. “We have to adhere to very strict uniform policies, like we can’t do anything with our jerseys.

They have to say ‘McGill’ in the McGill font and ‘Redman Ultimate’ is the only thing that we can have on it.”

Despite these many challenges, the McGill Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily ultimate frisbee team continues to play, and enthusidiscuss how los- astically promote their game with ing this status has affected the feverous devotion, but without team. Along with restricting the taking themselves too seriously team’s access to funding, denying (the Facebook event for a recent them access to the varsity gym, and game against Concordia claimed, removing the team members’ eli- “fact: the drunker you get, the gibility for being on the student more intense the game becomes”). athlete honour roll, the loss of With growing popularity and a varsity status has had a great sportsmanship that emphasizes impact on the team’s travel the “spirit of the game,” McGill’s policy. “The only thing you’re ultimate frisbee team maintains allowed to do for travel is to char- itself as an important and refreshter a bus,” noted Buck-Moore. “You ingly casual part of our campus’s have to have a driver who is not on sport culture. ultimate, beach ultimate, street ultimate, and the appropriately named intense ultimate, which is played on a smaller field.

McGill’s Men’s A-Squad Ultimate Team, with its 22 members, travels to various colleges and universities within eastern Canada to compete against other teams in tournaments during the first six weeks of the semester. However, this was made difficult recently when the team lost its position as a McGill Varsity Club.

Ex-president Danji Buck-Moore sat down with The Daily to

“If you cast your bread upon the water and you have faith, you’ll get back cash. If you don’t have faith, you’ll get soggy bread.”

—Don King Have faith.

Write for Sports. sports@mcgilldaily.com

Sports

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

17

Fantasy sport University students play quidditch without losing the magic Kristene Quan Sports Writer

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ou may have seen them practicing on Lower Field, wearing their red and white t-shirts, chasing a flicker of someone wearing gold spandex, while throwing volleyballs and dodgeballs at one another. At first glance, they may look like McGill’s makeshift dodgeball team practicing on grassy terrain, but a double-take reveals that these students are running around with brooms between their legs – definitely not your typical dodgeball equipment. No, instead these whimsical students are playing quidditch, the fictional sport from the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

Quidditch, for those not familiar with the cultural phenomenon of Harry Potter, is the fictional sport that every wizard seems to know about, but very few have the skill to play. As described in J.K. Rowling’s novels, it requires players to possess athleticism, strategy, and agility, all while flying on a broomstick.

The obvious question here is, how are students playing this game if flying is such a significant component?

University students around the world have used their imaginations to find a way around their inability to physically defy gravity in order to participate in one of the most popular fantasy sports of the literary world.

The Muggle Quidditch Team at McGill was created in 2008 by a group of then U0 students during frosh week. Reid Robinson, one of the founders of McGill’s quidditch team – now Chief Warlock (read: President) – describes its inception as somewhat of a joke. “I had heard some of my friends at Middlebury College playing it,” said Robinson. “We watched some YouTube videos of how the game worked and decided to give it a try.”

After just a few weeks of playing in the Douglas Hall courtyard, the first-year students had crafted bylaws, chosen their “Wizengamot” (the executive team of the club, named after the fictional governing body from the book series), and became an interim SSMU club. In fact, the Quidditch Club was awarded McGill’s “Best New Club of the Year” for 2008-2009.

Muggle (non-magical) quidditch is played in a similar fashion to quidditch in the novels, with some variation. Seven players from each team are on the pitch, but one neutral person represents the snitch. Both teams have one keeper (the goalie), two beaters (the team’s defense) and three chasers (the team’s offense).

The point of muggle quidditch is for the chasers to accumulate as many points as possible by throwing the “quaffle” (a slightly deflated volleyball) through one of three hoops on their opponent’s side of the field, but the opposite team’s chasers can do anything to try and get the quaffle out of their hands. Meanwhile, the beaters are throwing three dodgeballs, called “bludgers,” at one anoth-

Photos by Ali MacKellar | The McGill Daily

er. If a beater is hit, then they must drop the ball and circle around their team’s goal post – muggle quidditch’s attempt to simulate a player falling off their broom. Finally, while the keeper, chasers, and beaters are trying to rack up points on the scoreboard, the two seekers are chasing the Snitch – an elusive player dressed in all gold – and attempting to pull a sock hanging from the back of his or her pants.

Once the snitch is caught, the game is finished and the team that caught it is awarded 30 extra points.

McGill’s team has garnered a greater following with an increase in the number of people showing up to practices, and one can see it as a way for these students to participate in a fantasy world from their childhood stories. This activity is a means for these individuals to hold onto some nostalgic reference to popular culture and immerse themselves in a fictional world. However, though many members of the team are Harry Potter fans, such as U1 Arts student Michael Haefner, their decision to join the team was not just because of their enthusiasm for the series, but rather a way to get involved in extracurricular activities at McGill.

Haefner, who is in his first year at McGill, thought it would be a good idea to try an activity that is anomalous to your typical university sport, and “a fun way to meet new people.”

Emma Rowlandson-O’Hara, a U1 Music student, shares Haefner’s sentiments on playing quidditch and McGill’s team. A fan of the Harry Potter series, this is RowlandsonO’Hara’s second year playing for the Muggle Quidditch Team, and she continues to show up to prac-

tices because she likes “the contact and strategy.” When asked why she did not try out for a sport that possesses the components of physical contact and strategy, such as rugby, she noted that she “never learned to play, as her high school did not have a team.”

However, the quidditch team is accepting of members who are not well-versed in the prose of the boy wizard. “I’m not actually a Harry Potter fan,” stated Robinson matterof-factly. “I’ve never read any of the books, but I have seen the movies.”

He attributes his continued involvement with the team to boredom with most other sports, exclaiming that “quidditch [has] evolved into a nice community of people that love to play and are always having fun.”

One can gather that although it may seem the muggle quidditch team is using the activity as a gateway to hold onto the stories of their childhood youth, it is also a game that has evolved beyond the Harry Potter novels, and can be surprisingly strenuous and physically taxing for its players.

The future of quidditch at McGill and other Canadian universities is precarious, but Robinson has noticed its growth in popularity in Canada. In the past three years, Canadian Quidditch has grown from McGill being Canada’s only team, to ten other fully-functioning teams across the country, and another ten in their early stages. In the United States there are already about 200 schools with their own Quidditch teams and a few universities’ athletic departments have even given it official recognition. Likewise, Quidditch has gained popularity in

the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Colombia, and Australia. Robinson hopes that in the near future quidditch will be recognized as an official inter-collegiate sport, and perhaps even make its way to the Olympic stage. But until then, muggle quidditch’s potential of being recognized by McGill Athletics is unlikely.

If you’re interested in joining the Muggle Quidditch Team, or curious to see how its played, look out for the group of people with brooms (and possibly even a toilet plunger) practicing on Saturday afternoons at 3 p.m. and Wednesday evenings at 6 p.m. on Lower Field. And remember, it is BYOB – Bring Your Own Broom.

Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

18

CULTURE ESSAY

Found in translation Erin Moure’s poetry transverses linguistic boundaries Jessica Lukawiecki Culture Writer

I

t’s a night typical of a Montreal Indian summer – warm and rainy, the buildings hidden in fog and the streets slick from an unending downpour. The setting is the upper stretches of St. Laurent, inside the small venue Casa Del Popolo. This buzzing local cafe is never lacking in cultural entertainment – their calendar of events, a blackboard on the wall, is covered with chalk marking the presence of local artists, singers, and writers. Tonight is no exception – many have gathered in this small, comfortable room to hear some of the voices of Canadian poetry, particularly that of the internationally-acclaimed writer Erin Moure.

Moure, now a resident of Montreal, was born in Calgary.

After attending the University of Alberta and later British Columbia, she made her entrance into the world of poetry in 1979 with the publication of her first collection, Empire, which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award.

Her earlier works would prove to be some of her most lyrical, while continuously transforming and experimenting with the boundaries of language. As her career progressed, her work continued to lean toward obscurity, becoming less rooted, written words contained only by the cover of their book.

Moure’s poetry joined forces with the feminist movement when the collection Furious, winner of the 1988 Governor General’s Award, was published. The book makes powerful use of feminist literary theory, displaying a range of emotions that evoke anger toward a language reflective of male values. In one of the poems, “Snow Door,” she compares language’s disempowerment of women to the plight of flies trapped in window panes over the winter; “Us too, we don’t know we’ve been frozen, or if we have, & if we know, don’t ask questions.”

Rules of language that Moure considers restrictive are cast aside in most of her works. It is through the destruction of language’s barriers that she conveys her strongest meanings, or sometimes lack of meaning. In Furious, she asserts, “I want to write these things...that can’t be torn apart by anybody, anywhere, or in the university...I don’t want the inside of the poem to make sense of anything.”

Robert Lecker, a professor of

Hannah Schiller for The McGill Daily

Both a poet and a translator, Moure has always been a lover of language.

Canadian poetry in McGill’s English department, explained in an interview that he believes that Moure’s many transformations, or what he refers to as “translations” – into experimentalism, post modernism, feminism, and translations of English, French, Portuguese, and Galician – have allowed her to appeal to a diverse readership.

Moure herself wrote in an email to The Daily that her target audience is “readers, nothing more specific than that.” Her refusal to be limited by language or cultural oppression seems to hold strong with young and old alike. Lecker teaches Moure’s works in his poetry classes, and sees McGill students

taking a strong interest in the political and feminist messages ingrained in her words.

Lecker draws an interesting parallel when he points out that after all the translations in her life, Moure’s works have for more than a decade centred almost entirely on translations in the literal sense. But is it really so literal? Translation, the act of changing one person’s words into your own, can be another way of breaking free of the confines of any one language, opening up words to other dialects while breaking down any rules spelled by such dialects. This breakdown, this liberation of the written word,

seems to be what Moure has been striving for in her work since the very beginning.

Moure herself explained that translation has really been with her for decades. “Reading works in translation – Mallarme, Rilke, Vallejo – has allowed me early on to alter and challenge my own relationship to English. ‘Twas only a small step from there to move to Montreal and learn French, and to work in a field that required me to use both languages in writing. And to want to translate poetry. To be wildly impatient to translate poetry. Learning French, then Galician, opened to me the possibility of bringing

works, astounding works, into my first language, English... to share them with other readers in my own communities in English.... when I realized I could do this, I finally knew what I wanted to do when I grow up!”

Fittingly, Moure’s Montreal is not one restricted by dualistic language barriers. “Montreal for me is the buzz of languages, the ability to live and read in French while writing in English, the marvellous theatre scene in French (that makes London and NY just seem like “other cities”; we have astounding theatre here in French). Where I live I can speak English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, all in public and all before noon! And it’s close to Europe...why live anywhere else?” Through her writing she is internationally committed, yet through choice she has remained locally nested. She has become an accepted, dual citizen of the Montreal community, something, as Lecker pointed out, that is not easily achieved: “The first step toward becoming accepted in Montreal is obvious – become bilingual. The second step would be... well, to get a French lover.”

Regardless of her method, Moure has certainly integrated herself into this dualistic society.

At Casa del Popolo, she seems perfectly at home. As she makes her way through the brightly-lit room, she mingles with friends, acquaintances, fans and fellow poets Jacob Wren, Phil Hall, Mark Goldstein, and Jay Millar, all Canadians who will also be speaking tonight. Moure’s turn approaches, and the gentle buzz of English and French dies as local residents prepare to hear her speak. She is reading from her latest collection of poems, O Resplandor, a rich intertwining of translations that leaves the reader questioning who is speaking as she moves from one text to the next. “Air’s loveliness crowns her, and i am made to know / this, though it is something i so rarely know, / unless…” Many close their eyes as they allow the careful collection of words to invoke memories and thoughts that only creative genius has the power to retrieve.

There is familiarity in this scene, there is comfort. The division one often witnesses in Montreal society is strikingly lacking. Both young and old are present, French and English. Yet these differences do not seem to be creating their usual boundaries in this intimate café on St. Laurent. Poetry, it seems, has transgressed such boundaries.

Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

19

The truth about beauty Players’ Theatre stages Neil LaBute’s Reasons to be Pretty Ed Dodson Culture Writer

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system (upon which drama inherently relies) breaks down. With this focus on the intricacy of language, LaBute moves away from the more visceral representations of violence and misogyny seen in his other plays. These issues, however, continue to lurk beneath the surface.

David Armstrong, the play’s director, chose to have the other characters present while each gives their monologue. Their subjectivity cannot escape their social relations; they are watched by the people they discuss, as well as by the audience, all combining to form a sort of collective unconscious. The actors’ delivery is finely balanced between classical Shakespearean soliloquy and direct address – natural speech with enough poignant simplicity to be provocative. This stark separation from dramatic realism could be tricky, but it is handled well, partly due to live musical performance. Schulich Music student Danji Buck-Moore’s original score of jazz-influenced mood-pieces allow scene transitions to flow emotively, the audience left still considering the tone of the scene just passed and expectant of those to come.

The bareness of the plot puts unusual pressure on the actors’ ability to fully inhabit their roles. Class poses a problem here. As the actors try to become working-class, an awkward effort to locate an “authentic” work-

ing-class reality inevitably ensues. In a post-play question and answer session, the actors claimed to have taken workshops and, somewhat problematically, watched suitable television shows to overcome this problem. Hence, their performance is a representation of a representation, distanced and clearly impersonated. There is an awkwardness sometimes in their manners of speaking, and occasional instances of anti-intellectualism are unconvincingly portrayed. Gravenstein seems most natural in his role, delivering his lines aggressively, complimented by his physically burdened mannerisms.

Unfortunately, Law, whose role is central to the play, does not seem to quite manage this, still remaining the awkward actor playing the awkward character, rather than just the awkward character himself. In a long play (two hours) this does cause a problem, but the play’s force endures.

The originality of LaBute’s script, Buck-Moore’s wonderful music, and the anticipated intensity of the monologues, result in a production that makes us question where (and what) the “beauty” in our lives really is.

Reasons to be Pretty is running at Players’ Theatre (SSMU building, 3rd floor) October 13–16 and 20 –23, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $6 for students; email foh.players@gmail. com for more details.

All photos courtesy of Players’ Theatre

eil LaBute’s Reasons to be Pretty, currently being staged by Player’s Theatre at McGill, is not an ordinary play, precisely because its subject is so ordinary. LaBute’s theatre aims to con-

are an inevitable influence. Reasons, however, is more concerned with how these issues play out in people’s lives, with how they create the real drama of relationships (sexual or platonic), and how they form each character’s notions of beauty.

To allow this intimate association of thought and action, the play is divided up by the monologues – or “moments,” as LaBute calls them – of each of the four characters. The plot is organized around two relationships, both of which become strained by cultural norms of feminine beauty. We work our way through each character’s perspective on this issue, allowing us, momentarily at least, to sympathize with each character’s situation. They all express conflicting ideas on beauty: Steph (Alexandra Montagnese), a hairdresser, believes she lacks it, while Greg (Martin Law), her boyfriend, loves her for her personality, but upsets her by stating that she looks “regular.” Carly (Beatrice Hutcheson-Santos), on the other hand, is excessively attractive, but her lover Kent’s (Alex Gravenstein) jealous guardianship of her beauty drives them apart.

These “moments” of pure communication contrast drastically with the play’s narrative of miscommunication. The plot hinges on the inability to unify an interpretation of language. A compliment is translated into a critique and thus the semiotic

front reality, or get as close to representing it as possible. Traditional dramatic guidelines have been cast aside through the necessity of contemporary urban space. These are ordinary lives, played out in an ordinary fashion. The theme (as the title suggests) is beauty and body image.

Though not consciously-referenced in the play, Kant and the lineage of aesthetically oriented philosophers

Life is a cabaret International festival hits a high note for bringing art back into the burlesque scene Erin O'Callaghan The McGill Daily

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emember the age of cabaret, pin-up girls, and burlesque supper clubs? Unfortunately, our generation missed out on the glitz and glamour of the cabaret supper club scene of the 1920s through the 50s, with fabulous women performing sensational burlesque acts every weekend. In the 1940s and 50s, Montreal was a hub of burlesque performance and risqué nightlife – “Vegas before Vegas even existed,” Scarlett James, a Montreal burlesque performer and coproducer of the Montreal Burlesque Festival, explained in an interview with The Daily. The overwhelming success of this festival, in only the second year of its existence, is testament to an ongoing revival of burlesque across North America.

Montreal’s nightlife scene has long been instrumental in this revival. The second annual Montreal Burlesque Festival took place September 23-26 at Club Soda, with 35 artists from all over the world performing. James produces the festival with her husband, David Grondin, and has big plans to bring the world of burlesque back to Montreal. They transformed Club Soda into a club reminiscent of the iconic play-turned-movie Cabaret; doused in old-world glamour, the audience could sip cocktails while watching one act after another perform on stage. From a singer to a contortionist, stand-up comedy to classic burlesque, the festival had it all. In describing the festival, James breathed, “Cabaret: it’s an experience.”

Grondin emphasized that the festival was aimed at anyone and everyone over 18, attracting a varied audience. “Women really seem to

enjoy the show,” he said, explaining that women made up about sixty per cent of the audience members. James believes that the festival is so popular because everyone can find someone to identify with. “[The festival] celebrates women and the woman’s body and all its differences.” Women don’t feel threatened by the performers, instead they fall in love with them. “[The acts] emphasize beauty in everyday women,” said James.

James, a performer herself, really wants to focus on the artistry that goes into a burlesque act. “[The festival] promotes what [burlesque] is when it’s well done,” she said. “[These] artists are committed to what they are doing…real work goes into it.” As a result, the festival is a delicious sensory overload night after night. “With real artists, of course the show is going to be great,” stated James. “[We] received really positive feed-

back [this year], people really, really, enjoy it and love [the festival],” James explained excitedly. Last year, promotions were weak and the festival passed almost unnoticed. This was far from the case this year. The festival garnered a great turnout, selling out Saturday night for the grand finale.

Opening with a fashion show of pinup clothing as well as couture lingerie

by Lise Charmel, the festival continued over three days featuring acts by both local and international performers, and workshops – on topics like learning about one’s body and how to find your “burlesque self” – that anyone could attend.

Favourites of the festival were Satan’s Angel and April March, two performers that began performing burlesque in its heyday of the 50s and 60s. “They were amazing stars of their time,” admired James. At 66, Satan’s Angel hasn’t lost her edge either, with

her performance featuring tassels lit on fire. Boylesque was another festival favourite – consisting of two boys from Chicago, the act was so well received on Friday that they came back for an encore performance on Saturday.

Burlesque festivals are growing in popularity all over the world, with major events in New York and Vancouver, among other cities. But whereas New York’s festival is more oriented toward performance art and aggressive, shocking acts, the Montreal festival’s edge is its sophistication and glamour – a throwback to the traditional acts of the early 20th century. Having received positive feedback from international burlesque authorities, James is happy to count her festival among the best in the world. Fast becoming a highlight of Montreal’s festival calendar, the Burlesque Festival is cementing its status as a true art form.

20 Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Niko Block | The McGill Daily

A royal struggle Fabien Maltais-Bayda on the uncertain future of NDG’s Empress Theatre

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t is undeniable that a community’s culture is one of the principal factors that defines it. Given this sort of primacy, it is interesting to see what happens when a community’s cultural identity is in jeopardy. According to many citizens, this is precisely the case in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) borough of Montreal. This neighbourhood is the setting of a battle, of theatrical proportions, to preserve and re-invigorate the historic Empress Theatre, located on Sherbrooke just west of Decarie.

The Empress, notable for its Egyptian architectural flair, was constructed in 1927 as a vaudeville theatre, and continued to entertain the citizens of NDG in a variety of ways until it was damaged by fire in 1992. Since then, the fate of the theatre, labelled by Empress Cultural Centre board member Jodi Hope Michaels as a “jewel of the community” has been in jeopardy. Now, the Empress Cultural Centre Inc. project aims to bring the theatre back to life. Directed by the Cultural Centre Board, the project took over the lease of the theater from the city in 1999, and has been attempting to make their dream of a multicultural community per-

forming space a reality ever since.

But when asked by The Daily to describe the issues threatening the project, Paul Scriver – founder of the Renaissance Empress citizen movement, and a current director on the Empress Cultural Centre Board – ominously replied, “Where do you want to start?”

The building itself, though architecturally stunning, has posed some major structural problems.

The fire in 1992 caused extensive damage to the interior of the building as well as to the roof, leaving it exposed to further elemental decay. Although certain attempts at repairing some of the damage have been effective, the repairs have been funded what Scriver describes as the little “money that’s coming in dribbles,” and have therefore been insufficient.

The hurdles that hinder the cultural centre’s progress seem to reach their apex in the administrative aspects of making something like the Empress Cultural Centre really happen. Innumerable hours and exhaustive effort recently culminated in what Scriver calls a “major proposal” for the reinvention of the Empress Theatre, which was put forth for funding to the provincial government of Quebec,

but subsequently rejected. The $11.2 million proposition was “supported by the NDG bureau... but when it went to the provincial government, [they] turned it down,” said Scriver. In reflection, he sees many problems that may have put the proverbial nail in the proposal’s coffin. “We haven’t yet found the right formula, and there could be a lot of reasons for that,” said Scriver, such as “the way it was presented to the Quebec government” with too great “a focus on English theater” as opposed to a more diverse agenda. In this situation, the simple omission of “a number of things that are in the business proposal and the business plan, but weren’t emphasized in the grant proposal” may have contributed to its less-than-award-winning performance.

Whatever the reasons, the rejection of the Empress Cultural Centre proposal put a great deal of strain on the movement’s momentum.

“When that particular application wasn’t accepted it lead to a crisis,” revealed Michaels. It was not long after this pivotal moment that the impromptu citizen-created Renaissance Empress organization materialized in order to bring awareness to the issue, and support

the Empress Cultural Centre Board.

The effort certainly seems to have made an impact, as many members of Renaissance Empress, including Scriver, are now on the board. Many are hopeful that this shake-up of the board will reinvigorate the cause.

“Something really wonderful now is to have so many new people on the board all at once to bring new energy,” explained Michaels.

It seems, however, that support in the NDG community is not as unanimous as those on the board seem to believe, nor is the outlook for the project as optimistic.

In a brief telephone conversation, a communication officer with the NDG Direction de la culture, des sports, des loisirs, et du développement social stated that as far as she was aware, “Everything is in hold.”

She went on to explain that, with planning and design for a separate S21 million NDG Cultural Centre well underway, there seemed to be no immediate need for a similar institution to be created at the Empress site.

The future of the Empress Cultural Centre is both the most essential concern for the project, as well as its most precarious. After all the challenges and “frustrations over the years,” this is, as Michaels

aptly expressed, “the moment of truth.” Scriver emphasized the diversity of the community and the centre he would like to see conceived, which he believes should have “an inter-cultural focus” which could serve the many “ethnic communities in the NDG area.”

While there has been skepticism from some community members and media outlets, those involved in the project remain optimistic about its future. “I think that community members and the media are justified in being skeptical,” said Scriver. He qualified this, however, by pointing out that “if you look at other projects similar to it, you can see that projects of this enormity often take 15 to twenty years to come to fruition.” It’s a monumental undertaking but there is tremendous motivation to preserve the Empress Theatre, and to raise the curtain on Empress Theatre Cultural Centre. Success in this endeavour, though as yet uncertain, would help to maintain the place the Empress Theatre has held in the hearts of many Montrealers for generations.

For more information on the ongoing changes to the Empress Theatre, visit empresstheatre.org.

All online, all the time. Online-only content at mcgilldaily.com/culture

Culture

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Courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada

The McGill Daily | Monday, October 18, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Quebec, from the outside in: Gabor Szilasi at the McCord Laura Chapnick Culture Writer

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s students living in Montreal, many of us can be considered outsiders. We are an eclectic mix, hailing from various cities, countries, and even continents. This variety can alienate us from Montreal’s unique culture, but there are many opportunities to experience its stylish, thriving lifestyle. Gabor Szilasi, a Hungarian-born photographer whose exhibition The Eloquence of the Everyday is currently on display at the McCord museum, experienced a similar feeling in 1956.

After immigrating to Canada, Szilasi settled in Quebec and became engrossed in the Canadian – and specifically Quebec’s – lifestyle. He was fascinated by the

everyday person, and therefore deemed it necessary to pull out his small 35mm camera and document Quebeckers and their environment. He began by looking at rural Quebec, the landscape and the people. Focusing on areas such as Charlevoix and Lac-Saint-Jean, he used his lens to do justice to the beauty of these regions. Although Szilasi found interest in the outdoors, more importantly he saw the significance of photographing the interiors of rural Quebec homes.

Many of his photographs illustrate a homeowner posing in their living room or bedroom, which allows the viewer to better understand the individual’s cultural heritage, their personal style, and ultimately how they go about living their life.

“I am a people person,” Szilasi says, a quality that gives his photographs

an intimate edge.

Szilasi chose to develop many of these interior shots in colour.

“Colour is important to define social traits and differences,” he says. In his portraiture, however, Szilasi prefers to use black and white: “Colour can also be a distraction, the colour of the skin does not matter, it too often emphasizes blemishes, which are just temporary.” Through his lens, Szilasi was able to capture a certain realism that caused many of his followers to develop both personal and emotional ties with his work.

Szilasi eventually travelled to urban Montreal with a larger 4x5mm camera to photograph Montrealers and the commercialism of Ste. Catherine. “I saw the photographs of Canadian and American photographers who used a larger camera,” Szilasi explains. It was these works

that inspired Szilasi to try something new.

Upon viewing Szilasi’s exhibit, the most admirable thing is his ability to capture a recognizable Montreal.

The photos of Ste. Catherine are contemporary, yet evoke a sense of nostalgia for the cheeky, Mordecai Richler-esque city we have come to admire. Among the plethora of photographs of store fronts and lit-up signs rests a collection of pictures of Montrealers engaging in everyday activities: a fashionable woman riding her bike alongside infamous downtown traffic, or a group of children waiting for the bus as a pesky blanket of snow obscures the form of their snow suits. These photos give a sense of inclusion in Montreal culture, echoing recognizable everyday scenes. As a Torontonian, I too have peeked into Montreal life and

felt the need to capture its splendour with my measly camera.

It is for these reasons that Szilasi’s photographs hold a special place in Canadian culture and are easily relatable to anyone who has felt like a spectator, observing the cultured, cultivated, and commercial Montreal.

Szilasi’s exhibit offers a viscerally alternative way to experience those scenes we see every day – a visual representation of a familiar city seen through the eyes of a fellow outsider.

The Eloquence of the Everyday is at the McCord Museum, 690 Sherbrooke O., until December 1.

Open Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Entry is $7 for students with I.D., with free entry between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesdays.

World Cinemas: coming soon to a lecture theatre near you New program expands variety of multi-disciplinary options Madeleine Cummings The McGill Daily

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his fall, World Cinemas was introduced as a new minor in the Faculty of Arts, as an interdisciplinary program that allows students to pursue film studies cross-culturally.

The decision to create the minor came from a small group of McGill professors: Eugenio Bolongaro, Michael Cowan, Yuriko Furuhata, Thomas LaMarre, Ned Schantz, Will Straw, Alanna Thain, and Derek Nystrom, as well as Ara Osterweil and Victor Fan, who joined the group more recently.

Nystrom, who teaches Cultural Studies and is now chair of the World Cinemas program, found that there was a undeniable student interest in film at McGill that wasn’t being met.

“I kept having people come into my office for advising...and it was clear

that what they really wanted to do was concentrate on film,” he said.

“There already was an already existing body of classes and interest and we wanted opportunities to collaborate with each other, to give our students better training in film work, and just to explore a kind of new way of thinking about cinema,” said Thain, a Cultural Studies professor who will teach Intro to Film History next semester.

Because there have been many professors hired by McGill in the past few years with expertise in the field, and because a lot of film courses already existed in departments scattered throughout the Faculty of Arts, the program’s foundations were already laid.

Yet the process to introduce the minor took almost four years. World Cinemas had to first receive approval at the Arts level, and be approved by a series of committees. Fortunately, Nystrom and his colleagues faced lit-

tle resistance along the way. Clearly the World Cinema program was something that McGill was ready to embrace.

“There’s been a lot of support across the Faculty of Arts. Every department has been rather excited about this program,” Nystrom said. Professors are thrilled with the level of student enthusiasm thus far.

With almost seventy students who have already declared the minor, the program is off to a great start.

Alex McKenzie, U1 Political Science and Daily staffer, chose to minor in World Cinemas because he wanted to take courses in Cultural Studies without majoring in the subject. “I’ve always been interested in the more artsy courses,” he said.

Though World Cinemas is currently only being offered as a minor concentration, there is a definite possibility that the program will be expanded in the future. “The idea is that we’re going to start as a

minor,” Nystrom said, “and depending on student interest and resources available, we will see if we can turn it into a major.” Personally, Nystrom said he’d like to see World Cinemas expand to include a graduate program, which would attract more students to teaching film, and help create a community for people researching film at McGill.

Such a community already exists at Concordia, which currently has the largest university-based film program in Canada. There, students can take courses in animation and production, in addition to film criticism. But due to already established programs like the one at Concordia, it is extremely unlikely that McGill will receive government funding in order to duplicate the equipment required for animation or film-making courses.

McGill’s World Cinemas minor has two required courses: Intro to Film Studies and Intro to Film History. Twelve credits may be cho-

sen from a list of nearly forty complementary courses, with a minimum of 6 credits in non-U.S. cinemas and a maximum of 6 credits from any one department. Courses come from departments such as East Asian Studies, Canadian Studies, English, Italian Studies, German Studies, and French Language and Literature.

Thain hopes that the program will open the door for film festivals and other out-of-classroom opportunities for McGill students. “It seems that there might be a way of building student interest outside of the classroom,” she said. Certainly the emergence of the World Cinemas program is good news for anyone with an interest in film.

For more information on the World Cinemas minor concentration, visit www.mcgill.ca/worldcinemas, or visit the Interdisciplinary Studies Programs Office located in room 110 in Dawson Hall.

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