Vol101Issu4

Volume 101, Issue 4

September 15, 2011 mcgilldaily.com

McGill THE

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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First Aid Service changes name McGill continues to negotiate use of university name Kallee Lins

The McGill Daily

T

he McGill First Aid Service (MFAS) has reached an agreement with the McGill administration in regard to the use of the McGill name after nearly a year of negotiation.

The group is now renaming itself the McGill Student Emergency Response Team (M-SERT).

Liz Pollen, director of M-SERT, explained that the change was not directly imposed on the service, but was a decision made within the group. Pollen elaborated that, after months of discussions with the administration, campus security and residence services, “It got to the point where we decided that this is

what we do, so if all we need to do is to change our name to keep providing our service, then we will do it.”

Along with the name change came other major changes in the group’s relationship to McGill.

M-SERT services are now dispatched through McGill Security, giving students a 24-hour emergency line to call for first aid needs.

Services in residence have also expanded. Whereas M-SERT previously serviced the upper residences only, they now have nightly shifts at all residences from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

“The executive director of residences is very keen to have them expand their services,” said Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson.

For M-SERT, the negotiations were about realizing mutual

gains. By finalizing an agreement on their name, the group was able to expand without losing their autonomy from the University.

“I think it’s nice that [the service is] coming from students. There’s also a trust that comes from students helping students. It’s almost a camaraderie,” Pollen said.

The use of the McGill name and logo has been an ongoing issue since SSMU’s Memorandum of Agreement and lease expired on May 31, 2011.

“McGill’s made it very clear that the McGill name issue is a very critical one,” said SSMU President Maggie Knight. “We’re not going to be able to win anything from a legal standpoint; McGill has the copyright and we have no legal claim to it.”

Mendelson explained the goal of the negotiations as an attempt

to avoid ambiguity about who provides a given service.

“The University is responsible for safeguarding the name [of McGill], and what we wanted to do is to create a framework within which the groups could use the name in a way that would not create ambiguities,” Mendelson said.

He added that McGill has a need to protect the value of its name. “In protecting the name, which is essentially protecting the brand, we’re protecting something for students,” he said, supporting his belief that “a McGill diploma should mean something.”

The tone of negotiations seems to have strongly shifted since the issue arose last year.

“People weren’t very yielding [last year], which I really admired,” said SSMU VP Clubs &

Services Carol Fraser.

“We’re still coming at it from a very strong stance, but we’ve realized negotiating means there has to be some compromise on both sides,” she added. “I’d say that it’s been tough on one level, but there’s been a lot of talk and consultation with student groups on the name change issue as opposed to just an ideological stance.”

Knight and Fraser hope that once these agreements are made, there will be a framework in place for student groups to use the McGill name in the future.

Although M-SERT is the only group that has reached a formal agreement with McGill, other clubs continue to consult with SSMU. Additionally, TVMcGill will now be known as “TVM: Student Television at McGill” after informal negotiations with the administration.

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Grad students vote to support striking workers

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McGill representatives absent at Council debate Jessica Lukawiecki The McGill Daily

M

cGill University Post Graduate Student Society (PGSS) councillors voted yesterday at their first council meeting this year in favour of a motion to support striking non-academic workers’ negotiations with McGill.

The motion stated that PGSS “support the McGill University NonAcademic Certified Association (MUNACA) in their ongoing negotiations with McGill for fair and equitable working conditions and parity with the working conditions in other Quebec universities.”

The motion was passed with 20 councillors for, 11 against, and 4 abstentions.

Before the vote, MUNACA President Kevin Whittaker opened discussion with a brief overview of negotiations leading up to and following the union’s declaration of strike on September 1. Whittaker reiterated MUNACA’s four main demands toward McGill, which include recognition of seniority during the hiring process, and the reinstatement of benefits that union members held before changes were made in January 2010.

Debate over the motion persisted for nearly an hour between the speaking gallery, PGSS councillors and Whittaker. Discussion centered around whether supporting MUNACA was in the best interest of the graduate students PGSS represents.

Mechanical Engineering Councillor Timotei Centea was the first to voice

concerns.

“I would think the interest of PGSS as a representative of the students is to make sure the strike ends as soon as possible and not to support either side. What I’m asking is, what is the rationale of us entering a labour debate?”

PGSS President Roland Nassim defended the motion, stating, “We are not necessarily entering a labour dispute by taking one side or the other – that is why the motion does not specifically say what in MUNACA’s demands we support and we don’t. We want them to continue negotiating until they reach an agreement.”

“When McGill says, ‘We also want fair and equitable working conditions, then we would add McGill on there,” he continued.

VP University and Academic Affairs Lily Han also expressed support of the motion, stating that it was not only in support of McGill’s workers, but also the students.

“Yes, it is about MUNACA, but it is also about us students as employees of McGill. Many of us are TAs, many of us are course lecturers, and right now the Association of Graduate Students Employed at McGill (AGSEM) is at the bargaining table, course lecturers are going to the bargaining table, and I think that this is setting a trend. So for us to support this kind of bargaining and push for fair conditions for all employees at McGill is supporting all students at McGill,” Han said.

The executive’s statements were met with disagreement from some council members. Postdoctoral

MUNACA President Kevin Whittaker addressed PGSS Council studies councilor Hatem Dokainish voiced his opposition to the motion.

“I think that is the wrong direction for us to be going in. I think it is fair to say we support a quick resolution that is fair to both parties. That in itself is a fair enough statement. To take sides – I don’t think that is our position,” he said.

VP Administration and Finance Michael Di Grappa declined PGSS executives’ request that an administration representative be present at Council. The University is directing the public to their website for further

information on the strike.

McGill wants to retain the right to select the best candidate for a position regardless of seniority. The university maintains that MUNACA is only one group out of many that are covered by the benefits plan, though there is an offer to administer MUNACA’s group benefits as a defined contribution model, separate from the all-employee coverage plan.

Before the council meeting, PGSS had not issued an official statement on the strike because their pre-existing policy regarding union support

Matthias Heilke | The McGill Daily

covers only AGSEM, which is also currently in negotiation with McGill.

Lerona Lewis, president of AGSEM, was present during Council to give an update on the union’s different bargaining units across campus. She explained that AGSEM’s demands include minimum hours for teaching assistants and a 3 per cent increase in pay for AGSEM workers.

“AGSEM will only go on strike if the membership gives the mandate to go on strike,” Lewis explained.

“We as the executive cannot say we are going on strike.”

Solin students see impact of MUNACA strike Administration delays reimbursing residents for sublet pool Henry Gass

The McGill Daily

L

ast year’s Solin Hall residents are still waiting on remuneration from McGill after entering the University’s summer subletting pool.

Students at Solin sign leases from August 21 to July 31, and students who move out before the lease expires have the option of entering a subletting pool run by McGill. Some students who entered last year’s pool are lodging complaints in response to the delay, and to the lack of information from the school regarding the delay.

Aidan Marchildon, a U1 Physics and Computer Science student, said he had been told that the credit would be assessed on his September e-bill.

“We [were] all expecting money in September on the e-bill, but it didn’t come,” said Marchildon.

“I don’t know how it affects other people. I was expecting to have the money to buy textbooks and groceries, and I have to wait. I have to wait until my next paycheck comes.

It’s really frustrating,” he continued.

Students in the pool don’t find out how much money they will receive until the credit is added to their e-bill, but Marchildon said he’d heard it had been a fairly busy summer, and that students might be getting between $200 and $250 per month.

Rosetta Vannelli, accommodations manager for McGill Residence Administration, clarified that the Solin Hall Services Coordinator – Howard Zinman – calculates all summer sublet revenue and divides it among the students who joined the pool.

Zinman is a member of the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA), and is currently on strike.

Zinman says that delays are all “part and parcel of the strike,” as it is MUNACA workers that calculate, process, and credit the money to students.

“This year, unfortunately, we were [sic] faced with a MUNACA strike which has left no employees at Solin except for summer students who have shown interest in maintaining some office hours,” wrote Vannelli in an email to The Daily.

Michael Porritt, executive director of Residences and Student Housing,

claimed that “[the students’] typical shift would be covering lunches or covering break times, covering openings and things like that, and also working on the weekends.”

“We’re not allowed to just hire a bunch of students to cover the desk while the strike is going on, but students would always have covered lunch hours and worked weekends,” he added.

Marchildon said he had received an email in August from Zinman, saying students would receive their compensation in September. After receiving his September e-bill and noticing that the credit from the sublet pool had not been assessed, he called Solin Hall to pursue the matter. “[Solin said], ‘Go to Service Point.’ They tell me to go to Student Housing. I go to Student Housing, they tell me to go to Service Point,” said Marchildon. “Everyone says there’s nothing they can do for me, until I sit in someone’s office and complain and threaten legal action.

It’s only then that I get an answer.”

Marchildon said he threatened legal action in a conversation with Residence Admissions Coordinator Teresa Anania, and that her

response was “to pick up the phone and call someone.”

Anania gave Marchildon the number for Mavis Smith, supervisor for accounts payable. Marchildon said he and his friends had called the number, but had yet to hear back.

Smith said she thought she’d had “one or two students call,” but would not comment further on her conversations with the students.

Porritt said he expected to process and divide the summer revenue among the students in the pool in two weeks, but that he couldn’t predict when the students would actually receive the credit on their e-bill.

“We don’t actually put the credit up, because then it goes over to the accounting area of the campus, and that’s also being impacted by the strike,” said Porritt.

“We’ll ask for it to be prioritized, and they have been pretty good about prioritizing things when we’ve asked,” he continued, “but since we’re not the one who actually puts it on the account I can’t say exactly when it will be on the account. I can only say we intend to get it done within two weeks.”

However, Zinman thought that it was unlikely for the administration to meet this deadline if MUNACA workers continue to strike.

Porritt confirmed that business at Solin over the summer had been “fairly busy, relative to other years,” but that he couldn’t give an exact figure on how much students would be receiving.

For the most part, students seem willing to wait for the University to process the funds.

Alex Grant, a U1 Chemical Engineering student and Solin resident last year, said he had also been told he would receive the credit in his September e-bill – and that it “was a little surprising” when it didn’t come – but that most students in the sublet pool “were quite wealthy, and they don’t really care what they get paid or when they get paid.”

“I’m not in a huge rush to get my money, unlike other people. I don’t need it that badly, but it’s a little annoying,” said Grant.

“I haven’t actually done anything,” he continued. “I guess as soon as Howard [Zinman] is done striking he’ll get right on that.”

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The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Canadian Human Rights Act amended to include Aboriginal citizens Bill C-21 allows communities to process complaints against federal government Jane Gatensby The McGill Daily

S

ince its application in 1977, the Canadian Human Rights Act has pledged to uphold the principle that “all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices.” Until last June, however, the Act included a special provision, Section 67, which restricted the right to file claims of discrimination from First Nations peoples.

“For 35 years, people living under the Indian Act were not able to avail themselves of recourse to justice when they felt themselves to be victims of discrimination in many matters of their daily lives,” said David Gollob, communications director for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, in an interview with The Daily.

The Indian Act is a broad piece of legislation that affords First Nations communities the right to a certain level of autonomy on their lands, and determines the relationship between Aboriginal citizens living on reservations and the federal government. First drafted in 1876, it has broad implications in Aboriginal law.

According to then-Justice Minister Ron Bassford, Section 67 was included in the Human Rights Act in order to avoid potential conflict between the two pieces of legislation. Its implication was that anyone living or working on an Indian Reservation was not legally able to pursue discrimination

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crimination,” she continued.

Helgason explained that the application of Bill C-21 on First Nations reserves has the potential to address issues of inequality, including the division of matrimonial property.

“From a human rights perspective, we did identify that the absence of regimes or laws that would allow for equitable distribution of marital assets was a problem,” said Helgason.

Already, cases have been brought to court challenging certain aspects of the Indian Act that some individuals living under it perceive to be discriminatory.

Gollob described one case in particular which “could have a very significant impact on the quality of life and quality of services” on First Nations reserves.

A joint complaint brought forth by the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the Society of First Nations, currently working its way through the court system, reveals the amount of state funding available to First Nations children in need of intervention by child welfare services is less than what is available to services for children living off-reserve.

“This is a discriminatory practice,” Gollob asserts. “It’s going to be a very important case in that it will help shape the impact of the inclusion of First Peoples under the Canadian Human Rights Act.” Representatives of First Nations governments, including the Assembly of First Nations and the Grand Council of the Crees, could not be reached for comment at the time of press.

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claims against First Nations governments under the Human Rights Act if the discrimination was related to the Indian Act. It also prevented complaints of discrimination against the Indian Act itself.

“This was recognized by successive governments as an anomaly that needed to be rectified,” said Gollob.

“The [Commission] has been calling for the repeal of Section 67 for many years, and the United Nations also echoed this need to end what has been a historical injustice of not giving all people living in Canada the same human rights protections.”

The House of Commons passed Bill C-21 in 2008, allowing First Nations communities immediate access to the complaints process against the federal government, and affording First Nations governments a three year transitional period to allow for possible complaints against them. The Bill did not come into full effect until this past June, when the transition period ended.

Post-repeal, the Commission – through its National Aboriginal Initiative – had been working to “understand all the implications of the act as it regards First Nations people” said Gollob.

Sherri Helgason, director of communications for the Initiative, said that the role of the commission “is to accept complaints where complaints are filed.”

“We also have an education role, a role in expanding knowledge and identifying policy or systemic issues that could be problematic, with the goal of reducing, or eradicating, dis-

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Juan Camilo Velasquez The McGill Daily

O

n July 7, the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA) issued its report regarding the presence of anti-semitism in Canada. The coalition was formed in 2009 out of a conference organized by the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (IPCCAS).

The coalition’s website states that the July report aims to “confront and combat” anti-Semitism.

Amongst some of the recommendations in the report is the call for politicians to condemn Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) events on Canadian university campuses.

The report states that, “While this phenomenon [anti-Semitism] takes many forms, including traditional expressions of anti-Semitism, it is increasingly manifesting itself in terms of anti-Israel discourse that denies the Jewish people the right to self determination.”

Certain student groups, like Hillel McGill, believe that events like IAW do not seek to foster academic discourse. Arielle Segal, co-President of Hillel McGill, said, “events like that are a failure and only seek to divide campus community as well as delegitimize, through inflammatory rhetoric and bully tactics, the only democracy in the region [Israel].”

Concerns of the report’s implications for free speech on campus have been raised by some student organizations. Anna Malla, internal coordinator at QPIRG McGill said, “this is clearly an affront to freedom of speech on campus, and labels an event [IAW] – designed to investigate injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people by the Israeli state – as ‘anti-Semitic,’ when, in fact, this event has nothing to do with hatred toward any religious or ethnic group.”

The Inquiry Panel in the CPCCA report states that, in the interest of free speech, they do not think it appropriate for university administrators to ban the event from taking place.

Tadamon!, a Montreal collec-

tive of social justice activists associated with the planning of Israeli Apartheid Week, sees the report as misleading in the ways it represents anti-Semitic behaviour.

“Anti-Semitism should not be confused as criticism of the Israeli state,” stated Claire Hurtig, a representative of Tadamon!

Malla questioned the intentions of the report.

“It would be amazing if our government had designed this committee to actually fight against antiSemitism,” she added.

Segal pointed to other reasons students may not want IAW events on campus. “For the most part students have simply tuned out. Students are simply tired of obsessive hate fests.”

In 2009, the Inquiry Panel invited the presidents of 25 Canadian universities to give testimony.

Frederick Lowy, then-president emeritus of Concordia University, was one of the few who accepted.

In Lowy’s testimony, he stated that he believed that “by and large … most Canadian universities are safe.”

News

The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

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Barriere Lake working groups raise funds for legal aid Community members deny existence of constitutional challenge

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n August 10, Barriere Lake Solidarity, a QPIRG McGill working group, posted a call for donations to assist the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake in protecting their land rights in a “costly legal battle” with the government of Canada.

Steve Baird, a member of the working group, stated that donations were going to assist financing the constitutional challenge against Indian and Northern Affairs Canada’s (INAC).

Other Barriere Lake working groups in Ottawa and Toronto have also posted the same message and solicited donations for Barriere Lake’s legal battle.

According to INAC, however, there is no court case filed from the community of Barriere Lake.

“I’ve seen the site, I’ve seen the information but there’s nothing going on right now,” said Camil

“It’s up to the community members what they want to do with the money...”

Steve Baird Member of QPIRG McGill working group, Barriere Lake Solidarity Simard, the regional director of governance, negotiation, and individual affairs for INAC. “There are no legal battles or no legal processes going on right now.”

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nity previously governed itself based on councils that were chosen by a customary system called “Mitchikanibikok Anishnabe Onakinakewin” in Algonquin.

According to Simard, Section 74 is a last resort measure.

“Over the past five years we’ve been faced with a lot of internal dissension within the community,” Simard said.

Section 74 was enacted in Barriere Lake after roughly four years of internal divisions held up the formation of a new leadership council to replace Chief Harry Wawatie, who stepped down in fall of 2006.

“We encouraged them to reconcile, to try to figure out solutions to the government dispute, but without success,” explained Simard. “So at the end of the day, the Minister [of INAC] had no choice but to enact the Section 74. So the elections now are conducted under the Indian Act provisions.”

A Barriere Lake Solidarity announcement reads that Section 74 is a violation of the community’s right to customary government, and violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Tony Wawatie, a Barriere Lake community member, said he saw the new council as illegal.

“In my eyes, and in the majority of the community’s,” said Wawatie, “it’s an INAC council, it’s an imposed Section 74 band council. These are the ones who are doing the illegal dealings.”

Neither Chad Thusky, one of the acclaimed councilors in the Section 74 band council, nor Casey Ratt, who was the acclaimed chief in the Section 74 band council, were aware of a constitutional challenge.

But both noted that such a case

was probably inevitable.

Ratt resigned as chief out of protest the day after being acclaimed under Section 74. Ten people voted in the Section 74 electoral process, despite there being 667 community members registered by INAC. “If [INAC] really wants to try to bring this community together, you’re not going to impose anything. Let the community come up

Camil Simard Regional director of governance, negotiation, and individual affairs for INAC with the terms of reference where we’re going to meet and come up with a governance code for the community, because that takes time as well,” Ratt said.

However, Thusky stated that the new council has made efforts to be open and transparent, acknowledging that the end of customary government in Barriere Lake is not what anyone had wanted.

“Of course, the Section 74 business is hard on the people – it’s hard on us as individuals knowing that we had a customary governance in place – but it was flawed. It didn’t work anymore,” he said.

Thusky said that perceptions of the new Barriere Lake council working “hand-in-hand” with INAC were incorrect.

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“To forget our history with them, to forget our residential school era with them…that’s something that we don’t forget,” he said.

He added that one of the band councillors in the Section 74 band is a residential school survivor.

“There’s a lot of confrontation on our meetings still with these [INAC] agents and we’re there to fight for the people. We’re there to get the answers that the people are asking

“I’ve seen the site, I’ve seen the information but there’s nothing going on right now”

.

The McGill Daily

Baird says he wasn’t sure what stage the case was at in terms of “launching, filing, and submitting,” but affirmed that, to his knowledge, the community has been meeting with a lawyer.

According to what the website for Barriere Lake Solidarity believes, the case would challenge the summer 2010 enactment of Section 74 of the Indian Act in Barriere Lake. The implementation of Section 74 abolishes any traditional form of governance within First Nations communities, and in its place implements a band council, consisting of councillors and a chief, to lead the community until a viable alternative governance system is proposed.

To withdraw from Section 74, Barriere Lake would have to modify their customary band council system. INAC would then have to accept the changes, in order to “avoid the problems of the past,” said Simard.

In Barriere Lake, the commu-

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Erin Hudson

for,” Thusky said.

Baird stated the QPIRG working group had direct contacts in Barriere Lake, who were members of the community that Thusky, as a Section 74 band councilor, would be likely to see as his opposition.

Baird explained: “It’s up to community members what they want to do with the money, if they feel it needs to go towards these legal fees [or] if they feel it needs to go towards something else.”

Baird stated he is unsure how much money has been donated through the working groups and to whom the money was going.

He also said that he was not clear about the legal process of a constitutional challenge and at what stage the Barriere Lake case is.

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Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

6

There’s a difference Why the riots in London shouldn’t be conflated with those in the Middle East Alexander Dawson The McGill Daily

I

would like to respond to Davide Mastracci’s piece on the London riots, and to draw attention to what I think are important distinctions between recent civil disturbances in Africa and the Middle East and those in England.

The civil unrest in Africa and the Middle East has occurred as a response to the autocratic, violent regimes that have been prevalent in these regions for a number of years. While violence has sometimes occurred alongside peaceful demonstrations, the movement’s aims, always clearly announced, have been the achievement of democratic freedoms and the reduction of corruption and poverty.

I believe Mastracci and I could find much to agree upon in respect to the root causes of the riots in England. We are indeed products of our culture, and a culture of persistent, generation-spanning social inequality, and of unequal access to quality education, will produce ignorance, disengagement, and violence. However, I believe it’s inaccurate to characterize the recent violence in the United Kingdom as fundamentally equal to the ongoing protests in the Arab world.

While social inequality, failing educational structures, racial discrimination, and budget cuts to community services have been convincingly put forward as root causes of the current unrest in England, the resulting lawlessness was not a political disturbance, or a demonstration with

imperatives of moral or social change. Instead, it is anarchaic in purely a negative sense, an out-of-control display of greed and destructiveness that mimics more subtle social ills perpetuated by those with political and monetary power.

I found the opinion of Alan Sitkin, a Labour councillor from Edmonton, North London, quoted in the Guardian by Aditya Chakrabortty, to be particularly insightful: “Look, I’m a lefty; I believe in redistribution. I believe in the politics of the street. But to me that means Tiananmen Square; not some kids smashing in HMV. This is bullshit.”

Mastracci refers to, but notably declines to specify, political demands of the rioters. What are those political demands? In my opinion, they do not exist. There are no slogans, goals, or leaders. The rioters do not aim to fix or remove broken social institutions. Rather, it seems that they just ignore them, not in order to replace them with something better, but merely for their own personal benefit.

The public reaction to this chaos is less a turning up of the nose, as described by Mastracci, and more a natural horror at purposeless cruelty. An example: on August 8th, a 68-year-old retiree named Richard Bowes was beaten to death when he attempted to put out a deliberately-started fire next to his apartment. Anyone, regardless of access to opportunity or education, or political persuasion, should identify this as unambiguously reprehensible.

I hold that no one would desire to live in a society in which we

were frequently subject to physical violence, regardless of whether other individuals or the state, were to blame. All of us, including Mastracci, rely on the rule of law to safely conduct our day-today affairs, and to express our opinions without fear of reprisal.

Certainly many aspects of con-

temporary society, supported by our laws, are unjust. But to argue that because some laws are unjust, all laws are unjust, and should be ignored, is a position of moral cowardice. I feel we have a responsibility to create a mutually agreeable society, whether that is accomplished through legitimate

political protest against injustice, or through a denouncement of the destructive opportunism on display in London.

Alexander Dawson is a U1 Biology student. You can reach him at alexander.dawson@mail.mcgill.ca.

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Commentary

The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

7

Students stand with MUNACA Why the demonstration last Thursday helped the union’s cause Julius*

The McGill Daily

T

o cheers of “solidarity forever” and “worker’s rights,” thirty to forty brave McGill students marched through the Roddick Gates on Thursday morning. Armed with pots, pans, and a megaphone, it was a show of solidarity with striking MUNACA workers. The strike, which has been going on since the beginning of classes, is an attempt by McGill’s non-academic staff to reopen talks with the University about a new collective agreement.

The strikers are simply asking for a contract similar to those held by other university workers in Montreal regarding wage increases that are on par with inflation, pensions, and benefits. The students who marched on Thursday took up this call for parity. It’s a call not only issued by MUNACA, but also by SSMU and the consciences of those who chose to attend the protest. We must take a stand against the administration’s unfair unilateral actions. Only through solidarity with MUNACA can we ensure that workers’ rights are respected.

The students gathered at the Roddick gates around 9:45 a.m., assembling near the picket line and arming themselves with signs proclaiming support of McGill students for MUNACA. After the group had gathered, they prepared to march through the gates and into the campus. Some students pulled their signs off the sticks holding them up, wanting to make sure McGill security – who were massing to block their entrance to the campus – knew that they weren’t planning anything violent.

It’s unclear whether the marchers’ numbers were too great for the handful of security guards to handle or if the agents (who were listening nervously to their radios) were ordered not to deny students their right to enter campus. Either way, students marched through the gates in true activist fashion.

They made their way to the MacDonald Engineering building, chanting and bolstering their numbers with students who spontaneously joined their ranks.

Once they reached MacDonald, Joel Pednault, SSMU VP External,

explained to the group that the Board of Governors was having their annual cocktail inside.

The marchers booed and chanted in response, hoping that the Governors inside would hear their cries and consider MUNACA’s proposals. It made for a powerful scene: a band of stu-

dents demanding justice from a group of invisible and powerful executives that were sequestered away behind a guarded door, presumably pleading bankruptcy and preaching austerity while enjoying their cocktails.

The group then headed to the Administration building, where

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Pednault explained that over $2 million had been spent renovating a set of administrative conference rooms, a fact commonly used by the strikers to call into question the University’s lack of funding. Another student then took the megaphone and shouted “I have a message for Principal Heather Monroe Blum and the members of

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the administration!” and then called for the principal to come out and talk to them, explain her position, and resume negotiations. That same student then demanded that Munroe Blum respect the University’s status as a place of social change and as an institution committed to democratic principles by engaging in an open debate.

The students received no answer.

In the end, they rejoined the three MUNACA picket lines on campus where they were greeted with shouts of appreciation (and Timbits) from the strikers, as well as honks from supportive drivers.

Security guards took videos of the protestors, but that shouldn’t discourage other students angry at the University’s negative unilateral actions from participating in future demonstrations. A McGill security manager said that the videos taken by security guards were only to be used in the event that an infraction was committed. He specified that the tapes would not be used to target students who participated in the march. The administration cannot hurt you in any way if you simply exercise your democratic right to peaceful protest.

The strike’s effects are already being felt, as it affects registration, building opening times, lecture recordings, and countless other University functions. However, the administration’s has not been open about the issue. SSMU released a statement claiming that Monroe Blum’s responses were “less detailed than [they] had expected.” Only as of last Friday, were more details of the strike made available by the administration via McGill mail and the University website.

Actions such as the march, the picketing, and the outpouring of support all contributed to the resumption of negotiations on Friday. But these negotiations were only achieved after the University saw the McGill community’s solidarity with MUNACA. These events serve as a reminder that if we all act together, we can bring about the changes we believe in. MUNACA strikers are not alone in their opposition to the University’s proposals, and students will keep fighting for social justice and fairness.

*The byline attributed to this article is a psuedonym.

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Features

Me and my wheelchair What nine weeks living with a disability taught Eric Andrew-Gee

Photo courtesy of Eric Andrew-Gee

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t’s telling that the worst moment of my nine weeks using a wheelchair – I had a pair of broken heels – was not the time a drug-addled lunatic chewed on my feet for several seconds on a busy street in Toronto. No, the foot-biter doesn’t even crack the top five. But that dental assault is as good a place as any to start telling the story of my brief time with a disability – what I learned about the specific hardships faced by people with disabilities and how difficult it may be to ease them. (“Brief” is the operative word here. My heels broke when I jumped out of a second-story window in Washington, D.C. I was locked in a bathroom and had to get to work. It made sense at the time. As a result, for just over two months, I lived a kind of pantomime of life with a disability – inhabiting it for a time, going through its motions, but knowing my experience was temporary, imitative. This short memoir should be read in that light.)

It was June and the air was sweaty at about 1:30 in the morning when things started slipping off the rails. Five or six of my friends and I were waiting in line to see the Handsome Furs on Toronto’s busy Dundas Street. My ever-present anxiety about being in the wheelchair was heightened because my feet were bare. It is an uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling to be barefoot in public. To the quartet of people standing in front of me, I said something to the effect of “Please watch out – I’m in a wheelchair.” One of them, a man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, replied “Hey, I bet you haven’t seen this before.”

I hadn’t. He swiftly dropped to his knees and began biting my feet. His mouth was wet with saliva. I felt his teeth kneading my skin. It lasted for about five seconds.

When he stood up, he grinned and said, “I absorb energy through my face.” I was too shocked to reply.

The biter casually turned around and continued chatting with his friends. My group discussed, in a kind of halting, disbelieving murmur, what to do next.

After maybe a minute, I snapped. “What the fuck is the matter with you?” I yelled at my assailant. I was letting a reservoir of bitterness at my nearly two-month disability pour out through a valve of profanity. It felt really good.

Next, my friend Tim stuck a piece of gum he had been chewing on the jerk’s shoulder, and punched him in the face. A scuffle ensued, and our group dispersed. The show was sold out anyway.

Still, I could feel the ghost of the man’s teeth gnawing on my bare feet. This gave me occasion to think about why my feet were bare in the first place. And my exultation at the bizarre, cathartic scene outside the concert withered. I remembered how I had abandoned my socks in an alley on our way to the show. And how the socks were no longer good to me because I had been urinating in the alley, pants around my ankles, sitting in the wheelchair, and some of that urine had rebounded off the pavement and sprayed my socks.

And how I had thought, screw it, and peeled them off then and there.

Uncomfortable things like that happened with unerring regularity to me while I was using a wheelchair. But, for me, the real struggle of performing bodily functions wasn’t physical. It was emotional.

Without the use of my legs, people treated me like the healthy middle part of my life had collapsed, and the bookends of infancy and old age had moved into the void.

Bare acquaintances often remarked that I must feel like a baby, or like an old man. A neighbour with young children – whom she pushes around in little strollers – said to my mother one day, “Welcome back to our world.” I was sitting about three feet away.

There’s also the inverse feeling of turning into your grandparents. The only person in a wheelchair I’ve ever known closely was my late grandfather, Warren. He had Parkinson’s disease. So, for me, just being pushed in a wheelchair evoked brittle bones, varicose veins, blankets across the lap. Admittedly, that shouldn’t have been the only image that popped into my mind when I thought of people with disabilities – it just was. During one walk in Washington, my father, who was pushing me, said “We make quite a pair don’t we.” I asked, sourly and redundantly, what he meant. “Well, it’s supposed to be the other way around,” he replied.

Going for “walks” became taxing. Almost all side-

walks are slightly tilted to one side. I had to wheel intensely with one arm, and use the other arm to exert some drag on the opposite wheel, to move in a straight line and avoid gliding into traffic. Nine weeks of this left my shoulders stinging with the effort.

Other unexpected discomforts asserted themselves. I had no idea, for one, that the friction of wheeling yourself could build up so much static electricity.

Often, after a few minutes of wheeling, I would zap my friends with an electrical shock when they touched me or my chair. In the D.C. subway, the elevator buttons are metal. I soon came to push them with my knuckle, to avoid a very visible bluish bolt of electricity jumping between my fingertip and the “up” button.

(The D.C. subway, to its huge credit, has elevators at every stop. In Toronto, where I spent my last seven weeks in the wheelchair, fewer than one in three stations are wheelchair accessible.)

Still, I would sooner be lightly electrocuted than use the elevator at Yeuh Tung, a Chinese restaurant in Toronto, again. The dining area is on the second floor in this restaurant. It is unusual for restaurants to be rigged with wheelchair-accessible machinery like elevators, and I entered in a charitable frame of mind. But when my lunch companion and I entered the elevator, and found it to be an unlit, smelly, four by four feet box with a corrugated steel floor, I began to have my doubts about the place. We found a tiny light switch after half a minute sitting perplexed in the dark, but that only revealed the true horror of the elevator. With the lights on, I pressed a button that said “2” and found it to be covered in a sticky brown goo, which probably got its start in life as a delicious oyster sauce on a plate of rice in the kitchen upstairs, but whose presence on the “2” button, and then my index finger, was a long way from its finest hour.

Those are the public hardships. But at least you can say that they happen with your clothes on. My first shower at home in Toronto is a good example of a new kind of domestic experience. I waited downstairs while my father put a white plastic medical bench, complete with a generous ass-groove, into the bathtub upstairs. He then piggy-backed me up our narrow

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9

“There’s something ugly and arbitrary about denying a person access to a certain building because of the shape their body assumes.”

staircase, my 150 pounds forcing him to stoop like a medieval serf carrying a big bundle of wheat.

In the bathroom, he deposited me on the bench, then brought me two blue garbage bags and a couple of bungee cords to keep my casts dry. When I had shimmied out of my clothes I sat there, naked except for the blue garbage bags covering my casts, the bungee cords tied so that the bags frilled at the top like 18th century culottes. I used the removable shower head to get clean, which was admittedly an improvement on the wet sponges I’d squeezed to rinse myself in Washington.

When my casts came off, about six weeks after I had broken my heels and three weeks before I was able to walk again, I had the added discomfort of having to stare at my newly shrunken calves as I sat on the shower bench. As any astronaut will tell you, if you don’t use your leg muscles for any real length of time, they atrophy. The doctors in Washington said I would start to notice muscle loss within three days of being off my feet. When I saw my legs beneath the knee for the first time in a month and a half, I nearly wept with the shock of it. My calves looked like ziploc bags full of water, dangling loosely from my shins. My skin was bad, too, covered in white and pink rosettes of irritated skin.

With or without casts, relieving myself while using a wheelchair required a cross between gymnastics, interpretive dance, and gandhian self-abnegation.

My first shit was in a hotel room in Washington. The bathroom was a little cramped, but had all the stainlesssteel bars and ledges and handles that indicate wheelchair accessibility. I rolled myself backwards so my chair was lined up with the white toilet bowl. Then I impersonated an Olympic gymnast during a parallel bar routine, gripping one of the armrests and one of the steel bars fastened to the wall, and hoisting myself up, then sideways, before dropping myself on the toilet seat.

The next trick was to get my pants off. At this point, each of my feet were wrapped in about five pounds of gauze and plaster, and my bones were still extremely broken. There was no question of planting my feet on the floor for leverage. So I shimmied. I wriggled. I lifted one ass cheek at a time, sliding my pant legs down

by degrees of two or three centimetres. I developed a kind of rocking motion, in which my hips heaved side to side like the bilge of a ship on a choppy sea until my pants were around my ankles.

The point of describing these things in such graphic detail is not to shock, but to emphasize the private nature of some of the largest challenges of my life with a disability. Getting zapped by static electricity in the subway was annoying, but having my father carry me on his back so I could laboriously undress before relieving myself – that hurt my dignity.

For people who use wheelchairs, many of the most intimate parts of life are made more difficult. No matter how many government subsidies you receive to install a ramp in front of your house, or to hire a nurse to help you clean up, it is still physically harder to get out of bed in the morning. It’s more complicated to shower. It is often much more awkward to have sex.

These are parts of life with a disability that government programs and social acceptance do not reach.

Another difficulty in addressing disability rights is precisely the challenge of defining the term. A paraplegic man in a wheelchair, an eighty-year-old woman who uses a walker, and a spry twenty-something athlete with a prosthetic leg are all people with disabilities. But what do they really have in common? The kinds of accommodation they require from society are very different.

In July, I came out of a movie theatre after watching X-Men: First Class, a film about a group of people whose physical difference unites them. As I wheeled myself along the sidewalk, I made eye contact with a middle-aged man in a motorized wheelchair, whom it seemed clear would never walk again. Though we nodded sympathetically at each other, I felt like a fraud – I had perhaps two weeks left in the chair, he had the rest of his life.

And yet the complicated nature of these problems is no reason for apathy. Much about modern infrastructure and attitudes needs redress. There can’t be more than one in four shops or restaurants in a conventional commercial area of a big city that are wheelchair-accessible, particularly in Canada. (The Americans with Disabilities Act, signed by the first

President Bush and amended by the second, mandated increased accommodation for people with disabilities in public transport, commercial facilities, and workplaces.)

It’s fair to make some allowances. How many little coffee shops would be shuttered if their bathrooms had to be outfitted to ADA standards? But there’s something ugly and arbitrary about denying a person access to a certain building because of the shape their body assumes.

Why is it fair, for instance, for a Baskin Robbins to have bathrooms that do not admit people in wheelchairs, but abominable and illegal to prevent a black man from using the same bathroom? Does the thousand dollars or so it would cost the chain to retrofit their facilities excuse them for telling a blameless person to take a piss elsewhere?

Though it doesn’t excuse them, it’s unavoidable that businesses like Baskin Robbins should incur a cost in making the world more accommodating for people with disabilities. But exactly because accommodating people with disabilities is a real and permanent financial toll, their rights are a perfect testing ground for our society’s liberal principles. One of the foremost liberal convictions is that societies should be organized from the perspective of their least fortunate members. The philosopher John Rawls defines a just society as one into which you would throw yourself without knowing whether you would be a monied aristocrat, a drug addict, or, for that matter, someone using a wheelchair.

Having spent nine weeks using a wheelchair, I no longer need to imagine making Rawls’ gamble to think of ways in which society could be made more just for the disability community. Vastly better public transit; infrastructure like roads and sidewalks built with the disability community in mind; and laws regulating the accessibility of private businesses are a start.

It would, in the end, be a small reprieve from what I found to be a difficult life. But hard problems are no excuse for inaction. There is much the government can do to help people with disabilities. And the extent to which governments and societies do act will be a test of their commitment to some of the least privileged among them.

Health&Education

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Reaching out with the toolkit McGill professor tackles child labour by co-opting health sector Brittany Sigler

Health and Education Writer

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he issue of child labour has traditionally been broached through setting a minimum age to work, and conditional cash transfer programs, which give families small amounts of money on the condition that children attend school or get vaccinations.

However, Anne Andermann, assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and an associate member in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, along with her coworkers in an international research collaboration called the Child Labour Evidence to Action Research Group (CLEAR), have

decided to co-opt frontline health workers by combating hazardous child labour.

According to Andermann, “[frontline health workers] are trusted members of the community with privileged access to information about work-related harm. In addition to providing care, support, and referral to children who are at risk of harm, frontline health workers can also act as a whistleblower. They collect data on the rates of harm to children relating to work and advocate for larger social and policy change within the community and at a national level.” By developing an educational toolkit for frontline health workers, CLEAR aims to provide them with the knowledge and skills to ask about child labour in a non-threatening way, to educate child labourers

and their families about work-related harm, and to promote supportive environments that protect young people from harm.

Recently awarded a $100,000 grant from the Grand Challenges Canada program, the project clearly seems to have potential. This grant will enable a first phase of research, where Andermann and her collaborators will use a participatory approach to develop an educational toolkit by interviewing child labourers themselves, their parents, people working within the health system, and local community leaders and NGOs about how frontline health workers could contribute and make a change for children who are engaged in hazardous work.

Child labour was chosen as the

focus point for this project since it’s at the heart of the intergenerational cycle of health inequities in many low- and middle-income countries.

Andermann explained that the children who are working, especially when they’re not able to go to school, tend to have poorer opportunities for employment when they become adults and start families of their own. Their children are ,therefore, also more likely to work, thus erpetuating the cycle.

The research collaboration has already begun conducting preliminary research on factors like family stability, which may influence at which age children start working. In Brazil, which is one of the four research sites alongside Niger, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the team has already identified one

of the main challenges that they’ll face in implementing this project.

Andermann shared that “some of the children in the worst forms of child labour might not be accessing the mainstream health system.

Those are, of course, the children you would like to help the most.

The ones for instance, in Brazil, who are involved in drug trafficking and in other places – human trafficking – are the most difficult ones to reach.”

The toolkit aims to protect these children. It attempts to promote alternatives to hazardous work and to create safe environments where they will no longer be obligated to partake in this kind of work.

Andermann hopes that this project will contribute to reducing global health inequities in the long term.

Witnessing a C-section in a rural hospital A U3 BSc student at McGill shares his summer experience shadowing Dr. K Sharuya Taran

Health and Education Writer

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leven thousand kilometres from home, I am about to witness my first major surgery. I am standing in the operating room of the KV Hospital in Himachal Pradesh, India, and around me preparations are taking place for an emergency Caesarian section.

The senior gynecologist, Doctor K., is to perform today’s operation.

A bespectacled, middle-aged man with a slight stoop, Doctor K. looks very much like a sterotypical doctor. His manner is imposing and his temper short – he is a man with whom it would be unwise to argue.

A person of authority, his very entrance into the operating room compels the people within it into silence and brings all preparations to a momentary halt.

Today’s patient is a young woman aged about twenty. She is visibly anxious: her dark eyes saccade from nurse to nurse, doctor to doctor. She is clearly seeking reassurance, but the ambience in the room is severe; there is no place for soft talk and comforting words. Two nurses, their faces implacable, transfer her onto the operating table,

while another connects her to the cardiac monitor. The little grey box immediately begins to play out the tempo of her pulse at a rate of 115 beats per minute. Beep, beep, beep.

“Good,” says Doctor K., glancing at the monitor. He orders his patient to sit up. She complies slowly. He then rolls up her shirt and administers an injection of clear liquid into her lower back. Startled, she jumps forward as the needle penetrates her skin. She begins to whimper, which prompts Doctor K. to curtly insist that everything is under control. “There is no need for anxiety,” he says. This belated remark serves only to heighten her sense of panic.

“I’m losing sensation in my legs,” she cries out, to which Doctor K. replies, “It’s normal.”

A nurse rolls up the patient’s shirt to reveal her dilated abdomen, while another lowers the patient’s trousers. Doctor K. covers the patient in green sheets, leaving only her abdomen exposed. He then opens a set of freshly autoclaved surgical instruments. A nurse turns on a portable radio, and a Bollywood soundtrack immediately fills the room. It is the kind of music fit for a dance party.

Doctor K., his head bobbing to the beat of the tune, picks up a scalpel.

A nurse applies betadine, a topical

antiseptic, to the patient’s abdomen.

“Ready, Doctor,” says the nurse.

Doctor K. nods, lowers his scalpel to the patient’s skin, and gets to work.

The surgery is nothing like the YouTube videos I’ve seen of delicate tumor extractions or meticulous rib reconstructions. I’ve always assumed, given the high stakes of this profession, that surgery requires a certain degree of patience and precision. After all, a scalpel wielded even a little carelessly can destroy a tissue, an organ, or worse, a life. Careful attention to detail and a slow, methodical approach must be important, right?

I would like to think so, but witnessing this Caesarian section convinces me otherwise. Watching Doctor K. cutting into his patient is like witnessing an overly eager schoolboy tearing away the wrappings on a gift box to discover what prize lies hidden within. Doctor K. slashes through skin and tissue, muscle and fat, with an energy that leaves bystanders worried for the patient’s safety. I try to imagine what this young woman must be thinking as she watches Doctor K. cutting madly into her uterus, huffing and puffing as if racing to a finish line.

In just two minutes, all of my naïve preconceptions about surgery have

been blasted apart with a force that could register on the Richter scale.

With his gloved fingers now uniformly bloody and his green sleeves stained past the wrists to a shade of brown, Doctor K. continues to slash his way towards the unborn baby.

It’s almost as though he’s on a mission to beat his personal best record for the fastest successful Caesarian section completed. He has now reached the uterus, and seems to be on track to reaching that goal.

“Pressure, pressure!” he shouts to the nurses. The nurses spring into action. Each of them begins to push against the patient’s abdomen from different sides, applying a force large enough to merit considerable worry. The patient has long since closed her eyes in terror.

Her cardiac monitor keeps time with the 140 beats per minute unce, unce, unce of the Bollywood dance track. “Push, push, push!” Doctor K. encourages. Suddenly there is a gurgle and a splash, followed by a volcanic burst of amniotic fluid. Even though I’m standing three feet away from the operating table, I still have to jerk my head to avoid getting hit by a few drops. “Release pressure!” Three sets of hands withdraw quickly. Doctor K. then extends a single hand into the patient’s uterus

and pulls out a crumpled blue and gray baby. “A boy!” he shouts before depositing the newborn into a metal dish, as if he were handling a lab specimen. Both the mother and child begin to cry simultaneously.

Doctor K. turns to me and smiles. “I hope my urgency did not startle you,” he says in Hindi. “Oh, oh…” I stammer. “No, of course not.” How can I tell him that he has, in a mere ten minutes, so convincingly demonstrated to me that surgery seems to be no more sophisticated, no more refined, than brainless butchering? The only thing separating the two is the instrument used to inflict the violence. Such is my conviction until we begin nearing the end of the operation. Slowly, Doctor K. begins to create order out of chaos, neatness out of untidiness. Tissues are sealed, flaps shut. Finally the skin is closed, and the result hides all evidence of brutality. So skillfully is the wound repaired, that the only evidence of its existence is a thin, eight-inch long red cut, entirely innocuous, held together at inch-wide intervals by sutures.

That which had begun so violently had finished so gracefully – only an artist, and not a butcher, could accomplish such a feat.

Interested in writing for Health&Ed? email healthandeducation@mcgilldaily.com

Health&Education

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Building a sense of cohesion The Community Involvement Conference hosted by MSS inspires students to take action Paulina Kyriakopoulos The McGill Daily

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arly on Saturday, September 10, a diverse group of students and health care professionals came together in an amphitheater in the McIntyre Medical Building to participate in the first Community Involvement Conference. The conference was organized by the Medical Students’ Society of McGill (MSS) in an effort to get students thinking about social issues. This event also marked the official launch of the new Community Involvement Strategic Plan, which the MSS plans to gradually implement throughout the year. A wide range of topics were covered, but the theme shared by all presentations was that each of us should, in our own way, work on something that could have a positive impact on our community.

The conference featured a collection of inspiring speakers. Gilles Julien, assistant professor of pediatrics at McGill, gave a presentation about working in the field of social pediatrics. His decades long career is based on promoting children’s health and development by moving beyond a standard clinical approach to acknowledge social, economic, and environmental factors that also contribute to heath. Julien also relentlessly advocates for patient rights. Thus, he takes the traditional role of the pediatrician a step further in his quest to see children flourish.

Saleem Razack, assistant dean of admissions, equity, and diversity for McGill’s Faculty of Medicine, was another speaker. He discussed the importance of promoting diversity in medical school by giving underrepresented groups, including rural and aboriginal students, wider access to medical studies. The hope is that these graduates will then return and serve their communities which currently suffer severe health care provider shortages.

“There’s a large basis of literature that shows that a diverse group serves a diverse population,” he noted during his presentation.

Steps taken to reach that goal include targeted recruitment of underrepresented populations and removal of unnecessary selection barriers in the admissions process. Three medical students alongside Paige Isaac and

Kakwiranóron Cook – coordinators of the McGill First Peoples’ House – explained that recruitment is partially achieved with the Regional Initiative. This project brings students from rural regions and First Nations reserves to McGill for a day. They participate in workshops and anatomy lab activities under the guidance of medical students. Many leave feeling excited by what they’ve experienced and some even begin to consider the possibilities of a future career in medicine.

Tarek Razek, director of trauma care at the McGill University Health Center, expressed his concerns that, in the assessment of global health issues, problems that require surgery often take the backseat to infectious diseases like

projects and reinforce existing ones.

One of the ways in which they will do this is financial support: a fund is currently being set up with the McGill Alumni Association to incentivize and to facilitate initiatives. A student committee will be formed to evaluate project submissions and allocate the money to different groups. Criteria for project selection will include benefits to the community and sustainability.

Proposals that incorporate participation of members of other faculties will be encouraged.

Education and communication are also top priorities in this initiative.

Workshops will be set up that discuss subjects like community advocacy or fundraising skills. In addition, more conferences will be organized to tackle ethical and controversial community- and health-related topics.

Osmanlliu takes the positive comments he received and the enthusiasm he observed after the conference as promising signs.

“This enthusiasm is contagious and that’s what we’re relying on,” he said. “We’re relying on students to talk to other students, to get people from all the faculties involved, to get community organizations involved.

We want to offer the students as many tools as possible and give them opportunities to learn in order to eventually facilitate the creation of projects or even to simply trigger thoughts on how they can be a positive members in the community.

I’d like to see a sense of cohesion develop in the domain of community involvement at McGill.”

HIV or tuberculosis. He encouraged the future physicians in the room to “become more aware of broader social issues, and [their] role” in addressing them.

“With this event, we wanted to set the tone for the year,” said Esli Osmanlliu, MSS president.

“In addition to all the services the MSS traditionally offers the medical students, we’re adding this new theme of community involvement which I think will be very beneficial to our student body and to our community as a whole. With the conference, we’re trying to get the interest going.

I’m certain the students will feel it’s something they’ll want to get involved with.”

The goal of the Community Involvement Plan is to support and unify community programs within the Faculty of Medicine through a variety of new services aimed at helping students develop new

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Culture

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Making art and community St. Henri art space brings neighbours together with canvas and conversation

The McGill Daily

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hen it comes to art here in Montreal, we are undeniably spoiled. In any other city, just being artistic stands out on its own, but here, there’s usually something more. Handwritten signs, eclectic colors, and nifty decor are breathed into just about every corner of this vibrant city. The arts in Montreal have become the means rather than the end, usually paired with another grassroots movement or cause.

A more recent initiative – started April of this year – is a

free community art space located in the revitalized borough of St. Henri, called La Ruche D’Art. It is open to anyone interested, at no cost, and provides a big studio space as well as a wide variety of materials to use for creative, therapeutic, or social purposes. The idea behind the La Ruche D’Art is to have an alternative space that is inclusive and accessible not only to artists, but to the general population.

When you first walk in the sunny entrance of the space, welcoming posters encourage you to “make good art” and to be part of the St. Henri Community. The studio itself is one large, open room with a spacious cluster of tables

in the middle. A friendly mix of Francophones, Anglophones, and people of all ages gather around and chat while sewing, painting, doodling, and generally having fun. Along the walls surrounding the table, tall shelves are available to anyone looking for wool, tree bark, buttons, jars, pencil crayons, fabric, and almost anything else you could use to make art, all donated to the studio by community members. The other side of the studio is set up like a gallery, with a few installation pieces as well as paintings and photographs

by La Ruche participants. In the back, the studio has a beautiful outdoor space called “the collective garden,” also free to use for

art projects, gardening, installations, and general enjoyment.

For many art studios, the participants walk in with the intent of making art, and walk out with a much broader experience. What is unique about La Ruche is that most people that walk though its doors are not coming just for the art, but for the sense of community, whether it be in a listening ear, friendly faces, encouragement, support, or acceptance. Community members come in to talk about various current events or personal stories, as well as to teach and learn about arts and crafts in a nonjudgmental, informal setting, often walking out with a tangible piece of art.

Through this initiative, founder Janis Timm-Bottos and their busi-

ness partner Rachel Chainey hope to overcome the social stratification present in Montreal. In a space free of differentiated social classes, participants can bond over shared food, collaborative pieces, and music.

Bringing together experienced artists and amateurs alike, La Ruche provides the residents of St Henri and its neighbours with a space outside of work or school in which to express themselves.

For those interested in stopping by, there’s no need to bring anything but an open mind!

La Ruche D’Art is located at 4525 St. Jacques near Metro St. Henri, and is open every Friday and Saturday afternoon from 2 to 7 p.m.

Photos by Afra Tucker for The McGill Daily

Andrea Zhu

Culture

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Advocating for advocacy

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“Another Word for Gender” puts the spotlight on social issues and activism Alexandra Borkowski Culture Writer

O

ver the next two weeks, the 2110 Center for Gender Advocacy will be hosting their annual back-to-school series of activities and workshops entitled, “Another Word for Gender: An Intro to Feminist Action and Organizing.” The series is unique as it seeks not only to educate participants about a myriad of topics surrounding gender and sexuality, but also to provide an introduction to the practices of advocacy itself.

In this self-reflexive manner, “Another Word for Gender” strives to increase awareness and in turn, transform this awareness into material change through social activism.

Rather than discussing issues of gender and sexuality as isolated topics, the 2110 Centre seeks to find intersections between different forms of social justice. In an interview with The Daily, Programming and Campaign Coordinator Bianca Mugyenyi noted, “gender can’t be extricated from anything.” “Another Word for Gender” offers numerous workshops, activities, and lectures on a wide range of subjects that connect to ongoing campaigns at the centre including reproductive rights, sexual

assault awareness, and trans issues.

Another campaign that is highlighted in “Another Word for Gender,” is that of “Missing Justice,” which addresses the overwhelming number of murdered and missing native women in Canada. Mugyenyi described how “native women have really born the brunt of Canada’s colonial legacy,” as they continue to suffer injustices that remain grossly under-reported in mainstream media.

In an attempt to counter these injustices, Centre 2110 has organized a bus that will bring participants to Ottawa for the Walk4Justice rally on Parliament Hill. The supporters will join a number of indigenous women activists who have walked all the way from Vancouver to raise awareness about missing and murdered native women. The series also includes a lecture by Andrea Smith, a Nobel Prizenominated, Cherokee, feminist activist, who will discuss systemic violence against native women.

Another problem that remains particularly ignored in the public consciousness and media is the issue of sexual assault on university campuses.

Due to these high sexual assault rates, “Another word for Gender” offers a student-focused exploration of some of the issues surrounding gender and

physical safety. The series includes a walking tour of Concordia campus that teaches participants how to be self-aware in an urban environment, and promotes gender-inclusive access to public spaces.

Mugyenyi also noted that campuses are sites of immense potential for activist movements, and that these “contested spaces” can enable social change. Workshops are also being held in partnership with Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER) and Sexual Assault Centre of McGill University Students Society (SACOMSS) regarding the experiences of student-led organizations that address sexual violence.

Much of the programming in “Another Word for Gender” goes beyond discussion of gender issues, and addresses the practice of activism itself. In particular, “Direct Action Training” informs participants how to create strategic action plans. A second workshop, “Media Social Issues,” informs participants on how to utilize mainstream media in order to help one’s cause.

As these two workshops demonstrate, “Another Word for Gender” stands apart from other similar projects as it does not simply promote awareness of feminist issues, but provides additional information as

Edna Chan | The McGill Daily

to how such awareness may be translated into action.

Accessibility is also an issue that “Another Word of Gender” seeks to address as Mugyenyi described the ways in which “repressive dynamics can emerge in any setting.” Centre 2110 encourages people who may have been marginalized to partake in activism regardless of their race, educational, or economic background.

A discussion entitled “Activism and Alienation” also addresses how elitism within a group working for social change can lead to the group’s downfall. “People are often intimidated and that’s sad,” Mugyenyi noted.

“Activism and Alienation’ exists to create greater solidarity.

“Another Word for Gender” promotes an understanding that activist movements should not only work towards inclusivity in the broader community, but should also strive to embody this inclusiveness themselves.

Mugyenyi emphasized that although Centre 2110 is based at Concordia, all of their activities are free and open to the public. She says the ultimate objective of the series is “trying to increase the number of people who are active rather than talking amongst ourselves. That’s what social change is.”

14 Culture

The McGill Daily | Thursday,, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Montenegro on the Main Diving into a dive bar’s history Christina Colizza

The McGill Daily

T

o many McGill students, Montreal exists as though it has never before been explored. Duluth’s graffiti appears as the cave paintings of Lascaux, and it’s difficult not to feel like Marco Polo the first time one ventures down the wondrous Boulevard St. Laurent. We newly discover Montreal as if it were our own little secret, our own little surprise to tell the world once we’ve packed up and returned to our humble homes. For those who wish to find the keys to unlock the secrets of Montreal, as deeply hidden in Leonard Cohen’s trench coat pockets as those keys may be, Plage Montenegro is a good place to look.

And an even better place to drink.

Reopened in October 2010, Plage Montenegro (formerly Miami, and still called Miami by regulars and older McGillians) is a small dive bar on St. Laurent just north of Roy Street. The choices are few, considering that Boreale Blonde and Rousse are the only beers on tap,

but $15 pitchers and $5 pints are prices that are hard to beat. Not a beer drinker? Plage Montenegro is “the only place on St. Laurent you can get a shot of Jameson for $3,” boasted a waitress in an interview with The Daily.

The student appeal is obvious, but Plage Montenegro is by no means exclusively a student bar. The clientele range from middle-aged men arguing in the smoky back room to young Francophone locals playing pool. What separates Montenegro from similarly cheap bars like Biftek or Barfly is its timelessness. Once up the creaky, carpeted stairs, Montenegro feels like a safe-haven from the raucous St. Laurent, and, except for the new blue paint job, Montenegro remains the same Miami it was twenty years ago.

Yet before it became home to sloppy exchanges outside Korova and tragically broken high heels, St. Laurent was a neighborhood street and home to various European immigrant communities. You can catch glimpses of what it must have been like walking down the street fifty years ago, amidst the smell of Portuguese chicken ema-

nating from chimneys and women wearing babushkas waiting for the 55 bus. We want to hear about their lives, assuming they know the true stories of the street. The same goes for the tale of Montenegro, and luckily, the original owner (who wishes to remain anonymous) is still around to tell you the truth, or at least some variation of it.

The old owner appears too clean cut for 2 a.m. at Montenegro.

His blue shirt is pressed, as always, and his memory remains particularly acute, especially with regard to dates. “I opened the Dalmatian Restaurant on March 1, 1969,” he explained in a beer-filled interview with The Daily. “There used to be a red carpet, and red curtains, and over where those chairs are, was a kitchen!” It’s hard to picture, yet the Dalmatian Restaurant of the early 1970s was a major social hub for Croatian immigrants. “People came all the way from Toronto and Ottawa for Sunday dinner, even Serbs and Slovaks.” Fumbling through old photos, I glimpse this era of bowties and smiling families gathered around shish kebabs.

The specifics of the bar’s ownership through the years are hazy, and no one knows or is wishing to dispel exactly why Miami was closed and reborn as Montenegro.

At one point, the past owner described that Miami was “so fucking dirty. There were more bikes and dogs in here than people.”

This image too is hard to imagine, considering the beautifullyfurnished photos in my hand. Yet, St. Laurent is perfect evidence that things do change with time. The name changes from Dalmatian Restaurant to Miami, and Café de Poet to Blizzarts, seem emblematic of the street’s gentrification.

However, unlike other second floor spaces, such as Korova or Tokyo, Montenegro has maintained its…dignity, if you will.

The question remains: how? And why? Unlike its neighbors, this precious little blue gem has somehow slipped under the radar.

“Well, I think what people like is that it’s simple. It hasn’t changed.

And a certain type of person comes here,” noted the waitress. Glancing around, no particular “type” struck my attention.

Noticing my confusion, the waitress clarified, “Well, not a type.

Just people who want to enjoy other people. People who just want to rela – those types of people.” By that point, the old owner had sunken down in his seat for a nap, and everything suddenly made sense.

The Dalmatian Restauraunt, Miami, Montenegro, and everything in between – this space has served as the closest thing to home for many people over the decades. For newly-immigrated Croatians, Dalmation Restaurant offered the taste of their cuisine. Every Sunday, people could revisit their distant pasts in familiar company. Like them, we are immigrants too, searching for our place within this strange city.

It’s precisely the transient nature of Montenegro that enables it to remain itself. In its own way, it’s a small microcosm of Montreal.

Economic and cultural shifts have defined both the city and this establishment. Its essence lies in its simultaneous adaptability despite being the same old place, a port in a storm.

Nicole Stradiotto | The McGill Daily

The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

volume 101 number 4

EDITORIAL

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science+technology editor

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health&education editor

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Amina Batyreva

web editor

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The Daily is published on most Mondays and Thursdays by the Daily Publications Society, an autonomous, not-for-profit organization whose membership includes all McGill undergraduates and most graduate students.

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ISSN 1192-4608.

McGill should create an aboriginal studies program This week saw McGill’s first annual Aboriginal Awareness Week, a joint effort between McGill’s First Peoples’ House and the Aboriginal Sustainability Project to bridge our university’s aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities. The larger aim of promoting such awareness is, of course, an ongoing effort, which includes this week’s festivities and tomorrow’s lower campus pow-wow.

Futhermore, initiatives to showcase the work of this community and address its issues operate throughout the academic year. In addition to the aforementioned groups, Kanata (a student association and journal), the Social Equity and Diversity Education Office, the Indigenous Student Network, and the McGill Aboriginal Law Association all actively pursue these aims.

Given this degree of activity, one might assume that McGill boasts a substantial aboriginal population. Yet this is not the case. In fact, according to the McGill First Peoples’ House, only roughly 150 students enrolled in undergraduate studies at McGill self-identify as aboriginal, which is less than 1 percent of the student population (whilst aboriginals make up roughly 4 per cent of the Canadian population at large and 10 per cent in Quebec).

These conditions have been in large part caused by our country’s history of institutional racism, an example of this being the residential schools that were only recently closed in 1996. This record has led to social systems which are in a poor state in our nation’s aboriginal communities. These groups suffer high rates of poverty, and addiction, not to mention inadequate housing, drinking water and social services. The quality of life among sectors of this population is similar to the developing world, according to a 2010 press release by the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network.

Given the complex roots of low enrollment rates, and the fact that McGill is home to many initiatives that work tirelessly to provide outreach and support, how else can the McGill community attempt to move forward? Various aboriginal groups have advocated for a Native Studies minor over the past four years.

The administraion has had the opportunity to act and has not yet done so.

At present, there are small Native Studies courses within the faculties of Law, Education, Nutrition and the Environment, and spread across the Arts course listings, but no major or minor program in any degree. This seperates McGill from many other Canadian universities which have successfully implemented such programs, including the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser, McMaster, University of Victoria, and our neighbor Concordia. In recent years, with the implementation of the program at Concordia alongside existing support services, enrollment of first nations students has increased.

The creation of a minor has been in the works for almost five years, and yet the administration has been dragging its heels and the project has failed to get off of the ground. This is despite the fact that problems have been identified: last February, the administration released a report titled Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement which stated: “McGill needs to recognize the negative cumulative effects of a lack of congruence between words, policy and action - specifically in the realm of diversity.” Furthermore, first nations students are among groups of students that were identified as being underrepresented.

The proposed minor would be relatively easy to implement for a number of reasons. For one, it would be interdisciplinary in nature and thereby draw on preexisting courses and resources. Another testament to its feasability is that it doesn’t need provincial approval given that it isn’t a major. Moreover, the aboriginal studies courses that already exist at McGill boast very healthy attendance rates.

McGill needs to introduce an indigenous studies program - it is needed both to aid the cause of increasing aboriginal enrollment at McGill and to create a space for analysis of the very oppression that prevents many aboriginal individuals from accessing post-secondary education.

15

Compendium!

The McGill Daily | Thursday, September 15, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com

Lies, half-truths, and ass-grooves!

Your real world guide to first year Emnite Shamalan The McGill Daily

H PLUS 75

Add/drop is over, so you can stop stressing about which classes you may or may not be taking.

MINUS 73 PLUS 50 MINUS 247 PLUS 45

OAP ended.

BDA starts soon!

MUNACA still on strike. Admin STILL mean.

New nickname for HMB: Cruella McGill.

EVEN EVEN? EVEN

Republican teaparty debate was hilaaaarious.

Drunk deer got stuck in a tree?

The Globe and Mail is already tweeting about holiday shopping.

MINUS 150

TOTAL

No one wants to hear about just our quality of life: compendium@ mcgilldaily.com.

Watch yo'self!

The dangers of campus biking

ere is a fact that the McGill Bureaucracy is reserved about sharing: transitioning into your first year at McGill is scary and confusing as fuck. First years will be handed indecipherable maps as they attempt to navigate campus. They’ll be thrown into a never-ending stream of awkward situations. They’ll be told crazy things like “you’ll make a million precious, lasting friendships,” “Tokyo Thursdays R the BEST,” or “you should see an advisor.” They’ll soon know, “McGill is hard. It isn’t like high school.”

So where is the guide with uncensored and actually useful information about what it’s really like as a first year? I’m not sure it even exists. So I took it upon myself to write the briefest possible alternative survival guide to your first year at Canada’s highest-ranking bastion of education.

Americans: Canadians don’t laugh at jokes about Canada.

Security guard!

Arts Leacock

Bike rack!

Bike rack!

Shatner @$*!# hill!

Bike rack!

McTavish

Lower field

* *

Redpath

@$*!# hill!

Seasonal froshies may occur Also, very mushy

Bike rack!

Burnside

Bike rack!

McLennan Bronfman

Sherbrooke

Anne Onymous | The McGill Daily

Seasonal flooding may occur

University

*

Security guard!

Rez dwellers: everyone’s neighbors are fucking weird.

My first year, I was flanked in upper rez by a girl who berated me for wearing pants and ditching temple on Rosh Hashanah, one dude who stayed up till three loudly watching reruns of “One Tree Hill”(I KNOW), and another who woke up at 5 a.m. EVERY SINGLE DAY to Skype with his mom in Spain.

(To this day, I expect to wake up daily to “MAMA! MAMA! ESCUCHA ME!”) Just accept your living situation, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

In your second and third years, sometimes you will strangely miss the companionship.

Sometimes.

Additional information:

McConnell

Security guard!

Sure, Canadians don’t seem overtly prideful, but that doesn’t mean they’re pushovers. So when someone asks to borrow your “tuque” because it is getting “PROgressively colder,” “What the fuck are you talking about?” is not an adequate response. You’re representing a minority, a group generally thought (outside of the US) of as deranged, twinkie–loving gun toters. Canadians, even half-Canadians will not laugh at jokes about their beloved homeland. If they’re funny, save them for other Yanks, cause I can tell you American cultural insensitivity can be ~PoLaRiZiNg~ and is not warmly received.

You’ll secretly cry a lot. Before you physically see an advisor, get in touch with your new best friend, the Internet.

Everything is on there. You WILL gain weight. This weight will be completely gone within a month of beginning your second year. You WILL have finals in the Tomlinson Fieldhouse, and it WILL horrify you.

(Sorry I had to admit that one).

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “BIRD COURSE.” There are classes that are so boring and easy that YOU WILL NOT GO and it will result in the most regrettable C you have ever received. Always, ALWAYS write down the call number of the book/article/movie you need before you go to the reserves desk, or you will make an enemy for life. You will be offered many exotic drugs. It’s up to you whether or not to take them.

You might be scared, but breathe deeply – you’re going to be okay. Am I a hero yet?

16

Pointilized Pengiuns