Vol100Iss99

Volume 100, Issue 41

March 28, 2010 mcgilldaily.com

McGill THE

DAILY

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Published by The Daily Publications Society, a student society of McGill University.

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News

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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Students occupy Ministry of Finance Police investigating possible injuries; FECQ occupy Minister’s premises in Lac-St-Jean Rana Encol

The McGill Daily

L

ast Thursday, dozens of students occupied the Montreal office of the Quebec Ministry of Finance, while approximately 100 students demonstrated in the building’s entrance to protest impending tuition increases.

Quebec Minister of Finance Raymond Bachand announced on March 17 that tuition will increase $325 per student per year for five years, starting in 2012. Tuition fees are scheduled to reach $3,793 by 2017, almost double the current fees but still below the Canadian average.

The demonstration was organized by the l’Association pour un solidarité syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ), which has 45,000 members.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, ASSÉ director of communications, explained that the objective of the occupation was two-fold.

“We gave a letter of our claims to the minister that explained our discontent to the minister, our most fundamental disagreement regarding the tuition hikes announced last week,” he told The Daily in French.

“It was to give this letter to the minister and let him know that if he doesn’t go back on his decision we would undertake a much greater movement in the months to come,” Nadeau-Dubois continued.

Rue Frontenac reported that dozens penetrated the building through an emergency exit and entered the fifth floor offices.

According to Nadeau-Dubois, a bodyguard pushed an activist into the glass door. One student was injured by the shattered glass.

Daniel Lacoursière, a spokesperson for the Service de police de la ville de Montréal (SPVM), said that this

claim was still under investigation, explaining that surveillance cameras were not working, “so we need statements from different witnesses.”

During the demonstration, Nadeau-Dubois left the premises, fearing further action from the building’s security.

“Unfortunately we went to the offices to undertake a pacifist action but the security in the building reacted in a pretty violent way, so violently that we had to go down to the main hall and have a peaceful sit-in because we were worried about our safety,” he said A red banner was hung in the main atrium of the mall, reading, “Bachand, tes hausses de tariffs fous-toi les dans le cul!” (Bachand, take your fee hikes up the ass!)

Some protestors were hit with pepper spray. Lacoursière did not confirm if it was the police who used the spray, but said that this too was under investigation.

“If it is police that used the pepper spray, not saying that it was not used, so I have no report of that at this point. An investigation will give us more information about that,” he said.

SSMU VP External Myriam Zaidi explained that explained that the Quebec Student Roundtable (QSR) would not be calling for occupations of offices any time soon.

“But it would hypocritical of student representatives to condemn occupations, given that those are what got us seats in the Board of Governors and Senate,” she said.

Arts Senator Tyler Lawson pointed out that in 1997, about 18 students held out for three days, after which ancillary fees were cut in half.

“Tactics substantiate power, and a lot of occupations are pacific, so no one gets harmed,” he said.

Zaidi explained that in the case of a province-wide strike, a special

Victor Tangermann | The McGill Daily

ASSÉ members, shown here marching last October, occupied the finance ministry’s Montreal offices. general assembly would be called with 500 students required to make quorum. In such cases, however, she predicted over 1,200 students would show up out of the SSMU membership of around 21,000.

“SSMU is usually the last one to [join a strike] – the movement happens and McGill follows,” she said.

“Surveys commissioned by the administration have shown that McGill students are very privileged, [Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton] Mendelson recently couldn’t grasp why so many students came from upper classes or parents who went to university.

Not to put all students in the same bag, but when you are less exposed to students having a hard time, it’s harder for you to feel affected.”

Nadeau-Dubois said ASSÉ is calling for a provincial demonstration

March 31 in Montreal.

“This action is really the last straw that we’ll give the Charest government to warn him to back down on the tuition hikes. If he refuses to do so at that time, well then we will embark on a mass mobilization, and we’re ready to go all the way to overcome it,” he said.

FECQ occupies Simard’s office Around thirty students affiliated with the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) occupied the premises of Serge Simard, Quebec delegate Minister for Natural Resources, in Saguenay– Lac-St-Jean the same day.

Léo Bureau-Blouin, president of FECQ, explained that the occupation was peaceful and that everyone dispersed when the police arrived.

He described how students in

the area had met with Simard a few months ago to present their demands, and engaged in discussions with Minister of Education Line Beauchamp, but feel that there demands did not make it to the Quebec National Assembly.

“There has been no overture on their side, so we must take action,” said Bureau-Blouin. “We are going to protest until the Quebec government stops hiking tuition fees.”

“Almost every student has to [leave] their homes to go to university, not like Montreal or Quebec where students can live at their parents house. Students have extra costs to afford university…for 70 per cent of students in Lac-St-Jean, it is the first time of their family history that a student is going to university, so post-secondary accessibility is really fragile,” he added.

Concordia Student Union sues to leave CFS McGill grad students also taking student federation to court Mari Galloway

The McGill Daily

U

pon filing a lawsuit with the Quebec Superior Court on March 17, the Concordia Students Union (CSU) officially became the eighth student union in three years to sue the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).

The CSU is suing the CFS, the largest student lobby group in Canada, to force the federation to recognize its decision to secede.

In March 2010, the CSU held a referendum in which students voted 2,348 to 931 to leave the CFS. The federation has refused to recognize the results of this referendum,

and maintains that the CSU is still a member.

“It’s not a choice. CFS forced us to go to court since they are denying us a fundamental right provided by the Charter. We need the court to settle this once and for all,” wrote Heather Lucas, CSU President, in an email to The Daily.

According to Concordia’s newspaper The Link, CSU executives have warned their Council that the court case will likely continue for at least two years, and will cost at least $220,000.

The CFS maintains that the CSU owes the federation $1,033,278.76 in unpaid fees, and refuses to recognize a referendum until the CSU repays its debts. The CSU has refut-

ed these claims.

“We decided to dismiss [the debt] because we have all the paperwork to back our argument [that] we don’t owe them anything,” Amine Dabchy told The Daily last March, while acting as CSU President.

CFS National Chairperson David Molenhuis denied that the federation had violated any bylaws.

“The Federation is defending the bylaws of the organization adopted by members. The Federation maintains that the allegations made are frivolous and without merit,” he wrote in an email to The Daily regarding the suit.

McGill’s Post Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), one of the other eight unions involved in litigation against the CFS, has been in court

for over a year with a similar lawsuit.

PGSS’s case has been ongoing since February 2010, when it asked the courts to require the CFS to set a date for their referendum vote. In March 2010, 86 per cent of PGSS members voted to secede from the federation in a referendum condemned by the CFS. The PGSS is currently in court to force the CFS to recognize the referendum’s results.

“For the moment, the PGSS is still working at making sure that the referendum is being recognized. The case should be inscribed in June 2011, and so the trial in court could go maybe next year in spring 2012,” said Marieve Isabel, who is running acclaimed for PGSS VP External.

Both the PGSS and CSU have

accused the CFS of acting undemocratically. Each of the groups is seeking $100,000 in damages.

“We want the courts to condemn the CFS to pay two plaintiffs in the way of punitive damages pursuant to section 349 of the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the sum of $100,000, because of their violation of the right under article three which provides the freedom to associate,” said Philippe-André Tessier, a lawyer for the CSU, in The Link.

The CSU is currently in the midst of elections. However, if elected, both presidential candidates have promised to continue with litigation against the CFS. —With files from Jessica Lukawiecki

4 News

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Harper government toppled Conservatives found in contempt of Parliament, early May election predicted Mari Galloway

The McGill Daily

T

he Conservative government fell last Friday afternoon, setting the stage for an early May election.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff introduced the motion of non-confidence in Parliament early Friday, which also charged the government with being in contempt of Parliament. The citation for contempt of Parliament was the first of a Commonwealth country’s government.

“I have to inform the House that the official opposition has lost confidence in the government. Today with this motion, we ask the House to do the same, to find the government in contempt and to withdraw the confidence of the House,” said

Ignatieff, addressing the House.

The vote passed 156 to 145, ending Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s five-year minority government. Pressure has mounted on the Conservatives in recent months, as opposition parties have condemned the federal government for its management of the economy, its secrecy, and misuse of cabinet confidence.

Earlier last week, a committee of MPs handed the Conservative government Canada’s first-ever contempt ruling as a result of the government’s refusal to publicize the full cost of legislation regarding corporate tax cuts, proposed crime legislation and F-35 fighter jets. This helped pave the way for the motion introduced by Ignatieff on Friday.

After the motion, Harper moved to adjourn Parliament. In a press release shortly after the vote, Harper

expressed his disappointment.

“There was nothing in the Budget that the Opposition could not or should not have supported,” he said. “Unfortunately, Mr. Ignatieff and his coalition partners in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois made abundantly clear that they had already decided they wanted an election instead, Canada’s fourth election in seven years, an election Canadians had told them clearly that they did not want.”

In his speech to the House, Ignatieff stated that the Harper government had forced the Liberals’ hand on the matter.

“To those who say an election is unnecessary, we reply we did not seek an election. But if we need one to replace a government that doesn’t respect democracy with one that does, I can’t think of a more necessary election.”

Minerals finance DRC conflict Sam Bennett News Writer

S

muggling minerals like tin, tungsten, and coltan out of countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) helps to finance conflict in the region.

Last Tuesday the Concordia Initiative for a Conflict-free Campus (CICC) and Leander Schneider, associate professor in Concordia’s department of Political Science co-hosted a forum to highlight this issue.

These minerals – often referred to as conflict minerals – are used in the production of cell phones and various other electronic products. The money earned from their sales finances the warring groups who control the mines, and enables them to buy weapons and ammunition, proliferating the conflict.

Students Melissa Kabasele and Aidan Pine started the CICC six months ago after approaching Sustainable Concordia about the issue of conflict minerals.

One last final last News meeting.

Today, 4:30 p.m., Shatner cafeteria

Speaking after the forum, Pine talked about the global importance of the issue.

“The diversity of the crowd at the forum was a testament to how this isn’t a French issue or an English issue or even just a Congolese issue.

It’s a human issue,” he said.

According to UN estimates, 5.4 million people have died and 300,000 women have been systematically raped since 1998, making the civil war in the DRC the deadliest armed conflict since World War II. “It’s something that, whether you’re an activist or not, whether you buy electronics or not, simply being human beings makes us responsible,” said Pine.

Frank Poulsen, Danish filmmaker of Blood in the Mobile and one of the forum’s guest speakers, talked at length about the experience of filming in the DRC and confronting his own cell phone company about conflict minerals.

“They don’t even know their own supply chain,” said Poulsen.

“The solution on this is definitely not to leave it for the big corpora-

tions, but to make legislation.”

Paul Dewar, MP for the Ottawa Centre riding, spoke at the event about Canada’s role in the the proliferation of these minerals.

“Canada is not just some bystander in this issue. The Toronto Stock Exchange has the highest concentration of mining investment in the entire planet,” said Dewar. “We’re taking resources out,” he said.

Dewar sponsored the private member’s bill C-571, the Trade in Conflict Minerals Act. If passed, this act would create a due diligence mechanism for Canadian companies to ensure they are not purchasing minerals that finance conflicts.

However, due to the fall of the Canadian government last Friday, the bill will be scratched from the parliamentary agenda. It will have to be reintroduced after the election.

Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold is currently suing controversial Canadian author Alain Denault and his publishing house Les Éditions Écosociété for $11 million for defamation stemming from his book Noir Canada.

News

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

McGill questions the prospects of peace in partitioned Sudan Panellist concerned Sudan troubles overshadowed by Arab revolutions

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Montreal Auditor General sues city employees Zach Lewsen

The McGill Daily

Nastasha Sartore News Writer

I

n the wake of Southern Sudan’s January decision to secede from Sudan, government and non-governmental representatives, academics, and students met to discuss coming events at a conference hosted by the McGill Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID) last Thursday at the McGill Faculty Club.

The East African country of Sudan has been ravaged by civil war for four decades. The conflict finally came to an end in 2005 when the United States brokered the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

In accordance with the conditions set out in the CPA, a referendum for the self-determination of Southern Sudan was held this year. With a 99 per cent majority, the predominantly Christian southerners voted for secession from the historically dominant Islamic regime in the north. As a result, Sudan will separate into two separate countries on July 9.

Khalid Medani, an associate professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at McGill and panellist at Thursday’s conference, called attention to post-referendum events in Sudan. He noted that there has been violence – “southerners against southerners” – in the past few weeks. He also pointed to the breakdown of the

talks between the governments of the north and south scheduled for March 13. Medani felt that, although there is currently “a huge crisis” in the Sudan, it had been downplayed given recent events in the Middle East.

Keynote speaker Aggrey Abate, Vice Chancellor of the University of Juba, appealed to Canadian universities for help in fostering higher learning in Southern Sudan. In 1989, the University of Juba was forced to move to Khartoum, the capital city in the north of Sudan. All five colleges of the university were moved back to Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, at the end of last year, but Abate indicated that this required a number of already limited resources.

Elsadig Abunafeesa, a former Sudanese MP who has also worked as advisor to the UN on conflict prevention and resolution, voiced his view on the role of the UN being marginalised by the US. He expressed particular concern that the US was “not neutral” as an arbiter of the CPA. “If you read the CPA, you’ll see it was not fair. I wish to see now the US go back, and leave the driver’s seat… and the UN take care of the pending issues,” said Abunafeesa. According to Abunafeesa, the UN’s presence will allow that “at least the two sides – the north and the south – can be satisfied with the mediator.”

Whether secession will foster

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Nastasha Sartore | The McGill Daily

The University of Juba’s Aggrey Abate shares policy perspectives. peace in Sudan was not explicitly addressed at the conference. When he spoke with The Daily, Medani said that secession, although a difficult process, would conclude the “many years of sheer brutality by the northern governments.”

“What [secession] resolves is a larger conflict that killed millions of people and devastated the southern part of the country,” Medani explained. “What it has not helped resolve is the issues of development and permanent peace.”

Asked about the role of external actors, panellists agreed that the international community has a cru-

cial role to play both now and after July 9. Douglas Scott Proudfoot, the director of the Sudan Task Force at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, said that Canada is already “deeply involved in Sudan,” and will remain so after secession.

“I don’t think this [violence] is going to go away, but that’s precisely why we need to build up capacity in southern Sudan, to govern itself and its citizens, and to keep a UN presence in southern Sudan, including Canada,” said Proudfoot.

—With files from Emily Meikle

Nunavik set to vote for regional government Inuit community will vote to end long struggle for self-governance Jennifer Chan News Writer

T

he region of Nunavik, the northern third of Quebec, officially began a formal referendum period on March 21 in preparation for a region-wide vote scheduled for April 27. The referendum presents the option of creating the Regional Government of Nunavik (RGN).

The completed draft of the Final Agreement for the RGN outlines specific forms of government, such as establishing a parliament-style council and an amalgamation of three of Nunavik’s existing governance structures: the Kativik Regional Government, Kativik School Board (KSB), and the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services (NRBHSS).

Makivik Corporation, a nonprofit Inuit-owned organization, manages the relationship between the Quebec government and Inuit communities who make up 90 per cent of the approximately 12,000

people living in Nunavik.

Makivik’s website identifies the push for self-government as “Quebec’s other quiet revolution” – and something that has been “unfolding slowly but steadily.” Initial advocacy for self-governance originated in the 1960 Federal-Provincial Commission on Arctic Quebec.

Feedback from the Commission expressed a desire from Inuit communities to govern themselves.

While the federal and provincial governments are represented in negotiations, Geoffrey Kelley, Quebec minister for Native Affairs, described the Final Agreement and referendum as “more of an Inuit affair.”

“We, in terms of facilitators, negotiate the positions of Quebec, but it’s really above all else them coming to the correct government with the proposal,” said Kelley.

The RGN would not be solely an Inuit authority, instead the proposed structure of the RGN is a public government embracing parliamentary and democratic process, and representing all Nunavik citizens.

Luc Ferland, Bloc Québécois MNA for the Ungava riding – the current Nunavik electoral district – explained the demographics of the region.

“The [Nunavik] territory altogether is 55 per cent of Quebec [with] 14 Inuit villages, nine Cree villages, and five municipalities that are francophone,” said Ferland.

Any Canadian citizen, aged 18 or older, having lived in Nunavik for over a year is eligible to vote in the referendum.

The RGN proposal also has implications for other groups in Ungava and pre-existing governance structures beyond those of Inuit communities.

“A lot of what took some time was developing a dialogue between the Inuit and the Naskapi, who are 800 people and much smaller in the grand scheme of things. At first, the [KSB] and [NRBHSS] were against the idea [and] started a court case to defend their interests,” said Kelley. “After awhile they abandoned that approach, and again, that took some negotiations to

make sure that the interests of education and health care don’t get lost in the model.”

Despite initial resistance to the RGN and the Final Agreement, Kelley said he was optimistic.

“There was a tour done very recently in the 14 villages and there seems to be good enthusiasm so we hope it doesn’t snow on the 27 of April and that people go out and vote in the right direction,” Kelley said.

Parallel to negotiations regarding the RGN and Final Agreement is the ongoing reformulation of Quebec’s electoral districts. Efforts to create a Nunavik riding, giving it its own representative in the National Assembly are been ongoing.

“I have always hoped for [this], even at the beginning, because I have found it to represent an immense territory,” said Ferland.

Due to electoral regulations, the Makivik Corporation is not able to speak publicly on the Agreement during the referendum period.

—With files from Erin Hudson

fter his confidential emails were hacked, Montreal Auditor General Jacques Bergeron has decided to sue the municipal employees responsible for the espionage.

Bergeron is suing the municipal employees on the grounds that their actions violated the Quebec Cities and Towns Act, which mandates autonomy between municipal employees and the Auditor General.

However, Martine Painchaud, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s office, stated that she thought Bergeron moved too quickly.

“We are very disappointed in that reaction because we would have wished that he would have waited for the Municipal Affairs minister to express himself on this matter before suing,” she said.

Gilles Corriveau, a spokesperson for Jacques Bergeron, disagreed with Painchaud’s assessment. He described the espionage operation by stating, “the whole process is illegal.”

“It doesn’t make any difference.

They are mixing apples and oranges,” said Corriveau. “The Municipal minister doesn’t have authority over the Auditor General.”

The recent espionage controversy is one chapter in an ongoing series of corruption incidents, which have plagued Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s tenure. Auditor General Jacques Bergeron uncovered many of these incidents of corruption.

Employees from Comptroller General Pierre Reid’s office – in charge of internal spending – are some of the municipal employees being sued by Bergeron for spying on him.

In a recent article in The Daily, Projet Montréal city councillor Alex Norris said he was not surprised that a city employee who worked to hold municipal workers like Reid publically accountable had been a victim of espionage operations.

Norris stated in an interview to The Daily last week that he believed Tremblay approved the espionage campaign in order to “sideline” the Auditor General by destroying his reputation.

Municipal opposition leader Richard Bergeron (not related to Jacques Bergeron) has issued a formal complaint to the Quebec Municipal Affairs minister regarding the espionage attempt.

Norris applauded the Auditor General’s decision. “It’s not up to the Municipal Affairs minister to settle this issue. The Auditor General does not report to the Quebec Municipal Affairs minister, he reports to the City Council as a whole,” he said. “If Jacques Bergeron establishes that this espionage operation is illegal he will have done a service to Montrealers by having the courts uphold the independence and autonomy of the Auditor General of Montreal.”

6 News

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Filipina live-in caregivers pursue human rights complaint Complaints against immigration consultant neglected by federal and provincial governments Jordan Venton-Rublee News Writer

A

Montreal company that provides live-in caregivers is being brought to the Quebec Human Rights Commission on charges of human rights violations and forced labour. The company, Super Nanny, has been trafficking Filipina women from across Asia under the federal government’s Live-in Caregiver (LIC) program.

Evelyn Calugay, president of Filipina worker’s group PINAY, said the women “are being lured by the good life they will have here.”

“They are told they can become permanent residents within 36 months,” Calugay said.

Between 2004 and the time of Aurora’s death in September 2009, more than forty women signed with Super Nanny after he recruited them in Asia. The women would pay over $4,000 to Aurora, in addition to airfare to Montreal.

“They will do anything in desperation to produce this money.

If they are in the Philippines, they would sell everything they have, as long as they are able to go some-

where that they will have a better life,” said Calugay.

Steve Richter, of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), said the case centres on Filipina guest workers, who were brought to Montreal under the pretence that they already have an employer. CRARR is handling the human rights aspect of the case.

“Once [the workers] got here, they were told that the employer was no longer available, and then subjected them to forced labour and coercion into signing a lease in one of his slum houses. He also coerced them into opening bank accounts and life insurance account where Aurora thought was ‘best for them,’” Richter said.

Aprodicio Laquian, professor emeritus in community and regional planning at the University of British Columbia, said that immigration consultants like Aurora have been “a major source of problems” for Filipino migrants.

“Until lately, they were not regulated. At present, there is an Association of Immigration Consultants that tries to regulate the activities of members, but it is only partially effective,” Laquian

said. “The Philippine Government has passed laws outlawing unlicensed immigration consultants and making it a crime for them to charge their immigrant clients, but it is extremely difficult to implement the law. Also, many immigrants, especially live-in caregivers, do not come directly from the Philippines – they are recruited in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, the Middle East, et cetera where immigration consultants are not regulated.”

PINAY originally brought the case to the Quebec Human Rights Commission in early 2009, though the commission has been slow to take action. It was notified of Aurora’s death in 2009, yet summoned him for a hearing two months later. The commission also summoned his daughter, Natalie Aurora, but she claimed that she had nothing to do with the cases of human trafficking and exploitation.

CRARR got involved in 2010 in an effort to move the case forward, according to Fo Niemi, the centre’s executive director.

“When we got involved we looked at the evidence again, and we found that that contrary to what

the commission believes, his daughter was actively involved in many of these practices,” Neimi said. “We also found that in addition to his daughter there were other people involved, including his secretary who was actively involved, to the point of going to Asia to recruit these women.”

Roland Coloma, an assistant professor of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, voiced the need for regulation of recruitment agencies as well as individuals like Aurora.

“What is distressing is the consistent silence of the municipal, provincial and federal governments to do something about it,” said Coloma.

“The LIC program is a federal program. What we need is a strict federal program and policy that can really ensure that women who are being recruited from the global south can have the kinds of right and protection as workers when they come to Canada.”

Niemi expressed that he would like the case to end with a judicial or official declaration that the women have been discriminated against, harassed, and exploited because of their race and social class.

Additionally, he would like to see the women compensated as a result of this exploitation.

“Ultimately, it’s the federal and provincial governments that have the powers, but also the responsibility, to ensure these women are protected from the moment they set foot in Canada,” said Niemi.

“We want to raise awareness that the system that we have set up to protect people from discrimination and exploitation has not worked for these women and therefore we need to reform some of these institutions and the protection provided to them,” he continued. “We feel there may be more women working as LICs who are subject to these kinds of conditions but have not come forward.”

According to a Citizenship and Immigration Canada press release, as of the first of April 2011, improvements will be made to the temporary worker program, specifically for LICs. It states that the changes will include “a more rigorous assessment of the genuineness of the offer,” and a “two year probation from hiring for employers who fail to meet commitments to workers.” It remains unclear if these changes will affect the ongoing Aurora case.

MD: Why do you think that students in some faculties are less likely to mobilize around tuition than others?

TW: One reason why a smaller proportion of students in the professional faculties, especially engineering, than arts students join protests is that they are more dependent than arts students upon getting jobs related to their studies upon graduation, and joining protests could harm their job chances. Some employers may be reluctant to hire graduates who were active protesters, and CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] would be not at all reluctant to inform them. In my student days at the University of Toronto, I took part in many demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. In 1972, after obtaining my PhD and spending a year in post-doctoral studies, I got a one-year definite term contract as an assistant professor in the University of Waterloo.

After twice telling me that I

would have no trouble getting my contract renewed, the head of the department in which I worked invited me into his office and told me that the reason the universities have less money these days is that corporations that profit from the war in Vietnam are discouraged from giving money to universities by the professors and students who protest against that war. Since my contract was not renewed, and since the demonstrations in which I had participated were in Toronto and not Waterloo, I can only assume that the RCMP had mentioned my participation in those demonstrations to some higher-ups at the University of Waterloo, who in turn indicated to the department head that it would be unwise to renew my contract.

The probability of such a thing happening these days is less than it used to be, but it is understandable that career-oriented students would be reluctant to take even a small risk of reducing their employability.

—Complied by Rana Encol

Prof joins in student movement UQAM Professor describes joining UC Berkeley tuition hike protest

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n March 3, nine student demonstrators gathered on the fourth-floor balcony of the University of California, Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall to protest fee increases and budget cuts to higher education. Within hours almost 300 students had gathered under the balcony. UQAM Mathermatics professor Timothy Walsh, who was giving a guest lecture at Berkeley, joined the protest. He sat down with The Daily to share his experiences.

The McGill Daily: Why did you join the protest?

Timothy Walsh: I was wandering around the campus when I heard the noises, I saw the student protests, I saw the sign. I’m old enough to remember the free speech movement, and I supported it then. I was glad to see that the spirit was still alive, and I support what they stand for.

They were planning to raise the fees by some $3,000 at a go and the students were naturally quite

upset about it. I can see their point, I didn’t have that much money when I was a student, and I know that some people are saying that when you increase the fees it doesn’t decrease the enrolment. That may very well be true, because there may be other people that have to drop out or not go to university because they can’t afford the fees. But the people who replace them are the people that didn’t make it on marks, and as a professor, I would like to teach stronger students.

MD: Do you consider occupation tactics to be violent?

TW: I wouldn’t consider it violence if nobody got hurt. One the other hand, you have to consider the effect of the image that it gives the public. Generally, these protests are won or lost on public sympathy. It’s very brave of the people to be willing to risk arrest, but it has to be on something that will gain public sympathy, and it’s possible that breaking into an office like that may

not. I wouldn’t consider the tactic immoral but I might consider it unwise on that basis.

MD: Several associations at UQAM will be striking to protest impending tuition hikes on March 31. Do you feel that the faculty will support a strike?

TW: I haven’t interviewed the staff but I shared my link to the Cal Daily with others in the Computer Science Department. Quite a few wrote back congratulating me. So just on that small sample space I would imagine that there would be a considerable amount of support among the staff. Certainly the professor’s union, SPUQ (pronounced “spook,”) has supported the students on this and others. It represents the union’s position and quite possibly the majority of the faculty’s position on this.

We ourselves had a strike over financial issues. I entertained the strikers by singing old union songs in English; it would seem quite consistent of us to support the students as well.

things fall. make a sound. write for news. last issue on stands april 4th.

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The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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Students question Hebrew University partnership New parntership launched last November; concerns focus on human rights program Queen Arsem-O'Malley The McGill Daily

A

group of students in McGill’s Faculty of Law met with administrators Friday to express their opposition and concerns regarding a new program launched in conjunction with Israel’s Hebrew University.

The faculties participating in joint initiatives are Medicine, Management, Law, and Agriculture. Specific projects revolve around health and epigenetics, international business, human rights law, and food safety and water management.

Sam Bick, U4 History, spoke about the wider implications of McGill’s association with Hebrew University.

“McGill’s partnership with Hebrew University, as well as the Technion [Israel Institute of Technology], is clear support on the part of University for an apartheid government,” he said. “Beyond tangible effect of the research done at these universities, it’s important to acknowledge the apartheid in education, and Palestinians face multiple levels of unequal access to education.”

Fundraising for the partnership is ongoing, but according

to Vice President (Research and International Relations) Rose Goldstein, $1.5 million has already been raised to fund the partnership by “both McGill donors and CFHU[Canadian Friends of Hebrew University], with the proceeds shared by both universities.”

The initiative was announced in November when CFHU presented the 2010 Scopus Award to McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum.

The Scopus Award is the “highest award that the Friends of Hebrew University gives out ” said Carolyn Steinman, director of the Montreal branch of CFHU. Steinman described the previous relationship between McGill and Hebrew University as “friendly,” though this is the first formal relationship established between the two institutions. She added that MunroeBlum encouraged the partnership after a visit to Hebrew University.

Goldstein pointed to shared research interests as a factor that lead to the collaboration.

“A trip to Israel in 2008 by a number of senior administrators, for example, led to a conversation between our Dean of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Chandra Madramootoo, and experts

there. They realized they had similar research interests, especially around the subject of water, and this led to a joint project in Kenya,” wrote Goldstein in an email to The Daily.

Steinman explained that research in epigenetics “will look at disease in a fundamentally new way by providing novel tools for prediction, diagnosis, and prevention.” She added that the project on food security and water management “will initiate a twouniversity program to improve the lives of the world’s most disadvantaged people,” she added.

Part of the initiative includes a summer law program called The McGill/Hebrew University Summer Program in Human Rights, which is a collaboration between McGill’s Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) and the Minerva Centre for Human Rights at Hebrew University. The topic for summer 2011 is “Regulating Internal Diversity.”

McGill Dean of Law Daniel Jutras described the objectives of the program’s human rights component.

“The program explores the human rights implications of the regulation of internal diversity given the very different models inspiring Canada, said to be a ‘multicultural mosaic,’ and Israel, said

to be a ‘Jewish and Democratic State,’” wrote Jutras in an email to The Daily.

“This brings up issues of law and identities, discrimination and equality, the integration of immigrants and refugees, and the rights to autonomy and self-determination,” he added.

Jutras said that the concerned students and the CHRLP were engaged in a “fruitful dialogue,” and noted that the groups will continue to communicate over the next several weeks.

Safia Lakhani, a third-year law student, expressed reservations about the program. “I don’t know that the institution we’re partnering with shares the same ideals that McGill does, like democratic dissent, equality and a commitment to human rights,” she said.

Lakhani added that she felt it is “particularly perverse that this program would be called ‘Regulating Internal Diversity,’ when there’s been international criticism of the appropriation of Palestinian land and the demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem by the Israeli government.”

“This [program] is particularly worrying about what it says about our standards,” said Lakhani. She

stressed the need to consider “what the implications are for the faculty of law, especially our centre for human rights, to endorse this program.”

Goldstein responded to the students’ concerns by stating, “It is likely students have divergent views about all sorts of research that is conducted at McGill and the research partnerships in which the University becomes engaged. McGill, as a leading research-intensive institution, engages with other top-level institutions all over the world.”

“I know that many, many of our students enjoy the incredible experiences international collaborations provide for them,” she added.

Douglas Smith, a member of the Montreal-based Palestine solidarity group Tadamon! called upon McGill to respect the movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

“We support BDS, so we’re calling for academic boycott in the frame of the Palestinian call for BDS,” said Smith, a graduate student at Concordia and member of Tadamon!

“The Hebrew Universtiy partnership obviously signals a complete ignorance as far as the role of Israeli institutions of higher learning in human rights abuses.”

NDP makes post-secondary education an election priority MP campaigning for increased federal involvement in accessibility and transparency Zach Lewsen

The McGill Daily

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iki Ashton, NDP education critic and MP for Churchill, Manitoba, recently introduced a private member’s bill that would increase the federal government’s involvement in the accessibility of post-secondary education. The bill has since been scratched as a result of the upcoming federal election, but Ashton hopes the proposed law will spark debate about the accessibility of university and make college education an election priority.

Ashton’s legislation, Bill C-635, would provide stricter criteria to ensure the equality of academic standards in institutions across Canada. The bill does not call for more federal funding, but instead increases regulations for the distribution of current funding.

Currently, the federal government does not play a significant role in financing post-secondary education; the most significant recent federal policy on this issue has been to increase the number of loans granted under the Canada

Student Loans Program.

“The idea here is to see that federal government shows leadership in working with the provinces to make post-secondary education more accessible and affordable for students,” said Ashton. “We view this as something that ought to be a priority of our national government, and the federal government can be part of achieving that by establishing a more accountable and transparent framework for giving funds to post-secondary education.”

The bill has been criticized on the grounds that it would complicate the nationwide structure of post-secondary institutions. A recent Winnipeg Free Press article stated that, “There is such a high level of conformity between universities and provincial governments on this file that any federal legislation might only confuse accountability and add another layer of bureaucracy, while conferring little benefit.”

Ashton responded to these criticisms by saying that the federal government needs to be actively involved in helping provinces make post-secondary education more accessible to all students.

“We ought to have a federal government that is assisting in making post-secondary education more affordable, and working with the provinces to do so,” she added.

Joël Pednault, incoming SSMU VP External, does not see the bill as addressing the key obstacle to postsecondary education.

“I don’t see a policy making education more accessible coming from the federal government,” Pednault said. “Their main goal should be to increase funding.”

Although the bill is no longer moving through Parliament, Ashton is still optimistic that it will play an important role in the impending election.

“What we’re saying is that this is also about generating debate,” Ashton said.

“When I’ve visited with students across the country, I’ve shared the message with them that this is an issue that we ought to be raising with our members of Parliament, our candidates from all parties, and challenging them to look at a vision for post-secondary education that includes the federal government and includes real investment that benefits students.”

Governor General in Montreal Photo by Blair Elliott

Governor General David Johnston attended a conference on Canada-U.S. relations at the Hotel Omni Mont-Royal last week organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. Other speakers included former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Quebec Premier Jean Charest, as well as former U.S. President George H.W. Bush by videolink. Students payed $50 to attend the event.

The audience was not allowed to ask Johnston political questions.

—Henry Gass

Off-Campus Eye

WE STILL NEED EDITORS!

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

CREATIVE WRITING PRIZES AND AWARDS The MONA ADILMAN PRIZE IN POETRY, estimated value $500--or estimated value $250 for two students, is open to undergraduate or graduate students registered in the Faculty of Arts for the best poem or group of poems relating to ecological or environmental concerns.

The CLARK LEWIS MEMORIAL PRIZE, estimated value $400, is open to major or honours students in the Department of English. The prize is awarded annually or from time to time for original plays staged in the course of the academic year.

The CHESTER MACNAGHTEN PRIZES IN CREATIVE WRITING (two prizes, one of estimated value $600 and another of estimated value $300) are open to undergraduate students of the University for the best piece of creative writing in English, i.e. a story, a play, a poem, an essay, etc. Printed compositions are ineligible if they have been published before April 11, 2011.

The PETERSON MEMORIAL PRIZE, estimated value $2,000, is open to undergraduate or graduate students registered in a degree program in the Department of English with distinction in English Literature (CGPA 3.30 or above) who has also shown creative literary ability.

The LIONEL SHAPIRO AWARDS FOR CREATIVE WRITING, three prizes of estimated value $1,300 each, to be distributed if possible among the genres of poetry, fiction, screen writing and playwrighting. Each prize is to be awarded on the recommendation of the Department of English to students in the final year of the B.A. course who have demonstrated outstanding talent. (A note from your academic adviser verifying you will have completed your program requirements and the minimum credits required by the Faculty of Arts MUST accompany your submission.

These competitions are restricted to students who have not previously won the First Prize.

Forms to be completed are available in the Department of English General Office, Arts 155. Submissions must be IN TRIPLICATE. DEADLINE: Monday, April 11, 2011.

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There is freedom within, there is freedom without Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup There’s a battle ahead, many battles are lost But you’ll never see the end of the road While you’re traveling with me Hey now, hey now Don’t dream it’s over Hey now, hey now When the world comes in They come, they come To build a wall between us We know they won’t win

THE MCGILL DAILY:

DON’T DREAM IT’S OVER

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

9

Wealth redistribution is possible Government inability to equitably provide is unacceptable and undermines the public trust The character of community Adrian Kaats

adrian.kaats@mcgilldaily.com

T

here’s a famous saying in engineering, “it’s not a defect, it’s a feature!”

Engineers aren’t the only ones that try this sleight of hand; it has become the standard for politicians describing economies. As far as I can tell, none of the purposes of an “economy” are served by the provision of means for the excessive accumulation of capital by anybody while others go wanting.

When governments support and even promote economic systems that allow this defect to become perceived not only as normal, but as a positive feature, something has gone wrong.

This past year has seen failures of government around the globe.

In Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Canada, and the United States, austerity budgets have been doled out by governments while corporate profits have hit record-breaking highs.

The tax-paying citizenry has not failed to notice. Despite persistent, vocal, and widespread protests, governments ostensibly for and of the people have failed to respond in the people’s clearly stated interest. Instead, governments have opted to “stimulate” and support the very economies responsible for these conditions, and they are wrongly imposing austerity measures on their populations to com-

pensate.

In a different incarnation, similar governmental failures are present in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iran, China, Thailand... Oppressive regimes have done little to relieve widespread poverty while crushing dissent and paving the way for a small few to accumulate extraordinary wealth and power.

Again, the citizenry has not failed to notice.

Uprisings and protests have done little to evoke meaningful change, and in some cases, have provoked murderous retaliation.

Now we are watching as Japan – a country with the most dazzling design and technical artistry – is suffering nuclear fallout.

Only

months earlier, its technological kin in the West, the great United States, had an entire coastline destroyed by an offshore oil leak.

Both calamities could easily have been avoided if the governments of these modern “democracies” prioritized the safety, health, pros-

perity, and happiness of the people they serve rather than facilitating the piling of heaps of cash by a select few.

What is happening the world over is – as the 50,000 participant’s in Montreal’s March 12 demonstrated – “a question of choice.”

Any fool can do the simple math required to understand that if we want a society with appropriate funding to do things right: proper safeguards on energy facilities, schools that teach everybody well, responsible industrial development that gives people opportunity for fulfilling employment and protects the environment that sustains our existence, hospitals that treat all comers, et cetera – we cannot simultaneously

allow a tiny number of people to horde money. There really is enough to go around, if we have the will to ensure it is indeed redistributed equitably.

It is abundantly clear that the powers that be are not capable of making the decisions necessary to secure the well being of their citizens. This is either because they lack the intestinal fortitude required to take on the big bullies that pull the purse strings, or because they are those big bullies. Regardless, they aren’t what “Johanne the plumber” needs from government.

What irks me the most about this whole charade of governing “for the people,” is not that the purpose is corrupted. That goes without saying. It’s that these charlatans go so far as to tell us that the fundamental flaw of the economies they implement is, in fact, a feature: “you too can become filthy rich,” “you too can be the President one day,” “you too can dance with the stars.” This simply isn’t true. It is not possible for everybody to have excessive levels of wealth or power, but it is possible for all of us to have more than enough.

We need governments that will end excessive accumulation of capital and excessive profits so that everybody can share in the wealth we all contribute to generating. Until we force them to make that choice, our governments will continue to aid and abet the liquidation of the public trust, in both its political and financial incarnations. !

Nicole Stradiotto | The McGill Daily

Let us democratically elect McGill’s next principal Slawomir Poplawski Hyde Park

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here was nothing new or controversial for our community in the recently presented “Recommendations of the Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement.” At the beginning, this task force looked like a public relations exercise without substance, but after audible and active support of our community, a clear mandate was established.

Now it contains a collection of respected opinions about the common problems of universities in reflecting and readjusting to current sociological, technological, and political challenges. Everything written in the 46 pages of this internally-publicized draft seems to be reasonable and acceptable.

The fruits of extended discussion provide a logical framework – what could be considered common-

sense recommendations – which one would have expect to already be reflected in the work of the McGill administration.

We must secure this framework’s continual and consistent implementation, as in less than two years – according to University regulations – we may have a new principal. The University community should have confidence that the next leader will ensure that the presented recommendations are respected. The situation is a little bit unusual, as at the end of its term the leaving administration presents well-defined strategies for the next leaders, strategies that new administrators typically don’t feel obliged to follow precisely.

The good work of our community should be incorporated into this transition framework in order to recognize their efforts in this public relations exercise. This will need a lot of care and attention.

For her part, Heather MunroeBlum has not seen friction between

the Board of Governors and herself – as in the recent case between Concordia’s Board and President – perhaps due to her personally trimming its size from 49 to 25 people a few years ago. At Concordia, the Board of Governors has been strengthening its position against the office of the president since 2005. This has caused friction at Concordia and resulted in the costly departure of their last two presidents. As new presidents, they were simply not strong enough for open debates with the Board and so the community did not know the details of the strategic differences between the two sides. Now we see an artificial return to the strengthened presidential position and no profound dialogue, which would be enriching this community, in existence. The same scenario could happen at McGill. To avoid this McGill needs to find a strong and willing next principal. I believe the current principal and Board could

work to make the transition better and more effective.

The best known way to find strong leaders and create maximally engaged communities – as re-iterated in the task force’s recommendation – are democratic and open elections. My direct suggestion is to consider holding such an election, and I explained this to the Principal at her Town Hall on March 11. Unfortunately, her stance on this was not received. Such a proposal would mean abandoning the present final-stage practice of choosing the principal behind closed doors, including allowing representatives of our community to be pressured by the top executives on the Board of Governors who already know who they have chosen.

What is the disadvantage in starting the search for our new leader now at this opportune time during the extended discussion on of the Principal’s Task Force? If nothing else, it would validate the

task force, and boost the community’s engagement, if their main recommendations were in the minds of the emerging candidates for the principal’s job.

We need to organize a project to ensure the eventual realization of an open election for the next principal. Town Hall meetings were good, but now it is time to see more engagement in our community discussions with the candidates for the top administrative position when discussing their answers for the challenging Latin question: Quo Vadis McGill? The Principal’s Task Force provides an excellent platform for launching such a campaign, and naturally extends the community’s active participation.

Slawomir Poplawski is a former technician in McGill’s department of Mining and Material Engineering.

He can be reached at slavekpop@ yahoo.com.

Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

11

Prisoners should be able to donate organs Courtney Graham Comment

C

hristian Longo, who has been on death row in Oregon since 2003, has recently reemerged in the media after writing a New York Times op-ed about his desire to donate his organs when he is put to death. Longo started an organization called Gifts of Anatomical Value from Everyone (GAVE) to advocate for the rights of prisoners to donate their organs, and which seeks to answer the question, “Why not?”

My curiosity stems from that that very question: why is it that, after all that prisoners have given up through their loss of agency and bodily sovereignty in the federal prison system, they cannot donate their organs when they die, whether by lethal injection or of natural causes.

Furthermore, why does it matter where an organ comes from, or from whom, so long as it is healthy?

Whether you agree with capital punishment or not (which I don’t) – and despite the fact that Canada outlawed the use of the death penalty in 1962 – this is a human question, one with greater implications for how we view the already limited rights of prisoners in corrections systems.

A primary concern in this whole debate is the effect the lethal injection drug cocktail (used in 34 of the 36 states that have not outlawed capital punishment) has on the body. The three drugs, “Sodium Pentothal (induces sleep), Pancuronium Bromide (stops breathing), Potassium Chloride (stops heart)” – sourced from the Oregon Department of Corrections – may cause lasting damage to

heart tissue and the tissue of other organs that would render them useless for donation. Two states – Ohio and Washington – currently use just the first drug in a higher dosage, and have found that it achieves the same effect while doing less damage.

Barring that apparently easyto-overcome obstacle, and assuming capital punishment is not going to be universally banned any time soon, the question remains: why can’t a prisoner choose to donate their organs when they are executed? Accusations that Longo and his fellow inmates are seeking forgiveness for their crimes, or that this is merely a publicity stunt to push them back into the public eye have been thrown around as a result of his editorial. First, regardless of either of those points, these individuals are not going to be taken off death row.

They are prisoners for life, with no possibility of parole. Second, who are we to judge their motivations?

Why do people donate kidneys to estranged family members? Why do we sign up to be organ donors in the first place? We do not ask these questions. No – our concern about their motives is prompted, at its core, by our disgust with these people who have committed ‘unpardonable’ crimes. This disgust motivates us to enforce the deprivation of the rights of prisoners on death row as retribution for their crimes.

You can speculate all you want about Longo’s motivations, but the pure and simple fact is that neither we nor the prison system really have any right to tell him or anyone else sitting on death row what they can or cannot do with their bodies once they die. One, it should ultimately be the choice of them and

Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

Denying this right oversteps boundaries of punishment and denies treatment to thousands

their families. Two, when there are over 4,000 Canadians and 100,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants, it is extremely backward to refuse healthy, viable, and willfully-given organs on such vacuous and irrational terms.

Organs are most often meant to be given anonymously. As such, there is no need to know the identity of the person who gave their heart, or kidney, or lung, so long as they are a healthy match for the recipient.

This moral desire to know where an organ came from is based on an archaic belief that our organs contain some sort of code that comes from the person who donated this part of their body. Ultimately, such arguments are used to refuse organs from people who are, for example,

“criminals,” people of a different race, people who have experienced trauma – the list goes on. Even common popular culture tropes exist surrounding this conception of organ donation. David Duchovny stars in a film about a woman who gets his wife’s heart when she dies.

They somehow meet and fall in love because it’s “really her inside.” We’re constantly told that these pieces of tissue, which are really just muscle and blood and cells, have some sort of magical, soulful property through which we can “live on” in someone else.

None of these arguments satisfy me. Each person has a natural right to his or her own body that does not, and should not, be violated, even after death. Prisoners

are already disenfranchised and deprived of many civil liberties as part and parcel of their punishment – how many more rights do we wish to deprive them of? Motivations or irrational fears of “impurity” should not be concerns – period – in the decision to allow prisoners on death row to donate their organs when they die. Thousands of people across North America could benefit from the change in policy, and it is unacceptable to continue to deny this fact.

Courtney Graham is a U3 Political Science and IDS (Joint Honours) student, and The Daily’s Commentary editor. The views expressed here are her own. She can be reached at courtney.graham@mail.mcgill.ca.

Feminism has not yet accomplished its goals We cannot allow everyday misogyny to go unchecked Flora Dunster Comment

O

n March 7, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente wrote, “The war for women’s rights is over,” and that, “People who persist in looking for systemic discrimination against women…seem more and more desperate.”

On March 8, jezebel.com leaked an email (later confirmed to be authentic) sent to members of the University of Southern California’s (USC) Kappa Sigma chapter detailing strategies and rules for sleeping with female students, specifically women in campus sororities.

The author writes, “I will refer to females as ‘targets.’ They aren’t actual people like us men.”

On March 9, the internet explod-

ed when the New York Times published an article describing the gang rape of an 11 year-old girl in Texas.

This incident alone is proof that sexism and violence against women are still issues of great relevance, and the Times’ treatment of the topic only further illustrates this point. The article, which the newspaper’s Public Editor has since stated “lacked balance,” focused on those accused of participating in the rape, and the extent to which their lives would be affected by the incident – failing to even consider the girl and her unimaginably traumatic experience.

Post-feminism is the belief that feminism has accomplished its goals, that sexism is no longer an issue, and that the discourse of “third wave” feminism is irrelevant. The events that took place over the the week of March 7 – which also included the 100-

year anniversary of International Women’s Day – are more than ample proof that this is not the case. I am a self-identifying, proud feminist. I am a Women’s Studies minor. I do not approach this issue without significant bias. However, I find it utterly incomprehensible that someone can truly believe the fight against gender inequality is over – for every incident like those at USC or in Texas, there are countless more that don’t make the headlines.

As an example that might hit closer to home, I would ask you to think of how many times you have heard or made a kitchen ‘joke’ – something along the lines of, “Get back in the kitchen” or, “Make me a sandwich.” I’m fully aware that the more I vocalize my frustration over these comments, the more I encourage them

from those who are insensitive or unaware. However, I firmly believe that these jokes aren’t funny. They are overused, uncreative, entirely unproductive, and contribute to the subtle, everyday misogyny that permeates our lives. Wente writes that young women today “can scarcely believe the kind of sexism depicted on Mad Men existed only fifty years ago.” I can. It’s everywhere; we just don’t want to acknowledge that in many respects our society’s attitude toward women remains incredibly regressive.

Sexism continues to punctuate our conversations, affect women’s reproductive rights, employment opportunities, and, quite frequently, ability to be taken seriously.

Kitchen ‘jokes’ might be a more subtle example of this, but events such as the rape of an 11 year-old girl and an email stating that “non-consent

and rape are two different things” are concrete cases that permit me to feel comfortable saying that feminism is still relevant, and that the war for women’s rights is most definitely not over. Non-consent and rape are exactly the same thing, and the fact that someone might think otherwise is truly frightening.

Feminism isn’t a bad thing, and isn’t exclusively reserved for women to identify with. If we want our communities to be happier, safer, and more inclusive, we need to support feminism as a whole, and acknowledge that we’re still a long way from reaching total equality.

Flora Dunster is a U2 Art History major (Honours) and Women’s Studies minor, and The Daily’s Copy editor. The views expressed here are her own. She can be reached at flora.dunster@mail.mcgill.ca.

12Features

Geo-engineering and Aaron Vansintjan examines our band-aid solutions to climate change

I

t’s the late 2030s. Countries near the equator are suffering severely from storms and collapsing agriculture, but the West is unable to initiate significant mitigation efforts because of its own political divide. Indonesia and the Philippines, funded by China (its water supply crippled and crops failing), start firing sulphur into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space.

By the late 2040s it’s confirmed that this is having a cooling effect on the climate: the global temperature drops one or two degrees.

But a sudden volcano eruption causes temperatures to fluctuate wildly. Crops, by now adapted to a warmer environment, fail globally. This causes mass starvation, migration, and crumbling governments worldwide. The West’s defense forces are completely occupied with fending off masses of refugees.

Millions die from hunger: even more die from conflict.

This is one of the possible scenarios described by Canadian journalist Gwynne Dyer in his book, Climate Wars. Having sourced his material from scenarios drawn up by the U.S. and U.K. militaries, Dyer’s book paints a desperate picture of the near future. A general consensus is emerging that more ambitious and large-scale action is needed to address climate change. “Geoengineering is a bad idea whose time has come,” Eli Kintisch told Wired last March, “It is something that you have to study and hope to never use.” Kintisch is the author of Hack the Planet, in which he describes geo-engineering as a life-or-death situation best compared with the nuclear arms race of the Cold War. If the enemy points nuclear weapons at you, you have no choice but to develop your own.

The contemporary equivalent of the nuclear weapon is an ever-approaching climate catastrophe. The Gulf Stream may slow down or reverse, causing drastic changes in the global climate. The South Asian monsoons could stop, leading to massive crop failure and droughts. The Greenland ice sheet may soon slide into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise seven metres.

Any number of these events may push the climate beyond its tipping point, from which it could not return. To prevent this we could resort to geo-engineering. The two dominant approaches involve either trying to capture carbon in the atmosphere or reflecting sunlight back to space. Both would require large-scale technologies and a significant change in the way we interact with the Earth.

“We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil,” said Adlai Stevenson, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in 1965.

Spaceship Earth means that we are self-contained – everything we need is right here, and we’re here to stay. But it also means that we live in a simple system – the sun gives us light, plants give us air, and we eat the plants. All we need to do is control the variables, inputs, and outputs. In this case, we don’t have a choice – we need to make do with what we’ve got.

In Aliens, the 1986 science-fiction film directed by James Cameron, “planet engineers” colonize space with funds from “The Company.” One executive says, “It’s what we call a shake ‘n’ bake colony. They set up atmosphere processors to make the air breathable.

Takes decades.”

In the film, Earth has lost contact with one of these colonies. Something must be wrong.

A squadron of soldiers is sent to investigate, and Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, is sent with them. “What exactly are we dealing with here?” asks one soldier.

“I’ll tell you what I know…” begins Ripley.

“Look man,” says another soldier, “I only need to know one thing. Where. They. Are.” She pulls a fearless scowl and takes aim with her make-believe gun. Bang.

Seeing the atmosphere processor towers in Aliens, I couldn’t help but think about a geoengineering project proposed in 2007, when John Latham and Stephen Salter suggested a fleet of wind-powered yachts to roam the oceans, pumping sea-foam clouds into the atmosphere from billowing chimneys.

But terraforming isn’t only relegated to the world of science fiction. One year after Aliens hit the box office, a U.S. company called Space Biosphere Ventures decided to model the earth’s climate in a tightly sealed 12,000 square metre structure called Biosphere 2. By controlling the inputs of air and building simu-

lated environments – a coral reef, a savannah, and a jungle, for example – the research group wanted to explore the interactions between different species and atmospheric conditions. This was the embodiment of “spaceship earth;” the network of plants, animals, and biomes was specifically designed to examine the potential for space colonization. But it was an inversion of Stevenson’s metaphor: an ideal earth was viewed as a model for space travel, rather than space travel being the model of an ideal earth.

By 1993 the experiment was doomed.

To quote one New York Times article, “The would-be Eden became a nightmare, its atmosphere gone sour, its sea acidic, its crops failing, and many of its species dying off. Among the survivors are crazy ants, millions of them.”

The hordes of ants started eating the silicon of which the structure’s geodesic dome was made. The fabricated environment was literally eating itself from the inside out. With a lack of oxygen in the sealed structure, the human subjects started hallucinating and suffered from drowsiness. A feud emerged between those trapped in Biosphere 2. Should they open vents to allow in more oxygen or trust the artificial ecosystem to correct itself?

In 1995 the pavillion was bought by Columbia University to become a research facility for an entirely different scenario: climate change. A micro-model of the earth in space became a micro-model of the earth under the yoke of geo-engineering. Spaceship Earth, embodied by Biosphere 2, exemplified the difficulties of trying to engineer the environment.

Climate change is almost inevitably associated with disaster, and geo-engineering is seen by many as a “necessary evil” to mitigate the worst of it. In the article “Hacking the Sky,” Jason Mark, an environmental journalist, considers geo-engineering as a solution to the oncoming disasters. “[I]f we shy away from manipulating the whole globe and continue on our present course, we could be left with a burnt Earth unlike anything ever seen.

The scientists who are encouraging government-funded research into geo-engineering

are driven by a powerful motive: fear.” Mark, like most, describes geo-engineering as a “double bind.” He says, “Either we keep our hands off the sky, and hope we act in time …

Or we try our luck at playing Zeus.”

As David Keith, a well-known Canadian scientist who advocates the study of geoengineering, said in an interview, “There would be consequences and side effects. I’m not saying this is a perfect solution. But as far as I can see, it’s the only tool we have.”

Some governments are also expressing enthusiasm. In 2009 Germany – in defiance of a U.N. moratorium – decided to fund a geo-engineering project to dump iron sulfate particles into the ocean to encourage algal blooms in an experiment with carbon-capture technologies.

Geo-engineering is most often either championed as “the only way out” or demonized as “hubris.” But it’s this kind of dialogue, driven by fear, which obscures the whole picture. When you shoot the enemy point-blank, all you see is the barrel of your gun.

James Ford, a McGill Geography professor specializing in the analysis of the vulnerability of communities to climate change, is skeptical of the current drive behind geoengineering.

When I sat down with Ford two weeks ago, he recalled a 2009 conference on geo-engineering where the airconditioning system in one of the lecture halls broke down, much to the organizers’ embarrassment. “That metaphor relates the difficulties of controlling the climate. If we can’t control the climate in a single room, what are our chances of controlling the climate on a global scale? One of the myths is that there is this techno-fix out there, it’s just a case of developing the technology.”

The myth stems from the long-standing belief that technology can be fully integrated with our environment and can always solve our problems. During the Biosphere 2 project, millions of dollars were spent and increasingly complex systems of control were developed to fix its atmosphere, only to fail when the ecosystem proved too difficult to maintain and started destroying itself from the inside.

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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Atmospheric carbon capture Cost: Unknown, but would be profitable in a carbon-capture market, which is expected to be worth $3 trillion by 2030.

Proposed by David Keith and Klaus Lackner

Ocean fertilization Cloud reflectivity enhancement Cost: $5 billion Proposed by Jonathan Latham and Stephen Salter

Cost: Minimal, but would prove profitable in a carboncapture market.

Proposed by several companies: Climos, Planktos, and the Ocean Nourishment Corporation

A fleet of 1,500 remote-controlled “rotor ships” powered by electricitygenerating water turbines would whiten clouds by spraying sea-water into the wind. This proposal was inspired by the massive clouds generated by ship exhausts. The cloud coverage would reflect more sunlight and radiation, therefore reducing global warming.

Iron filings dropped in the ocean would artificially stimulate phytoplankton blooms, which would absorb carbon dioxide, eventually lowering the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

The plankton would die and sink to the ocean floor. Research has been put to a halt since a 2008 U.N. moratorium on adding nutrients to the ocean.

Beyond the question of viability, Biosphere 2 also demonstrated that environmental control, even when affecting a small group of people, quickly becomes politically heated.

One 2008 review, “Ranking Geo-Engineering Schemes,” attempts to provide some basis for weighing the costs and benefits of the different geo-engineering plans available. “It is time,” say the authors, “to select and assess the most promising ideas according to efficacy, cost, all aspects of risk, and – importantly – their rate of mitigation.” Yet, as quickly becomes apparent, there is scarcely any data available to assess these ideas with. Hidden deep in the article, they mention that “other important but very uncertain aspects of risk, such as geopolitical and economic changes, require further research.”

Ford, who also specializes in the “human dimensions” of climate change, thinks it’s not quite as simple as a cost-benefit analysis: “I don’t think it’s cost, I don’t think it’s technology, I think it’s politics,” he said. The wider view that looks beyond the gun is often lacking, says Ford. “Geo-engineering debates tend to be dominated, at an international scale and in policy circles, by climate change modelists: people who have not given too much consideration to the kind of social consequences or the politics that geo-engineering might have.”

And when disasters – like the volcano erup-

Sunshades in space Cost: $1 trillion Proposed by Roger Angel 16 trillion small films would be fired electromagnetically into space from a mountain near the equator. These remote-controlled mirrors would form a cylindrical cloud 1.6 million miles into the Earth-sun axis, deflecting 2 per cent of all sunlight on the planet.

tion described by Dyer in his scenario – do strike, we won’t know who to blame. China now spends an estimated $114 million a year on its weather-manipulation program to irrigate its farmlands. But when Beijing was hit by major out-of-season snowstorms, China Daily blamed the government’s weather control.

As Richard Alley, a paleoclimatologist, said in an interview with journalist Jeff Goodell, “We spend a lot of time arguing about the weather now … Imagine what it will be like if I can blame somebody every time my tomatoes don’t ripen on schedule.”

As a response to the fear that geo-engineering itself will become unmitigated in its spread, many scientists and politicians are now suggesting that treaties should be put in place to prevent solutions from getting out of hand. As Keith said, “I think there are questions about whether we should start thinking about what the norms of international control are. Whether we need some kind of international treaty process perhaps.” Commenting on this trend, Goodell remarked, “Unlike nuclear or biological weapons, geo-engineering is not about annihilation. It is about dominance and control.”

All the main proponents of the geoengineering debate are male and white, all claiming to be “reasonable” and sincere. Geoengineering will become another issue of

“Artificial trees” would “scrub” carbon from the atmosphere through a combination of lots of energy and chemical bonds.

These Rube Goldberg-style towers are still being perfected.

Injecting sulfate aerosols Cost: $20 to 25 billion Proposed by Paul Crutzen “Artillery guns” or balloons would inject sulphur in the stratosphere continuously until humanity slows its relentless burning of fossil fuels. The aerosols would reflect sunlight back to space. This proposal was inspired by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which lowered the earth’s temperature by one degree for several years.

dominance, where the West should, according to Keith, once again control the recalcitrant East, which is portrayed to be easily swayed by its emotions. As Dyer told me when he visited McGill last year, “people can be quite unreasonable when they’re starving.” Systems have to be put in place, so the argument goes, to ensure that nobody acts out of line, nobody acts irrationally. The duality of West versus East is another instance of the reason versus emotion, man versus nature, and male versus female duality – ways of thinking that, many argue, lie at the root of environmental degradation.

Fear of a catastrophic future drives this argument, but geo-engineering is also driven by the same interests as climate denialism in the West.

These interests don’t always come down to the preservation of the climate. When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce finally stopped denying global warming it remained nonchalant: “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioural, physiological, and technological adaptations,” they said in a press release. Similarly, the Harper Government’s refusal to cooperate last May on drafting a geo-engineering ban is indicative of its main interests: business. The lack of meaningful action at Copenhagen and Cancun is reflective of the interests of those in power: to stay in power and preserve their stakes in the market. Few governments have

actually had the nerve to take on the fossilfuel industry. In this way, the myth that technology can predictably control the mechanisms of the Earth will result in different, yet no less detrimental, systems of control.

Geo-engineering, it appears, won’t mean the end of the world, but it’s not the solution to climate change either. As more money gets invested in research, we might find more practical solutions and possible technologies to mitigate the “worst-case scenario.” But the discussion is part of a wider movement that will entail shifts of power, just as nuclear technologies meant changes in international policy and power struggles.

Like Ripley in Aliens, we are often tempted to combat threats with a point-and-shoot mindset. Just give us a target, and we’ll shoot.

As new treaties are drafted, the security of borders, fear of the unknown enemy, and the blaming of others won’t cease to direct dominant political dialogue. Corporations will have a fair bit to say in this game: as the carbon-trade grows and billionaires get richer, even “philanthropists” may become main players. In a world where the temperature is controlled and engineered, someone’s hand will have to be on the thermostat and someone else’s hands will be tied. You know there will be civilian casualties whenever there’s a hero with a gun.

Sports

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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Fans get priced out of sports Owners are neglecting their supporters in pursuit of profits The McGill Daily

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eers were $9.75.

Most people misinterpret my love for sports as one constituting the same nerdy idolization frequently observed in sports fans. No – I like sports because it affords me the necessary social atmosphere to get piss-liquored and shout at people without the cops being called. But the world of the Bell Centre stands in harsh contrast to my most beloved of pursuits, and pretty much bans the inebriation of this struggling McGill proletarian.

So, largely because I wanted to see a live hockey game and couldn’t afford to buy tickets to one, I convinced my editor to score a media pass to the Sabres vs. Canadiens game this past Tuesday. Two teams fighting for their playoff lives. And boy was I treated to the works.

The media section is filled with two things: humpty-dumpty male sports writers – basically a pack of ticks Hunter S. Thompson lovingly compared to “pimps and real estate agents” – and stereotypically attractive female sports writers, who, from what I could tell, kept most of the other group of miscreants pretty happy. It was an odd contrast that seemed to bring the misogyny of jock culture up into the weird iron oval media section that hung apart from the rest of the stadium.

There were free hot dogs, chips, and coffee – evidently a popular diet. I took my place at my media position beside a pretty serious dude who seemed to care about the fate of the Sabres. I was immediately suspicious of this odd man.

When the game started the Canadiens played some serious propaganda. They displayed a video montage of children playing hockey, dreaming of one day becoming players like the Canadiens, then they showed the childhood amateur hockey cards of current Canadiens.

The message was palpable: one day this could be you.

But I wonder – when most of these professional players were young, precocious, and dreaming wild dreams of becoming NHLers – could their parents have even afforded to take them to an NHL game?

Maybe then, but not now. Not at an average ticket price of $86.44.

The rising costs of sports games In the past fifteen years, the reported average ticket price has tripled for Canadiens fans, and has also gone up about $30 in the past five years alone. And that number is misleadingly deflated. In 2000-2001, Team Marketing Research – the company that compiles this data every

year – dubiously decided to factor out “Premium Seating”. In the 20002001 season, the average ticket price for the Colorado Avalanche dropped from $63.11 to $37.36 following their Stanley Cup-winning season. It would be naive to think it was out of appreciation for their fans instead of some manipulative accounting.

In a culture where fans are so deeply devoted to their team, particularly in a city like Montreal, they would pay almost any price for tickets and sell off their first-born child in the process. The Bell Centre has a sellout streak that dates back to January 2004, despite the astronomical jump in costs.

“In Montreal, hockey is a religion,” said Joe Dimauro, a Montreal-based ticket reseller. “It’s simple economics: The more people want it, they’re willing to pay for it and so a lot of the teams and franchises are getting away with…asking for higher prices.”

Yet Dimauro, as a ticket reseller, represents another element in today’s modern sports entertainment industry that is pricing out working-class fans. Today, many fans turn to ticket resellers and, as a result, have to pay well above face value for their tickets.

Dimauro estimated that he charges between 25 and 30 per cent above face value, but clarified that everything is based on market conditions.

“Let’s say the season-ticket holder – their ticket cost them $300. If the market is strong and they decide to sell it to the reseller, me, for $600 …I have to resell it for $700-800. It all depends on the market,” said Dimauro. But if Dimauro sees that the tickets are being sold for more money, he will adjust his price. “If …I see everybody selling tickets at roughly $1,000 each, that’s what I’m going to do… I’m going to be selling at $1,000 no matter what because the market is $1,000 a ticket.”

It is obvious that ticket resellers – who in essence are licensed scalpers – are part of the reason that the games have gotten to the point of simply being unaffordable for many fans.

Yet the problem has gotten worse.

Dimauro states that in the past 15 years, the internet has been the prime factor in the changes that the reselling industry has experienced. In the past, reselling mostly happened on the street outside the arena, through private ads in newspapers, or through word of mouth. Today, the reselling industry’s main platform is the internet, and this has allowed more people to resell their tickets for profit. “There are more players on the market,” said Dimauro. “Because of the internet, you have more wannabe ticket resellers. … You could get your hands on tickets, put an ad on craigslist, and sell the tickets and make a profit.”

Danny Antoinette, a fan at last week’s Canadiens game, came with his toddler son who could sit on his

lap, thus limiting his cost to one ticket at $180. But what happens when he’s all grown up, playing hockey with his own childhood amateur hockey card?

“When I was a kid my Dad used to take me to the Old Forum in the stand-up section,” Antoinette said. “[Tickets] were like $20 to 30 for the two of us. That’s out of the question nowadays.”

Fans getting shut out Modern sports franchises, which largely employ players coming from the working classes of society and profit from their prolific skills, oddly alienate the common person from purchasing tickets to see their peers play. The paradox is evident.

Pro sports were once a bastion for the working man – a place that they could retreat to for entertainment, to avoid the reality of things like war and the Great Depression. Yet since the 2008 recession, the average ticket price in the NHL has gone up each year. Dimauro believes that sports is a recessionproof industry. “In some respects professional sports … is going to continue to sell out because

people need an out for their depression.”

As I sat back in my bigshot media chair I could see eyeto-eye with the nose-bleed fan base.

They were all standing joyously, shouting and chanting at the players far down below, densely packed together in some sort of workers’ commune. No seat was bare. No person silent.

Below I could see bare patches of seats in the lower bowl.

“There’s a good reason for that,” said Dimauro. “[In] the upper levels … seats are cheaper. Most people in the general public can afford the cheaper seats and not the expensive seats.”

But, because of ticket resellers, getting upper-level tickets is not so easy. “If you can get the [upper level seats], they’re affordable – $40 to 50 – but good luck trying to get them,” said Antoinette. “You got to buy them online and they’re all season tickets and it’s very, very hard to get [them]. … That’s the problem. You just can’t get them.”

The fact that the lower levels are often empty is just a technicality for the

Canadiens and their illustrious sellout streak. All of the tickets are still sold, but whether or not people go is another issue. “It’s not a problem as far as the Bell Centre or the Montreal Canadiens hockey club is concerned because they sold all of their tickets,” said

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Dimauro. On Tuesday night, Dimauro claimed that many resellers were stuck with the tickets they were unable to sell, but the Canadiens still reported a sell-out crowd. “Whether people go and sit in those seats is inconsequential to the owners of the team.”

In the current market, the Canadiens are selling out their tickets, the resellers are making profits on tickets they get, and the fans are getting righteously screwed. “It’s an open market,” said Dimauro. “We live in a free and open democratic society whether you’re a scalper or … anybody else. We all have access to the internet, we can all buy tickets, we can all do what we want with them, and that’s the bottom line.” But the fans, in essence, are getting punished for their avid support. Owners and resellers recognize that fans will pay high prices to see their beloved teams in action and, because of that, they charge prices that are almost

unfathomable. The whole thing is a deal with the devil and the devil is paying your favourite hockey player.

In the press box The odd man beside me writing feverishly about the Sabres groaned and scowled at the upper section as whistles flew down to the referee. Another penalty against the Canadiens had been called. This was after all a hockey game, not church, so I broke the silence.

“Bad call, eh?”

“Whatever,” he replied.

I could only imagine how boring the conversations were down by the glass, let alone up here in this riveting media atmosphere, with all the pomp and flare of journalistic swagger. I longed to be with the rest of the chanting and drunken lunatics across from me instead of this boring mole.

It was going to be a long night, and I desperately needed a beer.

Sports

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

15

A new spin on pole sports Emerging sport bids for inclusion in the Olympic Games Alyssa Favreau

The McGill Daily

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hen hearing the term “pole dancing,” your thoughts probably don’t turn to the Olympic games.

You’re much more likely to start thinking about strip clubs, or perhaps trendy fitness studios. Yet this perception is being actively fought by many pole enthusiasts who would like to see their discipline included in the Olympic games.

Though still new, pole sports have been steadily gaining mainstream recognition as a legitimate form of fitness training. Dominic Lacasse, circus artist and current holder of the world record for longest human flag, wrote in an interview with The Daily that the sport is becoming “more and more known and popular,” adding that dancers, circus artists, athletes, and gymnasts are all among those adopting the pole.

According to the Pole Fitness Association (PFA), pole dancing refers to the more artistic discipline – the one that most resembles the routines performed in bars and clubs. Pole fitness, on the other hand, focuses more on building strength and conditioning. But it is pole sports that many hope the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will consider for inclusion in future competitions. Combining acrobatics and dance moves, pole sports focuses on technique and execution, and bears a resemblance to both figure skating and gymnastics.

Maiko Starr, a Montreal-based PFA accredited instructor agrees that the community is growing and expanding to include different types of people, including men. According to Starr, the presence of men in the pole sports community may have a legitimizing effect serving to distance the discipline from the more stereotypically sexualized pole routines. Lacasse points out, however, that male participation is still more common in disciplines like parkour or the Chinese poles – two parallel vertical poles used in circus acts – than the single vertical pole.

Even so, Lacasse is quick to note that while pole fitness is

Montreal pole instructor and Quebec representative on the PFIC Board of Commission, believes that “the image we project through advertisement, the quality of our instructors, and our teaching method will slowly change people’s minds about pole dancing.”

“This conception does affect us a lot,” wrote Starr, “and I can’t wait to see more and more people being informed about how efficient of a workout pole [sports] actually is... Pole [sports] may have started from a dark background, but it is something different completely.”

With the regulation and standardization of the sport, which are required by the IOC for participation in the Olympic Games, many hope that pole sports will soon be a step closer to inclusion in the Olympic Games. Coates writes that once a stable federation is put in place and standardized competitions are run, the IPSF can then submit its efforts to the IOC, who would then vote on the sport’s inclusion.

Coates feels strongly about pole sports’ place in the games.

“What we do requires a great deal of dedication, technique, training, and skill, just like any other gymnast or ice-skater. We feel that pole sports should be recognized for what it truly is: a beautiful and inspiring thing to see.

The highest recognition you can get is inclusion in the Olympics, so why settle for anything less?”

Both Starr and Lacasse agree, feeling that it would definitely help the sport. “Why not?” wrote Lacasse “It’s a very spectacular discipline that demands a lot of training, a lot of physical and artistic qualities.”

But Paillé Dowell is not so eager about the sport’s inclusion in the Olympic games. “It will be a

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form of recognition, but personally I’m not so warm about that idea,” said Paillé Dowell.

“If it goes to the Olympics, pole dancing will be very codified.

The artistic and the freedom of expression will be lost. Now, pole dancing is at a new beginning, the art can explode in every direction...I like the freedom of creation more than the code system of the Olympics.”

The process for inclusion in the Olympic Games usually takes between seven and twelve years, and the IOC only allows three test sports to appear at a time.

If successful, pole sports could become a permanent fixture at the games, though Lacasse acknowledges that getting into the Olympics, “is a long process and it will not be tomorrow that it will happen.”

Even so, Coates remains optimistic. “We are a very long way off from this, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. We believe [pole sports’ inclusion] will be either in 2016 or 2020, as we [still] need to prove ourselves as an authentic sport.”

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now practiced worldwide, it is still relatively new in Quebec.

It is precisely because the sport is so new that its admittance into mainstream sports culture may be hindered. There currently exist few concrete regulations for pole sports, and Lacasse notes that the lack of organization will need to be overcome. “The sport doesn’t need to change, but they need to put in place rules [for the] routines, costumes, and judging,” he wrote. Even the terminology and definitions of the sport remain unclear.

In order to help facilitate the transition into a global standardized sport, several governing agencies have been set up to oversee various aspects of pole sports. The International Pole Sports Federation (IPSF) oversees the Olympic effort, while other organizations like the Pole Dance for Fitness Instruction Commission (PFIC) offer certification for experienced instructors. The PFA, meanwhile, is responsible for universalizing terminology and judging criteria.

Despite the push for homogenization, many people, even those working in the industry, remain unaware of the distinctions. Starr wrote that she doesn’t believe the sport will be differentiated from its artistic and erotic counterparts as long as certain practices, such as wearing high heels in competition, are allowed.

“They are banned from my studio, so are boas and we sell yoga tank tops, not G-strings... It’s not pole fitness if you do it with a boa around your neck.”

According to KT Coates, executive vice president of the IPSF, “pole sports is not pole dancing, the same as BMX biking is not the Tour de France. Both originate from using the same apparatus but are completely different.” She further stressed the difference by stating, “pole sports is acrobatic, not erotic.”

“What we do has nothing to do with what happens in strip clubs,” said Starr. “That would be comparing the way your neighbour mows his lawn to what a professional landscaper does. In strip clubs, most dancers will walk around the pole not caring. What we do is closer to the circus.”

But Julie Paillé Dowell, a

Science+Technology

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

16

Withstanding seismic risks Structural codes keep our buildings safe, but it may not be enough Prose Encounters of the Nerd Kind Andrew Komar

andrewkomar@mcgilldaily.com

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e often take for granted the idea that the buildings we use every day will remain standing. This becomes most apparent during seismic events when the structural capacity of the built environment is put to the ultimate test. Yet the damage caused by extreme earthquakes is highly variable, which is in fact best illustrated by the differences in the destruction caused by recent earthquakes in Haiti and Japan.

Earthquakes will continue to be a natural hazard as long as we continue to live in seismically active areas, so it is worth understanding the reasons why some buildings stay standing and others collapse when exposed to the same risks.

Ultimately, that distinction is in the building codes governing construction practices, as well as how the buildings are maintained. Saeed Mirza, professor emeritus in Civil Engineering at McGill, has spent much of his career working on issues related to construction and society. “The devastation we saw in Haiti is what happens when there is no meaningful structural code,” he said. Even though that earthquake was 1,000 times less severe than the recent Japan event, over 200,000 people lost their lives and more than 90 per cent of buildings near the epicenter collapsed.

At their core, what structural codes do is allow designers to determine two things: expected loads, and buildings’ expected ability to resist those loads. Inherent in these estimates (which are based on the best available data and probability) is the risk that we will underestimate the applied loads and overestimate the resistance, leading to failure and possible loss of life. In practice, the way that design engineers minimize that risk is by making their resistance estimates as conservative as realistically possible. For earthquake resistance, the Canadian

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code ensures that structures will survive small to moderate earthquakes with little to no damage.

In the case of larger earthquakes, the design philosophy emphasizes multiple layers of redundancy and types of ductile failures that allow maximum survivability (such as beams that stretch and sag instead of suddenly cracking in half, allowing occupants to escape). The code is strictest when it comes to ensuring that structures needed post-disaster – such as fire stations or hospitals – remain intact even when less critical structures collapse.

The corollary to this philosophy is the fact that less risk necessarily costs more money, and that this relationship is not linear. For post-disaster design, the additional material, design, and construction will increase building costs by 20 to 30 per cent, sometimes even more. Though the question of whether additional safety is worth the money is unpleasant to ask, structural codes exist to ensure that whatever the answer, loss of human life will hopefully be minimized.

How structural codes deter-

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mine a feasible solution to this problem is highly dependent on location, since the forces that govern structural design are generally region-specific. Snow loads may be particularly troublesome in Eastern Canada – and often control design – but are extremely unlikely in places like Arizona.

Likewise, the building code in Japan is notably conservative in respect to earthquake design since the country is particularly seismically active. All of Japan is potentially at risk, so the Japanese structural code requires measures not seen in other countries, such as base-isolated foundations, or multiple redundant structural systems. With these advanced construction practices comes a higher price tag for each building, but the Japanese government has decided that these higher prices are worth the lives saved.

Even the most conservative building codes are not 100 per cent effective, because there is always a chance that the design for “worst-case scenario” will be exceeded. In the wake of such events, the lessons learned help

improve our codes, and make future buildings even safer.

Though these changes do much to improve the safety of new buildings, they do not affect the state of existing construction.

The absolute importance of these changes can be seen in the fact that earthquakes disproportionally effect older buildings, while their modern counterparts perform as intended.

Aging construction suffers from an additional compounding problem: accumulating deterioration because of deferred maintenance. Just as one must change the oil in one’s car to keep it running, infrastructure requires continual maintenance to perform at the minimum level for which it was designed. The fact that the structural code necessarily requires conservative overdesign has masked much of the accumulated damage and diminishing capacity that these structures have incurred over their 50 year or more lifespans. The Canadian government has not been spending an adequate amount of money on the trillions of dollars worth of critical

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assets in its care, which could have potentially catastrophic results.

Mirza has worked extensively on this problem, having issued the first comprehensive report on the state of Canadian infrastructure in 1996. Since then, he estimates the amount of money required to bring all Canadian infrastructure back up to minimum service levels to be upwards of $400 billion.

This number has been constantly rising since much of Canada’s critical infrastructure was built as successive governments chose to ignore the ballooning problem.

We are seeing the results of this negligence today, with an estimated $212-million cost associated with rehabilitating the Champlain bridge, built in 1962 simply to keep it in service for the next ten years. The bridge was originally built for $35 million ($255 million in 2011 dollars), and this currently ongoing rehabilitation does not even begin to address known deficiencies in seismic resistance on this post-disaster structure.

When asked about how Montreal would fare in an earthquake, Mirza was blunt. “Neither the Champlain bridge or Turcot exchange may survive a moderate earthquake,” he said. “Can we afford to lose either? No. Yet we have consistently ignored our minimum responsibility to citizens and society, without even appreciating the danger we face... If a big one hit, the damage we would see would be catastrophic, and we would expect to lose many lives.”

After Vancouver, Montreal has the second highest level of seismic risk in Canada, and it is only a matter of time before the next “big one” hits. It may be in 2,000 years, or it may happen tomorrow – but it will happen. Even if we never see it in our lifetimes, we still must face the problem of our crumbling bridges and roads. How we as a society choose to respond to these dangers will ultimately determine how we fare, but there will be costs no matter what we do. Whether we pay in a few dollars now or many dollars and lives later is up to us.

Rundowns April 12 Elections April 13 Must be staff to run.

Contact coordinating@mcgilldaily.com for more information.

Science+Technology

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

17

The digital divide

Research maps disparity in global access to information and communication technology David Cornu

Science+Technology Writer

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Personal computers per 100 people

n June 21, 2007, a consortium of telecom companies from various African nations and the United States began work on a $600-million project to run a submarine fibre optic cable from Marseilles down to South Africa – the first of its kind in East Africa. Completed in 2009, the cable now provides 1.28 terabits per second (Tbits/s) bandwidth to Djibouti, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Mozambique. Though this is groundbreaking, huge disparities still exist globally. For example, Montreal’s total bandwidth capacity is estimated at 7.44 Tbits/s for a population one tenth of the size.

With the ever-increasing importance of technology in the development of key sectors such as education and business, the global digital divide, the popular term for the difference in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), is one of the most pressing issues facing developing countries. Its effect is further compounded by the prohibitively high costs of implementing the required infrastructure for technological development, leaving most nations dependent on small satellite termi-

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Global distribution of internet users by tier

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Source: “Mapping the Global Digital Divide”

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nals which suffer from extremely high latency.

Though the digital divide is a recognized phenomenon, there have been very few efforts to quantify the gap, as there still isn’t a clear definition of what constitutes a country’s technological standing. In a paper published in the International

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Journal of Business Information Systems, Steven White, professor of Marketing and International Business at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, set out to do exactly that. Using previous research as a basis, White mapped out the global figures for computers per 100 people, internet users per

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David Cornu, Alyssa Favreau, and Jenny Lu | The McGill Daily

100 people, and international internet bandwidth per capita.

Using data from 172 countries, White segmented states by using a multi-stage cluster analysis to establish four tiers. Tier one represented the nations with the highest access to ICTs, and each tier was further segmented into clusters. Though the differ-

ence between the top and bottom tiers wasn’t that surprising, the study revealed strong progress being made by some developing countries. For instance, tier one includes countries such as Chile and Jamaica. Jamaica is in the second cluster, ahead of Canada (located in the second cluster), and the United States in the third.

Balancing gender in the video game industry Jenny Lu

The McGill Daily

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grew up playing Goldeneye and Super Mario Brothers, and, as a result, gained a small modicum of video gaming skills. Though I enjoyed gaming, I was reluctant to admit to it, since I knew it was not a typically female activity. The rarity of women who play, or who will admit to playing, video games, is just one reminder of the male domination of the video game industry.

The video game industry is comprised of people from many different fields, such as design, music, and marketing. About a third of these people come from Computer Science programs, the graduates of which are primarily male. Addressing this skewed gender distribution is the subject of a joint research project between the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education and its Department of Computing Science. Their research involved introducing boys, who had more experience with video games, and girls, who had less, to ScriptEase, a game design program. Their findings showed that girls and boys showed equal interest in the program, despite differences in initial experience.

According to one of the paper’s researchers, Duane Szafron, a Computing Science professor at the

University of Alberta, it is important to have more women in the field.

He believes that a greater balance between genders is necessary in universities because, “it is important for students to be educated in an environment that is similar to the one in which they will spend their lives. ... The education they experience should be in a context in which they interact with as many women as men. This idea also suggests that other kinds of diversity should be present in the university [setting] to match the diversity of the Canadian community with regards to race, religion, et cetera,” he added in an email to The Daily.

“Anytime someone is in a minority population there is a danger that they will be treated differently by the majority and feel that they don’t belong. I believe this is currently the case for women in Computing Science programs. It is too easy for them to feel that they don’t belong and so too many leave the program for the wrong reasons. In some ways, the minority is self-perpetuating,” wrote Szafron.

Judy Truong, project manager in the Technology Group at Ubisoft, a French video and computer game company with a development studio in Montreal, explains that any female engineer, not just in those in the video game industry, will face male dominated environments.

However, she explained that what

drew her to the industry was that “the video game industry is so upand-coming; there’s design, marketing, and computer science aspects; there’s just a lot of possibilities.”

Szafron’s research also confirms that for many women, the lure of video games is not the enjoyment derived from playing the games, but rather the design and creation aspects of the industry. However, according to Truong, “many women don’t know about the industry unless they have been exposed to video games, which is not as common for women.” For Truong, who is an occasional gamer, video games were not something foreign nor unfamiliar. But even with this prior exposure, she was still surprised by the breadth of the industry.

For many women, it seems that this lack of information deters those who would, if made aware of the different disciplines involved, be interested in the design of these games.

Szafron and Truong agree that the best way to increase the number of women in computer science is through a change in curriculum.

Currently, high school Computer Science curricula are much less developed than those of other sciences, such as physics, biology and chemistry, and vary widely from school to school. Additionally, many universities do not allow Computer Science to be used for entrance

credits. This means that Computer Science is an afterthought for many students in high school, resulting in misconceptions about the discipline. According to Szafron, “most students do not actually know what the discipline is about.

Many high school students equate Computer Science with either using a computer to social network, find information on the internet, or write papers. They are not introduced to Computer Science as a discipline in which a wide variety of problems can be solved by applying computational methods, and in which creativity is required to build artefacts that can be used to entertain, educate and assist.

The few high-school students who think about Computer Science as a problem solving discipline usually think that computers can only solve “math problems” and that the solutions do not involve any creativity.”

However, Szafron believes that these problems can be solved by implementing “a course that centres around game design, where students work in project groups to create a game. They learn Computer Science

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

and programming concepts while they are working on it, but they have a concrete creative goal and they can discuss the artefact that they are working on throughout the term.” A second approach, he says, would be to introduce a series of science problems based in the real world and have student solve them computationally. “For example, computationally identifying protein sequences that are involved in some metabolic pathway that is associated with a disease.” Truong agrees with these suggestions, saying that introducing more three dimensional design and Computer Science-specific courses would be beneficial for all streams of engineering.

Perhaps the day will soon come when girls in video games won’t only bring to mind those of the animated variety.

18Art Essay

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

“Variations on Mondays” Vincent Oat

NEW MASTER’S DEGREES IN BUILDING SCIENCE WESTERN CANADA’S FIRST BCIT’s graduate programs in Building Science offer a unique interdisciplinary approach that combines the theory and practical skills necessary to deliver durable, healthy, comfortable and energy-efficient buildings. If you are an engineering student who is interested in sustainability and innovations in building technologies, learn more about these programs: > Master’s of Engineering (M. Eng.) – course-based > Master’s of Applied Science (M.A.Sc.) – thesis-based Apply now for September.

bcit.ca/buildingscience

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.

I hope you had the time of your life.

The McGill Daily

Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

19

Ten days of student plays

The Daily’s Ben Fried opens the curtains on the Director’s Project 2011

Amina Batyreva | The McGill Daily

Actors from Trisha Pathak’s production of 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Kyra Lightburn’s adaption of Forever Yours, Marie-Lou.

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cGill theatregoers, well accustomed to “measuring their evenings out with coffee spoons,” to quote T.S. Eliot, face an unexpected glut of plays in the next two weeks. The English Department’s production of The Alchemist opened last week, and the McGill Drama Festival will present seven original works at Players’ Theatre starting this Tuesday. Arriving between these sturdy entrees is the largest and longest course of student theatre this year: Directors’ Projects 2011.

From March 23 to April 2, eleven shows – which, given two doublebills, comprise 13 plays – will be performed on a rotating schedule at Morrice Hall Theatre. They run the smorgasbord from breezily inconsequential comedy to domestic drama so gritty that it more closely resembles the kitchen plumbing than the proverbial sink.

These productions, each brought to life by a different director, are the result of a little-known, long-running drama course taught by Myrna Wyatt Selkirk. Since 1991, “Directing for the Theatre” has been selective, intensive, and full-year. Its participants – a mongrel mix of actors and directors – are determined

by interview during the preceding spring semester. Having devoted the summer to reading plays, the students choose their one-act projects early on, and spend the rest of the year working toward their performances.

The first semester focuses on rehearsal techniques and script analysis, proceeding at a leisurely four hours a week. The second semester is single-minded and builds to a climax in a caffeinated rush of twenty-hour weeks.

The directors cast their own plays, find their own stage managers, and design their own sets.

Amazingly, everyone involved declares that the experience debunks the myth of the director as an egomaniac and theatre as the last civilized refuge for dictatorship. Director Alex Montagnese, jokingly refers to her role as “the traffic cop director” telling actors “where to place their hands, when to shed a tear, and when to laugh.”

Director and Daily Staffer Kallee Lins, echoed the disapproval, even though she has coined the acronym L.Y.F.L. (Learn Your Fucking Lines).

Lins admits that, “sometimes I feel rather tyrannical. One day I threw an orange peel at my actors.” The largest part of directing, she insists,

does not consist of imposition but “in drawing out as much as possible from the actors and the text.”

Now this is only a wild guess, but their comments seem to suggest an organic aesthetic, which locates the director’s job in the unfolding and integrating of a play’s many elements. The results are, without exception, imaginatively staged and performed. Often an audience recognizes the direction only when its flaws are too glaring to be ignored; Directors’ Projects reminds us that we can be simultaneously aware and consumed by a drama. Originally conceived by Eleanor Foulkes, Mike McPhaden’s Poochwater keeps a single, amnesiac character alone onstage for much of the play without becoming static. Natalie Gershtein’s chilling production of Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes, does much of the same by maintaining the brutal tension of a couple’s cross-examination through the slightest movements and shifts in tone. Rachael Benjamin’s take on Doug Wright’s The Stonewater Rapture builds imperceptibly from light religious satire to a disturbing vision of faith, climaxing in an aria of distress, beautifully delivered by Elizabeth Conway.

With all this talent, it’s a shame

that the directors didn’t pick better plays. The most impressive work belongs to Montagnese, whose staging of The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls is thrillingly confident. She devises seamless exits and entrances, moving her actors fluidly around the stage, and cutting between rooms and years with frictionless ease. The play itself is another story; a collaboration attributed to five women – Jennifer Brewin, Leah Cherniak, Ann-Marie Macdonald, Alisa Palmer and Martha Ross – its compromises show, from the characters stuck in caricature to the smoothed-over satisfactions of the ending. Tara Richter-Smith’s production of The Dreamer Examines His Pillow is another instance of interesting direction that makes use of the entire auditorium, yet is let down by its subject. In this case, the laughably melodramatic lines of John Patrick Shanley, a fervent exponent of the “I should cut your throat...

God, I miss you” school of writing.

Luckily, there are two plays that will linger in the mind.

Tennessee Williams’s 27 Wagons Full of Cotton boasts an excellent performance from Hope Whalen.

In director Trisha Pathak’s opinion, Williams is interested in the

important things, such as “staying in a bad relationship, doing the wrong thing for the right reason, being blinded by love till something terrible happens.” Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, written by Michel Tremblay and directed by Kyra Lightburn, is one long howl of anguish. Its heartache offers overwhelming proof that disappointment is the companion of love; for those who already know that, or have been the cause of such disappointment, the play may be very hard to take.

Directors’ Projects 2011 follows a pattern of single-show matinees and double-bill soirees.

Presented in pairs, the plays throw each other into relief – a technique already applauded by the delegates of Philopolis, for whom the absurdist pieces The Tricycle and The Chairs were specially rehearsed. The best combinations, however, require more extended viewing, as every play connects and deepens over the course of the festival. It’s a wonderful way to end the year.

Directors’ Project 2011 runs from March 23 to April 2 at Morrice Hall, 3485 McTavish. Evening shows are $5 and matinees are $3.

20Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Decorating Montreal Art Deco Montreal helps keep the architectural roar of the 20s audible Alex Borkowski Culture Writer

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hen speaking with Sandra Cohen-Rose, the founder and president of Art Deco Montreal, it becomes instantly apparent that heritage architecture is more than just a relic. Architectural history is “part of our background... of everyone’s lives,” she told The Daily. It is part of a collective consciousness of both our past and present. While other historical artifacts can be encased and isolated in museums, architecture is, by its very nature, lived in. Evolution is always visible as buildings and architecture reveal the history of the changing ways in which people relate to their environments. Cohen-Rose feels that Art Deco art and architecture in particular possess this expressive quality, as “a romantic sort of architecture...it really shows its heart.”

Art Deco emerged from the modernist forms of the lavishly emotive and ornamental Art Nouveau, popular in Europe around the turn of the 20th century. Initially referred to simply as the style moderne, this sleek and multifarious aesthetic came to the fore in Paris in the 1920s, and was rapidly taken up across the globe as the definitive decorative and architectural style of the interwar period.

This stylistic epoch coincided with a period of extensive urban development in Montreal, resulting in numerous iconic instances of this distinctive aesthetic in commercial, institutional, and residential architecture. Art Deco Montreal has made it its mission to create a greater awareness and appreciation of the decorative and architectural arts produced in Montreal from the 1920s through the 1940s.

The diverse range of Art Deco spaces in the city are far too numerous to even begin to describe. The main building of the Université de Montréal is perhaps the quintessential example. As the masterpiece of Ernest Cormier, Montreal’s foremost Art Deco architect, the building perfectly demonstrates the characteristic balance between eclecticism and unity that defines Art Deco. The interior lobby draws upon several disparate architectural traditions – from the unadorned monumental columns of ancient Egypt to the Greco-Roman

style of coloured marble and dentil friezes. The prominent presence of the modernist influence is also noticeable in the lighting fixtures which hang like chandeliers proudly displaying their tubular fluorescent lights. All of these diverse influences are brought together into a perfect spatial harmony as geometric motifs engage in a rhythmic repetition between the three doors, staircases, and circular recesses in the ceiling. Every detail of the space is accounted for within a singular design scheme – even the security desk echoes the motifs of the wood and metalwork on the door frames.

Through this careful amalgamation of the traditional with the new, the building stands as a monument to the university’s position as a bastion of modern thinking. In an interview with The Daily, Annmarie Adams, a professor of architecture at McGill, emphasized Art Deco’s function as a “symbol of a progressive institution.” She described the way in which this ethos of “sleek modernity jived with the missions of institutions in this period.” The lobby of the Montreal Neurological Institute also demonstrates the ways in which clean modern lines and patterning worked to revise classical traditions and build a new sort of temple to science and medicine. The use of sculptural reliefs in Art Deco exteriors – such as those illustrating a brain at the Neurological Institute, and the symbols of learning at McGill’s Peterson Hall – also serve to proclaim the ideological project of the buildings.

Cohen-Rose also suggested that Art Deco can be considered directly in relation to its historical moment in time, and that its eclecticism and decorative beauty can be read as a means of masking the underlying sadness in the years following the First World War. In Montreal, Art Deco buildings serve as an artistic manifestation of the competing mentalities of the interwar period.

The lavish Lion d’Or Cabaret speaks to Montreal’s liveliness as the largest east coast city unaffected by prohibition in the roaring twenties, while the Montreal Botanical Gardens also draws upon Art Deco to quite literally “lift the spirit of the people,” as it was built as part of a large scale employment stimulus project

during the Great Depression.

Art Deco Montreal has done much to promote an awareness of the city’s rich architectural history through a series of walking tours, lectures, and conferences. In 2009, the society hosted the resoundingly successful 10th World Congress on Art Deco. Yet although Montreal’s remarkable architectural history has achieved great international attention, it is tragically neglected by its own citizens. “We don’t appreciate what we have,” said CohenRose, who founded Art Deco Montreal as a result of her dismay at the demolishment of so many great Art Deco buildings. The list of lost buildings is indeed lengthy, and includes the Kresge Building, the York Theatre, and Ben’s Delicatessen – to name only a small sampling. CohenRose also cited the ninth floor of the former Eaton’s department store – which now lies in disrepair in the new Complexe Les Ailes – as a space that is currently neglected and inaccessible to the public.

One of Art Deco Montreal’s major ongoing projects is to work towards preserving and reopening this space.

According to Cohen-Rose, Montreal is full of “wonderful things that are crying out to us.” Art Deco Montreal has made it its mission to make sure that these cries from our collective past do not fall on deaf ears.

Nicole Stradiotto | The McGill Daily

Culture

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

21

Hell’s chicken

Big-name intervention compromises the family-run casse-croute Christina Colizza

The McGill Daily

“W

e don’t have this bullshit pretty little piece of food on a plate…we have FOOD.” Rôtisserie Portugalia’s Melissa Lopes, daughter of Portugalia’s owner and the restaurant’s waiter, had much to say about top celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s British invasion of Montreal’s oldest rotisserie, Laurier BBQ, which is scheduled to take place next month.

“So he comes and buys off restaurants people can’t afford anymore?

Him? I even like his stupid show, but I can’t believe this,” Lopes added.

Nor could many Montrealers and faithful patrons of this 75 year-old family establishment.

Rôtisserie Laurier BBQ was first opened by the LaPorte family in 1936 and existed for three generations before the last son closed the restaurant’s upstairs section and eventually sold the entire space. The Rôtisserie offered hearty roasted chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes, and mac-andcheese dishes served on paper placemats, with crayons for the kids. As a family-style restaurant, it was central to Outremont’s primarily French and more recently Hasidic neighbourhood of Montreal. Marie Christine Couture, one of the Rôtisserie’s assistants, explained that the restaurant’s clientele had substantially decreased over the years. “Laurier BBQ once had 1,000 customers a day to currently about eighty people a day.”

The turh of Couture’s comments was made hauntingly clear as I looked around and saw only a few old ladies scattered through the restaurant’s booths. It seems that the neighbourhood’s distaste for Ramsay’s takeover hasn’t been enough to bring people back to the famous home of their

favourite childhood chicken and ribs.

The animosity surrounding Laurier BBQ’s scheduled closure is due in part to Gordon Ramsay himself. A reality TV show tyrant, Ramsay’s takeover is the 44 year-old’s 25th restaurant experiment. Despite his fame, Ramsay’s track record is full of restaurant closings, multimillion dollar bankruptcies, and bad reviews. As one of Portugalia’s Lopes brothers explained, “None of his restaurants make any money. He makes his money while he is there and then he boats!” Then there is also Ramsay’s notorious reputation for home-wrecking and wreaking emotional havoc on his contestants’ lives. Clearly, Ramsay represents a stark contrast to Laurier BBQ’s family-oriented atmosphere and staff of friendly older women.

The shutdown of this Montreal landmark may tell us more about the truths of neighbourhood gentrification than of Ramsay’s new flavour of the week. The Outremont and Mile End communities faced a similar loss earlier this year when diner Nouveau Palais was bought out, leading to an arguably detrimental change in both management and atmosphere. Throughout the past three decades, streets such as Laurier and Bernard have become home to ritzy restaurants and shops, and with this has come an inevitable corporatization of the Montreal casse-croute. “Family-style” has been replaced by “fancy” in these parts as Laurier BBQ has started to compete with funky Asian fusion restaurants and classy cocktail bars.

This trends of corporatization and gentrification have deepened the meaning of the events at Laurier BBQ for those in the rotisserie business – whether Quebecstyle, which Laurier BBQ is famous for, or Portuguese, like Portugalia.

Through his daughter’s transla-

Lorraine Chuen for The McGill Daily

tion, Melissa Lopes father spoke to me in Portuguese about Ramsay’s takeover. Raising his spice-covered hands, he asked, “Does he work for the government? I bet he works for the government!” More yelling in Portuguese ensued until Melissa finally explained what her father meant: “Well, the government keeps complaining about pollution. We have been here since 1993 and all of a sudden all of us need new chim-

neys. Most Plateau people like the smell and the smoke. It’s part of the neighbourhood…and they are going to let this guy come in and open a restaurant?” Portugalia has further demonstrated their disdain by challenging Ramsay to a cook-off. They have yet to receive a reply.

Despite the chef’s infamous demeanor, the blame cannot solely be placed on Ramsay or the last LaPorte on sons. Despite the

vibrant history and delicious food these famous Montreal institutions still stand for, the loyal clientele has declined. This itself is a result of gentrification, as many of the BBQ’s clientele have moved during the neighborhood’s demographic shifts. However, this fact doesn’t make the heartbreak any easier. Let’s just hope Rôtisserie Laurier BBQ is the last of Ramsay’s Montreal takeovers.

Humour turns words into gold The Alchemist proves a play doesn’t have to be relevant to be enjoyable Ari Schwartz

Culture Writer

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cGill’s English department’s production of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist is decadent in the best ways. At its premier Thursday night, audacious acting, gem-like lighting and set, and sumptuous costumes resurrected Jonson’s 400 year-old comedy with swagger. Jonson’s comic masterpiece, as it’s often called, follows conniving servant Jeremy – also called Captain Face – a fellow conman named Subtle, and a harlot named Doll, as they bamboozle the greedy and gullible with a promise of the philosopher’s stone that has the ability to turn all metals to gold. Needless to say, the script is both witty and lewd in the

way that only old works can be, but more importantly, the cast is equal to it. Not only do you have Jonson’s thousand old-fangled dirty jokes, but also the trilled Rs to faithfully pronounce them. Under the direction of professor Sean Carney there are potions thrown against the wall, or drunk and spat out, characters that kiss, grope, or fight each other, that trip and faint, or hang from the rafters. There’s even an explosion.

It’s lucky for the actors and fortunate for the audience that The Alchemist is composed of small cons, for each is an occasion for new antics and effects. In this way, we have an excellent and indefatigable Chirag Naik playing Captain Face the solicitous gentleman, as well as a panting Quasimodo-esque assistant, and Jeremy the allegedly

guileless servant. Not only are Naik’s characters well-articulated, but he wildly contorts his body and voice to match them while still giving sense to the script. Mike Ruderman plays Subtle – a hardworking conman who acts a spiritual medium – as well as a booming alchemical priest. As it happens, Ruderman himself profitably channels a Robin Williams genie-type. Katie Scharf plays the saucy courtesan Doll, who acts as an insane noblewoman, and fairyqueen. Together, the devious trio relieves a naive gambler of his purse, a tobacconist of his wares, a lord and a religious sect of their gold, and a rich widow of her inhibitions.

All round, the production was very energetic to say the least.

In point of fact, the actors even overfilled the cup. Just the slightest hint of realism would have elevated

the comic antics all the more by contrast. In any case, nun-groping, kissing and butt-kissing, stage-fighting, and penis jokes shine forth emphatically. The production owes no small part of its shine and shimmer to its excellent stage-, lighting-, and costume-design. At the back of the stage hangs a beautifully illuminated screen, or projection, on which shimmers an abstract and smoky play of light. This, together with a triplet of cathedral-like windowpanes that overhang the middle of the stage, creates a real sense of depth that Carney both uses and furthers to full advantage. In these environs, expert lighting design heightens the drama, as amazing period-inspired costumes lend both gravity and levity to the production.

Now comes time to ask, what broader meaning can The Alchemist

offer? What oblique correspondences persist between the world of The Alchemist and our own? Nothing too specific, I’m afraid. The world of Elizabethan London that The Alchemist rarifies into gold has, in fact disappeared from almost everywhere except plays, though certain human things do remain. There was plague then as there’s sickness now. Greed then, as there is now. Treachery then, as now. Fanatical belief then, and perhaps more now. But, most importantly, there was humour then the same as there is now, and in the face of those other persisting evils, humour is what’s wanted, and The Alchemist satisfies. It’s funny.

The Alchemist runs at Moyse Hall Theatre March 26 to April 2 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets $5 for students, call 514-398-6070 to book.

Compendium!

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Lies, half-truths, and uranium

22

Shale gas found at McGill Fracking under Redpath set to start over the summer Sean Phipps

News Writer

Hell yeah for winter biking like a badass!!!

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eah Yeah Yeah for biking through the winter!!! Hooray for those dedicated souls and their machinery who’ve made it through the winter without breaking hips, getting lost in snow banks, getting mauled by automobiles, or mauling automobiles out of frustration (car drivers are seriously free loading off bikers’ clean air... maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing...).

HOORAY for the Flat for supporting these often ludicrous adventurous commutes. So rad. I heard the other day that civilians in the U.S. own enough guns for every U.S. citizen to own one if they were equally distributed. Can you imagine how many bikes that metal could’ve been used for?!

Winter bikers are super dedicated and awesome individuals. Ooh Yeah! All winter baby!

Fuck yeah for the butterfly effect!

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UCK YEAH SHODDY METEOROLOGY. Fuck yes to the rays of sun that were supposed to be sheets of sleet. FUCKIN’ A to the unreliability of the five-day weather forecast and fuck YEAH to the fucking monarch in Mexico that flapped its little butterfly wings and accounted for that eponymous effect that shifted the fucking cold front just a little east of Montreal! (Fuck yeah ATOC 183 for teaching me this shit.)

LONG LIVE salt-stain free loafers. Let fucking DIIIEE the Canada Goose!

(Not the migratory bird.) LONG LIVE skimpy-ass threads and let DIE fucking black-hole coat checks at clubs where they lose your god-damn jacket anyway. FUCK YEAH sheesha on a rooftop. FUCK YEAH vitamin D from the mothafuckin’ sun. Say hello, McGillians, to something you’d almost given the fuck up on: the fucking spraaangtime, bitchez! The season is here. Fuck. yeah.

The year is almost over, and we only have one issue left! Do you have something you really want to say before we all go? Email fuckthis@mcgilldaily.com!! Please keep your rants to 150 words or less, and remember that The Daily does not print anything hateful.

M

cGill Chancellor Meather Bunroe-Hlum recently announced that the University has signed a contract with Montreal Energy Company (MEC) to exploit a gas reserve found underneath Redpath Museum.

Bunroe-Hlum welcomed the move, saying in a statement that the partnership fits well in her mandate of making the University more research and business-oriented.

“The whole country’s dependent on money from fossil fuels,” she said, adding that “it’s only right that McGill as this country’s premier educational institution lead the way. Anyway, Haaahvahd already operates two oil refiniries and a uranium mine, we don’t want to be left behind.”

Despite the recent ban on shale gas extraction across the province of Quebec, the gas company says it will continue to seek the rights for McGill’s gas, saying they have full confidence in the government’s abilities to look out for those in need. “And here at Montreal Energy Company, we really need gas,” said a company representative, who wanted to remain anonymous due to ongo-

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are waking up to the real world.

How else are students going to learn about the repressive apparatus of the capitalist system?

The money for all those culturestudies courses has to come from some where.”

When asked about the possibility of student groups preventing the deal from going through, Provost Fendelson responded, “We took away their cafe, we took away their bikes, do you really think their going to stop us from

“Anyway, Haaahvahd already operates two oil refineries and a uranium mine, we don’t want to be left behind.”

Meather Bunroe-Hlum McGill University Chancellor minion-producing machine, for a week.

Commenting on the deal McGill Provost Horton Fendelson – affectionately referred to as “Minion One-pants” by BunroeHlum – announced, “This is a big step forward, finally universities

Across

The Crossword Fairies 1

ing contract negotiations.

Shale gas is extracted through a complicated process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which involves shooting a high pressure mixture of water and mud into cracks in the ground to extract the natural gas.

It is estimated that the energy required from these reserves will be enough to power BunroeHlum’s chemical equipment that produces Formula 86 Instant Action Mouse Maker, as well as her

1. Carcinogenic apple spray 5. Lays down the lawn 9. Acclaimed Tamil director sultan 14. “Little Caesar” role 15. Appearance 16. Refined & well-mannered 17. X-ray protein structure finder 20. Czech monetary units 21. Fourth largest Great Lake 22. Alter, in a way 23. Electrical unit 25. Victorian, for one 26. Vein contents 27. Deuterium 33. Opposite of pretti 34. Anger 35. Front part of a cuirass 37. Misses 38. Implied 41. True Cross 43. Lavish affection (on) 45. One in a suit 46. Continental currency 47. Famous 2D fractal generator 51. Society of Automotive Engineers 53. Modern projectile firing weapon 54. Blueprint 55. Misjudge 56. Dregs 58. Two-seater

taking away their gas?” His predictions were confirmed when it was found the SSMU president Smack Schoolbergh was founded to have had a 51 per cent operating stake in Montreal Energy.

—With files from Marie Josèphe-Vaugeois

63. Big bang creator 66. Spring locale 67. Dour 68. Squander 69. Water sprite?

70. Lotus position discipline 71. Pie perch

36. Achy 39. Part of a nuclear arsenal, for short 40. Germ cell tumor 42. Pattern, with polka 44. This language 48. Musical partnership 49. May never be created nor destroyed 50. Fiery, multicolored crystal 51. Attacked 52. Orderly grouping 57. Stag 59. Chickie___, Atwood’s nugget prediction 60. Sandwich shop 61. Hydroxylated alkene 62. Cry like a baby or kitten 64. Touch of frost 65. Harbor craft

Down 1. Flatfoot’s lack 2. Italian money, once 3. R-C=0 group 4. Beauty’s gift from the Beast 5. Top of the charts 6. Lubricate 7. Proofreader’s “delete” 8. Noisy sleeper 9. Land 10. Bygone bird 11. Pleasing to the ear 12. Early anesthetic 13. Word match C O 18. “Iliad” city B O 19. Copter’s forerunner S P 24. “___ Breckinridge” S 27. Embrace A G 28. “Good grief!”

G O 29. Variability in I N chemical constituS N tion without variation M A in crystalline form 30. Windows 7 S E P R precursor E N 31. Stick-on W E 32. “Snowy” bird

Solution to “You can count on me” A S A P R A D O N V O T E

T F O H L R E C I E R A A G L T E I E A G H O L T W O E N E N E E R D S

I D E A

V E A L

A N D O N D A E I O W A

G R A D

E S S E F O B U E R E P T S O M H T E O R M D S

P R E F A B

R I V E R B O C A A T N O D N I T T O

O P E C

T E N T

O R T S

L U C I A

E S T O P

S T I N T

N O O N

E S S P I Y X

23

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

volume 100 number 41

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ISSN 1192-4608.

EDITORIAL

McGill should cut ties with the Hebrew University Last November, McGill announced a new partnership with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem involving collaboration in four specific programs: epigenetics, human rights law, international business, and food safety and water management. These are potentially problematic programs operating in an already oppressive context. The partnership is funded through $1.5 million raised in private donations, including a $500 per plate dinner at which Principal Heather MunroeBlum was presented with the Friends of Hebrew University’s highest award.

The inaugural human rights law program between McGill’s Centre for Legal Pluralism and Hebrew University’s Minerva Centre for Human Rights will examine the topic of “regulating internal diversity” from a comparative Canadian-Israeli standpoint. The program includes visits with state officials, Israeli Supreme Court justices, and the Israeli human rights NGO community. However, it makes no mention of the ongoing occupation and settlement of the West Bank or restrictions placed on Palestinian movement, economic activity, and personal freedoms. Nor does it mention the blockade of Gaza or continued airstrikes, which have become more intense in recent weeks. Worse yet, the head of the Minerva Centre wrote a report defending the construction and maintenance of the security wall between the West Bank and Israel proper. Through this program, McGill is effectively supporting the legal apparatus that has allowed the state of Israel to systematically discriminate against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories as well as in Israel.

In addition to the specific nature of these two programs, other aspects of the structure and actions of the Hebrew University are problematic. The University itself has expanded onto occupied land in East Jerusalem and provided scholarships for those who participated in Operation Defensive Shield during the Second Intifada in 2002. The University also removed South African judge Richard Goldstone as an honorary member of its Board of Governors in 2010 after the release of his UN report, which found the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in violation of international law. In a direct tie with the Israel Defence Force, the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus includes a military base on its land.

Regardless of one’s opinion on various forms of boycott of Israeli academic institutions, McGill’s partnership needs to end. In addition to the various worrisome connections and actions of the Hebrew University, this particular program focuses on one of the most pressing humanitarian concerns in Israel-Palestine: human rights or “management of internal diversity.” As a result, the partnership not only has the capacity to contribute indirectly to ongoing injustices through institutional ties, but also has the very real possibility of making an already dire situation even worse.

10Commentary

The McGill Daily | Monday, March 28, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Nuclear choice is our prerogative Why the mighty power of the atom is our best way to fight climate change Alexander Kunev Hyde Park

F

ear of a nuclear catastrophe has always been a subjective and emotional argument against developing energy from the atom. While the apocalyptic scenarios that involve radiation released in large quantities usually feature nuclear weapons, this fear is equally felt about nuclear energy.

It is natural to be afraid in the aftermath of the tragic events in Japan that have reminded us how weak we are against the forces of nature. One of the countries that was probably best prepared for such a large-scale disaster has been forced to race against time to prevent the release of radiation. And yet, this massive accident could have been avoided had the reactors been updated to make up for the outdated pressure suppression system, which presented 90 per cent probability of bursting in the event of overheating.

The safety of nuclear reactors should not be judged by this sole accident. Overall, the safety procedures that are in place are extensive and are guarded by a large number of highly trained nuclear engineers with the use of advanced electronic detectors. The amount of radiation emitted is continuously monitored inside and around the plant, and it amounts to a mere 0.01 millisievert (mSv) per year – a neglible level of radiation. It is irrational to be fearful of this magnitude, when

radiation is in fact all around us, created by everday occurrences such as airline travel, X-rays and smoking. And it makes no sense to single out nuclear energy as a source of potential natural catastrophe when other technologies like offshore oil drilling present a much higher potential risk to the environment as was witnessed last year.

It is paradoxical that the environmentalists are the ones who oppose nuclear energy, when this same technology is our best chance to reverse climate change.

On average, uranium produces 25,000 times more energy than coal with the same amount of material. Furthermore, the current rates of nuclear energy development will offset 0.8 to 1.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In order to reverse climate change, alternative energies like wind and solar need to be used, but only by combining them with nuclear can we realistically reach a carbon free future.

Nuclear technology is constantly improving, with newer generation reactors able to reprocess the waste materials (although

none are operating in the US) and using passive feedback systems.

Also, the new breed of reactors are much safer and more economical – they produce less waste and have a higher life cycle.

The slow rate at which newer generations of reactors are being built is a result of the difficult political consensus over nuclear energy.

The main

mal reactors like coal and gas, it needs an extensive amount of water from nearby rivers to cool off the very hot rods in the reactor. This poses an additional design constraint for reactors that are not situated near oceans and that could significantly alter the temperature of nearby lakes or rivers. During the heat wave in Europe a few years ago the temperature of the water in the cooling lakes raised dramatically, thereby endangering fish and wildlife.

Despite all the safety measures, and the low risk probability, nuclear energy will always have a large amount of potential destruction, if unleashed by an unprecedented climate disaster or a terrorist attack. But still, the world is full of technologies that have potential risks and have contributed to deadly accidents – from hydro dams to mine explosions and structural collapses. No risk-free technology exists, and certainly continuing the unscientific stigmatization of nuclear energy does not help. We need not to fear nuclear itself, but the consequences of not acting now to fight climate change.

Only through nuclear energy can we realistically decrease greenhouse gases while driving forward the development of alternative green energies.

Tom Acker | The McGill Daily

Alexander Kunev is a U3 Mechanical Engineering student. He can be reached at alexander.kunev@ mail.mcgill.ca.

drawback of nuclear energy is that since it’s produced in ther-

Constructing the enemy Representative Peter King’s alienation of the Muslim American community is unacceptable Mallory Hennigar Hyde Park

O

n March 10, Peter King, New York Congressional representative and chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security convened his highly controversial hearing on “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.”

Outraged Americans have compared these hearings to Cold War McCarthyism and accused them of being unconstitutional. Those supporting them feel that King is bravely addressing an important issue without fearing the repercussions of political incorrectness.

While there are countless highly problematic aspects to these hearings, I would like to discuss what I found to be the most troubling statement in King’s address: “There is no equivalency

of threat between al-Qaeda and neo-Nazis, environmental extremists, or other isolated madmen.

Only al-Qaeda and its Islamist affiliates in this country are part of an international threat to our nation.”

King went on to accuse Muslim Americans of not taking a stance against radicalization and terrorism. However, a study by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security found that in 48 out of 120 cases, the initial tip that alerted authorities to potential terrorist attacks perpetrated

by Muslim Americans came from within the community, which constitutes the single largest source of information. This same study also found that while there were twenty terror plots associated with Muslim Americans in 2010, a greater number were associated with non-Muslim Americans.

By claiming that al-Qaeda and Islamists are America’s only threat, King is simply drumming

up panic, anxiety, and misguided anger toward the Muslim community. In his supposed attempts at promoting American security, King wrongfully casts friends as enemies. Though he claims to believe that “the overwhelming majority of Muslim Americans are outstanding Americans,” in the same breath he falsely accuses the community of being tacitly supportive of terrorism.

One of King’s three witnesses included Melvin Bledsoe who explained how his son Carlos converted to Islam and then attempted to burn a rabbi’s home and shoot an U.S. Army private. King obviously chose to include this testimony to illustrate the validity of the pervasive American paranoia of Islamist plots to “take over” the United States by brainwashing non-Muslims. While King never addressed this anxiety outright, it clearly underlies the hearings.

What was not said at the hearing was that Carlos Bledsoe (now

called Abdul Hakim Muhammad) was a gang member with a history of violence and drug abuse prior to his conversion, meaning that the results of his behaviour before and after his conversion were more or less the same.

King has obviously stopped thinking of Muslim Americans as American citizens or, more importantly, people. Anyone who has been falsely accused in this manner would feel at the very least indignant and certainly much less willing to cooperate with those who have insulted them. Placing the blame for American violence on Islam is not only unjust and unwarranted, but will create many more problems than it will solve.

Fortunately, there is another side to this story. While a poll done by the Public Religious Research Institute found that 56 per cent of Americans believe King’s hearings are a good idea, 72 per cent believe that the hearings should

deal with all religious extremism rather than just Islamism, a view shared by interfaith leaders who oppose the government targeting of a religious group and have been protesting under the slogan “I am a Muslim too.”

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, made a powerful statement against the hearings, saying that the “committee’s approach to violent extremism is contrary to American values, and threatens our security.” These sources seem to agree that terror related to religious extremism is a valid concern of the government, but singling out the Muslim community is neither the best nor the right way to address the issue.

Mallory Hennigar is a U2 World Religions and English Literature Major. She can be reached at mallory.henniger@mail.mcgill.ca.

Video of the hearing is available at: peteking.house.gov.