Volume 100, Issue 39
March 17, 2011 mcgilldaily.com
McGill THE
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Annual General Meeting The Annual General Meeting of the Daily Publications Society (DPS), publisher of The McGill Daily and Le DĂŠlit, will take place on
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Candidates should send a 500-word letter of intention to chair@dailypublications.org by 5:00 PM on March 22nd. Contact us for more information.
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
3
55,000 Quebeckers protest Bachand budget Students rally against tuition hikes amidst province-wide fears of austerity measures Farid Rener
The McGill Daily
O
n Saturday, March 12, at Place du Canada, an estimated 55,000 people gathered to protest Quebec finance minister Raymond Bachand’s budget, which will be released today. The budget is expected to include tuition increases for all students studying in Quebec, along with other cuts to public services and a $200 health tax. The march, which ended outside of Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s office on McGill College, attracted approximately 100 McGill students who stood in solidarity with other protesters, some coming from as far as Saguenay–Lac–Saint-Jean. “The budget must be equitable. We are gathering against an antisocial justice and anti-union government,” declared a Confédération des syndicates national (CSN) spokesperson in French, over loudspeakers, to the rally. “We are in solidarity with the unions in Wisconsin,” she added, referencing the weeks of protests in opposition to the recently passed Wisconsin bill collective bargaining rights for public employees. Amir Khadir, Québec Solidaire member of the National Assembly for the Mercier riding, was present at the demonstration. “We don’t expect, frankly, that Mr. Charest and Mr. Bachand will change the global orientation of the liberal government that has been downsizing public services and increasing the burden of middle class, of lower income people,” said Khadir.
Demonstrators rally outside Premier Jean Charest’s office on McGill College. “But there is a need to unite people, there is a growing capacity in our society to say no to government policies and government decisions,” he continued. Holly Nazar, a councillor on the Graduate Students Association at Concordia and member of Free Education Montreal, predicts that the budget will include a $500 or $1,000 per year increase in tuition fees. “This time,” she said, “we can’t settle for a compromise, we have to settle for a real commitment – we are really losing what Quebec is supposed to be, and what Canadian society could be.”
“I predict the budget will be on the same lines as last year, which in my mind is pretty monumental as it started changing the course of Québécois society,” explained Sebastian Ronderos-Morgan, former SSMU VP External. Last year’s budget introduced plans to increase tuition starting in 2012, along with other significant cuts to public services. “We have to build on the uproar and dissatisfaction of the government so the government cannot go further in its determination to implement new liberal policies. It carried these to the extreme in its
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
budget in 2010,” said Khadir. Protesters came to share their grievances from across Quebec. Three to four hundred buses brought in protesters from outside of Montreal. The array of complaints brought together unions from different sectors. “It’s a cause that unites everyone,” said Luc Vandal, president of the Shawinigan CEGEP teachers union, in French. “I think there is a pretty good variety of groups. It is rare to see student federations – ASSÉ [Association pour un solidarité syndical étudiante], TaCEQ [Table de concerta-
tion étudiante du Québec] – together in the same way,” said David Chamberlain, former VP External at Université Laval. “Social groups, the major unions – it’s the right time.” Myriam Zaidi, SSMU VP External, along with members of the McGill student mobilization group Mob Squad, organized a bed-in on Friday night in order to prepare students for the upcoming protest. About fifteen to twenty people came to help make protest signs and join in movement building exercises. Organizers had expected a much larger attendance, and had organized a series of workshops with the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students’ Society, and the Montreal Media Co-op, among others. However, due to the low turnout, these did not take place. “It’s a cool type of event to hold – it creates strong ties between people. Bed-ins can be an intense moment of politicization for people. They end up connecting a lot of issues that they might not have connected before,” said Joël Pedneault, incoming SSMU VP External and current vice-secretary general of TaCEQ, who was present at the bed-in. The next day, thirty McGill activists, carrying signs with slogans such as “McGill Students in Solidarity,” “We won’t pay for their crisis” and “Stop hibernating, spring of resistance,” met outside Shatner ahead of the march. They were joined by members of the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) and members of the PGSS. See RALLY, page 6
Ten activists arrested at budget demonstrations Black-clad protesters singled out, detained for 55 hours Farid Rener
The McGill Daily
O
n Saturday March 12, forty mounted riot police surrounded and arrested ten people attending the demonstration against the Quebec government’s austerity measures. The demonstrators were charged with conspiracy and possession of weapons. On Monday, nine were released without bail, and one was released with a bail of $500. Conspiracy charges were dropped, while charges of possession of weapons still stand. The arrestees were released under the condition that unless they live together, they may not communicate with one another in any way, except in the presence of a lawyer to discuss their case. Furthermore, the ten individuals are not allowed to possess weapons or carry tools
in public, except where their work requires it. The arrestees are bound to these conditions until they have been proven not guilty. The first court hearing will take place on April 29. Olivier, who was present at the demonstration on Saturday and knows some of the arrestees, explained what he saw as the reason for the arrests. “I saw the people being taken before the protest even started. They were charged with conspiracy, possession of weapons, mostly because they were dressed in black,” he said. “They were circled by people on horses, anti-riot troops, inside the protest. The troops were permitted to enter the protest by some of the labour unions. The more mainstream labour unions pointed them out, the riot cops circled them and took them away immediately,” Olivier continued. Michel, who was present when
the prisoners were released, told The Daily that, “the police were targeting the anti-capitalist bloc at the demo. It was a very targeted, very deliberate attempt to take a certain segment of people out of that demo and make sure they were off the streets.” Those arrested were not told what they were being charged with at the time of their arrest. They were kept in permanently lit cells with no beds for a total of 55 hours. One woman was given a black eye during the arrests, others were bruised and some later complained of headaches. Doctors were not available in the detention centre. The arrests sparked a series of solidarity demonstrations over the course of the weekend. At 9 p.m. on Saturday night, between two and three hundred people met in front of the GuyConcordia metro station and marched down Guy to the Centre
Opérationnel Sud police detention centre downtown in solidarity with the detainees. Chants of “No justice, no peace, fuck the police,” “Liberez nos camarades” and “Les riches et les fascistes, la police, en service” were directed toward the police by protesters. Philip Schoettle-Greene, a McGill student present at the solidarity march, described a moment when police cars sped through an intersection which was filled with demonstrators. “Two people with a banner nearly got hit by a police car,” he told The Daily. Protesters moved from the police station along Ste. Catherine, where people scattered after a trash can was dragged into the intersection of Ste. Catherine and Metcalfe. Thirty police cars filled with riot police carrying batons and tear gas arrived shortly after, entering Simons and banging
on their shields. No arrests were made. On Sunday afternoon a solidarity vigil, drawing fifty to sixty people, was held outside of the police station. Monday, the prisoners were taken to the Palais de Justice for a bail hearing. About 100 people came and sat in solidarity outside the courthouse. People brought food and hot drinks for when the prisoners were released. “They were pretty poorly fed – they have been eating cheese sandwiches and drinking orange juice for the past two days,” Olivier said. Solidarity, Michel told The Daily, is “when some of us are attacked, then all of us stand up and fight back against that.” Some names have been changed at the request of interviewees in order to protect their identities. —With files from Erin Hudson
Official Winter 2011 Election & Referendum Results • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
President: Maggie Knight VP Clubs & Services: Carol Fraser VP External: Joel Pedneault VP Finance & Operations: Shyam Patel VP Internal: Todd Plummer VP University Affairs: Emily Yee Clare Arts Senators: Matthew Crawford, Jason Leung Engineering Senator: Usman Bin Shahid Law Senator: Ian Clarke Dentistry Senator: Ryan Kirschner Management Senator: Tom Acker Medicine Senator: Sameer Apte Music Senator: Emil Briones Religious Studies Senator: Haley Dinel Science Senator: Annie Ma, Max Luke CKUT Board of Directors Representatives: Niko Block, Laurin Liu
• • • • •
TVMcGill Fee Renewal Referendum Question: Yes McGill International Students Network Fee Referendum Question: Yes Midnight Kitchen Fee Renewal Referendum Question: Yes Ambassador Fee Renewal Referendum Question: Yes Referral Services Fee Renewal Referendum Question: Yes
Thank you to all the candidates and voters for a fantastic campaign and election! If you have any questions please contact us at elections@ssmu.mcgill.ca
REFERENDUM QUESTION Whereas, The Arts Undergraduate Society of McGill University last raised its student fee from $5.00 to $7.50 in 2010 to match inflation costs; Whereas, before the 2010 question, the Arts Undergraduate Society of McGill University had not raised its fee since 1982; Whereas, the Arts Undergraduate Society of McGill funds over twenty departmental associations, over twenty student journals, an essay centre, peer tutoring, computer labs, study spaces, opportunities for student employment and other services; Whereas, the current fee does not allow for adequate funding of the AUS’ departmental associations, the primary constituent bodies of the AUS; Whereas, departmental and program associations do work directly for their major and minor students to offer their students social and academic events and promote a departmental culture and community;
Resolved, that the current student fee of $7.50 per student per semester be raised by $4.50 per student per semester for a total AUS membership fee of $12.00 per student per semester, taking effect in the Fall Semester of 2011; Resolved that the entirety of this fee increase will be allocated to AUS departmental associations. Resolved that AUS financial bylaws be adjusted to account for this raise in fees.
Vote on this referendum question, and vote for your 2011-2012 AUS Executive on March 18th-March 21st at
ovs.ssmu. mcgill.ca
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
5
McGill faces fine for MBA tuition increase Faculty Olympics a success University “perplexed and disappointed” by government penalty
Henry Gass
The McGill Daily
T
he provincial government announced Monday that McGill will be penalized $2,011,719 for the 2010-11 year after increasing tuition in their executive Master of Business Administration (MBA) program by around 900 per cent. According to a statement released by the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport, the fine corresponds to the amount of provincial funding granted to McGill to train 200 students who could have enrolled in the program had prior accessibility levels been maintained. The penalty also includes the amount of provincial subsidy granted for each of the 57 MBA students enrolled in Fall 2010. McGill increased tuition for its MBA program this year from roughly $2,000 to $29,500. The Ministry press release stated that McGill’s “decision [to increase tuition] not only violates current budgetary rules, but also the principle of accessibility, as new students must pay tuition fees higher than those determined by the government.” Line Beauchamp, minister of education, also said in the press release that the penalty “will be applied until the situation is corrected.” SSMU VP External Myriam Zaidi said “it was a very bold reaction to a very bold move.” “The principal can’t break the law, go against the government and normal process, and not expect to get any punishment from that,” said Zaidi. “They went against basically Quebec’s constitution.” In a statement released the following day, McGill said they were “perplexed and disappointed with the response of the Government of Quebec.” The press release went on to state that the University has no intention of adjusting its MBA tuition rates in response to the government’s annual penalties. Peter Todd, dean of the Faculty of Management, described McGill’s stated goal to bring MBA tuition up to the Canadian average, currently around $37,000 a year.
“For next year we plan to have the tuition set at $32,500 a year,” said Todd. “Right now our commitment is 100 per cent. This is what we’re doing, we stay the course with what we’ve done.” Pat Tenneriello, president of the McGill Masters of Business Administration Student Association (MBASA), said MBA students were also disappointed with the provincial government’s reaction. “Students are overwhelmingly in favour of the Faculty’s position, which is to move to this self-funded model, because it was necessary to maintain the prestige and the quality of the program,” said Tenneriello. McGill’s press release described the penalty as “an arbitrary, elective, and unprecedented exercise of authority of government.” “We cannot find another case where the government has levied a penalty like this against a university,” said Todd. Todd noted that in the past McGill has applied a self-funding model – where a university program funds itself independent of government subsidies – to other programs in the Faculty of Management, but that this was the first time the government had punished McGill for doing so. “Our understanding at the time, having done a number of self-funded programs, is that we create the program; we inform the government. The decision, as we understood it, was the decision for our Board of Governors to take, and that’s what was done at the time. The Board approved this change, and we went forward,” said Todd. “We put these programs together, and the government certainly acquiesced to them going forward. They certainly didn’t make objections in the way they are right now,” he continued. While Beauchamp does not have the legal power to force McGill to lower its MBA tuition rates, she does have the power to determine government funding to Quebec universities. According to Todd, McGill had been in discussions with the Ministry of Education for years over possible alternatives to the selffunded model, without success. “We’ve tried over time to work with the government on this, to
explain to them that the funding models for universities – and particularly the funding models for business programs and MBA programs – in Quebec are broken,” said Todd. Todd added that the University has been in “constant discussion” with the Ministry of Education, trying to make the case that the MBA was a special program. “Our curriculum – with our integrated management approach that we use for the management core that teaches students about how the whole business works together – is not something that’s done. Not just at any other program in Quebec, but, frankly, not at any other program in Canada,” said Todd. McGill’s press release also described how McGill’s new MBA program provides an average of $12,000 per student in financial aid, a “unique level of support for any Quebec university program.” Tenneriello said that, though the overall financial aid situation had improved in the MBA program, the provincial government’s complete withdrawal of bursaries for MBA students is a significant financial challenge for students in the program. “From what the school has done, yes, it has improved. From what the government should be offering students, it’s gone to hell. It’s awful,” he said. The press release also noted that the shift away from government subsidization would save Quebec taxpayers about $1.2 million annually. “It really is time to start to think about alternative ways of funding these programs, and in this case having the people who are going to most richly benefit from the program be the principal ones to pay for it,” said Todd SSMU VP University Affairs Joshua Abaki, however, said the government’s penalty would keep the burden on undergraduate students despite anticipated increases in provincial tuition over the next three years. “They will be anticipating new revenues, but it will go toward the [funding] gap that the $2 million created, so the burden will remain on the undergraduates,” said Abaki. “So in the end the argument they made at the beginning doesn’t hold at all.”
SSMU hopes to institutionalize event Misha Schwartz News Writer
S
SMU’s Faculty Olympics wrapped up this past Sunday after a successful four days and nights of events. Events kicked off last Thursday night. 420 people on 13 teams from almost every faculty participated. Points were awarded for each event and the winning team, Zeus’ PEKer – representing Phys. Ed. and Kinesiology – was announced at the closing ceremonies on Sunday. Throughout the Olympics, participants competed in a variety of events including dodgeball, trivia, a spelling bee, chocolate wrestling, scavengerhunt and flip cup tournament. Captains for each team were recruited from the different faculties and worked with the organizers to plan and run the event. There were also 17 volunteers who helped to make sure that everything ran smoothly. “There were five volunteers who each ran an individual event and twelve others who helped out.” explained Kate Barker, one of the head volunteers. One of the goals of the Faculty Olympics was to
with their faculty,” she said. Expenses for the event were expected to be approximately $21,800 with returns expected to be $17,600. “Given the events we wanted to do we knew that we would have to spend money for it to be a success,” explained Drew. The biggest expense was the closing ceremonies, which included a power hour. However, organizers were able to save about $1,700 on the power hour when difficulty getting a liquor permit led to a last minute location change from Circus to Le Drugstore. Despite losing approximately $2,000 on the event, Drew said that everything went according to plan. “It was budgeted to lose money,” he said “ We need to spend money to make sure [Faculty Olympics] is something that will last.” This is not the first Faculty Olympics, however it is the first one to be considered a success. “The First Faculty Olympics to our knowledge was in 2007 and there has not been one since due to its unsuccessful outcome,” said Sfeir. As a result of the 2007 failure, this year’s Olympics had to be organized from the ground up, as there was no
“We knew that we would have to spend money for it to be a success.” Nick Drew SSMU VP Finance and Operations
encourage inter-faculty interaction. “When can we all compete against each other? We never can. This gives us that opportunity,” said SSMU VP Finance and Operations Nick Drew. Christina Sfeir, one of the co-chairs and organizers of the Olympics, celebrated how well the events achieved this goal. “The reaction from participants has been great. … Many teams have been speaking about having reunions because they enjoyed themselves so much and have been brought closer together
previous framework to build on. SSMU’s goal is to make Faculty Olympics an annual event, much like Management’s Carnival or Engineering’s Eng-games. Carnival has been running annually since the 1980s and generally breaks even. Sfeir linked Carnival’s economic success to the fact that it’s been running for so many years. “We are extremely excited about next year and the ideas for new contests are already flowing,” she said. “It will bigger and better with each year so get ready, because Faculty Olympics is here to stay.”
Westmount YMCA offers residence to Inuit patients Nunavik region’s health and social services search for permanent residence in Montreal Hatty Liu
News Writer
T
he Northern Quebec Module (NQM), a branch of the Inuulitsivik Health Centre that facilitates health care for Inuit patients in Montreal, announced on March 2 that it will be centralizing its facilities. The NQM will consolidate its resources, currently scattered across Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, when it moves to the YMCA’s Y Residence in Westmount on April 9. The Inuulitsivik Health Centre, along with the Ungava Tulattavik
Health Centre and the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services (NRBHSS), makes up the Nunavik health and social services network. These organizations serve 14 communities in the Nunavik region of Northern Quebec, 90 per cent of whose residents are Inuit. They routinely refer patients that they cannot accommodate to Montreal for specialized medical treatments. The NQM processes these referrals and arranges all transportation, lodging, interpretation, follow-up, and support services for the patients and their families.
According to an NRBHSS press release, the new facility remains a “short- and medium-term” relief for for the NQM’s continuing need for a permanent residence in Montreal. The NBRHSS press release also states, “the MNQ is pleased to retain the services of Chez Gigi et Michèle, a residential resource that will continue offering lodging to pregnant women who encounter complications during their pregnancy.” The goal of permanent residence seemed in reach last May when the NQM sought to purchase a vacant former Chinese hospital in Villeray. Several elected officials and resi-
dents objected to the plan, making the NQM apprehensive about community acceptance and ultimately led to the decision to look for space elsewhere. “Faced with the opposition,” said an NRBHSS press release from September 9, 2010, “the Nunavik health and social services organizations were strongly concerned that the Inuit clientele would not be accepted in the Villeray borough.” “The organizations of the Nunavik network firmly believe that the injury inflicted is too deep to pursue the relocation project to the former Chinese hospital,” Alasie Arngak,
chairperson of the NRBHSS board of directors, added in the press release. The consolidation of the NQM’s services at the Y has several benefits including increased security. At the Y Residence the NQM’s patients will enjoy the building’s security service, its registered and controlled user access, and additional security guards posted 24 hours a day on the three floors occupied by the NQM. As to amenities, the Y Residence offers 150 beds, an on-site cafeteria, as well as laundry facilities. Its proximity to the McGill University Health Centre will also make the centre’s services more accessible to patients.
6 News
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
AMUSE prepares for negotiations
Rally
Casual workers union drafts first collective agreement
Continued from page 3
Erin Hudson
In total, Zaidi predicted that there were a hundred McGill students at the demonstration. Émilie Fillion-Donato, SSMU political affairs coordinator, told The Daily, “This is a good turnout for McGill, usually I don’t think the McGill population is super mobilized.” Some people, such as former McGill student Aimée Cloutier, were not as impressed by the turnout. “I think it’s really important to be here, I’m a little surprised there are not more people. McGill’s a large university,” said Cloutier in French. Zaidi expects that having students mobilized around wider Quebec issues will put pressure on the McGill administration. “The administration is definitely banking on the fact that the University is a bubble. They are lobbying intensely for tuition increases, having students not know what is going on outside of
The McGill Daily
T
he Board of Representatives for the McGill University Association of Support Employees (AMUSE) held an open meeting Tuesday night for members to add input on the union’s first-ever collective agreement with McGill. AMUSE represents 2,500 casual workers at McGill and became officially recognized as a union last December. Casual employees are part-time employees who often replace full-time staff, represented by the union McGill University NonAcademic Certified Association (MUNACA), when they are on temporary leave of absence. AMUSE and McGill will begin negotiations on their collective agreement March 23. McGill Associate Vice-President (Human Resources) Lynne Gervais said that McGill employs 10 per cent of the student body as casual workers. “[Casual workers are] the only support staff group in McGill that are not unionized, and they don’t have any benefits that MUNACA workers have,” said Fariduddin Attar, president of AMUSE. “As we get to this point right now where we have 2,500 workers, we need to have a collective agreement that includes some of the benefits that MUNACA workers have.”
“We do have specific issues that we’re fighting for with McGill that are unique to casual workers,” he added, highlighting three key issues: contracts, fair wage increases, and a push for general increases in wages. “We do know that casual workers in UQAM and UdeM who are already unionized, they tend to get higher pay after the collective agreement, so we want to push that,” said Attar. Attar explained that casual employees who replace full-time MUNACA workers do not recieve the same rate of pay. He noted that casual workers are often paid about $9.50 per hour – a rate Attar called “deplorable.” According to Attar, AMUSE will wait to see what McGill presents in terms of the administration’s budgetary concerns. “We want to see what McGill offers on the table and then work with that,” he said. “We’re kind of in uncharted waters,” said Gervais of the upcoming negotiations. “We haven’t even had a dicussion with them yet.” Regarding the challenges that AMUSE will face in the negotiations, Attar pointed to the diversity of the union’s membership. He said that casual employees range from employees like himself, who has worked at Printing Services for five years, to referees at the Athletic Centre working one hour a week.
“There’s no sense of solidarity that is constructed in the usual way as unions do, which is meeting in the workplace,” he said. He identified another key obstacle to mobilization as one of “self-perception.” “Most of the workers are students and they don’t really see themselves as workers – they see themselves primarily as students,” he said. AMUSE has conducted outreach to casual workers over the past several months through a variety of different methods, including a newsletter sent out to all casual employees. However, the union has experienced difficulty obtaining up to date employee lists from McGill in order to send out the union’s newsletter. Until last November, the most recent list of casual employees that AMUSE had recieved was dated June 2010. “It’s still a process, we’re still a very young union and we’re still working at developing a culture, and we’re hoping that the collective agreement and bargaining process will help that. I think it’s a matter of time,” said Attar. AMUSE’s temporary office is located in MUNACA’s building at 3483 Peel. Attar stated that the two unions have a strong working relationship and have formed a Joint Bargaining Committee. “We are in a very funny way interdependent on one another,” he said. “What we do is share information and share strategies.”
the University is to their advantage. Seeing McGill students mobilizing in solidarity with the Quebec student movement will definitely help,” she said. “People in power see McGill as an elite institution, so when McGill students start to raise their voices to say they are fed up about things, we tend to get listened to,” Pedneault added. A banner that read “No Tuition Hikes” was hoisted onto the Roddick gates by members of the Mob Squad during the protest. The demonstration proceeded relatively peacefully. However, before the demonstration started, a group of ten people dressed in black were surrounded and arrested by approximately forty riot police on horseback. Originally charged with conspiracy and possession of weapons, all ten were released on Monday. —With files from Adrian Turcato and Rana Encol
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Documentary profiles former McGill professor Norman Cornett discusses dismissal and views on education Valerie Mathis News Writer
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cGill graduate Norman Cornett taught religious studies at the university for 15 years before he was fired without explanation in 2007. His unconventional teaching ethics, views on learning, and unprecedented dismissal were portrayed by filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin in the documentary Professor Norman Cornett: Since when do we divorce the right answer from an honest answer? The film screened yesterday at Université de Montréal. After the screening, Cornett took time to field questions from the audience and speak to The Daily about his unique vision for education. “I started out normal. I would give quizzes, midterms, and final exams. But when a gifted 21-yearold male student comes to your office and literally breaks into a nervous meltdown, you start telling yourself that there has to be another way,” he said. Cornett recalls being exposed to
innovative ideas on education as an undergraduate student. “Before coming to McGill, I had studied at the University of Berkeley where the sky was the limit in terms of education,” Cornett told The Daily. “I see education as a field of dream. For me, the classroom became a theatre of learning with no restrictions, no boundaries: uncensored, unedited, and unplugged.” Cornett was very clear about his views on education at university. “An undergraduate degree should not teach you a vocation, it should teach you how to live. As a teacher, I feel entirely responsible for giving to my students the peripheral vision and the confidence they need to face life once they graduate. Life is not a straight line. We should bring to our students life as it is,” he said. As a result, Cornett developed over the years what he calls a “theatre of learning.” “As I liked to tell my students during the add-drop period, my class was an academic version of Survivor,” he said. In the documentary, former students described the class and testi-
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fied to the merits of their professor. Classes were composed of a mixture of creative writing, fieldtrips to various artistic events around Montreal, and rigorous dialogues with distinguished figures such as politicians Paul Martin and Lucien Bouchard, author Harry Rosen, musician David Amram, and actor Ethan Hawke. “The classroom became a community. The students were empowered and free to express themselves, to voice out their thoughts, even in front of a former Prime Minister,” he said. “As a teacher, I wanted to teach the students to have the confidence to validate their own convictions, and to engage in a mutual dialogue. The rest is academic BS.” Cornett also spoke to the importance of creativity in education, which he believes is not implemented enough. His classes involved creative writing exercises, and required the students to choose a pseudonym, which would be used to refer to them all throughout the semester. Examples from the film included “Unintentional Matchmaker,” and “Little Mermaid.” McGill’s dismissal of Cornett,
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Norman Cornett speaks with Ethan Hawke in this undated photo. along with the administration’s refusal to justify their decision, shocked many students, family and friends, who denounced the institution as being “too rigid” and “unable to take risks.” Cornett’s dismissal is currently under review by Quebec’s Commission des normes du travail, although Cornett says his return to McGill is “unthinkable to the administration.”
Despite losing his job, Cornett still believes in the realization of his dreams about education. He continues to “walk the talk,” and energize the debate on education practices by orchestrating open dialogic sessions in Montreal with worldwide figures. Information about Prof. Cornett’s dialogic sessions can be found at have youexperienced.wordpress.com.
Candidate statements are due by midnight on Sunday, March 20 Rundowns on Wednesday, March 23 Interviews and elections on Thursday, March 24 in Shatner B-24
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
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Police shut down anti-brutality march Demonstrators trapped between police forces as St. Denis is cordoned off Erin Hudson
The McGill Daily
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s part of the International Day Against Police Brutality, Montreal began its annual anti-brutality demonstration on Tuesday at 5 p.m. outside Place des Arts metro station. Organized by the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COPB) in conjunction with other groups, the demonstration marched east along Maisonneuve and onto St. Laurent. Demonstrators chanted “No justice, no peace! Fuck the police!” and “Who’s street? Our street!” as they walked. They made it as far as St. Denis and Mari-Anne before police, clad in riot gear some mounted on horses, some with dogs - moved in on demonstrators and cordoned off the block. Two helicopters observed the demonstration’s progress while police cars, police mounted on bikes and horses, and on foot shadowed the march, observing from parallel streets. “It was amazing how much manpower, energy and time just for this manifestation...it was a spirit-breaking game,” said Ray Corkum, a demonstrator who was arrested along with 258 other people. Sarita Ahooja, a friend of COPB’s and an activist with No One is Illegal Montreal, said arrests began before the demonstration. Six friends of the COPB were arrested en route to the demonstration in lieu of their protest signs. “Because of our political beliefs, because of what we think, we are criminalized,” Ahooja said. “It’s important to show that people do oppose and disagree with the culture of impunity that reigns – not only in the City of Montreal but throughout Canada – when it comes to police abuses,” Ahooja added. “Whether it be the daily injustices of racial profiling, social profiling, an attack against poor people, marginalized people, [or] political profiling.” Montreal-based journalist and activist Stefan Christoff spoke about the issues that underly police brutality. “I don’t think you can really address police brutality without understanding the systems that create it,” he said pointing to the Conservative government cutting social programs and then handing out corporate tax breaks. He identified police as being the “enforcing arm” of the socioeconomic context created by such policies. “No one else is really allowed to pull a knife or a gun or a taser on anybody but the police, and most of the time they’re not pulling it out for some radically peaceful reason, right?” said Joshua, a participant in the demonstration. “They’re corporate policy enforcers. They’re there to protect the profits of other people, other companies.”
“[It’s] an economic reality that undermines the basic dignity, and also the sustenance, of so many people in our society,” added Christoff. “We can’t disconnect issues.” Since 1987, 43 people have been killed by police in Montreal. This is one of the primary issues regarding police brutality that must be adressed stated Christoff. “The police have not been held to proper account for these killings,” he said. “The only reason that there is some cosmetic moves to talk about the issue is because demonstrations happen like this every year, because people are speaking out.” “No matter how many cops you put on the street, no matter how many times you beat people down, no matter how many times you prevent them from protesting, there will always be someone to call out the truth and fight to defend what’s right and what’s just,” stated Ahooja. Joshua marched with demonstrators he identified as being part of the black bloc – a label attributed to those who wear all black and conceal their identities. “They were making rocks and stuff like that. I got to see them smash the Gap store,” he said. “If everybody took on the responsibility of being violent, to a certain degree, we would be able to be a lot more effective. We wouldn’t have violence be stereotyped by the lowest common denominator in the protest.” According to Corkum, police were prompted to cordon the demonstration when a woman was hit over the head with a wine bottle. He said that, although he was uncer-
Adam Scotti | The McGill Daily
Top: Police blockade detonates stun grenades on St-Denis while demonstrators look on. Bottom: A demonstrator is searched by police officers. tain of the exact circumstances, he believed the woman was among the demonstrators. Corkum also said that the police initially cited an attack on a police officer as the reason for intervention, revealing the “false pretense” behind the police’s decision to end the demonstration. “So be a cop, do your job, isolate those problems and allow the rest of us to demonstrate as it is our right to do,” he said. “It seems the only idea they have is to just shut everything down.” As they cordoned off blocks police hit their batons against their
shields as they advanced to blockade demonstrators in the street. Police detonated a “stun” which Corkum explained makes a lot of noise and smoke, and is meant to startle. “They all just kind of ran at you, and that made people run out to the sides and have a certain amount of people in the centre cornered. And they continued to do that three or four times, further cornering people in the centre,” said a demonstrator who wished to remain anonymous after being released from the cordon. “There’s nowhere to go. So
the people who end up getting arrested are just those who get stuck there.” “The way we were detained, the length of time was a demoralizing experience,” said Corkum. A group of around 20 people escaped the cordon through an apartment building lobby. The cordon detained both demonstrators, residents, shoppers in the adjacent buildings. One demonstrator called out to a woman who stood on her balcony directly over the cordon, “Call the police!” —With files from Henry Gass
Commentary
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
8
McGill is pseudo-sustainable
We need to be taking direct action to follow through on our environmental commitments Jenny Lu
Hyde Park
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arbage can be found everywhere at McGill. At “one of Canada’s best-known institutions of higher learning and one of the country’s leading research-intensive universities” doesn’t it seem strange that our campus is so unsustainable? Why does the SSMU cafeteria still have bottled water despite the bottled water ban? Why do Styrofoam plates need to be used for only half an hour and then thrown away? Why are recycling and composting bins as rare as yetis? Why are there so few vegetarian or vegan options? And most importantly, why are these things not priorities? People often talk of “saving the world,” but we must realize that we need Earth to survive, and in preserving it, we are saving ourselves too. We too are animals, another species that lives on this great planet known as Earth. Other issues that threaten our survival are dealt with at the utmost speed and fervour. Take war for example: even the longest war of 335 years does not compare to the amount of time we have spent abusing the environment we depend on for survival – without any real form of resistance to this destruction. Environmentalism should not be optional. We do not live in an anarchical society; already, there are things we cannot do. Those who might argue that the way things are now is “natural” must remember that natural usually only means customary. In the SSMU cafeteria, sustainability initiatives have been proposed to implement more viable practices. These include eliminating styrofoam and bottled water through cooperation
with the Plate Club, buying local food, better waste management by using Big Hannah and Gorilla Composting, more vegetarian and vegan food options, et cetera. All of these require collaboration between SSMU, the vendors, different campus organizations, and the McGill administration. However, the current state of affairs leaves something to be desired. For example, although there is talk of better waste management through composting and recycling, we have yet to see a single permanent composting receptacle on campus. There have also been no real efforts to reduce the amount of waste produced, such as through the use of biodegradable take-out containers as opposed to the plastic, styrofoam, and aluminum foil ones used throughout McGill. The SSMU cafeteria is only one of the many places food is served at McGill. Problems there can be seen everywhere else on campus as well, but may prove to be even more difficult to tackle due to the fact that most cafeterias are controlled by Aramark Canada. The marginalization of student input in these matters is evidenced most strongly by the Architecture Café closing last semester. Despite promises to “meet and exceed environmental and sustainability requirements,” I have yet to see any changes in the food served anywhere on campus. The choice of vegetarian and vegan options remains pitiful; there are few mentions of local food; and the enormous amount of waste produced along with a lack of waste management must make us wonder whether Aramark and McGill are really taking student cries for sustainability seriously. But progress is a slow and gradual process, and we must all do our
Olivia Messer | The McGill Daily
part by continuing to care and make our voices heard. Support environmental causes (that you believe in, of course) like Midnight Kitchen, the Plate Club, Organic Campus, Gorilla Composting, and the Flat, to name just a few. Talk to these groups and listen to their mandates. Demand more sustainable objec-
tives from our student leaders in SSMU, AUS, SUS, et cetera, and from our world leaders in government. Do little things like turning off the lights, avoiding bottled water, recycling, and composting. But most importantly do not sit back and say: “this is enough.” It may be an uphill battle, but in the end… it certainly
can’t be harder than chugging lukewarm Boréale at Bar des Arts on a Thursday. Jenny Lu is a U1 Arts and Science student and a member of the Plate Club, but the views here are her own. She can be reached at jenny. lu2@mail.mcgill.ca.
There is no such thing as a free lunch We should all pay our own way in university Koay Keat Yang Hyde Park
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he sociologist Robert Merton coined the term the “Matthew Effect” to describe the phenomenon where success accrues to the successful, often at the expense of the deprived. This has important implications to our cherished ideal of egalitarianism. In essence, this means that those with a slight edge will enjoy a cumulative advantage and be rewarded with more opportunities – a positive feedback loop. The Matthew Effect also appears in the debate surrounding tuition fees. As an illustration, consider two students, Matthew and Maggie, who have recently graduated from high school. Maggie decides to go to univer-
sity while Matthew decides to enter the labour force and work. As Matthew is working right now, he pays taxes which are used to finance or subsidize tuition fees for university students. The tax levied on Matthew to fund higher education is, in effect, an implicit penalty on him for not going to university. However, the penalty does not end here, for the true cost of the penalty also includes the wage differential between him and Maggie once she graduates and earns a premium “university-educated” wage. An interesting anecdote so far, but does it match up with the empirical data? If we go to Statistics Canada and browse through their 2008 numbers on the “Earnings of Individuals, by Selected Characteristics and National Occupational Classifications,” we are
able to tease out the wage differential between individuals with high school qualifications and a university degree across different sectors in the Canadian economy. Those with a university degree earned a higher salary on average than those with only high school qualifications. To account for plausible outliers, look at the median salary across both groups and observe that the numbers tell the same story. The general trend is consistent. Many would argue that individuals are free to make the choices that they have to, and assuming all are rational utility maximizing agents, Matthew probably took the course of action that maximized his utility in spite of the implicit penalty he had to pay. There are objections to that argument, however. Robert Frank made the interpretation from
Jeremy Bentham’s writing that if a welfare state is to govern on egalitarian principles, it would mean that utility – or its opposite form, disutility – has to be equalized among all individuals. Utility and disutility would have to be administered in equal proportion. This is why we find progressive taxes “just.” If a relatively poor man is taxed 15 per cent of his income, then a relatively rich man should be taxed an equal proportion of his income, hence equalizing the proportion of disutility both feel. It appears that education can be a form of investment that delivers return in premium “universityeducated” wage in the future, so it would be a violation of Benthamite utilitarianism to insist that Matthew pays for our tuition. It is not objectionable that a capitalist would
take out an interest bearing loan to finance an investment that provides returns in the future; it is repulsive to ask a poorer man to use his savings to finance a non-interest bearing loan for a richer man’s incomegenerating investment. I am all for access to higher education, and I am all for affordable tuition fees. But let our lobbying cause be not of artificially low tuition or free tuition at all costs, but a cause of paying for our own lunch and having our just desserts. Koay Keat Yang is a U0 Arts student whose education at McGill is sponsored by a third party. He hopes that this lack of stake in increased tuition will offer an alternative insight to promote campus discourse on this issue. He welcomes criticisms at keat. koay@mail.mcgill.ca.
Commentary
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
Mounted police survey the protest at Place du Canada.
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All photos by Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Solidarity please?
Looking beyond our unconditional aversion to violence Alex Briggs Hyde Park
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ast Saturday as many as 55,000 attended a rally against Jean Charest’s austerity measures – which will erode public support systems and strengthen the status quo – one that seemed largely ineffective. Notably, ten were arrested preemptively (i.e. with no actual cause) for being prepared to do more than take up space on the street. They were jailed for 54 hours on charges of conspiracy. I feel this rally was actually not just neutral but negative, as it gave the riot squad a chance to show their strength and intimidate the populace. It also must have strengthened their morale, as they were helped by some of the rally organizers in their arrests of members of a Black Bloc intent on resisting state encroachment in a more tangible way. This is disgusting. I hope that this article motivates its readers to clarify their positions on the riot police and the Black Bloc, in the hopes that they will be less misguided than those foolish rally organizers. It’s a reflexive habit (ingrained in us by the government) to have an aversion to dissenters and side with the police because they’re mandate is to “protect and serve” – as if our
state actually had our best interests at heart! As these very austerity measures make clear, this is a government of the rich, run for the rich, by the rich, and the riot cops are the strong-arms in between us and real democracy. In fact, they are the proof that the democracy we’re fed is false: if our voices could actually be heard, why would we bother to risk repression and beatings at protests? Even worse, the riot police use physical pain and scare tactics to condition a response of fear and submission. I think it’s important to see the state in this light. It’s very comforting to feel that they have your back, and now, while we’re living in an age of bounty, they’ve kept up this pretense – but this age is coming to a close, and all across North America and the world, elitism is growing. The riot cops are being prepared for the strife that will follow – I was there when they rounded the ten up, and I’ve never seen something so unprovoked – if we don’t learn to act now then we will be paralyzed and helpless in a few years, when the austerity measures hit home and rob our society of its freedoms. There are effective methods of peaceful protest, but this was certainly not one of them. A good protest must affect those that it is targeted toward – we must accept the
threat that the Black Bloc poses as an essential tool in our own social struggle, and we must organize our own resistance to defend this asset. And as for our demonstrations, they must have some effect as well. Had 55,000 staged a live-in around the Montreal City Hall, Charest may have actually been inclined to listen to the demands, but as it is I doubt he heard a word of it. As for the Black Bloc’s tactics, the only animate object they ever might harm is a cop. Corporate storeowners also have some right to dislike the Bloc (although really it’s only their insurance companies that pay) but for everyone else the Bloc is completely harmless. Our unconditional aversion to violence of any sort (except when used by cops or soldiers to repress and kill) is a debilitating weakness. So, there’s one group of people fighting for our rights and equality, who would never harm us – and another that exists to repress and control us, who would gladly beat on us if we happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (I saw a cop on a horse about to hit a sixty year-old man with his switch on Saturday)… so whose side are we on?
Above: Protesters left their mark on a monument at Place du Canada. Below: Supporters await the release of arrested protestors on Monday.
Alex Briggs is a U2 Mechanical Engineering student. Write him at ajhbriggs@gmail.com.
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10 Features
The race to buy American government
WISCO
Adam Sobchak* Features Writer
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t doesn’t take a political scientist to figure out that politics in America have become seriously diseased. The new Republican majority in the House is intent on either gutting America’s social safety net or forcing a government shutdown. Here in Wisconsin, our Republican governor and his majorities in both chambers of the Capitol have declared war on public sector unions, the last true stronghold of trade unionism in the United States. His “budget repair” bill outlaws essentially all collective bargaining and forces unions to recertify each year by getting the support of 51 per cent of total workers. (Bear in mind that this governor was elected with 52 per cent of all those in Wisconsin who voted, which was a little less than 52 per cent of the state’s eligible voting population.) Quite simply, this bill is meant to kill unions, and it probably was motivated more by the effect it could have on electoral politics than anything else. In an interview with Fox News recently, the Republican State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald let slip that “If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.” Money talks, and unions make up three of the top ten fundraisers in American politics. Most notably, they are the only three in the top ten who gave the majority of their money to Democratic candidates and causes. There’s no secret to it. Republicans are trying to kill that counterweight, once and for all. The stakes are high, especially in a state with such a proud progressive history that it was the first to grant public sector bargaining rights at all. So how has it all come to this? On the night of the 2010 midterm elections, I’d managed to hold out hope for our side until I was told by one of my colleagues on Russ Feingold’s re-election campaign that we were going to concede the race. Feingold,
one of the most principled Senators of the past few decades, a man whose courage had gotten him through challenge after challenge, had come up short. We had come up short. I don’t remember much of the speech, except for a choice Bob Dylan reference that got even the most hardened campaign vets to start bawling. Then the drinking started. I woke up sprawled on a carpeted beach of a hotel floor, marooned by the metaphorical “tidal wave” that had hit the elections. (The pundits were characteristically addicted to that phrase.) My captain had been washed away and the landscape seemed unrecognizable. Wisconsin had lost a Democratic governorship, both chambers of the legislature, and two long-serving legislative leaders of the American Left in the Senate and House. In their place came Scott Walker, who couldn’t graduate college; Rebecca Kleefisch, a former anchorwoman who has spent her time coldcalling businesses in Illinois and asking them to relocate to Wisconsin; Ron Johnson, a man whose only qualification for Senate seemed to be that he was completely unqualified; and Sean Duffy, a handsome lawyer and lumberjack champion who had been on the Boston season of MTV’s The Real World. These people and others across the country made a perfect ensemble cast for our political zeitgeist – some made-for-TV pseudo-reality wobbling on that fine line between funny and sad. But this is apparently what happened when voters stopped being polite and started getting real. At least they definitely stopped being polite. But were they getting real? Any answer depends on your opinion of the Tea Party.
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lot has been written on the Tea Party: its language, its members, and its impact on the 2010 elections. We need to talk about the first two to understand the third. As far as its discourse goes, the Tea Party has done its utmost to delegitimize the federal government by using a collage of misinterpretations masquerading as history, xenophobic, and often violent rhetoric, and nostalgia for a nonsensical neverpast. The Tea Party are masters
of allusion – drawing their speeches from a lexicon of metaphor, myth, and nostalgia. They use constant references to an imaginary group of pious, anti-intellectual “Founding Fathers” who loved guns and hated federalism mixed with nostalgia for the “simpler” times of the 1950s, when unionization was at its highest, a Republican president warned of the militaryindustrial complex, and the Supreme Court was just beginning to get active on matters of race. Wait, that’s not right. They were nostalgic for those other fifties, when Joe McCarthy had America on Red Alert and a black man couldn’t eat a sandwich in certain restaurants, much less be elected President. The Tea Party’s effectiveness relies on reducing matters of great complexity – political philosophy, American history, and public policy – to a simplistic crusade of catch phrases rife with contradiction. It declared itself a movement of “Constitutional Conservatives,” simple purists rooted in a historical tradition of the Founding Fathers. They read the First Amendment as promoting public prayer but decidedly against any sort of mosque in lower Manhattan, and they intuited that the Founding Fathers had presciently wanted all true Americans to be armed with semiautomatic assault rifles at all times. Much fuss was made of the ordinariness, the “real”-ness of the Tea Party. It represented “real” Americans: almost exclusively white, suburban, exurban, or rural folk with an indefatigable Christian fervor. This emphasis on realness served two purposes. First, it leant an air of legitimacy to the movement necessary for the resonance of its aims and message. Its pursuit of legitimacy also yielded a second benefit. Implicit in determining the “real” America was identifying the foil of a non-real America. Immigrants are not “real” America. Muslim-Americans are not “real” America. Even the President of the United States isn’t “real” America. All this loaded language, misplaced nostalgia, and emphasis on “authenticity” convinced me that the Tea Party is no more than a well-crafted brand. And like any good brand it evokes a wealth of emotions, memories, and
desires. The Tea Party brand and all of its code words – the veiled threats, the victimized “taxpayer,” the nostalgia for a simpler time that never really existed, the populism – was one hell of a brand. And it took a hell of a brand to convince the people who had once clamoured for the profligate Bush administration that they were now fiscal spendthrifts. The Tea Party was just the latest repackaging from the best brain trust in political branding – the natural outcome of that one Morning in America™ when the Straight Talk Express™ stopped on Main Street USA™ to pick up all the Joe Six-Packs™ before following the Road Map for America’s Future™ all the way to Washington. And it wouldn’t be a brand if it didn’t convince people to buy a product.
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hat product was a slate of candidates that were either ridiculously underqualified or so drastically re-invented that they were hardly recognizable as the traditional American politicians who, for better or worse, reeked of the proverbial sausage factory. I shed no tears for the decline of the old guard of the GOP, but the new breed didn’t even seem to understand the contours of the playing field. Flip on the TV in mid-October and you’d see Christine “I’m Not a Witch” O’Donnell in a heated debate against her Democratic opponent, demanding, “Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?” You would see Ron “Global Warming is Caused by Sunspots” Johnson lamenting gerrymandered Senate districts before summing up his sophistic ideology by referring to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as his foundational book. Johnson and O’Donnell were just a taste of the zany cast of Real World: America, now being broadcast live 24 hours a day by CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox News, and every other media outlet you can think of. But these characters were not only real; they were threatening to win with the best campaign machines that money could buy. All around the country, Tea Party candidates hired former Bush administration officials
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The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
ONSIN
Niko Block | The McGill Daily
and all manner of other elitists in the name of their campaigns for “real” America. You can learn a lot about a candidate from who they hire. Look at it this way. Everyone in Washington wears pretty nice clothes. Any commenter being honest with themselves should know that the vast majority of Tea Party candidates weren’t drawing their staff from the supposedly “real” America. Those around them came from the good ole boys of the Grand Ole Party: lobbyists, strategists, and consultants. Make no mistake: a Tea Party candidate is your run-of-the-mill Republican, just packaged in the 2010 Tea Party brand. So the real Republicans were putting up fake candidates aimed at appealing to a somewhat fake populist movement. But these fakes needed money. Money to mobilize people behind the Tea Party, money to swamp the airwaves with attack ads, and money to support candidates who had a lot of trouble garnering actual financial support from the citizens supporting them. Then in January 2010 came the Supreme Court ruling on the Citizens United case, which reversed a century’s worth of legislation in its ruling that corporate entities could essentially spend as much money as they could raise on getting candidates elected. In the words of the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation, “Citizens United created an environment in which it is perfectly legal for a shell non-profit corporation to engage in election-related spending on behalf of a hidden interest.” There were two groups who seem to have benefitted the most from the decision. The first were traditional corporations and lobbies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who could now spend at will on relatively unregulated political communications. If they manage to survive the next few years, unions will be included in this group as well. They are the only real counterweight to corporate Republican financiers. Then there were nonprofit groups with banal, inoffensive names like Americans for Prosperity or Citizens United. But these two groups weren’t as separate as they appeared. Americans for Prosperity is a political front
group for Koch Industries, a huge conglomerate run by an arch-conservative family with extensive interests in rolling back environmental protections, costs of labour, and corporate taxation. The seemingly innocuous political group has spent ridiculous amounts of money to draw susceptible Tea Partiers into faux-grassroots shows of force in order to create the illusion of middle-class populism, thus legitimizing corporatist legislation.
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he impact of all the Citizens United cash on the 2010 election cannot possibly be overstated. Feingold’s first reelection campaign ran on a budget of around $4 million, and he did his best to avoid running attack ads. In 2010, our campaign was spending around $13 million, just to keep up with Ron Johnson, the self-financing Republican candidate who spent $14 million, of which about $9 million came from his own fortune. Johnson additionally raised far more corporate donations than Feingold. On top of this, outside parties were running so many attack ads that my girlfriend and I couldn’t have a simple, apolitical YouTube chill out without being told that my boss loved the national debt and thus hated America. Oftentimes the ads would contradict each other, but boy were they effective. A day before the election, I ended up on the phone with an older woman who had called the office to ask about an ad she’d seen that claimed Feingold had voted for $500 billion worth of cuts to America’s federally funded health coverage for senior citizens. It took me less than two minutes to explain the fallacy to the voter, whose vote changed in that two minutes. But we didn’t have two minutes with every voter. Only in Real World: America could Ron Johnson’s TV ads claim that Feingold was “the only Great Lakes senator” to vote against banning drilling in the Great Lakes. The bill in question was the 2005 Energy Policy Act, also known as the Cheney Energy Act. Primarily known for its massive environmental deregulation, the bill also included a minor provision putting a moratorium on new drilling in the Great Lakes. Feingold voted against the bill, the out-
comes of which were last seen gushing out of a blown out well in the Gulf of Mexico. We just couldn’t win. So we lost. And Real World: America has stayed true to its tragicomic formula into its second season. Johnson was so concerned with “real” Americans that he didn’t bother making a website for his first two months in office, and my phone calls to him didn’t even catch a voicemail machine. He hired a veteran lobbyist as his chief of staff a few days after winning as a “citizen legislator” and has yet to sponsor a single bill in the Senate. This wasn’t really surprising. Like many Tea Party candidates, the man seemed to have no idea what the job actually consisted of. He memorized a few talking points and spoke in convincing generalities. When asked about the plight of homeless veterans, he famously responded that “the election wasn’t about the details.” Not to worry, though. The new Tea Partiers will inevitably come to rely on those who truly got them there: corporations, lobbyists, and members of the traditional Republican establishment. They won’t bring any new perspective to Washington – they’re just new spokespeople for the same old policies. They are unable to make real change, even if they want to, because they don’t know how. So while the vast majority of the people of real America – the people who get poorer and poorer, whose healthcare costs get higher and higher, who work more and more for less pay – struggle to pay their bills, corporations expand their influence over government more and more.
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’m sitting against a marble column in my state’s beautiful Capitol rotunda. Our college dropout governor, Scott Walker, has thrust Wisconsin into an all-out class war, and this is ground zero. His campaign, like all successful Republican campaigns, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporations and Political Action Committees and now he’s making good on his quid pro quos. It’s Sunday, February 27, the day that the Republican-controlled administrative committee has determined that they will clear out
the encampment of peaceful protesters that have lived in the Capitol non-stop for almost two weeks. It is an organic, beautiful thing. Protest signs cover the walls, and a group of dedicated volunteers organize support for the demonstrators, including food and medical services. Wisconsin’s lifeblood of thousands of workers, students, and professionals now double as the state’s class consciousness. While the national media has dropped the ball in reporting this story in a number of ways, the one story line that really gets me pissed is the false equivalency some commentators have tried to draw between this and the Tea Party. What’s going on here is not a corporatist snow job trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. This is not astroturf. Though the media has sometimes tried to paint it as mass mobilization by the big, bad unions, or president Obama’s Organizing for America organization, I can say that this is a genuine, organic, grassroots movement the likes of which I have never seen before. Unlike the re-branded Republican Party, this is not a facelift or a marketing scheme for the Democrats. At one point, a couple thousand Tea Partiers showed up, listened to a speech by Joe the Plumber™, then left in the buses that Americans for Prosperity provided for them. Twenty minutes before the 4 p.m. deadline that the police have set for clearing the building, an Assembly Democrat who has tried the hardest to hitch his wagon to this movement gets on “the people’s microphone” (I know, I know) to tell us that we should leave with him at 4 o’clock. Most listen respectfully. Some shout “shame!” Six-hundred or so people listen before ignoring his pleas. This movement doesn’t have clear leaders and it doesn’t have the cults of personality. More than 100,000 of our ranks remained and returned, day after day. It’s easy for us because we live here and we’re the ones with everything to lose. And it takes more than the Democratic lawmaker who’s been yelling the loudest to convince us to leave. This may actually be the real America I’ve been waiting for. *Adam Sobchak is a pseudonym.
Letters
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
12
Re: “Engaging with opposition” | Commentary | March 10
When one uses words with no sense of their implications, or discursive ramifications, they inevitably lose their meaning. Jaïs Mehaji U3 Political Science (Honours)
You can’t forget the Y chromosome!
Don’t make a causal argument where there isn’t one
MINDFCUK exhibit a variation on the norm
China is more than your one-dimensional view
“Colonizing” is not a word to be made light of
Re: “Against evolutionist theories of gender” | Commentary | March 14
Re: “A cure of the mind” | Health and Education | March 10
Re: “Art should not be exclusive” | Letters | March 14
Re: “Beijing, Beijing” | Commentary | March 14
Re: “Engaging with opposition” | Commentary | March 10
In her article “Against evolutionist theories of gender,” Diane Le Gall uses faulty biology to support her argument. For instance, the author cites the fact that a person’s genome is contributed by both of their parents. However, imprinting through DNA methylation ensures that both “halves” actually express different sets of genes depending on their parent of origin. While a transfer of maternal and paternal genetic information called “crossing-over” does take place, it only occurs in developing sperm and eggs and only involves one cut per chromosome. The two sets remain separate and readily differentiable in every other human tissue, with imprinting being reset to the sex of the parent during gametogenesis. Thus, the idea that “the cerebral structure is the result of such an intermingling” couldn’t be further from the truth. Imprinted genes are known to be heavily involved in mammalian neural development, including the formation of the hypothalamus (paternal genes), and the cortex, striatum and hippocampus (maternal genes) in mouse brains. Epigenetics aside, Le Gall’s logic doesn’t seem to permit the existence of the Y chromosome, which is like a switch responsible for turning on regulatory genes for maleness that would remain unexpressed in female embryos. Nor does her argument explain the behaviour of solitary mammals like bears, which varies between the sexes despite the lack of any societal structure. It is clear that behaviour is as capable of being subject to evolutionary pressures as any other sex-specific trait: a gene only upregulated in females can be transmitted intact from grandmother to granddaughter through an intermediate son. To claim that evolution cannot have played a role in gender differences is simply unscientific on a genetic basis.
I found that Debbie Wang’s article on placebo effects, “A cure of the mind,” was interesting and thoughtful. I remember being shocked when I learned in a psych class that placebos sometimes work just as well as antidepressant medications. However, Wang’s article appears to make an unsubstantiated leap in claiming that antidepressants work because of the placebo effect. It’s not a secret that placebos have been found to work just as well as many drugs, including, in many cases, antidepressants. However, as many an introductory psychology course will tell us, the power of the placebo does not mean that actual antidepressants don’t work. All it means is that the placebo effect is very powerful and may sometimes work just as well. It’s just faulty logic to say that this means the “real thing” isn’t actually doing anything. It’s like saying, “because I would be satisfied if my best friend was replaced by a robot imposter, my best friend isn’t really that valuable.” The phenomenon of the lack of difference between medicated versus non-medicated groups in pharmaceutical trials is a testament to the mind-boggling awesomeness of the placebo effect – not the uselessness of antidepressants. In other words, the fact that placebos sometimes work as well as antidepressants does not justify implying that the placebo effect is responsible for why antidepressants work. There’s a big difference!
First off, I’m glad Kerry Maguire decided to attend a Fridge Door Gallery (FDG) event (I’m assuming). I am not affiliated with the FDG in any way, but have long been an eager attendee at their shows. I wonder, however, how Maguire arrived at several of the points made in the letter. First off, FDG advertised from the very beginning that MINDFCUK was a solo exhibit. MINDFCUK was also their first ever solo exhibit. You asked in your letter of March 14 that FDG vary their events to include more inclusive events, yet MINDFCUK was just that: a variation of the norm and the first ever of its kind. Furthermore, the “two or three” events that FDG hosts seem much less insignificant when you consider the amount of usable school time in an academic year when you subtract for holidays, midterms, and finals. Work from a variety of artists must be submitted, collected, and a gallery space curated. It is a huge undertaking and I commend FDG for putting on as many events as they do. The art world is by its very nature exclusive. Gallery spaces and museums reflect what an elite group of people trained in the field deem to be the best. By exhibiting a wide variety of student art in a space that is both free of charge and open to all McGill students, the FDG is by far the most democratic gallery I know of. I respectfully disagree with you, Maguire. Art IS exclusive and the Fridge Door Gallery is a refreshing exception to this rule.
It’s certainly clear that Ted Sprague is handling his experiences in China at an arm’s length. China isn’t the most accessible country to foreigners, chiefly due to language and cultural barriers. Having been to China in the summer, many of the Chinese who did speak English were quick to disperse illusions perpetrated by the West that depict the communist nation as a disparate and oppressive regime that leaves their population of over one billion utterly disenfranchised. Sprague, who thinks himself the authoritative voice for oppressed populations, looks upon a city chock full of both historical austerity and technological innovation and sees naught but knock-offs, cheap labour, and sweatshops. The Chinese are not sheep, nor are they so primitive as to mindlessly commit to assembly line modes of production. They are skilled, well-read, and not altogether unhappy. Their public transit is some of the best in the world and is still expanding (consulted on by both government and populace). Musicians and artisans exist in every neighbourhood and, while difficult to climb the ranks, it is not difficult to live comfortably. Many places of employment consider feeding and lodging their employees an unspoken part of the job while also providing other services like recreational and childcare facilities. China may not be a paradise, but neither is any other country (unless you define “paradise” by the presence of a beach), and it certainly isn’t the veritable shithole that Sprague makes it out to be. By focusing on the negative, he proves to be unable to note any scrap of beauty that might be right before his eyes. His dismissal of what China has to offer proves to be disappointing and is probably more oppressive than any words he could ever express.
I am writing in response to an outrageous claim made by Jon Booth. The falsehood is the following: “Israel is one of only three countries actively colonizing land that it holds illegally (the other two are China and Morocco, whose respective activities in Tibet and Western Sahara are quite similar).” The fundamental problem with that claim is Booth’s ignorance of the Moroccan/Western Saharan conflict and its intricate political dynamics, but precisely the overly-liberal and unfounded use of words such as “colonization” and “occupation.” Not only does Booth not adduce any evidence whatsoever, but he also analogizes the Moroccan “occupation” of a failed microstate, supported by Iran, Cuba, and Libya, to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. The fact that the Moroccan/ Saharan question is somewhat eclipsed by mainstream events and that McGill students aren’t generally well versed in the topic because it is relatively neglected region, is exploited by Booth to make claims he knows no one will dispute. Further, Booth’s failed analogy also does more harm than good to his argument about the Palestinians since it reveals his profound ignorance about the power of words. When one uses words with no sense of their implications, or discursive ramifications, they inevitably lose their meaning. In my view, Booth’s usage of the word “colonization” has now lost all substance and weight. Nowhere, not in the archives of the International Criminal Court, nor in any United Nations Security Council Resolutions, has the relation between Morocco and its rightfully owned Sahara ever been characterized as one of “colonization.” Booth simply echoes the fabrications of Spanish propaganda and other sources which have historically been unjustly biased toward Morocco. The Moroccan claim is incontestable. When Booth misconstrues this question, he (consciously or not) dismisses all of its inherent complexities and reduces the entire question to an “illegal colonization” – which he has no idea about. That, I find unfortunate and academically insidious on his part.
Thanks for listening, Elaina Kaufman U3 Middle East Studies and Psychology
Derek So U2 Biology
There are only a few issues left, and I want to print all of your letters! Send them to letters@mcgilldaily.com from your McGill email address, include your year and program, and keep them to 300 words or less. The Daily does not print letters that are xenophobic, sexist, or otherwise hateful.
Michelle Reddick U2 History and Art History
Vidal Wu U0 Arts
Jaïs Mehaji U3 Political Science (Honours)
Health&Education
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
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Mental health services at their limits A look at the serious issues facing the university’s other health care clinic Sarah Mortimer
The McGill Daily
W
hen an anonymous article detailing one student’s struggle with suicidal thoughts during her university career appeared in the Harvard Crimson last month, the response from students was overwhelming. In the course of three weeks, over 100 students from across the United States posted comments to the article online, most either thanking the author for her courage to speak out or recounting an equally horrific experience. “[I] Guess this is the right platform to come out and address the dark underbelly of a supposedly successful IVY-League professional life – six unsuccessful attempts at suicide, three of which ended up in the ICU,” one Harvard student wrote. The widespread response to this article is indicative of a recent upsurge in the number mental health problems among university students. According to a U.S. national survey, the number of students who visit university counseling services with serious mental illness has doubled in the last decade, along with an increase in the number of students requiring prescriptions or emergency care. At McGill, the number of students using McGill Mental Health Services (MMHS) has risen at an equally alarming rate. According to the Director of MMHS, Robert Franck, the service has gone from caring for 1,000 students over the 2000-01 academic year, to having scheduled an estimated 20,000 visits from the beginning of June 2010 to the end of May 2011. Of these, 1,100 were emergency drop-ins and 1,500 were new patients. The question of whether MMHS is prepared to meet these increased student mental health needs is one that must be seriously addressed. In the past few years, MMHS has seen improvements in a number of areas. According to Franck, wait times have gone down since last year, and more effort has been made to introduce non-medicinal anxiety treatments to students. The introduction of mindfulness groups (or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy groups) and a university-based eating disorder program are some of
MMHS’s recent achievements to have gained recognition from other universities. But as the school population grows larger, MMHS’s current model is extremely likely to fail certain students. Financial and structural problems continue to prevent MMHS from obtaining its ideal goals to provide sufficient care for all students. Currently, MMHS has a staff of only twenty part-time workers – composed of ten psychiatrists, five PhD students, and five psychologists – the equivalent of ten fulltime staff. “I would like more full-time [professionals], but part of the problem with psychiatrists is that I’m in competition with the hospital system. So getting a psychiatrist to come and work here means that they really can’t work at the hospital and obviously hospitals can afford to be more generous financially than McGill can,” said Franck. At the moment, MMHS receives its funding from both the provincial government and Student Services. In 2008, they tried to raise the mental health fee for graduate students, but the increase was voted down. “The only way we can increase funding is to get money from students…the implication of that [vote] was that the money we were relying on from PGSS to fund extra hours amongst clinicians wasn’t available.” This March, PGSS will vote again on the increase. When asked whether the administration would consider donating funds to MMHS in light of enrolment increases, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson insisted that there was no room in the administration’s budget for any new ventures: “It’s taken student money, that’s just the financial realities,” he said. “Some problems you can’t solve by throwing money at [them].” And while Mendelson’s response echoes the adminstration’s neglectful attitudes toward students needs, there is indeed reason to criticize how MMHS currently functions. Although McGill is one of the few Canadian universities not to cap the number of sessions available to any student, and offers psychiatric consultation without referral, its open-door
Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily
McGill Mental Health Services is estimated to have scheduled 20,000 appointments from June 2010 to May 2011.
approach has both encouraged expedient means to health care and placed more stress on its current services. Arden Keller, a U3 Arts student, used MMHS both when treating her anxiety disorders and working on suicide prevention. In an interview with The Daily, she discussed the failures of the system to deal with students whose mental conditions require more than just extremely short-term care. “They can do assessment but they can’t do treatment,” she said. “‘MMHS’s system in my opinion is just a glorified triage center….” In her own experience, Keller’s biggest criticism of MMHS was its lack of policy concerning how to care for suicidal patients: “I remember going in once – and it was a couple days
a student survey with the help of Students Services, and increasing Mental Health’s overall campus presence. “I’d like to see MMHS get more involved in outreach,” he said. “Mental health is more than just the absence of mental health it’s….looking at…how to encourage adaptive coping strategies amongst students early on.” Yet more funding and a stronger presence from the administration is needed for MMHS to meet the demands of students. As Keller explained, the consequences of this continued neglect are dire: “The bottom line is, it’s not just about frustrating waitlists and being bounced around, it’s the system failing people.”
after a suicide attempt and being like, ‘I think I’m going to do it again’. And I had this one doctor and she actually said, “I don’t know what to do here.’ That’s when I realized that they don’t have a system in place to deal with students who are really suicidal.” The possibility that such established systems have been worn down because of MMHS’s overrun services is not unlikely. As Keller noted, “I don’t think that the people work[ing] there lack empathy or don’t care. I think they’re probably doing the best they can with a really, really broken system.” In the upcoming year, Franck hopes to establish ways of getting more feedback from students and improving upstream health care. His plans include creating
Arden Keller is a pseudonym.
Run for Health and Education Editor Email healthandeducation@mcgilldaily.com for more info
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14Health&Education
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
Solar supplements Vitamin D has become a veritable medical sensation Peter Shyba
Health&Education Writer
T
he world loves a panacea. Things that give hope for chronic diseases come along rarely, and when they do, they become popular among scientists and civilians alike. But are they always effective? Vitamin D is a good example of this phenomenon. Vital for human functioning, the vitamin aids in the creation of the hormone calcitriol when skin is exposed to sunlight. It has long been known that the vitamin’s primary purpose is to aid in calcium absorption in the body, helping prevent osteoporosis in seniors and the strengthening of bones in adolescents. New research, however, has broadened its possible mechanisms of action, and led to its most recent label as a potential “nutrient of the decade” by the New York Times. Research gives hope that vitamin D could help in either the treatment or prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease,
Crohn’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, depression, autism, obesity, and numerous cancers. The Canadian Nutrition Society released a document last November advising Canadians to drastically increase their intake of vitamin D, from 200 International Units (IU) to 600IU per day. According to research cited by the Society, vitamin D deficiency is the cause of 37,000 premature deaths and $14 billion in health care costs annually in Canada. The current amount recommended falls in line with the 600IUs recommended by the CNS, but critics argue that this still falls far short of what is necessary. David Hanley, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine and the author of numerous studies on Vitamin D, advocates for doses based on age and risk factors. The Osteoporosis Canada Guidelines, a report coauthored by Hanley, “suggest a range of doses, which include the IOM (Institute of Medicine) dose recommendations, but also go higher. For people under age fifty, we rec-
ommended an intake from supplements of 400-1,000 International Units (IU) perday, and over age fifty, 800-2,000 IU per day.” Vitamin D, unlike most other vitamins, is not found abundantly in common food sources. Fatty fish, including salmon, tuna, and catfish, as well as beef liver and eggs, contain small amounts of the vitamin. Dairy products, although not a natural source, have been supplemented with vitamin D Canadawide. One cup of milk contains, on average, 100 IU. But by far the strongest natural source of the vitamin, and likely the reason so many Canadians are deficient, is UVB rays from the sun. In order to get enough vitamin D per day, an individual must spend 15 to 20 minutes in direct sunlight. Because most Canadians spend much of their time in the winter indoors, it’s easy to understand why this deficiency can be considered an epidemic. There is agreement that vitamin D is good for people, but the recommended dosage varies depend-
ing on who you talk to, and, among other things, how much funding that person has received from either the tanning industry (for vitamin D) or the sunscreen and cosmetic industry (against vitamin D). Michael Holick, or “Dr. Sunshine,” a member of the former group, advocates massive doses of both sun exposure and supplements, sometimes up to 6,000IU for pregnant women. In 2004, he was fired from the dermatology department at Boston University (BU) because the chair of the department “couldn’t have someone promoting [sun] exposure.” This promotion could perhaps be explained by those who fund his research: the American UV Foundation (a branch of the Indoor Tanning Association) gave $150,000 to BU during his tenure. Recently, promising research seemingly free of bias has been done on the positive effects of vitamin D. A study published in the Journal of Geriatric Psychology and Neurology examined 1,766 men and women in Britain, measur-
ing the levels of vitamin D in their blood. The study showed that those in the lowest quarter of vitamin D levels were 2.3 times more likely to be cognitively impaired than those in the top quarter. In response to these studies, Canadians are demanding more blood work to determine their levels of vitamin D, much to the chagrin of the federal government and overburdened family doctors. In Calgary, testing for deficiency has increased 700 per cent in the past three years, accounting for $2 million locally. Ontario recently stopped covering blood work for vitamin D, citing the financial burden of unnecessary testing. Hanley suggests that testing be reserved only for those at high risk, while everyone else should simply take a supplement. People are excited that such a simple and inexpensive vitamin could increase both quality and duration of life by preventing a host of diseases. Now it’s just a matter of how much one needs, and how much one pays.
Kraft singles’ night out Dressing up the everyday grilled cheese Dine with Dash Thomas Dashwood dinewithdash@mcgilldaily.com
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hankfully, Kraft Singles were not a part of my childhood, but I certainly grew up on the “toastie,” a British equivalent of the grilled cheese made with, well, actual cheese. Despite this snobbery, my skin crawls when I hear mention of “gourmet” grilled cheese. The word “gourmet” is horribly misused and such food almost never lives up to its name. I am not going to tell you how to make a grilled cheese step by laborious step, but I will present some suggestions for a sort of “upgraded” grilled cheese, completely lacking in the overstated resplendence of the “gourmet” while retaining some of the homey comfort that Kraft Singles can provide.
Grilled Cheese
Cheese:
Cooking:
Grate, crumble or thinly slice the cheese, and place it directly on the bread to ensure it melts and to help stick the sandwich together. Almost any cheese will do, but my favourites include sharp cheddars, fresh mozzarella, gruyère, brie, havarti, ricotta, and mascarpone.
Use butter or a rich (extra virgin) olive oil for optimal crunch and flavour. Cook on a medium heat; if it is too high the fat and bread could burn, and the filling will not heat through in time. If you are tempted to press down on the sandwich with a spatula while it cooks, I can guarantee that using a pot lid is much more satisfying.
Filling: As for the filling, less is often more (and more usually means a sandwich that is impossible to cook through). Slice fruits, vegetables and meats thinly. Also, the filling should not be too wet, otherwise it will make the bread soggy and prevent the sandwich sticking together. Try to keep moist components of the filling – such as tomatoes, fresh fruits, and sauces toward the middle of the sandwich. Nicole Stradiotto | The McGill Daily
Some ideas to get you started: Ham, Gruyère, apple, mustard; Roasted pork or chicken, havarti, red pepper, balsamic vinegar; Spicy salami, ricotta, mozzarella, fresh basil; Roast beef, sharp cheddar, mustard or horseradish, arugula or spinach, red onion; Brie (or mascarpone), apricot jam, sliced almonds
Culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
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Film in fokus Reviewing some of TV McGill’s annual film festival offerings
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OKUS Film Festival is an annual showcase of student-created short films hosted by TVMcGill. The films selected from this year’s submissions will be screened on Wednesday, March 23 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Cinéma du Parc (3575 Parc).
1. Those Creaking Chairs Bringing to life the anger of two inanimate chairs separated by a candle, Paul Sara has directed a foreboding yet simple two minute experimental film. Without any clear story line, the short is left open to the viewer’s interpretation, and attempts to convey a feeling of eerie unrest rather than an actual plot. The voice of Marion Croze provides the only source of narrative, suggesting that perhaps the chairs are creaking out of anger for the sinful ways their owners treat each other. The candle between them, serving as the only source of illumination, seems to have been placed there by the absent humans in a failed attempt to calm their over excited furniture. The ambiguous story stands in stark contrast to the cinematographic effects, which are well executed and complement the sinister creaking in the background. Were this a preview of a full length film, one could imagine a horror where the neglected furniture revolts to attack their sinful owners… —Jessica Lukawiecki
2. Here’s Now A short experimental film that plays more like a cinematic essay, Here’s Now captures stunning moments in time and space. Directed by Michael Marotti, and with assistance by Ming Lin, the camera catches completely random scenes that contrast sharply in lighting and effects, but that complement
each other quite successfully. The cinematography turns dull scenes – an old shipyard, ordinary buildings, a tree – and renders them fascinating to the viewer. The enchanting background music, by Hilary Ison, simultaneously brings us to another place while tying us to the present moment. Like most of these shorts, the piece lacks any form of a story line, and serves perhaps only to remind us to live in the present, and to exist in the beauty that can be pulled from even the most deceivingly desolate of scenes. —J.L.
3. Remembery From the sinister scene of a girl running in the winter snow, to the dark first-person view of someone waking up with blood on their hands, this hazy six minute film presents a story line that brings to mind the effects of a dream just out of reach or recall. The viewer is left to question what kinds of horrors are being remembered, and then to wonder whether we even want to know. Directed by Daniel Beresh and with footage by Daniel Shapiro, Whitney Mallett, and Stephanie Seretsky, the film jumps between dramatically differing scenes, creating the impression of jumbled memories, not quite forgotten. The chilling soundtrack and distinctive filming techniques contribute to the impression of someone trying to cling to a dream, especially when the voiceover asks of us “Do you remember?” —J.L.
4. Fight of the Non- Perishables Using stop animation to depict an epic battle between kitchen foods, Kyle Godden captivates us with his Fight of the Non-
Perishables, a story fraught with violence, success, and defeat. Much to our entertainment (and perhaps his mother’s chagrin), the film details the non-perishables’ struggle as they work together to defeat the perishables of the fridge. Cans and jars raid the kitchen, stacking upon one another to reach the counter and encircle an apple until it splits into perfect slices. The perishables hardly put up a fight as their oranges are quickly turned into juice, and their eggs…fried to death. After their rampage, and what must have been hours of photographing for Godden, the perishables escape into the night in a getaway car. Fight of the Non-Perishables goes beyond other stop animation films by offering more than something that simply looks cool. The cans and jars begin to take on their own identities for the viewers, who witnesses their struggle and will to survive. Your eyelids and potatoes will be peeled the entire time. — Christina Colizza
5. Into Another Remember that feeling you had the first time you saw a Godard film? A sort of irreverent yet jolting daydream? Former Daily editor Whitney Mallett provides viewers with that exact kind of choppy, avant-garde grace in her film Into Another. The background music complements striking images of a beautiful woman who screeches the hangers in her closet or zips up her skirt. Alone in her bedroom, the young woman changes back and forth between dresses in fast-paced shots complemented by equally startling sounds. She finally decides on one outfit, yet the viewer is confused as it temporally appears she had been wearing that exact outfit when she first walked into her apartment. Then,
the moment of truth: the woman glances at her own profile in a Polaroid snapshot. Who is she, or better yet, which version of herself is she? With its title a subtle hint, the film poses questions about the truth of one’s own identity, leaving it open for the viewer to reach their own conclusions. —C.C.
6. Selfless Sympathy Daniel Beresh’s Selfless Sympathy, one of two of his submissions to the Fokus Film Festival this year, is a perfect music video for McGill band Crystal Cadence. With the lyrics of the song repeating, “I don’t want your selfless sympathy, crying for me. Don’t cry for me,” the video conveys feelings of melancholy and heartbreak. However, Beresh creates his own interpretation of the song, touching on issues of self- mutilation, eating disorders, and school shootings through one protagonist’s eyes. Beresh exhibits a sophisticated understanding of editing, utilizing dissolves, slow-motion, and doubling to give the viewer an understanding of the main character’s pain at the loss of his girlfriend, being teased at school, and the ensuing loneliness. Beresh’s protagonist evokes great sympathy in the viewer, until a quick shot reveals students lying on the ground in blood. The film ends with the main character slowly removing a gun from his coat, while staring at the front of his high school. The overall effect is one of extreme shock, particularly as much of the film was shot on McTavish, or in and around other campus landmarks. In Selfless Sympathy, Beresh creates an extremely stylistic music video while remaining faithful to the brevity of the song’s lyrics. — C.C.
16Culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
The fictions of equality
Why the American debate about women in literature matters in Canada
Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily
Sarah Mortimer and Anqi Zhang The McGill Daily
L
ast month, VIDA, a grassroots organization representing women in the literary arts, published a study showing evidence of a considerable gender bias in the literary review sections of 12 leading American publications. The report, entitled “The Count,” revealed that in 2010 female authors were not only less frequently reviewed than male authors by publications such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the New York Review of Books, but also made up the minority of reviewers. Since its release, VIDA’s study has incited an incredible amount of discussion in the American literary community about its possible implications and explanations. Writers like Eileen Myles and Jessa Crispin have written thoughtful responses to the study, calling on female writers to raise their pens, and write themselves out of their shame and right through the literary glass ceiling. In their responses, the (mostly male) editors and publishers on trial have confirmed that, for the most part, they are the culprits of these crimes. Jonathan Chait of the New Republic reminded us of this when he suggested that the statistic could be accounted for by men’s greater interest in “both producing
and consuming opinion literature.” Peter Stothard of the Times Literary Supplement, expressed a similarly myopic view in his article, “VIDA and the pie charts,” where he wrote that “the TLS selects, without prejudice, fear or favour, the writers who have the best things to say about the books we think are important.” With that, let us move on to more unimportant things.
Canadian content This discussion, which has thrived so brilliantly in the aftermath of the study in the United States, has been comparatively absent in the mainstream Canadian media. Neither the editors at the Globe and Mail nor those at the the Montreal Gazette have bothered to publish a response to the study – and it is worth asking whether they should. To put it another way, are the challenges faced by female writers in Canada comparable to the ones faced by female writers in the United States? A number of factors could lead one to believe that the situation here is different. There is the towering figure of Margaret Atwood, who – for writing a novel about female subjugation that men actually liked – will forever be the reason why female fiction writers can’t complain about getting their voices heard in Canada. There is also this year’s Giller Prize shortlist: three women, two men, and
the winner, Johanna Skibsrud. To some, that might be equal enough, but what kind of Canadians, or more importantly what kind of readers, would we be if we didn’t look beyond these surfaces? Here are the facts – and the facts behind the facts – about women writing in Canada. First, the numbers, all related to the prestigious awards that Canada holds so dear to its heart. Though subject to a different set of jurors, these awards reflect similar patterns of discrimination to those found in VIDA’s analysis. For example, in the last 25 years, the Governor General’s Literary Award in Fiction has gone to men 68 per cent of the time. Looking back to this same award’s entire history, men have won 77 per cent of the time. The more contemporary Giller Prize has an equally dirty record: only 6 out of 16 times was a woman deemed the best Canadian fiction writer of them all. Of course, these statistics, like VIDA’s, have been pulled – probably with some injury to the record – from their context. They are, in fact, shaped by questions like how many women wrote that year, how many had their novels published, and how many of them are on the jury? We don’t know those answers and we probably won’t look them up, but these larger issues of women’s roles in the literary world probably bring us closer to the story’s truest notes.
Form and content As Gail Scott told The Daily in an interview, “It’s not only numbers” that matter. “It’s also what’s allowed and what wins prizes.” In Canada, Scott pointed out, a lot of what gets attention are domestic narratives – stories centering around the family and the home. Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists could be considered an example of this, and Giller winner Bonnie Burnard’s Good House and GG winner Carol Shield’s The Stone Diaries are two more. Novels that follow conventional narrative forms tend to be similarly favoured. “In [especially mainstream] prose there isn’t a lot of experimenting and daring going on which I think prevents a writing subject, and particularly a different type of female writing subject,” Scott explained. The publishing industry’s preference for both conventional style and stories – “conventions” created by men when the business was, at the very least, more explicit about its misogyny – is so ingrained in the literary culture as to have equivocated the definition of “good fiction” with what ends up being fiction written by men. Novelist and journalist Lynn Coady noted this writing in an email that, “the idea of ‘Great’ and ‘Timeless’ literature, top quality writing, is highly gendered in our
culture and most of the time we never even question that.” At a basic level, making us aware of this subtle control over what perspectives count is what matters about VIDA’s study, and perhaps what makes it matter even more in Canada. If the gender bias here isn’t as statistically obvious as in America, something tells us we can find it in the prose itself.
Something’s gotta give In a literary culture where women who push boundaries receive reviews saying “nothing happens in this novel” or “where’s the action,” we are led to wonder if the definition of what it means to make good fiction has a chance at be redefined anytime soon. But something has to give. VIDA’s study has attracted too much attention to simply fade into the background after a few months, to become just a brief nightmare for editors and publishers, and a brief glimpse of light for the female writers whose works have eclipsed by those of their male colleagues for so long. So what will give? Will it be the literary establishment’s unapologetic favouritism toward male stories and perspectives? Or, what about women writers’ desire to write what, according to Scott, “they feel needs to be said that isn’t”? Our bets – and pens – are on the latter.
Culture
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
17
A new riff on the old
Sam Amidon embraces a traditional approach to playing folk music, while bringing it into this generation Julia Bloom
Culture Writer
F
olk musician Sam Amidon may look like your typical doe-eyed indie crooner, but behind his innovative acoustic folk arrangements is a genuine old soul. One of the few successful musicians who has never recorded a song of his own creation, Amidon’s career is based almost entirely off of rearranging and covering centuriesold American folk songs. On all of Amidon’s first three albums, every song is actually a modernized cover, though folk fans may not realize it on their first listen. That’s because Amidon is able to preserve folk’s familiar rawness by using raspy vocals and acoustic guitar picking, while simultaneously adding a modern, refined element through soft horns and light spatterings of piano in a style reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens. The music from his most recent album, “All Is Well,” feels entirely fresh. It’s still folksy, but folk with a bit of the dust brushed off. For such a die-hard folk fan, Amidon’s love for folk music wasn’t immediate. Though both of his parents are folk musicians, Amidon admits that he originally dismissed old-time folk music as “scratchy and crude” compared to the ornate beauty of the Irish fiddle songs his parents encouraged him to play as a boy. “Free jazz” artists like Albert Ayler would later influence Amidon
CULTURE BRIEF Philopolis hits Montreal One of the more important questions facing philosophers is what the value of philosophy is, and why exactly one ought to study it. Although consensus in the literature is that the unexamined life is not worth living, the general population often finds those in philosophy’s ivory tower – including those inhabiting the uppermost floor of Leacock – irrelevant. Montreal’s philosophical community intends to alter that perception this weekend with Philopolis, a student-run event featuring conferences, workshops, and panel discussions covering a wide range of philosophical topics, including that of the discipline’s role in the public sphere. It kicks off Friday night at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business with a roundtable discussion entitled “What Is Public Philosophy?” featuring one professor from each of Montreal’s four universities. Saturday and Sunday’s talks, which take place at UQAM and McGill campus respec-
as well, and he eventually fell for the similar intensity and raw, scratchy feel of folk. While he enjoys performing these songs, Amidon himself has yet to compose one of his own. When asked if he had ever been interested in writing his own material, Amidon replied that after the time spent learning, arranging, and performing old songs, he comes to view them as his own. “People tend to make a huge distinction between somebody writing their own songs or doing a ‘cover,’ but to me it doesn’t matter a whole lot,” he said in an email. Actually, most of the songs Amidon plays have been ‘covered’ time and again by a slew of folk and rock musicians over the years. No two versions are the same, as every artist is unique in the way they add to and interpret each song. “When you listen to all of these amazing Irish fiddle players, they are all playing the same twenty tunes, and yet you love one and not another because of the power of the interpretation,” Amidon said. “Same with jazz: all those classic Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins albums are mostly standards, but that doesn’t matter because they are still creating music all the time while playing.” In fact, before the record player, folk music only existed when it was played live. Plenty of old American folk songs were originally unwritten and passed on orally by travelers who changed and re-interpreted
tively, range from the traditional (“Aristotle and Hegel on Nature, Life, and Becoming,”) to the contemporary (“Violence By Women As a Political Tactic,”) to the downright peculiar (“Spaghetti Westerns and Philosophy.”) In addition to academic presentations, Philopolis also features film screenings, an exhibition by local artist Sperenza Spir, two plays, and a peripatetic discussion which will take its participants on a walk around Montreal as they examine a variety of philosophical matters. Beginning Sunday at 11 a.m., a day of presentations sponsored by Queer McGill about safe spaces, queer theory, and feminist theory will take place in Arts W-215. Anna Cook, Philopolis co-coordinator and one of several McGill undergraduate students doing such presentations, will lead a talk entitled “The Creation of the Feminine Subject in Assault Prevention Literature.” “The talk is about the importance of rape myths in the creation of feminist identity, including that of the female body being inherently helpless and susceptible to sexual assault,” said Cook. Like everything else at Philopolis, it is entirely free of charge.
their sound and lyrics. Songs like “O Death,” a wonderfully grim dirge Amidon has covered that originated from somewhere in Appalachia, became popular when multiple versions began circulating throughout the American south. In this sense, American folk music has always been treated as a public good, so calling Amidon’s songs “covers” seems incorrect. One of the songs Amidon plays, “Saro,” was taught to him by a friend, who learned to play it from bluegrass singer Doc Watson, who probably learned the song from someone else: thus the lineage of a single song’s re-incarnation under the various artists who have played it can be traced back over a hundred years. By playing these antique songs anew for his audiences, Amidon continues the tradition of keeping them alive while adding his own interpretation and sound as his predecessors did before him. However, not all of Amidon’s songs are centuries old. His most recent album “All Is Well” sports one indie-folk re-vamp of R&B popstar R. Kelly’s “Relief.” Although it doesn’t sound musically out of place amongst Amidon’s folk ballads, one has to ask how an R. Kelly cover made it onto a folk album in the first place. “I realized that he had written a folksong,” explained Amidon. “It is very hard to actually write a folksong, and he did it!” Though R. Kelly’s version of “Relief” falls a bit flat, Amidon’s
“The motivation for organizing this event is to create a space for discussion and to create a community of philosophy in Montreal,” added Cook. “In light of philosophy departments being closed or cut back across campuses, Philopolis aims to show the relevance of philosophy.” Originally conceived by UQAM students involved with the now defunct Nuit de la philosophie, Philopolis also represents an attempt to bridge the anglo-franco divide and bring Montreal’s four philosophy departments together. Curious anglophones should not be dissuaded by the fact that the majority of the 83 talks are in French, since Philopolis’s tireless organizers have scheduled the event to ensure that not a minute of its 19 hours fails to feature at least one English presentation. Even for those who have not been bitten by the philosophy bug, Philopolis offers an enticing opportunity to see philosophy outside of its traditional confines, and to judge its value firsthand. —Lyndon Entwistle
Philopolis presentations run this weekend at the UQAM and McGill campuses. See philopolis.net for more information and this year’s schedule.
Courtesy of Sam Amidon
cover actually breathes a little life, and a lot of re-envisioned meaning into the original. Not treating it any differently than a folk ballad from the 1880s, Amidon’s acoustic arrangement and performance adds a bit more weight and folksy sorrow to R. Kelly’s pop lyrics. For Amidon, however, it’s not about a song’s content. The
strength of his music lies in his performance, arrangement, and in capturing the song’s overall soul in the context of folk. Regardless of what century his songs originate from, Amidon’s re-envisioned tributes leave listeners with an entertaining, fresh interpretation of the sound and language of folk music.
Be an editor! There’s still time! Statements due Sunday March 20 at midnight or The Daily will turn into a pumpkin email culture@mcgilldaily.com for more information
CompendiuM!
18
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
Lies, half-truths, and itty bitty mice!
Missing students Blunroe-Hum suspected of foul play Oläf Cørtèz
The McGill Daily
T
hree student journalists last seen entering Principal Meather Blunroe-Hum’s office last week are still missing, and family and co-workers alike are beginning to suspect foul play behind the prolonged absences. Friends first started to worry after the journalists in question, from The Daily, Délit, and Tribune, suddenly stopped broadcasting their constant stream of inane tweets. “At first I didn’t think much of it, it was like the weekend and stuff, so I figured they were all probably drunk somewhere,” said Daily Campus Correspondent Stefan Goulet, “but then it was so slushy this week I figured one of them would’ve tweeted complaining about it, you know, like I give a s**t.” Now, media sources are beginning to suspect the incident may be connected to similar disappearances after student media interviews Blunroe-Hum gave in the past. The notorious case of Délit redactrice Émilie Anton-Gervais became an issue after she disappeared last semester. When asked if he believed common rumors that Anton-Gervais had accepted an internship in America, Goulet said he “didn’t believe it for a second.” “No, they were turned into f*****g mice,” said Goulet. Indeed, the conspiracy theory
seems to be gaining almost as much credence as McGill has a rodent population. Figures released by McGill Security Don Beer Starbury indicate that incidents of rodent vandalism have increased by 613 per cent each year since 2003. “We thought it was students, at first, because of the whole beloved Interior Design Café thing. They Bikuta Tangamann with Quentin Blake for The McGill Daily were hitting the cafe’s and places,” said Starbury, Probably muffins, but they could’ve “but some of the holes we found, I been cupcakes too,” said Eat mean, not even the skinniest hip- Messert, the Tribune’s McConnell sters can fit inside those walls, you Engineering Bureau Chief. “I was waiting out there for know?” Health professionals have long hours, it was crazy. I was like, ‘You denied the existence of “Formula can only talk about task force’s for 86 Instant Action Mouse Maker” – a so long,’ you know? It was past 11. mixture allegedly capable of cata- When I asked what was taking so lyzing the cross-species transfor- long they tried to tell me I was at mation – saying that if they were a hotel in Bournemouth. I COULD to change humans into any animal SEE MILTON GATES THROUGH it would be a cheetah, given how THE WINDOW!” yelled Messert. “And now my friend is a f*****g badass cheetahs are. When used, Formula 86 is often mouse! ... Do you know how many mixed into food, and then ingested people have cats!?” Goulet and Messert voiced conorally by the unassuming targets. Testimony from one of the last peo- cern as to how their friends would ple to see the journalists suggests be able to integrate into Montreal’s that Formula 86 may have been francophone mouse community, but both referenced a rumored refinvolved. “They said I had to wait outside, ugee mouse-journalist community but I definitely saw food on the table. in Douglas Hall.
Letters You got us all wrong, bro Re: “SSMU adds new Councillor” | Compendium | March 7 Dear McGill Daily, Your gross, disturbing, and frankly sickening characterization of Sammie Shakedowan, and to a larger extent the entire Bro-munnity, truly upsets me. For one, Bros DO NOT WEAR HIPSTER GLASSES. For two, no self-respecting bro would EVER wear those hideous headphones, when they could easily work at Foot Locker to afford a pair of Dr. Dre’s or Bose. I think that the McGill Daily owes an apology to Shakedowan, who is currently being ostracized by all of the bros in New Rez, for even appearing in your hipster rag of a newspaper (someone accidentally tried rolling a J with the back cover). Shame on you McGill Daily Editors, who I suggest watch their back in the future, lest there be a Smirnoff ICE right around the corner! Yours, Don Gabian National Association for the Empowerment of Bros
An 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan on Saturday, causing massive property damage and thousands of deaths, as well as the rupturing of two nuclear power plants.
MINUS 233
Qaddafi called for an all-out assault on Misurata, a town east of Tripoli, where rebels are believed to be hiding. The government disabled phone lines and electricity, and began a shelling campaign on the town, at least three civilians have been killed.
MINUS 127
The Bahraini government mobilized hundreds of police and military troops, using tanks and vehicles with machine guns to force peaceful demonstrators out of Pearl Square.
MINUS 103
258 activists were arrested in a peaceful antipolice brutality demonstration held downtown on Tuesday.
MINUS 52
It’s St. Patrick’s day! In other news, despite the rain being annoying, it means the snow is melting!
PLUS 15 PLUS 38
TOTAL
MINUS 462
LAST WEEK’S TOTAL
MINUS 104
The year’s almost over! I’d like your ideas for year-long quality of life: email compendium@mcgilldaily.com right away!
Chara needs to be punished
Let’s all be friends, not backstabbers Re: “SSMU election not all happy” | Compendium | March 14 Dear McGill Daily and readers, It disturbs me completely to read about the failed “Bro” candidate was unanimously voted down by her peers. The fact that her friends encouraged and supported her through her campaign did not have enough respect to vote “yes” is abhorrent. This simply demonstrates how people are willing to bully and degrade other. The cruelty of frenemies is still alive and well. Have we not moved on from playground humiliation? This poor girl must be so sad. Although this article is a clever joke, which had me fooled, it still presents a real issue – that people are willing to tear others down for pleasure. We see this in the media everyday when we laugh at a celebrity eating a French fry. As funny as slapstick is, and seeing someone fall, the schadenfreude doesn’t mean that one’s ass doesn’t hurt when it hits the pavement. Haley Hatch-Dinel Religious Studies Senator elect Disclaimer: This letter was received not entirely in jest, and the writer asks you to appreciate the irony that she was elected with 100 per cent of the vote.
F
uck Zdeno Chara. Actually, no, fuck the NHL. No punishment!? Really? NONE!? I’m sure after “reviewing” the hit one could conclude Chara hadn’t done anything “wrong,” but count to 180 right now and tell me it’s not fucked up for someone to be limp on the ground for that long. Call me crazy, but if a clean “hockey play” involves a 280lb guy shoving a 200lb guy anywhere near a reinforced plexiglass barrier then fuck hockey. Guys are bigger and faster and the NHL isn’t fucking compensating. Pacioretty fractured the bone that protects his FUCKING SPINAL CHORD, Savard’s considering retirement, and don’t get me fucking started on Sidney Crosby. If their careers are over, can’t the guys responsible get a week off!?
WHY IS IT SO FUCKING HOT IN HERE?
I
understand that Shatner and all the buildings on campus always absolve themselves by saying “it is beyond our control because heating and cooling systems cannot be changed overnight when temperatures fluxuate... BLAH FUCKITY BLAH.” I’m sorry, but it’s been more than week at this point, and I can’t take it anymore. Fuck the heat. Fuck temperature changes that our systems can’t keep up with. I’d almost prefer the cold to this, because at least the relative heat in here would be NICE and not UNBEARABLE. Please, please, can we just change the temperature? At least when the heat is too low, you can put on a jacket. But I CAN’T TAKE MY FUCKING CLOTHES OFF (as much as I might like to). I implore you.
Fuck This has been running dry lately. And there hasn’t been a Fuck Yeah in weeks. C’mon people, there are only a few issues left, and then... where will you be able to rant and rave anonymously? Email fuckthis@mcgilldaily.com.
19
The McGill Daily | Thursday, March 17, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
volume 100 number 39
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EDITORIAL
Mental health services should be a priority In a high-pressure university setting, mental health services are crucial to the wellbeing of the student body. As exams approach and stress levels intensify, the strain on McGill’s already understaffed and underfunded Mental Health Services becomes greater. Underlying mental health conditions – anxiety for instance – often surface at this time, exacerbated by intense academic conditions. McGill’s services are currently inadequate to handle this inflow of students, and this needs to be addressed. McGill Mental Health Services (MMHS) offers appointments with psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as one of the most wellrounded and inclusive eating disorder programs in Canada. Students who contact Mental Health Services can schedule an initial appointment, or “intake,” which will theoretically be followed up by an appointment with an appropriate mental health professional. Unfortunately, underfunded and understaffed services mean a harder time following up with patients and scheduling emergency appointments. MMHS’s staff has only twenty part-time employees – equivalent to ten full-time staff – even though McGill’s increasing student population is radically outpacing these resources. Mental Health Services managed an estimated 20,000 appointments this year, and with such limited numbers of staff, follow up was often delayed, or students were referred to services at Concordia or Montreal hospitals. These services are not always free or easy to get reimbursed for non-Quebec reisdents, and are located off-campus, both things that can deter to students seeking further treatment. Furthermore, distinctions between MMHS and McGill counseling are often not apparent, so students who might be better served by counseling – which provides support for a range of personal and academic problems – are inappropriately led to MMHS. This places a greater strain on Mental Health’s capacity to address those in need of their specific services. Further barriers exist as a result of the stigmatization of mental health issues. It is necessary to work toward normalizing discussion and awareness of mental health. We need to create a culture in which people feel comfortable discussing their concerns, admitting the presence of problems, and ultimately asking for help. Many people don’t seek treatment for these issues simply because of the associated stigmas, but when students do reach out, stability of treatment is paramount.
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Making students aware of the mental health services available to them at crucial points of contact – like orientation week and in residences – is an important first step in improving accessibility. Enhanced accessibility and awareness of mental health issues are meaningless without a concurrent improvement in the ability of the services to handle a higher volume of students. MMHS is separate from McGill Student Health, so it receives its funding differently. Mental Health funding comes from a mandatory Student Services fee and provincial funding. However, this is currently not adequate to support the level of operation at which MMHS should be functioning. SSMU is currently running a surplus, and has been known to allocate funds to projects that improve student life using these funds, including transferring resources to the library in order to enable it to remain open for 24 hours. Student mental health is an equally valuable endeavour, and one that SSMU should prioritize in future budgets when considering where funds should be allocated. In addition, the administration is increasing enrolment and investing in residence expansion. Students need to lobby on behalf of MMHS to receive increased funding. According to Morton Mendelson, deputy provost (Student Life and Learning), the administration refuses to increase funds to MMHS, despite recent enrolment increases. Mendelson insisted that there was no room in their budget: “It’s taken student money, that’s just the financial realities,” he said. “Some problems you can’t solve by throwing money at it.”
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An increase in staff is necessary to effectively cope with the volume of current students seeking help and with those who will inevitably contact MMHS in the future. Increased funding is integral to the ability of MMHS to increase its staff. The administration needs to realize that mental health concerns are as fundamentally important to student life as housing and food services. They need to take action to prioritize its increased funding.