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Student Journalism Week November 1-5 Check out the schedule at mcgilldaily.com/journalismweek

Fall Referendum Period The Fall 2010 referendum campaign period will run from November 2-8, and the polling period will run from November 5-11.

The following two referendum questions will be on the ballot: #$#.#+"1* 1#/0',+ #% ."'+% ## #+#3 ) , 5,1 %.## , .#+#3 0&# $## -#. /#*#/0#. $,. $1)) 0'*# +" - .0 0'*# /01"#+0/ 0, $1+" 0&# #41 ) // 1)0 #+0.# ,$ ! ')) 01"#+0 ,!'#05 )) 0&.,1%& '+0#.

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As well as the following plebiscite question: )# '/!'0# 1#/0',+ #% ."'+% ""'0',+ ,$ + +0#.$ !1)05 .0/ +" !'#+!# #-.#/#+0 0'2# ,+ 0&# #%'/) 0'2# ,1+!') , 5,1 %.## & 0 /&,1)" !,+/'"#. *#+"'+% '0/ !,+/0'010',+ 0, )),3 .#-.#/#+0 0'2# /-#!'7 ! 0, 0&# '+0#.$ !1)05 ,$ .0/ +" /!'#+!#/ 0, /'0 ,+ #%'/) 0'2# ,1+!')

To view the full text of each question go to ssmu.mcgill.ca/elections and click on the “Elections� tab.

Polling stations will operate on November 5th and November 9th in the Leacock hallway.

Any other polling station locations and dates will be announced via email and posted on ssmu.mcgill.ca/elections If you have any questions please contact Elections McGill at elections@ssmu.mcgill.ca

News

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

3

SSMU enjoys surplus for 2010-11 Gerts in the black; SSMU to put extra revenue toward new events The McGill Daily

T

he annual report on SSMU’s audited financial statements was released at Council last Wednesday, revealing the Student Society’s financial figures for fiscal year (FY) 2009-2010.

SSMU President Zach Newburgh explained that “the audit is done annually, and it is required as per our Memorandum of Agreement with the University in order to ensure that our finances are responsible.”

The audit found SSMU in the black by $598,485 for the year, up from $163,169 in FY2008-09. Along with over $4.5 million in excesses from previous years, SSMU has been left with a significant amount of additional revenue for FY201011.

The report was presented

by Luciena Ierfino, a chartered accountant from accounting firm RSM Richter Chamberland LLP, and revealed that the society ended FY2009-10 with accumulated fund balance of $5.38 million.

SSMU’s total revenues for that fiscal year amounted to almost seven million dollars – increasing by over $110,000 from FY2008-09 – and their total expenses amounted to almost $6.5 million, a decrease of over $300,000.

“It was a clean audit report,” said Ierfino during Council. “We didn’t find any material errors.”

She said that the RSM team performed tests on a sample of transactions, from which she and her team were able to draw “reasonable and fair” conclusions.

One significant feature of SSMU’s fiscal turnaround had been Gerts.

The student-run bar moved from a deficit of $13,137 in FY2008-09, to a surplus of $15,201 in FY2009-10.

“Gerts has contributed lots of revenue,” said Ierfino, and SSMU VP Finance and Operations Nick Drew added that the bar’s sales are up even more this year.

The report revealed that SSMU saves money through various breaks in utility payments for the Shatner building.

According to the report, SSMU “obtains [Shatner] building electricity and heat free of charge from a contributor.” The utility expense was estimated at $477,333 for FY2009-10.

“The [SSMU] is not responsible for utilities,” said Newburgh. “That is covered by the University.”

Drew corroborated this statement, writing in an email to The Daily that, “Our current lease does not require us to pay utilities.

[However] this will surely change when the lease gets signed this year.”

Newburgh also said that “the University has been attempting to get the [SSMU] to cover that particular cost.”

SSMU’s lease for Shatner from the University – set to expire May 31 – was a significant expense for the Society last year. The five-year deal aggregates out to approximately $540,000, with the minimal annual payment hovering around $108,000.

“The Students’ Society essentially… covers everything else [besides utilities] having to do with the [Shatner] building. So janitorial staff, cleaning – that in particular is in tandem with rent that we pay to the University of about $110,000. Those are the costs associated with the building currently, and the terms outlined in our lease agreement,” said Newburgh.

The financial report referenced multiple SSMU “lease agreements,” and Newburgh noted that there are “other lease agreement[s] that we have, not just with the University.

We have one with the owner of the space which once housed Haven Books. … That’s going to be over.”

SSMU closed Haven Books due to massive financial losses last spring, but, according to Drew, received a healthy pay-out in return.

“SSMU was bought out of their share of the bookstore profits and was awarded a hefty sum of $1.875 million. Instead of having it sit in a low-interest-bearing account, Council approved a low-risk (we joke around and call it a Grandmother fund) investment portfolio,” wrote Drew.

Indeed, investments were also seen to be a significant expense in the financial report for FY2009-10.

“The SSMU did purchase about $50,000 worth more [in investments] this year,” said Drew.

“The market is bouncing back from the recession. So that would be one of the reasons why our investment portfolio is stronger,” added Newburgh.

Along with these increased revenues, free utilities, and conservative expenses, SSMU has received aid from higher than anticipated student enrolment.

The financial report discloses that, in FY2009-10, SSMU had budgeted for this year’s student fee revenue totalling $1,435,053. By the end of the year, however, SSMU had received almost $23,000 more than expected.

“The VP Finance and Operations estimates the amount of students that there will be [when drafting the budget]. … Generally the trend has been that there are more, and since there are therefore more students who are paying the fee of the [SSMU], you will see it reflected in the actual budget, in the actual [revenue],” said Newburgh.

Newburgh said that the fiscal breathing room now afforded to SSMU will have a significant impact on their financial goals for the rest of they year, and could see them shell out more for student events and activities like this fall’s Homecoming. Newburgh also mentioned a possible St. Patrick’s Day

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

Nick Drew presented the SSMU Annual Financial Report to council on Wednesday.

300

Gerts doesn’t hurt anymore Source: 2010 SSMU Annual Financial Report

Gerts Revenue Gerts Expenses

Thousands of dollars

Henry Gass

200

100

0

2008-09 event; a three-day SSMUfest music festival, proposed by VP Internal Tom Fabian; and events to raise awareness about potential tuition increases, proposed by VP External Myriam Zaidi.

2009-10 “Events are normally the easiest way, or the most captivating way for students to get involved, ranging from social, to political, to leadership development-oriented. It’s really everything,” said Newburgh.

“Ultimately, we’re a not-for-profit organization, so there are certain regulations attached to that,” said Newburgh. “We’re not supposed to run a surplus. So we’re supposed to spend as much as we can.”

4 News

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Rue Frontenac hits the stands Boycott of Journal de Montréal gains momentum Lola Duffort The McGill Daily

L

ast Tuesday, the Confederation des syndicats nationaux (CSN) launched a nation-wide boycott of the Journal de Montréal, garnering increasing support from labour federations, unions, and politicians across the region. The timing of the boycott coincides with the release of Rue Frontenac, the locked-out journalists’ online news publication, which began distributing a print edition last Thursday.

Rue Frontenac’s first print edition was sold-out for ad space days in advance. A majority of the advertisers were unions, according to Pascal Filotto, secretary-general to the Syndicat des travailleurs de l’information du Journal de Montréal (STIJM) and desk editor at Rue Frontenac.

Following their rejection of Quebecor’s latest offer, the STIJM and CSN have publicized the demands that Quebecor had stipulated in their offer – something the union wasn’t allowed to do beforehand. These demands included the layoffs of over eighty per cent of the 253 locked-out Journal de Montréal workers, and a non-concurrence clause that would have shut down Rue Frontenac permanently and made it illegal for any of the workers to work for a similar competitor for six months after termination of employment.

Though “going back to the Journal is still the goal,” according to Jean-François Codère, a Rue Frontenac coordinator and founding member, the prospect of shutting down Rue Frontenac is becoming increasingly unfavourable since the paper could potentially pro-

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

Union-led Rue Frontenac will be distributed free weekly. vide employment to the personnel Quebecor wants so badly to let go.

Since Quebecor’s demands have been made public, Rue Frontenac and the STIJM-CSN have received an unprecedented amount of support from the Montreal community.

Unions and labour federations from across the region have reached out, calling on their members to participate in the boycott against the Journal.

“We’re honestly having a hard time keeping up with all the support we’ve been getting…it’s ridiculous,” said Filotto.

the Journal de Montréal, warning in his personal blog that Quebecor is on the cusp of “squashing the artisan.”

This is the latest development in the ongoing labour dispute between the locked-out journalists of the Journal de Montréal and Quebecor media, which is now in its twentysecond month. The journalists rejected Quebecor’s offer to by a vote of 89 per cent on October 12.

Quebecor management has countered by insisting that their demands had been misrepresented by the STIJM. Fifty, not 49 work-

Le Syndicat des cols bleus de Montréal (Montreal’s blue collar union) and the two main police federations for Quebec, which represent over 13,000 police officers, have pitched their support behind Rue Frontenac. Denis Côté, president of the federation for Quebec’s municipal police, has announced that he refuses to speak to journalists from the Journal de Montréal or any other Quebecor Media news agencies.

Luc Ferrandez, the Projet Montréal mayor of the Plateau-Mont Royal borough, has also denounced

ers would be allowed back to work, and would have been offered some of the best salaries in the industry, according to a statement released the day of the vote. A later statement blamed the CSN for the conflict’s duration by implying that the CSN is trying to further their own political agenda, and not looking for the most advantageous resolution for the workers.

Their latest statement, which announced that the Quebecor administration were temporarily taking themselves out of negotiations, reminded readers of that the solutions Quebecor has been offering come in the “very difficult context of the print industry,” which has been in crisis for the past few years. The same statement also announced that Quebecor may be willing to negotiate about the nonconcurrence clause.

According the most recent Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank) numbers, the Journal de Montréal is not only still the most widely read French daily in Montreal – a fact that the Journal administration boasts about on their site – but one whose readership is rising. However, these numbers may be somewhat inflated, as some point out that the Journal has been flooding the market with free copies, and NADbank compiles its statistics through a series of random phone surveys.

Despite the most recent failure to bring about a resolution to dispute, Rue Frontenac’s first print edition has at least signaled a change in morale for the locked-out journalists.

“Print is our job, it’s what we do.

The web is fun, but we’re all glad to have something tangible in our hands,” said Codère.

StatsCan report tracks migration to the suburbs 15%

Source: Statistics Canada, 2006 Census of Population

10%

5%

+ 65

-6 4 60

-5 9 55

-5 4 50

45 -4 9

44 40 -

-3 9 35

-3 4 30

-2 9

0%

25

F

rancophones are leaving Montreal and moving to the suburbs, according to a new report by Statistics Canada. From 2001 to 2006, the study shows, 17 per cent of francophones aged 25 to 44 left Montreal for its suburbs, compared to only 11 per cent of anglophones and allophones during the same period. The study, authored by Martin Turcotte and Mireille Vézina, traces patterns of migration into and out of Montreal along lines of income, family structure, education, occupation, and ethnic and linguistic background.

The study also indicates that francophones are more likely than English speakers to move to municipalities off the island, such as Longueuil, Terrebonne, or Repentigny.

“While only three per cent of

Percentage of Montreal francophones who moved to the suburbs: 2001-2006

20%

4

The McGill Daily

persons whose mother tongue was French who left the city of Montreal chose a municipality on Montreal Island, 26 per cent of Anglophones and 11 per cent of Allophones did so,” the study reads.

The report did not provide a concrete explanation for the discrepancy between the numbers of anglophones and francophones moving out of Montreal and into its suburbs.

Florence Béland, a Francophone Quebecker and U2 Arts student, expressed the idea that McGill, as a bastion of anglophone culture, might be partially to blame for the recent demographic shifts. “People just want to be where their language is spoken more. I think more anglophones are coming to Montreal because of the anglophone universities, and that’s why the balance is changing. I have many [francophone] friends who are bothered by it.”

The StatsCan study, however, implied that the francophone exo-

20 -2

Maya Shoukri

Age dus was escalating due to factors other than linguistic differences, such as changes in family structure, particularly for new parents.

“Several reasons might help explain why parents of young children were more likely to leave the central municipalities,” according

to the text of the report. “It is often the desire for more space to accommodate a new family situation that persuades new parents to move to areas where larger houses are more readily available and cost less.”

—With files from Eric Andrew-Gee

StatsCan’s report also found: – People born in Canada are more likely to move from Montreal to the surrounding municipalities: between 2001 and 2006, 18 per cent of non-immigrant Montrealers moved to the suburbs, compared to six per cent of South Asian immigrants.

– In Toronto, the pattern is reversed: 22 per cent of immigrants from South Asia and 18 per cent from the Middle East moved from downtown Toronto to the city’s suburbs between 2001 and 2006. Eleven per cent of non-immigrants made the same migration.

– Young families are among the most likely to move to the suburbs: 34 per cent of couples with two or more children that had their first child between 2001 and 2006 have moved from Montreal to surrounding municipalities.

News

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

5

Academic fraud in the spotlight New study calls for Canada-wide policy on research misconduct Andra Cernavskis The McGill Daily

C

anada needs a better way to monitor and respond to research misconduct, according to a report published by the not-for-profit Canadian Council of Academies (CCA) on October 21. The report, titled “Honesty, Accountability and Trust: Fostering Research Integrity in Canada,” was produced in response to federal government findings of 38 cases of abuse that have occurred out of 160 alleged cases of scientific misconduct in the last decade. The CCA’s report uses the Lethbridge College definition of research misconduct, which includes “fabrication, falsification and plagiarism...[and] conflict of interest omissions.”

Paul Davenport, former president of the University of Western Ontario, chaired the panel that produced the report for the CCA – a third of whose board members are nominated by the federal Ministry of Industry. According to its website, the organization is dedicated to “science-based, expert assessments to inform public policy development in Canada.”

In an email to The Daily, Davenport said academic misconduct is hard to track. “Canada, the U.S., and other countries, have no

way of estimating what percentage of misconduct cases are actually reported,” he wrote. “It is not possible to state how many cases there are, what the trend in the number of cases is, and in what disciplines the cases occur.”

The CCA’s report calls for the creation of a Canadian Council for Research Integrity (CCRI), which would be independent from the federally funded Tri-Council, the body currently mandated to supervise issues of research integrity. The CCRI would “function as a muchneeded educational and advisory arm on issues of research integrity.

Its key role would be to build and promote a proactive approach to research integrity in Canada,” the report reads.

CCA Director of Communications Cathleen Meechan noted, however, that this report does not tackle specific cases of academic misconduct.

“There is not any set of clear evidence that says one way or another about cases of misconduct and if there is an overwhelming amount of cases in one field or another,” she said. “There has not been enough research done on research misconduct itself.”

The report is meant to provide the federal government with information with which they can create policies around research integrity.

“We provide a diagnosis of sorts

and then the government determines what kind of prescription they want to pursue,” said Meechan.

“This report was requested as part of a review that the Tri-Council is undertaking on research integrity.

It will help to inform that review.

We think that this is a good report to spur an important discussion within the research community about research integrity.”

The report concludes that there is a need to instill a culture of research integrity in Canada. In order for this to happen, the report continues, there needs to be a common way of approaching breaches of academic integrity across Canada.

“We need to have a much more systematic approach taken at the university level to research integrity,” said Meechan.

Davenport stressed the importance of creating a better system in dealing with academic misconduct.

“We live in a knowledge-based society, where research is vital to our future social and economic health, and research can only be used for public policy if it is viewed as trustworthy by citizens and their governments. Failure to deal with the research integrity issue ultimately will mean that even outstanding research will not have the impact on public policy that it should. All Canadians have a very large stake in this issue.”

Sherwin review kept secret McGill has completed an internal review of potential academic misconduct by professor Barbara Sherwin. In an email sent to The Daily on Wednesday, Provost Anthony Masi said that McGill will keep the results secret. The message read simply, “The investigation into the allegations of research misconduct is complete. In accord with University regulations, the results are confidential.”

In August of last year, Sherwin was accused of putting her name to an academic article she did not write. The article, published in April 2000 by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, explored the possible benefits of estrogen treatments in helping with memory loss. Sherwin did not receive financial renumeration for reviewing, and attaching her name to, the article.

Court documents from August 2009 state that the article was written by a freelance writer working with the firm DesignWrite, who was paid by Wyeth. The article was then sent to Sherwin, whose name eventually appeared alone on the article.

“It is an error I regret and which had never occurred before or since,” Sherwin told the Toronto Star last August.

In August 2009, the Star obtained court documents showing that Sherwin was contacted by DesignWrite about writing a second article about estrogen treatments months after the ghostwritten article was published. Sherwin told the Star she did not use any material provided by DesignWrite for the second article, which was published in 2003.

In McGill’s “Regulations Concerning Investigation of Research Misconduct,” it states that “the Provost shall determine whether any government agencies, professional societies, professional licensing boards, editors of journals or other publications, collaborators of the Respondent, or other relevant parties should be notified of the outcome of the investigation.”

In Sherwin’s case, the Provost has decided to keep the information under wraps.

Doug Sweet, Director of Media Relations at McGill, confirmed that the review was completed at the beginning of the summer. When asked who conducted the review, Sweet replied, “The investigation was all internal, but I don’t know the identity of the panelists.”

Sherwin refused to answer any questions on the matter.

Conservatives kill mining accountability bill Michael Ignatieff and other Liberals absent for vote Emily Meikle News Writer

B

ill C-300, a private member’s bill aiming to hold Canadian mining companies accountable for infractions against the environment and human rights, was defeated in Parliament Wednesday by a vote of 140 to 134.

Liberal MP John McKay for Scarborough-Guildwood first presented the bill to the House of Commons in 2009, aided by professors from McGill, the University of Ottawa, and the University of Toronto. It has since met with opposition from Canadian mining companies as well as from the Conservative Party who have argued that such a bill would hurt the Canadian economy and the federal Canada Pension Plan, which is heavily invested in the mining industry.

Although it is rare for the Prime Minister to take part in votes on private member’s bills, Stephen Harper was not only present for the vote, but also whipped his caucus into voting against the bill. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, along with other members of his party, were absent for the vote.

“The mining companies have the ear of every political leader,” McKay told The Daily. “They spent massive amounts of money telling MPs that the bill was the end of Western civi-

lization as we know it.”

McKay called the failure of the bill a “tragedy.”

“There are a lot of people who are very disadvantaged...very impoverished...very vulnerable...who just got the pointy end of a legislative stick,” he said.

Supporters of Bill C-300 are not the first to have questioned the integrity of Canadian mining companies.

In 2008, the Norwegian national pension plan withdrew its investments from Canadian company Barrick Gold, because of a negative review of the company’s environmental performance in Papua New Guinea, where arsenic was being dumped in a river beside one of the mines.

Roughly three-quarters of the world’s mining companies are based in Canada. Thirty-three per cent of the companies that have, since 1999, allegedly violated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – the current international method of self-regulation for the mining industry – are Canadian-owned.

According to McGill Law professor Richard Janda, who helped craft the bill, Canadian mining companies have been known to employ “paramilitary security forces [which] have been involved in murders and rapes in and around mine sites, and there have been a number of documented human rights violations.”

McKay said he thought failure to

act on mining regulation now would deal a blow to the country’s global image. “Canada suffers a huge loss of prestige and leadership around the world. We are the number one industry in the world in mining and we showed absolutely no leadership at all,” he said. “Other countries

who also mine are going to say, ‘if Canada’s not doing anything, why should we?’”

Asked what the next step in the struggle to increase regulation of the mining industry would be, Janda said regulation advocates should hold mining companies to the claims they have

made in recent weeks. “We should hold these companies accountable for what they were claiming over the course of this debate – namely that we have adequate regulations for evaluating [ecological and human rights] performance,” Janda said. “If we do then let’s have a report card now.”

6 News

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Social movement activist speaks at McGill Emma Quail News Writer

J

ohn Downing – a scholar of alternative, social movement, and radical media – spoke at McGill last Thursday on the subject of “Transnational Social Movement Media.�

Downing, who is a visiting Media Studies professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, framed the

“I include under the heading of ‘media’ the body, dance, tattoos, popular song, graffiti, dress, street theater – a whole variety of cultural expressions of communication which are very often in the textbooks excluded from studies of media, but I would argue are precisely media,� he said.

After Downing’s talk, Marc Raboy, professor in the department of Art History and Communication studies and

“...the body, dance, tattoos,

popular song, graffiti, dress, street theater.�

John Downing on his definition of the media lecture in Room W215 of the Arts Building around his redefinition of the word “media.� In the attempt to break away from traditional assumptions of “media� as television, print, cinema, and internet, Downing provides a more anthropological definition, including more people and more expressions of communication, especially when it comes to social movements.

Beaverbrook chair in Ethics, Media, and Communications, described Downing’s definition of media as new and exciting. “I was very interested in his broad anthropological definition of media, and how he broadens the scope of media to encompass different forms of communication, such as dance or puppetry,� he said.

Downing went on to explain the

power of small-scale social media, as opposed to more mainstream media. “These are media that generate out of social movements, which feed social movements, which keep a certain flame alive between the upsurges of social movements,� he said. “They are, therefore, focusing on their social movement connections and their integration with social movements.�

Transnational social media has increased significantly in the past few decades. Downing explained that transnational social activism through media does not always reap positive results. “Not every transnational social movement is a social movement, which is encouraging and offers a constructive hope for expanding democracy and expanding mutual dialogue and engagement in social justice,� explained Downing.

He also argued that the most prominent writing in the field of transnational social movement media fails to acknowledge humans as individual players in the world of media. “The political scientists operate as though they were talking about a chess board and we are, collectively or individually, the sort of pieces on

the chess board that move in accordance with certain pre-established rules in opposition to each other,� he said.

These writers discuss media using words like ‘mobilization’ and ‘connections,’ and fail to account for human agency and feeling, Downing posited. “I would suggest that this perspective is implicitly masculinist,� he explained. “What tends to be missed out from this picture is a focus on symbols, on imagination, on emotion, on feelings, on fear, passion, humour, fantasy and vision, and implicitly, or tangentially, I think, perspectives which are more likely to be present in feminist readings than elsewhere.�

Downing provided examples of social movements through media – including the global antiapartheid movement – to explain how media has been used as a form of social movement in the past. “This wave of sustained protest, fed by media, the movements media, and expressed to a wider set of activists by the movement media, eventually had a great deal to do with the final collapse of the apartheid regime,� he said.

WHAT’S THE HAPS

Lecture attempts to redefine media

SPHR presents Ala Jaradat Wednesday, November 3, 6 - 8 p.m.

Chancellor Day Hall, Rm. 102, 3644 Peel Ala Jaradat, of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, will discuss the situation of Palestinian political detainees and the Israeli military courts system. Admission is free.

AUTS Date Night Auction: “Come Kiss a Spider(wo)man!�

Friday, November 5, 8 pm Gerts Bar Want to place a bid on a date for the evening?

The Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society’s first major fundraiser will auction off the cast and crew members of the upcoming production of “Kiss of the Spider Woman.�

Music Therapy Workshop Saturday, November 6, 10 a.m.

- 1 p.m.

Concordia University, Visual Arts Building, 1395 RenĂŠ-LĂŠvesque O. Although primarily intended for university, CEGEP, or high school students, this workshop is open to anyone interested in exploring educational and career possibilities in Music Therapy.

Call for Candidates

two student positions on its Board of Directors.

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chair@dailypublications.org ( + * ! $ * *

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

7

Their democracy and ours Canada’s freedom leaves much to be desired Red star over Asia Ted Sprague ted.sprague@mcgilldaily.com

C

Olivia Messer/ The McGill Daily

Solidarity forever!

Québec Solidaire is the best option for left-wing voters The character of community Adrian Kaats adrian.kaats@mcgilldaily.com

R

ight now we are seeing the rise of a well-funded, coordinated, and vocal right wing in Quebec. Québec lucide and the Réseau liberté-Québec, combined with the continuing atrophy of the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), our current “gong show” right-wing party, are paving the way for the birth of a true conservative political party. This will likely take the form of François Legault’s Force Québec (FQ). FQ is expected to be a non-separatist, fully conservative, provincial political party, which will snatch an enormous number of centre-right voters from the Parti Québécois (PQ), the ADQ, and even the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ).

But Quebec’s left also has a party it can rally behind: Québec solidaire (QS), and this rallying should start immediately.

The political parties controlling our provincial legislature essentially occupy one side of the spectrum: the right. The dying ADQ is a selfproclaimed rightwing party. The PLQ is headed by former federal Progressive Conservative (PC) party leader Jean Charest, and promises an austerity budget in 2012 that will focus on striking a death blow to the public financing of our internationally-acclaimed social systems.

The PQ is centrist at best: in

addition to its preoccupation with Quebec sovereignty and strangling the province’s anglo community, it refuses to denounce the Bloc Québécois’s PC founder and leader of the rightwing group Québec lucide, Lucien Bouchard. The PQ’s fiscal policies focus on the “knowledge economy” – code for transferring public wealth to corporate interests – while paying only lip-service to the maintenance and development of our social systems.

The Parti vert du Québec has a number of progressive policies, but on the whole it has avoided developing a fundamentally progressive ethos, opting instead for pragmatic platforms. Discounting fringe parties like the Bloc Pot and Parti marxiste-léniniste du Québec, which are arguably progressive, we are left with the lone ranger, Québec solidaire, and its champions Françoise David and Amir Khadir, the party’s single Member of the National Assembly (MNA).

QS is the only one of Quebec’s political parties that is truly left.

The party is committed to forming a “leftist government,” which “rejects neoliberalism,” and is founded on “progressive politics such as social justice, equitable distribution of wealth, gender equality, sustainable development, elimination of racism, pacifism, and solidarity.” If you consider yourself socially conscious and have paid attention to Khadir’s work in the National Assembly, you’re probably already a convert.

If you aren’t, it may be for one of

the following reasons. QS operates almost exclusively in French despite the fact that about twenty per cent of Quebec’s population has another mother tongue. Its website sucks, making it hard to find information. Finally – drum-roll please – QS is committed to Quebec independence, but not so fast with the “uh-oh.” Unlike the PQ, QS is not preoccupied with sovereignty: they rarely mention it publicly, and do not call for an immediate referendum. QS posits that its social development plan for Quebec, which is truly wonderful, cannot be realized within what it considers the “the limits of federalism.” It calls on Quebeckers to use sovereignty as a vehicle to define a new country, the one they dream of living in. Via a consultative process of drafting a constitution, QS aims to construct a fundamentally socialized, sustainable, and equitable participatory democracy, the likes of which North America has never achieved.

Reading QS’s 2008 election commitments, one of the only documents it offers in perfect English, is enough to make you smile-cry. Their vision for our province is beautiful: solid, coherent, and deeply social. It addresses and satisfies the demands of almost every progressive group I am aware of. Québec solidaire is the only party I have ever wanted to join. For the first time in forever, I am excited to participate again. Go read that platform now, and let’s put these people in office in the next election. 1

anadian democracy is a sham.

Having had the privilege of having been born and raised in a country where military dictatorship once reigned gives me the perspective from which I can speak so bluntly. You might have thought that I would be more appreciative of the wider freedom that’s been provided to me in this country. You would have thought wrong.

Here you can get on your soap box and shout out loud your opposition to the government. As long as no one takes notice and you’re on the fringe, you will be granted your freedom. But when your idea is dangerous, when it starts to gain the ear of the masses, your freedom will be snatched away.

The recent removal of AGSEM’s posters per Provost Anthony Masi’s directions serves as a reminder to us about the true value of democracy in this society. The poster in question calls for the unionization of course lecturers – a right guaranteed to all workers. However, this unionization drive constitutes a real threat, not only to the University’s pockets, but also to the administration’s political domination on campus. It will cost the administration tens of millions of dollars to bring part-time teachers’ working conditions up to standard.

Aside from that, unionized teachers will have real leverage to challenge the way our education is managed.

Because of this, the administration cannot afford to grant the union freedom of speech.

This kind of peremptory tactic is not limited to McGill. A couple weeks ago, the CBC ran a documentary about PROFUNC, a top-secret government plan, maintained from 1950 to 1983, to arrest more than 16,000 communists and 50,000 communist sympathizers without trial, and lock them up in various

internment camps.

The top-secret plan stipulated that in times when the Canadian government is in danger – i.e. when communism starts to penetrate the mind of the masses – the government would proceed to arrest prominent communists and leftists nationwide.

Quebec also used to have the socalled padlock law, which gave the government the right to “padlock” any building thought to propagate communism or bolshevism in any way whatsoever.

Masi’s removal of AGSEM’s posters and the draconian PROFUNC plan might not seem comparable in scale. However, the danger posed

by AGSEM today and the communists in that period is also different in its scale, and this dictates the extent to which the establishment reacts.

So, while we go about our business happily, thinking that we live in a nation that champions democracy, there is a disclaimer that we fail to read: our democracy is a conditional democracy. Our democracy ceases to exist when it becomes a threat to the establishment. This capitalist democracy is a fragile plant that flourishes only in the fertile soil of economic prosperity, fertilized by the sweat and blood of our brothers and sisters from the Third World. The relative comfort that most of us enjoy brings with it the curse of servility and resignation, and drowns dissenting voices into harmless chatter.

But what comes about must end. The age of austerity is dawning upon us. We are returning to a pre-Bismarckian era where it is increasingly being made clear to us that we will have to work until we drop dead. People will start to question the status quo, first in whispers, then in hushed tone, and before we know it we will all be thumping our desks and raising our fists. It is then that we will feel the wrath of state repression, for our democracy doesn’t sit well with the ruling one. 1

Stand up

Speak out

Be heard* Send your thoughts to: letters@mcgilldaily.com *or at least read

8 Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Assessing your educational makeup The benefit of cross-border education for everyone Timiebi Aganaba Hyde Park

H

ave you studied in the same country or city all your life?

Or have you moved, like me, from city to city or country to country? If so, have you ever taken a minute to analyze the effect all this moving or lack of movement has had on your education, and how where you studied has shaped the way you think?

As I sat in my first class this year, on legal research methodology, I thought about my journey to McGill and just how different graduate studies here will be. I have studied two disciplines in four countries (the U.K., Nigeria, Canada, and France), so I feel suitably qualified to discuss the benefits and pitfalls of cross-border education.

While the majority of my education was in the U.K. – this is not to belittle the world-famous British educational system – I believe that that was where I was the least motivated as a student. In the U.K., and certainly in Africa, there is a distinction between teachers and students – a kind of us-and-them mentality that makes it more difficult to learn and express yourself.

While some disagree with me, I think that in the U.K., you are left to your own devices too much: you are given the assignment and you pretty much go and figure it out yourself. This may help develop independence of thought and self, but it does little for developing a student’s mind in a way that makes them open to different ideas. And of course it means that it takes that much longer to understand what you’re supposed to be doing or the purpose of the task at hand!

The issue with African teaching style, from my experience, is that it can be one-dimensional and extremely descriptive. Students are excellent at the “what is” of anything, but when it comes to the how, or the why, or applications of the concept in other contexts, the result may not be quite as good.

That is because, in my opinion, we are essentially taught to regurgitate, not to analyze, information.

The North American model, on the other hand, seeks to help the student achieve. I remember being surprised when I arrived in Canada for grade 12 and the teachers actually explained exactly what they wanted to see in the assignments they set, explained exactly what the exam would be about, where, and how exactly you should search for information, et cetera. With all this assistance, it still beggars belief that people fail! The North American system also encourages confidence in the expression of ideas in whatever form, and the ability to accept others’ critical opinions of one’s work.

The emphasis on peer analysis and review I find particularly interesting, because while it may seem logical and normal to North Americans, not all cultures agree with this ideology.

The above notwithstanding, my purpose of writing is not to say that the Canadian educational system is the best. After having experienced different styles, I can say that it is the act of changing systems in itself that will make you see the benefits and drawbacks of your primary system.

The goal is to learn how to take the best of each system you’re exposed to and find what works for you.

Timiebi Aganaba is an LL.M. in Air and Space Law. She can be reached at timiebi.aganaba@mail.mcgill.ca.

Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily

Errata The article “The right connections” (Sports, October 25), associated Orlando Magic CEO Dick DeVos with Xe. He is not formally connected to the company.

An article in the October 28 edition (“Concordia students rally against Pepsico privitization,” News) was misattributed.

Anna Norris wrote the article.

In the same issue, the article “Mayor blocks nuclear waste transport” (News) misidentifies the Public Affairs and Media Relations Representative for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. His name is in fact Marc Drolet.

The Daily regrets the errors.

Want more Commentary?

Read Vicky Tobianah1s response to Jon Booth1s article on BDS: »bit.ly/tobiBDS

It’s not just about brownies Why the student movement opposes more than simply administration policies Alex Briggs Hyde Park

W

ith the Arch Café closure, we lost our food and shelter, and were shown that we have no say. Worse, it’s another example of corporate rights overruling human rights – a sadly common theme in today’s world.

Corporations express our society’s movement toward less democratic control, further dissociation from one another, and less accountability. A CEO’s conscience (if they have one) is protected, by their stakeholders’ wallets, against the stings of guilt.

Meanwhile, the shareholders are safe from the nasty details of their livelihood. From their perspective, the executives must make as much money as humanly (or inhu-

manely) possible, or else sabotage the lives of their dependents. This plays directly into the arms of the innate tendency to separate into “us” and “them:” a phenomenon seen from middle school cafeterias up through racism and genocide.

And that is exactly what it accomplishes: the slow murder of billions of people around our planet, along with all other life and the health of the earth itself.

I am writing to break from this tradition and invite you to do the same. We live within a system of incredible waste, and still we are told there is not enough to go around! Luckily this waste gives us the space we need to grow into engaged citizens on a new earth – if we can only find the will.

I hope these words ring with some truth – but I am afraid that this task sounds trying. As an engineer-

ing student activist, I know that the load can be heavy, but I want you to realize that this is the reality of our lives. We have come to the end of the golden era; easy oil has run out: the Gulf oil spill, the tar sands, and shale gas exploration should be all the proof we need. Now we need to build a life that can weather the storms to come.

The first step is to learn to think for ourselves. We have been taught to solve problems; now we must learn to find them. Far from being given, they are usually hidden from the public eye. The second step is to shed all the dead weight.

Unaccountable corporations must be the first to go. Capitalism could be the best way to encourage innovation – but there is no argument for the progress of monopoly and exploitation.

We have to eat; this need is the

definition of inelastic. If Aramark is left as the sole provider of this service, do you expect them to bother making our food enjoyable, nutritious, or equitable? Make no mistake, they are driven by the bottom line – and it is not quality.

At every turn, students’ rights and interests are under attack as McGill sells its educational quality to become a moneymaking patent factory. It is time to stand up for those rights if we care to keep them, or resign ourselves to a corporate-controlled world where our freedoms are eroded under every step. The choice is ours – but the time is now. By tomorrow, we will have even further to climb.

Alex Briggs is a U2 Mechanical Engineering student and a member of Mobilization McGill. Write him at ajhbriggs@gmail.com.

Science+Technology

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

9

Beautiful, reusable...stuck?

The cradle to cradle concept Alyssa Favreau The McGill Daily

I

f you happen to have classes in the Bronfman management building, you’ve probably noticed the chairs. They’re sleek, beautiful, and very, very comfortable. Not only that, but every component of the chairs is completely reusable. Each part of the chair can be easily detached – from the back to the foam inside the arm rests – and can either be recycled and fully reincorporated into the biosphere, or be remade into other products without loss of quality.

The chairs, along with many other products, were built according to a principle called “cradle to cradle,” a philosophy that aims to fundamentally challenge the relationship we have with Earth.

According to cradle to cradle design principles, everything produced should have a function, and for Michael Braungart, a Hamburgbased chemist, this represents an opportunity to design better and safer ways of living and consuming.

“Right now, it’s only organic when we’re not involved,” he explained, “and this is pretty sad.”

Braungart is also a founding member of the Environmental Protection Enforcement Agency (EPEA) and of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC), a consulting and certification firm helping their diverse clients implement cradle to cradle design.

“The existing products are amazingly primitive when it comes to health and environment,” he said.

“For example, we find in Mattel toys up to six-hundred problematic chemicals. Things are never designed for children, they’re only designed to be cheap. So we really need to reinvent everything.”

The book that Braungart coauthored with architect and designer William McDonough, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, is an example of how regular, everyday items can be completely reinvented. The book itself does not contain any wood pulp or cotton fiber, instead it is made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers. It can be recycled in any facility with polypropylene recycling capabilities, and can be melted down and

Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

reused again and again, without losing any material quality.

Other examples of cradle to cradle product design include biodegradable apparel, non-toxic soaps, and tree-free, compostable food containers. The cradle to cradle concept, backed by McDonough and Braungart’s consulting firm, has even been applied to industries as large scale as building materials and packaging, helping negate their adverse impact on the planet.

But Braungart believes that sustainability is not the focus.

“Sustainability is pretty boring. If I

were to ask you if your relationship with your boyfriend is sustainable, and you said yes, I would feel sorry for you,” he said. “Sustainability is just the minimum, it’s not really attractive.” Braungart continued on to say that we should not be seeking to minimize our impact on the planet, but should instead contribute in a positive way. “Look at the cherry tree, there’s no reduction, no minimization, but everything is beneficial,” he elaborated.

With this in mind, MBDC developed an ice cream packaging that is liquid at room temperature.

According to Braungart, the container is only solid when frozen. “You can just throw it away,” he said. “We put seeds of rare plants in it, so by throwing it away you can support biodiversity, and the packaging degrades within two to three hours.”

“The most critical thing is to romanticize nature,” he said. And when consumption becomes beneficial to the planet, there is no more need to minimize what we consume. “I think littering is fun,” Braungart added.

This proposed paradigm shift is slow to be adopted. “What is most

Science Documentary Film: Lake Invaders: the fight for Lake Huron

UFOs: The Pyschology and the Evidence

UFOs and Close Encounters: Science and Society

Sunday, November 7, 3 p.m.

Redpath Museum, Room 200 A film about biodiversity and the third largest lake in the world. Suggested donation is two dollars for students – includes a muffin!

Friday, November 5, 5 p.m.

Auditorium, Redpath Museum Don C. Donderi, retired McGill research pyschologist, will talk about investigating UFO sitings, and more.

The documentary Unidentified Flying Objects will follow.

Cutting Edge Lecture Series: How Might Global Warming after the Variable Hydroclimate of Western Canada?

challenging is that people have been trying to be less bad for so long, now it’s difficult for them to change,” adds Braungart. “[Cradle to cradle] is not only technical questions and product design questions, it’s really how humans see their role on the planet. This is really key.”

And though it seems almost utopian in nature, the cradle to cradle concept has had its fair share of criticism. The MBDC consulting firm, and McDonough in particular, have been heavily criticized for their tendency toward proprietorship. In an industry where collaboration and expansion should be the primary focus, “cradle to cradle” is a patented term. Other aspects of the business are also under heavy lock and key: this has significantly decreased the concept’s potential impact.

In its 15 years of operation, MBDC has only certified 160 products. Many of the projects undertaken never see the light of day. Several have a history of going over budget, underperforming, and never living up to their cradle to cradle claims.

Journalist Danielle Sacks wrote a 2008 expose on McDonough for the magazine Fast Company that “McDonough’s design revolution is paralyzed – and he is the paralyzing agent, unable to capitalize on his brilliant, crucial idea, but unwilling to set it free,” and this is shown by the litigious trail the cradle to cradle concept has left behind.

Critics have also argued that MBDC’s work lacks transparency.

Sacks wrote that because the firm “sometimes consults for companies whose products [it’s] also certifying, the whole endeavour is conflicted, if not unethical.”

Overall, however, Braungart is optimistic about cradle to cradle’s future. “A lot of major players are really changing how they do business, [and are] making products according to cradle to cradle principles,” he said. “It’s just amazing, there are hundreds and hundreds of young scientists, engineers, and designers there to reinvent products.”

But though he feels that there are positive steps being taken, “I’m skeptical when I see how fast the destruction takes place, and I wonder whether [the changes] will be in time.” If those who want to pursue cradle to cradle goals can do so without fear of litigation, maybe they will be.

SCI-DE BAR

Thursday, November 11, 6 p.m.

Auditorium, Redpath Museum David Sauchyn of the University of Regina lectures – plus free wine and cheese at the reception!

Friday, November 12, 5 p.m.

Auditorium, Redpath Museum Donderi will talk about humans, aliens, philosophy, and psychology. A screening of the film Independence Day will follow.

BioConnect 2010 Symposium Wednesday, November 24, 2 p.m.

New Residence Hall (3625 Parc) The first annual McGill biotechnology symposium will discuss sustainable solutions, and transdisciplinary interaction. Admission is free, but registration is required.

Visit bioconnect2010.mcgill.ca.

10 Features

THE BEER NECESSITIES Aaron Vansintjan on what makes monastic beer so righteous

All photos by Aaron Vansintjan and Carine Gardin for The McGill Daily

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

11

“T

here are four main ingredients of beer: hops, water, malt, and yeast,” says Joe Watts over the phone. “If you change any one of them you get a different product.” Watts is a former employee of McAuslan breweries, and now calls himself a professional “beer educator.” At this moment he’s on his way to lead a tour of microbreweries in Brooklyn. “What Belgian beer does so well is it relies on this amazing yeast. The alcohol isn’t like you’re drinking malt liquor, it’s like you’re drinking some sort of roller-coaster ride of flavour. I remember that Westvleteren 12, oh my god, it’s ridiculous. And it’s so good, and so completely unattainable, that it’s been the number one rated beer in the world for ten years.”

W

estvleteren is a Trappist beer, which means that it’s brewed by Catholic monks of the Cistercian order to support their livelihood. The Trappist monks make a vow to respect the rules of the order as laid out by St. Benedict, and live by their own means, hidden from society in abbeys.

There are six Trappist breweries tucked away in the corners of Belgium, and one in the Netherlands, all far from any major city.

My mom, who grew up about half an hour away from the Westvleteren monastery, remembers the rare event when her dad would bring home a crate. Once, when she was ten, he let her have a sip of the beer. “I still remember the taste, I’ll never forget it,” she tells me (over and over and over). But this taste comes with a price: the waiting list to get a crate of Westvleteren is months long.

On Ebay a six-pack goes for $120 and a single bottle can go for $50.

In July my dad and I drove to the monastery. When we got there, we found out that it was closed to all visitors. The cafeteria across the street, though, was crowded: it’s the only place in the world where you can get Westvleteren on tap. We ordered a beer and fought for some seats on the terrace. Surrounded by fields of hops, we each took a sip. I closed my eyes and shivered.

“Impossible golden rays of glory shining a beacon of light on my bleak and bitter existence,” reads an excerpt from my drunkenly scribbled field notes. I couldn’t fathom how those hops growing in front of me and the yeast – a fungus that lives, unseen, in the air around us – could produce this godly flavour.

The bitter aftertaste of hops sparked a desire to know more about these monks.

How do they make such good beer? Why do they choose their way of life? I admired their values and strict communal lifestyle; if their order wasn’t a thousand years old I’d call them radical and innovative. I wanted to learn from their way of life, which seemed a lot more sustainable than my own. I vowed, then and there, to visit all seven of the Trappist breweries.

By the end of it, I came home with a journal full of notes to myself like “contrast pastoral scenery with heavy dose of hoppy/ holy incineration” and “aftertaste ravages my mouth and leaves me in total submission.”

But I also brought back a bag full of beer bottles from across Belgium, including one of Westvleteren 12 (a surprise gift for my mom).

I

was already drunk when I swerved into the parking lot of the Chimay monastery. I got off my bike and locked it, opened the huge wooden doors, and wandered inside. There was a welcome booth but no one sitting behind it. I strolled further and discovered an open door to the courtyard.

I wasn’t prepared for the tranquility I found there. Monasteries are built as microcosms: a rectangle facing inwards, with only one or two doors to the outside world. Otherwise, the church, bedrooms, guestrooms, library, kitchen, and dining rooms all face a serene courtyard with well-trimmed hedges, a fountain, and a handful of 200-year-old trees.

I left the garden and entered a hallway.

A monk with a huge smile swept past me in a white and black habit. He was large, balding, and had a long white beard. After some hesitation I chased after him, and found

him sitting at the welcome desk. He was the kind of monk that you want to meet: jolly, outgoing, funny, and completely forgiving.

If he wasn’t wearing a habit he could have been an innkeeper. He told me his name is Eduard and asked me where I come from. Gent, I told him. “Ho, well, then we were practically neighbours!” he exclaimed.

Turns out he had lived in Westvleteren for 30 years before coming to Chimay nine years ago.

I asked Eduard why people become monks. He explained to me that Cistercian monks are in search of a good life and they find this by serving God in the simplest way possible. They value poverty, stability, community, and respect for others. Eduard said that the path to being a monk starts with silence: first you try to exude it and then you are silence in itself. Another rule is that of hospitality; Cistercians welcome any traveller who needs a place to stay. Eduard offered that I stay at the monastery but I politely declined: my mom was expecting me for supper.

B

ut what’s so special about Trappist beers like Chimay and Westvleteren?

First of all, it’s the simple fact that monks have control in the brewing process.

When many Belgian breweries – Maredsous, Duvel, and Grimbergen, for example – started labelling their product as “Trappist,” the seven Cistercian breweries decided to intervene to protect their brand. Now, a beer can only be called “Trappist” if it’s brewed on the grounds of a monastery of the Cistercian order, administered by monks, with all the profits either supporting the monks’ livelihood or being given to a good cause. Any beer that takes after the style of Trappist beer is now called abbey beer.

Jean-François Gravel, co-founder of the Mile End brewpub Dieu du Ciel, says the abbey style had a lot to do with necessity. “[Monks] didn’t make beer as a business but to sustain their needs. They would basically sell extra beer to bring money to the abbey but not to make the maximum amount of money...instead of trying to make a wide variety of beer they made basically the same beer but at three different strengths.” Those “strengths” are known as blonde, dubbel, and tripel. As Watts says, the yeast also makes a difference. Trappist beers like Orval are bewildering because of the very unique strain of yeast they’re fermented with.

As a result, Trappist beer has been very influential for the modern American beer movement. “They sort of laid down the groundwork of the ethos of craft-brewery,” says Watts (who is also a former Daily editor). “People look towards the Belgians because the Belgians were like the first extreme brewers. Nobody made beer that was more than six percent.” While German beer was already standardized through a “purity law” by the 16th century, Belgian beer is characterized by its use of ingredients like coriander, orange peels, and cherries. “Until the brewing revolution of the last thirty years,” explains Watts, “the Belgians were the most outlandish.”

This revolution is in full swing throughout North America. Montreal itself has brewpubs like Dieu du Ciel, Reservoir, Benelux, Les 3 Brasseurs, and Brutopia. Local breweries have become more popular; Unibroue, for example, is sold in every depanneur in Montreal.

And Belgian beer is well-loved because it embodies today’s craft beer philosophy: the

value of local production and creativity.

I

t’s not an accident that monasteries started brewing beer. “A thousand years ago,” says Watts, “you didn’t drink the water.

Because the water may or not kill you, the beer, because it’s boiled, is fine to drink, and [because of the yeast] it keeps longer.

Not to mention it gets you drunk.” Beer was regarded as a service to the community in the age before water treatment plants.

I came to understand the scientific aspect of Trappist beer when I visited La Trappe, the only trappist brewery in the Netherlands.

After drinking two pints I worked up the courage to approach five workers eating their lunch by the bar. They were all dressed in red Oompa Loompa overalls. After chatting with them for a while I mentioned that I’d never actually seen a brewery from the inside. One of them piped up.

“Now, why don’t you let Hendrik show you around? It’s cheaper than the guided tour, and he can finish his lunch later, right Hendrik?” Hendrik, clearly the newbie of the group, suffered his punishment with grace.

“Good idea. Let’s go right now, so no one sees us. We’re not allowed to do this, you know.”

And so I was led through a maze of kettles, assembly lines, and oiled machinery.

I thought of the opening scene of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. The beer was kicking in. The tour became a blur of polished metal, with me bumping my head on several pipes and giggling at gigantic vats of churning hops. Honestly I don’t remember much.

An impression I won’t forget is how clean everything was. This came to me as a surprise because beer-making seems like it would be a messy process, with all the malt and hops bubbling around and fermenting. My acquaintance with Montreal breweries didn’t help this impression: McAuslan and Molson are, from the outside, grimy and decrepit. But no, a smell of bleach pervaded La Trappe.

Go to any microbrewery in Montreal – say, Dieu du Ciel – and you’ll see from the huge pressurized kettles that brewing is a science.

“At the beginning,” says Gravel, a trained microbiologist, “when I quit the science and research field people didn’t really understand why I opened a bar and brewed beer, they don’t always understand that I’m doing science. It’s just applied microbiology.” Dieu du Ciel’s “Rigor Mortis” is modelled on Abbey beer, and their name (not to mention the interior design of the brewpub), is a tip of the hat to the religious character of beer. Trappist beer is a surviving example of the compatibility of religion and science.

A

s I’m sure you’ve noticed, we live in a fast-paced world. Judging from the precarious state of our food and water systems, the depletion of fisheries, and the increase of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, this pace is unsustainable. Full disclosure: I study environment and philosophy, and I think that we need a radically different way of life if we’re to sustain ourselves.

Christianity, the West’s oldest institution, doesn’t seem like the most logical place to start looking for solutions. But after visiting those seven Trappist monasteries, I realized there are at least two reasons why we should look at monastic life: it’s a model of sustainability and it teaches us the importance of traditions.

One summer day, I set out on a two-day

bike trip to visit three Trappist monasteries – Westmalle, Achelse Kluis, and La Trappe. The idea itself was attractive: it’s like a holy trinity of beer.

When I stopped by Westmalle, I wasn’t allowed to enter the monastery. That was reserved for guests, labourers, and monks. It was annoying that the monks place their own priorities – to serve God – first.

But monasteries aren’t the solipsistic islands that we make them out to be.

Westmalle itself keeps livestock, raiseds chickens, grows corn and vegetables, hiredslocal workers and invites the nearby village for mass every day. Abbeys are community centres, providing jobs to the economically under-priviliged, local produce and meat for the nearby villages, and excellent stewardship of their land, all the while being a not-for-profit organization that doesn’t ask for grants or subsidies and has a comparatively small footprint on the local and global environment. At a monastery, costs are managed efficiently, the monks take whatever they need to support their own existence, and the rest goes to community projects and humanitarian organizations. It’s a way of life that should be studied, researched, and copied. How have the Benedictine vows influenced the long-term stability of monasteries? Can we incorporate the monastic financial strategy into that of community centres? How can the design of monasteries be incorporated into plans for the design of future cities? The opportunities are endless.

A

fter a 120-kilometre bike ride with the pit-stop at Westmalle I rang the doorbell of Achelse Kluis with trembling hungry fingers. A monk received me and told me that I could have a place to stay and, fortunately, dinner was just about to be served. In disbelief (who would’ve thought it would be so easy?) I sat down at a dinner table surrounded by two dozen other guests.

After a modest meal – eaten in silence – of bread, peanut butter, and milk, we all cleared the tables and did the dishes together. The bell rang for mass, and we made our way to the church. By 8 p.m. I was nestled in my comfortable bed reading the New Testament.

The next morning I woke up just in time for second mass and ate breakfast before starting out for the third monastery on my itinerary, La Trappe.

Brief as my experience with monastic life was, it was clear to me that, my atheism notwithstanding, it’s a very desirable way of life.

A monk at Rochefort told me that because of the continuous solitude, you at first recoil from who you are, but with time you learn to know yourself. Becoming a Cistercian monk requires training and practice. Rather than the “guilty conscience” normally associated with Catholicism, the Benedictine vow is one of love and the desire to live virtuously.

Biking away from Achelse Kluis I decided that we will need to establish new norms, traditions, and cultural “vows” if we want to change our way of life. We’ve heard over and over again from our oldest texts (Plato, the Upanishads, Dao De Jing, and so on) that living well takes practice and training. Why haven’t we taken note? The environmental crisis is a crisis of tradition: we need to create new ones to sustain ourselves. Monks spend years unlearning society’s ills and perfecting the good life. Living sustainably isn’t easy: it takes practice and we need to teach each other how.

12Science+Technology

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Rethinking internet addiction Can media act like a drug? Quitters report jitters and axiety – but also lonliness.

The Spilt Brain Daniel Lametti danllametti@mcgilldaily.com

A

ccording to a test I took on the internet, I might be addicted to the internet.

I scored 56 out of 100 – which, in the opinion of netaddiction.com, means that I’m “experiencing occasional or frequent problems because of the internet,� and I really should “consider the full impact� of these problems on my life. So I decided to quit. The timing was perfect: I was moving into a new apartment; I would simply skip signing up for internet service. Easy as pie.

The move-in approached. I bought a radio, subscribed to two newspapers, three magazines, and rented seasons one through five of The Wire. I started reading a novel – Love in the Time of Cholera – set in Colombia a century before the internet was invented. I was like a heroin addict on a forced comedown stock piling methadone and vomit bags. And then I moved in.

When asked about our addictions, most of us cite the cups of coffee we drink each morning or the cigarettes one-fifth of us smoke each day. Some of us think about harder drugs – cocaine, crack, and heroin.

Drugs are easy to label as addictive:

when we stop taking them we feel bad. Daily coffee drinkers who suddenly quit experience headaches.

Heroin addicts, losing the effect of the drug that come to replace the natural painkillers in their brains – neurotransmitters that keep the clothes on our backs from making our skin crawl – experience physical pain. But what kind of withdrawal symptoms do we experience when we give up technology? Can we really be addicted to the internet?

In April, researchers at the University of Maryland asked twohundred students to go 24 hours without media – no computers, cells phones, iPods, or televisions. At the end of the experiment, each student was asked to blog about their media-free day; they wrote more than 110,000 words, the equivalent of a four-hundred page book. When the researchers analyzed the posts they found that words like “craving,� “jittery,� and “anxious� were often repeated. “I got back from class around 5 p.m. frantically craving some technology,� wrote one student who ended up cheating – later that evening he checked his phone for texts.

Most of the Maryland students, in fact, couldn’t go 24 hours without checking their cell phones, Facebook profiles, or Twitter feeds. But unlike someone addicted to a drug, what the students

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Vincent Tao for the McGill Daily

missed during their technology comedown â&#x20AC;&#x201C; what caused their drug-like withdrawal symptoms â&#x20AC;&#x201C; were the connections to the outside world technology provides.

Words like â&#x20AC;&#x153;friends,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;people,â&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;lonelyâ&#x20AC;? also showed up frequently in the blog entries. Without being able to text or instant message, one student wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I felt

quite alone and secluded from my life.â&#x20AC;? Technology wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t acting like a drug â&#x20AC;&#x201C; isolating people within a high. It was helping make connections. You canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t label someone an addict for missing their friends.

My experiment lasted two weeks.

At home one afternoon, wanting to go see The Social Network with a friend and frustratingly realizing that

I had absolutely no way to figure out where it was playing, I cracked â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it was time to find a phonebook and call Bell. As of last Thursday, I now pay forty dollars a month so I can download movies, fire off e-mail, and tweet with my friends, all while writing this column from my living room. Fuck netaddiction.com â&#x20AC;&#x201C; if this is addiction, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bliss.

Have we met?

York study finds new info on face blindness Lexee Hoene Excalibur (York University)

T

ORONTO (CUP) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; A recent York University study shows that individuals who cannot recognize faces can make up for it with better voice recognition.

Prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness, is a rare disorder where one loses the ability to visually recognize faces.

The study, published in Neuropsychologia, suggested that

human brains distinguish between people and objects in two disassociated parts of the brain.

Jennifer Steeves, an associate professor of psychology at York, lead the study, which looked into the recognition level of faces, voices, sounds and objects, and compared individuals diagnosed with prosopagnosia against those without.

Before conducting this experiment, subjects were shown 110 images of female faces that had no visible differences or characteristics. The individuals were also provided with

an auditory clip where a twenty-second passage was spoken in English.

Following this exercise, the subjects were questioned on the visual and auditory-only models, both separately and in conjunction.

Although people diagnosed with prosopagnosia relied upon the auditory clip to recognize faces, this did not apply to recognizing objects. The study suggested that the human brain uses two separate neurological areas when identifying people and objects. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;With files from YFile

Read Sci+Tech Every Monday.

Sports

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

13

Hunting new blood Campaign tries to attract young hunters in Quebec Henry Gass The McGill Daily

“H

unting as an activity has seen its day,” said Georges Dupras. “It’s good news it isn’t growing.”

Dupras is the Montreal-based director of the Animal Alliance of Canada, a non-profit organization based in Toronto that focuses on achieving long-term animal and environmental protection. We have already been talking for several minutes, and he doesn’t sound too concerned about a recent PR campaign launched by Quebec hunting groups to attract students to the sport that used to occupy one of the highest pedestals in the province’s sports pantheon.

“They’re trying to recruit hunters because their numbers are falling,” said Dupras.

Geneviève Clavet, public relations officer for the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs (FEDECP) based in Saint-Augustin-deDesmaures, near Quebec City, painted a much more optimistic picture of the sport’s status in the province.

“Hunting is doing really good.

[Quebec] is the only province with an increase in the number of people taking [hunting] classes,” said Clavet.

With the average age of Quebec hunters hovering around fifty years, however, Clavet does acknowledge that hunting in the province will face a decline in coming years.

“With the baby boomers growing older, there’s going to be a decline,” said Clavet. “We’re planning ahead.”

In what Clavet describes as a “long-term project,” FEDECP has launched a new advertising campaign targeted at 25 to 54 year-olds, with ads littered across Montreal attempting to rekindle an interest in hunting among the urbanite youth. The campaign – described by the Globe and Mail as portraying the “hunter as hipster” – has featured billboards around college and university campuses in Montreal, including a billboard in the Shatner basement men’s bathroom.

FEDECP’s campaign, which is running until February, is organized by Zoom Media – described on its website as “Canada’s leading targeted lifestyle media.”

According to their website, Zoom Media “offers advertisers innovative out-of-home media solutions and reaches distinct target audiences in specific environments.” Thus far it has provided services for organizations such as New Balance, Pfizer Canada, and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, targeting niche groups as vaguely defined as “Generation X” and “Tween & Teens.”

“We decided to do an image campaign,” explained Clavet. “The Quebec government is involved.”

Clavet described how the provincial government has recently increased

the price of hunting permits, but said that the increased revenue from pricier permits is being used to promote hunting across the province.

“It generates the economy,” said Clavet.

However, Dupras sees the promotion of hunting in outlying areas – where the sport is most popular – as a tactical move on the part of Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal Party to appease rural voters. “[Hunting] is highly political,” said Dupras. “It’s a surgical way of looking at where the votes are in the community.”

Clavet also said the extra money hunting groups receive from provincial hunting permits is being used to help handle environmental problems, most notably wildlife overpopulation.

“Hunting is a way to manage the population,” said Clavet, pointing to the past example of deer in the Eastern Townships. “They had become a problem. There were lots of accidents with cars.”

Dupras contends, however, that while hunters may think they’re part of the overpopulation solution, they may actually be part of the problem.

“There’s a difference between what nature does and what the hunter does,” said Dupras. “[Hunters] hunt for trophies…for the biggest, strongest animal. … Nature doesn’t do that – it goes after the weak, the sick, the old. … The biggest and best specimens are hunted out before they get the chance to do what nature expects them to do: replenish their numbers.” Dupras also noted secondary deaths as a result of hunting – deaths that often go unrecorded in terms of statistics. Dupras, uses the example of the black bear – when a mother is killed, she often leaves behind at least three cubs who are unable to survive alone.

“Those are numbers the hunting community doesn’t give out. They don’t know [the numbers] themselves,” said Dupras. “[Hunters are] creating imbalances. [But] they are setting themselves up to solve imbalances, to ‘keep the numbers down.’”

Many believe, however, that the unsavoury aspects of hunting may not be able to defeat the multiple forces pushing young Quebeckers out into the wilderness bedecked in camouflage equipment. While Dupras repeatedly cites “curiosity” as the main motivation for young hunters, Clavet described the seductive, casual experience of hunting, especially when courting urbanites.

“In urban areas, you live in a fastpaced world of technology,” says Clavet. With hunting, she continued, you can “go to rural areas, take time, relax, and bring back some healthy, nutritious food.”

Enrique Garcia, a professor in McGill’s department of Kinesiology and Physcial Education, while taking note of the athletic value of hunting, pointed to the ironic “Bambi complex”

Grace Brooks for The McGill Daily

FEDECP’s marketing strategy is targeted at a new generation of young hunters. that seems to pervade urban society, with some preaching about cruelty to animals between hamburger bites.

“The meat industry is engaging in impractices,” said Garcia, giving examples of how industries feed animals with hormones to accelerate their growth. “People in cities are totally removed from what happens in nature. We are criticizing things we don’t understand. … [While] eating animals who live miserable lives.”

Despite the potential hypocrisy of urban carnivores, Garcia noted the physiological appeals of a sport like hunting.

“There must be a lot of adrenaline when you hunt a target. … I can see how that can be very reinforcing,” he said, adding that many sports evoke similar emotions. In the sense of getting better, and improving your skills

as a hunter, Garcia can “see how hunting can be very addictive.”

In addition to the physical and physiological allures of the sport, Clavet pointed to the long hunting history in French Canada.

“Trapping beaver was one of the first things people in Quebec did,” said Clavet. “Colonization [happened] because of all the animals found in trade. … That’s how trapping began – how hunting began.”

Dupras attributes this fierce defence of Québécois culture to the fierce isolation the province has enforced on itself in the past. Quebec’s history and culture now finds itself under siege from both technology and a rapidly diversifying Quebec population.

“In Quebec, it’s a bit of an isolated society in certain areas,” said Dupras.

However, he added that, in Quebec,

there’s been “more immigration than we’ve ever had. … There are more Europeans in Quebec, and they’re bringing their culture with them. As new cultures come in, a new way of life is surfacing. [Quebec is] not in an isolated bubble anymore.”

“There was a time when the big sport in Quebec was hunting, then hockey,” said Dupras. “[But] then the Habs won all those Stanley Cups, and hockey became very, very popular.”

As a result, Dupras posited, hunting has now tumbled to the bottom of the provincial athletic food chain, and he doesn’t see it climbing back up any time soon.

“The kids have ten-, 12-gauge guns. They get knocked on their backside when they fire them. They do it out of curiosity, but I don’t think the retention rate is all that great.”

14Sports

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

More money, more problems Ben Makuch examines how fame, glamour, and money affect young professional athletes THE SPORTS BAR

Paging Dr. Gonzo Ben Makuch benmakuch@mcgilldaily.com

T

iny Citroën Saxo whipping through the narrow streets of Nottingham, U.K. Traffic?

After-thought.

“St. Anne’s, mate. Hard.

Dats why dey call Nottingham Shottingham.”

Let me tell you, they describe crime in a whole different way in England. Just like sports. Sometimes though, like in America or impervious-to-corruption Canada, they cross paths.

“Remember dat match mate?

Wit Dunkirk? Them lads from da firm. Proper fighters, skinheads.

Throwin’ bananas at me mate. Not right innit? But I reckon neitha is da league...”

Imagine if for a time you played for a top-notch soccer club (which will go unnamed), and you grew up in a poor neighbourhood (a council estate in the U.K.), with a drug dealer for a brother, and then given your prolific talent as a footballer you were suddenly blitzkrieged with a £10,000 weekly salary.

Enter personal crisis, and it all goes tumbling down.

“I was young, mate, to be givin’ dat sorta money. All sortsa lads on ya for it, lads from St. Anne’s…”

For Anton it was too much.

He was my former teammate on a semi-professional soccer team from Gedling, Nottinghamshire, which I was contracted to for a few months. But I’m not trying to impress you, clearly I’m washed up now and evidently writing about sports – something that may have spared me from my own self-destruction. Either way I wasn’t good enough. And if you don’t know what a Citroën Saxo is, it’s England’s version of a bright red Honda Civic with way too many add-ons, presumably to suffocate the insecurities of a small-time drug dealer. Because let’s face it: Anton was a drug dealer. Crack to be specific.

But not always. Like other young professional athletes, on both sides of the Atlantic, he couldn’t handle the modern professional athletic experience. At 18 he was given the “cheddar” and the attention someone his age had no preparation for, thrown out to play in front of thousands, subjected to the abuse of fans (while his testosterone was just settling into his veins), and then expected to “act a man.”

Unable to deal with the quickly compiling pressures of money and expectations, he retreated to his old friends from St. Anne’s who provided a false sense of stability and a perfect platform to steal from him. It’s a story à la Michael Vick: money, glory, fame, and jail (albeit for gun pos-

W HAT ’S ON TAP Redmen Hockey vs Toronto November 5, 7:00 p.m.

McConnell Arena Martlets Hockey vs Carleton Homecoming Game November 7, 2:00 p.m.

McConnell Arena Redmen Rugby vs Sherbrooke QSSF Semi-Final November 7, 1:00 p.m.

Molson Stadium

S HOUTOUTS Redmen Basketball vs Rutgers November 1, 7:30 p.m.

New Brunswick, NJ Marlets Basketball vs Saint Michael’s November 7, 3:00 p.m.

Colchester, VT

R ESULTS Redmen Baseball vs Brock CIBA Championship W 12-9 October 24 Windsor, ON Women’s Rugby vs Laval QSSF Semi-Final L 36-20 October 24 Quebec City, QC Redmen Football vs Laval L 68-0 October 23 Molson Stadium

Esma Balkir for The McGill Daily

session, not dog-fighting). And although Nottingham may be colloquialized as Shottingham, guns aren’t exactly kosher over there, nor in all of England, where not even cops pack them. If you do, you’re “propa hard,” a “rudely,” a “badman,” or – in standard english – a future convict.

“My mate Jermaine just got on da books wit Celtic. Tellin me about all da gash, mate. Notha world.”

“Why doesn’t the gaffer [coach] get you a trial with a higher club?” I asked curiously.

“Ah mate, damaged goods, innit? Them scouts will offa tha world,” he paused, “but lotta dem don’t tell ya how it will be. No world left to offa...” he said with a knowing grin.

And boy was he damaged goods. How can a team be sure that rotting in a jail for two years won’t skim the ability off any player? Yet they helped make the problem – so easily predicted, but never prevented – and then they just abandoned him. Anton had no choice when he got out but to begin from the bottom, trying desperately to work his way from the lower leagues all the way to where he rightfully belonged.

Failure wasn’t an option nor was anything else. His schooling had always been arranged by his club, but he more often than not skipped most of his classes, and

he had little qualification for the workforce other than being “well good at kicking a ball.” Some top clubs, like Manchester United, say they stress scholastic excellence from their youth academy players, which is laughable. It would be like the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) saying they produce scholar-athletes. I’m not saying the OHL never produces Noam Chomskys, but they certainly take more pride in producing Jason Spezzas. Anton’s point was well taken; recruiters will never tell you the dark side of the journey – what is statistically the likely outcome: failure. Worse for Anton, when he was in the minority who did make it, the fame, the glamour, and the money all conditioned a sense of invincibility with no infrastructure to support him.

We continued down the street, weaving like madmen in between what seemed like pylons, but were really just cars, while blaring Akala – a rapper so uniquely English I couldn’t make out one fucking English word. Which is fair enough – I’m sure Anton would’ve looked at me cock-eyed if I blared the Rankin Family Greatest Hits. If I was going to crash and die, I thought, it better not be in this shitty Citroën. I could already read the headlines: “Wannabe Canadian Footballer Dies in Micro Machine Accident.”

Finally we started to slow down in an unfamiliar dodgier part of town.

“Yea so uh, what are we doing here Anton?”

“Business, mate.”

My nerves started to throb. I’m from the suburbs – I like to know exactly where I am when the street names start changing from niceties like “Cream-Honey Lane,” “Pineyhill Street,” or “Autumn Daisy Avenue.”

Especially, considering we were on a street called “Mash.”

Pulling up on a corner near a simple pedestrian (or so I thought), Anton turned the car. Walking over to my side, this unknown man leaned in like he wanted something.

“What’s going on here, Anton?”

I enquired.

Anton rummaged in the backseat through a cooler and produced a crumpled ball of tinfoil.

“Mate, pass that to him,” he rolled down my window. “Tenner,” said Anton simply. I passed the tinfoil to the man and didn’t ask a single question. The money came in return. Was this what I thought it was?

We moved on driving with a furious pace and I felt invincible: semi-professional soccer player, getting paid (like seventy bucks a game, but who’s complaining?), and hanging out with nefarious characters.

Nobody can stop me now, right?

Do it for Madden.

Write for Sports sports @mcgill daily.com

Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

15

Acousmatic Montreal A

s far as forgotten corners of music go, electroacoustic music is pretty far out there.

Even in experimental music circles, the term is often neglected, misused, or misunderstood. You can be forgiven, then, if you’ve never heard of empreintes DIGITALes, a Montreal-based electroacoustic record label that is currently celebrating its twentieth year of operation.

According to co-founder and current director Jean-François Denis, electroacoustic music is simply “an art form which is meant to be listened to and whose only means of communication is the loudspeaker.” There is generally no obvious human performer. The work is pieced together prior to performance using a variety of experimental techniques.

The electroacoustic tradition derives from two groups of avantgarde European composers in the late 1940s – the musique concrète group in Paris, and the elektronische Musik group in Cologne. Both shared an interest in composing works that would not, and could not, be performed. It is perhaps difficult to appreciate the significance of this move in an age where electronic music and DJs are ubiquitous, but these studio experiments, often with new electronic equipment, played a pivotal role in the development and future directions of electronic music.

Electroacoustic music came to Montreal soon after its initial development in Europe. In 1971 composer Maurice Blackburn, having studied musique concrète principals in France, applied them to film soundtracks for the Quebec government.

And even earlier, in 1964, Hugh Le Caine, an inventor of new electronic instruments, was crucial to helping set up the Electronic Music Studio at McGill. Since then, there have been studios established at Concordia, Université de Montréal, and the Conservatoire de musique de Québec, and independent electroacoustic concert presenters, most notably ACREQ (Association pour la recherche et la création électroacoustiques du Québec), founded in 1978.

Which brings us forward to electroacoustic music as it is made today, and to empreintes DIGITALes in particular. The label was founded by Denis and Claude Schryer in 1990.

Denis was responding to a situation he encountered while teaching electroacoustic music at Concordia, where hundreds of electroacoustic recordings from around the world sat languishing in storage, unable to be used except in Concordia’s own concert programming. For Denis, empreintes DIGITALes was a way of making recordings like this available for anyone.

In the time since the label started, experimental electronic music has exploded, and this has resulted in a necessary drawing of boundaries. Denis spoke about the debates that cropped up at the beginning of the last decade about the use of laptops as a performance tool. He noted that, “as is completely normal in the evolution of mankind,” a conflict evolved between those who were doing something that hadn’t been done before, and those that wanted to stick with the old way of doing things. “It was a real deal about making a cut between them at the schools and us in the smoky bars,” Denis said, going on to emphasize that he “never really believed in this [boundary].”

Similarly, Denis sees real continuities between an organization like his and the well-known Montreal dance music festival Mutek. “When you really listen to the stuff at Mutek...if you remove the beat, and you are left with the rest of the sound, you are into an electroacoustic world, completely.

But with the beat it becomes more functional and it serves a different purpose.”

Denis outlined the three main genres of electroacoustic music as they stood when he and Schryer started the label. First there was “tape music,” the manipulation of pre-existing sounds from a variety of sources, recorded and composed by dubbing, layering, and cutting up tape, which were then played back in performance. There was also “mixed music,” a mixture of pre-recorded tapes and live instruments.

Finally, there was “live electronics,” experimental music using electronic technology that was played or manipulated in a live performance setting. At the start of empreintes DIGITALes, “we covered all three of these areas,” Denis said. But the label quickly refocused.

This refocusing became necessary with the emergence of forward thinking electronic music, both

from a dance perspective and an underground or DIY one. Denis cited the importance of cementing the label’s identity through this refocus – “because the composers are not well known, the force, the unity of all these different creators could help each other.” The label now focuses exclusively on what is called “acousmatic music.”

Essentially, this is what used to be called tape music, and refers to electroacoustic performance pieces that are constructed entirely in the studio, meaning the origins of the sounds cannot be seen or known.

There is something else that has made Montreal particularly conducive to a fertile scene for this sort of music. Denis tells me that “[acousmatic music] creation is basically only practised in Montreal in North America.” My immediate thought was that this was surely due to cultural and institutional ties to the musique concrète movement in France, yet Denis was quick to debunk this theory. He pointed out that there are practitioners in other parts of North America, often tied to universities, who have studied and worked in France or Germany, and brought their skills back with them. The difference is that Montreal also has the independent institutional structures outside of the university – which Denis attributes to a more cultural atmosphere that is more lively than anywhere else in Canada. Through the Quebec government’s financial support of the arts (via the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec), Montreal has become a self-sustaining centre for this kind of musical practice in Canada.

Although electroacoustic music may still have limited listenership, a label like empreintes DIGITALes suggests that in Montreal, at least, it is in very healthy shape. With a highly active and international roster, a steady stream of CD and DVD-audio releases every year, and frequent live performances, this small community of experimental musicians is an important part of the multifaceted patchwork that is Montreal’s fringe music scene. empreintes DIGITALes is hosting a number of events this year to celbrate their anniversary, two of them in Montreal this November. Visit empreintesdigitales.com for more information.

Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

The Daily’s Tim Gentles looks back at Montreal’s history of electroacoustic music as local label empreintes DIGITALes celebrates its twentieth anniversary

16Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

Sexuality across borders Montreal’s Image + Nation film festival showcases LGBT cinema from around the world Abby Plener The McGill Daily

I

mage + Nation, Canada’s oldest and most prestigious LGBT film festival, returns this year to give its loyal Montreal audience “LGBT stories from around the world!” as its tagline exclaims.

The festival’s director of programming, Katharine Setzer spoke with The Daily about this international aspect, saying she was “so pleased that our line-up is incredibly global,” and emphasizing the importance of “not just relying on American productions” because “stories from around the world are an interesting lens through which we can see ourselves.”

Setzer explained that because “the notion of a queer identity [or] LGBT didn’t exist” when the festival started 23 years ago, communities in other countries “were just as viable and just as easy to work with, perhaps, as somebody down

the street.” The festival’s global program is shaped to a significant extent by the interests of those international communities. She felt that though “it’s always important to focus [on] your country of origin, a queer identity kind of supersedes national borders.”

Image + Nation designs its program around the submissions it gets – for example, after receiving an unprecedented number of submissions from Spanish-speaking countries, a “Mundo Hispanico” series was created. This includes the festival’s opening film Undertow, a Sundance award-winner which will also be Peru’s 2011 Oscar submission. The film – which follows the struggle of a village fisherman as he contemplates whether to reveal his love for another man as his wife is about to give birth to their first child – is being promoted by the festival as “Ghost meets Brokeback Mountain”.

For Setzer, the inclusion of the “Mundo Hispanico” series dem-

onstrates how “groundswells and movements are reflected in cinema,” and that “there must be something happening in those countries that makes these productions possible and accessible.” The series’ description on the festival’s website contends that it clearly “reflects the changing political and cultural climate of [these countries] and the rising tide of filmmakers addressing a diversity of sexuality in their works.”

Likewise, the festival also features a series of five short films entitled “Scandinavian by Design,” marking the first time the festival has specifically focused on films from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

On the local front, the festival is showcasing “Entry Point: Queer Refugees in Montreal,” which features the work of first-time filmmakers who received media training from Montreal organizations, enabling them to produce their own documentaries about their experience as LGBTQ refugees living in Montreal. These 13 films follow the

stories of refugees from Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

The festival also highlights the lives of queer youths with its “Generation Q” series, which showcases over twenty documentaries.

The line-up includes historical documentaries on famous queer personalities such as Anne Lister and Alan Turing, as well as other films covering a wide range of issues from global LBGT human rights to lesbian feminist history.

Setzer notes that Image + Nation is “an absolutely different event” nowadays, whencompared to its inception in 1987. This change mirrors the changes in the communities it seeks to spotlight, due to the evolution and spread of the notion of LGBT. The festival’s initial focus on the gay and lesbian community “did not include all the other letters, [and] of course there are even more than L-G-B-T, as we know.” As the queer community itself evolves, so too has the

way in which it is represented in Hollywood – as Setzer pointed out, there are “more and more queerthemed films that are in the mainstream.” For Setzer these films do not simply shed light on queer communities and the issues they face, but serve to challenge the “heteronormative model [which is] all we see on stage or screen.” She maintains that “any kind of alternative models or representations are in my book, great representations.”

Image + Nation’s focus on the international queer film scene brings a broad and unique range of experiences to a Montreal audience. The insight that the festival offers into international LGBT perspectives is valuable to such an active queer community as that of Montreal.

Image + Nation runs through November 11 at various locations throughout Montreal. See imagenation.org for more details.

Jurassic art Paleoart blends science and creativity to bring the past to life Amanda Tucker Culture Writer

E

veryone thinks they know what dinosaurs look like. We see them in movies and pictures, and in the shape of countless children’s toys. But what evidence supports these representations of dinosaurs and their environments?

Only fossils, the skeletal and often fragmentary remains of creatures that no one has ever seen before.

The task of recreating these amazing creatures falls to a field known as paleoart.

Used to disseminate information on important discoveries in the field of paleontology, paleoartworks in various mediums must be both creative and scientifically accurate in recreating the physiology of dinosaurs. Not only are the colour, build, and other physical details of the dinosaur important, but the environment and the actions of the dinosaur must also be taken into account. Since 1999 the prestigious John J. Lazendorf PaleoArt Prize in two-dimensional paleoart, three-dimensional paleoart, and scientific illustration has been given each year to three different works that have excelled in scientific distinction as well as in draftsmanship. This year the “Hell Creek” mural at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh – part of the exhibit “Dinosaurs in Their Time” – won the prize in two-dimensional paleoart. Robert Walters and Tess Kissinger have created a depiction

of dinosaurs that advances scientific understanding and artistic engagement with the guidance of paleontologist Matthew Lamanna and other scientists from the museum.

Measuring 92 feet in length, this piece is distinguished primarily by its enormity. The mural portrays a complex environment during the late Cretaceous age (68 to 66 million years ago) in which Triceratops, Edmontosaurus, and Pachycephaloraurus roam. Not only is the mural visually impressive, it also represents a slew of new scientific discoveries. Important depictions in the scene include recent discoveries about the details of dinosaurs such as the Triceratops and the duckbilled Edmontosaurus, and extinct plants recently associated with the Hell Creek Formation.

Much closer to home, examples of paleoart can be seen at the Talisman Energy Fossil Gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. The Talisman Gallery has thirty complete skeletons of dinosaurs and 15 life-size models made by paleoartists.

The process of creating such scientifically accurate works involves a meticulous collaboration between art and science. Graphic programs are used first to design rough drafts of the dinosaur that are then reviewed for accuracy. Because of the importance of the anatomical structure of the dinosaur, it’s necessary to first reconstruct the figure proportionally, bone for bone.

Next, the contours of the skin are designed around the bones as well

as the presumed muscles. How, you may ask, does one know where to find the muscles of a 68-million year-old dinosaur? For paleontologists, it is an interpretation of scars on the bones that reveal how muscle was attached. The texture of the skin can sometimes be modelled after pieces that have been preserved on the bones, but not all paleontologists get such ideal specimens.

Albertan paleoartist Michael Skrepnick describes the criteria for creating good paleoart on his website. “The accuracy and confidence with which dinosaurs can be depicted is directly dependent upon and affected by…the quality and amount of actual skeletal material…discussion and collaboration with a paleontologist…comparisons to the closest related living forms [and] technical artistic ability,” he writes. Artists asked to design murals are working within the restraints of the assigned physical space and under the strict guidelines of scientists, much like an artist commissioned to create a mural in a church during the Renaissance. Creativity always comes second to the portrayal of scientific fact. But those working on the Hell Creek mural did not fail to live up to the aesthetic integrity of art by any means. The mural is stunning in colour and detail, not to mention the incredible realism of the scene. Walters and Kissinger do justice to both art and science equally, perhaps good reason for giving the mural a nod – part paleo, part art.

First Last / The McGill Daily

Stacey Wilson | The McGill Daily

Archaeological remains are used to reconstruct dinosaurs as art.

Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

17

From Emerson to ecovillages Today’s burgeoning ecovillage movement brings a spiritual aspect to environmentalism Anqi Zhang Culture Writer

S

tudents at McGill have heard the advice “don’t let yourself get trapped in the McGill bubble” more times than they can begin to recall. This warning arises from the understanding that exploring a larger geographic area entails meeting more people, opening up more opportunities, and having a more fulfilling university experience. It is counterintuitive to think that a larger urban environment could foster isolation. However, it is this very urban isolation that the ecovillage movement seeks to vanquish.

An ecovillage is exactly as its name would suggest; a small community formed in an attempt to live in harmony with nature. But since its beginnings, the ecovillage has developed to become more than that. The Ecovillage Network of Canada defines ecovillages as “selfidentified communities committed to living in an ecologically, economically, culturally, and spiritually sustainable way.” To understand the ecovillage movement, which began in earnest about thirty years ago, a brief explanation of its roots is required.

More than a century and a half ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson introduced the notion of transcendentalism, postulating that truth can be intuitively extracted from nature. He stressed the necessity of building a relationship with nature, believing that it contains the basis for life not only on a physical level, but also on a spiritual one. For centuries before that, many indigenous people had been living cooperatively in small communities, taking only what was necessary from the land.

Hundreds of years and countless artistic, scientific, political, and technological advances later, these models of living have still not made their way into global popular consciousness. But there is a growing segment of society that recognizes their value. “The tight-knit family system [exemplified by] Native Americans is not the norm today,” said Russ Purvis, president of the Ecovillage Network of Canada and general manager of the Kakwa Ecovillage in British Columbia.

Although the ecovillage model obviously has its principles based in environmental preservation, it also contains an element of spirituality and community that contrasts sharply with our conventional ways of living, especially in North America. It is perhaps for this reason that ecovillages are often identified as intentional communities.

Living in an ecovillage is as different from living in an urban centre as one might imagine. First

Eli Sheiner for The McGill Daily

Emerson’s transcendentalism stressed living in harmony with nature. of all, ecovillages are small. They have fewer people than would fit into Leacock 132 at any given time – most have around 150 people.

This small population size allows for a tight-knit community in which each individual feels that they are a contributor. For Lee Davies, a founding member of both the Ecovillage Network of Canada and the Ecovillage Network of the

Americas, this is the biggest difference from living in an urban setting, where “most of us have been trained to be independent;” in this smaller community, he feels a certain “responsibility to the larger group.”

The movement’s ecological principles are almost a direct application of Emerson’s transcendentalist views, and are tied to the

spiritual and economic structures of the ecovillage. The emphasis on the human connection to the living environment, on the relationship between man and Earth, is apparent in such actions as growing food, especially organic food, within the geographical bounds of the ecovillage, and using local organic materials for construction. As Purvis put it, “most people

know that it’s good to recycle and to conserve energy. Most people understand not changing the environment to the point where we can’t live in it.” The challenge for people like Purvis, then, lies not in promoting these commonplace directives, but getting others to recognize the “holistic” relationships between humans and their environment. This notion of interdependence between all of Earth’s elements is a key point in the spiritual aspect of ecovillage living.

An economic principle of local sustainability has also developed from these small communities.

The world’s movement into a global economic paradigm based on consumption has turned Canada in to an “export resource extraction economy,” said Purvis. Meanwhile, Canadians still import products from other countries and provinces that we could easily grow or produce in our own communities.

The ecovillage seeks to foster less reliance on external importers, while making the most of the land, tying these economic structures to ecological principles.

Purvis mentions that the ecovillage movement should be of particular significance to young adults, not only because of its ecological ramifications, but also its implications for community and spirituality. In our world of rapid globalization, he says, “local structures need to be strong in order to be sustainable.” Davies indicates that there has been steady progress in the ecovillage movement, with “more rural villages developing and new urban ones starting up.” But how does Canada’s ecovillage movement stack up against the world so far? “We are making steady progress,” said Purvis, although he also noted that “there are nations that have younger movements but that are further ahead,” notably Brazil and Russia.

The primary challenge to ecovillage development within Canada boils down to a reluctance to step away from conventions, both on the part of individual Canadians, and on the part of policy makers in the planning of urban and rural areas.

While it may be unrealistic to consider an abrupt move to live in an ecovillage, there are few barriers preventing young Canadians from implementing some of these ideals on their own. Taking the steps toward this lifestyle could be as simple as creating a home garden, or reaching out to your neighbours. Though the development of intentional communities in Canada is slow, those central to the movement insist that they would be pleased enough to see their philosophies integrated into Canadians’ everyday lives.

Go to ena.ecovillage.org for more information on ecovillages in North America.

Compendium!

The McGill Daily | Monday, November 1, 2010 | mcgilldaily.com

18

Lies, half-truths, and sexual innuendo and not-so-innuendo

Anti-masturbation motivates

ASK STUART

Students outraged at attempt to rid world of skeet

Raunch in the ride, ridin’ the raunch

Stefan Goulet The McGill Daily

W

ith the 2010 midterm elections in the U.S tomorrow, McGill’s international student community has seen a surprising rise in absentee voters over the past few weeks. While the election is only expecting a 40 per cent turnout overall, the controversial figures running for office and

genocide of unborn children. Skeet [sic] is something that is shared between a man and a woman.”

A large group of McGill students – in particular the Delaware contingent, which makes up 94 per cent of the entire student body – is up in arms over her anti-masturbation campaign.

“Masturbating is one of my favourite activities in the world,” said Gerard Hampton, U3 Undeclared, Delaware native, and president of

Dear Stuart, I think I’m bikesexual. All I want is to find a nice bike and ride into the sunset on the streets of Montreal. The problem is, there are all these people in the way, always needing my attention and stuff. How do I just tell them who I really am?

—Stuck in the bike shed Dear Stuck, Sending this letter is the first pedal-push to getting out of the shed. A lot of people might not understand your sexuality, but there are also a lot of people who do, either because they have a similar orientation, or because they simply know that people can be awesome no matter what (or who) they’re into. I’ve never had to go through the process of coming out, since I’m a cartoon rodent, so I can’t necessarily give the best advice on this matter, but I bet it helps to practice coming out to someone you trust, or to actively seek out groups and events where your bikesexuality will be celebrated. See if any of those people who need your “attention and stuff” would be interested in going for a bike ride with you. That way you can start to reveal your true self

“I will keep [masturbating] in protest.”

Gerard Hampton U3 Undeclared an anti-masturbation movement have mobilized the McGill U.S. student population.

The candidate that is drawing the most media attention is Dristine O’Connell, White Elephant Party candidate for Chancellor of Delaware. A member of the polarizing Pea Party movement in the States, O’Connell’s recent plans to criminalize masturbation have sparked heated debate.

O’Connell’s “Skeet is Murder” campaign contends that masturbation is sinful activity and coincides with her intentions to turn the U.S. government into a theocracy. “‘Masturbation?’” said O’Connell at a rally this weekend, “More like mass

the McGill Masturbation Society.

“When I heard that she wanted to make wanking [sic] illegal, I was galvanized to register my vote.”

With masturbation under attack, McGill students have come out in full force to oppose this ruling. “It’s unfortunate that I’m not back in Wilmington to attend protest rallies about this,” said Hampton. “I guess the best thing I can do is to vote, tell everyone I know to vote, and hope for the best.”

When asked what he would do if O’Connell is elected and the proposed plan passes, Hampton said, “I will keep doing what I’ve been doing for the past eight years in protest.”

and be attentive to the people in your life.

Go for rides when the mood strikes you, and let the heartbeat of the streets flow through you.

Finding a supportive community and feeling great about who you are and what you love will probably make this the most rewarding time of your life. Get dressed up, get in gear, and most importantly, never apologize for who you are!

—Stuart

What kind of riding are you doing? Hard, moderate, or relaxed?

I think everyone should wear a helmet, whether they like to ride rough or take it nice and slow. Brains are sexy. Keep ‘em in your head.

—Stuart

Dear Stuart, My brakes squeak. Whaddya suggest?

—K

Dear Lactose, You should do whatever feels right for you. Try eating that tub of soy ice cream and see how you feel during your ride. If your bike starts creaking due to the extra weight or your sugar-induced increased cadence, you should work things out with it for next time. Lubrication might help in this matter. If you find yourself getting cramps during the ride, slow down right away, but don’t leave your bike hanging mid-ride. You might find it will leave you for another, more dedicated rider.

—Stuart

Dear K, Unfortunately, if your wheels have steel rims, there might not be anything you can do to avoid noisy braking. You can get new brake pads or rub your current ones with sand paper. You can also try rubbing your rims with steel wool. Be gentle, and try to go along the grain.

—Stuart Dear Stuart: What kind of protection do I need when riding?

—X Dear X:

Dear Stuart, Will eating a whole tub of soy ice-cream before a ride reduce my performance?

—Lactose intolerant

Ask Stuart is a twice-monthly advice column on love, biking, and loving biking. Send your questions to askstuart@mcgilldaily.com.

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